Réal Laplaine's Blog, page 4
March 18, 2024
When Cowboys Fall in Publishers Weekly
My newest book, When Cowboys Fall, is now available through Publishers Weekly, in their February 2024 print publication and at Publishers Weekly Booklife (online).
Inspired by actual events.
It wasn't meant to be a near-death experience - it was meant as a get-away, a chance to make sense of his life, but the Universe had other plans for him. Trent McCallister, a born and raised cowboy from Western Canada, finds himself cast on a road of self-discovery, trying to reconcile his forgotten dreams, and contending with a woman who suddenly changes everything in his life. When Cowboys Fall is an inspirational journey of rediscovery, love and following one's dreams. A story about the cowboy in all of us.
February 19, 2024
Author, Réal Laplaine speaking at the University of Buffalo Burchfield Art Center
Author, Réal Laplaine speaking at the Burchfield Penney Art Center, part of the University of Buffalo, about his book, the 9th Divinity.
Burchfield Penney Art Center Book Club website
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ltLaY0wzmL8&list=PLMzPAMD2dGZYZMLLOb_G0beZac4RkTbhG&index=42February 6, 2024
Tired of police story drama?
Turn on the television and watch most any police or crime thriller series or film and typically, “Hollywood”, or the movie industry in general, typifies the main characters as broken or dysfunctional people.
The American stereotype usually shows police or crime fighters routinely retreating to a pub or bar somewhere, imbibing whiskey like it is a soft drink, and drowning their sorrows or stress or whatever, in alcohol. This is typical 101 in such series/films - which suggests that they have a deal with Jack Daniels or some other producer to advertise their product.
Almost always, police or crime fighting personalities are depicted with plagued marital or intimate relationships which inevitably go sour because their partner find themselves feeling unattended by their crime fighting partner, who is forced, by the nature of their work, to spend late nights and long days away from home. It’s so stereotyped that you can predict with accuracy at the beginning of the film or series, that one of them is going to start complaining that their partner is “not there for them” - and so begins the downslide - as if being a cop or crime fighter is suicide on relationships.
The other stereotype is that police or crime fighters are presented as being plagued by some trauma in their past; whether mishandled or abused as a child, the loss off siblings, or some other event which the writers and producers feel compelled to include in some bid to make the characters “more human” by giving them a dysfunctional side, something that drives them or haunts them. Apparently the idea is to make it so that the viewer can identify with them better, but really, do viewers watch crime thrillers for that reason - or for entertainment?
Personally, I find it tiring to watch such series and films because I am interested in the crime fighting aspect, the policing, the procedural “follow-the-clues” to get to the murderer - you know, Sherlock Holmes - get the bad guy. I don’t care about whether the main character has issues with his wife, or had a bad childhood, and yet, we see these films and series turned into semi-soap operas with the same scenarios played out - different words, same tune.
When I set out to create my own crime thriller series, I laid out certain parameters to ensure that my stories didn’t fall into the same matrix which Hollywood typically uses.
First of all, my main character would be in love with ONE woman, JUST one woman, who understood from the outset of their relationship that he was involved in a life-and-death career, riding the edge, and while she would naturally be concerned that he didn’t come back in a body bag, she wouldn’t bitch about his lifestyle because she loved HIM, and she knew exactly what she was walking into and she would support him. It’s a refreshing twist knowing that when he comes back from some near-death-encounter, the woman he loves is only interested in seeing him alive.
My main crime fighter in this series would not be dysfunctional. He would have, at most, just one event that occurred in his past which catalyzed his decision to become a crime fighter, but it wouldn’t define him or haunt him or affect his mental state.
My crime fighter wouldn’t rely on going to the pub to drown his sorrows with whisky, in fact, beyond a few beers here and there, alcohol played absolutely no role in his life because I fail to see Hollywood’s fixation with depicting police/crime fighters as people who rely on alcohol to get by. His ONLY daily fix would be coffee and a Canadian pastry (also available in the USA) called a bear-claw (crispy pastry filled with real apple filling).
He would be a maverick - someone who broke the rules and pushed the envelope, but with only one agenda, to get his man.
