Simon Wood

Posts Categorized: book of the month

Book of the Month: Making A Killing

It’s the end of the month so ends the spotlight on WORKING STIFFS. I have to say this book holds a special fondness for me. One of the stories, My Father’s Secret , garnered an Anthony Award, which was nice. The good critical response served as a calling card which helped in part to land a book deal for my novels. Finally, I’m a short story fan.

I do have to thank Blue Cubicle Press publisher and editor David LaBounty for the book. I was trying to sell him another different book but after reading one of my stories he came up with the workplace crime theme. I do think his influence made the book what it is.

I hope my blogs have piqued your interest to check the book out. The paperback is down to its last few copies, so if you want one, I suggest you snap one up while you can. The eBook will keep its legacy alive. However, the good news is that a new paperback edition in the offing. I do have an offer I’m considering.

I also hope that you’ll spread the word about WORKING STIFFS too. You shouldn’t keep this book a secret. In the meantime, you can read a couple of stories about the book.

A Break in the Old Routine
My Father’s Secret

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Book of the Month: You Made Me A Criminal

Some people give me odd looks after they’ve read something of mine. They see me, they read the stories and they merge the characters and me together and see the same person. They don’t see easy-going, Simon. They see evil-doing Simon. I’m not evil doing. I’m actually very nice. I rescue animals off the street, I pay my taxes and I’ve never held up a bank (well, not in California and besides, I was very young).

Consider this quote from Cemetery Dance for WORKING STIFFS: “Consistently surprising and well-written, Working Stiffs proves Simon Wood is a criminal genius. We should all be glad he’s writing this stuff and not doing it.”

This isn’t the kind of quote I should have on a tee shirt when I visit the FBI.

That’s the problem. Readers blur the lines between the characters we scribblers create and the scribblers. I’ve been told on several occasions that I’m not a nice person based on my stories. I’ve been asked if I’ve cheated on my wife when they’ve read about a character’s infidelity. As shocking as these statements can be, I can understand them. I’ve said myself. When I tell a story, I don’t base my characters on people I know or people I’ve read about, but I place myself in the shoes of those characters and view the world how they view the world. So for all intent and purposes, I am the good guys in my stories and I’m the bad people in my stories.

But that doesn’t make it me.

I’m not living out my fantasies on page because I fear capture if I committed them in the real world. I’m not outlining my future crimes. I’m not a depraved person getting my kicks on paper. I’m nice, easy going, animal rescuing Simon. But I can conjure up crimes and motives for killing and invent people react to those circumstances and I am empathic to their sensitivities. If I was faced with the crisis of conscience that a character is faced with, I can see their point of view and follow it. that character can be a good person doing the wrong things for the right reasons or a bad person doing the wrong things for the wrong reasons. I can see it from their perspectives. But am I like them? no. would I act like them if their position? Perhaps. But the people on the page aren’t me. a lot of writers I’ve met and befriended are nothing like the people they write. Most horror writers I know are some of the most down to earth people I know. Eavesdrop on conversation at any World Horror Convention and you’re going to hear them talking about pets and their kids and not how to dismember a body a dozen way from Sunday.

Granted, characters are the writer’s alter egos and altered egos. They are the people they would like to be, possibly, but they are also the kind of people we wouldn’t like to be. But at the end of the day, there is a big distance between the writer and his darker characters—well, certainly in my case. I cant speak for everyone.

At the end of the day, I’m a storyteller and like Marvin Gaye says, I need every kind of people to tell my tales and that includes the bad ones. So the next time you read a nasty character and you start comparing the writer to that character, put some distant between the two. I know we do.

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Book of the Month: Working Stiffs

It’s a new year, a new month and a new book. January’s Book of the Month is WORKING STIFFS.

The workplace is a dangerous place. The unscrupulous are primed and ready to take advantage of the innocent and naïve. A slight indiscretion can cost the employee everything. A new position can turn a person into someone they are not. Those at the top can be toppled and those at the bottom can be crushed.

