Peter Prasad's Blog: Expletives Deleted, page 6

More Muckrakers, Please. A Review.

MUCKRAKER journalism serves a vital role as watchdogs on government, beauracracy and run-away polluting corporations like the Koch brothers. The evil Koch spend billions a year financing crooked Republican politicians and fighting a carbon tax. Their industries put enough soot in the air to replace five million cars. If you kid has asthma, now you know why.

We need more muckrakers to expose this kind of crap. For now, the media has it down to 60 Minutes, and much of that is fluff. F.S. Fayth sets an excellent example in her new book, INNOCENT, VULNERABLE AND LEGALLY ABDUCTED. Here's my review:

5-Star Muckraker Journalism: This is a sad tale of a child that goes to school, confesses to bullying his brothers, and gets arrested. This unleashes the most appalling social services people on a timid family, unaware how to aggressively advocate for their children. Tell social services to take a flying leap off the cliffs of Dover. They want to arrest the other two children and take them to foster homes. The story comes from England, the land of Dickens, made famous for child abuse and Pip who begs for more porridge.

Written is a style that milks the story for emotional resonance, the book is clean, well-edited and deserves to be part of a training manual for new social services recruits. It is a calamity of uncaring people that need enemas, pitted against a family out of their depth. The story could be serialized as an expose on 60 Minutes.

For example: “Then the most bizarre episode happened. Feeling the weight of Glenda’s stare from behind her, Jane glanced over, and was taken aback at the actions from the manager of social services. Without uttering a word, Glenda deliberately, and slowly, proceeded to look Jane up and down in the most disgusting way, as if she had stepped out of a sewer.”

So arrest me for assault and battery, but keep these heartless aid workers out of my life. I don’t condone being a victim to inept bureaucracy. Barricade the door and throw meatballs. Tape record the interviews and sue the government. What never gets answered is why the eldest son got bullied in the first place and why no one ever nipped that abuse in the bud. I would have crucified a few kids on the playground long before you’d do that to my child.

Even worse, this is purported to be based on a true story. We have a new nurse Ratchet, in the guise of Glenda the evil witch social worker. According to the author, “these techniques were just one of many local authorities used countrywide.”

I’d move to Scotland and tell William Wallace to get on it -- Glenda needs a lobotomy. Don’t trust the judge. Don’t trust the system. Bureaucrats tell lies. Someone is on crack and they work for social services. Alfred Hitchcock has found a new villain, the devil-possessed family counselor.

It takes $250,000 to raise a child, plus the expense of college. Never let anyone from social services urinate on your investment. Stand up, parents, raise your voices and hurdle your pens. And vote.

If you plan to raise children in England, please read this book. If you’re American, boycott everything British until there’s a full-on investigation. I am disgusted that humans conspire to hurt even a single child, and think they're saving the planet. On'Ya, dead readers.

GURL-POSSE: 5-STARS

I'm in a Goodreads review group. I read and review four; four read and review my latest. So you bet I was over the moon when I read the following. Mission Control, after a nine month incubation, we have orbit. Sambogakaya!

I'm blown away! Mr. Prasad had me engaged from the first pages of this Book! I enjoyed it so much, I skipped right past the excerpt for Book 2, because I want to read it fresh, to see what Jake the P.I. is going to take on next. This book is like one of those multi-layered cream and berry torte's that sit in the window of a bakery in Paris.

The story is allowed to unfold slowly, to introduce you to Jake, a military veteran, and recent local boy turned state hero. He owns a farm that raises sheep, and he rents part of his homestead to people who use his milk production to make cheese. His newest job is as a private investigator in a company also run by an Ex Military man.

The care with editing, proofing, researching and the tightness of the story line is very evident from the beginning, until the end. The team you praised at books end, I praise once more, I agree, Mr. Prasad, you should let your Singapore artist continue producing your cover art, it draws the reader right in.

I highly recommend that you read this book if you like mysteries and thrillers. It has action, is gritty, and has a Native American twist that was just the right touch. I will be seeking out Book 2, it's a refreshing read. Mr. Prasad didn't employ gimmicks, giving this book a dimension that is reminiscent of mysteries you might see on a movie of the week, or TV series, where the action stays dressed, and is not a distraction from the story.

Gurl-Posse Kidnap is well worth 5 Stars, read it, and please leave him a review.

GURL-POSSE KIDNAP: cover reveal

After Thanksgiving when new wine rests on the lees at bubbling ferment, family secrets tumble out in a drenching rain, blind to who gets hurt. A drug deal unravels into murder, kidnap and redemption as PI Jake Knight helps his client see the light. Is Molly guilty? How guilty is she?