The series I created, The Keeno Crime Thrillers, had one other agenda - I wanted to put Canada on the map (where I originally come from) with its own crime fighter, because you never hear about Canadian crime fighters to amount to anything - probably in large part because Canada is not typically a matrix for crime. Nonetheless, it was time to give the Canucks their own crime-fighting hero, so Keeno McCole was born; a mix of Indigenous Indian (First Nation of Canada), Irish and French - who, with his partner in crime fighting (Jake Williams) since the days they both walked the streets as cops in Toronto, and their other two team members, Janene and Kelly, are a special unit in the RCMP or Royal Canadian Mounted Police, who take on special players in the crime arena.
It’s always high-tech, high-octane, and naturally, with Keeno, always a little unpredictable.
One thing for sure; the Keeno Crime Thrillers won’t assault you with the same stereotypes. It’s all about the action, finding the bad guys, and winning against all odds.
Four books have been published so far, and more coming:
Réal Laplaine
Author of Break Out Books
January 26, 2024
The Canadian Cowboy culture
My newest book, When Cowboys Fall, is inspired by the cowboy culture, both in America and Canada, and to some extent, the television series, Yellowstone.
Let's take a brief gander at Canada's cowboy culture - is it the same as the one we see portrayed by Hollywood?
The cowboy culture in Canada was born sometime around the 1870's when beef cattle were brought up from Montana and elsewhere in the States, and cattle ranching was launched on the wide-open plains east of the Rocky Mountains - vast sections of the province of Alberta.
Cowboys were hired on to herd the cattle, brand them and such, and that was the matrix of its beginning in Canada.
Today, roughly 80,000 people are still involved in ranching - that is, raising and selling beef cattle.
The Calgary Stampede, Canada's largest and most popular rodeo, put on the map in 1923, draws about a million people every year to see cowboys and cowgirls demonstrating incredible riding and roping skills.
In short, the wide open plains of western Canada, became the matrix for the cowboy culture, which continues to this day.
My book, When Cowboys Fall, follows a born and raised cowboy from this region of Canada, as he searches for reconciliation in his life and where he meets a woman who changes everything.
Available in eBook, audio book, Kindle, paperback.
eBook and audio book available at www.reallaplaine.com
Kindle and paperback available at www.amazon.com
More formats at:
And many more online bookstores...
Canadian author of Breakout Books, Réal Laplaine, a matrix of Canada's Indigenous First Nation, French and Spanish, has published fifteen novels. Besides his most recent novel, When Cowboys Fall, he also pens a Canadian crime thriller series, The Keeno Crime Thrillers - now into its fifth and upcoming book in this series.
December 28, 2023
When Cowboys Fall: An inspired story about the cowboy in all of us!
At some point in our lives, we all step across that proverbial line where the road ahead of us is suddenly, and sometimes, shockingly, shorter than the one we have been traveling. It's a visceral and profound moment, often times bringing on the mid-life crisis, where one realizes that over half of their time on Earth has passed. Trent McCallister, born and raised on a cattle ranch in Alberta, Canada, eventually morphs from the life of a cowboy to a white-collar job with the Canadian Embassy. A family man, whose children are now out on their own, Trent finds himself facing the specter of imminent death up ahead. He hasn't achieved most of his dreams and finds himself trying to reconcile his life. He decides on a reprieve to Rhodes, Greece, where he rents a boat and heads out for a sail, a day that would change his life. When Cowboys Fall is a story about rediscovery, following one's dreams, and love - a story about the cowboy in all of us.
https://video.wixstatic.com/video/696416_f39bd37676ac4d1b821cd37497fac63e/1080p/mp4/file.mp4The release price is $3.99 and the book can be found at most online book sellers including, but not limited to:
Barnes & Nobel
An inspired story about the cowboy in all of us!
The long awaited book, just kidding, but yeah, I've been playing with this concept for years, and finally, here it is.
