Peter Prasad's Blog: Expletives Deleted, page 2

5-star Review. GUT-CHECK GREEN. 99-cents This Week Only.

I thoroughly enjoyed this eco-thriller. The pacing was excellent and kept me fully engaged from start to finish. The descriptive writing was superb!

As a reader, I was pulled in immediately by the main character, Jake Knight. He authentically brings the viewpoint of warriors returning to civilian life, along with all the challenges that entails. He reminds me of Tom Selleck's TV character, Thomas Magnum or currently, Leroy Jethro Gibbs on NCIS....smart, focused, and deadly.

The eco-terrorists in the story were equally compelling. As I read, I learned more about current hot topics facing veterans and also those facing all of us regarding the stewardship of our planet and the care of its resources. I would recommend this book to anyone who enjoys a thriller tied to current world issues.

http://www.amazon.com/Gut-Check-Green...



Thank you, Kathy! To celebrate the new year, GUT-CHECK GREEN is 99-cents this week only. Happy Reading!

New review: GUT-CHECK GREEN

GUT-CHECK GREEN: “Vivid. Prasad's use of description is nothing short of magic. You want to be transported into another world? You want to escape reality and immerse yourself into someone else's fight? Pick up this book. Now.

"When I started reading this book, I felt like I was watching a movie play out in my mind. That same magic stayed with me throughout the entire story. But it's not just his writing style that grabs you. You feel like you become the characters. You feel like you are inside their heads; their addictions. And you want to pull for every character, even if you feel a little guilty by doing so.

"But it's more than just the description or the characters that made this such a strong story for me. As a writer, I read not just for enjoyment, but to learn how to perfect my own craft. While I was reading Gut-Check Green, I was taking mental notes on how Prasad worked out his action scenes. There were no wasted words. No fillers to make the story longer. Each word had its place to further enhance the story. Each line written can be used to make the reader feel like they are watching something they really shouldn't be seeing. But you can't look away. And you can't quit reading.

"Overall, Gut-Check Green is a great thriller. Once I started, I couldn't put it down. Neither will you."

Thank you, author Cindy D. Witherspoon.
http://www.cynthiadwitherspoon.com
Happy Holiday Hugs! You help make writing fun!

http://www.amazon.com/Gut-Check-Green...

Hark! The craft is in the lotus!

Review: The Assassin Lotus by David Angsten



For a thriller author, Angsten bites off a mouth full and delivers a feast. His well-told tale stretches from Rome to the historical vistas of the Silk Road. He pits multiple religious traditions against a lineage of terrorist assassins. Subterfuge and cliff-hangers lurk behind every sand dune. People tumble faster than dominoes in this exploration of love, lust, reality, zeal and somatic insights.

As a thriller writer and practicing Buddhist, I find no fault with Angsten’s craft, style, content and intent. In fact, I laud him for trying to chew through so much of history while telling a gripping story. He makes the reader richer for it by reflecting purely delightful experiences of insight and radiance. Enjoy amateur sleuths that tour the ends of the world at a breakneck pace on the quest of a lifetime. Even several lifetimes, if history is to be believed. On’Ya author! This is a five-star feast for readers!

Now, as a writer, what about David’s craft lit me up?

A) Amateur sleuths – they’re allowed to stumble through the story, going head to head with more skilled assassins and finding a way to survive.

B) Globe-trotting – I love an exciting yarn that takes an historical turn through the sands of time on the Silk Road. It feeds my imagination and saves me a trip to Tibet or having to ride on a camel.

C) Soma – the magic elixir, the shortcut to Nirvana, however fleeting. This makes a noble quest though I never found a tea shop that had soma on the menu. Goes to show most readers will try anything once.

D) Weaving a magic carpet – The craft comes from sprinkling the history in little bits like bacon croutons and not getting trapped by your own backstory. When weaving so many richly colorful threads, it’s hard to stay story-lean. Angsten does a jewel of a job with that too. – Peter Prasad, author, The Goat-Ripper Case

WILD, a review of female characters

How Likable Do Your Female Characters Need To Be?

