Mark Parragh's Blog, page 2
March 6, 2020
February 7, 2020
The Victor – Matt Rogers
The Victor- Black Force Shorts #1
By Matt Rogers
134 pages
Published by Matt Rogers
Read it now at Amazon
When the Boss Calls on Your Day Off, You’re Going to Have a Bad Day…
James Xu was supposed to be taking a break. An elite agent for Black Force, a government operation so covert that the FBI’s never even heard of it, Xu is returning from the field to his New York City home when he gets the call. Details are sparse. Just before he managed to kill himself in custody, a triad soldier said something about a tournament taking place at a townhouse in Brooklyn. Today.
Xu’s handlers don’t know what kind of tournament, or what the prize is. It might (or might not) have something to do with a mysterious cargo container that’s raising alarms at the Port of New York and New Jersey. They need someone to go in impersonating the dead triad soldier and find out what’s going on before it’s too late. Their man needs the skills to walk into a situation with no foreknowledge at all and handle whatever he finds. He needs to be in New York right now because there’s no time to lose. And to pass as the triad soldier, he needs to be Asian. That’s a very short list, and so Xu is called into action.
In a nest of bad guys on edge and ready to kill for the tournament’s mysterious prize, Xu doesn’t like his odds. And those odds just get worse once Xu realizes he’s not the only one there who’s not who he claims to be. When the tournament goes bad, Xu seizes his best chance of survival: reducing the situation to chaos. This at least levels the playing field because now nobody knows what’s happening. And chaos is something Xu’s very good at.
The deadly melee that follows quickly spills out of the townhouse. Xu finds himself in a race across New York to stop a plot to plunge the city into all-out war. By the time he’s done, Xu may wish he’d just stayed in the field.
Short, But with a Delivery Like a Brick Through a Plate Glass Window
Set in the same world as Rogers’ full-length novels starring Jason King and Will Slater, the Black Force Shorts are novella-length side stories. They give Rogers a playground where he can indulge himself without breaking his main series characters. There are six of these shorts to date (the sixth, The Storm, is brand new at Amazon as of this writing, and features the return of James Xu.) They hit the ground running, and they don’t look back.
This shorter length and fast pace gives The Victor some serious impact. It’s an exhilarating ride that keeps you moving so fast that Rogers can get away with a few things he might not if he ever slowed down. The basic premise of the tournament of gangs sets the action off with a bang, but if you think about it too long, it becomes a little harder to believe. Indeed Xu himself sees through it, so it’s fair to wonder why the gangs buy it. And then, as again Xu himself notes, the guy who expertly patted him down for weapons at the door seems to have done a terrible job with everyone else.
But none of this really matters. While you’re caught up in the action, The Victor is so much fun that it seems almost rude to question the details. The Victor is a story that you knock back like a shot of whiskey in one sitting. Then you shake it off and pour yourself the next one.
Xu takes some serious punishment in this book, and even he wonders if he’ll survive it. It’s fun to ride through the story with an irresistible force, but it’s refreshing to see the author at least acknowledge the toll all this mayhem would take on his hero. Xu’s Manhattan penthouse apartment apparently comes with its own doctor on call. In his line of work, that’s probably a good idea.
— MP
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The Corrector – Ethan Jones
The Corrector – Javin Pierce #1
By Ethan Jones
253 pages
Published by Knightsville Books
Read it now at Amazon
Meet Javin Pierce, the man they send in second…
Javin Pierce works for the CIS, the Canadian Intelligence Service, but he’s no ordinary agent. Javin is a “Corrector.” He goes in to clean up and repair the damage when an operation goes wrong. It’s a job that requires subtlety and an ability to improvise in the field. By definition, Javin’s coming into a bad situation, so the missions are never easy.
But his latest assignment was supposed to at least be simple: recover a flash drive full of sensitive data from an Istanbul police station before it reaches Turkish intelligence. But no sooner does Javin arrive in Istanbul with new partner Claudia and a small team of local assets than things start to go awry. The Turks arrive sooner than expected, and a third player jumps in at just the wrong moment. Before long, Javin and his team are under attack and on the run with a wounded Turkish agent in tow.
Trying to unravel the mess they’ve landed in, they make a risky bargain with another Turkish agent that leads the team toward Damascus, and straight into the middle of the Syrian civil war. The shifting members of Javin’s team find themselves in a chaotic landscape where the sides change too quickly to keep up, and it’s not even clear who’s shooting at them, much less why.
Javin gradually figures out why things seem to be going against them at every turn. A powerful enemy lurks behind a shield of plausible deniability, lobbing indiscriminate attacks aimed at destroying them and the explosive information they carry. Javin has no intention of letting them get away with it. But before he can set things right, he needs to get himself and his team out of their increasingly tenuous mission alive.
