Thoughts on Bloodland and 1222

Two excellent arcs to round off October. Both thrillers - no surprise there.

Bloodland by Alan Glynn, a ripped-from-the-headlines thriller.  Featuring a young journalist who uncovers a life threatening international conspiracy.  Glynn taps into our obsession with celebrity, the murky world of big business, the high stakes of a political career in this world of internet and CNN and the one percent who pull the strings.

1222 by Anne Holt, rural Norway, a train crash; an old hotel, the storm of the century and trapped with the other passengers is a killer. I liked Holt's protagonist, Hanne.  She reminded me of a younger bitter-er wheel chair bound version of Miss Marple. There are numerous red herrings along the way, as the body count rises and the passengers start to turn on one another.

Bloodland comes out in January 2012 and 1222 is published in December.

Violence for violence's sake

In most mysteries there is murder and mayhem and that's just fine - most of the time.  But when the violence just comes out of nowhere I'm not down with it.  You can almost hear the character crying 'where's my motivation for this' followed by the sound of me shutting the book.

I'm in the middle of Bloodland by Alan Glynn at the moment - political intrigue, mysterious deaths, c list celebs - and it has the feel of State of Play about it (the TV mini series NOT the movie)  My last one before November is 1222 by Anne Holt which the publisher sent me yesterday.  I'm very interested in this one because it has a Christie-esque plot device which I'm also playing around with.

Change of Plans

November will not be nano month for me it will be polish plot month for Rollover!  This is going to be huge.

Write your socks off month approaching.

So November is looming on the horizon and you know what that means. Nanowrimo!

I was considering giving it a miss this year but I suddenly had a plot idea so I'm going to get signed up today.  Finished and loved the new Deborah Crombie - full review soon.  I just finished the arc of The Inquisitor by Mark Allen Smith and I have mixed feelings.  I really enjoyed it but I almost stopped reading when I thought a kid was going to get hurt.(the blurb said the kid didn't get hurt but sometimes the blurbs are a little economical with the truth).  If you like 'Dexter' then this story of an information retrieval specialist (IR not torture) with a strong moral code will hook you pretty quick.  Now I have to scatter-gun the remaining four arcs cos I can only finish and blurb two before Halloween.

Thoughts on The Demi-Monde:Winter

First of all this is the first in a series - which is good because Winter is a barnstormer.  Imagine a cash-strapped US military devising a fully immersive battle simulation that plugs new recruits into a hyper-real computer generated world - a world populated by duplicates of people who exist or have existed in the real world.  Cunning strategists, evil dictators, men who would've been more feared than Adolf Hitler had they lived.  To give them something to fight over certain commodities are rare, and the tech is decidedly low.  But being the US army you give your trainees top-of-the-line M4 machine guns to play with and your trainees get captured.  This pesky computer program is becoming a problem, time to pull the plug.  But your virtual counterparts are way ahead of you and they lure the daughter of the US President into the Demi-Monde.  Now you have to get her out before you can pull the plug because if you die in the Demi-Monde you die in the real world...

Demi-Monde:Winter comes out in Jan 2012 - full review then.

Work in Progress

Two arcs I'm working on this week.  The Demi Monde by Rod Rees and Not a Mark Upon Her by Deborah Crombie (the envelope it arrived in said Not a Mark Up Her which made the UPS guy laugh)  I also just bought The Night Circus by Ellen Morgenstern - I love, love, love that book.  I'm also trying to get hold of the arc of I am Half-Sick of Shadows the new Allen Bradley (Flavia de Luce) which is published next month.

Revelations (don't worry they're not the biblical kind)

I've had some comments about the lack of reviews lately - it's OK I haven't developed an aversion to reading but the last few months editing has been more important and I'm pleased to say after heaven knows how many iterations we're done!  This throws up a whole completely different sent of problems - which as a close-to-getting-published-author are good ones to have.  I have a couple of people 'in the industry' who have agreed to read the finished ms.  And ( trust me on this )  when I go for it I really go for it ; I've sent my ms to Kirkus indie for a review.  So while we were breakfasting this morning I was in two minds - literally.  Whilst one part of me was laughing and joking with the others, the other half was running through today's pre-pub to-do list.  I do have a competitive side to my nature and I was just having this big 'oh my god' moment where I'm realising that rather than my analytic side or my problem-solving skills or my bubbly personality which has landed me every job I've ever interviewed for (except the one at the greengrocers - don't ever ask me to weigh plums) for the first time I'm testing my creative self, and what if that side is found wanting.

