Sam Blake's Blog, page 7
June 30, 2018
More About No Turning Back…
With the new GDPR legislation and recent events in the political sphere there’s been an explosion in the debate around how much data companies hold on you, and how that all connects online. By aggregating data, companies can learn more about you than your nearest and dearest know, and you can then be targeted for all sorts of reasons – whether it’s to influence your vote or to persuade you to buy chocolate. It’s fascinating and frightening and the perfect background for a crime novel – there are so many aspects to it that you could write a whole series (now there’s an idea). My eldest child is very techie (studying Aerospace engineering), and is a font of fascinating information about what’s happening on the web – and very conscious of online footprints. They first told me about websites that aggregate hacked webcam footage – they’d read about it on Reddit. Certain sections on Reddit are populated by engineers, programmers and rocket scientists, who reveal the most interesting stories.
When it came to start plotting No Turning Back I started thinking about the consequences of a stranger breaking into your world and what damage they could do. I read a brilliant book by Jamie Bartlett called The Dark Net which was all about the start of the internet and how the deep web and the dark web came to be. I found articles about the Silk Road website and Dread Pirate Roberts, as its founder Ross Ulbricht was known. Ulbricht set up the site in 2011 initially to sell magic mushrooms but it literally mushroomed and it became a shop front for suppliers of everything from hard drugs to AK47s. Ulbricht was arrested in 2013 and convicted of money laundering, computer hacking, conspiracy to traffic fraudulent identity documents, and conspiracy to traffic narcotics in February 2015. He is currently serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole.
But there are many more individuals keen to fill his place – Silk Road made millions of dollars.
The web is obviously a brilliant source for research on itself, but chatting to professional in an area is absolutely invaluable. In the course of a conversation they can say something that sparks a whole new idea. I’m blessed with a fabulous friend Alex Caan who is also a writer (Cut to the Bone/ First to Die – watch the video for Cut to the Bone here, it’s awesome, but I might be biased as my daughter made it)
Alex is in information systems security for a number of government organisations, and is currently specialising in Terrorism Studies. There is little he doesn’t know! Having a trusted source who you can ask stupid questions is incredibly useful, and one who writes as well? I can’t thank him enough for his help – all while he was doing a PhD and writing his incredible second book First to Die.
Researching worms and viruses online I discovered even more terrifying and interesting things, including the background to the Stuxnet worm that was barely reported when it happened – a cyber-attack on Iran’s nuclear power plants it showed just how powerful cyber weapons could be. At the same time that I was reading about this, the WannaCry virus was attacking the NHS in the UK. It was all becoming very real.
I’ve always been interested in secrets and in what goes on behind closed doors. With all my internet research on hand I wanted to write a book with multiple secrets at it’s core, where events had a domino effect, an effect that created moral crises for those involved.
No Turning Back has many twists and turns and it brings Cat Connolly to a very unexpected place…
No Tunring Back is getting incredible reviews on Goodreads and Amazon, one Amazon reviewer said:
“A superb well crafted tale, which should encourage any reader to get the other books by the Irish Author, Sam Blake. Detective Garda Cathy Connolly, a feisty, intelligent Dublin officer, is faced with a complex and disturbing case involving a hit and run on a young wealthy student and the apparent suicide of another student from the same year and same course, both deaths occurring very close to each other and nearer enough on the same night. Were these deaths connected? Much to our detective’s consternation this takes her into the depths of the Dark Web, a much unexplored arena of illegality, depravity and a market place for anything the displaced of society wants. I found this book enthralling, enticing me back time after time. It’s frightening, pacey and really excellent example of the modern police procedural thriller.”
The Story Behind No Turning Back…
With the new GDPR legislation and recent events in the political sphere there’s been an explosion in the debate around how much data companies hold on you, and how that all connects online. By aggregating data, companies can learn more about you than your nearest and dearest know, and you can then be targeted for all sorts of reasons – whether it’s to influence your vote or to persuade you to buy chocolate. It’s fascinating and frightening and the perfect background for a crime novel – there are so many aspects to it that you could write a whole series (now there’s an idea). My daughter is 18 and very techie, she’s a font of fascinating information about what’s happening on the web – her friends joke that she should wear a tin hat – she’d very conscious of her online footprint. She first told me about websites that aggregate hacked webcam footage – she’d read about it on Reddit. She wants to do aerospace engineering so the parts of Reddit she hangs out on tend to be populated by engineers, programmers and rocket scientists, and she finds the most interesting stories.