"My granddaughter is headed for a bad patch, Mr. Knight." ~Hannah Draper
"Drugs? I don’t bother. I’m lifted on love, thanks."~Jake Knight
"A girl with that much money has a target on her back." -Col. Hap Hazard

GURL-POSSE KIDNAP - Signed Copy, here's how...

GURL-POSSE KIDNAP

A sexy romantic crime thriller set in the heart of California wine country. A drug deal turns into murder and kidnap. Then a Cartel killer comes a-knocking and PI Jake Knight helps his client, Molly Draper, see the light. “Wicked thrilling but don’t put it on Facebook,” Allie said to Molly.

Tell me your favorite Tweet from the list below and WHY to win a free author-autographed copy of GURL-POSSE KIDNAP. Please enter as a comment below. Books to mail mid-April. On'Ya, dear readers.

TWEETS
1. In a drench of Sonoma rain, family secrets tumble out in bubbling ferment.
2. “He fired a gun at me. What was I supposed to do?”
3. Is Molly Draper guilty? How guilty is she?
4. Molly Draper? Murder or self-defense? You decide.
5. Hannah Draper arched a single eyebrow in GURL-POSSE. Can you?
6. “Not one scratch on my granddaughter, Mr. Knight. Promise?”
7. Mamie-G warns Jake, “Don’t touch what you don’t understand.”
8. Basket makers rock! Mamie is looking out for you in GURL-POSSE KIDNAP.
9. “Time for you to come do your light, Mist’knight", Mamie-G said.
10. Poor Ricky Serrato. Valentina, the pure child, has his number.
11. Evil Otter Arriba and Carlos Serrato? Friends of yours maybe?
12. See what PI Jake Knight does with his jacket and three punches.
13. “Sorry, Jake. Just that you’re kinda cute is all,” Molly said.
14. “Sexual slavery? I thought this was about drugs and murder?” Jake said.
15. Football-shaped blue pills? The dance party drug in GURL-POSSE KIDNAP
16. “HOLA. Welcome to Sonoma, ladies. You’re riding with the Gurl-Posse now."
17. Does Molly Draper take a hero’s journey? Find out in GURL-POSSE KIDNAP
18. Prasad is writing modern Miwok legend in GURL-POSSE KIDNAP
19. Hey Otter? What you been doing with your Protector in that corn field?
20. Col. Hazard said, “A girl with that kind of money has a target on her back.”

Due Soon at Amazon
Gurl-Posse follows Goat-Ripper in the in the Sonoma Knight series.

Gurl-Posse Kidnap: How to open a book

I like fast paced plots with an afterjet ending for my crime thrillers. 'Cept my dainty readers want to know character, back story and how'd he get so bent. So I wrote a new opening that reads like this:

After Thanksgiving when new wine rests on the lees at bubbling ferment, family secrets tumble out in a drenching rain, blind to who gets hurt. A drug deal unravels into murder, kidnap and redemption as PI Jake Knight helps his client see the light.

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.

Jumpin' Jehoshaphat: Hail James Lee Burke

I've read enough 99-cent novels to fill a Kindle, all in the last year. If I were a musician, I'd be deaf in one ear. I'm not; I'm a writer, so pour me a beer. IPA preferred, never stirred. Garlic fries on the side, on a table top of cowhide.

I call together this gathering of the lame and insane that we may not pickle our brains. But celebrate instead pure food for our head. It's what we do in daylight, when we're not in bed. Enough said?

Rarely am I stopped dead in my tracks. But it happened again, amid panic attacks. I read the first two chapters of a James Lee Burke. I had an epiphany, a blinding light cut through the murk. Good, better, best -- James Lee Burke has passed the test.

I read up on the author and bought his new book. Then I found this quote and my spirit shook. Holy mackerel smack fire, this guy writes like fishing for a Great White with a meat hook.

Says James Lee Burke: "I think creativity is a gift. What it comes down to is, if a person writes every day as a way of paying back the debt he incurred by accepting the gift, he will see its validation in his life. I believe these books were the ones I was meant to write. God doesn't make mistakes."

Talk about food for the flame. James Lee Burke tells me why I am insane. Chalk it up to madness, but allow me to read James Lee Burke with new gladness.

Story, plot, dialog, character arc -- it's all there. But it's his description of the earth that brings tears to my ears. Dearest Mother Earth, sacred space for the entire human race, I love you so much you erase my face.

I have found a new Yoda, so excuse my yodel. I'm reading James Lee Burke and having a ball. On'Ya, dear readers, one for all.