This question fascinates me. So I was reading Time’s review of Reese Witherspoon’s new movie WILD. The headline said the lead character isn’t nice or wholesome and that’s what makes the movie great. As a writer, I read on.

“She's foul-mouthed, unfaithful, abrasive and irresponsible — which is what makes her the most unexpectedly great protagonist in years,” said the review. Wow, Hollywood shifted from fantasy to realism for a week in mid-December and, yes, I’ll be buying a ticket.

Every book or movie has a chance to redefine its genre, at least throw some serious moral directive one way or another. For every Captain Jack Sparrow, there’s a Mata Hari, the archetype femme fatale, out there waiting to be inked. The real question is how likable do female characters need to be? I remember watching Beaver’s mother June Cleaver on TV in the early 1960s to establish a point of embarkation. We’ve come a long way, writers.

Here’s more that resonated with me from the review. For WILD to work as confessional memoir, honesty must trump likability. Empathy for the character results from her wholeness, not her wholesomeness. We have to buy into her journey and participate in her process as she cleans up her ugly bits, and thus we experience some purification too. Ah, catharsis!

The reviewer says Reese’s character heals her own wounds through self-acceptance. The review concludes, “And if audiences hope to see more fully formed female characters onscreen, it is we who must take her as she is — all the way to the box office, and in droves.”

WILD is a movie I will take my daughters to see. I sense I may soon be bold enough to craft wildly entertaining, beyond the pale and slightly over the edge characters in my next book. No one wants to read safe, sane dreck any longer.

If you’d like to stumble through a gritty, thrilling growth experience with one of my female characters, check out GURL-POSSE KIDNAP. OnYa, dear readers & writers!

http://www.amazon.com/Gurl-Posse-Kidn...

Review: GUT-CHECK GREEN 5-Star Thriller

With Gut-Check Green Prasad wrote a novel that is intelligent, thought-provoking, fast moving, suspenseful and very entertaining. The story flows, is well structured and easy to read. There are patches of dark humor, the book is brilliantly written and the story kept me guessing to the end.

Sonoma PI Jake Knight is the kind of protagonist you want to find in a good thriller. Pencil, one of the bad guys, establishes himself right from the beginning as a bad guy, when he kills a… Sorry, can’t give away too much.

I hope Peter Prasad enjoyed a few glasses of Sonoma wine after he had completed this novel. He deserved it. I highly recommend Gut-Check Green, a climate fiction thriller. -- Fred Schafer, author, Don't Mention the FBI.

http://www.amazon.com/Gut-Check-Green...

Happy Holidays. GUT-CHECK GREEN 99-cents!

GUT-CHECK GREEN
A climate fiction thriller of vigilante justice. Sonoma PI Jake Knight goes undercover against eco-terrorists.

“This is Gut-Check Green, the defenders of Mother Nature, checking in.
Dirt-ball corporations: we rank them, spank them and prank them. Lasso makes poison and now you’re all going to die.
Remember to love your planet. This is Gut-Check Green, checking out.”

Gut-Check Green: http://www.amazon.com/Gut-Check-Green...

CHAPTER 1

Their dance with the Grim Reaper had arrived. After tonight, there’d be no turning back. Pencil, Lizard Bill and Brandy Wine huddled on the tattered bench seat of a smelly plumber’s van. Rain drops tattooed the windshield in an empty car park on Petrified Forest Road outside Calistoga, a hot springs resort town at the top of the Napa valley.

Pencil heard a motorcycle echo on the mountain road and paid it no attention. The heater roared but he shivered anyway. Dim light from the dash-mounted GPS guided his hand into a bag at his feet. He peeled off the VA prescription label and filled the syringe. Living with the effects of exposure to an Agent Orange dioxin was his permanent pain. He’d been within inhalation range of a dirty bomb sometime during his career for the red, white and blue, all off the record in lands far away. He injected the cocktail of anti-viral meds. He had so many cancers, he was metastasizing to a cold grave.

