Max Tomlinson's Blog, page 12
October 23, 2015
The Cain File – Kindle Scout Candidate!
Nominate The Cain File on Kindle Scout and get a free copy if it is selected for publication – and my undying gratitude!
Looking for the truth is the first mistake …
Click cover to nominate!
The Quito assignment was meant to be a milk run for Special Forensic Accounting Agent Maggie de la Cruz: just hand over the two-million-dollar payoff and get the signatures of a corrupt oil minister and two oil-company bigwigs. Then stand back while the arrests are made.
But that’s not quite how things play out. When the sting is sabotaged and Minister Beltran wants the two million anyway, Maggie says no.
Bullets fly. And Maggie has to run.
Back home in the U.S., licking her wounds, Maggie learns that Minister Beltran has just been kidnapped by a deadly eco-terrorist group protecting the Amazon jungle from oil drilling.
The Agency’s covert-operations section needs to send Maggie back to South America, along with Field Agent John Rae Hutchens, to rescue Beltran for, ironically, another two million.
Another milk run? Maybe—if everyone involved doesn’t have a secret agenda.
Events continue to go off-kilter: the suspicious detainment of a field agent at Bogotá International, leaving Maggie on her own; terrorists who seem more interested in the payoff money than the cause; case handlers with shadowy links that can’t be easily explained; and worse.
And agent de la Cruz must deal with it.
Any way she can.
October 8, 2015
Talk to the Head – Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia
They say you have the best conversations with yourself.
How about with the severed head of your hooker girlfriend’s former lover?
When the object of desire in a story is a head in a bag you know you’re onto something.
Warren Oates plays Bennie, a man who sees an opportunity to get a head. (Sorry)
When it’s the head of a man who impregnated the daughter of Mexican gangster you know immediately why it’s worth a million dollars.
When the man who longs for it the most is a down-at-the-heel gringo piano player in a Mexican brothel grabbing for one last score, you know all you need to know about the protagonist.
The happy couple. Mexican actress Isela Vega plays Elita. She also wrote one of the songs for the film.
BMTHOAG is Sam Peckinpah’s finest film. Made during the director’s alcoholic decline, the movie has a tragicomic power that is relentless, that drives it like a drunk coming home in the middle of the night. He knows the way–or did when he was sober; he’s running on autopilot now and is likely to inflict untold harm on himself and others getting to his destination. But he’s determined to get there. The movie is a parable for Peckinpah’s life. Warren Oates, who plays Bennie, understood this, and wore Peckinpah’s sunglasses throughout the movie, even in bed, channeling his mentor.
Bennie buying his soulmate a bag of ice to keep it from decomposing.
Despite the cheesy ‘70s film-making, the signature slow-motion Peckinpah death scenes, the gratuitous boob shots, all of that and more, the strength of the story and distinctiveness of the two leading characters prevail, making us root for a sleazy crook who carries his treasure across the barren Mexican desert in a gunny sack, talking to it, coddling it with ice as it becomes blanketed with flies, even giving it a shower at one point. It’s a journey of self-discovery. Not a happy one. But you probably guessed that.
In an early role, Kris Kristofferson plays a rapist biker. He’s probably more picky these days.
Bennie defending his nest egg. The white suit is the first of many bad decisions.
Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia remains a cult classic. It’s sucks you in you with its dark genius. It’s the kind of film that makes you stop channel-surfing when you happen upon it late at night, and compels you to watch it, no matter how many times you’ve seen it, no matter how late it is. And next day you’ll be savoring it all over again, wishing there were more films like it. But there aren’t.
August 14, 2015
The Cain File – On Dangerous Ground
The Cain File
The Quito assignment was supposed to be a milk run for Special Forensic Accounting Agent Maggie de la Cruz: just hand over the two-million-dollar payoff and get the signatures of a corrupt oil minister and two oil-company bigwigs. Then stand back while the arrests are made.
But that’s not quite how things play out. When the sting is sabotaged and Minister Beltran wants the two million anyway, Maggie says no.
Bullets start to fly. And Maggie has to run.