Yes, I shot you, but that doesn’t mean we can’t make a deal!
Ethan Jones is the author of the long-running Justin Hall series, also set in the world of the CIS, so even though this is the first in a new series, it doesn’t really feel like it. The Collector’s setting feels well worn in. A lot of supporting players come and go throughout the book, and they feel like people who have their own schemes and missions going on when Javin’s not crossing their paths.
Javin himself is a well-drawn action hero, though his character isn’t what’s meant to stand out here. His sorrow for his dead wife doesn’t break new ground. (Nor does the hint toward the end that there may be more to that than Javin knows.) Javin also has his doubts about his new partner, who’s facing her own past traumas, and there’s the expected hint of romantic tension between them. A more subtle way of revealing Javin’s character is the way he keeps calling in favors from local agents wherever they go. The implication is that Javin’s got a reputation for playing the game straight and being trustworthy, even among agents of presumably hostile organizations. In the end, this turns out to be one of his most effective assets.
But what really works in The Corrector is the plotting, in particular the way nothing ever goes quite the way Javin expects. Jones does a masterful job of piling complications on top of complications. The situation is constantly changing, and Javin must react on the fly, sometimes cutting deals with people he’s just shot. The result is a very believable world where no one knows the whole story, and sometimes you can’t even be sure of the basic facts. Javin’s a capable agent, but he’s lost in the fog of war, working out who he can and can’t trust as he goes. Jones uses this to keep the suspense ramped up from the opening straight through to the nasty little conclusion. If you want a tense action thriller set in a world that feels like a real place, The Corrector is one you won’t want to miss.
One thing that really amused me about The Corrector: for someone whose job is supposedly to go unnoticed in the background, Javin ends up throwing all subtlety right out the window almost immediately! I haven’t yet read the next two volumes in the series to see if this is a trend. But I’ll definitely be giving them a read based on this one.
— MP
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Trigger Point – Andy Maslen
Trigger Point – Gabriel Wolfe #1
By Andy Maslen
319 pages
Published by Tyton Press
Read it now at Amazon
A Twisty Little Thriller with a Hero You’ll Enjoy Hanging Out With
Having retired from the SAS, Gabriel Wolfe just wants a quiet life with his dog and his Maserati, but fate has other plans. Gabriel worked as an advertising executive after leaving the army, and now runs his own consultancy helping big London firms negotiate deals. His unusual combination of communications skills and elite military background brings him to the attention of Sir Toby Maitland, a snobbish aristocrat who wants to run for Parliament. Maitland wants Gabriel to help run his campaign but put off by Maitland’s reactionary politics and casual racism, Gabriel turns down the job.
But he’s soon contacted by a former intelligence colleague who tells him that Maitland’s plans go well beyond a simple political campaign. And the British government would really like him to take that job.
With good reason, Gabriel soon discovers. Maitland’s run for Parliament is a smoke screen for a full-blown fascist coup. So Gabriel finds himself playing the part of an eager conspirator as he works to unravel Maitland’s scheme. On a trip to the United States to secure black-market weapons, Gabriel will have to face hostile bikers, an arms dealer with a grudge, and more, all while flattering Maitland’s military pretensions to earn his trust and risking everything to pass critical information to his contacts. It keeps him running and dodging toward a violent climax in the English countryside. Gabriel finds himself surrounded by enemies as the seconds tick down and he has one last chance to save his country, and his life.
When Charm Fails, Bring out the Big Guns
Trigger Point is the first of a series of Gabriel Wolfe thrillers that now is up to six books. (The sixth book, Rattlesnake, was just released in February). Clearly, author Andy Maslen is doing something right, and in this first book it’s easy to see the attraction of the series. Gabriel makes good company as he follows the mission where it leads and works his way through a crowd of heinous villains. His charisma lets him make friends of potential enemies (well, sometimes) and gives him interesting options for solving problems beyond simple violence. But when charm doesn’t work, Wolfe is fully capable of taking the fight to the bad guys. It makes for a refreshing slant on an action hero.
Maitland makes a great, threatening villain as well. He glides through the story on a cushion of money and privilege, looking for all the world like a blowhard playing at being the tough guy…until suddenly he’s not playing at all. Maslen also has a way with supporting characters. There are plenty of characters who show up for a scene and then are gone. But they still manage to pop off the page and make an impression.
Maslen also does something interesting in his plotting. He frequently gives Gabriel short-term plot complications that at first make it look like he’s filling space with unnecessary digressions. But when some of them later turn out to be important after all, it raises the question of whether others might as well. And suddenly Maslen has deftly turned what would otherwise be a fairly linear plot (something the genre’s prone to; there’s the bad guy, go stop him) into a twisty little thriller that keeps you guessing right up to the end.
