Mystery Mania

The Role of Storyteller

2013-04-21T21:19:00.000-05:00

In my role as a fiction writer, I consider myself primarily a storyteller. I have listened to some great oral storytellers over the years who could keep you entranced as they spun a tale. I am not glib of tongue and rarely give more than the essential details when telling someone about an incident I've been involved in. But when seated at a keyboard, I do my best to create stories with depth that entertain readers. My intent is not to espouse opinions or champion particular causes, as do writers of what is popularly called literary fiction.

Having said that, I do occasionally find my characters discussing matters of a more philosophical nature. When I'm caught doing this, I usually go back and read the passage with a feeling that authors sometimes experience when reading a passage they haven't looked at in years: Did I write that?

I encountered one of these "aha" moments when reading a review of my first post Cold War political thriller, Beware the Jabberwock. The review was written by Lee Boyland for Military Writers Society of America. Here is the passage he mentioned (quoting from the book):

Ex-FBI Agent Burke Hill comments regarding his initial reluctance to get involved in a counter-espionage operation:

"I got all hung up on legalities and ethicalities. I finally accepted Cam Quinn's version of reality, that you can't fight unconventional wars with conventional means. I guess the important thing is to be honest with yourself and not compromise on your search for justice."

The answer to his dilemma is given by CIA Director Marshall, who winds up with:

"To achieve justice, which, as you indicate, is our ultimate goal, we must introduce another concept called equity. If the outcome of the action is equitable, then justice has been served."

Although I make no effort to espouse a particular point of view, I'll have to admit that some of my characters reflect my own feelings. But others may express diametrically opposite sensibilities. As I indicated earlier, I try not to get too philosophical. I don't write with a message in mind. I write with a good story to tell.

I hope you enjoy them. I'll have a tenth to add to the list shortly. Stay turned.

5th Greg McKenzie Mystery FREE Tomorrow

2013-04-07T13:10:00.000-05:00

A Sporting Murder, the fifth novel in my Greg McKenzie mystery series, will be free to download for the Kindle tomorrow (April 8) through Wednesday. If you enjoy a good, rousing whodunit, this one is for you. The plot revolves around a reported plan by local businessmen to bring a National Basketball Association team to Nashville. This greatly upsets a group of dedicated Nashville Predators' hockey fans who feel it could be the death knell for their sport.

When rumors of shady dealings involving the NBA plan surface, the group's lawyer hires PI's Greg and Jill McKenzie to investigate. A potential informant is promptly murdered. The book has several good reviews, but one I particularly like is that of veteran reviewer Sylvia Cochran, who wrote:

"Campbell knows how to spin a good yarn, and it shows. There are the murderous plot involving the NHL team and the engaging sub-plot of the man with a grudge. There is some back-story and some lovin'. Keeping all the balls in the air at all times, the parallel investigation makes for an exciting read, especially since there is never a shortage of action.

"The protagonists are a charming couple of seasoned professionals (not the bumbling `chick lit' characters that mystery writers of late seem to favor). They are also not the brooding private eyes with the haunting past, which make up pretty much the other half of the genre.

"Just like the plot, they are straight forward in a most refreshing way, which leaves the darker twists and turns to the plot without allowing the main characters to get in the way. The story is a welcome departure from recent genre pieces, which automatically turns A Sporting Murder into a must-read."

You'll find the book for the Kindle at its Amazon page. It will go free at midnight PDT.

What’s Next for F. M. aka Marilyn Meredith

2013-03-28T03:00:00.000-05:00

Today I'm hosting friend and fellow mystery writer Marilyn Meredith, whose newest book is shown below. She's been busily engaged in a blog tour the past few weeks, and she's now huffing and puffing toward the finish line. The photo shows her at one of her many talks to readers and writers. Welcome, Marilyn.

While I’ve been on this tour, I’ve been writing the next book in the Rocky Bluff P.D. series. I’ve also been reading chapters from the next in the Deputy Tempe Crabtree series to the critique group I’ve belonged to for thirty-plus years. I’ll be doing the final editing soon and send it off to the publisher. And guess what that means? I have to start planning the promotion.

There is a lot that can be done on the Internet to let people know about a new book—almost too much.

Will I do another blog tour? I don’t know, maybe I’ll come up with something different. Anyone have any bright ideas?

Of course I’ll be continuing to promote Dangerous Impulses until that time. I’ll attend any craft and book fairs that come along, and of course I’ll be at the annual PSWA conference in July.

I plan to do a speaking engagement at our local library and anywhere else that I’m invited.

On a personal note, we have two grandsons getting married this spring, one the last weekend in May and the other, the first weekend in June. And we’re hoping our granddaughter can come visit with her new baby.

No matter what, I’ll be busy, I know. The good thing is that it’s busy with things I love to do and events I look forward to participating in. We’ve been blessed with a large family, so there is always something going on. (Anyone who is my friend on Facebook knows it isn’t always good stuff.)

I want all of you who have faithfully followed me along on this tour, I truly appreciate your interest and response. If you decide to try Dangerous Impulses I would be delighted if you’d write a review on Amazon, or just send me an email, mmeredith@ocsnet.net

I’ll be contacting the winner of the contest by email and posting the results on my blog in the next couple of days. Looking forward to seeing you, perhaps in person and if not, on Facebook.

Thank you, Chester, for hosting me near the end of my tour.

F. M. aka Marilyn

Now a bit about Dangerous Impulses:

An attractive new-hire captivates Officer Gordon Butler, Officer Felix Zachary’s wife Wendy is befuddled by her new baby, Ryan and Barbara Strickland receive unsettling news about her pregnancy, while the bloody murder of a mother and her son and an unidentified drug that sickens teenaged partiers jolts the Rocky Bluff P.D.

Spring on the Way

2013-03-25T18:23:00.000-05:00

I needed to look up something recently in my files of Nashville Magazine, which I edited from 1963 to 1969. In reading through several issues, I came across my last-page feature called "Loose Ends" in the February 1964 magazine. With all the weird weather we're having now (including snow flurries this afternoon), I thought the article, written one month past forty-nine years ago, made to order for the current situation. As you'll see, my writing tended to be a bit more poetic half a century ago.

IT WAS A SOGGY, gray winter morning as I drove into town, along streets lined like a football field with the thin shadows of light poles reflected on the pavement. The city mirrored a forlorn countenance, its colors flat, its buildings drab and water-streaked. A swirling exit from the new expressway stood chaste and deserted in the morning chill.

A ragged Negro, bent beneath the burden of his years, hobbled across an intersection, his tattered umbrella a comic foil against the rain. Traffic flowed past, tires squishing noisily through the downpour, each car tightly sealed against the outside world like a secluded island moving in the gray fog of dampness.

This was the city at its seamiest, I thought. Denuded trees, yellowed grass, slate-gray skies. Instead of open, friendly faces, the sidewalks were sparsely populated with stooped figures, their darkened faces withdrawn, shrouded against the weather. A dull, gray, wintry day. A wet, murky city. A place for introspection, a time for seeking new perspectives beyond the gray horizons of the present.

These same showers, differing only perhaps in their degree of warmth, coming a few scant weeks from now will stir this same muddy ground into a rebirth of momentous proportions. The same wan landscape will burst forth with new color, and these same downcast faces will turn upward with new brightness. For such is the magic of Spring.

It seems that all of life is geared to a similar cycle of cold, murky depths followed by the lightness and brightness of hope renewed. At least that is what makes the fight worth fighting.

Old Car Keeps 'Em Interested

2013-03-16T01:00:00.000-05:00

I had a fun time Thursday talking to members of the Stones River Woman's Club at Nashville's Marathon Village, the restored plant and offices of the old Marathon Motor Works that built a popular touring car between 1910 and 1914. We met in the former showroom where I stood near a blue 1914 Marathon with yellow wheels, the same one depicted on the cover of my fourth Greg McKenzie mystery, The Marathon Murders.

I told the ladies how I came to write the book after a suggestion from neighbor Kathleen Mays, whose father had worked on the assembly line in 1914. Since I'm a mystery writer, I looked at the place from a different point of view than most visitors. I found the company's history fascinating, but I concentrated on the dark side, with an eye to anything that might have led to murder.

I found it in Marathon officials' actions that ultimately led it its downfall. The owners made some crucial changes to put a successful company on a fatal decline. They fired the engineer who designed the car and brought in some people who didn't know anything about making automobiles.

What put them in bankruptcy was things like charging too little for their products and selling cars "out the back door," which kept the money off the books.

That was where I found my plot. I had an assistant treasurer disappear and be accused of embezzling funds. His family had no luck trying to refute the charges but never believed he took the money. When his body was found five years later, sitting in his car in an abandoned barn west of Nashville, there was nothing to indicate what had happened or where the money might have gone.

Now, ninety years later, during restoration of the Marathon office building, papers in an envelope bearing the assistant treasurer's name and addressed to the attorney general are found hidden in a wall. The construction foreman plans to bring them to the long-dead official's grandson but never arrives.