Until now, Vincent’s father has kept one side of the business a secret from his son. Vincent is about to learn the family business. On the most important day of his career, Sam’s world will unravel when he helps a woman in distress. Kenneth Casper is ailing and so is his business empire. His shareholders circle like vultures. Casper pins all his hopes on a Peruvian shaman with a miracle cure.

WORKING STIFFS…Some jobs are worth dying for.

My Father’s Secret from the collection won the Anthony Award for Best Short Story.

What They Are Saying About WORKING STIFFS:

“Warning: This book is 100% adrenalin. Wood is pure gold.”
— J.A. Konrath, author of Rusty Nail

“Consistently surprising and well-written, Working Stiffs proves Simon Wood is a criminal genius. We should all be glad he’s writing this stuff and not doing it.”
— Cemetery Dance

“For a lover of short stories, this collection was a full meal. Wood changes voices, demographics and plot lines like a teen changes clothes for a first date. Each story is a strong sampling of humans at their most human told with the finesse that comes from experience and a love of the genre.”
— Crime Spree

Over the month, I’ll share some stories behind the stories and share my love for the short form. Enjoy!

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Book of the Month: Lowlifes

LOWLIFES is my under the radar book this week. This book is a little different from anything I’ve ever done before because it was multimedia project that involved a blog and movie as well as a book. The whole thing played out as a serial at the beginning of the year.

PLOTLINE:
LOWLIFES centers on Larry Hayes, a San Francisco Detective. He thinks his life has already hit rock bottom. He’s lost his family to divorce and he’s clinging to his career by a thread. All this stems from a painkiller addiction he can’t kick that he picked up from an on-the-job injury. But there’s another level for Hayes to fall as he finds out when he wakes up in an alley after a bad trip with no memory of the last four hours. He thinks this is the wakeup call he needs to turn his life around, his problems intensify when he receives a call from a homicide inspector. Hayes’ informant, a homeless man named Noble Jon, lies dead two blocks away, beaten and stabbed. The eerie pang of guilt seeps into Hayes. During his lost four hours, he’s been in a fight. His knuckles are bruised and there’s blood under his fingernails. Is he Jon’s killer? The mounting evidence says so. To add insult to injury, his wife has employed a PI to dig up dirt on him to ensure she gets sole custody of their daughter. Hayes mounts an off-the-books investigation and disappears amongst the city’s homeless community to stay one step ahead of a murder charge.

LOWLIFES is a collaboration between filmmaker, Robert Pratten, and me. We used a different medium to tell the story. The book tells the story from point of view of the protagonist, a San Francisco Police Inspector. The short film gives the viewpoint of a PI investigating the cop. The fictional blog catalogs the thoughts and feelings of the cop’s estranged wife. You don’t have to read/watch all three to understand the story. You can quite simply read the book and not watch the movie and it’ll all make sense—and vice versa. You can watch the first of the movie episodes below.

The serial is over and LOWLIFES is now available as book and ebook. You can learn more about the project at http://www.lowlifes.tv.

Thanks and I hope you’ll enjoy the story in all its guises.

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Book of the Month: Terminated

This weeks’s forgotten Book of the Month is Terminated. The book came out paperback in 2010 just as the publisher hit financial troubles. I was on tour promoting the book when the book was pulled from the bookshelves, so it never really got a fair shake in the bookstores, which is a shame as I think the book is a good one. It’s a thriller that centers on workplace violence.

PLOTLINE:
Gwen Farris crossed the wrong coworker when she gave Stephen Tarbell a poor evaluation. That was all it took to push Tarbell over the edge. He already believes Gwen stole the promotion that was rightfully his. He won’t let her take anything else from him. Now it’s his turn to take…and take. By the time he’s finished with her, Tarbell plans to take her job, her family—even her life.

Terminated…to some people, it’s more than a job.

