Release of "To Live and Die in the Floating World"
Hi, Friends – My latest crime against literature has been released this month by Blank Slate Publishing, an imprint of Amphorae Publishing Group.
“To Live and Die in the Floating World” is a suspense/thriller that harkens back to my days as crew member on a small tourist barge in Burgundy. While talking to the skipper one day, he told me a story about a group of shady guests they’d once had on board and how it had led to the murder of a crew member. (I’ve changed the original story quite a bit, so this isn’t a spoiler.)
Here's a hunk out of the press release:
This suspense/thriller, set in the world-apart of a tourist boat on the canals of Burgundy, offers readers a heady mix of danger, sex, violence, and intrigue.
Kip Weston, young scion of a fabulously wealthy American family, has become a fugitive, wanted by the police. Out of money and desperate, he flees his seedy quarter of Paris one step ahead of a private detective and heads for the countryside. Here, he takes a job on the Celeste, a small tourist barge plying the canals of Burgundy. Kip quickly finds that in running from one peril he has landed in far greater danger from another. A tale of mounting suspense, it ends in a spasm of violence that closes all accounts.
For all its shocks and plot twists, To Live and Die In the Floating World is driven by the secrets and conflicted motives of a vivid cast of characters: Diane, the boat’s owner, once beautiful but now wracked by alcohol and her fear of a powerful former lover; Dilip, the boat’s Sri Lankan skipper with a deadly secret, his wish to become a Buddhist monk now reduced to trying to protect his beloved Diane; Brigitte, the beautiful and enigmatic passenger Kip falls in love with, despite warnings that she “belongs” to the rich and murderous Marius Carbonne, whose presence looms over everyone in this perilous floating world.
While Holgate’s critically acclaimed novels have previously been set in the exotic locales he knew as a diplomat, To Live and Die In the Floating World hearkens back to his time as part of the four-member crew of the Wirreanda, a French tourist boat which serves as the model of the Celeste.
“It was an incredibly rich experience. And I forged unforgettable bonds with my fellow crew members,” Holgate says. “The story I’ve written takes its inspiration from events a crew member told me of a tour that ended with the murder of one of the crew members. The story stayed in my head all these years, and now I’ve finally had the chance to use it. Saying anything more would give too much away.”
“To Live and Die in the Floating World” is a suspense/thriller that harkens back to my days as crew member on a small tourist barge in Burgundy. While talking to the skipper one day, he told me a story about a group of shady guests they’d once had on board and how it had led to the murder of a crew member. (I’ve changed the original story quite a bit, so this isn’t a spoiler.)
Here's a hunk out of the press release:
This suspense/thriller, set in the world-apart of a tourist boat on the canals of Burgundy, offers readers a heady mix of danger, sex, violence, and intrigue.
Kip Weston, young scion of a fabulously wealthy American family, has become a fugitive, wanted by the police. Out of money and desperate, he flees his seedy quarter of Paris one step ahead of a private detective and heads for the countryside. Here, he takes a job on the Celeste, a small tourist barge plying the canals of Burgundy. Kip quickly finds that in running from one peril he has landed in far greater danger from another. A tale of mounting suspense, it ends in a spasm of violence that closes all accounts.
For all its shocks and plot twists, To Live and Die In the Floating World is driven by the secrets and conflicted motives of a vivid cast of characters: Diane, the boat’s owner, once beautiful but now wracked by alcohol and her fear of a powerful former lover; Dilip, the boat’s Sri Lankan skipper with a deadly secret, his wish to become a Buddhist monk now reduced to trying to protect his beloved Diane; Brigitte, the beautiful and enigmatic passenger Kip falls in love with, despite warnings that she “belongs” to the rich and murderous Marius Carbonne, whose presence looms over everyone in this perilous floating world.
While Holgate’s critically acclaimed novels have previously been set in the exotic locales he knew as a diplomat, To Live and Die In the Floating World hearkens back to his time as part of the four-member crew of the Wirreanda, a French tourist boat which serves as the model of the Celeste.
“It was an incredibly rich experience. And I forged unforgettable bonds with my fellow crew members,” Holgate says. “The story I’ve written takes its inspiration from events a crew member told me of a tour that ended with the murder of one of the crew members. The story stayed in my head all these years, and now I’ve finally had the chance to use it. Saying anything more would give too much away.”
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