Back home in the U.S., licking her wounds, Maggie learns that Minister Beltran has just been kidnapped by a deadly eco-terrorist group protecting the Amazon jungle from oil drilling.
The Agency’s covert-operations section needs to send Maggie back to South America, along with Field Agent John Rae Hutchens, to rescue Beltran for, ironically, another two million.
Another milk run? Perhaps—if everyone involved doesn’t have a secret agenda.
Events continue to go off-kilter: the suspicious detainment of a field agent at Bogotá International, leaving Maggie on her own; terrorists who seem more interested in the payoff money than the cause; case handlers with shadowy links that can’t be easily explained; and worse.
And agent de la Cruz must deal with it.
Any way she can.
Blood in the Amazon is not yet available … stay posted.
Are you a literary agent looking for a fast-paced international thriller that will appeal to readers of Ludlum and John le Carré and fans of Homeland? Let’s talk!
Email: Max Tomlinson
The Crying Ground
The Crying Ground
There’s No Enemy Like One of Your Own.
The Quito assignment was supposed to be a milk run for Special Forensic Accounting Agent Maggie de la Cruz: just hand over the two-million-dollar payoff and get the signatures of a corrupt oil minister and two oil-company bigwigs. Then stand back while the arrests are made.
But that’s not quite how things play out. When the sting is sabotaged and Minister Beltran wants the two million anyway, Maggie says no.
Bullets start to fly. And Maggie has to run.
Back home in the U.S., licking her wounds, Maggie learns that Minister Beltran has just been kidnapped by a deadly eco-terrorist group protecting the Amazon jungle from oil drilling.
The Agency’s covert-operations section needs to send Maggie back to South America, along with Field Agent John Rae Hutchens, to rescue Beltran for, ironically, another two million.
Another milk run? Perhaps—if everyone involved doesn’t have a secret agenda.
Events continue to go off-kilter: the suspicious detainment of a field agent at Bogotá International, leaving Maggie on her own; terrorists who seem more interested in the payoff money than the cause; case handlers with shadowy links that can’t be easily explained; and worse.
And agent de la Cruz must deal with it.
Any way she can.
The Crying Ground will be available soon … stay posted.
Are you a literary agent looking for a fast-paced international thriller that will appeal to readers of Ludlum and John le Carré and fans of Homeland? Let’s talk!
Email: Max Tomlinson
August 10, 2015
Sendero #free Kindle download until 8/13
Take a dark trip through the jungle haunts and underbelly of South America as a woman searches for her long-lost brother amidst the legacy of the dirty war that left few unscathed.
While you’re at it, check out the audible narration for 1.99
Enjoy!
Sendero
June 26, 2015
Silent Scream – Angela Marsons #BookReview
This is a thoroughly engaging, well-crafted police procedural set in the UK that will appeal to fans of Prime Suspect and the like. Kim Stone, the protagonist DI, is sort of a young jaded Jane Tennison with issues, and a gruff person as a result but, as one might expect, her heart is in the right place. She gets the job done, brandishing her acerbic wit (and temper).
When an employee connected to a state run institution is found drowned in her bathtub, DI Stone begins to investigate the murders of three unfortunate girls who are found buried in a shallow grave outside a former orphanage from hell. More bodies pile up. And maybe one or two more. The story itself might stretch the reader’s belief system a bit but it’s a well-told one, with excellent investigation details, nuanced supporting characters (I love Bryant, especially when he – [mini spoiler] – adopts the dogs), terrific descriptions of the Black Country locale and a genuine commentary on institutional systems that create monsters and misfits out of their inhabitants and administrators.
I would easily have given this book five stars if not for…
*** SPOILER AHEAD ***
Multiple murderers. Come on! For those of us who enjoy trying to piece the clues together and ‘solve the crime’, this is such a disappointment. The author is in good company here (Gillian Flynn, anyone?) but it’s not playing fair with the reader. A writer who works this hard can surely tell a compelling mystery without obfuscating the story with over-complicated plot lines and pulling the wool over our eyes the easy way.
Having said that, I would recommend Silent Scream to fans of crime fiction, and personally look forward to more in this series.