Praise for Terminated:
“Wood writes like a dark, demented angel.”
— Ken Bruen, bestselling author of Once Were Cops

“A supremely gifted writer.”
— Jason Pinter, author of The Darkness

“Simon Wood knows how to create tension, he knows how to build three-dimensional characters and he has proven he can tie everything together in a high octane climax.”
— Book Browser

“Simon Wood packs his books with suspense, surprises and superb storytelling.”
— Ed Gorman, author of The Midnight Room

“This author is a master at taking a simple situation and making it suspenseful.”
— Midwest Book Review

“Simon Wood takes the idea of workplace harrassment to terrifying levels.”
— Bookgasm

“Grabs your heart and squeezes.”
— Fresh Fiction

“The tension is unbearable and it gets worse as the pages fly by.”
— I Love A Mystery

“Another winner for Simon Wood.”
— Spinetingler magazine

As customary with a lot of my books, the inspiration came from an unusual source. I learned that firms are using private security firms to deal with workplace violence and there’s a good reason when twenty people are killed at work every week. You can read more on my research here.

I hope that’s grabbed your attention and you’ll check the book out. If it hasn’t, you’re welcome to check out the first five chapters here:

Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five

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Book of the Month: Paying the Piper

I’m doing something a little different for the December Book of the Month feature. I’m shining a light on a couple of books that readers have yet to discover. Today’s spotlight title is Paying the Piper.

PLOTLINE:
The Piper is the Bay Area’s infamous child kidnapper. When the Piper selected crime reporter, Scott Fleetwood, to report on his latest child kidnapping, Scott thought he had the world in his grasp, but he held nothing. Scott had been duped by a wannabe. By the time the FBI exposed the hoaxer, time had run out, leaving the real Piper only one course of action—to kill the child. With a murder added to his résumé, the Piper vanished leaving Scott to take blame from the public and the investigating FBI agent, Tom Sheils. But now, eight years later, the Piper’s back, with very specific targets in mind—Scott’s young children. Scott can have his children back as long as he can pay the ransom. The hard part is that ransom isn’t measured in dollars, but in blood.

Paying the Piper…some debts can’t be repaid.

Praise for Paying the Piper,:
“Wood keeps the pages flying, even as his plot gets more and more complex, accelerating nicely toward an elegant climax.”
— Publishers Weekly

“Revenge fuels Wood’s fast-paced thriller and the good guys deliver a winning finale.”
— Oakland Tribune

“Tense, fast-paced, and near impossible to put down.”
— Sean Chercover, author of Trigger City

“Simon Wood might not be a household name right now, but if his books continue at this pace he might soon be.”
— Reviewing The Evidence

“Hard to believe this is Wood’s sophomore effort. Delightfully twisty and an amazing climax.”
— Book Bitch

“An action-packed thriller that never slows down.”
— Midwest Book Review

“This is a finely crafted thriller.”
— Bookgasm

This is a book I’m quite proud of. I wanted to do a book which involved kidnapping, but I wanted to do something a little different from the usual kidnap and ransom style story. I didn’t want the ransom to be money and I wanted it to be commodity far more difficult to obtain. To help me with the story, I talked with the FBI and they shared the tricks of the kidnapping trade. I think it helped make a difference to the story as their insight and experience really helped develop to devious plot.

If you’ve not read one of my books or need deciding what to read next, then I hope you’ll give Paying the Piper a shot.

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Book of the Month: Fess Up. What Did You Do?

I have a thing about indiscretions, white lies, small crimes, because no matter how much we think those mistakes will remain hidden, they have a habit of coming back to haunt us. I’m sure Anthony Wiener, John Edwards and many others have thought their secrets would remain secret, but as Ben Franklin once said, “Three can keep a secret, if two of them are dead.” That is someone speaking with experience and with a few absent friends.

