Martin Roy Hill's Blog, page 12

Review of Whitley Strieber's "Critical Mass"

In Whitley Strieber’s Critical Mass, Las Vegas, Nevada is
nuked by a new Islamic extremist group. Worse, the same group has planted
nuclear devices in national capitals in the Americas, Europe, and Asia, holding
them hostage in an attempt to bend the world to Sharia law. As American
intelligence operative Jim Deutsh races the clock to find the bomb intended to
destroy Washington, DC, he finds betrayal at each step by a national security
organization corrupted with deep penetration by enemies of the United States.

Strieber wraps within this book’s pages a myriad of true
dangers facing us all: the disappearance of tons of nuclear material from
Russia; the collapse of the U.S. intelligence operation aimed at interdicting
those lost nukes when the Bush administration outed CIA operative Valerie
Palme; and the bureaucratic nightmare created by Bush’s reorganization of the
intelligence community, making it slow to respond to emergent dangers, and
crowded with potentially corrupted contractors.

The author avoids the pitfalls many writers of such
thrillers have made, and avoids painting the Islamic religion with a brush of
evil. Instead, he makes it clear extremism of any ilk, political or religious,
is dangerous. In one scene, the bombing of Las Vegas – Sin City – is applauded
by Christian fundamentalists. In another, the world – Christians, Jews, and
Muslims – learns to pray together. Plus the only person Deutsh knows he can
trust is his former wife, herself a Muslim.

Strieber’s minutely detailed narrative of the destruction
caused by nuclear weapons is both horrifying and overwhelming. At times, I
wanted to shout, “Stop!” But I think that was the author’s intention. Critical
Mass is a definite page turner, but it is a thinking man’s page turner.

The Martian Chronicles: Better the Second Time Around

I read Ray Bradbury’s The Martian Chronicles back in high
school, but after recently listening to radio dramatizations of several stories
from Chronicles, I decided to read it again. I have to say, I appreciated it
much more the second time around.

In Chronicles, Bradbury leads the reader through an episodic
history of Earth’s colonization of Mars, from the early expeditions that never
returned to the destruction of mankind by nuclear war. In each of the stories,
Bradbury uses wit, melodic narration, and biting sarcasm to expose the
weaknesses and failures of mankind. This is not science fiction, but science
fantasy at its best.

Interestingly, the stories in The Martian Chronicles were
never intended to be part of a book. On a trip to visit New York publishers,
Bradbury’s stories were turned down by a dozen different publishers. Over
dinner, one editor named Walter Bradbury (no relation to the author) suggested
Bradbury be tied together into a novel and even suggested the name. Bradbury –
Ray, not Walter – loved the idea and his first novel was born. I, for one, am
glad it was.

Review: Richard K. Morgan's Altered Carbon

Richard K. Morgan has successfully taken 20th century
hard-boiled crime fiction, tossed in a little noir, and needle cast it into the
25th century.

In Altered Carbon, Morgan creates a universe where the human
race has spread itself among the stars, human attraction has been distilled
down to a few basic chemicals, and death requires a new definition. Human
consciousness is digitalized and downloaded into small cortical “stacks”
implanted in the spine. As long as the stack exists, death is simply a minor bump
in the long road of life living in different bodies or “sleeves.” Real death,
or “R.D.,” only occurs if your stack is destroyed – and there are ways of
getting around that if you have enough money.

Takeshi Kovacs is a former Envoy (basically a henchman) for
the reigning government, called the United Nations Protectorate. Following his
latest death, Kovacs is beamed via “needle casting” from his home world to
Earth and sleeved into the body of a corrupt cop whose digital personality is
serving time “on stack.” Kovacs was brought to Earth by Larens Bancroft, a
300-year-old billionaire, to investigate Bancroft’s last death, written off by
the cops as a suicide. Bancroft, now resleeved in a cloned body, has no memory
of the event, and believes he was actually murdered.

Morgan pulls off this unlikely plot by weaving a hard-boiled
narrative with intricate sociological details. His wise-cracking hero, Kovacs,
is hardened by his life of violence, yet remains sympathetic. Morgan’s eye for
detail does for his version of the 25th century what J.R.R. Tolkien’s detailed
eye did for the Wilderland. In doing so, he raises many philosophical questions
about what constitutes a person’s life and death.

Free download for "Duty: Suspense and Mystery Stories from the Cold War and Beyond"

To celebrate the release of my latest novel, THE KILLING
DEPTHS, I am offering the Kindle version of my first book, DUTY: Suspense and
Mystery Stories from the Cold War and Beyond for free!

Read, "Destroyer
Turns," the short story that gave birth to NCIS Agent Linus Schag, hero of
THE KILLING DEPTHS.

Also in the title short story, "Duty," a Cold War soldier faces performing the unthinkable mission.

In "The Stragglers," a group of soldiers must face the impact of war over several generations.