Trigger Point is a fun book with an engaging hero, a surprisingly frightening villain, and well-crafted supporting characters. When you’re done, you might find yourself wanting to spend more time with Gabriel Wolfe. Fortunately, there are plenty more books left to explore.
One of my favorite bits about Trigger Point was the villain’s collection of classic cars, and the Jaguar XK-SS that serves as a plot point during Wolfe’s trip to America. Yes, I know Maitland is a horrible person and can’t be allowed to get away with it. Still, you can’t help but admire his taste in cars…
— MP
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January 1, 2017
Trouble on the Road…
Crane looked up and realized the Land Rover was negotiating a curve at the top of a low rise. The road descended in a gentle sweep past a farm driveway and swept behind another low rise where the river curved in a lazy oxbow to the left. Beyond that, it intersected with another rural road, and at that intersection were two trucks. One was another of Datafall’s black Suburbans. The other was an aged Toyota 4Runner that obviously belonged to one of the local farmers. The Suburban was blocking the road, while the Toyota had pulled off and parked on the shoulder.
Halla was braking, looking at the trucks with concern. Crane noted two black-clad figures in the road. At least one carried an automatic weapon.
“Don’t stop,” he said. “You’re visible. Turn into the driveway.”
“That’s Gunnar Steinsson’s truck,” she said. “What is going on here? It’s like an invasion.”
December 5, 2016
Like going to church…
At the bottom, another panel opened into a narrow tunnel. He followed it until it ended at a door. The supercomputer chamber would be on the other side. Crane switched off his light and crouched in the blackness, listening. When he heard nothing after thirty seconds, he slid the panel open and stepped through.
“Whoa,” Georges said in his ear.
The chamber appeared to be carved out of sandstone, hung with panels of deep burgundy fabric. The stone facade was layered into tiers of false columns and arches that held recessed lights. With the coolness, the dim light, the quiet, the place suggested a medieval basilica.
Suspended in the center of the chamber was a huge metal and plexiglass cube. Inside, server racks stood in orderly rows. They were strung with color coded bundles of cable and glittered with LEDs. In their setting, the racks made Crane think of gravestones.
Crane was at the bottom of the chamber, a sub-floor strung with thick bundles of power cables and hoses for cooling water. Directly above him, a metal mesh deck ran around the outer edge of the chamber, and a narrow bridge crossed to the cube of the supercomputer itself.
Crane heard a door opening, then footsteps echoed on the metal deck. He edged back into the shadows. A few moments later, a guard walked past above him. His black battle dress uniform and MP-5 submachine gun effectively shattered the ecclesiastical feel of the place.
Author’s Note
This is actually MareNostrum, a supercomputer installed in an old chapel at the Barcelona Supercomputing Center. But I shamelessly relocated it to Iceland so Crane could break into it. Because of course I did! Look at it! How could you not set a spy adventure there?
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December 3, 2016
Sneakernet – the new John Crane novella
A mission to retrieve a data recording device from a supercomputing center outside Reykjavik goes from simple breaking and entering to a desperate manhunt across the barren Icelandic back country and a race for survival. A relentless enemy and a landscape that offers no place to hide will test John Crane’s survival skills to the limit in a situation where Josh Sulenski’s unlimited budget won’t help him.
Sneakernet is a roughly 35,000 word novella featuring cover art by Kerry Hynds of Hynds Studio, coming soon as a free bonus to members of the Hurricane (Reading) Group, the John Crane fan group. (New fans can join here.) Alongside the launch of Sneakernet, the short Crane novella Bird Dogs will be published on Amazon in a new edition that includes the previously unpublished bonus short story Pendulums.
To celebrate, John Crane’s novel-length debut Rope on Fire will be free from Amazon.com on December 13.
Sneakernet brings fans another expansion of John Crane’s world, with new allies and new enemies, and serves as a standalone introduction for readers new to the Crane series. So mark your calendar for the December 13 Rope on Fire promotion, and join the Hurricane (Reading) Group for VIP access to new material and behind the scenes info!
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December 1, 2016
An unexpected side trip
Tamarind crossed the Avenida del Liberatador, as if he was going to the train station, but instead he continued past the station and took a left. Crane pulled up a map on his phone and realized, to his surprise, that Tamarind was leading him into Villa 31. It was one of the city’s villas miserias, a shantytown of improvised dwellings and unlit alleys wedged up against the far side of the railroad yard and crammed in beneath the elevated Arturo Ilia Highway.
The place was a long warren of ramshackle brick hovels with roofs of scrap metal. They were piled two or even three high in places, with uneven wooden balconies, ladders leading up to the upper stories, and clotheslines strung across the alleys. The smells of open cooking fires wafted through the area, and music from tinny radio speakers competed with the rumble of traffic on the elevated highway off to Crane’s right. There were no streetlights, and the narrow spaces between buildings were dark. Crane saw figures lurking in the shadows and others using flashlights to navigate. The unpaved, twisting streets were streets only by default. You walked where no one had put up a shack. It was a very dangerous place for an outsider, and Crane was very aware of how much he stood out there.