He bagged the meds and wiped his nose on the dirty sleeve of his blue overalls. His hands rarely stopped trembling. He longed for a pain killer, a skin pop of the Dilaudid, his favorite hydromorphone, but he denied himself. Tonight he had work to do.

“It’s about frickin’ time. Lasso Corporation is going down.” Brandy spoke from the driver’s seat with a fervent fire in her eyes and stared at her two soldiers. Her voice ratcheted to a war cry. “We’ll get the attention of the kids, the campuses, the future farmers and foodistas, and we can change the world.” She smacked the steering wheel and pushed her clenched fist toward her partners.

The rabid zeal in her voice embarrassed Pencil. He turned to face her, his ice-cold eyes catching every gesture. He’d heard it before in a dozen briefing rooms and war zones. It was stupid to go into battle with emotions over-amped. But Brandy gave the orders, and Pencil needed her. She was the mother of his craving, so he went along.

Her flushed cheeks glowed red; her bugged-out eyes animated a sad, drooping face. She chomped on a wad of gum. He guessed she was high on amphetamines, with a chaser of nicotine gum. She motor-mouthed her insecurities when she got like this. He knew she drew on a festering ache. This was personal for her.

“Last go for Lasso. Ready to raise the flag?” Brandy howled. She needed to hear them say it one more time. She had a habit of seeking reassurance every thirty minutes, despite being the smart one.

Pencil groaned and knew, for her, it was another kind of need. Brandy had never killed, but Pencil had, too many times. She identified targets and left the execution to him. Lizard was the PC whizz, the creative one, back-up for supply and logistics. It was Pencil who got the killing done. He leaned forward and tapped out a drum roll on the dashboard. He wanted to get his blood up. Every command-post jockey needed to hear her foot soldiers say ‘Oorah’.

“Do or die and maybe both,” Lizard chimed in and bumped fists with Brandy. His laughter turned into a hacking cough with a wheezy rumble deep in his chest. Pencil lived with that sound. He often debated with Lizard about who was sicker.

Pencil extended his fist to bump brotherhood. “I’m dead already,” he said. “Tonight decorates my tombstone.”

“So what if we’re all sick puppies,” Brandy said. “I refuse to let Lasso Corporation poison my planet.” Her jaw chain-sawed at the gum. Pencil cringed; it was like she was auditioning for a Rambo movie.

“Lasso’s wall of lies gets plowed under tonight.” Brandy bounced up and down in her seat like a demented juvenile. “I want to see a sweet harvest for these chemical monsters.” She was wound up higher than a soap box. Chemical monsters? Sure they were; Pencil had a grudge he could extend to any target at any time.

“College campuses will rise up. Society will hear us.” Brandy’s voice overcame the hum of the heater, the engine and the rain. Pencil was afraid to look. He suspected she might be foaming at the mouth. “We the people will know,” she screamed. “And a certain class of assholes goes on notice. Take responsibility for your products, or die. You can’t pump that poison any longer. We, the people, won’t stand for it.”

Pencil wondered if Brandy’s speech qualified as end of life counseling. It made her feel better, and she made him feel better, so what the hell. Then the flash of police lights splashed across the ratty interior and caught him unprepared.

Strobes of red, blue and white flooded through the vehicle in a rapid flicker that sickened him. He closed his eyes, pressed down on his stomach and exhaled slowly. No way could the cops have an alert out already, he thought. He’d stolen the plumber’s van off a job site that morning in San Jose, a hundred miles south, and changed license plates. It had to be routine, or worse, a curious rookie cursed with the helpfulness disease.

“Oh god, Pencil, deal with it,” Brandy shrieked. Her bravado evaporated. She slid down in her seat and moaned like a wounded animal. The flashing colors bounced off her golden locks. She looked wicked old, paste-white skin and sunken eyes. She folded under a chocolate colored party dress and clutched her legs to her chest. Pencil saw the toes of her red stiletto heels hang over the edge of her seat.

