Nigel Bird's Blog, page 56

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Goodreads Book Giveaway




Mr Suit





by Nigel Bird









Giveaway ends January 15, 2013.





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One Man's Opinion: THE END OF THE WASP SEASON by DENISE MINA

Happy New Year to you all.I've not made many resolutions, but I've decided upon one course of action as a writer.  I'm going to spend much less of my time trying to tell folk about me and my work and I'm going to focus more upon the act of writing stories.  It seems like an obvious thing, but I look forward to the change of direction.  Should you find me wandering too far from this path, please remind me of what I just said.The irony of this is that I have a giveaway of 10 copies of Mr Suit over at Goodreads.  This is only for UK residents as I can't really afford the extra mile on the postage.  If you're interested, follow the link.And now to the main event.  A book review of a very good book.  I hope to be focussing more on this side of books, too.Here goes:THE END OF THE WASP SEASON (US)A young woman is awoken in the home of her recently departed mother by a couple of teenage boys who seem to have a bone to pick with her.  Though it soon becomes clear that they are picking the wrong bone, the woman finds herself in grave danger and makes her bid for freedom.  Sadly for her, she doesn’t make it and the boys lose control as they stamp out all of her facial features.
DS Alex Morrow is sent along to investigate.  What the reader picks up from the early encounters with Morrow is that she’s from a complicated working-class family, that she’s no fan of her superiors and that she’s pregnant with twins.  She also cares about her new victim and has to fight with the men around her to get to see this as the murder of an innocent rather than simply another paid-by-the-hour job.
The story unfolds wonderfully.
The teenage boy killers attend a private, very exclusive Scottish school.  Thomas and Squeak are soon separated when Thomas leaves for home after his rich and infamous father has committed suicide.  Lars Anderson has been losing the money of many in the recent financial crash, a crash that impacts upon many in this novel.
Morrow encounters an old friend in the form of Kay, the cleaner who once worked for the victim and her mother and continues to clean for other families in the area.  This opens the doors to a range of complications which make rather uncomfortable reading in a pleasure/pain sort of way.  It's a relationship and a set of consequences that I particularly enjoyed following.
The resolution of the story is for you to find out.  All I’ll say is that it winds up with a growing sense of the need for justice and an accelerated desire to reach the end and find out what that might be.  There was no let down when I finally got there, just a perfectly formed moment that I genuinely hadn’t expected, one that passes comment on a world that so often doesn’t seem fair.
It is a police procedural, but it has a huge amount to offer beyond that.  The stories seem to me to be about people and the way they are affected by crime as much as they seem to be about the serving of justice, after all justice as offered by the legal system will rarely have the power to redress the injustices of our society.
Mina has a great empathy with her characters.  Seems to really see the subtle ways in which they interpret the world and are formed by their experiences of it.  Can paint detailed pictures of the lives of her characters by sketching in minor details that are striking in way they expose the inner workings of the people in this book.
She also explores identity in a number of ways.  No one is as they seem, each person has a life beneath the veneer of their stereotypes or the first impressions they create.  Class, religion, personal flaws, successes and tragedies are all brought to the surface in a book that refuses to leave human beings as two-dimensional items.
It’s a very engaging read that’s written with real skill and feeling and I’ll definitely be reading more of Mina’s work in the future.  Very good indeed.

One Man's Opinion: RED ESPERANTO by PAUL D BRAZILL

Before the review, a few pointers.

Mr Suit's free today and tomorrow (US).  I think it's pretty good, so think about checking it out.

Another freebie is Santa's Christmas Eve Blues (US) from Douglas Lindsay and Blasted Heath.  Surely that's got to be had.

And, forgive me for the scratched record approach, but Snubnose Press have reduced the price of all their titles to the minimum of 99c or 75p.  I'll mention again that Blood On Blood, which I haven't read but own, is at 5500 in the US charts and for pragmatic reasons I reckon that if you chase it higher up there you'll be supporting a fantastic press in a way that might well stick.  Go on, be a devil.  And if you do buy more Snubnose books for your collection, think about saving your receipts somewhere - you never know when they might come in useful.

Red Esperanto (US) practically drips in the alcoholic sweat of the journalist Luke Case, not to mention some of his other bodily fluids. 
Luke is a head case in more ways than one; I’ll not elaborate on that and will let you discover that for yourselves.
We meet him in a room in Warsaw where he’s forcing down whisky and soaking up the atmosphere.  His companion is a prostitute who has more than one admirer, not all of whom are as gentile as Case.
Case is sucked gently (oh yes) into a game that lies within a love square (a love triangle with an extra corner).
Along the way, he introduces us to some unsavoury characters from the Polish community and some rather hopeless ones from the English teachers who have washed up there.
There are wise-cracks a plenty and twists that are well camouflaged. 
My favourite character in the story is the city itself.  It’s presented with a seedy romance that really wakes up the imagination.
It’s a story with a lot to offer and I’m very happy that there’s a follow up for me to get to in the very near future.

