Benjamin Sobieck's Blog, page 23

Exiles, Allan Moore, Missing an Ear and More

All of that and a bag of chips is going down in my guest post at crime fiction guru Paul D. Brazill's website. Exiles is a charity anthology with an outsider theme. It sports a ton of talent. Check out the post about my contribution for the down low on what's up.

Writing Weapons: Knives for UK Serial Killers

In the first of what I hope to be a recurring segment, UK author Richard Butchins has the helm today to discuss how he selected the weapons featured in his crime novel, Pavement. The piece, due out in September but available for pre-order now, focuses on a loner who turns to killing.

 

What's interesting to me - and hopefully others - is the thought process that goes into assigning a character a certain firearm or knife. Plots in thrillers and crime fiction pivot on firearms and knives. Their selection can be very important. I detail my own step-by-step process in my upcoming Weapons to Writers book from Writer's Digest.

 

Butchins is an award-winning UK documentary film maker (check out his My novel Pavement is about the internal world of a serial killer, a world where why he does things is more important than how. The story takes place in London and as such the protagonist’s choice of weapons is limited. In the UK access to firearms is extremely restricted and always has been, because of this we don’t have a culture of gun ownership and use in the same way as our American cousins.

Also the use of a firearm would be alien to my protagonist’s way of thinking. He would find it too easy and impersonal, not to mention far too noisy. So he goes for a tool, something that is not only or primarily intended for killing – the knife. The knife is a tool with a long history and variety of uses: carving knife, bread knife, fish knife, butter knife, scalpel and so on, we all own some. What’s more, a knife can be used to create, for example, in the hands of a chef or barber, to heal, when in the hands of a surgeon, or when in the hands of someone such as “Smith,” my protagonist, to kill.

The choice of weapon also serves to illustrate the obsessive nature of Smith as he repeatedly sharpens and hones his blade, testing their edge as he uses whetstones to sharpen his blades:

I choose my boning knife as the first recipient of my love. The trick is to have the back and edge of the blade flat on the stone; it is not like using a steel or a cinderblock. This is the ‘Art of Sharpening’ as opposed to your father at the table waving a carving knife and steel about, or some dozy chef in a restaurant sharpening one to cut up a turkey.

This is ritual.

He then tests the sharpness of the blades:

To check the blades’ sharpness I carry out the hanging hair test, designed for old style straight razors – it’s simple – I pluck out a head hair, a single head hair and see if my knife blades are sharp enough to cut through it when it’s held up in the air. You bring the hair slowly down on the blade and it should pass through the hair with no sound or resistance. It’s a controversial test in straight razor circles due to the fact that hair can vary in thickness and oiliness and so on, – there is a lot of passion amongst the aficionados of honing. But for me it’s fine; after all it’s not as if I am going to be shaving any facial hair, just dismembering a body.

He then explains why he needs very sharp knives:

I suppose I could just use an axe, a hammer and a saw, but I prefer to be efficient and precise – besides, I want to cut the body up into small, difficult to identify pieces, and do it quickly, so I need very sharp tools.

The choice of knives, by Smith serves a practical, artistic and psychological purpose as he carves his way to redemption.

*** 

Pre-order Pavement by Richard Butchins here from Amazon.

Matching Handguns to Characters

Be sure to check out my post on matching handguns to characters here at Jess C. Scott's Psycho Thrillers blog.

It's tempting to start the hunt for an appropriate handgun by considering gender, caliber, type or look. But I suggest starting with something else: the character's hand size. It's an unusual thing to think about, but it sets the stage for everything else. Here's why.

Meet the Voice of Maynard Soloman, Gal-Damn Detective

[image error]Ladies and gentlemen, meet the real-world Maynard Soloman, gal-damn detective - or at least his voice.

 

I'm pleased to introduce Geoff Metcalf as the narrator of the audiobook version of 8 Funny Detective Stories with Maynard Soloman, Gal-Damn Detective.

 

Geoff packs quite the impressive vocal background. He's hosted radio shows in several major markets, even running in national syndication seven years. He's also worked seven years for ABC on KSFO in San Francisco. His experience and insights put him in demand as a guest on many TV and radio programs. 

Heck, here he is on a C-SPAN panel discussing talk radio and the 2000 presidential election.

Outside of broadcast media, Metcalf authored fiction and non-fiction books centered on current events. He was a columnist at the Sacramento Union and an editorial writer at the Rhode Island Evening Times newspapers. He continues to contribute to news websites and podcasts.

If that weren't enough, Geoff is a Green Beret veteran with an extensive military background as a commissioned officer.

If it isn't obvious by now, yes, he even has his own Wikipedia page to keep track of many his other accomplishments.