When Cowboys Fall is a romantic contemporary fiction about a man, a very average dude, who finds himself looking at the shorter end of road in his life, and not having achieved his dreams, faces the proverbial mid-life crisis. He takes a break and goes to Greece in the hopes of finding some reconciliation, rents a small boat and heads out for a sail one day, but by fate or happenstance, ends up in the water, struggling to survive for fifteen hours, facing imminent death. However, the Universe wasn't done with him yet, and what ensues is an inspiring story about rediscovery, following one's dreams and love - a story about life.
https://video.wixstatic.com/video/696416_f39bd37676ac4d1b821cd37497fac63e/1080p/mp4/file.mp4The release price is $3.99 and the book can be found at most online book sellers including, but not limited to:
December 19, 2023
Do they win - or do we?
In 2020, when the pandemic caused a global meltdown, the world came together and found a cure to Covid in less than one year.
Now, there is another virus called "dictators" - who are threatening use of weapons of mass destruction against us and not only destroy democracy, but threaten our very existence. Why isn't the world banding together to remove that virus? Why is the massive military complex designed to protect freedom and democracy, simply not removing the threat?
It doesn't take more war, it takes intelligence and a strategic approach to simply depowering those threatening our world.
We knew Covid, if not stopped, could result in a global debacle. We stopped it.
Isn't it time we demanded they act before it's too late to do anything about it?
October 6, 2023
Is anyone beyond second chances in life?
I lived in Los Angeles for 25 years, a city which has the 3rd largest GDP (Gross Domestic Product) of any city in the world; GDP measuring the economic health and productivity; and yet, except in the wealthier neighborhoods, homeless people could be seen on the streets. In fact, roughly 70,000 people are registered as homeless in Los Angeles, and over half a million in the United States overall - and of course, those figures are dubious since it’s not likely that homeless people, who pay no taxes, are registered - so the figure is probably MUCH higher.
I saw homeless people every day for 25 years, where I worked in Hollywood, just blocks from Hollywood’s busiest tourist spots. It was not only tragic, it was ironic that so many people were visiting the city and skirting its dark corridors; and it never failed to stir a disturbing resonance inside me, that here, in one of, if not the wealthiest nations in the world, people were living on the streets.
I talked to them, gave them food, money - to not do so would have required turning off my empathy and become callous about their plight. I simply couldn’t do it.
I remember reading an article in a newspaper at the time, about a man living on the streets of Los Angeles, who was a drug addict, and who previously was a successful programmer in the IT arena. His drug problem started before he hit the streets, but it quickly ramped up to the point where it was destroying him, so he stepped down from his career, and before doing so, his boss, who knew about his issue, told him that if ever he came to grips with his problem, he was welcome back to the company. The man ended up on the streets for years, until one day, his sister showed up and informed him that their mother had passed away and that he had not been around to see her in her final days nor had he come to the funeral. That was the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back for him. He forced himself off the drugs, got back on his feet, and amazingly, approached the same man at the same company where he had worked years before and was given a second chance at life - and he took it.
It’s a true story and it reminded me of what I felt deep inside when I looked into the faces of men, women and even teenagers living on the streets around me - that no one is beyond a second chance in life.
Later, I moved to Buffalo, New York, where, once again, I witnessed the homeless, and this time, I wrote a book about it, The Buffalo Kid, a story inspired by the homeless people I saw and met, a story that gushed out of me like a flood of words, because I wanted to expose their plight by telling a story through the eyes of one man, once a successful career-man, a family man, who ended up destitute and homeless, and after thirty years, got a second chance. Naturally, the book was extremely popular and loved because it was a story that everyone could relate to - because those homeless people, they were mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, someone’s children.
Moreover, I watched people, every day, walk by homeless people as if they didn’t exist, as if they were mere objects, garbage, or repulsive - and that I found to be more calloused and more abhorrent than anything - that people would treat others in that manner. The Buffalo Kid was, and remains, my way of spotlighting the issue of poverty and to remind us all that they are humans too and they are not beyond hope.
And by the way, quite by chance, I was introduced to man by the name of Radiator Don, who lived off the grid in Paso Robles, California (see image below) and who further inspired this story. He passed away some years ago, but his legacy lives on because it is his image that we chose for the cover of The Buffalo Kid.
