Brian Freeman's Blog, page 34
March 15, 2014
"Hold on Tight"
"When something good happens, you don't ask questions. You just smile and hold on tight."
That's one of my favorite lines from SPILLED BLOOD. Of course, it comes at a time when Chris Hawk is concerned with the fragility of life and with the uncertainties of the future. What his daughter teaches him is that only the moment matters. There are no guarantees of any future beyond the present.
[image error]People often ask me if there are "messages" in my thrillers. I like to think that the message is what each reader makes it. That's why it's important to me to write about real people in my books, rather than caricatures. You can draw your own conclusions about how each character behaves and the choices they make. You may agree or disagree, but hopefully, a little of them will linger with you long after you've read the book.
That's true of social issues, too. I deal with some tough themes in my books, but I write them very carefully so as not to come to any pat answers. There's no such thing. If an issue is worth disagreeing over, then it's complex enough to have shades of good and evil, right and wrong, on every side.
SPILLED BLOOD deals with many issues like that. Environmental choices and pollution. Rural poverty and violence. Good men doing bad things, and bad men doing good things. I hope the characters and everything that happens to them gives your book clubs many hours of debate and discussion.
Remember, though, for all the dark things, there's always a glimmer of hope. It's right in front of us. No questions. Smile and hold on tight.
March 13, 2014
Suspense From the Inside Out
You won't find any serial killers in my book SPILLED BLOOD. You won't find any super-heroes either. The book begins in a Depression-era ghost town amid dirt roads and flooded corn fields, where two teenage girls confront each other in a twisted game of Russian roulette. They're both lonely, both desperate. They're both driven by passion and loss. By the morning, one will be dead, and the other will be in jail for murder.
It's a story of ordinary people pushed to the limits of their emotions. That's my brand of psychological suspense.
I remember an incident from years ago that shaped the kinds of stories I tell. I had lunch with a colleague and friend who confessed something remarkable: years earlier, her daughter had been kidnapped by her ex-husband, and she hadn't seen her child since then. The private investigator she'd hired had recently re-discovered her daughter, and they were going to be reunited that weekend for the first time.
I've always remembered that story, because it taught me a lesson I've learned over and over since then. All you have to do is scratch the surface with ordinary people, and you find amazing stories: stories of hope, tragedy, suffering, grief, faith, and despair. What I'm trying to do in my novels is create suspense out of those stories, where the drama arises out of the emotions, secrets, and sexuality of real, flawed, human characters.
That's what SPILLED BLOOD is about. At the heart of the novel is a feud between two rural towns arising out of a chemical works that has brought economic fortune to one town and, seemingly, death and loss for another. The feud, spinning out of control, has deadly consequences. Most of the characters are driven across terrible lines by the need for justice and revenge, in ways that resonate for all of us. There are few "right" and "wrong" issues in this book; everything is blurred in shades of gray, forcing the readers to put themselves in the shoes of the characters and ask what choices they would have made in the same circumstances.
Super-heroes? Super-villains? No. I hope that's what makes the novel truly shocking, because the people who face this struggle are no different from you and me. It's not suspense that comes from outside; it's suspense from the inside out, driven by the struggles inside each character's head and heart.
SPILLED BLOOD won the award for Best Hardcover Novel in the 2013 Thriller Awards. It's available now in paperback and e-book.
March 11, 2014
Barnes & Noble
March 10, 2014
Chapter 2 Books
March 8, 2014
Lady Gaga and SPILLED BLOOD
Sometimes inspiration comes in strange places. For SPILLED BLOOD, I owe an odd debt to Lady Gaga. Okay, she probably isn't the first person who comes to mind for crime fiction.
Let me explain. My books often start with setting - places that seem ripe for the sort of remote, rural crime that I write - and that was true of SPILLED BLOOD. I'd recently done a series of library events in southwestern Minnesota, which is a bleak, barren part of the state, particularly during the winter months. Dirt roads. Dormant corn fields. Flooded rivers. There are also vestiges of the Depression-era past, including ghost towns with long-abandoned buildings and shops that once hummed with activity. I was there during gray days, and I knew I wanted to set a book in that locale.
I had an image of starting the book in a ghost town, but I was struggling with the opening scene. That was when I heard Lady Gaga's "Poker Face" on the radio one day. The song includes the line: "Russian Roulette is not the same without a gun."
And I thought: Russian Roulette. I had this immediate image of two teenage girls from opposite small towns, caught in the midst of a bitter feud, both emotionally desperate, confronting each other over a gun. That was how SPILLED BLOOD began to take shape. It was about fear. It was about revenge. It was about emotional frustration. When one of those girls winds up shot dead - and the other claims she didn't pull the trigger - the drama begins.
I've always said I don't write about super-heroes and super-villains. I write intimate psychological suspense, which means drama that emerges out of the stories of ordinary people who are drawn across terrible lines. SPILLED BLOOD is exactly that kind of novel, where most of the characters have good intentions, but they are blinded by loss and grief. You won't find any serial killers here. Instead, you'll find real, flawed human beings who sometimes make bad choices with deadly consequences.
You'll also find that one little echo of Lady Gaga. So you never know where or how inspiration will strike. Actually, she and I share the same birthday, so maybe it was meant to be. (However, I'm still waiting for her to send me a card.)
SPILLED BLOOD won the award for Best Hardcover Novel in the 2013 Thriller Awards. It's available now in paperback and e-book.
March 7, 2014
Balsam Lake Library
Superior Library
Brainerd Library
March 6, 2014
Spilled Blood in Paperback
If you've been waiting for the U.S. paperback of SPILLED BLOOD, which won the award for Best Hardcover Novel in the 2013 Thriller Awards...the wait is over! It's available in paperback and e-book right now.
SPILLED BLOOD starts in an old rural ghost town at midnight, where three teenage girls play a twisted game of Russian roulette. By morning, one girl is dead, one has run away, and one is in prison for murder.
[image error]That's when Chris Hawk drives across the emptiness of southern Minnesota to defend his daughter...and to prove her innocent. But is she? How much does a father really know about a daughter he's barely seen in several years? For Chris, this is a journey into terra incognita, to a rural culture he doesn't understand, and he soon finds himself caught up in a violent feud among the young people of two small towns.
This is a novel of redemption and revenge. I hope it keeps you at the edge of your seat with its twists and turns -- and I hope that Chris Hawk, his daughter, and his ex-wife linger in your minds when you're done with the book.
You can find it at your local bookseller, or you can order it right now from Amazon, BN, Kobo, or Books-a-Million.