Lizard went all spastic, clutching Pencil’s arm, his hands bad with tremors. “I’m begging, bro. Time to do your thing.”

Happy Holidays. Gut-Check Green 99-cents this week.

GUT-CHECK GREEN
A climate fiction thriller of vigilante justice. Sonoma PI Jake Knight goes undercover against eco-terrorists.

“This is Gut-Check Green, the defenders of Mother Nature, checking in.
Dirt-ball corporations: we rank them, spank them and prank them. Lasso makes poison and now you’re all going to die.
Remember to love your planet. This is Gut-Check Green, checking out.”

CHAPTER 1

Their dance with the Grim Reaper had arrived. After tonight, there’d be no turning back. Pencil, Lizard Bill and Brandy Wine huddled on the tattered bench seat of a smelly plumber’s van. Rain drops tattooed the windshield in an empty car park on Petrified Forest Road outside Calistoga, a hot springs resort town at the top of the Napa valley.

Pencil heard a motorcycle echo on the mountain road and paid it no attention. The heater roared but he shivered anyway. Dim light from the dash-mounted GPS guided his hand into a bag at his feet. He peeled off the VA prescription label and filled the syringe. Living with the effects of exposure to an Agent Orange dioxin was his permanent pain. He’d been within inhalation range of a dirty bomb sometime during his career for the red, white and blue, all off the record in lands far away. He injected the cocktail of anti-viral meds. He had so many cancers, he was metastasizing to a cold grave.

He bagged the meds and wiped his nose on the dirty sleeve of his blue overalls. His hands rarely stopped trembling. He longed for a pain killer, a skin pop of the Dilaudid, his favorite hydromorphone, but he denied himself. Tonight he had work to do.

“It’s about frickin’ time. Lasso Corporation is going down.” Brandy spoke from the driver’s seat with a fervent fire in her eyes and stared at her two soldiers. Her voice ratcheted to a war cry. “We’ll get the attention of the kids, the campuses, the future farmers and foodistas, and we can change the world.” She smacked the steering wheel and pushed her clenched fist toward her partners.

The rabid zeal in her voice embarrassed Pencil. He turned to face her, his ice-cold eyes catching every gesture. He’d heard it before in a dozen briefing rooms and war zones. It was stupid to go into battle with emotions over-amped. But Brandy gave the orders, and Pencil needed her. She was the mother of his craving, so he went along.

Her flushed cheeks glowed red; her bugged-out eyes animated a sad, drooping face. She chomped on a wad of gum. He guessed she was high on amphetamines, with a chaser of nicotine gum. She motor-mouthed her insecurities when she got like this. He knew she drew on a festering ache. This was personal for her.

“Last go for Lasso. Ready to raise the flag?” Brandy howled. She needed to hear them say it one more time. She had a habit of seeking reassurance every thirty minutes, despite being the smart one.

Pencil groaned and knew, for her, it was another kind of need. Brandy had never killed, but Pencil had, too many times. She identified targets and left the execution to him. Lizard was the PC whizz, the creative one, back-up for supply and logistics. It was Pencil who got the killing done. He leaned forward and tapped out a drum roll on the dashboard. He wanted to get his blood up. Every command-post jockey needed to hear her foot soldiers say ‘Oorah’.

“Do or die and maybe both,” Lizard chimed in and bumped fists with Brandy. His laughter turned into a hacking cough with a wheezy rumble deep in his chest. Pencil lived with that sound. He often debated with Lizard about who was sicker.

Pencil extended his fist to bump brotherhood. “I’m dead already,” he said. “Tonight decorates my tombstone.”

“So what if we’re all sick puppies,” Brandy said. “I refuse to let Lasso Corporation poison my planet.” Her jaw chain-sawed at the gum. Pencil cringed; it was like she was auditioning for a Rambo movie.

