Guest Reviewer for "Noir"

Since my inbox has overflowed with review requests of late, I asked a friend and fellow author to read and post a guest review of today's novel.  The noir genre in print and film has been one of his favorite studies throughout his life.  Therefore I knew he was the best candidate for Reyshan Parker's first full-length novel, Noir, The Good Girl, the Detective, and the Femme Fatale.  Please welcome guest reviewer, Gary Cummings.

Book Blurb:
“A story of greed, deceit, revenge, and of course… love!”

A detective murder mystery from three different perspectives that follows each characters life in overlapping chapters, wherein; their lives become intertwined in a web of intrigue, murder, and desire.

Noir is an homage to the last one hundred years of the genre.  With its twisted plot structure, brooding and sexy main characters, and inventive narrative style, Noir takes a look at the more cynical aspects in life from the perspective of the three main characters, each one struggling with their inner turmoil and outward solutions to their unjust lives.

Linearly Noir is the story of David Brissel who, after inheriting a Detective agency from his recently murdered boss, meets Sandra Bloom, a Femme Fatale, who convinces him to blackmail her Congressman husband and kill his bookie.  After getting away with both he is hired by the bookies wife Melanie to track down her husbands killer.  But when he falls for Melanie, Sandra gets jealous and tells her husband that she had hired a detective.  The congressman out for revenge goes to kill David, but luckily Melanie is there to save him, or is she?  As the two women hold David at gunpoint, one last twist will settle everything in this captivating story that will keep you guessing right up until the last shot is fired!

Gary's Review:

In Noir, the Good Girl, the Detective and the Femme Fatale written by Reyshan Parker we find the elements of the great noir novels dating from the 1940’s: murder, revenge, greed, lust and cupcakes. Cupcakes?

Noir follows three primary characters. First we meet Melanie, the Good Girl who has had to deal with the suicide of her high school sweetheart. As she tries to put her life back together Melanie abandons her dreams for college and a career as a journalist and takes a job at a bakery. She soon becomes obsessed with cupcakes which help to assuage the loneliness as well as functioning as a coping mechanism for her grief. Not long after taking the job she becomes smitten with a customer, falls in love and marries him. All is well until Melanie suffers a miscarriage. In too short a time Melanie’s husband changes, drinking heavily, blaming Melanie for everything that goes wrong in their world and becoming abusive. Don’t get the idea that the Good Girl is going to slip into role of the long-suffering wife. Check out how the book opens: Before I entirely let you in as to why I am pointing this gun at the man in the hat and why there is a dead fat man on the floor, I thought maybe we should get to know each other first.

After Melanie we’re introduced to the Detective. David has aspirations of being a great photographer, hoping someday to have the money to open his own gallery. However, times being as they are, he has to take a job with a private detective who took David in off the streets after David’s father died. Sneaking around after suspects, surreptitiously taking photos and occasionally breaking into homes to gather evidence is quite a ways away from a one-man show at the MOMA, but it almost pays the bills. When his employer meets an untimely death David is stunned to find himself the sole beneficiary of the small detective agency.  After years of doing his boss’s dirty work David has suddenly become the Detective.

Rounding out Noir’s main characters is the Femme Fatale. Sandra is beautiful, and knows how to use her looks to get what she wants. After growing up poor she embarks on a career in modeling, all the while waiting to use her looks to find a man of wealth to marry and retire into the easy life. She finds the man, if not the easy life, in a powerful U.S. congressman from a wealthy family and marries him.  Things go well for Sandra at first, as her husband dotes on her and shows her off to his world of politics and money. But just as money drew young Sandra to the congressman, other women are drawn to him as the years pass. Sandra’s husband succumbs to the lure of younger women with Sandra suspecting infidelity, but able to take solace in her lavish lifestyle. However, things are about to get worse for her:

"We need to talk," he said, looking at me sternly, "It's about your allowance."

"What about my allowance?" I asked.

"We need to make some sacrifices."

"If you think for one second that--"

"This isn't a negotiation," he barked! "You'll just have to buy two less pairs of shoes a month.""How dare you!" I threw my napkin onto my plate. I had to make sacrifices? For what, to pay for his liaisons? I deserved less, while he paid some tart's rent? That was the last straw. "I don't even know why I married you!" I screamed as I stood up to leave the room.

Asking a pampered wife to get by with two less pairs of shoes a month can’t end well for a philandering husband. Especially if she’s referred to as the Femme Fatale.