In "Something Far Away," a former Coastguardsman deals with the ghosts of his past.

And much more.

DUTY has 4.5 stars on Amazon.com!

View the book trailer for DUTY on YouTube.

Cheers!

Review: Predator Strike! Lands on Target

Osama bin Laden was not killed by a SEAL team in a Pakistani
hide-out in 2011. He was captured 10 years before and secretly held prisoner by
the United States until his death was convenient. Well, that’s a popular
conspiracy theory, at least. In Predator Strike!, Australian writer Liam
Saville wraps that conspiracy theory into a taut military mystery novella. Saville
does not claim to believe the bin Laden theory, but he has succeeded in turning
it into a plausible  plot line.

 Australian Defense
Force Investigative Service officer, Captain Sam Ryan, is rushed to Afghanistan
to investigate the apparent suicide of an Australian soldier who, only weeks
earlier, had survived a blue-on-blue attack on his sniper team by an American
Predator combat drone. Ryan learns that in the days leading up to his death, the
young sniper claimed he and his partner had seen bin Laden in the custody of
American soldiers in Afghanistan only days before he was reportedly killed in
Pakistan. Ryan quickly finds himself targeted by unknown forces trying to
thwart his investigation by bluff and violence.

An army officer turned police officer, Saville writes with a
clean, thrifty grace. He doesn’t waste words, but brings the reader along with a
clear and vivid narration. Sam Ryan is no Dirty Harry; he’s a realistic,
professional investigator and military officer. He’s also someone you enjoy
spending time with.

 Saville’s depiction
of the war in Afghanistan rings with authenticity, from his biting description
of the overwhelming wealth of the American military compared to its poorer
Aussie cousin, to his descriptions of combat action. But above all else,
Predator Strike! is an excellent example of a police procedural.

Predator Strike! is the first of a planned series of mystery
novellas. I, for one, am looking forward to reading about more of Captain Sam
Ryan’s cases.

You can buy Predator Strike! by clicking here.

The Next Big Thing Blog Hop

I was tagged
for 'The Next Big Thing' Blog Hop by my fellow indie author, David. E. Manuel,
author of the environmentally-focused mystery thriller Richard
Paladin series (Killer Protocols, Clean Coal Killers and The
Killer Trees). Indie authors are asked to answer a series of questions about
their work, and then tag a fellow author to do the same. You can read David’s
answers to the blog hop questions on his blog. Thanks, David!

1. What is the working title of your book?

My latest
book has just been released. It’s called, The
Killing Depths.

2. Where did the idea come from for the book?

I was reading
a lot of nautical history. In the days of sail, going to sea was a way of
getting away from the pressures of life on shore. Today, we have men and women
serving together on ships. But until recently, American submarines were still a
male-only domain. Attack submarines are still male-only. So I starting
thinking, what if you took someone who didn’t want to be around the opposite
sex and locked that person up in a sealed environment like a sub with a coed
crew? I wanted to have the murders and investigation occur in a totally
confined environment, like Agatha Christie had in And Then There None, so a submarine was a natural choice.

3. What is the genre of the book?

It’s a
military mystery thriller.

4. Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a
movie rendition?

Umm. Never
thought about it. Maybe a younger Harrison Ford for the protagonist, Linus
Schag, and Yaphet Kotto for the captain.

5. What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?

The first
coed crewed U.S. attack submarine is on a covert mission while a psychopathic
serial killer threatens the safety of the crew from inside.

6. Will your book be self-published or represented by an
agency/publisher?

It’s an indie
project, same as my first book, Duty:
Suspense and Mystery Stories from the Cold War and Beyond.

7. How long did it take you to write the first draft of your
manuscript?

It was so
long ago, I can’t be sure. At least a year. I had to do a lot of research at
the same time I was writing. I have 16 years of experience in the U.S. Coast
Guard and Navy, but had never been on a submarine. I had a lot to learn about
undersea warfare and, of course, talk the Navy into letting me get a tour of a
sub. I rewrote it several times, and also set it aside for awhile to work on
other things.

8. What other books would you compare this story to within your
genre?

I’d say Tom
Clancy’s Hunt for Red October, or
Alistair MacLean’s Ice Station Zebra.

9. Who or what inspired you to write this book?

I created the
protagonist, Linus Schag, for a short story called “Destroyer Turns,” which
appeared in Alfred Hitchcock Mystery
Magazine. I wanted to take Lin into a novel-sized adventure. By the way,
“Destroyer Turns” appears in my first book, Duty.

10. What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest?

Killing Depths is really two stories in one. It’s the story of a hunt for a serial
killer, but it’s also the story of a secret mission to destroy a renegade
Iranian submarine and the undersea battle that ensues.  And it’s not just so-called “man-lit.” I’ve
gotten great reviews from women readers, too.

