Peter Prasad's Blog: Expletives Deleted - Posts Tagged "thriller"

Here I sit, looking like the bald-headed biker on a bar stool. Most folks think I’m guarding the bathroom door, so they go outside. Well, it’s all because I’VE BEEN EDITED. I gave her the Hope diamond and get back a glittery tennis bracelet.

NEWS: SONOMA KNIGHT: THE GOAT-RIPPER CASE will be ready for you by Flag Day June 14th. it's a sexy romantic crime thriller set in the heart of wine country. The research was awesome.

GOAT-RIPPER came back from my editor Temma et.al. and it’s been lipo-suctioned without sedatives. Reduced to a filth-grade reading level (ok, 10th grade) but IT SINGS ANGELIC NOW. My virgin queen returned a tawdy tart called art vox populi. I love her little scar and sundry orchid tattoos. We waltz a one-armed lalapalooza.

Every Papa gets growing pains. Mine start in both big toes and end with a headache. Drugs are no help; I favor dregs.

I cried at her ripped bodice and soiled slippers. She lost her tidy whities in the undergrowth. When the clock chimed midnight, her Venetian carriage popped a pumpkin and my bodkin splattered a wall painter’s T-shirt.

Frick if this biker didn’t weep. No sleep. I needed a nap before I could paint on a brave new face for the human race.

So whadda-ya-get? GOAT-RIPPER is a slam dunk three-point outside shot with lotsa air. Warning to Air Jordan. Steph Curry and me be hanging with Buster Posey for Inspiration Ah Hum.

We’re in it ALL THE WAY. GURL-POSSE and GUT-CHECK will be e-book ready by Turkey Day so you can wallpaper your loved ones for Xmas. I have a goal. It keeps me out of jail.

We’ve yanked the anchor to set sail out back the badlands like the motorcycle mol on Highway One Neil Young sings about. We have motion; we have Ocean. Leave your life vest off and jump into life, feet forward, ass hanging out.

I love this writer’s life. Sink or swim, we pay coin at River Stix no matter the condition we’re in.

Huzzah, Barkeep, make mine a triple latte Kenya Gold, double dollop whipped cream and dash the Malagasy vanilla. Set 'em up for my writer friends all round. We have writing to do.

Come join my tribe. We wear feathers and howl at the moon. Dance barefoot and delight plant and animal kingdoms. We line dance in concentric circles to bongo drums.

Cue orchestra, Bolero, if you please. Play Come & Go Blues at interlude. Free popcorn. I swear to champion life and love my neighbor until my last full stop. Then please have me re-printed, re-covered and re-issued. I oath genre-bending until I wear out my britches.

I accept this writer’s fate and wish for but one more life to give my readers. No blindfold. No cheroot. Fire at will.

I shall be reborn with 26 new characters tomorrow. You bet. SEMPER FRICKIN’ FRY. Jake Knight reminds me, I’m a writer and anything can happen.

I swear that’s what the note from my editor said. Like a have an extra one in my pocket?

Some of you may be able to pop them out like cupcakes, but I like a bath and a facial, a long drive in the country, appetizers and yummy bites, and desert, before desert.

That’s why I order breakfast in bed and linger in, hoping for seconds.

CHEER: Well, GOAT-RIPPER is all done, professionally edited, proofed & polished, except for a final sex scene.
I’ve always wanted to write about a trapeze, so maybe I have an idea.

It’s because my mother was once a costumer for the circus. And that’s a true bit of our family myth. Anyway, Mom, this book’s for you. Now exactly how did I get here? Oh yeah, the sailor suit.

RULE: I’ve heard that every sentence must advance the character or the plot. In a crime thriller, like GOAT-RIPPER, sex is not a plot point.

It’s a character-building interlude. Unless my P.I. Jake Knight is shooting high-def video on a serial fill-in-the-blank for a client. Then we lay low waiting for low-light conditions.

“Ready to roll tape, your honor? May we dim the lights?”

Jake Knight has always wanted to say that. With judges today, ya never know.

What plays in one community sure doesn’t in another. And Sonoma is no different.

My favorite Beta reader comment to date? “You do every Marine proud.”

That means, men, you have permission to read Peter Prasad’s book Sonoma Knight: The Goat-Ripper Case.

Due Flag Day. June 14th. Kindle willing. At ease.