 

Not that he needed any help padding his resume, but he can now add "voice of Maynard Soloman, gal-damn detective," to that list. Of the many auditions I received, Geoff's golden pipes offered the kind of seasoned delivery that rang true to Maynard's character. Readers and listeners are sure to agree.

 

I'm thrilled to be working with someone of Geoff's caliber. Please join me in welcoming him as the voice of Maynard Soloman!

 

About the Audiobook

 

The audiobook will be available through Audible.com, Amazon and iTunes. We're aiming to wrap up for a fall release, but it may be earlier than that. It will certainly come out before the The Weapons for Writers releases from Writer's Digest in late 2014.

 

We're using ACX to produce the audiobook. Writers, publishers, narrators and producers, heads up on this platform. It's pretty slick and is fully integrated into the Amazon universe. It's like the KDP of audiobooks.

 

More details will hit as I have them. Stay tuned!

Probing the Moral Ambiguity of Black Market Kidneys

How's this for a coincidence?

 

In 2013, I published Maynard Soloman vs. The Kidney Thieves, a satirical crime caper about illegal organ trading starring a piss-and-vinegar, semi-retired PI.

 

In 2014, Robert Thornhill published Lady Justice and the Organ Traders, a comic crime caper about illegal organ trading starring Walt Williams, a dopey, semi-retired police investigator.

 

I'm not alleging anything here. Maynard Soloman and Walt Williams are two very different characters, and we're both writers with unique takes on comic crime (Thornhill is more cozy, I'm more satire). What I mean is that I had no choice but to read Lady Justice and the Organ Traders, especially since I'm a kidney transplant recipient myself.

 

The central mystery of Lady Justice and the Organ Traders focuses on a ring of black market organ traders. The organizers burn a donor's body after a botched operation. Williams is called in to investigate.

 

The cozy crime and mystery elements (there are actually several superfluous cases in this read) aren't what made the story interesting to me, though. Thornhill makes it clear from the introduction that this will be a piece probing the moral ambiguity of black market kidneys. That roped me in.

No Clear Answers

 

That ambiguity is expressed through POVs on all sides of the issue. There are characters who will do anything for a kidney, doctors willing to make it happen, religious leaders reminding their flock of the sanctity of their bodies, family members reluctant to donate and every shade in between.

 

Thornhill's central argument draws from Prohibition. Outlawing something that is in high demand puts money in the pockets of criminals. His other, less obvious point parallels one commonly used in the abortion debate. Illegal medical procedures are inherently more dangerous than legal ones.

 

Although Lady Justice and the Organ Traders doesn't come to a solid conclusion about this, it does put the issue front and center with readers. That an e-book talking about the 100,000 people waiting for a kidney could make the top five overall freebies on Amazon is a major victory. For the sake of those 100,000, I hope it changes some minds about kidney transplants.

Misconceptions

 

That said, I need to point out three common misconceptions about kidney transplants readers might pick up from this book.

 

1) In the book, a potential donor was rejected because she didn't share the same father as the recipient. This is bogus. There are scores of factors that go into making a match. Blood relation isn't one of them.

 

2) The transplant operation itself isn't the difficult part. It's finding the right balance of immunosuppressants. The recipient's body will always want to attack the donor kidney, since it's a foreign object. Immunosuppressants keep that from happening. However, too much of this medicine will knock out the immune system, opening the body up to all sorts of infections. This was a major hurdle in my recovery as a recipient.

 

3) Those immunosuppressants must be taken for the rest of the recipient's lifetime. They're not cheap (mine are $1,200 per month without insurance, but thankfully I only pay $60 for generics through my plan) and they require a prescription from a legitimate doctor fulfilled through a real pharmacy. You just can't find that on the black market.

The Only Sure Thing

 

However, the bottom line is still true. Across the world, there are more people in need of kidneys than the legal supply can offer. People die every day waiting as a result. If you're interested in becoming a donor, please visit the National Kidney Foundation at kidney.org for more information.

 

As for whether donors should be paid for their kidneys, that's an essay for another day. All I can say is my living donor is happy and healthy, off leading a productive life. Kidney transplants (legal ones, anyway) have never been safer. If you have it in your heart to share your spare, you'll be committing one of the greatest acts of altruism possible.

 

And that's no joke.

About Those Boxed Sets of E-Books for 99 Cents

A while back, I mentioned The Deadly Dozen "box set" of e-books. It featured novels from 12 crime and thriller writers, all offered in one e-book for 99 cents. The quality of the stories and the price combined to launch it to the New York Times and USA Today bestseller lists.