Read more about Radiator Don HERE .
https://youtu.be/UsxLCqwgdCYAuthor of Break Out Books
breakoutbooks@reallaplaine.com
September 19, 2023
It's the children that suffer...
An excerpt from my book, Twilight Visitor, illustrates the effects of war upon the innocent.
It was a beautiful sunny morning with fleecy clouds floating on the air currents high above.
The sun was an incandescent ball of yellow, hanging torpidly in the otherwise deep blue sky.
Sitting idly under a vagrant tree, six-year-old, Vahid, and his three-year-old sister, Sahar, were quietly passing the time. Around them stretched the semi-arid and vacant land which they called home.
Vahid glanced up at their house, a one-level stone and clay structure which shimmered in the distance as the morning sun heated up the desert sands, causing the air to ripple and undulate.
They lived on the tip of the Great Salt Desert, the Dasht-e Kavr. Their small settlement was located twenty kilometers southwest of Javadubad, a remote outpost from which his father commuted every day, to his place of work - an oil refinery in the middle of nowhere.
Vahid’s eyes panned over the expanse of arid land to the south, listening as he did to the moaning shrill of the wind which effused them. His senses were tuned to the nuances of his world – having grown up on the edge of the desert itself. The subtle sounds of creatures were as sensible to him as the beating of his own heart. A rabbit scurrying away, its legs thudding into the dirt; the pronounced cry of a hawk or the howl of a wild dog, all of them were part of his very nature and he knew them all.
It was the wind which he loved most – for it spoke to him in a myriad of voices. There was the angry wind, the torrent of truculent air which charged across the vast domain, threatening, powerful and yet beautiful. Then there was the soft musing of a calm and gentle zephyr which caressed the land, like the soothing touch of his mother’s hand. The wind was more than wind to him, it was nature’s music, sometimes a low lamenting wail which seemed sad and aching; other times it came as a high-pitched whistle which conveyed challenge and threat and stirred the adrenaline within him.
He loved the desert, and he loved the land despite his relative desolation, and someday, he would stand proudly alongside his father and help to milk the Earth of the black crude which it abundantly provided.
Vahid’s mother had admonished him to watch over his younger sister and to never let her wander off alone. The land was large and empty, and there were predators here and there. Even as he sat tapering the end of his newfound stick with his small pen knife, hoping to mold it into a spear or a weapon of sorts, Vahid maintained a watchful eye over his sister who played nearby.
The endless silence, except that of the occasional warm gust, or the squawk of a bird passing high above, was subtly broken by a noise he had not known before now.
His ears were suddenly alert. He listened while his sister continued to mold sand into indistinct heaps. She looked up at him with large brown eyes and a slight upward curve of her lips and then resumed her play.
The discordant sound came again, only this time there was a slight tremor which shook the ground.
Vahid stood and walked from under the tree, his eyes searching the nearby hills and the distant desert sands, and again it came, this time like an ominous and muted roar, more distinct and more disturbingly invasive.
As he scanned the horizon his eyes fell upon a sight which shocked him, as strange machines and a wave of men suddenly crested a distant hill and charged downward in the very direction where he stood.
Behind him, he heard a scream. He turned to see his mother waving frantically at him. Bearing down on the very spot where she stood was yet another wave of machines and men coming from the other direction.
Suddenly the terrifying thunder was upon them.
The explosions erupted with such a shock wave that Vahid was thrown to the ground.
Batteries of shells and bullets screamed above him, cascading into the ranks of men and machines in both directions - with a violence which blistered his ears.
Frantically, he crawled, then got to his feet and ran back to his sister, her small form standing erect as she stared wide-eyed in abject terror at the raging battle.
Vahid dove for her, knocking her to the ground just as a volley of high caliber slugs scorched the air where she had just stood.
The rumble and roar of cannons, and the overwhelming concussion of endless rounds of shells echoed and filled the otherwise silent desert, turning a once calm and peaceful land into a pure and living hell.
When the battle between the Persian forces from the north, and the approaching Chinese from the south, had halted, the explosive thunder could still be heard as it rumbled down the corridors of that empty land.