(Inspired by The Druid's Club scene in Gurl-Posse Kidnap, due out this summer)

Hail Cornwell: The Pagan Lord (a book review)

He writes one a year now, and I wait for it like a virgin on the verge of epiphany. Fifty titles long is his blazing banner of historical fiction, from Stonehenge and Saxon England to the Civil War. From India to Waterloo, Sharpe’s march with Wellington (21 titles) splashes curry and gunpowder burns across every agog reader’s sweaty brow. Lee Child and Vince Flynn agree nobody does it better. If you haven’t discovered him yet, you’re about to launch into the delirious drunken joy of epic story-telling. So run for your library card and get thee to a Bernard Cornwell novel.

I only have two criticisms of Cornwell. 1) The Pagan Lord is not long enough. 2) He’s a nasty bastard for making me wait 365 days for more Uhtred of Bebbanburg. But I forgive him. Even hounds must scratch patiently in Valhalla for a feast as frothy as his. And Uhtred’s oath-swearing alone makes me want to call mine enemies and leave evocative midnight voicemail.

If you care about a young mind that yearns to know history, treat him to a Cornwell. If you mentor a budding historian that wonders how we became this way, gift her a Cornwell. If you love an old man, waiting to compost in a rocking chair on the stoop of the veteran’s hall, honor him with a Cornwell.

How good is Lord Cornell? I leave you with one sentence. Imagine standing in a shield wall, blood-soaked axes and blades screaming, your death inches away. “One stab, quick and upward, the blade going through the chin, the mouth, the tongue, up behind the nose and then he stepped away from the threat of a Danish sword-lunge, and the axman was shaking like an aspen leaf, the ax forgotten in his suddenly weak hand as blood spilled from his mouth to run in wiggling rivulets down his beard, which was hung with dull iron rings.” Page 283, The Pagan Lord. Christ on a crutch, I see it better than Showtime.

In the lag time between Super Bowl and Opening Day, hunker down in your man cave with a Cornwell. No matter how bad you think you’ve got it – disaster, divorce, heartburn or taxes -- Bernard Cornwell’s characters have got you beat. They play with their lives on the line, while we readers play to avoid library fines.

Sonoma Knight: The Goat-Ripper CaseOn’Ya, dear readers, one for all.

2014: An Interview of Predictions for my pen

Amazing what another person's ink can make an Indie Author say. See interview below.

With a fair breeze blowing, I'm setting sail with a cargo of silks, caged beasts and sandlewood for curious ports that call for exploration.

It's a brutal, salt-swept task with lots of heavy lifting, and an occasional porpoise ahead leaping the waves. I think I'll make it a Marco Polo story, set in 536AD.

You think he was the first? Hardly. Nor am I. And so I begin scratching out my first historical fiction about a real man who changed the world.

Meanwhile, here's what I can promise you, dear reader, if you find yourself becalmed in the doldrums and need to turn a page to catch fire your imagination. On'Ya, dear reader, ever On'Ya.

http://www.bibliophilicbookblog.com/2...

Genius: What's wrong with novels today.

Gulp. I’ve just surfaced from two months of 2,500-word days completing my next wine and cheese crime thriller, Gurl-Posse Kidnap. Now I can explode into the light, look around and take another bite out of life. And I came across this paragraph about the state of the novel today. Please indulge me as I share:

One of the most genial voices of disillusion is that of the novelist and critic Tim Parks, whose warmly contrarian complaints about the state of writing have been appearing regularly on the New York Review of Books blog. His latest installment is an honest, provocative, and maddeningly wrongheaded meditation about his unhappiness with what he calls “traditional novels.” The depth and scope of Parks’s dissatisfaction is fairly intimidating. He feels “trapped” within the expected forms of fiction writing, especially those of realistic fiction. These books’ basic traits, he thinks — “the dilemma, the dramatic crisis, the pathos, the wise sadness, and more in general a suffering made bearable, or even noble through aesthetic form” — have become mannered and artificial to the point of irrelevance. Even worse, their typical trajectory, from “inevitable disappointment followed by the much-prized (and I suspect overrated) wisdom of maturity,” is oppressive and harmful because its universality enforces a single way of understanding the world — a way that not only leads to the disenchantment that has come upon Parks but which also sustains a “destructive cultural pattern”: “We are so pleased with our ability to describe and savor our unhappiness it hardly seems important to find a different way of going about things.” (The New Yorker, November 7, 2013, Against “The Death of the Novel” posted by Sam Sacks).

The poor critic, I feel for him. He complains that the traditional novel form is executed too well but with no uplift, no juice, no joy. Sorry dude, but your disenchantment comes from the lens through which you read. It’s your inner attitude that makes you see as you do.