Best to you, dear reader. Save room for wine & cheese & murder this summer.

Cheers!

GOAT-RIPPER is being formatted into a e-book for mid-June. Paper to follow. Please save room on your beach towel.

Here's what early readers say:

"You do every Marine proud."
"Nash Bridges' daring, Steinbeck's eye and Vonnegut's heart."


Here's the opening:

Jake heard a sad goat cry as he woke from his last nap in Redwoods hospital.

HUZZAH authors all. We face the blank white sheet every morning and we'd better learn to worship our readership if we want to sail very far.

On'ya. Best to ya!

WHAT? I was reading some nut-job in a forum who says "he don't need no editor or proofer". In the nicest way, I blew my stack. Here's what I said.

Write the best book you can. Leave it rest then come back at it with rested eyes. Cut. Cut. Cut. Then give it to an editor. If you have plot problems or character conflicts, hire a developmental editor. Hollywood is filled with script doctors that punch up action and cut off soliloquies.

If your manuscript needs LIPOSUCTION (we all do), the rock-bottom rate is 2-cents a word. It's worth tons more. Then give it to Beta readers. Then to a Line Editor who reads every sentence backwards and all dialog out loud. In the end, the author owns every word.

Here are changes in GOAT-RIPPER that my priceless editor Temma made:

a) Give a 20-something character a redemption scene; she’s not THAT stupid.

b) Punch up the hooks and get the plot moving from page one. Note: I dislike reading thrillers paced for cardiac-arrest; however I like to watch Bourne-again races.

When I read, I want to feel the setting (it’s a hidden character) and enjoy discovering what makes the characters do their do.

c) Update the local tavern to a place where more hipsters hang out, but don’t touch the music in the juke box. It’s golden.

d) Threaten rape & mayhem more often. Men stop thinking when that happens.

e) Add more face-offs between evil Wild Bill and Bronze Star Jake Knight.

f) Cut half the background context about making cheese. This was hard. I made cheese every weekend for a year to get to know my subject.

g) Cut the smarty-arty and crank the pulse-pounding. This was easy. I forego sleep until I can’t think straight. After ten words in a sentence, my brain pools to oatmeal. Period.

It took me days to digest Temma's suggestions, but now I'd paint her toe nails. I did rescue three things and say: Sorry that how the story goes.

After all this, the last Beta reader found 10 typos, subject-verb conflicts, weird author awkward-isms, a minor plot stumble and other indulgences. Frick, the Kindle-cognoscenti woulda ate me.

In short, YOU ARE YOUR BOOK, so be a great one. or do it solo and read like another term paper.

At Out-of-Doors School on Siesta Key, I’m confident GOAT-RIPPER gets an A-. The minus is for three potty-mouth words, but then bad guys talk that way in crime thrillers, huh.

On’ya, dear readers!

In the historical fiction genre, gals pounce on bodice-rippers. Men in wet wool uniforms opt for the clash of swords in the open air. We dig into history to hold a battle line or shield wall and our favored authors put us there, sweat-stained, gore-splattered and gawping.

Flash forward and the kimono of crime scene tape is lifted. We’re invited to gape at heinousness, then ape the good guys. We romp through mayhem, scared witless, and marvel at Miss. Marple’s astute views. If she’s a kick-butt P.I., all the better.

Toss in a top gallant, a slaver and chains, and dialogs turn salty. We celebrate like a rum-soaked bawd. Historic noir is a place for peak experiences only when you’re already a bent penny.

Today’s crime thrillers are the historical fiction of tomorrow. Our hearts throb in the boudoir as he fumbles to be less than straight-laced after twilight. Outside, the posse races with evil intent to run the rapscallion to ground or put him up a tree at the end of a noose. Our collective cellular memories revert to when we sacked anyone not of our tribe -- brown-eyed, blue-eyed, wooly-haired -- pick your side.

Historians marshal facts; fiction writers season the epic stew with tastes, smells and the steps of the espadrille. In black ink, evil threatens all until a hero draws a line in the sand and lust floods the street beside the house of the rising sun. We’ve all been those children in the learning lab of centuries, where students had no choice, hardly a voice, and never a stun gun.

Since Moses came down from the mountain and Hammarabi scratched his tablets, we’re told it doesn’t pay to be cruel in the village that raised us, so we take it outside to the vellum between the sheets of a hum-dinger pulp fiction.

