I’m happy and pleased to announce the release of the audio edition of THE FALL GUY. It’s available from the Audible and Apple stores worldwide. The storyline is:
“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.”
The audio book is narrated by the wonderful Ed Hunter who read ROAD RASH and LOWLIFES. Ed does a great job bringing hapless Todd to life. I hope you’ll give it a listen.
A little while ago, I had a nice little surprise recently while watching Top Gear. They examined what to do if you crashed your car in a body of water. My ears pricked up at the mention of this because I used that exact situation in my first novel, ACCIDENTS WAITING TO HAPPEN. In the opening chapter, the lead character is forced off the road and into a river and he has to work out his escape from a rapidly sinking car.
I was interested to see what they discovered to see if I’d guessed right. Whereas Top Gear has the budget to drop a car in pool with a camera crew, I don’t. For the book, I relied on my engineering background for what would happen. I knew there’d external and internal pressures as a car sank and you’d have to be Arnold Schwarzenegger to force open the doors. I also considered that power windows, etc. wouldn’t work either. My solution for escape was a play off what I was taught in flying school. If you ditch in the sea or something, I was told to open the door before impact, because you won’t be able to open them with the water pressing against them. In the book, my character breaks out through the windows before the car has a chance to submerge. This goes against conventional advice of sticking with the car while it sinks, let the car fill up with water and when the pressure has equalized, let yourself out. If this proved right, there was a rewrite on the books.
Well, my escape theory proved right and conventional advice didn’t work. I was very proud of myself. Yay me!!!
The practice test proved that it took a long time for the pressure to equalize and you would most likely run out of breath before then.
If you’d like to see how it all went, please watch the video clips.
Consider this blog entry a Public Service Announcement. My advice is to have something in the car to break the windows should you ever end up in the water. You want to get out as soon as possible. 🙂
The French edition of THE ONE THAT GOT AWAY is due out on December 15th. It’s called L’évadéewhich translates as THE ESCAPE. And it’s cover reveal time. I hope you like it because I do. 😀
I’m happy and pleased to announce the release of the audio edition of LOWLIFES. It’s available from the Audible and Apple stores worldwide. The storyline is:
“San Francisco Detective Larry Hayes thinks he’s hit bottom when he wakes up in an alley after a bad trip with no memory of the last four hours. This is only the beginning of his problems. Two blocks away, Hayes’ informant, a homeless man named Noble Jon, lies dead, beaten and stabbed. The eerie pangs of guilt seep into Hayes. Is he Jon’s killer? The mounting evidence says so. Hayes mounts his own investigation to stay one step ahead of murder charge and disappears amongst the city’s homeless community.”
The audio book is narrated by the wonderful Ed Hunter who read ROAD RASH a couple of years ago. Ed does a great job bringing troubled cop, Larry Hayes, to life. I hope you’ll give it a listen.
I am happy to announce that I’ve signed a new three-book contract with Thomas and Mercer. The titles purchased are INFIDELITY LIMITED, SAVING GRACE (a follow-up to PAYING THE PIPER) and THE NEVERWAS MAN. Brilliance Audio will be producing the audio edition. I hope you’re as pleased as I am.
My final blog tour stop for THE ONE THAT GOT AWAY is at The Kill Zone. In Making a Bad Situation Worse, I talk about how I have to manufacture the worst possible scenarios and it’s all because my background. Enjoy!
My thanks goes to Clare Langley-Hawthorne and the other Kill Zone contributors for giving up column inches to me.
My THE ONE THAT GOT AWAY blog tour continues today and stops at Janet Rudolph’s MYSTERY FANFARE for a piece entitled MAKING OF A MONSTER. Be warned: some assembly is required.
The essay looks at the villain of the book and he was created and the real life people who inspired him. I hope you’ll read the piece.
So THE ONE THAT GOT AWAY has been out for a month (two if you’re an Amazon Prime Member) and reader feedback has been coming in. Quite a lot of it actually. On Amazon.com, the book has racked up almost 2,000 reviews so far. This is understandable as TOTGA (as the cool kids aka my editor calls it) is by far my fastest and bestselling book so far. Phew! I may be in publishing for a little while longer.
But a lot more readers mean a lot more opinions. Luckily for me, people more often than not like TOTGA. Thank God for that. I was a little worried about reader feedback because there’d be a lot more people reading out of genre. More exposure is nice…as long as everyone is of the same opinion and a positive opinion at that. Well, it looks as if it is so.
Actually I’m quite pleased about TOTGA’s reception. People, by and large, got it. They embraced Zoë Sutton warts and all. I wasn’t sure readers would, considering she is someone suffering from PTSD, which makes her a little difficult to like or understand at times.
But with every book, I get feedback that I wasn’t quite expecting. So here are a few findings:
Quite a few people want or think TOTGA is the first in a new series. I didn’t have any plans to make Zoë Sutton a series character but now you’ve got me thinking. At this point I don’t know how I would take Zoë forward and maintain the same level of danger.
I’m surprised and amused by how many women have said they’re going to take fight classes after seeing what happened to Zoë. So be warned predatory men, the ladies are no pushover.
I’m touched by the therapists and victims of violence/stalkers thought I got Zoë right. This was a tough book to write because I tried to interview a number of victim support groups and all of them declined to speak to me so I’m glad people feel I got it right.
Some people have thought the violence is quite graphic and to be honest, most of the violence is off the page. It’s like Psycho, you see the knife but you don’t see anyone get stabbed. It’s your mind embellishes the rest.
And speaking of embellishments, I’ve had a few emails describe scenes/events that never took place. It happens with every book. People always bring something to the story.
People think the book is short but it’s longer than my last three and quite a bit longer than the average James Patterson. It’s a product of my writing style that it’s focused and pacey so it tends to feel brief.
When a book meets the public, it’s exciting and daunting because it’s an interpretive voyage of discovery…and the discovery will continue as the book continues to travel.
I’m a big music freak and as I’ve done with my last couple of books, I’ve created a playlist for my heroine Zoë Sutton from THE ONE THAT GOT AWAY. Zoë’s playlist is pretty dark as she’s a troubled woman, not surprising considering her past problems and her present danger. This mix tape is the kind of thing her therapist would have her make to help her understand herself better. So here’s what I expect to find on her playlist:
Readers of the book should recognize the significance of these songs and song titles, so if you have suggestions for Zoë, call them out. I’m sure Zoë will appreciate it. 🙂
I’m happy and pleased to announce the release of the audio edition of THE FALL GUY. It’s available from the Audible and Apple stores worldwide. The storyline is:
