Sam Wiebe's Blog, page 3

2018 Events

I'll be doing a few events around B.C. and Washington in February and March.

A few other events in the Interior and elsewhere are in the works. But here's what's confirmed:



February: CUT YOU DOWN published by Random House Canada and Quercus USA.

Feb 7th is the Cut You Down book launch at the Shebeen Whisky Room, 210 Carrall Street, 7pm. Here's the event's Facebook page.

Feb 7th: Authors on the Radio interview

Feb 13th is the official publication date. You can pre-order Cut You Down below:

Amazon (US)    Amazon (CA)    Chapters/Indigo     B&N

Feb 23-25th Galiano Island Lit Fest. Live taping of Charles Demers's Well Reds podcast on Sunday, 12:30-1:30

March 9th: Orca Books, Olympia,Washington

March 12th: Third Place Books, Seattle, Washington, event with Brian Thornton

March 14th: InCite reading series with Sheena Kamal and Nathan Ripley

April 2nd: Noir at the Bar Vancouver

More events TBA

Starred Reviews, Year-End Awards, and my own best-reads list

It's nice to end the year on a high note: Publishers Weekly gave Cut You Down a starred review "a cleverly tuned commentary on a society that forces its citizens to choose between doing the wrong thing for the right reason and doing the right thing for the wrong reasons," and "Wiebe convincingly brings Raymond Chandler into the 21st century." Read the full review here. 

Invisible Dead was awarded two spots on the Sons of Spade year-end best list: Best PI Novel and Best New PI for Dave Wakeland. The book is in good company, with Sheena Kamal's The Lost Ones and Steve Hamilton's Exit Strategy. 

I don't have a best-of list, but looking back at what I read this year, here are a few books that stood out to me:

George Saunders's Lincoln in the Bardo took a conceit that could have been nothing but postmodern walking and made it a touching and original polyphonic experience.

Eden Robinson's Son of a Trickster was equally terrific, describing hardscrabble living and unpleasant stuff in a fun, funny, and thoughtful narrative.

They're friends, but I can highly, highly recommend Janie Chang's Dragon Springs Road, David Swinson's Crime Song, and Sheena Kamal's The Lost Ones. The reunion scene in The Lost Ones was incredibly powerful. Crime Song continued and deepened rogue cop Frank Marr's adventures from Swinson's awesome The Second Girl. And Dragon Springs Road was a touching, beautifully-wrought melding of historical fiction and magic realism, in a way that brought out the best of both.

 

For thrillers, Jordan Harper's She Rides Shotgun, Meg Gardiner's Unsub, Don Winslow's The Force, John Le Carre's A Legacy of Spies, and Linwood Barclay's Parting Shot were all really enjoyable. David Chariandy's Brother and Roxane Gay's Hunger were both good, too.

 

Charles Campisi's Blue on Blue is one of the most fascinating nonfiction books I've read. Campisi was head of the NYPD's Internal Affairs division, and he talks about the methodology and problems in policing the police. Very timely and interesting.

Naben Ruthnum's Curry covers race, literature, pop culture, the uses of a pseudonym, and the purpose of thrillers, in a readable and personable style. I'm highly anticipating his pseudonymous thriller, Find You in the Dark.

Slightly older books that might have been overlooked: Steve Hamilton's The Lock Artist, Reed Farrell Coleman's Where it Hurts, Bill Buford's Heat, Paul Hawken's Growing a Business, Jill Leovy's Ghettoside and Akhil Sharma's Family Life were all great reads. And I finally got around to reading a few classics: Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca, Muriel Spark's The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, David Morrell's First Blood (yes it is a classic), Denis Johnson's Jesus' Son, and especially Toni Morrison's Song of Solomon. Every thirty year-old male writer should be forced to read two Morrison books for every Cormac McCarthy he's allowed.



Thanks for reading this, and happy holidays. 



Sam

Cut You Down book blurbs and synopsis

Order Cut You Down Now:

Amazon (US) Amazon (CA) Chapters/Indigo B&N

Vancouver PI Dave Wakeland is back--this time staring down the knife edge of corruption and murder.

No one knows what happened to Tabitha Sorensen. The brilliant but troubled student seems to have vanished, leaving a deadly trail of missing millions and links to a notorious family of criminals. Hired to find her, Wakeland matches wits and fists with suburban gangsters, corrupt authorities, and a contract killer with a fondness for blades--one of which seems destined for Wakeland's throat. 

Aided by Sonia Drego, a police officer and former lover with dangerous secrets of her own, Wakeland must uncover the deadliest killer that the morally challenged young detective has ever faced. From the back alleys of a rapidly changing Vancouver, to the wilds of Washington, to a suburban sprawl where things aren't what they seem, Wakeland crosses borders--and lines--in a treacherous game of cat and mouse that pushes him to his limits, and threatens everything he cares for.

 

“Sam Wiebe does it again with CUT YOU DOWN –

smart and razor-sharp, with a plot that keeps unraveling

all the way to its exciting, unputdownable conclusion."

David Swinson, author of The Second Girl and Crime Song

 

"A highly intelligent and satisfying page-turner."  

 Janie Chang, author of national bestseller Dragon Springs Road

 

"Sam Wiebe pulls no punches in his latest thriller,

CUT YOU DOWN. Gripping, complex, and with an unusual play

on the classic femme fatale trope, this is crime fiction at its best."

Sheena Kamal, author of The Lost Ones

 

Order Cut You Down Now:

Amazon (US)    Amazon (CA)    Chapters/Indigo     B&N

Cut You Down Book Launch

This February, CUT YOU DOWN will be published by Random House Canada and Quercus USA.

The Cut You Down book launch will be Feb 7th at the Shebeen Whisky Room, 210 Carrall Street, 7pm. Here's the event's Facebook page.

Official publication date is February 13th. You can pre-order it at:

Amazon (US)    Amazon (CA)    Chapters/Indigo     B&N

More events TBA.

Kamloops Postponement, Audiobook, and more...

Invisible Dead is now available as an audiobook from Blackstone Audio, read by Law and Order alumnus Donald Corren. Here's a link to the CD and MP3 versions on Amazon.



Unfortunately I've had to postpone my involvement in the Kamloops Writers Fest, due to--well, civic duty (I'll be able to say more later). Thanks to Lindsay and the other organizers, and Peter at the Kamloops Chapters, who have both been extremely accommodating with these unforeseen circumstances. I'm hoping to line up make-up events in the Spring. 



I'd never read John Le Carre's The Spy Who Came in From the Cold until last week, and damn. It's a great book, a spy thriller with a touch of noir--nasty, brutish and short. I'm reading his new one now, A Legacy of Spies, which deals with the offspring of some of the characters in Spy. It's also really good. Looking forward to reading Zero Avenue, Dietrich Kalteis's new novel about Vancouver punk musicians in the 70s--I'm saving it for the right moment.

Audiobook

INVISIBLE DEAD comes out on audiobook October 24th, 2017! You can order it from Audible or Amazon (US).  I'm hoping it will come out in Canada soon...





 

I like that cover! Donald Corren, the audiobook narrator, did a whole lot of episodes of the original Law & Order, which is pretty cool.



I missed Bouchercon this year and will likely miss at least one other event due to a certain civic duty which I can't get into at this time--think Henry Fonda and Lee J Cobb--but I'll be lining up a lot of stuff for next year!

 

Invisible Dead nominated for the City of Vancouver Book Award!

Invisible Dead has been shortlisted for the City of Vancouver Book Award!



 



I'm honoured to be among such a great list of nominated books, including Carleigh Baker's Bad Endings, Pandas on the Eastside by Gabrielle Prendergast, and Susan Point: Spindle Whorl by Grant Arnold, Ian M. Thom, Susan Point, Kathryn Bunn-Marcuse, Thomas Cannell, Myrtle Mckay, and William McLennan.



 



The announcement came with a very flattering description of the novel: "This fast-paced thriller set in Vancouver’s criminal underworld follows a private investigator on a journey to solve an unsolvable mystery."



 



'It's an honour just to be nominated' is a cliche, but it's a true cliche--as far as I know a crime novel has never won or been shortlisted. I take a measure of pride in that, and I'm glad to be in such good company.



 



Link to the Vancouver Sun Article announcing the shortlist.

September

My story "Off the Trail" was published in the September issue of Mysterical-E magazine. You can read it here. 



November 1st is the next Noir at the Bar Vancouver, and the lineup looks great: Jackie Bateman, Linda Richards, Janie Chang, Dietrich Kalteis, and more. Very excited for this.

End of Summer; Bouchercon; Cut You Down

I was interviewed by Will Viharo for his "Author of the Week" column on Digital Media Ghost. We talked about CanLit, crime fiction, genre snobbery, and the Pacific Northwest.  

My story "Albuquerque" was published by Suspense magazine's June 2017 issue. It was originally written for a Neil Young-themed anthology which, sadly got shelved.

The story is about a group of security professionals working for a large agricultural company, bullying small farmers, until one of them begins to have a change of heart. I based it on an article I read about the devious tactics companies like Monsanto use to enforce their patents.

This year's WORD Vancouver lineup is stacked, including great local authors like Janie Chang, Carleigh Baker, Mercedes Eng, Dietrich Kalteis, Dina del Bucchia, and many others. I'll be moderating a panel on mystery fiction, Sunday September 24th at 4:00.



I'll also be at Bouchercon this year in Toronto--my panel is "Writers Under 40", Saturday October 14th from 1-2. Should be fun.

What will be even MORE fun is Noir at the Bar Toronto, hosted by Rob Brunet and Tanis Mallow, and featuring David Swinson and a host of other great writers. That's October 11th at the Rivoli.

For the past few weeks I've been working on revisions for Cut You Down, the second Wakeland novel, which will be published this February. After the umpteenth revision, sometimes you lose perspective and enthusiasm. But in this case I feel much more confident in the book. I'm happy with it, maybe for the first time since I finished the first draft. That's one of the mysteries of writing--each book is its own thing.



Anyway, I hope you all have a great last few weeks of summer.

ThrillerFest and Invisible Dead Reviews

I'm back from ThrillerFest, which was a hell of a lot of fun. Thanks to D.P. Lyle and Kim Howe for inviting me to teach a class on character at CraftFest. Kim and Adam Hamdy are my fellow authors at Quercus USA, and the conference presented the perfect chance to get to meet them. The Quercus team are as cool and enthusiastic in real life as I hoped. Nathaniel, Amelia, Amanda and Elyse were terrific to hang out with. I got to meet Walter Mosley, David Morrell, Peter James, and I had a great but brief chat with John Lescroart, about focusing on writing instead of publishing. After a week of business, it was reassurance that what matters in the end is the work itself, rather than the deal.



I got to stay at the Barclay, where Hemingway wrote From Here to Eternity, which was also cool.



Reviews for INVISIBLE DEAD are still coming in, and on the whole are very complimentary. David Nemeth's review really gets the book. Here's a link.



The Quercus team shared with me their proposed cover for CUT YOU DOWN, and I like it a lot. I'll reveal it here soon.