The Delphi Chronicle Book 1- this will make you wonder...

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Reviews  Russell Blake has a masterpiece here.  The book overflows with fear,mystery, murder- all eloquently put.  It is most definitely apage-turner.  Most importantly, it will make you stop and think.  Mr.Blake claims the book is fiction.  However, he readily admits that,

"It is almost impossible to verify with complete certainty what is fictionwhen examining the world of covert operations and intelligence agencies."

An extremely conceivable conspiracy drives this story at a fast pace. A mysterious manuscript contains dangerous information.  The ugly truthcan change history and the world, as we know it today.  Our unlucky herofinds himself in the possession of this manuscript.  He is now the targetof a powerful group that will not allow this to become public.  Innocent peopledie in the quest to retrieve this manuscript.  Will our hero make it outof this alive?

Interviewwith Russell Blake
K-You have stated that you believe the bestfiction comes from a blend of fact and fantasy.  This book reads more likefact rather than fantasy.  Given your intimate knowledge of these entitiesmay I ask if you have a military background?

R- I've never served in the armed forces.

K-Is there anything in your own life thatinspired you to write the story? 

R-Well, there are some things that are similar, but I'd prefer not to gointo detail as to what the similarities are. Let's just say that there's alittle of me in all my protagonists.

K-As a writer, I admire other authors that areable to "open a new world for me". You have a very descriptive style thatallows the reader to feel and see the story.  Is this something that justflows from you? 

R-Yes. I've been told to dumb down my style, and to cut back on theexposition and narrative, but frankly I think that what you wind up with iswriting that could be anyone's at that point – sort of a bland, vanilla writingstyle I'm utterly uninterested in. If that's what I needed to do to have peoplebuy my books, I think I'd give up writing. No offense to the monosyllabicauthors out there who have been successful, but I would like to take more of anote from Umberto Eco, Chuck P and David Foster Wallace than from JamesPatterson.  Although I'd love to have his income…

K-You and me both...Where is your favorite placeto write? 

R-I've written all my books from the same desk, so that's probably theplace.

K- I was guessing that it was the beach.  

I love Mexico.  I usually vacation there atleast once a year. What influenced your permanent move to Mexico?

R- I was looking to broaden my horizons, and had grown tired of the pressurecooker, consumer-driven lifestyle of the States. I wanted something relaxed,where it was warm, the beer cold, the water blue, and the native friendly.Mexico naturally beckoned, and I've never had a single regret moving here.

K-Getting back to the fact that the book is alittle too real:   Is it true that you actually live on the WestCoast of Mexico in a neighborhood surrounded by drug lords? 

R-Yes, and no. I mean, it's not like they are surrounding my town oranything. But there are always plenty of bad guys in any area, and mine is notunlike the rest of the country in that respect. Although if you look at themurder rate, it's actually lower here than in most similarly sized U.S. cities.That should tell you a lot. Not to discount the very real danger in some areas– anything near the border is ugly, as are some cartel towns and some resortsnear Mexico City. But guess what? There are equally ugly areas of the U.S. Ijust prefer not to go to them, just as I didn't go to the American ones when Iwas in the U.S.

I think the brush Mexico gets painted with involves a lot of hysteria andgeneralizations, some of which are deliberate – the U.S. has a large segment ofthe population that's coming to retirement age, so if it doesn't want to lose awhole lot of tax base and retirement funds to warmer, friendlier, cheapercountries, it has to make them seem as unappealing as possible. Otherwise why wouldanyone stay in the U.S., if you could live for half as much at a considerablyhigher quality level somewhere else? No, those places are dangerous and scaryand, ugh, different, so best to spend your vacation money in Hawaii or Floridaand keep paying twenty grand a year property tax for the privilege of being inthe U.S. If that sounds cynical, it is. Which comes through loud and clear inmany of my books.

K-Well, I see your point.  I would love toretire in Paradise.  You're in a beautiful place. 

I'd like to do a little exercise, if it's okaywith you.  I'm going to provide a scene from a book and I would like foryou to re-write it in your own style. 

R-All right, but I do go on, as you know from my books…

K- Okay, here it is:

Just doyour work, Consuela.  Don't imagine things. You got a lot of shit to dotoday.
She was a small women and she was fast. She would finish cleaning this house and then move on to the next.  Themore houses she could clean, the more money she could send back home, to herfamily. Her children were still in Mexico with her parents. She was hoping tobring them to America one day.
Thinkabout the kids and get your shit done.
Then she saw the bloody towel thrown in thehallway. Her heart was pounding so loud she could hear it. She noticed thebedroom door was closed.
Mr. Ryannever left that door closed.
Her legs were shaky as she slowly walked towardsthe door and opened it.
"Help me...please."
Then the screaming began.

