THE ONE THAT GOT AWAY is going on a global journey. The book has been picked for French and Spanish translations. The book is set for release in late 2015/early 2016.
I hope to announce more translation news soon.
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Posts Tagged: THE ONE THAT GOT AWAY
Back in April…actually on my birthday…THE ONE THAT GOT AWAY hit a milestone by crossing 100,000 copies sold. My publisher, Thomas & Mercer, commemorated the landmark with a framed copy of the book.
Thanks to everyone who bought a copy and helped make this my most successful…thus far. 🙂
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I don’t think of myself as a writer of serial killer fiction, but both THE ONE THAT GOT AWAY and NO SHOW both featured serial killers of a sort. The reason I don’t think of myself as a serial killer writer is because I don’t set out with that intention. I construct a killer with a certain agenda and go from there. It’s only at the end of things I suppose I created a serial killer.
However someone must think I know what I’m writing about because Kellie Larsen Murphy asked me and four other writers to contribute to a discussion about serial killers. Read all about it here.
Categories: shelf life
I recently finished Jon Ronson’s excellent new book SO YOU’VE BEEN PUBLICLY SHAMED which explores public shaming of all varieties through the medium of social media. For me, Ronson is a cracking nonfiction writer. As a writer and journalist he tackles the topics a little left of center, such as public shaming. Maybe I enjoy his writing so much because he’s drawn to the weirder world as I am. As I mentioned in last week’s post, I’m fascinated by the improbable and unlikely circumstances that exist in our world. I’m all about the cruel and unusual.
The reason I mention Ronson’s book is because I felt a little relief and thrill reading it in connection my own book THE ONE THAT GOT AWAY. After every book, I always suffer with the collywobbles. I start to fret about the plotline and whether it’s a little too wild or unbelievable. The worst I’ve ever felt was with TERMINATED which is about workplace violence and I was a little concerned that the flashpoint for the book—a bad performance review—was a little too extreme. But after an afternoon of Googling the topic, I found that a bad review was totally in bounds for sending someone ‘postal.’ Reading SO YOU’VE BEEN PUBLICLY SHAMED gave me that same sense of reassurance. THE ONE THAT GOT AWAY doesn’t deal with public shaming per se but the villain’s reason to kill to punish people for the small/unpunishable crimes that society ignores. A number of sources in this villain’s particular manifesto influenced me and public shaming played a small part. I’ve long lamented how depressing it is read the comments feed for any news story, YouTube post, or any online content. It doesn’t take long before it turns racist, contemptuous, negative and flat out hateful. What gave me reassurance (in a peculiar way) reading Ronson’s book was how the public shaming examples he investigated turned foul and vicious. They usually ended in a call for violence, especially where women were concerned. Like I say, it was a peculiar form of reassurance. I’m not saying I’m all for killing women when they step on society’s toes but the book illustrated how murderous intent could come from one person’s perceived view of bad behavior in another person. The book even talked about pillories and public stocks. For people who’ve read THE ONE THAT GOT AWAY will understand my reassurance at that mention.
Like I say, THE ONE THAT GOT AWAY isn’t about public shaming because the villain takes it to the next level and executes those who fail to live up to his particular moral viewpoint. However, SO YOU’VE BEEN PUBLICLY SHAMED did give me a warm fuzzy feeling about THE ONE THAT GOT AWAY. I’m glad my stretch of the imagination only went a couple of degrees further than what is happening in the world…and hopefully will remain that way.
I thoroughly recommend to everyone to pick up one of his books at some point…and any of mine while you’re at it. 🙂
Categories: shelf life
“Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth.” ~Sherlock Holmes
I’m totally with Sherlock on this one…especially when it comes to the improbable. I’m drawn to the weird, odd and bizarre. I’m fascinated by the oddities in life that shouldn’t happen. It appeals to my imaginative sensibilities. Blame Roald Dahl and Rod Serling for making me believe in the crazy. It’s the reason why I’m a rabid fan of the show BANSHEE but not LAW AND ORDER. BANSHEE is crazy, intense and over the top and only works when the universe’s cosmic tumblers are off, whereas LAW AND ORDER is rooted in the now and the real, which makes it totally mundane to me (sorry Dick Wolf). If I want mundane, I can pick up a newspaper or watch the evening news. I want it weird. I’m an escapist! What can I say?
That’s why one criticism of my stories is that they push the limits of believability—and that’s true. They do. But for all that limit pushing, they don’t go outside the realm of the possible. I go out of my way to pay attention to for the strange happening in the real world. I think I have a fascination with the strange because I possess a small talent for calamity myself. I have many firsthand accounts of how my life went off the rails. One example was when I had a near fender bender on a roundabout which then developed into someone filing a fraudulent insurance claim against me. That led to me being charged with half a dozen driving offenses and was topped off by the police handing me a confession they’d written for me to sign. Seems a little unlikely but it happened to me…which you can read the complete account here.
So if it can happen to me, it must happen to others.
I’ve discovered some tragic and cruel twists of fate such as a Sacramento motorcycle cop who responded to a fender bender caused by an elderly man who pulled out of a turn and tee-boned a car. The cop felt bad for the elderly man and let him off with a warning instead of citing him. The following week, the same elderly man did the exact same thing at the same intersection. This time he struck and killed the motorcycle cop who’d let him off. The weird what-if game that plays out in your head after that is what inspires my stories.
Things like this have been the inspiration for several of my books. The trade of life insurance on the living which is the backbone for ACCIDENTS WAITING TO HAPPEN is a real thing. Private security firms being involved with workplace violence claims which is the foundation for TERMINATED came from something that was happening with one of my wife’s employers. The disturbing series of suicides in WE ALL FALL DOWN were inspired by similar ones that happened between coworkers in the UK in the 80’s.
And while THE ONE THAT GOT AWAY, PAYING THE PIPER, NO SHOW, etc. don’t have any direct link to an actual event, they are inspired by a way of thinking. Namely, how can a seemingly mundane event get its strange on?
Now I know this outlook might not be to everyone’s liking but if you’re willing to go off-piste and embrace the improbable, then I think you’ll enjoy the ride.
Categories: shelf life
There’s been a glut of reviews (I do believe that official classification) for my books of late.
Quiet Fury
Will Kill For A Story
Carol Taylor Reviews
Debbie Davis
Ebook Friendly
Kings River Life
Between The Lines
Elastamom’s
SHEmazing!
The Big Thrill (interview)
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My blog tour for THE ONE THAT GOT AWAY has concluded. So if you missed any of my stops along the way, here are the links to my cyber travels:
- A Night in the Life of Zoë Sutton (courtesy of Dru’s Book Musings)
- Understanding a Damaged Hero (courtesy of Criminal Minds)
- The Responsibility of Surviving (courtesy of Femmes Fateles)
- Making of a Monster (courtesy of Mystery Fanfare)
- I Thought I Was Fine (courtesy of Jungle Red Writers)
- Making a Bad Situation Worse (courtesy of The Kill Zone)
TOTGA also picked up a number of nice online reviews:
Quiet Fury
Will Kill For A Story
Carol Taylor Reviews
Debbie Davis
Ebook Friendly
Kings River Life
Please check out all the links and thanks to everyone who’ve helped make TOTGA the success it has been so far.
Categories: book of the month shelf life
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.
Categories: book of the month shelf life
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.
Enjoy!
Categories: book of the month shelf life
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.
Categories: book of the month shelf life