My PI's, Greg and Jill McKenzie, are hired to locate the foreman and recover the papers, but they soon find him dead. The woman's club members seemed to enjoy hearing about the book, and several bought copies. It was an enjoyable event for me, since I like nothing better than talking about my books.

To learn more about them, visit my website at ChesterDCampbell.com.

Submerged, a Terrifying New Thriller

2013-03-08T01:30:00.000-06:00

My guest today is Cheryl Kaye Tardif, the international bestselling author of Submerged, a terrifying new thriller that will leave you breathless. Born in Vancouver, BC, Cheryl is an award-winning, best-selling Canadian author who now lives in Edmonton, Alberta. She writes mystery, paranormal, suspense and thriller novels set in Canada. You can learn more about her at her website.
Having worked for over twenty-five years in advertising, promotion and sales, Cheryl is noted for her for her book marketing and promotion skills, which she makes available for other authors. For more information on this aspect of her career, check out her Shameless Promoter - Book Marketing Blog.

Her new thriller Submerged is a tale of two strangers submerged in guilt, brought together by fate. Here's what Andrew Gross, New York Times bestselling author of 15 Seconds, said:

"Submerged reads like an approaching storm, full of darkness, dread and electricity. Prepare for your skin to crawl."

After a tragic car accident claims the lives of his wife, Jane, and son, Ryan, Marcus Taylor is immersed in grief. But his family isn't the only thing he has lost. An addiction to painkillers has taken away his career as a paramedic. Working as a 911 operator is now the closest he gets to redemption—until he gets a call from a woman trapped in a car.

Rebecca Kingston yearns for a quiet weekend getaway, so she can think about her impending divorce from her abusive husband. When a mysterious truck runs her off the road, she is pinned behind the steering wheel, unable to help her two children in the back seat. Her only lifeline is a cell phone with a quickly depleting battery and a stranger's calm voice on the other end telling her everything will be all right.

Here are some more reviews:

"From the first page, you know you are in the hands of a seasoned and expert storyteller who is going to keep you up at night turning the pages. Tardif knows her stuff. There's a reason she sells like wildfire—her words burn up the pages. A wonderful, scary, heart-pumping writer." —M.J. Rose, international bestselling author of Seduction

"Tardif once again delivers a suspenseful supernatural masterpiece." —Scott Nicholson, international bestselling author of The Home

"From the first page, Cheryl Kaye Tardif takes you hostage with Submerged—a compelling tale of anguish and redemption." —Rick Mofina, bestselling author of Into the Dark

"Cheryl Kaye Tardif's latest novel SUBMERGED will leave you as haunted as its characters." —Joshua Corin, bestselling author of Before Cain Strikes

"Submerged will leave you breathless—an edge of your seat, supernatural thrill ride." —Jeff Bennington, bestselling author of Twisted Vengeance

Click this Kindle link for the ebook edition of Submerged. It is also available in paperback.

Read an Ebook Week

2013-03-04T22:14:00.000-06:00

This is Read an Ebook Week, and I have plenty to recommend for you. My two Post Cold War political thrillers started out at $3.99, but they've been reduced to $2.99. So break out your Kindle and order BEWARE THE JABBERWOCK and THE POKSU CONSPIRACY.

Poksu takes place in a part of the world that has always seemed mysterious, the Far East. I got my first taste of the area as a young first lieutenant in the Air Force. That was early 1952 and Japan was still digging its way out of the mire of World War II. I arrived at Yokohama on a troop ship and was transferred to a processing station. I had little chance to see the area with only a brief visit to the adjacent town. It had lots of broken English signs luring GI's into businesses.

After a few days and getting my assignment to the Directorate of Intelligence at Fifth Air Force Headquarters in Seoul, I lugged my B-4 bag and my portable typewriter onto the train and we headed southwest. One of the last stops before we crossed over to the island of Kyushu was the most memorable. I'll never forget hearing the conductor calling out, "Hiroshima, Hiroshima, Hiroshima!" This was a little more than six years after the A-bomb drop. We were in the city for only about fifteen minutes, but I got off and looked around the area. There was little visible of more than one story.

Our destination was the town of Fukuoka, home of an Air Force base from which I was flown to South Korea. My first view of Seoul was of a city with many buildings destroyed, streets in disrepair, other structures bearing holes left by bullets as well as artillery shells. Fifth Air Force was located in the former medical school of Seoul University. The main building housed offices. The DI was on the second floor, down the hall from the Joint Operations Center, which worked in cooperation with the Army, and the Tactical Air Control Center. I spent many off-duty hours in the TACC watching airmen move tokens representing aircraft, enemy and friendly, over a flat map of North Korea that covered most of the room. Using earphones scattered about the perimeter, I listened to radio transmissions from the pilots.

One of my Korean War mementos that sits on my desk is a brass plate with my name in embossed letters. It has a Korean scene on the back. The ingenious Koreans who made them used brass from artillery shells left by troops sweeping through the area. Djuring an R&R (Rest and Recuperation) visit to Japan, I brought back solid silver candelabra, beautiful cloisonne vases, and a set of Noritake china.

The Seoul that appears in The Poksu Conspiracy is the one I visited in 1987, a burgeoning metropolis that hardly resembled the town I knew in 1952-3. My protagonist, Burke Hill, also visits Chiangmai, Thailand, a unique city I toured during that Far East trip in 1987.

Scenes in Beware the Jabberwock that take place in Hong Kong involve locations I also visited during my month-long Far Eastern tour of 1987.

Click these links to read about Beware the Jabberwock or The Poksu Conspiracy.

It's Freebie Time Again

2013-02-24T12:58:00.000-06:00

Starting at midnight tonight, Pacific Standard Time, my fourth Greg McKenzie mystery, The Marathon Murders, will be free to download for the Kindle until midnight Wednesday, February 27. You'll find it at this link.

Some people glance at the name and think the story involves marathon runners. A good look at the cover should take care of that. It shows a skeleton seated behind the wheel of a Marathon touring car from the early twentieth century. The book involves a 90-year-old cold case, the murder of the assistant treasurer of Marathon Motor Works, a company that built a popular line of automobiles in Nashville from 1910 to 1914.

Actually, the company took its name from an event at the 1904 Olympics in St. Louis. Its car models were given such names as Runner and Winner. An industrious entrepreneur bought the rundown, long-vacant plant and office buildings a few years ago and restored them to provide space for artists, photographers, musicians, and other small businesses. That's where I got the idea for my mystery.

In The Marathon Murders, a construction worker finds some old company records from 1914 hidden behind paneling in the wall of a former office. The envelope includes the name of the assistant treasurer, Sydney Liggett, and a note indicating he planned to turn it over to the District Attorney. The job foreman finds Liggett's grandson, age 84, in a local nursing home. He promises to bring over the papers, then disappears.

McKenzie Investigations, run by senior sleuths Greg (retired OSI agent) and Jill McKenzie, are hired to find the missing papers. What they encounter is a string of murders committed to keep the secret of the 1914 documents hidden. The chase takes them to a small rural county near Nashville where things get pretty tense.

The book gave me the opportunity to highlight the work of the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, which provides a vital investigative arm to law enforcement agencies outside the major cities. Midwest Book Review said: "This fourth installment of the Greg McKenzie Mysteries is proof positive the series remains strong and fresh and is a major contender in the mystery venue." If you're new to the Greg McKenzie series, this is an opportunity for a free look. Just click the link above (after midnight).

Zoë Sharp's Die Easy

2013-02-09T00:49:00.000-06:00

Besides being acknowledged as a top-ranked thriller writer, British author Zoë Sharp is a member of the Hard Boiled Collective, a small group of mystery and thriller writers to which I belong. Today I have the pleasure of introducing you to the tenth book in her Charlie Fox series, Die Easy. Here's the book cover of the U.S. edition along with a teaser from the back cover.

In the sweating heat of Louisiana, former Special Forces soldier turned bodyguard, Charlie Fox, faces her toughest challenge yet.

Professionally, Charlie’s at the top of her game, but her personal life is in ruins. Her lover, bodyguard Sean Meyer, has woken from a gunshot-induced coma with his memory in tatters.

Working with Sean again was never going to be easy, but a celebrity fundraising event in post- Katrina New Orleans should have been the ideal opportunity for them both to take things nice and slow. Until, that is, they find themselves thrust into the middle of a war zone.

When an ambitious robbery explodes into a deadly hostage situation, the motive may be far more complex than simple greed. Somebody has a major score to settle and Sean is part of the reason.

Only trouble is, he doesn’t remember why.

Zoë lives in the English Lake District. Her hobbies are sailing, fast cars (and faster motorbikes - see at left), target shooting, travel, films, music, and reading just about anything she can get her hands on

New York Times best-selling author Harlan Coben had this to say about her new book, just out in the U.S. last month.:

"Zoë Sharp is one of the sharpest, coolest, and most intriguing writers I know. She delivers dramatic, action-packed novels with characters we really care about. And once again, in DIE EASY, Zoë Sharp is at the top of her game."