R-
A soft breeze stirred the jacaranda blossoms outside the open wooden windowsof the old house, the air heavy with humidity, the uneasy remnant of a distantsquall. Inside, the clamor of a bucket knocking against the scarred woodenbanister announced that the cleaning girl had arrived to perform her grudgingchores.  Leathery hands gnarled by a lifetime of manual labor were moreexpected on an elderly peasant woman than on a twenty-nine year old ofdiminutive stature, but Consuela couldn't turn back time.  She'd had to dowhat she could to make ends meet, and in a harsh environment, that often meantbackbreaking tasks nobody else wanted to do – strawberry picking for fourteenhours a day, working in the tomato fields the same hours, or scrubbing floorsand toilets with corrosive chemicals that hardened her skin as much as they'dtarnished her soul. None of which her placid expression betrayed. Outwardly,she was inscrutable; invisible to the privileged for whom she worked.

The cleaning gig was better than some she'd had. At least it enabled her tocare for her children in the only way she was able – monthly Western Uniontransfers to her parents, who were raising them while she paid their bills fromafar. It wasn't her first choice, but she'd gotten caught up in the business ofliving as barely more than a girl, and soon the adventure of forbidden midnightrides in musty cars with the dangerous love of her life had been replaced bythe reality of an infant girl, with another on the way, the father long gone togreener pastures, leaving her with only regret and responsibility.

She hummed under her breath, a tune from home, from the fiestas that madeSaturday nights in her rustic village near Veracruz bearable. On mornings likethis, the dream of a small yellow clapboard house, with a little yard, perfectlymanicured, on the outskirts of this town, in the impossibly prosperous U.S.,her children playing safely in it, speaking English – the language ofopportunity and of power, and wealth – was the only thing that got her throughthe day. Mornings after the big weekends were the worst. The clients alwaysleft a mess, knowing she, or someone like her, would clean up after them.Mondays were always the same, and she resigned herself to another longafternoon if she was going to clean two homes before nightfall.

Which she would do, even if it killed her.

Because she needed the money. It was always about the money.

Finished in the foyer, she moved towards the master suite, the heavymahogany door with its ornately hand-carved panels a reminder of centuriespast. As she rounded the corner into the hall, she hesitated, momentarilyconfused. Even as she registered something on the gleaming hardwood floor, hernose detected a distinctive metallic smell – the smell of fresh blood. At firstshe thought it was one of the cats, injured or killed by the damned dogs.Consuela hated the dogs, and was always relieved when they were elsewhere; shedidn't care where. They scared her, reminding her too much of the ugly angrymen in her life. Dogs were always liketheir masters, she thought as she struggled to make out the form in the dimlight.

She peered in the gloom, and abruptly realized it was one of the owner'sthick white terrycloth towels, soaked in blood, the jaunty teal thread of theembroidered R of his last name – Ryan; Senor,no, Meester Ryan –  standing outfrom the crimson stains, which were slowly turning rust-colored.

The silence of the empty house was fractured by an explosion as the metalbucket hit the floor with a crash, startling her into action, her fingershaving reflexively dropped it. The ammonia in the water made her eyes tear, andshe was about to curse when she heard it…faint at first, and then again, alittle louder.

Scratching. At the door.

Consuela approached the battered pewter lever with a trembling outstretchedhand, anxiety now in full bloom. Scratch.A tiny internal voice argued against proceeding any further, told her to turn,to run, to get away from this cursed place, the money be damned. Meester Ryannever closed this door, or any door, for that matter. She didn't know what itmeant that today it was shut, but she was sure that whatever the reason, itcouldn't be good.

The scratching continued, and her ears strained, catching something else.Something like an animal, wounded, caught in a trap, like she'd seen once as achild on a trip to her grandfather's farm, when a hare had gotten snared andnearly torn its neck off trying to escape. Consuela had learned a terrible secretthat day. She knew that rabbits could scream. The sound had never left her, andeven now, as the hair on her arms stood up, she was reminded of that uglysound, as she had been for months after in now-faded nightmares.

She hesitated, forcing down the fear that was blossoming inside her, andthen swung the door open, mop clenched in her free hand like a puny club.

Her eyes widened even as she heard the gurgled plea from the thing on thebedroom floor. A thing that had once been…

"Help me…please."

Outside, a covey of quail soared into the April sky from the field acrossthe way, startled by the piercing shrieks echoing from the house. Screams thatwent on forever, unheard on the rural country road; screams of a horror thatwould never fade, and that promised the rabbits would have company inConsuela's psyche for the rest of her life.

K- I love it!  You are a wonderfulwriter.  I will keep this close by for inspiration.

R-I try to open as many doors for the imagination as possible when I write,and am constantly torn between a Hemingway approach of only a few words, and aDFW approach of pages, enjoying the way words splash on the page for the sheerjoy of the musicality to the cadence. Obviously I give in to the DFW more thanthe Hemingway.

K- It's working for you.  Thank you so muchfor the interview.  I will definitely be reading the rest of yourbooks.  I am hooked : )


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