So why's it free?

Mr Suit (US) has had some great reviews.  It's the kind of book that crime fiction lovers will adore.  This being the case, why the hell are you giving it away?

As with all things, it's complex.

First off, I'm a bit of a sheep.  Everyone's doing it and I want to be like everyone else.

And the book's not really selling, so I'm hoping that it will get a broader readership if I make it free.

I also get a buzz out of seeing the numbers tick up by the hour on my KDP account which certainly makes a change.  Maybe I'm addicted to that.

Don't you think that this might upset those who have bought it already?

It may well do and I don't feel good about that.  If anyone reads this and feels agrieved, they can contact me and I'll send them something else of mine by way of some compensation.

Writers giving their books away for nothing?  Doesn't that diminish the value of the book in more ways than one?

That depends on your point of view. 

It won't make me any money unless it hits big with giveaways.  It may add to the feeling that indie-published books are all free in the end, so why bother buying.  In turn, the books may become less expensive and writers may make less money.  That would be a shame, but I like the idea of giveaways, regardless.

And you know that only 10% of the downloads will actually be read, don't you?

That seems like an arbitary figure, but yes, I'm aware of that.  10% of a whole, positive number is still more than 100% of nothing the way maths works and so it has to be worth trying.

Have you thought about paying for advertising for this promotion?

I have and I have.  I mean, I paid $5 to get some space online somewhere.  I think it's worth a go and I can let you know if it seems to make any difference at all.

Are you certain that this is the right way forward?

Not at all.

Are you likely to give the book away again?

That really depends.

I'm giving lots of things away over the Xmas period.   In part that's because I'm a generous guy while, in part, it's entirely self-serving and I hope to make some money on the back of it.

I don't think the giveaway thing has much more juice in the tank.  My feeling is that I'd like to make this the last giveaway for a good while.  Maybe I'll stir the pot again next summer, but I won't be doing it in the same way I have of late.

Do you plan to irritate the pants off people by going on and on and on about the giveaway?

How well you know me.

So will you remove your books from the Kindle Prime gang?

No.  I like them being borrowed from time to time even if it's only a couple of copies a month.  That's a couple more readers (I hope, though 10% of 2 is 0.2 and it's difficult to imagine 0.2 of a reader - I guess it would have to be the fifth with the eyes).

Will you be writing anything else in the near future?

I have an idea of a children's horror story that I'd like to have a stab at.  See if I can build up some suspense and learn a new aspect of the craft.

Are you excited about Christmas?

I'm excited about being with my family and enjoying good company.  That would be cool.

And the book you'd like in your stocking?

I'm really curious about The Round House by Louise Erdrich (US).  It's not available here till spring, so if Santa can pull a few strings...

Anything else?

Yeah.  Did you know that Snubnose Press titles are 99c and 77p through December?  And that Blood On Blood has crossed the top 5000 barrier in America and might go even higher with your help?  You should click the links.

Happy Christmas and good luck with the giveaway.

Happy Christmas.

Paul D Brazill - The Man From Atlantis

A few months ago, when I was typically dawdling around Facebook, I received a message from Giulia from the spiffing Italian magazine Liberi di Scrivere. I’d known Giulia for a couple of years and had even been interviewed by Liberi di Scrivere.


She mentioned an upcoming ePublisher, ATLANTIS, the dark spawn of Lite Editions, a highly successful publisher of erotic eBooks. With Atlantis, publishers Lorenzo Mazzoni and Marco Belli decided to produce a series of noir novelettes, taking place in various cities around the world.

Giulia asked if was I interested. And, of course, I was!

So, I wrote the novelette RED ESPERANTO/ ROSSO ESPERANTO . It’s the story of an English hack-Luke Case- up to no good in Warsaw, Poland, a city where I lived for around five years.

Well, recently, ATLANTIS asked me if I was interested in writing a follow up to RED ESPERANTO and I jumped at the chance.

DEATH ON A HOT AFTERNOON takes the same hapless hack, Luke Case, to Madrid, Spain. A city where I once spent an intense summer. The tag line: An English hack encounters a man with a violent past, and a mysterious torch singer, during a hot Spanish summer, with fatal results.

And yes, there will be more Luke Case yarns to come.

The Italian translation of DEATH ON A HOT AFTERNOON will be available soon but you can pick up the English version from Amazon, B&N etc

You can also buy it direct from ATLANTIS, if it tickles your fancy.

CIAO!

Bio: Spinetingler Award nominee Paul D. Brazill has had bits and bobs of short fiction published in various magazines and anthologies, including The Mammoth Books Of Best British Crime 8 and 10,and he has edited the anthologies True Brit Grit & Off The Record 2– with Luca Veste - and Drunk On The Moon 1 and 2. His ebooks Red Esperanto, Death On A Hot Afternoon, 13 Shots Of Noir, Vin Of Venus (with David Cranmer & Garnett Elliot ) and Snapshots are out now, and his novellas The Gumshoe and Guns Of Brixton will be out pretty damned soon. His blog is here.

A Healthy Fear Of Man

available at the Snubnose discount price of 99c or 75p through December via Amazon

When I was studying writing in grad school, my professor would often ask: “If I gave you 10 bucks and sent you into a bookstore to purchase a book, what type of book would you purchase?” I often answered: crime, hard-boiled, or poetry. He would then say, “Well, that’s the genre you need to write.”
I’d like to think A Healthy Fear of Man (US)is an amalgamation of all three. It’s the follow-up to my debut novel, The Science of Paul (US), in which the ex-con and anti-hero, Paul Little, seeks to escape the trappings of Philadelphia where he’s pinned between a volatile gangster facing a failing empire, and the detective who sent Paul to prison for vehicular homicide. Both want something from Paul, actually everyone wants something from Paul. He’s an empty glass, ready to be filled—ready to become whatever someone needs, as long as it gets him one step closer to a peaceful life in North Carolina. In A Healthy Fear of Man, Paul gets his wish. He makes it to N.C.—to the succor of his deceased grandfather’s farm. There, he struggles to make it without money and resources. But it’s the South, where people help their neighbors and where secrets don’t stay hidden. Paul is visited by Bo Fellstone, his grandfather’s old friend, and a precious girl named Gilly. Fellstone wants to help and Gilly wants to be Paul’s pal. But she’s got a secret, the kind that gets her killed. Her body is found floating in Paul’s pond—she’s been beaten and strangled, and DMT is found in her system. And when the sheriff comes knocking on Paul’s door, the only man who can help him clear his name is Fellstone.

The novel tackles some of the issues that still plague the South. The idea of the New South has always been a myth in my book. Times have changed but the South is about 10 years behind, always has been. And it’s the type of place that seems cut off from the rest of the world. Things happen in the South that don’t make the papers. Crimes are committed, innocent people take the fall or they’re railroaded into taking plea deals. The uneducated, the poor, the weak are faceless pawns in a game of politics, racism, and a reconstruction period that has never ended. It’s like a man told me when I moved to N.C.: “You better watch that uppity walk. You asking for trouble and you can die down here.” It’s best to play slow, to play lame, and to blend in. Otherwise you may find trouble, just by sticking out in a crowd. Paul meets this kind of trouble head on and it’s going to take his wits and will to stay out of jail and above ground.

A Healthy Fear of Man is the second installment in the Paul Little crime series.Visit www.Aaronphilipclark.com  to learn more.

She Did It For Herself: CREATESPACE AND I, McDROLL

  Life’s full of mistakes, or if I’m being positive I could say ‘learning opportunities’. I’ve made a bucket-load but hopefully that’s pretty normal. I thought publishing my novella, ‘The Wrong Delivery’ in four tasty bite sized chunks would be quite original…eh no. I think more than anything it was annoying to those readers kind enough to give it a twirl. Some kind people read the first part, ‘Corrin’s Eyes’, but that readership most definitely dwindled by the fourth and final part, ‘Running Out of Time’.
Somebody thought I was serializing my story to get more money for it – not true! A ‘get rich quick’ scheme – don’t make me laugh! I just thought it would be fun and have some kind of impact. It didn’t, so there you go.