Here are the first two chapters:

ONE

Even on a good day I don’t enjoy being shot at. Been there, done that, and it bloody hurts.

I wasn’t kidding myself this was going to be a good day.

Maybe that had something to do with the fact that my gun hand—my right—was securely handcuffed to a reinforced briefcase weighing probably twenty-five pounds.

That in itself wouldn’t have been so bad. I’d put in enough time on the range to be proficient with either hand. My left wrist, however, was just as firmly handcuffed to Sean Meyer’s right. Neither of us was exactly overjoyed by this state of affairs.

Especially when everything was about to go to shit around us.

We were on a quiet street of generic storefronts, parked cars dotted along either side. There were people nearby but nobody gave us a second glance.

And then, just when the tension began to give me heartburn, a dozen rapid shots cracked out further down the street. I was half expecting them, but still they startled me. I forced out a strangled yelp, even though I knew they were scare shots, fired from a single weapon rather than part of an exchange, designed purely to start a stampede.

They got the job done.

Sean wheeled and I had to swing fast to stay with him. His eyes were everywhere. He’d already drawn the Glock 17 semiautomatic, hefted it in his left hand, but he stayed on his feet, upright, alert.

Next to him, useless as a stuffed lemon chained to that damn case, I felt helplessly exposed. I willed myself calm, knowing I had to rely on Sean to protect me—to protect both of us.

People started to stream past us. Some screaming, some shouting—unintelligible words filled with a contagious panic. I tugged deliberately at his arm.

“Sean! We need to get out of here—”

“Shut up.”

It was the vicious tone more than the words that shocked me into silence. As we turned, I caught a glimpse of figures crossing between the buildings. They were dressed in jeans and loose shirts like the rest of the crowd. Unlike everybody else, though, they moved with direction and purpose, and they were armed.

I didn’t speak, didn’t distract Sean, but by the way he tensed I knew he’d seen them, too.

His brows were drawn down flat in concentration, making his harsh face seem colder than usual. Cold enough to make me shiver.

He muscled me sideways effortlessly, snatching roughly at the cuffs so that it jarred my whole arm. I should have been protesting at this point, but I said nothing. It took willpower to remain passive.

Sean went down on one knee, pulled me into a crouch alongside him, using an old parked Chevy for cover. We stayed up by the front wheel where the engine block provided more of a shield.

More people sprinted by. A man tripped and went sprawling right behind us. Sean ignored him. He had the gun up in front of him, head tilted to best utilise his dominant eye.

A target broke cover, dodging through the remnants of the fleeing people. Sean fired on him without hesitation, four fast shots that somehow threaded through the crowd, tracked and hit. He went down.

Before the first man finished falling another had appeared, jinking between parked cars on the opposite side of the street. He had a machine pistol held at waist-level, and he strafed us as he ran. Sean held his nerve, his position and his aim, taking only two rounds to drop him.

The third and fourth assailants came in together from oblique angles, taking advantage of any tunnelling in Sean’s focus. Sean twisted, forgetting about my dead weight on the end of his right arm. He growled in frustration as his first shots went wide, taking an extra fraction of a second he barely had time for.

His breath hissed out as he swung his arm over the top of me and fired again, so close I felt the gases blast past my cheek, heard the brutal snap of the report clatter in my ears. The hot dead brass spun out and scattered around me. One casing hit the side of my neck, burning the skin. Instinct told me to stay on my feet. Instead I dropped flat, trying to get my hands over my head. Not easy with unwieldy objects attached to both arms.

Then I heard the Glock’s action lock back empty.

I hadn’t been counting the rounds, but I couldn’t believe Sean let the gun run dry in these circumstances.

I raised my head, my locked-together fingers hampering his reload. Sean hit the release to drop the magazine and shoved the Glock, butt upwards, into the vee at the back of his bent leg. He snatched the spare mag out of his belt and slapped it home with the palm of his hand, then pulled the gun free and flicked the slide release awkwardly to snap the first round up into the chamber.

The whole operation had taken maybe a couple of seconds, left-handed, smooth and without a slip, but he was staring at me as if I’d just tried to get him killed.

As if I wanted him dead …

“Come on—up!” he commanded, almost wrenching my arm out of its socket as he dragged me upright. The briefcase dangled painfully from the short cuff chain, gouging at my right wrist. I groped for the case’s handle, stumbling as we fell back into the mouth of an alley.

The expanding slap of a long gun rebounded between the brick buildings, and then they came at us thick and fast, half a dozen armed men, experienced pros, motivated, confident.

It was always going to be a no-win situation.

Sean went to the wall that allowed him to keep his left hand free, facing outwards, elbowing me round behind him. He fired at anything that showed itself past the edge of the scarred brickwork, dialled in now, emotions buttoned down tight.

And this time he dropped the magazine out before the last round was fired, keeping the Glock’s working parts in play. He shoved the gun into his belt to reach for a reload.

I stayed close up behind him—I had no other choice. But I had my face slightly turned towards the back of the alley, and for this reason I saw a door open halfway back, a man emerge with a gun in his right fist. He was tall, rangy, his arms already raised to firing position, and he was smiling.

I sucked in an audible breath. Sean heard it, head snapping round. For the merest fraction of a second he hesitated, then tried to hurry the magazine into the pistol grip and fumbled it.

The man’s smile became broader. He fired.

Not at Sean, but at me.

I felt the punch of the impact in my chest, high on the right, where he knew the round would drill diagonally through ribs, lungs and heart. Where he knew it would do the most harm.

Bastard.

I gasped but couldn’t get my breath, started to slide down the rough wall as my legs folded under me. Sean turned into my body as if to stop me falling. His face was an inch from mine. I stared into eyes dark as mourning and saw nothing reflected back at me.

That hurt worse than the shot.

His left hand was empty. It snaked under the tails of my shirt. I felt his fingers close around the SIG Sauer I wore just behind my right hip, pulling it free.

He knew I carried the gun ready, with a round jacked up into the chamber. There was no safety.

He fired as soon as the weapon cleared my torso, four rounds straight into the centre of the smiling man’s body mass.

As the guy went down I just had time to note that he wasn’t smiling any more.

TWO

“C’mon, Charlie, it was just an exercise,” Parker Armstrong said. “The whole point was for you to make things as difficult for Sean as possible, really test the guy out.”

I remembered my faked mini-hysteria, the deliberate inaction that had stuck in my craw to maintain. I looked down at the coffee cup clasped between my tense fingers. “Well, I did that all right.”

My boss’s smile was dust dry. “I’ll bet. But Sean passed the course—top ten per cent.”

I remembered the shots that had threaded through the crowd. That they’d been accurate was not the point. Collateral damage was not supposed to figure in our line of work.

“Yeah, but—before—we both know Sean would have been in the top two per cent, easy.”

Before.

It was how we’d taken to referring to Sean’s near-fatal shooting and the resultant coma that had locked him down for nearly four months. Before he’d nearly died and then come back to us changed not just physically and mentally but emotionally, too.

Before the part of him I knew—the part that really knew me—had died, in a way.

“It’s only been five months since he woke up and he still passed fit, Charlie. That’s impressive, by anyone’s standards.”

I hunched my shoulders. “You didn’t see him, Parker—the way he looked at me …”

And the way he didn’t.

Parker leaned forwards on my sofa, elbows resting on his knees, and pinned me with a level gaze. “There’s no point in taking a Stress Under Fire course unless it lives up to its name. Your job was to drive him hard, to look for the cracks.” His voice softened sympathetically. “Nobody escapes unscathed, Charlie—that’s the point of it. Sure, it was never going to be a cakewalk for either of you, but I knew no one else would push him harder. You’re the one who knows him best.”

“I knew him best,” I corrected. “But that’s not true any more.”

We sat there in the high-ceilinged living room of the New York City apartment. Parker looked at home there, but his family owned the building so I suppose he had every right.

He’d offered it to us at a ridiculously subsidised rent as part of the relocation package that had tempted Sean and me away from the UK in the first place. Otherwise there was no way we could afford to rent within sight of Central Park, even if you did practically have to stand on a chair to see the greenery.

I glanced up, found him still watching me. There was something both soothing and unnerving about Parker’s calm silence. “The old Sean would never have let them shoot me in the chest,” I said at last. It sounded almost plaintive.

Parker smiled more fully then. It transformed his rather sombre face, took half a decade off his age. “C’mon, Charlie, Tony’s been waiting to get his own back ever since you shot him in the balls last year.”

I felt a sheepish grin of my own rise up. “Hey, that was just his bad luck. I was aiming for low-centre-body mass, just like he advocates—the most static part of a moving target. He should just be thankful we weren’t using live rounds.”

“As should you,” he said. “How’re the ribs?”