June 22, 2015
Looking for the Dead Boys is #Free this week
Take a wild ride with the Dead Boys as an ex-con mother searches for her missing daughter and a biker gang boss discovers new depths of depravity. It’s biker bad in the 1970s, with more twists and turns than a mountain road at 3 a.m.—and a curveball ending that will keep the reader turning pages. *Free* this week on Amazon.
While you’re at it, pick up Sendero, an edgy thriller set in Peru during the aftermath of the dirty war, for 99 cents.
June 14, 2015
Spenser Version 2.0: Wonderland by Ace Atkins #BookReview
Back in the dark ages before Kindle, one of my favorite authors was Robert B. Parker. His Spenser PI books were enormously readable: entertaining, witty, with literary illusions for the college grads who read pulp, not to mention some pretty decent plots. Spenser was the updated wise-cracking detective, tough and tender, the lone gunman who could jump through windows or whip up a gourmet meal with one hand while drinking an imported beer with the other. Spenser’s sidekick Hawk introduced the American reading public to perhaps their first minority mystery character, and Spenser’s main squeeze, Susan Silverman (Spenser is monogamous, despite the efforts of many persistent females), added some pop psychology and sophisticated banter. I remember reading my first ‘F’ word in a mystery novel ever in a Spenser book back in the 70s—what a shock. In close to forty books Parker took a tired format and punched it up to become one of the most popular PI series ever. There was even a television show: Spenser for Hire.
When Robert Parker passed away in 2010 I assumed that was the end of Spenser as well, who was perhaps getting to be a little old to be jumping through any more windows (even though Spenser, the man with no first name, never ages). Times were moving on and we had a new cast of grittier, darker, more urban detectives to read.
So when Ace Atkins (author of the acclaimed Quinn Colson ‘Ranger’ series) took on the Spenser books in 2011, I held off. I have never found a book continuation that ever truly worked under a different author (not even Parker’s Chandler). The smudges on the copy were always too evident for my liking.
Well, I was wrong.
I started with Wonderland, simply because it had the highest Amazon ratings, and was more than pleasantly surprised. Spenser is back, version 2.0, with upgraded smart-aleck remarks and current themes. Spenser’s signature humor is even punchier than I remembered. The settings and PI tone are just about perfect to the original. There’s a new sidekick, a Cree Indian named Z, who is kind of a junior Hawk in training, but one with personal issues he must deal with. And the usual cast of good and bad guys. A cross-country airplane flight whizzed right by.
Wonderland opens with some thugs pushing Spenser’s boxing pal Henry Cimoli and his neighbors around, trying to muscle them out of their condo building. Spenser and Z get involved, thinking they’ll shoo off the bad guys and be back to drinking beer and trading one-liners in no time. But the toughs don’t scare easily. Then Spenser finds a disused, broken-down dog track by the name of Wonderland near Henry’s condo complex to be the center of interest for some Vegas hoods and a local Boston politician. When a moneyed real estate developer a la Donald Trump loses his head—literally—Spenser realizes he’s onto something big. Then come the fisticuffs, gunfights and a beautiful unclothed female, along with the usual Spenser fare. But most of all there is Spenser’s classic wit, extremely well-handled by Atkins. Maybe even better than Parker’s. I read an interview with Robert B. Parker (way back before there were Kindles) and recall him saying he essentially wrote one draft of each Spenser book. That was it. Well, towards the end of Spenser version 1.0, it showed. Not so with Atkins, however, who has polished Spenser’s dialog to a shine that dazzles. I found myself rereading much of it for sheer pleasure.
The plot in Wonderland gets a little elaborate past the half-way mark, with an ever-growing cast of bad guys and some questionable motives by the lead suspects, but it doesn’t really matter by then. When the last page came, I was ready for more Spenser version 2.0.