The setting for Noir is simply the city. There are no hints geographically as to its location. The Detective describes it: The city was dark and quiet that night. It had just rained. The smell of the city had temporarily been washed away, replaced by that cool refreshing scent of crisp clean night air. Gone for the moment was the stench of the numerous dumpster's filled with rotting food and rats. Gone were the acrid fumes of the nonstop traffic and refineries. The smell of corruption and power had also been vanquished for the time being.

Noir is a fast-moving tale, with an intricately designed plot, told from the three distinct points of view with the three aforementioned characters each telling their story in first person. Each chapter is named for the character whose turn it is to continue the story. Perplexingly, there were no numbers following the word Chapter, only the point-of-view character’s name with each new chapter. However, this seemed to be an oversight and was only a minor annoyance. When two of the trio of main characters are in the same scene that scene is recounted twice, in successive chapters, related in from one then the other’s point of view. Exact dialogue is repeated, which at times is a little tedious, but we’re treated to the point-of-view character’s thought process which provides nuance to that person’s motives.

As I referenced earlier, the book begins with Melanie, the Good Girl promising to tell the reader why she is standing over a dead body holding a gun. In fact, the Good Girl, the Detective and the Femme Fatale each get a crack at telling their side of why they all are standing over the dead body. The three characters seem not to know each other but through each one’s desire to change their circumstances they enlist one another’s help. The change they seek, as you would imagine in a novel titled Noir, is not in the form of marriage counseling, debt forgiveness and setting up a neighborhood watch, and the help they require of each other is somewhere south of legal.

The main characters were fully developed and each told their story with a distinctive voice reflecting the persona laid out in each of their introductory chapters. As a reader, a good test of how well characters are written is to read dialogue while trying to block out the dialogue tags, to see if the characters are identifiable. These characters came across as their own “persons” through the entire novel.

The clever plot, the dead-on descriptions of the city and the seamy people populating the rackets, and the sharp dialogue kept me flipping the pages at a rapid pace. Two things slowed me down: 1) A glossing over of a few loose ends that I couldn’t help but think were ignored so as to have a cleaner path to the end of the plot. 2)There are quite a few errors in editing.

Some inconvenient details nagged at me as I neared the end of the book which were not fully explained at book’s end. A couple of murders take place and for some reason the police seem less than dogged in their pursuit of suspects. Also troubling to me was that when a notable person was blackmailed, a minimum of risk seemed to be involved to the blackmailer as he safely escaped with the loot. The end of the scene seemed to be saying to the reader, “Nothing more to see here. Don’t overthink things. Next page, please.”

The bane of being involved with indie writing is the reputation of our books being littered with errors and Noir has quite a few. A second or third set of eyes seemed to be needed to catch problems such as using then instead of than, viola instead of voila, being unable to decide if martini should be capitalized, as well as other problems.

Noir was enjoyable and I’m glad I read it. If you can ignore the editing issues I think you’ll enjoy it, too.

Two and a half stars out of five.

http://www.thenoirmovie.com/wordpress/the-noir-novella/

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18110571-noir-the-good-girl-the-detective-and-the-femme-fatale

http://www.amazon.com/Noir-Good-Detective-Femme-Fatale/dp/1300664053

https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/noir/id628531728?mt=11

http://www.amazon.com/Noir-Good-Detective-Femme-Fatale-ebook/dp/B00IWCSJNI/ref=sr_1_1_title_0_main?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1394419416&sr=1-1

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/noir-the-good-girl-the-detective-and-the-femme-fatale-reyshan-parker/1115214022?ean=9781300711636

http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/reyshan09

Author Bio:

Since he was handed his first video camera at the age of eleven, Reyshan Parker has dreamed of the entertainment business.  As a child Reyshan wrote and directed a series of super hero shorts called “Quickman” and dabbled in a bit of Lego animation.   Editing from the camcorder to a VCR, he also watched his father build computers and the young boy imagined the possibilities if the two were combined.  Reyshan excelled in the theatre department in high school, acting in numerous full-length plays and being accepted to the prestigious Acting Ensemble; the members of which wrote and directed skits that were then toured around the state.

After heading to college for acting, Reyshan soon found writing to be his passion and completed his B.F.A. in playwriting with a minor in Film at Ohio University in 2007.  While studying under Charles Smith and Erik Ramsey, he wrote several full length plays, most notably Risk, Best Intentions, and Strike: The Musical, an Appalachian Comedy, that won the Humble Play playwrights festival in 2007, and was then produced by ARTSwest theatre company in 2008 to excellent revues.