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October 22, 2016
Good food and bad news…
through the Hurricane (Reading) Group. Join us today!
Crane pulled up outside the sprawling Spanish style house, and a woman from the household staff met him at the door. She led him through to the immaculately groomed backyard. Josh Sulenski sat at a round, cast iron table beneath the twisting branches of an ancient oak that spread out so far Crane wasn’t sure how they resisted gravity.
“John!” Josh said with a broad smile as Crane approached. He was barefoot, wearing cargo shorts and a Clash t-shirt. Crane imagined Josh combing vintage shops across Silicon Valley and paying some truly outrageous price for it. Josh half rose and gestured to another chair. “Marjorie, can we get a pitcher of sangria? How was coal country? Oh, and some of that flatbread from the other night? You have to try this stuff, John; it’s fantastic. Do we have any of that left? The fougasse? Can we get some of that? Did you get the pictures? Pics or it didn’t happen, right?”
Crane sat down and let Josh enthuse. At some point the woman, Marjorie, inserted an “of course, sir” and withdrew. She returned a couple minutes later with a tray of bread and cheese and a pitcher.
Over steaming bread and cold sangria, Crane told Josh what had happened. As he spoke, Josh’s expression grew gradually darker.
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October 19, 2016
Lessons Learned from Rope on Fire’s Promo Rollout
Well, that was a blast! In the first promotional effort after Rope on Fire was released, the book was free on Amazon from Saturday through Tuesday the 18th. This was my first attempt at a promotional launch, and I’m sure it could have been done better. But the results were enormously gratifying, and they appear to have succeeded in giving Rope on Fire the push it needed.
Here are the numbers: The graph to the right is from Amazon’s dashboard. Each grid line represents 500 copies “sold” for $0.00.
During those four days, 4,212 copies of Rope on Fire were downloaded. On Saturday, the book had a feature on Awesomegang.com, and participated in a group effort by a number of other thriller and mystery authors to pool their promotional punch and get their books in front of as many eyes as possible. That produced an initial run of 840 downloads on Saturday.
There was nothing new on Sunday, just the momentum from the initial push. The downloads fell that day, but we still moved 390 copes of the book.
Then on Monday came the big boost. Rope on Fire was featured on Freebooksy.com, a site with a considerably larger audience. This was when the book truly took off, as you can see from the graph. We moved an impressive 2,395 books on Monday and soared up the rankings on Amazon’s free chart, reaching #1 in both of Rope on Fire‘s official browse categories by midday. You may have seen something about that here.
On Tuesday, again there was no promotion at all, but the book still moved 667 copies. It remained at #1 in Action Thrillers until the free promotion ended at midnight. In Espionage it was bumped back down to #2 sometime Tuesday afternoon*, but kept that position until the end of the promotion period. (When it disappeared from the free charts entirely.) In the overall Kindle store, the book peaked at #62 – at least that’s the highest ranking I saw; it’s hard to track that with precision.
So what have we learned? One lesson is that promotional efforts like this have a pretty short tail, and for a four-day run, it would have been more effective to have more than two sites featuring the book. After both features spiked downloads up, they dropped off rapidly the next day when nothing was happening. On the other hand, they did their job and put the book high on the charts. I have to think a lot of the downloads on Sunday, and especially on Monday, were organic downloads that didn’t come from the promo sites at all, but from people checking out the free lists on Amazon and finding Rope on Fire right there on the top of the first page.
Also, even though all those free downloads didn’t generate a penny in income, they put Rope on Fire in front of more than 4,000 readers. As those readers finish the book, that should start to generate reviews and signups to the Hurricane (Reading) Group, building an audience for the next Crane novel, Wrecker, before it’s even finished. Indeed Rope on Fire now has a very nice, organic 5-star review that does an excellent job of telling other potential readers what the book is offering. In time, more will follow. That’s a very big plus.
And the final lesson is that, even though the book has now vanished from the free rankings, the momentum it gained there remains on the paid side. Rope on Fire‘s overall Amazon ranking has improved dramatically – by orders of magnitude – from where it was before the promotions, and today has been by far its most successful day since launch, both for sales and for Kindle Unlimited page reads.
Of course this is still uncharted territory for me. It remains to be seen whether the increase in sales will be enough to keep the book high in the rankings, and thus become self-sustaining, or whether it will eventually trail off again. But either way, this has been a great experience that has taught me a lot, and helped get Rope on Fire moving.
Now it’s time to look ahead and get back to work on Wrecker!
* by C.M. Gleason’s adventure novel, Siberian Treasure, which looked like so much fun I downloaded it myself. I guess I didn’t help my case there…
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