When it came to start plotting No Turning Back I started thinking about the consequences of a stranger breaking into your world and what damage they could do. I read a brilliant book by Jamie Bartlett called The Dark Net which was all about the start of the internet and how the deep web and the dark web came to be. I found articles about the Silk Road website and Dread Pirate Roberts, as its founder Ross Ulbricht was known. Ulbricht set up the site in 2011 initially to sell magic mushrooms but it literally mushroomed and it became a shop front for suppliers of everything from hard drugs to AK47s. Ulbricht was arrested in 2013 and convicted of money laundering, computer hacking, conspiracy to traffic fraudulent identity documents, and conspiracy to traffic narcotics in February 2015. He is currently serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole.
But there are many more individuals keen to fill his place – Silk Road made millions of dollars.
The web is obviously a brilliant source for research on itself, but chatting to professional in an area is absolutely invaluable. In the course of a conversation they can say something that sparks a whole new idea. I’m blessed with a fabulous friend Alex Caan who is also a writer (Cut to the Bone/ First to Die – watch the video for Cut to the Bone here, it’s awesome, but I might be biased as my daughter made it)
Alex is in information systems security for a number of government organisations, and is currently specialising in Terrorism Studies. There is little he doesn’t know! Having a trusted source who you can ask stupid questions is incredibly useful, and one who writes as well? I can’t thank him enough for his help – all while he was doing a PhD and writing his incredible second book First to Die.
Researching worms and viruses online I discovered even more terrifying and interesting things, including the background to the Stuxnet worm that was barely reported when it happened – a cyber-attack on Iran’s nuclear power plants it showed just how powerful cyber weapons could be. At the same time that I was reading about this, the WannaCry virus was attacking the NHS in the UK. It was all becoming very real.
I’ve always been interested in secrets and in what goes on behind closed doors. With all my internet research on hand I wanted to write a book with multiple secrets at it’s core, where events had a domino effect, an effect that created moral crises for those involved.
No Turning Back has many twists and turns and it brings Cat Connolly to a very unexpected place…
No Tunring Back is getting incredible reviews on Goodreads and Amazon, one Amazon reviewer said:
“A superb well crafted tale, which should encourage any reader to get the other books by the Irish Author, Sam Blake. Detective Garda Cathy Connolly, a feisty, intelligent Dublin officer, is faced with a complex and disturbing case involving a hit and run on a young wealthy student and the apparent suicide of another student from the same year and same course, both deaths occurring very close to each other and nearer enough on the same night. Were these deaths connected? Much to our detective’s consternation this takes her into the depths of the Dark Web, a much unexplored arena of illegality, depravity and a market place for anything the displaced of society wants. I found this book enthralling, enticing me back time after time. It’s frightening, pacey and really excellent example of the modern police procedural thriller.”
February 11, 2018
Now Out in Audio!
Coinciding with the paperback launch in the UK and Ireland of In Deep Water, I’m thrilled that Little Bones is now available in audio in MP3 and CD formats (click here to order directly from Bolinda or download from Audible here or pick up on Amazon here) – it will be in libraries soon so do ask if you can’t find it!
Little Bones, (and very soon the rest of the series) is narrated by Aoife McMahon, a fabulous actress who has also narrated Marian Keyes, Cecilia Aherne, Louise O’Neill’s Asking For It and Carmel Harrington’s The Woman and 72 Derry Lane plus Jess Kidd’s The Hoarder and many of Jo Spain’s nail-biting thrillers.
Aoife attended The Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) and has appeared in many TV series including Doctors, Broken, Partners in Crime and The Royals as well as A Touch of Frost and Bad Girls. A well known face on the BBC and ITV she also has an extensive stage career.
Listen to an excerpt here on sound cloud:
September 26, 2017
Get the Books!
The Cat Connolly Trilogy: Little Bones, In Deep Water and No Turning Back (coming summer 2018 in Ireland, 2019 UK)
LITTLE BONES: Number ONE bestseller; Shortlisted for Irish Crime Novel of the Year 2016
Here’s the blurb!