Also in 2007 Reyshan wrote, directed and produced Casual Fine Dining, a mocu-mentary about a small town restaurant.  The film was lightly based on his fifteen years of bussing, waiting tables, bartending, and managing the front of house in 3 star restaurants.   He followed it up with Poor Crusader’s, a documentary on the Appalachian economy, Disorder, a short about a PTSD soldier, and The Closet, a psychological ghost thriller.

Reyshan got the idea for a feature film entitled Noir, before heading to the Savannah College of Art and Design where he studied Producing under Andrew Meyer, Directing under Lubomir Kocka, and Screenwriting Under Michael Nolin, David Engelbach and Amy Maddox. The next three years of this young artist’s life were spent dedicated to developing the complex story perspective, keeping in mind financial feasibility with regards to each aspect of the filmmaking process. During this time he also wrote and directed, The Man who Wouldn’t Listen, directed, Marias Ghost, and Elderado, produced a beautiful little short called, Phillip, shot Noir.0: The prologue  which was nominated for a Scademy Award, and has since published the Novel version of Noir as well as the first two Comic Books in the Graphic Novel series, while in pre-production for the feature film version of Noir.

Reyshan currently resides in Savannah, GA where he is putting together, a what he calls, Independent Lasagna:  The Independents Guide to the Feature... "keep it simple stupid".  Which will be a free guide book and online graduate video lecture course on how to make feature films, basically for the cost of food...  Needless to say there are a lot of layers.

Release Day for "The Infinity Program"

Title: The Infinity Program
Author: Richard H. Hardy
Genre: Science Fiction
Paperback available at: Amazon





Book Description:

Jon Graeme and Harry Sale are unlikely friends. Harry is a world-class programmer, but his abrasive personality alienates co-workers. In contrast, Jon is a handsome and easy-going technical writer, the low man on the IT totem pole.

Sharing a love of nature, the men set out together, planning to go their separate ways--Jon on a hike and Harry, fly fishing. Three days later, Jon arrives at the rendezvous point, but his friend is nowhere in sight. When Jon finds Harry unconscious on the floor of a cave, Harry claims to have been lying there the entire time. But he is neither cold nor hungry. What Jon doesn't know is that Harry fell into an underground cavern, where he came into contact with an alien quantum computer.

Back at work, Harry jettisons his regular tasks and concentrates exclusively on inventing new operating language to access the alien system. In the process he crashes his office's Super Computer and is fired. Jon convinces the company to give Harry a second chance, arguing that the system he has invented will make them millions.

Jon has no idea what havoc Harry is about to unleash.


Excerpt:

About the Author:
Richard H. Hardy was born in Glasgow, Scotland, during a week of relentless bombing raids just before the close of World War II. The day he was born an incendiary bomb fell on the church across the street from where he lived, so he is fond of saying that he entered the world with a big adrenaline rush.

His family later moved to England and then on to America.

After college Richard bounced through a series of temporary jobs as he traveled around the country, wanting nothing more than to write fiction. A job driving a library van allowed him free time to write several short stories and work on a novel.

He and his wife moved to New Hampshire, where he took an entry level job at a software company. He was soon promoted to the technical writing department and ended up producing over 500,000 words of online documentation. After a few years he was promoted to the programming department and ended up as the Senior EDI Programmer, creating EDI maps and writing UNIX scripts and troubleshooting on AIX systems throughout the U.S. and Canada.

After he retired, he started writing fiction again. The Infinity Program is his first published novel.


Where to find Richard H. Hardy:

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Let's Review - Midnight Son

Let's take a few minutes today to spend a little time way down, down, down deep below.  South Africa is where we're going in Taz Roux's suspenseful romantic tale Midnight Son.  Time to take a gander.

Book Blurb:

Caoimhe is trying to rebuild her life after her husband walks out on her. On the first weekend she has to face alone, she hopes to escape from the thoughts she doesn’t want to face by reading a damaged book she bought cheaply at a second hand book shop.

 

Right from the start, she notices parallels between her life and that of Duane, the luckless main character in the book. As her empathy with the storybook character grows, she starts fantasizing about Duane and dreaming vivid dreams in which she alters the outcomes of his unfortunate experiences.

 

By chance, Caoimhe’s sister finds her an expensive apartment which is renting out cheaply, but it is surrounded by mystery. The owner of the apartment had vanished on Halloween eleven years earlier, and the only indication that he may still be alive is his indirect contact, every year on the anniversary of his disappearance. 

 

Caoimhe moves to the apartment, but she can no longer ignore the strange coincidences between her life and the book, which now seem to involve her mysterious missing landlord as well. As she tries to unravel the puzzles, reality starts blurring into fantasy.