“Black and blue, thanks.”

“Yeah, those sims sting like a bastard, don’t they?”

The Simunitions training rounds used on the SUF course were designed to give participants a nasty and painful reminder of the consequences faced in the field. Heavy or protective clothing was disallowed by the instructors, so there was nothing to lessen the impact. As with the real thing, nobody wanted to take a hit.

The sims had the advantage that they could be fired from a replacement barrel in the shooter’s own weapon. They were the most realistic training round I’d encountered short of live ammunition.

Getting shot in the chest had been an experience that left me bruised and aching, but it had only been a day or so ago. In a week the visible marks would have faded like they never were. Only the implanted reflex would remain.

I drained my coffee, rose stiffly and reached for Parker’s empty cup too. He’d come straight from the office and was wearing his usual formal dark suit. It was well-cut without being flashy. I could have used the same words to describe Parker himself—everything about him capable of blending into the background. Unless you looked closely at his eyes. Then you realised he’d seen and done more than you ever wanted to know about.

Sean had eyes like those.

I took the cups into the apartment’s kitchen area, dumped them in the sink. When I came back, I found my boss standing by the tall windows looking out across the Upper East Side. His hands were in his pockets, but I knew from the angle of his shoulders that he wasn’t anywhere near as relaxed as the pose suggested.

Parker wasn’t only my employer and, I suppose, my landlord—over the course of Sean’s incapacity he’d become a friend. He could have become much more than that, if we’d let it happen.

He turned around. “So, how are things between the two of you?”

I shoved my own hands into the back pockets of my jeans, wished I hadn’t when I saw Parker divine the defensiveness of the gesture. “OK-ish,” I said. “Intellectually, Sean accepts I’m not the girl he remembers from the army—the one he thinks betrayed him. He accepts that we moved on, found each other again, came over here together and are sharing this place, working for you.”

“But?”

“Intellectually, he accepts it, but emotionally?” I shrugged, shook my head. “That’s another thing altogether.”

Parker stepped in suddenly, reached out and took my upper arms. His grasp was light, but sufficient to stop me getting my hands free without a struggle. I didn’t try.

“Look, Charlie, if things have gotten too … difficult here, you can always move out. I know the two of you are not sleeping together—”

I did wrench free then. “Sean told you that?”

“He didn’t have to,” he said gently. “This is a two-bedroom apartment, and you’ve moved your gear into the second bedroom.”

For a second I thought about telling Parker that Sean had become a violently restless sleeper, racked by desperate nightmares as if back in the coma’s grip. Besides, he’d shown no inclination for intimacy—not with me anyway.

How can I share a bed with someone who not only doesn’t love me, but doesn’t really even like me any more?

I shrugged. “He snores.”

Parker placed his hands back on my shoulders, not calling me on the lie. “Hey, Charlie, I know it’s tough,” he said softly. “But if the both of you need some space, some time, I have room at my place. You’re welcome to stay as long as you need.”

My throat tightened. “Parker—”

Off to my left, the apartment front door slammed. I jerked back automatically, but was aware of the shocked guilt plastered across my face when Sean appeared in the living room doorway.

He was dressed in his running gear and dripping with sweat. No longer as wasted as when he’d woken, Sean had worked hard to rebuild his muscle bulk. But his right leg was dragging a little as it did when he pushed himself to the point of exhaustion. He’d done a lot of that.

The gunshot wound to his left temple had disrupted his brain’s control over his right side. Remastering simple coordination was just one of the battles still raging.

Sean saw the pair of us, standing together like that and his eyes flicked over us with unreadable intensity. I thought I caught just a flicker of contempt.

“Hi, Sean,” Parker said with remarkable composure. “Charlie and I were just discussing your Stress Under Fire course. Sounds like you aced it. Tony says it’s the first time he’s ever been taken down by someone using a New York reload.”

A New York reload was simply to pull a second loaded gun when the first was out of action. Simple, but effective.

“It wasn’t against the letter of the rules,” Sean said shortly. “The spirit, maybe, but it got the job done and that’s what counts, right?”

“Right,” Parker echoed, wary of his tone. He nodded towards Sean’s clothing. “How’s it going?”

“Fine,” Sean said, straightening as if in the presence of a senior officer. “Just done a quick five miles. No problem.”

I frowned, but Sean nailed me with a single, deadly glance which Parker deliberately ignored.

“That’s great, Sean. You’re looking good.”

He started for the door, stopped after only a few strides, as if changing his mind about something.

“Ah, Charlie, I need for you to come in early tomorrow. We’ve been tasked with security for a client who’s attending a big fundraiser down in New Orleans next week. Some of the areas worst hit by Hurricane Katrina are still derelict and it seems the glitterati finally decided to do something about it. They’ve organised some big charity gala, plenty of feel-good largesse and displays of ostentatious wealth—including high-profile security. Nothing too taxing.”

“So why the need to contract out?” I asked. “Don’t they have their own people?”

“Not necessarily,” Parker said. “And you were specially requested—an old client. He reckons you saved his ass once before, and he wants you assigned this time around.”

In the periphery of my vision I was aware of Sean shifting impatiently.

“OK,” I said quickly, curiosity curbed. I checked my watch automatically. “I’ll start putting together the usual security inventory first thing. Be a nice chance to see if that new comms gear is all it’s cracked up to be.”

“How many on the team?” It was Sean who asked the question, but my eyes flew to Parker’s.

“That’s up to Charlie,” he said, impassive.

He’s not ready!

If not now, then when?

Sean watched the silent exchange with narrowed eyes, his body tense. For a long extended moment, nobody spoke.

I swallowed. “Can we … talk about this when I’ve had a chance to look over the logistics?” I said then, keeping my voice as neutral as possible. “See how many people we actually need?”

Parker considered for a moment, then turned to Sean. “You feel ready to come back?”

I failed to hide my dismay at Parker’s question. A mistake on my part.

Sean turned on me. “What?” he demanded roughly. “With respect, Charlie, wind your bloody neck in.” Those dark eyes fenced with mine, filled with an impotent fury and something else, too—fear.

I held my tongue. I’d been injured in the past and faced the sheer frustration of needing to get back on the job—long before anyone else believed I was fit to do so.

“Yeah, I’m ready,” he said. “Especially for a job that’s ‘nothing too taxing’, eh?” He might have got me with that argument, had he not added, “Besides, if she’s up to it, then so am I.”

I swear I saw Parker flinch. I know I did.

“Whatever personal issues you have with Charlie, keep them outside the office,” he said, pleasant but icy at the same time. “Charlie’s a first-class close-protection operative, as she’s proved on more occasions than I care to number.”

Sean’s nod was fractional at best, and aimed solely at Parker.

“Looks like I’ll see the both of you in the office tomorrow morning,” Parker said. He smiled. “Good to have you back, Sean.”

Sean didn’t say anything after he’d gone, just headed for the shower.

I was left standing by the window, looking down onto the afternoon traffic, with a sense of foreboding deep in my chest that had nothing to do with being shot, even by a bullet filled only with paint.

Parker had taken Sean on as a partner. As far as many people were concerned, I’d just hitched along for the ride. Armstrong-Meyer held the enviable position of being regarded as one of the best close-protection agencies in the States—if not worldwide. Sean was a vital, visible, part of that. Parker would, I recognised, always take his side. He had no choice.

But I did.

And if things didn’t improve between Sean and me—maybe not back to the way things were, but at least to the point of easy civility—then one of us was going to have to quit.

Didn’t take a genius to work out who.

How To Help an Author

2013-02-05T12:09:00.000-06:00

Thanks to Timeline Photos for this excellent advice:

Go ye and do likewise.

Making Characters Come Alive

2013-01-29T03:00:00.000-06:00

I love comments like one from a reviewer for The Good, The Bad and The Murderous, second book in my Sid Chance mystery series. She wrote:

"The character development is superb. Hard decisions are made by realistic characters. Are these really just characters in a book? They seemed so real to me. In my mind's eye, each character has a face, a body, a voice."

One of the criticisms I see often about novels is that too many characters are "wooden," hardly more than stick figures. Everybody in my stories who is more than a walk-on with only a few lines of dialogue gets some background to make them real to the reader. Here was my introduction to two minor characters who appear in only a couple of scenes:

He introduced the tall lawyer, who reminded Sid of Jimmy Stewart in It’s a Wonderful Life, as Brainerd Hersholt. The smaller man was Hardy Vandenberg. As Sid learned, Hersholt’s movie actor look wasn’t far off course. A Yale Law School graduate, he was a descendant of famed movie actor Jean Hersholt, who was honored annually by the Hersholt Humanitarian Award given at the Oscar ceremonies. A graduate of Duke Law School, Vandenberg was the son of an old friend of Arnie Bailey.