As I mentioned the other week, the inspiration for THE FALL GUY is based on college incident where a friend thought he could get away with driving into someone’s car and getting away with it. And I’ve mentioned other errors in judgment in connection with my other books. These mistakes and subsequent lucky escapes from them snowballing into something more serious have made me a more honest person—or somewhat more careful about the risks I take. You won’t see me texting anything or photographing anything and leaving it on my phone. You’d think people would have wised up to this by now.

Seeing as this last post in conjunction with THE FALL GUY, I thought I’d turn the tables. I’ve shared some of my past mistakes that I feel I can talk about in good conscience. Now it’s your turn. It’s time for you to fess up to some your minor transgressions. The ones that could have turned nasty and/or ones you’ve atoned for. Don’t worry, I don’t want you to share anything that’ll still get you in trouble. Just something where the statute of limitations can’t touch you. 🙂

So come on, what have you done? I promise not to tell.

This concludes THE FALL GUY‘s month in the sun. I hope my stories have piqued your interest to check the book out. I also hope that you’ll spread the word about the book too. You shouldn’t keep this book a secret. In the meantime, you can read this excerpt.

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Book of the Month: A Road Story

fallguy-2B300I love road stories. THE FALL GUY is a road story. The book’s hero, Todd, goes on the run to escape a mobster but he keeps running into trouble. There’s a certain vulnerability when you’re traveling as Todd aptly illustrates. You’re invariability somewhere you don’t know. Which means you’re unlikely to have a support system in the form of friends and family you can turn to and you’ll be unfamiliar with the way a new place works. So in essence road stories are scary. I travel a lot promoting my books, so I’m forever traveling to places for the first time. Most times nothing happens, but on occasion something does. A few years ago, I was in southern California for a book signing. I didn’t know California as well as I do now, so I wasn’t really aware that book signing wasn’t in the nicest part of the state. I got my first inkling when I pulled into the motel, which boasted armed security on duty. Something that sounded both comforting as well as disturbing. Although despite the boast, I never saw anyone armed. Well, not working for the motel, that is. Money was a little tight and I wasn’t in a position to find somewhere nicer so I checked in. I let the desk clerk behind the bulletproof glass know that I had a reservation. He pulled out my reservation and told me, “It’s $60 a night for credit, $75 for cash.” He let the terms of his offer hang in the air. And there was a pretty good reason for that. The cash rate was more expensive than the credit rate. One, there shouldn’t have been a difference credit and cash. And two, the cash rate was more expensive than the credit rate, which was a little odd seeing as cash deals are usually cheaper. Always one for a bargain, I paid with my credit card. I was tempted to test the cash rate alternative. If I’d paid cash, would my stay gone on the register? Would I have been asked for a valid form of ID? Would I have been given extra towels and told not to leave any DNA behind? It’s hard to say, but it would have been interesting to find out. You could argue that I simply misunderstood the situation but an hour with my fellow motel roommates said otherwise. There were a couple of rooms where the medium of shouting was used to communicate. My arrival seemed to unsettle one customer who never left his room and just watched the comings and goings from his window. One person seemed to be using his stay to fix his pickup and used his room to work on the various parts he removed. One of the rooms was filled from floor to ceiling with TVs, stereos and other electronic goods still in their boxes. The guy “staying there” was forever removing or replacing stock. The vibe was so uncomfortable that I found myself in that awkward position of not knowing whether it was safer to leave my valuables in the room or in the car. The best solution seemed to keep everything vital on me and let fate decide the rest. I was happy to put some miles between me and the motel when I checked out the following day. So what’s the conclusion to this tale? Will I be returning to this motel? No. Will I be using this in a story some time? You betcha. As road stories go, a pretty good one. That’s one of mine. Now tell me one of yours.

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Book of the Month: The Fall Guy

November’s Book of the Month is dedicated to my latest release, THE FALL GUY. It’s been out as an ebook for a while, but the paperback edition comes out on the 15th.