 

Meanwhile, the next Halloween is approaching.

My Review:
Caoimhe (pronounced Kee-va) is a young lady who has been beaten down by life with her soon-to-be ex-husband.  Over the years, all of her friends slowly drifted out of her acquaintance because of his attitude.  Not only did he leave for another woman, but he left Caoimhe high and dry when he cleaned out their bank account.  Now she can no longer afford their tiny apartment and has little to live on until her next paycheck and only her job to look forward to each day.

I immediately connected with Caoimhe when she's standing in the used bookstore trying to decide if a worn book is worth the few cents she has left in her pocket.  Earlier at the grocery store, she'd felt the keen embarrassment at checkout when, after carefully calculating what she had in her cart, discovered that she still didn't have enough money to get the most expensive item on her list - a simple bottle of shampoo.  Then needing to save the precious fumes of gas remaining in her car, she'd trudged home carrying the heavy bags in the midst of a sudden downpour.  Then she slopped into the front door only to slip and fall in the foyer - but instead of injury, her hip is saved by the cushioned padding the new book provides.

And thus begins the mystery surrounding Midnight Son.

As Caoimhe begins reading the book over the course of the next few weeks, her life begins to change in ways that mirror the events of the book's protagonist - subtle at first and then growing as she realizes her life has become entwined within the pages.  There's a sense of reality to Duane's story that comes crashing into her reality.

Duane is in the medical profession, as is Caoimhe, trying to save lives.  Duane's love life is also a shambles.  They both end up getting a kitten.  They both like or have experienced similar things.  Duane takes on a partnership of a clinic to try and save it.  Caoimhe is trying to save patients who were part of a clinic study.  The clinic names...

I don't want to give too much away, but needless to say I felt like some of the surreal moments as Caoimhe pieces the puzzle of the two worlds together were a bit like the movies "Lake House" meets "Inkheart".  Interesting premise and a nice, slow build that kept me reading.  Even though I'm not a big romance person, the romantic elements never felt overly gratuitous nor made me want to gag.  There was enough mystery and other life elements to balance it out.  I really liked Caoimhe's desperate attempts to find out what was causing severe renal failure and death in so many of their patients.  I'd like to have seen this expanded a bit into a larger segment of the story.

Throughout the novel, Caoimhe realizes her friends really do like spending time with her (just not her ex), she is more than capable of standing on her own two feet, and that she is very competent in her field.  She also earns the respect and admiration of her peers for her ability to first recognize that a medical problem exists, and then for her diligence in trying to solve the mystery.

So even though I liked the story, I have to point out a few touchy issues (yes, I'm a stinker that way).  Point-of-view was first person in Caoimhe's scenes with clean scene breaks to where she's reading about Duane.  Duane's scenes at first threw me until I realized these were actually Caoimhe reading, though they are written from Duane's POV as if he's a character in the overall story and not just a character in the book Caoimhe picked up.  Once I figured this out, I didn't mind this aspect and it made more sense as I slowly got into the story.

Tense shifts occur frequently within scenes and sentences from present to past as if the novel was originally written in present and then changed to past or vice-versa.  It becomes mostly past tense, however, from about the middle to the end.  Some missing words and minor duplications or misspellings along with overuse of comas peppered the story, but eventually I was able to read past most of this since I was enjoying it.

The only other thing I'd have liked to see was the ending drawn out just a bit more with a little more explanation of how what happened to Duane occurred.  It would have also been nice if there would've been some sort of award or recognition ceremony from the medical community for Caoimhe and to tie together the real-life events with the book's events.  I'm just saying here from my own personal reaction, but it just felt as if the end needed something bigger to solidify what Caoimhe accomplished between the two.  I can't say anything more here without giving away an important component to the ending, so I'll leave it at that.

So if I haven't yet confused you with my ramblings and attempt to avoid spoilers, I want to say I was surprised at how much I enjoyed Midnight Son once I got into the story.  It's not rocket science.  It isn't chock full of action.  It's not earth-shattering.  But it's a nice, suspenseful story dealing with the ups and downs of life and how sometimes the seemingly insignificant mysteries can impact not only our lives but the lives of others - but only if we take the time to become aware and then fearlessly act.

I find it hard to assign an adequate ranking here.  Structural problems and errors would probably make me give a two, but story would be a four.  So lets average it out and call it a very solid and enjoyable three stars.

Author Bio:
Taz Roux grew up in Johannesburg, South Africa, the daughter of a reserved computer programmer and a volatile journalist.  She has written for as long as she can remember, mainly to entertain her friends, with the occasional poem, article or short story getting published - when she puts her mind to it.