The Good, The Bad and The Murderous will be free in the Kindle Store today (Jan. 29), tomorrow and Thursday (Jan. 31) at amzn.to/14iOl1p

Secondary characters with important roles in the story get the full treatment, almost as much as lead characters. This can include family backgrounds, education, employment history, manner of speech, and various other characteristics. Sid Chance is well covered, of course, but I gave him a part-time helper who is as unique as any character I've created. Jasmine (Jaz) LeMieux is a wealthy businesswoman who enjoys assisting in particularly difficult investigations. Many readers say she's their favorite character.

Jaques LeMieux, a French Canadian, came to Nashville after the Korean War. Starting with a single truck stop, he built the business into a thriving nationwide chain of travel centers along the interstate highway system. He married an aristocratic Southern belle who disowned Jaz when the headstrong girl, a star basketball player, quit college in disgust and joined the Air Force. After completing a tour with the Security Police, she trained under a former Golden Gloves standout and became a champion woman boxer. Unable to make a living at the sport, she joined the Metro Nashville Police Department. After her mother died and her father was nearly killed in an accident, Jaz moved back home and helped get him healthy again. She became Jaques LeMieux' assistant and got an MBA degree. When he died, she took over as majority owner and chairman of the board.

Some authors paint detailed physical descriptions of their characters. I prefer to give enough for a general idea but leave it to the reader to create his or her own image. Sometimes it's done with a comparative comment like the detective who had a Clark Gable mustache. The main point is to provide enough background so the readers feel they know the character as a real person.

Setting the Stage - Ready for Action

2013-01-13T14:16:00.001-06:00

The early nineties was an exciting time, a time of change, a time when controversial concepts suddenly lost their validity. Just before the decade opened, one of the Cold War's major symbols, the Berlin Wall, was reduced to a pile of concrete rubble. By late 1991, the vaunted Soviet Union had crumbled apart as well. Meanwhile, the United States showed its muscle in the Middle East by leading a coalition that saw Desert Storm stop Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein in his tracks.

It appeared to be a heady time for America and her allies, but problems rumbled beneath the surface like precursors of an earthquake. The break-up of the Soviet Union and the demise of communism in the Russian sphere stripped many autocrats of their power and left them searching for ways to reclaim their lofty status. The U.S. venture in Iraq, sending a large army halfway across the globe in record time, put strains on the budget, prodding Congress to call for slashes in military and intelligence spending.

Financial oligarchs, international bankers and corporate heads who felt their world view superior to the insular perspectives of most people, saw the disorganization of the former Soviet states as a hindrance to world order. Something needed to be done to assure the pieces of the puzzle would be assembled in the fashion they desired.

This outlook for the period of transition in the early nineties provides the backdrop for my trilogy of Post Cold War political thrillers featuring ex-FBI agent Burke Hill, his wife Lori, and a cast of colorful characters from around the globe. Here are the covers produced by talented artist Stephen Walker.

The first book, Beware the Jabberwock, shifts from Israel to Hong Kong to the eastern U.S., with much of it centered around a small island off the Florida Gulf Coast. The Poksu Conspiracy, second in the series, alternates between the Washington area and South Korea, with side junkets to San Franciso and Chiangmai, Thailand. The final volume, titled Overture to Disaster, involves two subplots that feature a Special Operations helicopter pilot and a criminal investigator from Minsk, Belarus.

Beware the Jabberwock is available here in paperback or ebook.
The Poksu Conspiracy can be found here as an ebook.
Overture to Disaster will be published in March.

THE NEXT BIG THING BLOG HOP

2013-01-02T02:00:00.000-06:00

Welcome! What is a blog hop? Basically, it’s a way that readers can discover new authors, because with bookstores closing and publishers not promoting new authors as much, we need to find a way to introduce readers to authors they may not see in their local bookstore.

Here you have the chance to find many new authors. You’ll get information about me, what I’m working on now, and THE POKSU CONSPIRACY, the second book in my new thriller series, of which reviewer John R. Lindermuth wrote, “Campbell's tale is well-drawn with richly defined characters, enough action to satisfy even the most jaded of readers and an absorbing plot. Highly recommended.” Also see links below to other authors you might like to check out.

I’d like to thank fellow author Jaden Terrell for tagging me to participate. Click the link below to find out about Jaden’s latest book, A CUP FULL OF MIDNIGHT.

http://killerconversation.wordpress.com/2012/12/27/the-next-big-thing-blog-hop

In this particular hop, I and my fellow authors listed below, in their respective blogs, will answer ten questions where you get to learn about our current book and work in progress as well as some insights into our process, from characters and inspirations to plotting and other decisions. I hope you enjoy it!

Leave a comment and share your thoughts and questions.

1: What is the title of your book?

My newest book is THE POKSU CONSPIRACY, second in my Post Cold War political thriller trilogy. I'm currently finishing work on the third, OVERTURE TO DISASTER.

2: Where did the idea come from for the book?

I was stationed in Seoul during the Korean War and returned for a visit in 1987 with my younger son and his Korean wife. At the time, South Korea was led by a succession of army generals. I thought about what might happen if the leadership decided to dismiss American heavy-handed guidance and pursue a nuclear arsenal in secret?

3: What genre does your book come under?

I call it a Political Thriller.

4: Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?

I've seen few movies in recent years, but I'd say Mel Gibson or George Clooney would make a good Burke Hill. Keanu Reeves would probably work for Korean Detective Yun Yu-sop. That's as far as I can go.

5: What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?

Close calls and deadly confrontations stalk Burke Hill, clandestine director for a Washington PR firm that's a CIA spinoff, as he seeks to find the truth about a secret agreement for Israel to help South Korea develop nuclear weapons.

6: Is your book self-published, published by an independent publisher, or represented by an agency?

Published by Night Shadows Press, a small independent, the book is currently available only in ebook format for the Kindle.

7: How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?

The manuscript was written originally in 1991 and, with all the research I did, took nearly a year to finish.

8: What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?

Tim Hallinan called it in the territory of Ludlum and Trevanian, but with more character development.

9: Who or what inspired you to write this book?

At the end of the first book in the trilogy, BEWARE THE JABBERWOCK, I hinted that my protagonist, Burke Hill, was going to hear more from the Director of Central Intelligence. I decided to have him join Worldwide Communications Consultants, a CIA spinoff, a legitimate PR firm with a black operations side. Since I had spent time in the Far East in recent years, Korea seemed a good place to set my story.

10: What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest?

The other main character besides Burke Hill is Capt. Yun Yu-sop, a homicide detective with the Seoul Metropolitan Police Bureau. Much of the story is told from his point of view, making it partly a Korean police procedural. During my research, I corresponded with an official of the American Embassy in Seoul, who supplied me with a great deal of information on police organization and procedures.

Below are authors who will be joining me by blog next Wednesday, with a little information about their writing. Be sure to bookmark and add them to your calendars for updates on WIPs and New Releases! Happy Writing and Reading!

1. Pat Browning is the author of ABSINTHE OF MALICE, a Penny Mackenzie Mystery. Robert Fate, author of the Baby Shark series, wrote: "Penny Mackenzie is marvelous. I want more of her. As the clever, reluctant, self-effacing heroine of Pat Browning’s fast paced and engrossing tale of murder and love in a small town, she is unforgettable."

2. Susan Santangelo is the author of MARRIAGE CAN BE MURDER and two other Baby Boomer Mysteries. "Susan Santangelo may be the next Jessica Fletcher, the mystery writer and amateur detective portrayed by Angela Lansbury in the award-winning television series, Murder She Wrote. Susan's found a niche in the mystery-writing genre that just might find its way to the television screen." Shoreline Times

3. Easrl Staggs is the author of MEMORY OF A MURDER and SHORT STORIES OF EARL STAGGS. Of MEMORY OF A MURDER, Midwest Book Review wrote: "The plot is engaging, the action nonstop, and the ending quietly satisfying."

Deadly Illusions Is Free for the Kindle

2012-12-26T03:00:00.000-06:00

When I set up my tent at an outdoor festival, I can count on a few people to gaze about the array of covers and ask, "Which one do you like best?" My stock answer isn't really an answer at all. It's a statement. "That's like asking which one of my kids do I like best?" That would be partly true, partly a cop-out. It's true I don't have a favorite, but I view some a bit more fondly than others. One in this category is Deadly Illusions. Trouble is, this is the least expensive of my books at $12.95. Like all of my mysteries, though, it's only $2.99 for the Kindle.

And today, December 26, through Saturday, December 29, Deadly Illusions will be free to download from the Kindle Store here.

This is the third book in my Greg McKenzie Mystery Series. I particularly enjoyed writing it since it involved Greg and Jill opening McKenzie Investigations and launching their careers as PI's. The response from reviewers was encouraging.

Spinetingler Magazine wrote:

"Campbell's engaging style and masterful plotting makes for a fast-paced, thrilling read. His sharp wit left this reader laughing out loud at times, yet the steadily building suspense made for a white-knuckle, edge-of-the seat ride."