Just then Ann said the perfect thing, she said not everyone that starts writing a book completes it.  That in itself is a huge achievement.  And you know what - she's right.  Whatever happens, I had a hell of a lot of fun writing it and I created the project from scratch.

Thoughts on The Book of Lost Fragrances

Perfume - unless you've read Susskind's dark tale - doesn't sound that gripping.  M.J. Rose's new book which drops in March 2012 (full review then) had me at the first chapter.  This book has everything, a transcendent love story, the Dalai Lama, and a perfume commissioned by the Queen of the Nile (all things ancient Egyptian fascinate me.) which not only stirs scent memory it recalls past existences or 'envelopes' as the Bhuddists call them.  And wherever there's a memory tool Dr Malachai Samuels isn't going to be far behind.Blend in the China/Tibet situation and set the story in Paris against the background of a famed perfume house and you've got the recipe for a great story. 

Thoughts on The Limit

I don't love all motor sport; Nascar sends me to sleep but Formula One racing is a breed apart.  I was raised on it and last year I got to attend my first ever live race in Singapore.  So when The Limit appeared in my box I was pretty excited because up until a week before I'd never heard of Phil Hill - not a lot of people have.  He is the only American ever to win a F1 world championship (1961).  Phil Hill won the championship at Monza and he was driving a Ferrari - the Tifosi (Ferrari supporters) must've gone nuts.  But Hill's name doesn't ring any bells with Americans because the final race of the season at Watkins Glen Ferrari didn't bother to attend so Hill was denied the chance to race in front of his home crowd. 

Racing drivers in the 1960s were more like WWII fighter pilots or gladiators, their life expectancy was short.  They wore simple coveralls and leather flying helmets and goggles, death was a constant companion and it stalked the spectators as well.  The Limit comes out in November - your armchair boy racer will love it.

Covenant, Dean Crawford

Hours before an historic peace treaty signing between Israel and the Palestinians an American scientist, Dr Lucy Morgan, unearths an intact humanoid skeleton deep in the Negev desert. Her tests show that the bones are of extra-terrestrial origin.  But Lucy and her find are snatched and her grandfather pulls some strings to bring in Ethan Warner, a former solider and journalist.   

Warner has the contacts and the skills to find Lucy and retrieve the remains without creating a media firestorm but he and Lucy’s mother are blocked at every turn by a private security contractor who has close links to Capitol Hill and a fanatical evangelist. The closer Ethan gets to rescuing Lucy the more links he finds to his fiancé Joanna abducted in Gaza five years before.

Deadly Cool, Gemma Halliday

Hartley just found out via the whole school that her boyfriend is cheating on her with Courtney Cline and Hartley’s ready to kill both of them only someone got there first.  With one dead and the other on the run for murder, Hart and bff Sam team up with the editor of the school newspaper who just happened to be on the crime scene and is more than a little H O T.  Only Herbert Hoover High’s wannabe Veronica Mars keeps tripping over bodies and she may be next on the killer’s list.

Moab Rocks

Spent the weekend in Moab - visited both bookshops the used one and Back of Beyond Books and guess what, Moab reads.  Right now they are reading Refuge by Terry Tempest Williams.  We didn't just visit bookstores, we hiked up to delicate arch and did some serious off-roading (Kane Canyon Road I believe). 

Right now I'm reading The Limit by Michael Cannell - F1 in the sixties - back when it was a lot more dangerous for the drivers and the crowds.  I've also got the new MJ Rose, The Book of Lost Fragrances and Swamplandia for bookclub.  New releases for October to follow.