Wordcraft – Books and reviews to mix & match

The first time I noticed my ranking among Amazon’s reviewers, I was 1 million plus something. And I thought – wow, Amazon even has algorithms for ranking reviewers? Of course, I set my sights on #1, only to find that top rated reviewers gain their status by reviewing everything. In fact, thousands of everythings. Including baby shampoo. (The package was in good shape, it arrived quickly and the shampoo cleaned the reviewer’s hair nicely! A 5-star review!)

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I decided to stick to reviewing books, occasionally posting reviews on this blog as well.  As I contemplated more book reviews for 2017, I enjoyed looking back at reviews posted in the past 12 months and thought – why not do a brief share with readers? Here are the openings of my reviews of several recent books by Texas authors and their titles/authors. See how many you can match. Better yet -- read the books for yourselves!

Review openings:

1)      Psychopaths make the best villains – in life as in fiction. But a psychopath as a main character? That’s what this Texas author has accomplished with a book whose anti-hero flashes the glibness and charm (superficial though they may be) of a true psychopath in a way that will have readers cheering for him against their will.

2)      Jane Austen fans can have Elizabeth Bennet – my fav Austen heroine is Emma Woodhouse. Yes, that Emma, the insufferable know-it-all who tries to fit her friends into incongruous romances while remaining blissfully unaware of her own admirer, her almost equally know-it-all brother-in-law George Knightley. So I was delighted to find the Emma-Knightley trope still alive and well on the plains of West Texas.

3)      Shortly after Saving Private Ryan appeared in movie theaters, I was aghast to hear that one of my co-workers had taken her then-teenage son to see it. She did it, she said, to keep him from getting any ideas that war was glamorous. Then came 9/11, and wars when both civilians and soldiers die – or sometimes worse, live – without any thought of glamour, under circumstances of almost unimaginable, unremitting horror. Those are the kinds of wars this Texas author writes about.

4)      The latest installment in this Texas writer’s series of thrillers starring an ex-CIA agent is the story of a plot to assassinate an autocratic, plutocratic ex-KGB agent who happens to be president of Russia. Readers may rest assured that the Russian president in question is completely fictional. Any resemblance between him and current Russian president and billionaire ex-KGB agent Vladimir Putin is, of course, purely coincidental.

5)      A tall handsome stranger rides into a small Texas town just vacated by a corrupt law enforcement official. It’s the classic Western scenario, lovingly but devastatingly updated for the 21^st century by this Texas author. But unlike the horse opera versions of the story, this hero can’t ride a horse, dislikes getting his city slicker shoes dirty, and has no patience for cows. And he comes with a load of modern-day angst – a wife who disappeared under mysterious circumstances, a previous job he left under a cloud, and an angry teenage son.

6)      One spring day in 1940, a 29-year-old West Virginia coal miner went to work as usual. Wearing his carbide lantern helmet, carrying his dinner bucket, he said goodbye to his wife and three children, the youngest a five-month-old infant. His family would never see him alive again. In compensation for his death, the mining company paid his widow one thousand dollars. It also ordered her to clear out of the little company house she rented, because on the first day, the family of the miner who would take her dead husband’s place was moving in.

image: wikimedia commons

 Titles/authors:

            A)    Stillwater, by Melissa Lenhardt

B)    The First Order, by Jeff Abbott

C)    Steel Will, by Shilo Harris

D)    Interference, by Kay Honeyman

E)     Running on Red Dog Road, by Drema Hall Berkheimer

F)     Hollow Man, by Mark Pryor

(Answers: 1, F; 2, D; 3, C; 4, B;5, A; 6, E)

Wordcraft – A presidential assassination, Russian style

The First Order

by Jeff Abbott

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It’s January and fans of Austin, Texas, thriller writer Jeff Abbott have been wondering since last summer: what has Sam Capra been up to now? For the past few years, Abbott’s thrillers starring ex-CIA agent Capra have been coming out each July, something chilling to get readers through a long hot summer. Instead, the latest installment, The First Order, is out in the cold of winter, a suitable time for a book about the plot to assassinate an autocratic, plutocratic ex-KGB agent who happens to be president of Russia. Oh, and slaying is scheduled to happen at the hands of a U.S. killer and on U.S. soil.