 

It seems that kicked off a trend. A lot of authors across all genres are grouping their e-books together, offering their "box sets" at 99 cents.

 

Some look pretty good. One that stood out to me is Thrilling Thirteen. It's offering 3,250 of thriller-ific pages for a buck. A couple of the authors, such as Debbi Mack and Zoe Sharp, I'm already familiar with. For the others, this looks to be a great way to get acquainted. Here's the line-up:

 

 

A Touch of Deceit (Nick Bracco Series) - Gary PonzoRussian Hill (Abby Kane FBI Thriller) - Ty HutchinsonArctic Wargame (Justin Hall Series) - Ethan JonesLook For Me (Rachel Scott Adventure) - Traci HohensteinThe Last Horseman - Frank ZafiroThe Diplomat (Justin Hall Series) - Ethan JonesThe Recruiter (A Thriller) - Dani AmoreMark Taylor: Genesis (Mark Taylor Series) - M.P. McDonaldIn the Shadow of El Paso - Frank ZafiroDon't Close Your Eyes (Stephanie Chalice Thriller) - Lawrence KelterQuicksilver (Forensic Geology Series) - Toni DwigginsLeast Wanted (Sam McRae Mystery) - Debbi MackAbsence of Light (Charlie Fox Thriller) - Zoe Sharp

 

 

Click here to get the Thrilling Thirteen from Amazon for the Kindle for 99 cents.

 

And Now for a Writerly Word About Pricing

 

For readers, this is great stuff. For writers, it raises some questions about the value of a novel. This would seem to be a way to price a novel under 99 cents, the minimum threshold in this market (Amazon and the rest won't allow anything under that price). So is this a thumbs up or thumbs down proposition?

 

I give it one up and one down. On the one side, I like that authors I know (such as Vincent Zandri and Allan Leverone) picked up enough sales to wind up on the big-time lists. On the other, I think this is an idea that will work initially and then play itself out as more people jump on board. I'd gladly take 1/12 of 99 cents if it meant we moved 50,000 units or whatever, but in the end the market will hit a wall and have to find another way to further devalue those novels to make it stand out to the price-conscious reader.

 

In other words, the 100-novels-for-a-buck box set is just around the corner.

Let's Make an Audiobook Together: Are You the Voice of Maynard Soloman?

Maynard Soloman is gal-damn ripe for an audio version. With his colorful language and old-timey strut, he's a perfect match for soaking microphones in piss and vinegar. That's why I'm throwing out a call for auditions for an audiobook. Here are four good reasons to give it a shot:

 

1 - Maynard is the central example character in my Writer's Digest guide dropping later this year. That means (hopefully) you'll get a shot at some big-time exposure. WD is a big brand in publishing.

2 - Who wants to get paid in exposure? No one. That's why I'll split any money we make 50-50.

3 - I'm commissioning this project through ACX. It's a super slick system for partnering authors with narrators.

4 - The audiobook will be available through Audible.com, iTunes and a pile of other audiobook hotspots. Keen!

 

Think you have what it takes? Click here to audition.

This is It

This is it. Turned in all 134k words, 220 photos, a matching number of captions and two years' worth of time of the Writer's Digest project to the editor. It officially has a title, too: The Weapons for Writers: A Practical Reference for Using Firearms and Knives in Fiction. More details later. For now, have a drink for me and enjoy the official house band of this project.

Review: Revisiting the What-the-Hell-Did-I-Just-Read Moment

I'm game to reading fiction that pushes boundaries and makes a little queasy. So when Jess C. Scott asked if I would review her new short story anthology, Owned, I did so out of both convenience (she caught me at a good time) and the promise of something startling. I've read plenty in crime fiction that's disturbing, but I can't remember the last time I'd had a true "what the hell did I just read?" moment. (Although Plastic Soldiers will always hold the read-it-once-and-crawl-into-a-ball award.)

 

Owned had me revisiting that moment by the end of the first of its six stories. Each tries to work in some measure of shock factor by showcasing humanity at its worst. And I do mean worst.

 

Scott redeems readers' shock with satisfying acts of revenge and some creative storytelling elements. For example, one story is an e-mail conversation going back and forth.

 

The one-two punch of the shock-kill formula will work well for those prepared for Scott's brand of crime fiction. Just know that some passages will require an open mind. Owned reminded me to give a kick to my comfort zone as a reader and take a chance on something unusual.

 

As of this writing, Owned is available for free at Smashwords.

 

It's also available on Amazon for the Kindle for 99 cents.

In Dark Mode

The Writer's Digest guide is due on May 1. My lack of recent Internet activity is the result. Will return once I get this gal-damn helmet off.