Ms. Roux lived on the outskirts of Maputo, Mozambique for almost four years, just after the war, when people were still ducking RPG rounds and landmines. Books could only be obtained by asking someone to bring them from South Africa. She was considerably more revered for the stories she wrote than for her work in the medical field. That sparked the idea of writing for a larger audience.

She is currently living in a quiet corner of her hometown with her children and a mute cat, putting another of the stories in her mind on paper.  Visit her website at http://rouxtaz.wix.com/tazroux

Amazon:  http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B00FYX70EC
Goodreads:  http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7362702.Taz_Roux 

Blindsided by "Blind Evil"

So after slogging through several chapters of my own book the last couple of weeks, I took time last night to attack my ever growing list of review books.  Yes, it's review time again.

Today we address Eric Praschan's psychological thriller Blind Evil.  Makes you think twice about who you befriend.

Book Blurb:
Sometimes you can be so close to evil, you can't even see it.

Police detective John Grayson's worst nightmare comes to life when he investigates a chilling double homicide and discovers that his best friend, David Vincent, is the prime suspect. As John unravels the mystery and trails the killer across Missouri, he finds himself caught in the web of David's twisted psychological schemes. The terror increases when Emily Dolon, the woman both John and David have loved since childhood, becomes the target of David's macabre mind games.

Trapped between his duty of solving the case and his devotion to his best friend, John struggles to find the truth, knowing he must execute justice, even if it costs him lifelong loyalties or his own life. Blind Evil is a taut psychological thriller that explores the dark place where sanity and madness collide.

My Review:
When John is called to investigate the gruesome murder of newlyweds recently returned from their honeymoon, the first thing that strikes our detective is that the scene is so carefully plotted out to the last detail.  It feels orchestrated - too personal.

As well it should.  In just one month, John is set to marry Emily, the love of his life since seventh grade.  Now those plans are on hold until he can stop the serial killer known as The Wedding Slasher.  And John is afraid he might well know the killer.

David is a brilliant psychiatrist with a dark past.  His childhood was filled with so many beatings and unimaginable atrocities at the hands of his meth-addicted parents, it's a wonder he grew up to be a sane adult.  It was that chance friendship with John and Emily in middle school that gave David an escape from the household of horrors.

Or did it?

Blind Evil is written in two simultaneous first-person points-of-view, that of our two protagonists John and Emily.  The division between was clean and concise and never muddled or blurred.  First person is not always easy to write with just one character, much less two, so I applaud Mr. Praschan for keeping these clear.

Grammar and punctuation errors were almost non-existent.  It's always nice to read a book with minimal errors and proper formatting, not something you always come across in the traditional publishing world, much less in the indie publishing realm.

David is more than adequately evil, twisted, and maniacal - but at times he was so over-the-top that he became more of a caricature instead of a real human being.

And characterization was where I struggled with Blind Evil.

When the murders occur, John is immediately suspicious of the man who is characterized as his best friend.  How would someone who is supposed to be a smart detective have such a friend in his back pocket?  I could understand this if David at one time was considered a best friend, but something about this supposed dynamic of best friends between these two in the present did not work for me.  John came across as too naive to be a streetwise, gritty detective.  With his close association to the primary suspect, he would have more likely been removed officially from the case.  But this did not occur.

Then there's Emily, John's fiancee who is also best friends with David (and dated him for eight years when John failed to make a move first).  Emily works with David in their joint practice, helping with his unorthodox methods of "therapy" that I found horrifying - and there is a disclaimer at the end of the book that says how this would never be considered an acceptable practice in therapy (thank you!).  So if Emily broke up with David because she was afraid of him, why then does she continue working with him in the practice and participating with these unorthodox methods as if there's nothing wrong with it all?  This says to me that there is something wrong with Emily as well, but that is never addressed.

I wish there would have been more moments of internalization with John and Emily to better understand the why of how they maintained this odd friendship with David when they didn't trust him and were actually afraid of him.  When the murders first begin, David is immediately suspect and John tells Emily not go to work, lock herself in the house, and not to answer the door for anyone - especially David.  So if John is too close to evil to see it, why then does he see it immediately as David at the first murder scene?  Most of the storyline is made up of a few moments of action, mostly dialogue and moments where I as the reader watched the characters "watch" themselves on video.  I felt very disconnected from the characters because of this distance and lack of internalization to understand their motivations.  Therefore, I never developed much in the way of empathy for any of them.