Of all my books, this story has an interesting path to publication. It started life as a short story called Fender Bender. The editor of WORKING STIFFS read the story and loved it and didn’t want it to end, so I expanded it into a full length piece, taking the story into a completley different direction. So here’s the 411 on the book:

Todd Collins has failed in every job he’s ever undertaken, but that all changes when he backs his jalopy in a shiny, new Porsche belonging to a drug dealer. When the police stop the drug dealer for a broken taillight that Todd has caused and discover a cocaine shipment, a West Coast kingpin holds Todd responsible. On the run from organized crime, Todd discovers his true calling when he fights back.

When you’re down on your luck, life never wants to cut you a break.

“Elmore Leonard would be proud to have writen this twisty, action-packed tale.”
— Cemetery Dance

“Crime hasn’t been this much fun or unpredictable since the second-story man John Dortmunder squeezed himself into a dishwasher.”
— The Drowning Machine

“Tightly crafted. Wood delivers the goods!”
— Reviewing The Evidence

“For a novice reader of Wood’s work, this is an excellent place to start.”
— Hellnotes

I hope you’ll stick around for the stories about Todd’s race across the country to save his own neck. 🙂

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Book of the Month: Leopards Can Change Their Spots

From time to time someone will take me to task over my characters—usually my protagonists. The usual complaint is over my hero’s “goodness.” The remarks usually center on, “You know, if your main guy had done the right thing in the beginning, he wouldn’t have gotten himself into all that trouble.” And those people are right. My good guys have usually done something to put themselves in the position they find themselves in. It’s somewhat of a personal belief. If you stray from life’s straight and narrow, then life’s probably going to bite you in the ass and keep biting.

I’m happy with this trait of my stories. Squeaky clean characters blazing a trail for all that is good and right don’t excite me. I like fallible people. People who know to put on oven mitts because they’ve gotten burned a couple of times, not because they’ve been told not to touch hot things without them. I guess I identify with these sorts of characters. I’ve committed a few minor infractions in my time and the repercussions have snowballed. I think it’s the gathering pace of the payback that intrigues me and drives my fiction. The fear and panic experienced when a situation goes sideways makes for great stories, if not for real life.

I must admit it has colored the way I look at the world. I’m not a glass half-empty kind of a guy but more a glass half-filled with something corrosive tipping over and spilling everywhere kind of a guy. I have a habit of predicting how a bad situation will get worse. Once you’ve tempted fate, it has its own gravitational pull that is inevitable.

The spark that ignites my storylines is a moment of weakness. The character is presented with a situation that nine times out of ten they’d ignore, but circumstances are skewed this one time. He’s out of a job. She’s just been dumped. These characters are in a weakened state when an opportunity is presented. Instead of blowing it off, they throw caution to the wind and act out of character. Naturally, it doesn’t pan out and it is going to take a whole lot of fixing to set everything right again. Moments of weakness are dangerous currency.

ROAD RASH’s hero is James Straley. He’s a bank robber. When a bank job goes wrong, he’s on the run when he stumbles across a car wreck. Instead of helping the victims of the wreck, he steals one of the vehicles at the crash site. Not particularly likable of him, but he’s a ruthless and desperate man. But in that desperate moment, things change for Straley. He’s struck down with a rash that makes his problems up until seem like small fry. This is his tipping point. He either continues on a path to ruin or change his ways. Over the course of a story, Straley makes the biggest change of any character I’ve ever written. He starts off as a nasty piece of work and becomes something quite different by the end, figuratively and literally.

I guess I like my shop-soiled heroes, maybe not to hang out with, but to read and write about. It has a lot to do with how someone reacts under insurmountable odds. There’s more at stake than the mystery or the crime to solve. The character’s soul is at stake as well. And I can’t help root for someone in that position. Everyone loves a comeback kid. I think I also identify with human frailty and characters like James Straley. We can all do bad things, but how we atone for our mistakes makes us redeemable and interesting.

Yours vulnerably,
Simon

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