“Lasso’s wall of lies gets plowed under tonight.” Brandy bounced up and down in her seat like a demented juvenile. “I want to see a sweet harvest for these chemical monsters.” She was wound up higher than a soap box. Chemical monsters? Sure they were; Pencil had a grudge he could extend to any target at any time.

“College campuses will rise up. Society will hear us.” Brandy’s voice overcame the hum of the heater, the engine and the rain. Pencil was afraid to look. He suspected she might be foaming at the mouth. “We the people will know,” she screamed. “And a certain class of assholes goes on notice. Take responsibility for your products, or die. You can’t pump that poison any longer. We, the people, won’t stand for it.”

Pencil wondered if Brandy’s speech qualified as end of life counseling. It made her feel better, and she made him feel better, so what the hell. Then the flash of police lights splashed across the ratty interior and caught him unprepared.

Strobes of red, blue and white flooded through the vehicle in a rapid flicker that sickened him. He closed his eyes, pressed down on his stomach and exhaled slowly. No way could the cops have an alert out already, he thought. He’d stolen the plumber’s van off a job site that morning in San Jose, a hundred miles south, and changed license plates. It had to be routine, or worse, a curious rookie cursed with the helpfulness disease.

“Oh god, Pencil, deal with it,” Brandy shrieked. Her bravado evaporated. She slid down in her seat and moaned like a wounded animal. The flashing colors bounced off her golden locks. She looked wicked old, paste-white skin and sunken eyes. She folded under a chocolate colored party dress and clutched her legs to her chest. Pencil saw the toes of her red stiletto heels hang over the edge of her seat.

Lizard went all spastic, clutching Pencil’s arm, his hands bad with tremors. “I’m begging, bro. Time to do your thing.”


Gut-Check Green: http://www.amazon.com/Gut-Check-Green...

Take Charge of your Self-Esteem, a review.

Take Charge of your Self-Esteem by Janine Queller is a refreshing spirit uplift.

Here is a practical, easy to read and very useful survival guide for making something of your life, at any age. We are all human. We need cultivation. Author Janine Queller provides a rich source of rejuvenation.

Negative thinking and the self-critical voice are scripts adopted from another time, no longer relevant today. Queller reviews how to change the dialog. She does this with a specific set of tasks, guidelines and affirmations that work. Some of which I posted on my mirror to greet me in the morning.

You’ll enjoy this book if you want a refreshing approach to self-care. The benefits you can expect: a better self-mage, more personal power, stronger core values, more patience with yourself and others. I encourage you to invest in yourself and commit to living life to the fullest using ‘Take Charge' tools.

I think Queller’s gift is her ability to give the reader the strength to dare, even to dare greatly. Her life experience and insights are like a friendly chat with a pal. She blends warmth and humor with a kick-ass attitude you’d expect from a race car driver, which she is.

I’m raising daughters so I really took this book to heart. It provided material for many a dinner conversation. My daughters are richer, more acknowledged and take more ownership of their lives. I’m a happier father.

Life changing? Probably. Day-changing? Absolutely. Tomorrow-changing? You bet.

http://www.amazon.com/TAKE-CHARGE-You...

Love blooms in chapter one

I forgot how much I love the opening of this book, Gurl-Posse Kidnap.

CHAPTER 1

Jake settled on a stool with one boot atop the rail. He twisted to ease the ache at his beltline where a bullet scored a divot weeks earlier. Tanya sailed by, smelling like angel cake, and set down a glass of ice-water by him. He smiled. She smiled. Ever observant, she hovered an inch away from out of reach. “For your veins?” she teased.

She returned with his dinner on an oval plate. A barricade of crisp garlic fries restrained succulent juices. With knife and fork he carved into the roast beef mounded on toasted sourdough. The odor steamed up his sinuses, cleared the rain and damp from his thoughts and warmed his heart. She laughed all the way back to his elbow with a cloth napkin. He’d have felt less vulnerable had he known she delighted in the pure nurture of her man.