Now I’m
tagging my good friend Jay Allan Storey for the next blog stop. Jay is the
author of Chopper Music,
an excellent novella about loss and redemption. But Jay can tell you more about
that at his blog.  Click here to read it.

I'll be adding links to more participants in this blog hop as they become available. So stop by again!

It's Here! "Killing Depths" Is Now Available!

My latest novel, "The Killing Depths," is now available from Amazon.com in both print and Kindle versions. 
"Killing Depths" features NCIS agent Linus Schag, first seen in the short story "Destroyer Turns," published by Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine and reprinted in my short story collection, "Duty: Suspense and Mystery Stories from the Cold War and Beyond," also available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and elsewhere. 
In "Killing Depths" Schag goes undercover to discover the identity of a serial killer aboard the nuclear sub, USS Encinitas, a killer sub on a life or death mission.
"Killing Depths" can be found here: http://tiny.cc/5e3oow

New Novel, "Killing Depths," Heads into Final Production

Well, I did it.

On Thanksgiving, I pulled the trigger and put my first full
novel, “The Killing Depths,” into final production. In a few days, it will be
available in a print edition from Amazon. A Kindle version will soon follow.

“The Killing Depths” is a military mystery thriller set
aboard the first joint-crewed (male and female) American attack submarine. (Today,
much larger ballistic submarines – also known as “boomers” – are joint crewed,
but attack subs are still a male domain.) This is from the back cover:

“A killer lurks beneath the waves of the western Pacific
Ocean. The USS Encinitas, the first
attack submarine crewed by both men and women, stalks the Crescent Moon, a renegade Iranian sub armed with nuclear-tipped
missiles. But another predator hides aboard the American sub, a murderer who
has already left a trail of dead women behind on shore. While the crew of the Encinitas plays a deadly game of
hide-and-seek with the Crescent Moon,
NCIS investigator Linus Schag must discover the killer’s identity before his –
or her – blood lust leads to the submarine’s total destruction.”

Naval Criminal Investigative Service agent Linus Schag
originally appeared in the short story, “Destroyer Turns,” published by Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine in 1995—eight
years before TV’s NCIS, I might add. “Destroyer
Turns” is also one of the stories in my short story collection, “Duty: Suspense
and Mystery Stories from the Cold War and Beyond.”

I am in no way an expert in submarines. In my Coast Guard
and Navy service career, I was always a surface sailor – what submariners call
a “target” – or a ground pounder. In writing this book, I was lucky to have the
help of several experienced submariners who endured endless questions about
submarine service either online or in person. Unfortunately, so many years
passed between first conceiving this story and completing the novel, I no
longer remember them all. I was also lucky to receive permission from the Navy
to tour a Los Angeles-class attack submarine.

Interested? You can read a sneak a sneak preview by visiting
my Goodreads author page by clicking here.

 

Review: Jeff Shaara's "A Blaze of Glory"

In his latest book, A Blaze of Glory, Jeff Shaara returns to
the roots of the writing legacy created by himself and his father, Michael—the
American Civil War. This time Shaara heads to the lesser known western campaign
of the war, the struggle along the Mississippi River in which Gen. U. S. Grant
earned his reputation as the Union’s hardest fighting general.

Glory focuses on the 1862 Battle of Shiloh, also known as
the Battle of Pittsburgh Landing. Coming on the heels of his victory at Fort
Donelson, Shiloh was a pyric victory for Grant. Surprised by the forces of
Confederate Gen. Albert Sydney Johnston, the Union forces were nearly forced
back into the river before Grant could rally them and counter-attack,
eventually retaking the battlefield and sending the rebels into retreat.  The fight was costly for both sides,
resulting in tens of thousands of casualties, a butcher’s bill that wouldn’t be
surpassed until the Battle of Antietam. 
Among the dead was Gen. Johnston.

Shaara’s narrates the battle from the point of view the
major commanders – Grant, Johnston and William T. Sherman – as well as two fictitious
soldiers, a Union infantryman and a Confederate cavalryman.

This is Shaara at his best. The story is more focused than
his four-book series about WWII. This allowed him to paint portraits of the
major characters with more detail and color. The battle scenes – so much more
compact than WWII battles – are more vivid. Shaara’s return to the family roots
is much welcomed by this reader.

Review: A Must-Have Book for Indie Authors

If you
are an indie author publishing through Amazon.com, Shelley Hitz’s “Marketing
Your Book on Amazon” is a must-have for your professional library. Hitz, a
self-publishing consultant, breaks down the myriad of ways you can use
Amazon.com to sell your books into clear, bite-size chunks accompanied with
helpful visuals. I read the entire book in less than an hour, developing a
bruise on my forehead from slapping it with my hand while exclaiming, “I didn’t
know that!” I immediately went to Hitz’ web page and signed up for her
newsletter. I definitely give this book five stars. *****

Find the book at Amazon.