Before diving for cover from the missiles of World War III, rest assured that the Russian president in question is the completely fictional Dmitri Morozov. Any resemblance between Morozov and current Russian president and billionaire ex-KGB agent Vladimir Putin is, of course, purely coincidental.

In fact, Abbott told his audience at the Barnes & Noble Booksellers in Dallas’ Lincoln Park, he had been happily at work and on schedule on another book in the Sam Capra series. Then he happened to mention his idea for the Russian assassination involving one of the most fiendish cases of poisoning since Agatha Christie to his agent and was told, “That’s the book you’re going to get to write.”

The result, a delayed publication date for a book destined to keep readers awake and turning pages through these long (but all too short for readers) winter nights.

Ousted from the CIA, Sam Capra now works for a shadowy private justice league called The Round Table, whose members are the cream of intelligence workers in half a dozen countries, with enough wealth (whether well- or ill-gotten) to give him a cover as the owner or a string of glitzy bars in trendy locations around the world. So why in the opening scene is Capra in Afghanistan, hardly a see and be seen spot for high-flying celebrities and a far departure from Abbott’s usual glamorous settings?

But it’s also the place where Sam’s beloved older brother Danny, disappeared six years ago while on a humanitarian mission.

Although videos of Danny Capra’s execution appeared for sale in Afghanistan and neighboring countries, is body was never found. Now Sam has information that may lead him to Danny’s grave. Or to proof that Danny still lives and that everything Sam has based his life on has been a lie.

Whether alive or dead, the first order of the globe-trotting Capra family still holds: “we don’t ever leave each other behind,” even though bringing Danny home could become very, very complicated by the ongoing plot to assassinate the Russian president. And exactly what is the connection between the long-missing aid worker and a shadowy assassin who calls himself Philip Judge?

With degrees in English and history from Rice University, Abbott admits reveling in the writing of The First Order. To a dab of the inner-circle assassination plot of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, he adds a borrowing from recent Russian history (and thanks his Russian history professor at Rice for inspiring a lifelong interest).

Although there are a few rough spots, which may indicate the hurried writing (or possibly hurried editing), any reader who fears the similarity of Abbott’s title to a certain recent movie can be assured that Abbott’s trademark three-dimensional characters including “a Russian version of Paris Hilton”, often gruesome violence and a plot that sends pundits and paparazzi flying reads more like “Downton Abbey on acid” than anything from a galaxy far, far away.

Wordcraft -- 'You can walk into any bar in the world'

Downfall

by Jeff Abbott

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When Texas thriller writer Jeff Abbott walked into a book signing in Dallas last summer, he brought his entire high school class from the Dallas suburb of Duncanville with him. This time around, the old gang was less in evidence, but the staff at the Lincoln Park Barnes and Noble still had to bring in extra chairs to accommodate fans of Abbott’s Sam Capra series.

The new book, Downfall, is the latest in Abbott’s series featuring Sam Capra, an ex-CIA agent whose enviable cover job is running bars. That’s bars, plural, because Sam’s activities require him to move frequently, escaping old bad guys and confronting new ones all over the world.

Although earlier books in the series were named after Capra’s cover bars. Downfall, is named for a computer file. “The name of the bar is Select,” Abbott said, “which I thought would be the name of the book. But my publisher said, no, we’re going to call it Downfall.” Just as well, Abbott mused, considering the implications of a bar with a name like Downfall.

Taking a page from the Faust legend, Abbott envisioned a network of wealthy business people who’ve made a deal with the devil. And to play the part of the devil in the story, he created a young character, the shadowy opposite of twenty-something Capra himself.

“It’s incredibly important for villains that they are sure they’re the heroes of the story. In the first books, Sam fought society’s outcasts. For this one, I thought, what if I made him fight the popular kids?”

After a nomadic childhood with parents involved with aid to third world countries, Capra yearns for the suburban middle class life he never knew. He’s spent the last two books nearly losing his wife and child. With his family back, he thinks he’s due to live a normal life. “But as soon as somebody’s in trouble, he can’t help stepping in.”

Which involves, of course, finding a new place to set up bar. This time it’s in San Francisco. “My British publisher told me, you have come up with the greatest business research scheme of all time ,” Abbott said to the crowd. “You can go to any bar in any place in the world, and it’s a tax write-off.”