Midwest Book Review had this to say:

"Greg McKenzie is a senior investigator who relies on his experience to compensate for the brawn he might have engaged in the past. His wife, Jill, is an accomplished pilot, cook, and is the perfect partner for her husband. Campbell juxtaposes her correction of Greg's "blue language" and her obvious spirituality with her determination when the going gets rough and she has to use some of the private investigator skills that most people would shrink from. All in all, DEADLY ILLUSIONS is another winner in the Chester D. Campbell literary cabinet. Campbell obviously has many stories to share, and he continues to write fabulous mysteries."

In the book, Molly Saint hires new PI's Greg and Jill McKenzie to check into her husband's background, then disappears. It starts them on a tangled trail of deceit. Complicating matters further, Greg gets drawn into a troubling police investigation stemming from the assassination of the Federal Reserve Board chairman at a Nashville hotel. The case resurrects old problems with a Murder Squad detective and his colleages among Nashville's finest. The deeper the McKenzies dig, the more deadly illusions they face. After threats, break-ins, and another murder, the charade ends in a shocking showdown.

I enjoyed writing Jill's character, and the readers appear to approve, as witness the comments of Midwest Book Review's Shelley Glodowski above. Jill does something quite unexpected in this story, but I won't say anymore as I don't want to spoil it for you.

One dilemma mystery writers face is the necessity to continually ramp up the tension by putting your protagonist in progressively more dire situations. If you aren't careful, they wind up facing impossible odds. In this book, Greg and his homicide detective friend find themselves defenseless, confronted by a remorseless killer.

What happens? Read the book.

The Story Behind the Story

2012-11-08T20:45:00.000-06:00

The background to my second Post Cold War political thriller, The Poksu Conspiracy, goes back sixty years. That was when my Knoxville Air National Guard unit was activated. A few months later I found myself , a young lieutenant, assigned to Fifth Air Force Headquarters in Seoul. When I returned from the war zone in 1953, I married the girl who would become mother of my four children. Back home, I also read several books on Korea and learned how the country had arrived at the situation it faced when the North invaded the South in 1950.

Thirty years later, my younger son, as an Army lieutenant, was stationed at the DMZ (Demilitarized Zone) along the North Korean border. He married a Korean girl before returning to the States. By the mid-eighties he was back in the Far East, stationed on Okinawa with Army Special Forces. His team was targeted on Thailand, where they helped train Thai special forces. His second son was born on Okinawa. When his tour ended in 1987, he had a month's leave coming. He invited his mother and me to join him and his wife on a month-long tour of the region. That trip contributed many ideas I've used in my Post Cold War political thrillers.

We started that rambling tour of 1987 in Seoul, which bore no resemblance to the city I remembered from the spring of 1952. Instead of buildings left in shambles by artillery barrages and streets largely devoid of traffic other than military, I found modern high-rise structures everywhere and wide boulevards clogged with vehicles. Though she had been married for several years and now had two small boys, my daughter-in-law wanted a proper wedding ceremony as a memento to replace the civil vows they took back during my son's DMZ tour. We attended the traditional Korean ceremony at a wedding house in Inchon, her hometown and Seoul's seaport neighbor. A similar event takes place in the book.

When I began my fiction-writing career a couple of years later with my first political thriller, Beware the Jabberwock, I used ideas for Hong Kong scenes based on the final leg of that 1987 tour. Recalling our experience in Seoul, plus memories from the Korean War days, I started work on Book 2 with an idea about what could happen in those turbulent days of the early nineties.

I decided to use a Korean homicide detective as a major character in the story. I corresponded with a staff member at the American Embassy who sent me brochures detailing the organization and structure of the Seoul Metropolitan Police Bureau, plus lots of other useful information.

The Poksu Conspiracy is probably the most thoroughly researched book I've written. I read countless books and magazines on Korea, plus such subjects as nuclear weapons. Most of the historical information in the story is factual, including South Korea's early work on gaining a nuclear capability. I came across one intriguing fact, that Japan's efforts to create an atomic bomb during World War II took place in Korea. Another factual subject I included dealt with operations of a Northeast Anti-Japanese United Army division headed by Kim Il-sung in the late 1930s.

I visited many of the locations in Seoul mentioned in the book during my 1987 trip. Our travels through the Far East also took us to Thailand, including Bangkok and Chiangmai. The main character in the book, Burke Hill, travels to Chiangmai in search of one of the Poksu guerrillas from World War II. He stays in the Top North Guest House, an interesting motel we spent a few nights in. He also goes to a couple of unique sites we visited, including the Night Bazaar and a mountainside Buddhist temple called Wat Prathat Doi Suthep.

For a book sixty years in the making, I'm happy it's finally out there for people to read. It has been twenty-one years since I wrote the original manuscript, but the story is still basically the same. You'll find it in the Kinde Store at Poksu Conspiracy.

Following a Flair for Creation

2012-10-19T12:40:00.000-05:00

I confess I'm not a prolific blog reader, but I enjoy learning how other authors feel about their writing. What it usually boils down to is they see placing words on paper (or a computer screen) as part of their makeup. They have to write. My take on it may be basically the same, but I see it in a little different light.

I look at writing as one way to indulge a talent for creation. Creative types love to produce something out of nothing, to follow the old Star Trek manta of going where no man has gone before. I've always enjoyed the creative process. Back in the sixties I put together all the parts to create Nashville's first slick paper monthly magazine. I followed that with a venture into the advertising world, joining the creative department of Nashville's largest agency.

During the final segment of my life in the business world, I managed a statewide trade association of more than 4,000 members. One of the most fun parts of the job was to create annual conventions with openings that would excite the delegates. I put on a variety of productions using video and music, including one with a young female news reporter staging a TV newscast.

When I set up shop in my home office after retirement, I turned to novel writing as a natural outlet for my creative penchant. The first seven manuscripts I completed got varied receptions from a string of agents, none resulting in publication, but I kept at it because I enjoyed creating the tales of adventure. I finally got a contract and began to produce stories that wound up on the printed page. And as the publishing world changed, they began to appear in the electronic arena.

The first three manuscripts were a trilogy of political thrillers written twenty years ago. I've been working to revise them more in today's style, meaning tighter and somewhat less wordy. The first volume, Beware the Jabberwock, is now on Amazon, and book two, The Poksu Conspiracy, will be there by the end of this month. The new cover is shown at right, featuring South Korea's National Treasure No. 1, the Great South Gate (Namdaemun), above the hangul characters for poksu, meaning "vengeance."

I consider myself primarily a storyteller. I have no desire to write books with messages intended to sway readers' minds in some direction. I keep writing because I enjoy creating stories that interest me and hopefully will interest a few of those millions of novel readers out there. If you are one of them, tell your friends.

A Look at Chris Redding's Blonde Demolition

2012-10-10T13:06:00.000-05:00

Today I welcome mystery writer Chris Redding, who who lives in New Jersey with her "one husband, two kids, one dog, and three rabbits." When she isn't writing, she's chauffeuring her two boys to activities and working per diem in her local hospital. She gives us a look at her latest release, Blonde Demolition. Here's the back cover summary:

Mallory Sage lives in a small, idyllic town where nothing ever happens. Just the kind of life she has always wanted. No one, not even her fellow volunteer firefighters, knows about her past life as an agent for Homeland Security.

Former partner and lover, Trey McCrane, comes back into Mallory's life. He believes they made a great team once, and that they can do so again. Besides, they don't have much choice. Paul Stanley, a twisted killer and their old nemesis, is back.

Framed for a bombing and drawn together by necessity, Mallory and Trey go on the run and must learn to trust each other again―if they hope to survive. But Mallory has been hiding another secret, one that could destroy their relationship. And time is running out.

Here's an excerpt from Blonde Demolition:

Mallory bit down and then yanked at the arm. Her meager strength came from another rush of adrenaline.

"Whoa, Mallory. It's just me."

The familiar voice froze her before she could do any damage. Oh crap. As if her day hadn't tanked already.

One by one she uncurled her fingers from around his wrist. Her shaking hands grasped the steering wheel, knuckles white.

Her eyes fell closed. If she had a list of people she never wanted to see again, his name would be at the top. Why here? Why now? This was the last thing she needed.

She steadied her breath and her gaze scanned the parking lot. No one stirred or walked to their car. She couldn't be seen with him.

"Don't turn around. Just drive. I'll be hunkered down in the back."

She started the car and drove home. Her knuckles remained white. "What the hell are you doing here?"

"I think you know."

Of course. "The bomb in our trailer?"

Emotions roiled her stomach. She'd have to stock up on antacids if Trey was back in her life. And she had just been thinking how nutty this week of fair preparations had been. Now it all looked so easy.

Her thoughts shifted to the events of the evening. Who had put the bomb there? It wasn't a prank if this guy was here. This was bigger than all of Coleville, Centre County.

She pulled in front of her house, a two-story Cape Cod set down a long driveway.