The plot had a lot of potential, but the overall inability to connect with the characters and the lack of grounding in reality left me feeling flat.  Again, however, the book was written cleanly and concisely and that counts for something with me.  Overall, I'd give Blind Evil two and a-half stars.

Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Blind-Evil-Eric-Praschan-ebook/dp/B00IDHV4NE/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1392215671&sr=8-1&keywords=blind+evil

Barnes and Noble: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/blind-evil-eric-praschan/1118630057?ean=2940148251347&itm=1&usri=blind+evil

Smashwords: http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/408709

Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/20806501-blind-evil

Author Bio:
Eric Praschan has been writing for more than 20 years, focusing on suspense fiction. He holds a B.A. in English and a M.A. in Theological Studies. His favorite authors range from Stephen King to C.S. Lewis. He has many years of experience in drama, music, teaching, and higher education. Eric lives in Missouri with his wife, Stephanie.  For more information, visit www.ericpraschan.com. Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/EricPraschanAuthor
Twitter: https://twitter.com/EricPraschan

Cover Reveal from Dog Star Books

We've got a cover reveal from Dog Star Books!

What could draw poet, explorer, loner and paranoid Mykol Ranglen away from the relative peace of his own ring-in-space habitat? He has no choice in the matter as one by one acquaintances are murdered or disappear altogether. Propelled by ever changing and deepening mysteries Mykol embarks to uncover secrets which could make people rich beyond their wildest dreams…or tear apart human civilization. The escalating quest takes him through worlds of many dangerous extremes, leading him to confront the deadly alien Fist of Thorns, extinct species refusing to give up their power over the future, and those racing against him to uncover the secret first. But in the course of his pursuit, he must also face his own secrets. And some of these are even more dangerous.     The Man Who Loved Alien Landscapes by Albert Wendland Cover Art by Bradley Sharp Foreword by William H. Keith Space Opera Paperback coming from Dog Star Books in June 2014 ~~~ What They’re Saying About The Man Who Loved Alien Landscapes   "Mystery, heart-pounding adventure, and the dazzling wonders of far-flung space play significant roles in Wendland's breakout novel, all while gifting us with a mesmerizing tour of alien landscapes destined to get under your skin and remind you of the very reason science fiction exists: Not to escape to other worlds, but to find ourselves within them." --Diana Dru Botsford, author of THE DRIFT and FOUR DRAGONS Inside are alien worlds and titanic space habitats and a brilliant and paranoid hero, all skillfully blended together with long-vanished galactic secrets. Science fiction… good science fiction, by a college professor of literature who loves good SF." --From the foreword by William H. Keith, New York Times Bestselling Science Fiction Author

Delve into the Code Realm with "Guerrilla Internet"

What would you do if some entity hacked your internet profiles?  Laid bare your private correspondence?  Accessed your bank account?  Found your home and threatened you or your loved ones?  Would you cower in fear and continue on in your mundane existence?

Or would you do something about it?

That's where we find ourselves in Matt Sayer's novel Guerrilla Internet, as he explores the real-world attacks on privacy in the digital age.

Book Blurb:

How careful are you with what you say in a phone call? In a text message? Are you strict enough to never reveal personal information in an email, or on Facebook? Most people aren't.

Charlie, a soon-to-be unemployed software tester struggling through remission from depression and anxiety, is about to discover just how lethal a weapon information can be in the wrong hands. When one of his colleagues is murdered for the sake of stealing his company's innocuous in-development phone app, his life is upended and shaken like one of James Bond's martinis. With the aid of Mel, a technologically illiterate but worldly-wise security guard, Charlie must conquer his inhibitions and venture outside his cloistered comfort zone in order to prevent a cyberterrorist conspiracy so devastating it threatens the very future of the internet itself... 

A technological thriller set in modern times, Guerrilla Internet tackles the themes of privacy, security, and freedom of expression in the age of a constantly connected society. A tale of subterfuge and doublespeak, of plots within plots, where laws and morals clash to decide the meaning of freedom in an always-online world.

My Review:
Confession first - I know very little about what is lovingly referred to as "geek-speak" so I was lost when this book got brass-tacks technical.  Just call me Mel.  Outside of that, I really enjoyed Guerrilla Internet.

Charlie is a computer whiz kid, fresh from university in Australia and enjoying the surroundings of his first job while living on his own - for the most part.  He's struggled in the past with severe anxiety and bouts of depression, but with medication and intensive counseling he's learning how to cope in a crowded and fast-moving world.

But then Charlie's carefully constructed world comes crashing down when he shows up for work to find a co-worker murdered in cold blood, the small company's server files all stolen or destroyed, and a chilling note from his boss informing him the company is ruined and he's closing up shop.