So, dear reader, toss a copper coin to the bard. He sings history so we’re glad we escaped it. We mow down Yankees in cornfields from Pork Chop Hill -- killing is a crime and reading it is a thrill.

Problems? Overnight them in the dungeon and we’ll hear confessions in the morning.

Ah-ha history -- let’s all be kind to readers and writers so we can make more of it.

Back at 101 writer’s block, my latest best effort awaits your persnickety peepers at:
http://www.amazon.com/Goat-Ripper-Son...

On’Ya, readers & writers all!

Welcome a new American hero – Buffalo Dick Maddock. Run as they might, Dick makes this chase of mad bombers a cake walk with blood splatter. Bet on Buffalo Dick in a dust-up. He’ll dog you from Brazilia to Argentina to danger zones north. Then he sprints in a chase that raises the bar from page-turner to cinematic blockbuster. It don’t matter, Dick refuses to die.

I’m amazed when a writer weaves story craft this tight. DICK’s enemies jump off the page with full-blown back story. Hats off to new author Duff O’Brian, a master of plot that drips credibility and rings true in technical detail. The research could crash Wall Street. The havoc promised will keep Homeland Security up at night. So cut your teeth on Uncle Sam’s nightmare.

I emailed O’Brian to learn more. Everything in Buffalo Dick, he says, can be checked on the Internet: The deaths from radiation poisoning in Goianas; the private intelligence agency; the top-secret British army unit; etc. The legend of White Buffalo Woman is authentic Plains Indian lore. He hopes people read along with a live Internet connection.

O’Brian cites Borges, Marquez, and Kafka to explain his ‘magical realist’ perspective. My favorite reference: When Lewis & Clark reached the Mandan villages in 1804, they noted tall, white-skinned Mandans who spoke a language similar to Welsh. It was believed they were the lost descendants of Prince Madoc (Maddock), a 7-foot tall Welshman who historians say made two trips to North America 300 years before Columbus; on the second trip he brought 100 colonists, and they were never seen again.

From a lost tribe to a New York brownstone to an Argentine bistro, Dick chases ‘hell on wheels’ until the tires come off. For pure grit, I loved it. The first 20-pages are resilient with word choice, then the yarn puts you in a hammer-lock until the last page. The dastards do their do until Dick is driven to drill them through and through. 5-stars, plus Orion’s Belt for plausibility, as in OMG this could really happen.

"Add more sex; it makes your characters human." My editor said that and I blushed. Like a have extra sex scenes lying around my writer’s nook. Some authors pop them out like cookies. I'm old-school. I want a bath, appetizers and desert, before desert.

RIPPER got its extra sex scenes. Are you curious to see what happened on a beach blanket at Drake's Bay?

My favorite reviewer comment: “Honors the soil of Sonoma and the culture of wine & cheese.”

If you’d like to read RIPPER for Free, it’s available at Story Cartel in exchange for an honest review.

A 10-Day promo, so hurry. Wine, cheese and murder set on a sheep dairy in Sonoma. YUM! And save room for desert.

Click here to read for Free: http://dld.bz/cJZJd

Thank you good readers. On’Ya.

I’ve trained as a Buddhist meditator for 40 years now, so I enjoy watching new processes awake in me. I have my crime thriller out, Sonoma Knight: The Goat-Ripper Case. It’s my homage to cheese-makers, organic milk and the beauty of Sonoma.

It took me months to craft a bad guy. When Koch Semper got onto the page, he spawned an even more twisted assistant, Wild Bill. Said a reviewer: “After chapter two, I wanted to see Semper burn.” Said another: “Prasad paints a beautiful, peaceful picture of Sonoma’s winery and farmland, before he shocks the reader by weaving darkness and perversion of a sexually dominant narcissist and a sick-o psychotic into it.”

One reader refused to finish Ripper because she hated Koch Semper so much. So I guess I succeeded; I created bad guys that deserved to die. The forgiving Buddhist in me required bad guys beyond redemption so I could plot their come-uppance. For my next thriller, I’ll opt for moral ambiguity. Goat-Ripper came out to my satisfaction. I hope you’ll read it.

REVIEWS: For the last month I’ve been working the reviews circuit by gifting books, having a book party, participating at Story Cartel (shout out!), chatting up Facebook and Goodreads review groups. Reviews are the bread and butter of Indie Authors. Please express yourself as often as you can, good reader.

As the reviews come in, I notice they create a distancing phenomenon in me. They separate me from my book. A year of hard labor gets summarized in five sentences. I’m not complaining; I’m marveling. It fuels my fire to write an even better one.

Reviews help process the break-up between author and novel. The story has to stand on its own. While I delight in watching Ripper dance through a reader’s imagination, my job is to make the next one better. Of course, I stay drunk on my own imagination in the process, and that’s a better brew than tap water.

I struggle to turn my pencil into a vaulter’s pole in order to top one reviewer’s opinion. “Jake Knight, a returned wounded veteran, finds himself involved with a wine merchant with murderous intentions.....the style of this book is excellent, it is a fun read, extremely funny and witty and the author has not only created a gem of a book, he is created some wonderfully inspired characters.”

Please hand me a tissue to blot my tears as one book departs and to stop a nose bleed that the next thriller requires. It’s all for your enjoyment, dear reader, and I’d have it no other way. Thank you, dear readers and reviewers. On’Ya.

Heather Myers did a wonderful job of asking me questions. I did a poor job of answering them, but then I'm rarely satisfied with answers, much preferring questions. Questions open me up and make me wonder...what if? Answers have a habit of making me ask...is that all?

http://portsideinterviews.blogspot.co...

As an author, the lesson for me is to be mindful of all my characters. I never know which characters my readers will identify with and they want to see a satisfying story arc for each one. Vanessa began as a victim. However my readers demanded that she have a redemption scene and evolve out of victim mode. She does.

Here's a detailed review for Sonoma Knight: The Goat-Ripper Case. Thank you, Naor. I feel honored to earn your 4-stars.

The first volume of a new series is always exciting for me to read. I always have lots of questions regarding whether I would like the characters, the premise of the stories, and whether the author will have enough ideas to keep it going and interesting for more than one or two efforts. That is why I was interested when Peter Prasad asked me to review this book – which is clearly the first offering of a new thriller series.

The book is set in Sonoma County. The main character is Jake Knight who was wounded in Afghanistan and is now returning to civilian life. As it turns out, Jake’s father recently died and his farm is in trouble, so Jake and his brother Wally combine with a set of partners to create a cheese making farm that will also grow its own sheep for milking. As the farm gets established, and as Jake recovers from his wound and begins establishing himself in his new life, certain dark clouds start gathering. For one, goats are being killed, semi-gutted, and their corpses are left in various parts of the county near Jake’s farm with only their livers missing.

Being Sonoma County, wine is quite a big thing and so the second dark cloud is that near Jake’s farm a winery was sold to someone named Semper who apparently is not as honest of a citizen, nor as good of a winemaker as he would like you to believe. Being a thriller, there is very little suspense in identifying who is the bad guy in this story. What makes it compelling is figuring out what his real aspirations and inclinations are, and then following the story as the bad guy is uncovered and the hero rewarded for his good deeds.

I believe that there are three components to a series that all must work to allow it to continue: The first is the plot of each book, and that’s what I tried to describe above, without giving away too much of the rest of the book. The second is the set of characters. What I look for here is whether the hero or heroes seem authentic and whether the supporting characters are people that I would want to read more about. Finally, I look to see if the characters evolve both within the scope of the book itself, and then in subsequent books.

In this book I found that I liked most of the characters that will probably make repeat appearances in the series. Wally as the nerdy chemist is well-described especially when it comes to the more active portions of the story. Tanya is a bit over the top for me and some of her backstory needs to be filled out, while Sonya and Hap make too brief appearances to really say.

The pair of cheesemaker partners that join Jake and Wally seem believable to an extent and the descriptions of what they’re doing are authentic.

I do think there are some issues with the book nonetheless. One of the side characters is a young woman named Vanessa who ends up being victimized by Semper. I found her actions to be too naïve and the victimization that she experiences – while highlighting Semper’s depravity – was too much for me to believe. Similarly, the timing of some of the events was too tight for me to swallow. I explained my views to the author who answered all of my concerns, but I still feel that the time lines were too close for comfort.

Overall, I think this book and the series have lots of potential and offer some fun new angles. I’ve given it a four star rating because of the enjoyment I got from reading it and hope that future volumes will get better so as to receive five star ratings.