"We're here and no one can see you from the road," she said.

She got out of the car, leaving her guest to follow.

You'll find the ebook at http://tinyurl.com/7olwvhs, the paper edition at http://tinyurl.com/87qdaam.

Greg McKenzie Book 2 Free Oct. 1-3

2012-09-30T15:41:00.000-05:00

When I wrote the book that became my first published mystery, Secret of the Scroll, I had no idea of turning it into a series. But I fell in love with Greg and Jill McKenzie and decided they were too interesting to consign to the scrap heap of discarded fictional characters. I started looking around for a plot to get them involved in a good whodunit.

My brother had a condo on Perdido Key, Florida in those days, and my wife and I spent a couple of weeks there each spring and fall. It was an ideal place to do some writing. I decided to set the new book there. The most obvious sight in those days was a bevy of cranes lifting construction materials above the beach. It was boom days for high-rise condos.

Designed to Kill developed from that start. I looked back to characters from the first book for the basic setup. Greg and Jill McKenzie owned a condo in the same spot as the one Sarah and I stayed at on Perdido Key. The McKenzies' best friends, Sam and Wilma Gannon, had a son named Tim who was architect/engineer for a new high-rise designed after a Spanish castle. At a party marking completion of the project, a fifteenth floor balcony collapses, sending two people to their deaths.

When Tim's body is found the next morning at the Gulf Islands National Seashore not far away, the sheriff's sergeant who investigates calls it an obvious suicide. Sam Gannon disagrees and asks his retired Air Force investigator friend, Greg, to look into it. Greg, with Jill's help, finds lots of inconsistencies. When he's warned to butt out by a couple of Mafia enforcers, he knows it's time to solve a murder.

A cover blurb by New York Times bestselling author Phillip Margolin calls the book "A thoroughly enjoyable mystery with an intelligent plot, clever clues and characters who are like people you know."

It has a twist at the end and you probably won't guess the identity of the murderer.

YOU CAN DOWNLOAD DESIGNED TO KILL FREE FOR THE KINDLE ON MONDAY-WEDNESDAY (OCTOBER 1-3) AT The Kindle Store.

Who's Who in Post Cold War Thriller II

2012-09-09T16:08:00.000-05:00

Here's an advance peek at my second Post Cold War political thriller titled The Poksu Conspiracy. What follows is the Who's Who that will appear in the book. It lists all of the characters who appear in more than one chapter. I figure you won't need a cheat sheet to keep up with those who only make brief appearances. They are listed by category.

The Korean (hangul) characters for "poksu" in a square, at right, was the trademark of the small poksu guerrilla group that harassed the Japanese during World War II. It later appears as the codename for a highly-secret nuclear weapons project.

Who's Who

Worldwide Communications Consultants (Washington-based CIA spinoff)

Nathaniel (Nate) Highsmith, President

Burke Hill, chief financial officer, clandestine group director

Tony Carlucci, Highsmith's executive assistant

Jerry Chan, manager of Seoul Office

Duane Elliston, account executive in Seoul Office

Brittany Pickerel, research assistant in Seoul Office

Evelyn Tilson, Hill's executive assistant

Travis Tolliver, media specialist in Seoul Office

An Kye-sun, Korean media specialist in Seoul Office

Song Ji-young, Korean secretary in Seoul Office

American Officials

Thornton Giles, President

Kingsley Marshall, Director of Central Intelligence

Ambassador Shearing, U.S. Ambassador to South Korea

Brig. Gen. Henry Thatcher, Presidential Assistant for National Security Affairs

Special Agent Frederick Birnbaum, instructor, FBI National Academy

Vincent Duques, South Korean Embassy political officer and CIA Station Chief

Special Agent Clifford Walters, FBI, San Francisco

Damon Mansfield, South Korean Embassy cultural attaché

Kurt Voegler, South Korean Embassy commercial attaché

South Korean Officials

Kwak Sung-kyo, recently-elected president

Hong Oh-san, prime minister

Col. Han Sun-shin, director of Agency for Security Planning (NSP)

Dr. Hyun U-je, head of Korea Electric Power Company (Kepco)

Ko Pong-hak, information officer, Ministry of Culture and Information

Park Sang-muk, Seoul public prosecutor

Seoul Metropolitan PoliceBureau

Superintendent General Choi, head of Special Security Group

Lt. Han Mi-jung, fiancée of Lieutenant. Yun

Lt. Yun Se-jin, officer, Tongdaemun Station

Capt. Yun Yu-sop, homicide detective, Namdaemun Station

World War II Poksu guerilla group

Lee Horangi-chelmun, leader

Ahn Wi-jong, other group survivor

North Korean Officials

Kim Il-sung, premier

Kim Jong-il, son and heir apparent

So Song-ku, official of the Central Committee, North Korean Workers Party

Other Americans

Will and Maggie Arnold, Falls Church, VA neighbors of the Hills

Dr. Chloe Brackin, obstetrican and Lori Hill's best friend

Lorelei Hill, wife of Burke Hill, head of Clipper Cruise & Travel

Dr. Cabot Lowing, fellow, Highsmith Foundation

R. Mitchell (Mitch) Steele, contractor's representative, Taesong Nuclear Power Plant

Peggy Walters, Burke Hill's first wife

Dr. Kim Vickers, director, Korean-American Education Foundation

In Hungary

Margit Szabo, Lorelei Hill's grandmother

Other Koreans

Ahn Pom-yun, drug kingpin in Chiangmai, Thailand, son of Ahn Wi-jong

Mr. Chon, Namdaemun Market fruit vendor, Captain Yun's informant

Hwang Sang-sol, a.k.a. Suh Tae-hung, free lance assassin

Kang Han-kyo, editor of Koryo Ilbo, national daily newspaper

Kim Yong-man, Mr. Chon's grandson

Kwon, junior official at Reijeo conglomerate

Dr. Lee Yo-ku, Seoul National University history professor

Moon Chwa, official at Pulguksa Buddhist shrine

Dr. Shin Man-ki, fired nuclear physicist at Reijeo installation

Yang Jong-ku, hotel owner, chairman of Korean-American Cooperation Association

Yi In-wha, prominent businessman, son-in-law of President Kwak's half-sister

Yoo Hak-sil, Seoul private investigator, former cop

Last Day Secret of the Scroll Is Free

2012-09-01T10:01:00.000-05:00

Secret of the Scroll was ranked #1 in the Thriller Suspense category on Amazon this morning among free Kindle books. It ranked #16 in the Top 100 books category. If you'd like a free ebook, today is the last of my giveaway days.

As of this morning there had been about 7500 downloads, which I'm happy with after the late start because Amazon didn't list it as free until Thursday. According to many of my colleagues who have gone this route, I should expect a pickup in sales of all of my books over the next week or so. Since Secret is the first book in the series, if they like it there are four more to read.

There has been a lot of haranguing on the lists lately about giving books away that we labored so long and hard to produce. It's all a part of marketing. "Loss leaders" they're called in the retail business. You sell something way below its value to attract customers to your other products. I'll know if it works in the next week or so.

Meanwhile, back at the keyboard, I'm getting the final edits on The Poksu Conspiracy, book two in the Post Cold War thriller trilogy. Got a great cover from Stephen Walker, which I'll post in a few days after it's finalized.

Secret of the Scroll Free for the Kindle

2012-08-29T03:00:00.000-05:00

PLEASE NOTE: The promo I had set up to start August 29 disappeared and I re-set it to start August 30 for three days. Sorry about the confusion.

Secret of the Scroll is the book that started my publishing career. It first appeared in the fall of 2002. I wrote it following a trip to the Holy Land with my brother's Sunday School class. The idea for the plot came from reading an inflight magazine on the way back to the States from Amman, Jordan. The article told about archeological digs in the area of Bethany, Jordan, where John the Baptist had lived and preached. Some caves had been found with evidence that Christian monks had occupied them in the first century.

Using the old mystery writer's "what if" query, I thought what if a an ancient scroll were found in a cave there? I did a lot of reading and thinking about what the document could tell that would make it quite valuable. I came up with the ten golden lampstands from Solomon's Temple. According to the Book of Jeremiah, they were among the gold and silver objects carted off to Babylon when King Nebuchadnezzar ravaged Jerusalem in 587 B.C. The ancient parchment told where the candlesticks, now known as the menorah, sacred symbol of the current Jewish state, were buried back in Jerusalem about the time the Romans destroyed the city in 70 A.D.

Secret of the Scroll is still available in paperback, but it is also available as an ebook for the Kindle. From today, Wednesday, August 29, through Thursday, August 31, you can download the book FREE at http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00124KDQY.

Where Do You Start the Story?

2012-08-25T15:52:00.000-05:00

When you begin writing a book, the obvious first question is where to start the story. If the whole premise of the book and everything that happens flows out of events that occurred many years before the current action, to me it calls for a Prologue that details the background to the plot. I'm aware that some readers refuse to read prologues and skip to start at Chapter 1. To me, this is a shortsighted approach. In the first place, what's the difference if it's called the Prologue or Chapter 1?