Then Mel shows up, a tough-as-nails woman posing as a detective in the investigation.  Soon Charlie realizes Mel is not who she says and is merely a security specialist traveling the world trying to sort out what she sees as a global conspiracy.  But Mel can't put her finger on exactly what the globe-trotting thieves want with all of the stolen servers.

That's where Charlie shines.

Charlie and Mel are in a race to puzzle the pieces back together before the nefarious plot is released.  From Australia to Seattle and finally Japan, this unlikely pair must find the criminals - and save themselves along the way.

Charlie's internal struggle was very realistic.  You sensed it keenly as he fought to stay in control among the crowds, as he self-talked his way back from the edge, and worked to discover confidence in his competence. 

With Mel - I could sooooo relate to her cluelessness when faced with the gaming references and just technology in general.  Felt like me around my son and his friends - HUH?  Mel also faces her own demons through the story - a little abrupt on the turnaround from tough chick to the softer side, but very touching nonetheless.  I especially liked the part where she goes to the church to "talk" to her deceased mother.

The writing is very vivid and plays well with the character of Charlie.  A couple of references really spoke to his nature:  "...fingers questing into his pocket to extract his phone" and my favorite "An alarm bell claxon tore Charlie from his wispy dreamland with all the tenderness of a blood-lusting T-Rex."

Point-of-view was decent for the most part with only a few snarls, but nothing terribly jarring.  There was only one part toward the end where I questioned the flow and choice of scene placement.  Charlie and Mel get on a plane from Seattle to Japan and then they've landed.  The next chapter opens with a step back 24-hours earlier and we're back in Seattle with the bad guys.  This felt like major whiplash to me.  I think it would have flowed much better and kept in tune with pacing to have Mel and Charlie take-off from Seattle, scene break to the bad guys and their machinations, then break back to Charlie and Mel landing in Japan.

Then there were a few little things that bugged me.  Maybe it was Charlie's youth and inexperience, but he seemed just a bit too naive to me to not figure out sooner that Mel wasn't initially who she said she was - meeting at McDonald's and then a hotel?  Yes, he questioned it the first time, but that could be understandable simply because he was so discombobulated with what was going down concerning his job and co-worker.  But after...?  Mel's seemingly unlimited financial resources were eventually explained, but that stuck in my craw until then that a mere security guard who was the daughter of a mechanic could jet-set around the world with money being no object.  Lastly, I had to suspend reality a bit concerning the time-frame it would take to apply for a visa to go somewhere out-of-country.  Not a huge thing for a novel probably, but this question popped up for me every time they went somewhere new.  Yes, I'm a pesky realist. :-)

There's not much in the way of action here, but for the most part - and considering the nature of the criminal activity - this didn't bother me, because the writing was so strong and descriptive I rarely got bored sitting in front of the computer with Charlie.

For a second release novel, Mr. Sayer I applaud you and offer up Guerrilla Internet four stars.  It's probably not something my mother would enjoy (and there are flashes of rough language) and I struggled a bit to keep up with the "geek speak", but for the technologically savvy crowd - they'd love it.

Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Guerrilla-Internet-Matt-Sayer-ebook/dp/B00ICECYUA/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1392349182&sr=8-2&keywords=guerrilla+internet

Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/407009

Author Bio:

By day, he is a voracious code-monkey, building websites, writing programs, diving into databases, and practically anything else involving computers in some way.

By night, he has taken to wresting his serpentine thoughts into semi-coherent prose, leaving the ideas in his head to fester and rot no longer.

Matt resides in Melbourne, Australia, and dreams of one day being lucky enough to entertain his passion for writing full-time, sharing to all the universes in miniature that exist within his head.

Visit his blog at http://loquasia.blogspot.com.au/

Checking In with Julie Clements

It's been a busy week here at the blog, and that doesn't stop as we begin the slide into the weekend.  As we head for home plate, I'm pleased to welcome an author to the blog to highlight what it's like to not only write novels for a living - but to also balance that with a writing day job.  Let's give a warm welcome to fellow indie, Julie Clements.

DAB:  Was there a point in your life that prompted your desire to write or have you always wanted to be an author?

JC:      I have always loved to write since I can remember. When I was a child I would take my note pad and pencil and sneak around the outside of our house peering in windows to see "what crimes were being committed." After investigating the crime, I would go in and write the story. I would do this all summer. I also liked writing skits for me and my friends to perform.

DAB:  So what I hear you saying is you were a Peeping Tom all summer, is that it?