Tanks lay smoldering, as did other artillery, and all about, in the wake of that short encounter, lay the decimation of broken bodies.
The Chinese commander stepped from his armored vehicle and quickly assessed the carnage. The small Iranian force had been quickly dispatched, but he knew that more would soon follow.
As he called for reinforcements, his eyes fell upon the two small bodies, clustered together under a nearby tree; their forms entwined in a desperate attempt to survive the fury which had struck their home; a young boy and his sister lay dead.
The Commander sighed. It was not his proudest moment. But as always, his only defense against the humanity which screamed at him from within - was that the innocent were always the unfortunate victims of any war.
Réal Laplaine
Author of Break Out Books
August 29, 2023
Who should take on the biggest criminals in the world?
If the Law of Attraction is accurate, that is, that like attracts to like, this image of Vladimir Putin (Russia) and Kim Jong-un (North Korea) says plenty.
Why would a Canadian crime fighter go after these two dictators?
Isn't that a bit above his pay-grade?
Isn't that the domain of governments and the military establishment?
Maybe not - maybe it's time for another approach considering that no government or military establishment in the world, to date, have stopped either of these dictators?
Let's review what constitutes a criminal?
Normally we think of them as being murderers, thieves, con-men, those engaged in illicit financial agendas, those engaged in human trafficking, on and on. If you take these two men alone, they are guilty of nearly every criminal category.
Both these men are responsible for the enslavement of people. Jong-un has virtually enslaved over 25,000,000 people, keeping them in a state of relative poverty and forced to do slave labor to enrichen his bank accounts and build a military.
Vladimir Putin not only launched a war against Ukraine, he has authored the systematic destruction of entire cities, killing countless thousands of people. He has also regressed Russia back towards its former state as the USSR (Union of Soviet Socialist Republics) by closing its borders, enforcing strict media control, using terror-tactics and a police-state-operation to keep the populace in line and marching to the beat of his drum.
Both men have accrued MASSIVE personal accounts, money they extorted from others, stole or simply commandeered. Putin is reported to have over 200 billion dollars stashed away.
Putin has forced young Russians to go to war against Ukraine under threat. Kim Jong-un, as covered above, uses the populace like slaves, bleeding them for every nickel he can get. He also engages a program, The Dollar Men, where North Korean men are forced to go overseas and work, largely in construction, and send 99% of their earnings back to Jong-un's accounts under threat that if they do not do so, the consequences to their families in North Korea will be dire.
And of course, last but not the least - both possess a nuclear arsenal which they have threatened to use against the world - making them not only criminal, but quite insane.
Open a page of any criminal law book, point your finger, and you will find relevance to these two sociopaths.
Just because allies to Ukraine are sending shiploads of weaponry to help them fight the Russian invasion, a proxy war at this stage, does not mean it is the most effective way of stopping Putin, and ultimately, Kim Jong-un before he launches his military toward South Korea, which he intends to do as certain as the sun rises.
Call it fiction, if you will, but I prefer speculative fiction - the idea that it could be true or it could actually happen, when the head of Canada's Anti Terrorism Unit, finds himself and his team on an irrevocable path, a chance to squeeze through the cracks of the Kremlin itself and if they don't get killed along the way, penetrate Putin's security defenses and take him alive, to stand trial at The Hague, the International Criminal Courts, as a war criminal.
Think it's impossible?
If we can send space probes that reach a spec of sand, billions of miles away, certainly we can send a team to take Putin, and even Kim Jong-un, without all the war, the death, the cost.
The concept defies those who benefit from the conflict, because make no mistake about it, the private military establishment is making billions of dollars fueling the Ukraine war with weapons and they are not interested in a small handful of people ending it all.
Decide for yourself in The 9th Divinity - the 4th novel in the Keeno Crime Thrillers.
https://video.wixstatic.com/video/696416_014cdf85e8d741c28f32cb61773123f0/1080p/mp4/file.mp4Find The 9th Divinity at Amazon, Barnes & Nobel, Smashwords, Escape-Books, www.reallaplaine.com and dozens of other online book sellers.