May 21, 2015
Two Faces of January – Dead Bodies and Love Triangles – Book Review
Patricia Highsmith’s wonderfully deviant, amoral characters set her books apart from those of her peers. In a genre where flawed, bizarre personalities are obligatory no other author drilled into the inner workings of their players quite like Highsmith did. She wasn’t afraid to take her time to build characters that radiated psychopathic tension, blending the everyday with the outlandish in a way that we as readers identify with some pretty reprehensible people. In Highsmith’s novels it’s difficult to tell the hero from the villain and often, as in her popular Ripley books, it’s the criminal (often murderer) that we root for. The same forces are at work in The Two Faces of January, and I dare you to find a good person in these pages. But it doesn’t matter. In this story of three expat Americans who cross paths in early 1960s Athens, you’ll want one or two of them to get away with their grubby little plans.
Dead bodies and love triangles tend not to go together well. (Photo from the motion picture adaptation of Two Faces of January.)
Rydel is a wandering Peter Pan living off his grandmother’s money, putting off the inevitable trip back home to the US to face dreaded responsibility when he encounters Chester, a crooked stockbroker on the run, who accidentally kills a Greek policeman who is onto him. For no other reason than that Chester reminds Rydel of his father, Rydel helps Chester hide the body and acquires forged passports for him and his comely wife, Colette. Chester invites Rydel to accompany him and Colette to Crete to help the couple navigate their way out of Greece, beyond the reach of the authorities (Rydel speaks Greek and has shady connections). But Colette’s infatuation for Rydel upsets the applecart, and Chester sees red. No one seems to think twice about the death of a policeman, let alone marital vows. It may feel like love–for two of the three–but it doesn’t end well.
Rydel is one of Highsmith’s better creations, quite affable as he keeps veering away from doing the right thing. He just can’t seem to. For some reason, the reader understands. Chester is a perfect villain, probably because he would be the last to admit it. Colette is a well-nuanced temptress, made of real flesh and blood, with a heart and soul. The secondary characters in this novel are all Highsmith quality as well.
I’m not sure why this book is trending towards three stars in the ratings—it’s one of Highsmith’s better ones, with its simple tale of three people who think they can do no wrong but end up doing an awful lot of it.
My only disappointment came in the final few pages, where I was hoping for one final twist that didn’t come. The ending I envisioned seemed glaringly obvious to me but Patricia Highsmith clearly wasn’t thinking what I was thinking when she penned this book—or maybe she didn’t want to be predictable. One wonders what she was thinking, with her weird and wicked plots.
Regardless, by the time Two Faces is rolling, the plot feels inevitable. And that’s the mark of a master.
May 8, 2015
Looking for the Dead Boys: 99 Cent Kindle Countdown
–> Looking for the Dead Boys is 99 cents until May 15th – ��enjoy!
It���s 1977, California. Once blissed-out hippies have taken a liking to crystal meth. Punk rock is on the turntable.
More than anything, misfit Dredge wants to be one of the Dead Boys, a motorcycle gang bent on controlling Santa Cruz��� growing methamphetamine market. But first he has to impress Spider.
Spider isn���t going to let anyone take over his lucrative dealing action. A drug deal with a Latino gang trying to move into Dead Boys��� turf turns into a killing spree.
With long red hair, an oil-burner dope habit and a pair of earrings that look like little silver birds, Eva Braun���not her real name, of course���is Spider���s old lady. Her self-destructive streak leads her to tell the cops about the murder of four Latin gang members. Dredge would love to save Eva, but maybe he better find a way to save himself.
Colleen Hayes did ten years in prison for killing her ex. With a gun in her pocket, she���s heading to Santa Cruz on a mission: to rescue her glassy-eyed daughter from the Dead Boys.
Nobody crosses Spider. Not the Latinos. Not the Chinese Tong waiting to make their move. Not Dredge. Or Eva. Or Colleen. And not the little girl who lives next to the Dead Boys��� house and watches everything, especially the pretty lady with the red hair and bird earrings.
Their lives are on a collision course and time is running out.
Looking for the Dead Boys:��Peace, love and vengeance.
~~~
Take equal parts Elmore Leonard, Patricia Highsmith and Cormac McCarthy, add a dash of Quentin Tarantino and stir in a stolen kilo of methamphetamine. Blend it with what Henning Mankell calls ���my own language��� and you have LOOKING FOR THE DEAD BOYS.
Do you want to order Dead Boys? Of��course you do! –> Order Dead Boys
��Vivan los escritores!