My second Post Cold War thriller opens with a Prologue that sets the scene for the story that follows. Since the action takes place mostly in South Korea, we get a little historical perspective on the area and how it developed into an ideological punching bag over the years. It's a key to understanding the motivations of those who people the story.

I carefully researched the background to make sure the history was accurate, which it is up to the point where my fictional character, Young Tiger Lee, picks three of his Northeast Anti-Japanese United Army comrades in Manchuria to form the Poksu (Vengeance) guerrilla group. Returning to their Korean homeland, they wreak havoc on the Japanese Army during World War II.

As I mention in the Prologue, the Japanese forbid use of the Korean language during the occupation. But young Lee, not his real name, chose to use the hangul characters for the Korean word for vengeance, written inside a square, as the mark of his guerrilla group. They left it at sites of their attacks against the Japanese.

As I mentioned in a blog recently at Murderous Musings, The Poksu Conspiracy could be called half spy story, half Korean police procedural. Much of the story is told from the POV of Captain Yun Yu-sop, a homicide detective in the Namdaemun Police Station of the Seoul Metropolitan Police Bureau. The espionage half involves a CIA spinoff called Worldwide Communications Consultants, where my protagonist Burke Hill handles clandestine activities.

Both spies and cops wind up seeking to identify who Young Tiger Lee turned out to be as a key to what's going on in South Korea.

What Motivates Assassins

2012-08-12T21:20:00.000-05:00

The first book in my Post Cold War thriller trilogy, Beware the Jabberwock, involves an operation designed to eliminate the American and Russian presidents in a highly public assassination. It is code named Jabberwock. The team of assassins is composed of three men with widely different backgrounds. They train for the operation at a tiny island off the Florida Panhandle coast. Those charged with getting them prepared for the job compose an equally varied group of four men.

What motivates people to get involved in such a reprehensible plot? For the trainers, it's just part of the job. There's a CIA clandestine officer and a KGB lieutenant colonel who have been involved in nefarious activities during the Cold War, each man totally committed to his superiors who devised the scheme. The other two involved in training the operational team are former military officers now in well-placed industrial positions directly beneath corporate chairmen who believe the current administration is dangerously compromising the nation's position of preeminence.

The team of assassins includes an American ex-Green Beret, Gary Overmyer; an explosives expert with the old Stasi, East Germany's hated State Security Service, Hans Richter; and a Palestinian freelance hit-man, Naji Abdalla. Each man was given $125,000 with a promise of an additional $350,00 at conclusion of the operation.

Overmyer had wound up in a psychiatric ward after Vietnam. He then failed at several jobs before succeeding in writing Vietnam War stories for adventure magazines. He enjoyed taking to the woods to practice his stealth skills, scaring the daylights out of people along trails when he jumped out dressed in camouflage gear, features darkened with face paint, carrying an automatic weapon. The reason for his dedication to Jabberwock resulted from falling in love with a young Moscow Radio Symphony Orchestra cellist a couple of years before.

When Overmyer went to Moscow to try and arrange an exit visa for Natasha Grinev, he was thwarted at every turn. He had thought perestroika and glasnost would have softened the Soviet bureaucracy. He sought help from the White House, but got the same story: "These things take time." He returned to Russia to visit Natasha and received shocking news. She had been killed in the collapse of a poorly constructed concrete apartment building. He blamed both presidents for the delay that ended in her death.

As the East German communist government fell from power, the Stasi began burning its documents to hide the records of its misdeeds. The German people fought to halt the destruction, and Hans Richter's records survived. He fled the country and saw no prospects for returning.

Naji Abdalla spent his formative years in a Palestinian refugee camp in southern Lebanon, waiting for the day he could carry a rifle and join in the battle to free his homeland. But he soon learned the leaders spent more time fighting among each other. He moved from one band to another, learning the use of every kind of weapon, including the curved Bedouin knife an old Arab taught him. He finally broke with the bands and established himself as a one-man guerrilla force available to the highest bidder.

To learn more about these assassins and what happened to them, go to Beware the Jabberwock.

Cast of Characters

2012-07-23T12:22:00.000-05:00

I'm winding up revision of my second book in the Post Cold War thriller trilogy, The Poksu Conspiracy. As you might guess from the name, most of the action takes place in Korea, both South and North. The time is fall and early winter of 1993, when the world was trying to sort out the effects of the Cold War's demise. The U.S. economy was in the doldrums following the first Gulf War. South Korea continued to make significant progress in the export markets while its political leadership remained in the hands of the generals. Unification with the North and a lessening of foreign (read U.S.) influence was the rallying cry.

The Poksu Conspiracy is an adventurous tale of what might have happened based on historical events and past actions of American leaders. Early in the story, an audacious plot results in the deaths of North Korean Dictator Kim Il Sung, his son and heir apparent, and much of the communist leadership. Had that part of the story been true, the world would be a lot better off. But I digress.

The book could be called half thriller and half Korean police procedural. One of the main characters is Homicide Detective Yun Yu-sop with the Seoul Metropolitan Police Bureau. The story follows his efforts to solve a series of murders he believes are an attempt to silence leading voices who favor continued Korean-U.S. cooperation.

The story is quite complex, making the book a long one, running 160,000 words. Since much of it takes place in Korea, many of the characters have Korean names. And there are lots of them. As a result, it will likely be difficult for readers to keep up with everybody. Why don't you cut some of them out, my wife asked? Well, they all play a significant role in the story.

I went though the manuscript and counted 74 named characters, and that doesn't include a couple who are named only as murder victims. I decided to make a Cast of Characters, which would name only those who appear in more than one chapter. I figure those who appear in no more than a couple of contiguous scenes shouldn't be a problem. That cut the total down to 48.

Now I'm left with the decision of how to list the characters. Should it be done as in a theatrical playlist, naming the characters as they appear in the story? Or should I simply put them in alphabetical order? Your comments would be greatly appreciated.

Genisis of a Fiction-Writing Career

2012-07-10T20:06:00.001-05:00

When I retired from the workaday world back in mid-1989, I knew my replacement at the trade association I had run for eighteen years would want to redo the office. I had been working at a roll-top desk I painstakingly finished in walnut stain after buying it at an unpainted furniture store. The association president said take it home, along with some matching wooden chairs. I had told everyone I planned to write novels after I retired, so I set up my computer beside the roll-top and attacked my new career.

Beware the Jabberwock will be FREE in the Kindle store July 12-14.

Being a long-time fan of the Cold War thriller, I naturally turned to that genre. Problem was the Berlin Wall's days were numbered, and the Soviet Union wouldn't be far behind. I had avidly followed the Soviet KGB's shenanigans and the CIA's countermoves. So I began to speculate on what might happen as the two long-time adversaries watched their playground plowed up.

Looking back at page after page of handwritten notes in the Jabberwock file, I recall doing a prodigious amount of research before getting far into the story. Much of it wound up on the cutting room floor, to use a film expression. I read extensively about Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, executed as spies for leaking nuclear secrets to the KGB. I came up with a scenario for a character whose mother had been a friend of the couple, then scrapped it when a better idea came along.

I originally had a long list of character names, only a few of whom made the cut. The female lead, Lorelei, was originally conceived as the daughter of a once-prominent Virginia family. Her background changed completely when I got into the tale and made her the daughter of CIA officer Cameron Quinn with an intriguing background. I stayed with Burke Hill as the protagonist and gave him the complex past of an ex-FBI agent I had known several years before.

When I opened the book with a clandestine meeting in Vienna of a KGB general and a high official in the CIA, I read up on ways to detect electronic surveillance devices. My old file contains several pages from an electronics magazine describing the equipment I used in Chapter 1. I did other research on such subjects as mortars, secure telephones, small sailboats, World War II LCMs (Landing Craft, Mechanized), the city of Toronto and much more.

At the time I had no writing credits, but I wrote the Metropolitan Toronto Conventions & Visitors Association with a detailed list of seven questions regarding parades and security in the city. A gentleman named John Hamlton, assistant director of public relations, sent me a two-page answer providing everything I needed. New writers who are afraid to ask people for information are wasting their time. People are eager to help writers.

In those days I depended on my internet service with CompuServe to do online research, though most of it was done with books and magazines from the Vanderbilt University library. My simple word processing program would only create small files, so I wound up with seventeen files to cover the entire book. It required printing one file at a time to get a complete manuscript. When I finally converted to Word, I got them all in one file.

As the Soviet Union fell apart, I kept up with the news of what was happening in Russia and imagined how things would play out of the situation kept deteriorating. Fortunately, what I imagined didn't take place but it made for a chilling story of what might have been. Beware the Jabberwock is available for the Kindle at Amazon.com. It will be released later this month in paperback by Night Shadows Press and at Smashwords.com for other ebook readers.