For fans of Alex Barclay and Niamh O’Connor, Little Bones introduces Cathy Connolly, a bright young heroine set to take the world of crime fiction by storm.
Attending what seems to be a routine break-in, troubled Detective Garda Cathy Connolly makes a grisly discovery: an old wedding dress – and, concealed in its hem, a baby’s bones.
And then the dress’s original owner, Lavinia Grant, is found dead in a Dublin suburb.
Searching for answers, Cathy is drawn deep into a complex web of secrets and lies spun by three generations of women.
Meanwhile, a fugitive killer has already left two dead in execution style killings across the Atlantic – and now he’s in Dublin with old scores to settle. Will the team track him down before he kills again?
Struggling with her own secrets, Cathy doesn’t know dangerous – and personal – this case is about to become…
IN DEEP WATER: Here’s the blurb!
For fans of TENNISON and MISSING PRESUMED, comes the gripping follow-up to the number 1 bestseller, LITTLE BONES.
Good intentions can be deadly . . .
Cat Connolly is back at work after the explosion that left her on life support. Struggling to adjust to the physical and mental scars, her workload once again becomes personal when her best friend Sarah Jane Hansen, daughter of a Pulitzer-winning American war correspondent, goes missing.
Sarah Jane is a journalism student who was allegedly working on a story that even her father thought was too dangerous.
With Sarah Jane’s father uncontactable, Cat struggles to find a connection between Sarah Jane’s work and her disappearance. But Sarah Jane is not the only one in deep water when Cat comes face to face with a professional killer . . .
In the world of missing persons every second counts, but with the clock ticking, can Cathy find Sarah Jane before it’s too late?
More About In Deep Water…
In March 1993 I had been in Ireland for six months when a report aired on the lunchtime news about an American student who had vanished from a place less than ten minutes from where I was sitting in Bray, County Wicklow. She was American, I am English. She was 26, I was 23. We were both foreigners around the same age. I felt an immediate connection with her.
What on earth had happened?
It was cold that March, it has been a grim grey winter and by mid-afternoon the days were starting to draw in. I was glued to the news to see how the investigation was progressing. The search was exhaustive including a hand search through hundreds of acres of woodland, particularly in Crone wood, three miles south of Enniskerry.
A couple of weeks after the televised, print and radio appeals began, a doorman at Johnnie Fox’s pub, 8km from Enniskerry, reported seeing Annie on the night she disappeared – she appeared to be scanning the room as if she was looking for someone. The doorman stopped her to tell her there was a cover charge in this part of the bar. A man in his twenties wearing a waxed jacket, who was standing behind her in the queue, paid the charge for both of them. Johnny Fox’s was packed that night, a company party was taking place (which a friend of my husband’s was attending). Annie was a tall girl – 5ft 8 – and with her striking looks and American accent I always thought she would have stood out, but from the reports at the time, the two doormen appear to be the only people who remember seeing her. Was she intending on meeting someone there?
Originally from Long Island, New York, Annie had travelled back and forth to Ireland since 1987, finally moving here in January 1993 to study at St. Patrick’s Training College in Drumcondra. Her flatmates Jill last saw her sitting knitting on her bed before she left for work.
Later that morning Annie was captured on CCTV at the AIB in Sandymount, she did some shopping in Quinnsworth (her receipt was issued at 11.02am) and used the phone box outside the bank. She called her friend Anne to see if she’d like to go for a walk in the mountains. It’s a four minute walk to Annie’s apartment from the Bank, did she go straight home, or did she go somewhere else first and meet someone, or call them, on the way? It’s thought she left her apartment again around 2.30 or 3pm – what was she doing in that time? She left her shopping in the supermarket bags on the table, not unpacking, as if perhaps, she was in a hurry.
It was pretty cold and damp that March, although 25th and 26th were dry and bright. I always wondered why Annie had taken two buses to get to Enniskerry when she had the whole of Sandymount strand to walk, so much closer by. I felt she must have a reason for going there. If walking was her plan, by the time she got to the village and was seen visiting the post office, the best of the day would have been over. The clocks went forward two days later on Sunday 28th March,, sunset on 26th was at 6.48pm.