So what’s this tell me? Dear writers, it’s our job to burn bright -- get lit, stay lit and write accordingly. Imagine every reader’s slog through 350-pages of our next offering and find a way to reward them. The Greeks called is catharsis. Hollywood calls it “a willful suspension of disbelief.” Our readers want to leave the confessional and feel their spirits lightened, if not dancing on sunbeams. Otherwise they may never buy another ticket to our next novel.

So call upon your muses and ask for a blessing. Then rub up your ink, dip into your paint pot and pour a salve onto the torn souls of all mankind. Spin a yarn that weaves new fabric for life itself. On’ya.

Does the first sentence tell a story?

Huzzah sparkling new readers and authors.

We all have our favorite first sentences from exciting novels, noir and classic. I do too. I’m also a believer that the best first sentence often gets written last, after you know the story flow and ending. Then you write a sterling first sentence that promises at the pleasures the story contains. Even in the best and worst of times (joke).

The first sentence sets the tone. Is it a teaser? An appetizer of flavors to come? A challenge? A reminder? So I got curious.

I wanted to see the first sentence for each chapter in Sonoma Knight: Gurl-Posse Kidnap. It’s a crime thriller, the first paid case of my new PI Jake Knight, a Sonoma dairy farmer and Afghan vet.

I expect Gurl-Posse to be published as an ebook before Christmas. And I bet each first sentence tells a lot of story. Let’s see if I’m right.

C1: Ricky Serrato wheeled the transport van off the rain-slick freeway north of Santa Rosa and steered for the warehouse on the Rancheria.

C2: Wealth made Jake Knight uncomfortable.

C3: As Jake drove his faded Ford F-150 farm truck, the red rust bucket, down Hannah’s manicured drive, he dialed Colonel Harland “Hap” Hazard to debrief.

C4: The next winter storm rolled in dark and wet that evening.

C5: “Flash your lights, Mol.”

C6: “Otter” Arriba, chief field investigator of the Unified Tribes reservation constabulary heard his walkie-talkie squawk: “Shots fired.

C7: Molly roamed the back roads of the reservation in a thunderous downpour.

C8: Deep in a muddy three-acre corn field adjacent his house, Otter sketched a center line through the slop with his shovel at first light.

C9: Serrato stumbled from his cot, walked outside and unlocked the security gate at his warehouse on Sunday morning.

C10: Jake woke at dawn on Sunday morning, opened his laptop and dialed into the server at Hazard Security.

C11: Sunday morning after a shoot-out and Molly was home already – Jake couldn’t believe it.

C12: Serrato approached Jason Tambor’s house in his white Jeep Cherokee.

C13: As Jake cleared Hannah’s drive, he punched speed dial for The Colonel.

C14: Otter drove his black Escalade down the muddy road toward Tambor’s house early Monday morning.

C15: Jake turned into Hannah’s long drive past the open gates.

C16: Jake drove through the rain up the winding road to Tanya’s cottage.

C17: Serrato sat in his office drinking from a half empty bottle of tequila.

C18: Jake wheeled his truck into the gravel parking lot of the United Federation police station five minutes before ten o’clock on Tuesday morning.

C19: The next morning, Jake drove the ten miles from Tanya’s to his sheep dairy to catch up on chores.

C20: At three a.m., Molly woke from a dream and for the first time in her life could not get all the way back in her body.

C21: Valentina and her grandmother dozed in the back seat as Molly and Allie kept their heads together and their voices low.

C22: Serrato sat in darkness in his upstairs office.

C23: Jake sat in the red rust bucket outside Hannah’s house and pulled the laptop from its carrying case.

C24: Hazard had mentioned the Druids Club before.

C25: Serrato turned down Tamarack Lane toward Hannah’s mansion in the early evening twilight and cut his lights.

C26: Serrato drove through the open gate at his warehouse and parked by the door.

C27: Jake raced north on the freeway toward the reservation.

C28: Jake saw the flashing lights of the Sonoma Sheriff’s department cruiser pull into Hannah’s driveway from Molly’s upstairs bedroom window.

C29: Pitt raced his black sedan north on the freeway toward Serrato’s warehouse in the dead of night.

C30: “So what’s next?” Jake asked Pitt.

C31: Jake approached the driver of the DEA Task Force Suburban.

Still with me? Then you have perseverance. So email me for a free review copy of Sonoma Knight: Gurl-Posse Kidnap. PeterPrasad.SF@gmail.com.

And if you’d like to read the book that launched Jake’s career at a PI, find it here. http://dld.bz/cGQGK. Sonoma Knight: The Goat-Ripper Case. Thanks, readers.