JC:      I guess you could say that, but I don't think it counts since it was my own house.  Just don't turn me in.

DAB:  Where do you come up with ideas for your novels?

JC:      No where specifically. They just pop into my head. Usually I will be working on something else when another idea will come to me. If I can't stop thinking about it for a few weeks, I know I'm going to have to write it. 

DAB:  Tell us about a typical day in your writing world.

JC:      I also work full time as the editor of my local newspaper. It is a small staff, so I write a lot of the stories. After I get home from work, then I find time to work on my novels. How much I get done in the evenings usually is affected by how many stories I had to write at work that day.

DAB:  Do you write full-time or part-time?

JC:      I am managing editor of the Butler County Times-Gazette. It's a great job that lets me meet numerous people in and around the area, as well as learn about a vast variety of topics. I often find a lot of that knowledge helps out in my novels later. It also allows me to do what I love at work -- write.

DAB:  So you write all day and then write again in the evening.  Do you ever get tired of writing?  How do you find time to get anything done around your house?

JC:      I have to admit, some days I get home and the last thing I want to do is write more, but usually I am excited to get back into my story. It's a completely different kind of writing. As for the house, well...I try to find a little time.

DAB:  What kind of research practices do you utilize for writing?

JC:      It depends on what I am writing about. If I can, I base my stories in places I have been, whether where I live or places to which I have traveled. If I choose a different location, I will use the Internet to research the area, such as scenery, landmarks, etc. If my topic gets into an area I'm not real familiar, I also will research that. An example of this is in my first novel, "The Eleventh Hour," where it deals with DNA and medical experiments. I did a lot of research to decide exactly what I wanted to be happening in my novel.

DAB:  Have you ever experienced writer's block?

JC:      Sure. If I can't get past it one day, I'll put the novel away and do something else, such as work in my garden. I usually find if I put it out of my mind for a while, the next time I sit down to write, the writer's block is gone.
 
DAB:  There's the eternal debate whether to outline or not.  What is your preference?

JC:      I prefer not outlining my story. I usually know how it starts, where it will end and have a general idea of how I'm going to get there. The fun part of writing is the ride it takes you on. I discover the story as I write, which keeps me going so I can see what happens next. If I get to a chapter where I seem to be stuck on how to keep the story moving ahead I will do a rough outline just to get back on track.

DAB:  Do you belong to a critique group?  If so, tell us a bit about it.

JC:      I belong to GK Brainstormers. It is a critique group that was formed from a novel writing class. They are a great support group and inspiration to keep writing. They provide valuable insight into my story and offer suggestions I may not have thought of. It's also great just to get together with other writers and share ideas. We've become good friends over the years.

DAB:  Usually authors are also avid readers - what are you currently reading?

JC:      I'm currently reading "Lone Survivor" by Marcus Luttrell. I had heard a lot of great reviews of the movie when it came out. I didn't make it to see the move, so I decided to check out the book.

DAB:  What are some things you’ve done to get the word out about your novel(s)?

JC:      I have a writing blog, as well as have done a lot of promotion on Facebook Twitter, and of course, word of mouth locally.

DAB:  Care to tell us what is next on your writing horizon?

JC:      I was going to start the third novel in my series, but one of those "other" ideas wouldn't leave me alone, so I have started a different novel, "Past Regrets." It tells the story of a man who is running from the mistakes he has made in his past and that lands him back in his home town where he is forced to face the things he has done in order to turn his life around.

DAB:  Now’s your chance – give us the final plug for your novel.

JC:      I have two, "The Eleventh Hour" and "Double Time." Full of mystery and danger, they tell the story of Tad Moreland, who in the first novel finds a young girl who's family has mysteriously disappeared and he has to reunite them. This leads him to a web of deceit and medical experimentation. In "Double Time," Tad's investigation into a house fire, brings more questions than answers. Too late to back out, Tad finds things spinning out of control as his home is torn apart in a search and his daughter disappears. He sets out to get to the truth -- discovering tales of murder, deception and cloning along the way. Both novels are available as e-books on Amazon, Barnes and Noble and Smashwords. You can find "The Eleventh Hour" at http://amzn.to/1fI83eP or http://bit.ly/1dto3Pm  You can find "Double Time" at http://amzn.to/1hNMtE8 or http://bit.ly/1gbcU3e


There you have it then, dear readers!  Thanks to Julie for providing this insight into what it means to write, write, write.  Some days I should take a cue from her and just keep at it, I think.  Good luck on The Eleventh Hour and Double Time.  I look forward to seeing Past Regrets soon too.