I’ve recently started a new project with the catchy title (at the moment) of ‘Home for a Dead Dog’. You can read the first chapter over at http://all-due-respect.blogspot.in/20.... Several people seemed to like the characters and the dialogue so I thought I’d give it a bash and turn it into a full-length novel. That’s the plan anyway.
I do know that I lack a bit of self-belief in my ability as a writer; for someone the wrong side of fifty, I feel like a cheeky young upstart, and as a women writing noir that can be particularly dark, humorous and full of expletives, I do feel the ground shaking beneath my feet. The encouragement of a few tremendous folk like Nigel Bird, Andrez Bergen and Chris Rhatigan keep me going.
My new project is a lot grittier than ‘The Wrong Delivery’, which turned out to be a bit of a cozy little runaround Argyll, looking for a missing package. My mother could maybe even read it. She still wouldn’t like it, but I might just not quite offend her sensibilities. She refuses to read anything with ‘swear words’ and is not a crime fan. At my advanced age, do I still seek her approval? How weird.
I messed up with the publication of ‘The Wrong Delivery’, so I wanted to somehow, late in the day, pull it together into one novella. But what about those kind people who shelled out for each of the four parts? Would they ask for their money back if it suddenly appeared altogether for 77p? The answer? Make a paperback edition. Seemed like another good idea. Oh dear. Is this a pattern?
Last weekend, after editing the first part of the story yet again, I used Createspace.com to pull it altogether, made yet another new cover and after a couple of hours, hey presto, the paperback version was born. Looks pretty cool and bookish. Very easy to follow instructions, you don’t pay anything up front and your masterpiece is there on the shelves of the big bookshop in the sky for people to purchase within a few hours.
I haven’t yet got my hands on the final product, thought it would come in the mail today, but hey, this is Argyll and the post is a lot slower. Patience is required. I’m hoping for some sense of satisfaction when I hold my baby in my hands for the first time. I’m hoping that I’ll finally believe that, after a fashion, I can write. I hope that this will give me the inspiration to keep writing about my ‘Dead Dog’ and at the very least, my brother seems to be impressed.
It would be great to have a publishing deal, an agent, an editor, a proofreader, a cover designer, the things that dreams are made of, but in the meantime, I can do it all for myself – so there! That pretty much sums up my life anyway; ‘She did it for herself.’
I might order twenty copies and torture all my ‘Kindleless’ friends, I might sit at night and stroke the cover thinking how clever I am or I might just put that baby to bed and start climbing the next even bigger hill. Anyway, it’s all fun, I get a kick out of writing and it takes me far away from the humdrum problems of everyday life. Boy is that needed!
If you want a shiny paperback to hold in your own sticky little handsToodle pip! The Wrong Delivery is available for £3.79 in the UK and for $6 in the US.  There's still time to get a copy in to Santa's sack or for the last minute gift for the one in your life who could always do with another good book.  Recommended.

The end and the beginning: CHRIS DABNOR on NIGHTFALLS

A few little plugs before I hand on to Chris - and there's some news here that's definitely worth reading.

Have you seen that Snubnose are offering their titles for 99c/75p?  They have some brilliant titles and I'm pretty sure that all of their books are worth picking up (I mopped up another 6 or so with this offer).  I'm sure you'll know what I mean when I say that and you'll be doing some mopping up of your own.

I'm going to recommend one in particular, but not for the usual reasons.  It's a title I haven't read, Blood On Blood by Jim Wilsky and Frank Zafiro.  The reason for my suggestion is that it's doing pretty well in the Amazon charts in the US and with a little more support might forge itself a position that will nudge the Amazon machine into action. It's not only the good writers we need to support, but the good publishers, so let's go out and make a difference.

And I'm also really pleased to see that McDroll's The Wrong Delivery is now available as a paperback, which might well make someone very happy on Christmas morning if they have the right kind of friends.

Another way to make a difference in the world it to donate to charity.  You can do that and be a winner in 2 ways if you pick up a copy of Nightfalls - you'll get a cracking read and the warm glow of giving at the same time.

Here's a note from Chris Dabnor about his story:

When Katherine invited me to write a piece for the charity anthology 'Nightfalls' (US), I didn''t have to think too long about it.  Since she first decided to publish one of my short stories, she's been supportive of me and my work.  So, I had a theme, I just needed a story.  My first idea was to have a protagonist who keeps hearing songs about the end of the world - REM's - End of the World, U2's Last Night on Earth and so on, and slowly begins to realise that they are portents.  I had the idea, but didn't feel I could tell it as a short story.  It also reminded me a bit of something that Gaiman had done with Constantine in an early Sandman.  I kept thinking about the music and decided on a story about a DJ who decides to host a radio phone-in running up to the end.  REM still make it in there, but only as a brief nod.  I realised, that, for the story to work, I needed a nice, pretty end of the world, something that could be accurately predicted and instant when it came.  So, I began researching extinction level events.  They're generally not as quick or exciting as you'd expect, it seems.  It was whilst researching the end of the world that I received the amazing news that my partner was pregnant.  Realising that you're going to be a father for the first time changes your perspective on the apocalypse.  Suddenly the world meant so much more to me - it had become the place that my baby is going to grow up in, and it is a beautiful and terrible place.