I’ve always felt that Annie was meeting someone that day. There is time apparently unaccounted for in her morning and three to four hours between her arriving in the village and being seen in Johnny Fox’s remain unaccounted for. I don’t think anyone in their right mind would walk that road up to Johnny Fox’s in the winter at the end of the day, so I’ve always wondered if she met someone in the village, perhaps went for a drive in the mountains and then stopped in Johnny Fox’s on the way back down. It’s pure speculation and could be my writer’s mind working overtime, but I know if I was going to catch two buses anywhere, there would need to be a good reason. And walking around a village on my own in the dark in March wouldn’t have been enough.
I had Annie’s story at the back of my mind as I was plotting In Deep Water – as a writer you hear stories that you can’t forget, stories that nudge at you. Part of In Deep Water is set in Enniskerry and the story involves an American student going missing. Set in 2016 though, Detective Garda Cat Connolly has a huge range of resources available to her that weren’t available to the Gardai in 1993, and she uncovers information that leads her into the Dublin underworld of organised crime. Did Annie meet a career criminal who told her too much and had to murder her to protect himself? One theory is that she met a member of the IRA who was lying low, but who revealed too much trying to impress her.
There may never be answers to what happened to Annie, but I sincerely hope there will be one day. And I hope that her story, like the stories of all the missing women, are kept alive so that perhaps someone will remember something that will make a difference. And that one day, their families may have the resolution that’s available to us in fiction, but tragically can prove more elusive in real life.
The Story Behind In Deep Water…
In March 1993 I had been in Ireland for six months when a report aired on the lunchtime news about an American student who had vanished from a place less than ten minutes from where I was sitting in Bray, County Wicklow. She was American, I am English. She was 26, I was 23. We were both foreigners around the same age. I felt an immediate connection with her.
What on earth had happened?
It was cold that March, it has been a grim grey winter and by mid-afternoon the days were starting to draw in. I was glued to the news to see how the investigation was progressing. The search was exhaustive including a hand search through hundreds of acres of woodland, particularly in Crone wood, three miles south of Enniskerry.
A couple of weeks after the televised, print and radio appeals began, a doorman at Johnnie Fox’s pub, 8km from Enniskerry, reported seeing Annie on the night she disappeared – she appeared to be scanning the room as if she was looking for someone. The doorman stopped her to tell her there was a cover charge in this part of the bar. A man in his twenties wearing a waxed jacket, who was standing behind her in the queue, paid the charge for both of them. Johnny Fox’s was packed that night, a company party was taking place (which a friend of my husband’s was attending). Annie was a tall girl – 5ft 8 – and with her striking looks and American accent I always thought she would have stood out, but from the reports at the time, the two doormen appear to be the only people who remember seeing her. Was she intending on meeting someone there?
Originally from Long Island, New York, Annie had travelled back and forth to Ireland since 1987, finally moving here in January 1993 to study at St. Patrick’s Training College in Drumcondra. Her flatmates Jill last saw her sitting knitting on her bed before she left for work.
Later that morning Annie was captured on CCTV at the AIB in Sandymount, she did some shopping in Quinnsworth (her receipt was issued at 11.02am) and used the phone box outside the bank. She called her friend Anne to see if she’d like to go for a walk in the mountains. It’s a four minute walk to Annie’s apartment from the Bank, did she go straight home, or did she go somewhere else first and meet someone, or call them, on the way? It’s thought she left her apartment again around 2.30 or 3pm – what was she doing in that time? She left her shopping in the supermarket bags on the table, not unpacking, as if perhaps, she was in a hurry.
It was pretty cold and damp that March, although 25th and 26th were dry and bright. I always wondered why Annie had taken two buses to get to Enniskerry when she had the whole of Sandymount strand to walk, so much closer by. I felt she must have a reason for going there. If walking was her plan, by the time she got to the village and was seen visiting the post office, the best of the day would have been over. The clocks went forward two days later on Sunday 28th March,, sunset on 26th was at 6.48pm.
I’ve always felt that Annie was meeting someone that day. There is time apparently unaccounted for in her morning and three to four hours between her arriving in the village and being seen in Johnny Fox’s remain unaccounted for. I don’t think anyone in their right mind would walk that road up to Johnny Fox’s in the winter at the end of the day, so I’ve always wondered if she met someone in the village, perhaps went for a drive in the mountains and then stopped in Johnny Fox’s on the way back down. It’s pure speculation and could be my writer’s mind working overtime, but I know if I was going to catch two buses anywhere, there would need to be a good reason. And walking around a village on my own in the dark in March wouldn’t have been enough.