Not that such research is always fun and games. For a previous book set in Amsterdam, “I was having lunch with my Dutch publisher and I said, I need to see a really bad bar.” After some horrified glances, somebody asked, “What was that bar where the girl and the dwarf came in and started punching each other? I spent all the time there that the research demanded -- which I think was about ten minutes.”

With Abbott’s tours for Downfall wrapping up, what’s next in his busy life -- and Sam Capra’s?

The next book in the series, set in Miami and Puerto Rico, is written. All the books have been optioned for movies and there’s also been interest in a television series about Sam Capra. In general, he tries to stay out of the movie ends.

If Capra does get a movie, an audience member asked who Abbott wants to play the lead.

“It‘s a question I never answer,” he said. “I think the real questions will be, will they cast Sam as the twenty-six year old (he is) or will it be somebody older?”

For more about Abbott, his books, and appearances, see www.jeffabbott.com/.

Wordcraft -- What would you do to save your child?

Ex-CIA agent Sam Capra, protagonist of Texas writer Jeff Abbott’s new thriller, The Last Minute, thought his life couldn’t get any worse. His ex-wife Lucy, also a CIA agent, lay in a coma following a failed mass assassination attempt she engineered. The Company imprisoned and tortured Sam, believing him responsible for the attack. And while all that was going on, Lucy gave birth to the Capras’ son Daniel, now kidnapped.

But boyish-looking Abbott, a father himself, knows even more ways to torment a parent, and applies them with fiendish glee. In The Last Minute, Sam learns his infant son is in the hands of the mysterious international crime syndicate Novem Soles, which threatens to torture the child unless Sam complies with its demands.

What, Abbott asked the audience at his book signing at the Lincoln Park Barnes and Noble in Dallas last Wednesday, would his protagonist Sam Capra do to save his infant son -- the child he’s never even seen?

Would he kill to save his son? Abandon the computer genius Novem Soles assigned to help him -- a single mother also with a kidnapped child -- to die? Kill an innocent person in cold blood? Even kill the only person who can free his family from further threats by the syndicate? The stakes get higher with each turn of the page.

Best not read late at night. But if you dare, check your children’s bedrooms. Then check again.

Abbott apologized for arriving a few minutes late for his scheduled appearance, and for tearing himself away from “a bunch of people I went to high school with,” left drinking margaritas at a neighboring restaurant. Of course, they followed him, a contingent of his classmates from Duncanville High School turned out to welcome the local boy who made good with bestselling books honored with a host of writing awards, nominations, and film options.

The latest book, he said, is “a very direct sequel” from the previous Capra book, Adrenaline. So direct that he’s released an e-book short story, “Sam Capra’s Last Chance,” to fill in the few desperate days between the two novels.

What about the movies, audience members asked. (He has three books -- Adrenaline, Panic and Collision -- optioned for movies.)

Mentioning that the thriller Panic opened with a young Houston, Texas, film maker receiving a call from his mother, he said the first script he saw “opened in Siberia with a Russian warlord cavorting with his mistress under fur blankets.” Fortunately, the Siberian setting dropped out of later versions.

By this time, the Duncanville High classmates had arrived. Was there a particular teacher who inspired him to write, one asked.

“The first teacher who inspired me was my grandmother, who read to me. She taught school in a little East Texas town where not everybody had their own book. . . (In Duncanville) Mrs. Dover in math often took my math away because I was writing in class. But she always gave it back and said I should keep on doing it, because obviously the math wasn’t working.”

And what advice does he have for young writers? “Read as much as you can and read a variety of books. Write everyday, even if you just write a page.” Just hope your algebra teacher returns it.

For more about Abbott, his books and tour schedule, see www.jeffabbott.com/.

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Abbott is a bestseller in several countries. For the rest of us trying to expand our markets, British blogger Deborah Walker recommends Douglas Smith’s foreign market list, at http://smithwriter.com/foreign_market_list.htm. You’ve probably seen her often on Duotrope Digest’s list of writers with current acceptances. Check her blog, http://deborahwalkersbibliography.blogspot.com/ for ongoing information on markets.