May I take my place in line and offer you and your partner the very biggest wave of warmth Sea Minor can manage here.  Yes, the world will never be the same again for you guys and I'm pretty sure it will never have been quite so wonderful.  Very good luck.

:)

One Man's Opinion: CHEAPSKATES by CHARLIE STELLA

  I’ve been through a period of grieving these last couple of months and it hasn’t been easy.
One thing that was radically affected was my ability to concentrate upon any fiction longer than around a thousand words. 
What I needed to conquer the reader’s block was a book that would grab me from the start, would work as a page-turner, had sharply drawn characters and kept a really high standard of quality writing.
I tried 3 or 4 before finding my solution and in the end it was Charlie Stella’s Cheapskates that whisked me back to reader heaven.
I’m grateful to Mr Stella for that.
‘Cheapskates’ is a fantastic read.
Early on, the book visits a prison cell where a couple of inmates of very different personalities are housed just before their release.  The thing they have in common is a strong sense of justice and a need to see the right thing done.
For one of those inmates, Peter Rizzo, he’s all set to retrieve money from his ex-wife who owes him 50k plus interest. 
Cellmate Reese Waters is a placid man, a drummer and a reader and something of a sage.  He’s done his best to talk Rizzo after going after the cash and has persuaded his friend to allow him to act as a go-between in order to save Rizzo from a parole violation.
When the pair get out from Fishkill and go their separate ways, they agree to meet up and work things out.
Reese goes along to meet Rizzo’s ex as planned.  She’s as much of a cheapskate as he’s been told and he takes an instant dislike for her when she gives him the brush-off.
What Reese doesn’t know at that point is that the ex has had Rizzo bumped off, using connections to the mob via her lover Jimmy Valentine.
From then on the plot gathers apace and really thickens.
Reese needs to see justice done.  The cops get involved, the mob do what they can to tie up loose ends before they’re indicted for one thing or another, there’s a drunken bus driver, a mean old man who eats discount cakes all week for lunch, there’s a radical Muslim brotherhood offering muscle, a discredited officer from the organised –crime squad and there are solicitors with hearts and without.
It’s a tangled web they all weave and it’s clear from the beginning that some of them are going to get caught up by their own dealings.  What’s not so clear is who that’s going to be.
Stella works the plot like a master plate spinner.  The points of view change at regular intervals and this is managed with immense skill.  The plot thickens at every turn and the twists make this interesting from start to finish.
I loved many things about Cheapskates.
Firstly, the characters are diverse and very-well defined.  They come from different backgrounds entirely and Stella uses the differences in ways that play with stereotype as much as they buck the obvious to find the unique.  What this allows is for changing the angle of story-telling with ease as the people involved are immediately recognisable.
Next there is the mob background.  I can’t help it, I’m a sucker for a good gangster tale.   What makes it all the better is that it feels like Stella has been there and lived the life.  It has a real authenticity to it all that you won’t often find in fiction.
There’s the dialogue.  It’s a pleasure all on its own.
And there’s the humour.  Amidst all of the serious plays is a really dry comedy that provided another dimension.  I like to laugh and I laughed a lot – with people like the ones on these pages, it would be difficult to keep a straight face.
The overall work is a piece of class.  If the book was in the mafia it would be the Godfather.  And you’d better believe that, believe me.

Apocalypse Tango: Dale T. Phillips

The new Nightfalls anthology is a good thing, a collection of fine stories where the proceeds go to help those less fortunate.


When editor Katherine Tomlinson asked me if I'd like to submit a story, I said yes, and told her I'd just published a collection of stories about the end of the world, Apocalypse Tango.

Uh... she said, well, that's what the new collection is about.

Okay, no problem, I'll just write another one...

But I'd used up my available scenarios.

When she told me about the charity the proceeds were going to, the idea began to form. Since the last night of 12/21 was so close to Christmas, it grew to having the apocalypse seen through the eyes of a young Latino child who's confused as to why the grownups are acting so strangely around the time Santa is supposed to come. And since the Los Angeles area charity was there, that became the locale, and even the theme. The prompt for the collection guided precisely what the story was to be.

Within the tale, I wanted to explore the different reactions that people would have: some lose themselves in drinking or drugs, some end on their knees praying for salvation or redemption, some who would like to end with pleasures of the flesh (going out with a bang, not a whimper), some in finally getting that one thing they've always dreamed of, and some, committing that last act of ultimate love.

And a nod to the apocalypse coming 50 years after the Cuban Missile Crisis, when we came within a whisker of having it happen then. Plus ca change, you know...

Religion, death, Christmas, love, and the end of the world, all in a few thousand worlds. Guess that says it all.