I had Annie’s story at the back of my mind as I was plotting In Deep Water – as a writer you hear stories that you can’t forget, stories that nudge at you. Part of In Deep Water is set in Enniskerry and the story involves an American student going missing. Set in 2016 though, Detective Garda Cat Connolly has a huge range of resources available to her that weren’t available to the Gardai in 1993, and she uncovers information that leads her into the Dublin underworld of organised crime. Did Annie meet a career criminal who told her too much and had to murder her to protect himself? One theory is that she met a member of the IRA who was lying low, but who revealed too much trying to impress her.
There may never be answers to what happened to Annie, but I sincerely hope there will be one day. And I hope that her story, like the stories of all the missing women, are kept alive so that perhaps someone will remember something that will make a difference. And that one day, their families may have the resolution that’s available to us in fiction, but tragically can prove more elusive in real life.
February 12, 2017
Join Me in Waterstones Piccadilly 1st March
In London on 1st March? Join me and incredible crime writers Jane Casey and Claire McGowan in Waterstones Piccadilly, Europe’s biggest bookstore, for The Deadly Opening Chapter: How to Slay a Literary Agent, we’ll have top tips on what makes a brilliant opening chapter plus info on what the market, and agents, are looking for at the moment.
It’s a free event but you can register here to be sure of a seat!
Join me for a drink in the bar afterwards, there will be lots of authors hanging out!
January 19, 2017
In Deep Water Out Now…
I’m delighted to say that book two in the Cat Connolly series was released in Ireland in April 2017, and will be coming to the UK in February 2018!
So what’s it about?
Here’s the blurb!
For fans of TENNISON and MISSING PRESUMED, comes the gripping follow-up to the number 1 bestseller, LITTLE BONES.
Good intentions can be deadly . . .
Cat Connolly is back at work after the explosion that left her on life support. Struggling to adjust to the physical and mental scars, her workload once again becomes personal when her best friend Sarah Jane Hansen, daughter of a Pulitzer-winning American war correspondent, goes missing.
Sarah Jane is a journalism student who was allegedly working on a story that even her father thought was too dangerous.
With Sarah Jane’s father uncontactable, Cat struggles to find a connection between Sarah Jane’s work and her disappearance. But Sarah Jane is not the only one in deep water when Cat comes face to face with a professional killer . . .
In the world of missing persons every second counts, but with the clock ticking, can Cathy find Sarah Jane before it’s too late?
In Deep Water Coming April 2017…
I’m delighted to say that book two in the Cat Connolly series is coming in April 2017! If you’d like details of the launch events, for Little Bones in the UK or In Deep Water in Ireland just sign up for the newsletter and an invitation will be forth coming!
So what’s it about?
Here’s the blurb!
For fans of TENNISON and MISSING PRESUMED, comes the gripping follow-up to the number 1 bestseller, LITTLE BONES.
Good intentions can be deadly . . .
Cat Connolly is back at work after the explosion that left her on life support. Struggling to adjust to the physical and mental scars, her workload once again becomes personal when her best friend Sarah Jane Hansen, daughter of a Pulitzer-winning American war correspondent, goes missing.
Sarah Jane is a journalism student who was allegedly working on a story that even her father thought was too dangerous.
With Sarah Jane’s father uncontactable, Cat struggles to find a connection between Sarah Jane’s work and her disappearance. But Sarah Jane is not the only one in deep water when Cat comes face to face with a professional killer . . .
In the world of missing persons every second counts, but with the clock ticking, can Cathy find Sarah Jane before it’s too late?
December 30, 2016
Join Sam’s Mailing List and Win An Exclusive Gift Pack!
Sam Blake’s No 1 bestseller LITTLE BONES, shortlisted for the Irish Crime Novel of the Year Award, is coming out in paperback in Ireland and the UK on 23rd February, and to celebrate, she is giving away an exclusive Little Bones mug, white chocolate bones, and a boxing glove key charm…
Sam Blake will be meeting Catherine O’Brien, the winner of her one hour masterclass in Dublin on 23rd February and she will be drawing a winner from the hat, so enter now!
Pick up the paperback ahead of its release on Amazon here.
There will be lots more offers, surprises and free stuff for mailing list members, so do join in!