A quarter hit the juke box and rolled down memory lane. Dolly Parton’s voice sidled up to the guy one stool down, keen to squeeze lost love from his chill IPA. After a respectful pause for heartache, Tanya rolled another quarter Jake’s way. It was spackled with chips of red nail polish, round like a bullet hole. He punched up a classic by a local boy. Horns kicked the sky higher and bounced off a base line with a boogie beat. Huey Lewis let loose, “You don’t need no credit card to ride this train. The power of love…”

Her green eyes vaporized his heart and her shoulders shimmied with approval. His throat knotted. He wanted to clear the verbal logjam by whispering in her ear on a pillow bound for far away. A heartbeat later, Dolly’s ornery soul mate wiped a labored hand over his rough stubble, tapped his glass to signal refill and tapped Jake’s glass too. Tanya nodded and turned to the draft beer tap. “What a crock,” the guy muttered. “That singer is too drunk on what nobody serves no more.” Jake winked at Tanya and saw pure gold ore.

Once a skinny rail with pony tails, orchid tattoos now bloomed from her elbow to her sleeveless top. She’d rounded into all he held dear, his touchstone of sanity with a hint of flint. That put her at the top of his Christmas list, underlined and circled twice. And he had no idea what might express all that she deserved.

He glanced at her emerald eyes, a sparkle he’d searched the world for and only found in her. She pulled away, tawny hair tied to the side, her grin quivered into throaty chuckles, not quite a giggle. Jake laughed at himself, captivated. She floated back with a draft IPA. She stretched, looked at Jake and did the oddest thing with the tip of her tongue. He imagined a lynx on a tree limb over a game trail. He longed to be king of her jungle, oh Jesus please.

Gurl-Posse Kidnap: http://www.amazon.com/Gurl-Posse-Kidn...

Why write a crime thriller?

Why write a crime thriller?

The modern-day sonnet comes packaged as a crime thriller. Imagine Shakespeare counting syllables on his fingers, trying to make the rhythm work. It imposes form and structure on creativity. If you can seed your plot with an exciting story line and credible characters, then you might have something worth reading purely for entertainment value.

All literature is escapist, like bath beads in a sudsy tub, with the promise of being transported far away on a flight of imagination, rich with thrills and danger. Isn’t it amazing how reading can make a hero’s quest appear so real in the space between your ears. It’s been so since before recorded time when we sat around the fire, gnawing on a haunch, transported beyond cave and daily cares.

Crime thrillers are the morality plays of our generation. Good versus evil, and in the end order and the rule of law prevail. And that makes it easier to get up and go to work tomorrow. We’ve kept the wolf in the forest at bay one more day.

Which brings me to Cicero’s Dead by Patrick H. Moore. (http://www.amazon.com/Ciceros-Dead-Pa...)

In my Amazon review I said: Jade wants to find her brother. Her dad, Cicero Lamont, has died mysteriously. She needs help. She calls LA’s newest hardboiled detective Nick Crane. Crane uncovers motive and opportunity like a surgeon wielding a Glock. His colorful sidekicks add accuracy and flavor to this hard-edge thriller.

Prepare for lean, direct storytelling about tough, cynical characters that dance from LA to San Francisco. Author Patrick H. Moore, a seasoned private investigator and crime writer, crafts an elegant first novel, soon to be followed by another Nick Crane thriller. Five stars. It pays homage to the classics and turns up the heat on what you expect from a hardboiled mystery.

In my day, a Boy Scout had to be able to build a fire with two matches. A rifleman had one shot at six hundred yards. A torn shirt and two sticks made a splint so you could hobble your fanny back home. Have hope. Seventy percent of American movies begin with a book. And a crime thriller is a great way to cut your teeth, or shall I say author’s chops.

On’Ya readers & writers, and all the little children who beg for one more page at story time.