Dusk Before the Dawn

Heidegger’s Glasses combines the events of World War II and the Holocaust, mixes in a Nazi obsession with the supernatural, and adds a stubborn German philosopher named Heidegger who needs a new pair of glasses. The idea and concepts were interesting and i enjoyed the read, though I found the characters (especially the Germans) running together and the ending loose. This book was an uncorrected proof sent through Amazon’s Vine program.

The story revolves around a hidden camp, where Jews with particular language skills are pulled from the concentration camps and made to answer letters that come in for those whom have died in the camps.

“Himmler had forbade burning them. He believed in the supernatural with a vengeance and thought the dead would pester psychics for answers if they knew their letters were destroyed - eventually exposing the Final Solution. Goebbels, who despised the supernatural, wouldn’t burn them for a different reason. He wanted each letter to be answered for the sake of record keeping so there wouldn’t be any questions after the war. In order to look authentic, he decided the letters should be answered in their original language: hence the compound’s motto Like Answers Like.”

Elie is the lady with past whom takes care of the scribes and loves their German handler, Gerhardt, when she is not helping to smuggle Jews out of Germany. Their existence is strained, with the Scribes, Elie and the Germans assuming they wipe all be called to task by different masters soon. (more…)

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Fiction that interweaves historical fact, especially the World War I or II time periods, are among my favorite reads (and I enjoy writing them as well). Sarah’s Key fits that bill very well, mixing the tragic events of the holocaust in Paris in 1942 with a modern journalist seeking her own truths in the past and present. Yet another excellent choice by my wife who suggested this book.

The titular Sarah was a young girl who was part of the round up of of Jews in Paris in July of 1942 known as the Vel’ d’Hiv (strangely enough, code named Operation Spring Breeze). French policemen were complicit in the round up (later apologized for by French President Jacques Chirac in 1995), where several thousand Jews were kept with no food, water or facilities for days, then shipped to camps outside of Paris, then onto Auschwitz and other concentration camps. As with the Bombing of Bari, Italy, this remains a little known episode of World War II, outside of those it directly affected. (more…)

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In the summer of 2005, I was about to venture into my third
small start-up company, wrapping up the last items with my previous employer. As luck would have it, my previous employer had offices in Europe, in Milan, Munich and London. We were lucky enough to wrap in a non-business trip to Greece, including the island of Paxos around my visiting the European customers and offices.

I was hiking around that island one day, being pursued by thoughts of start-up company financing, when I came across a large villa, facing out across the Adriatic Sea towards Italy. Wouldn’t it be great, I mused, if there were a nice angel investor in that villa who would like to invest in this next venture?

What if he were an Italian drug smuggler?

That was the genesis for my new novel, Software by the Kilo.

But it wasn’t until last November, several years after that first trip, that the novel was finished, with a World War II back story that tied the original start-up plus Italian drug smuggler story line together.

It is no coincidence that the book is released on December 2, the anniversary of “Little Pearl Harbor”, the bombing of Bari, Italy in 1943, which ends up as a pivotal setting in the novel.

Of course I had to add in that one of the Italian henchmen loves Clint Eastwood spaghetti westerns, and that led to the body count game…

I never thought it would be more than three years between novels; obviously Stephen King I’m not, in more ways than just output. But I’ve enjoyed thoroughly the writing process, getting the pieces of the story to fall into place, bouncing ideas off of friends and fellow writers. The voices in my head never shut up, so my therapy to keep what little sanity I have left is to keep putting them down on paper.

The book is available at your local independent book stores like The Twig in San Antonio (now in the Pearl Brewery!), Books Inc. in California, BookPeople in Austin, Murder by the Book in Houston, Katy Budget Books in Katy Texas (if they don’t have it, stomp your feet and ask them to order it, please), at Amazon (.com and overseas), Barnes and Noble, and other outlets.

If you have any questions or feedback before, during or after, please let me know. More info on the novel is here.

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Thanks to Paul Levinson and Robert Flynn for the excellent quotes, and Kenny Manchester for a great cover. The novel should be available in December.

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For the fourth year in a row, I’ll be at the Trinity University Alumni book signing on campus in Ruth Taylor Hall. For the third year, my partner in crime (and excellent author) Robert Flynn and I will share a table, which is dangerous just in the intent. Also for the fourth year, beer drinking and mexican food consumption will commence shortly after the book signing (or as Bob calls it, being ignored by non-readers) ends.

My next novel will not be ready in time for the signing (I will have information on it), but Bob’s latest Echoes of Glory will be there. Bob was the writer in residence at Trinity about a hundred years ago, and has won many awards for his Texas and Vietnam based fiction, and for his excellent collection of humorous essays. I’ve read Echoes of Glory and enjoyed it, my notes on it are here.

Come on by if you are close.

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Dan Brown attempts to do for Washington D.C. and the Masons what he did for Paris, Rome and the organizations such as Opus Dei from The DaVinci Code and Angels and Demons. As usual, interesting, somewhat intricate story and well described places, but the ending gets a bit preachy and there is one story point that I either missed or is confusing (see the end, spoilers at that point).

Robert Langdon gets tricked into coming to D.C. thinking he is filling in for his friend Peter Solomon, who also happens to be the leader of the 33rd and highest level of the Masons. But Peter has been kidnapped and tortured by Mal’akh, a man who has infiltrated the 33rd level of the Masons and who wants Langdon to figure out where the Masons have buried the “Ancient Mysteries”, using clues the kidnapper has gotten out of Solomon, combined with an artifact Langdon was entrusted with by Solomon. Before Langdon can get started, the CIA (Director Soto) mysteriously appears, stating that this is a matter of national security.

What follows is a chase through the landmarks of D.C. and a race to diagnose a pyramid, combined with the capstone Langdon was keeping for Solomon, which shows the symbols that lead to the buried “Ancient Mysteries”.

Some minor spoilers below (but not the ending or storyline surprises). (more…)

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I’m not as glad to see a new Hap and Leonard novel as I am to be able to read Lansdale’s excellent dialog between these two and with anyone else that gets in their way. Christopher Moore makes me laugh with his innane situations and character dialog - but Lansdale has Hap and Leonard, two tough guys who are either getting their butts kicked or are doing the same to others, talking trash to one another all through the story. Their dialog is hilarious, and dead-on for two guys who have known each other forever, long enough to give each other a line of bull about each and every subject.

As usual, Hap and Leonard’s warped sense of honor gets them into trouble, this time trying to free the granddaughter of their former-cop friend Marvin from her drug dealer boyfriend. They do so with a lot of fists and one bullet, then throw the boyfriends cocaine down the toilet. This gets them on the bad side of the Dixie Mafia. The boyfriend and his posse come after Hap, Leonard and Hap’s girlfriend Brett while they are trying to get Brett, Marvin and his family out of town. Lots of people get shot, all of them the bad guys. This gets the threesome thrown in jail, and then into a plot with the FBI to help one of the Dixie Mafia middle layer guys get his son back so that the middle layer guy will turn over names and places of the Dixie Mafia to the FBI. (more…)

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Only a small number of Señor Zafon’s books have be translated into English, including this latest one. The translator, Lucia Graves, must be given due credit for making Zafon’s writing as enjoyable in English as I am certain they are in their native Spanish; I am attempting to read his other books in their native Spanish, slogging through with my dictionary at my side.

It is apparent that Zafon is not only an excellent writer, but enjoys the process of writing, and of reading. He once again includes the fascinating setting that is The Cemetery of Forgotten Books, where all books have a home, a biblioholics dream come true; Sempere and Sons bookstore, where the proprietor puts his love of books and finding them a home above business and revenue, plays a key role (Daniel Sempere is, of course, the main character of The Shadow of the Wind; and, from the very first paragraph, the love and pain of authorship is at the forefront: (more…)

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In the 2nd Xenon Pearl martial arts thriller from Mr. Rosenfeld, Xenon is presented not as the master martial artist of movie and legend, calm and reflecting inner quiet, but as a troubled human, spiraling like his art, but out of control and searching for a path, any path to self-control. A well written and sometimes disturbing look at a man on the cusp, of madness on one side and enlightenment on the other.

Beginning shortly after the end of The Cutting Season (the 1st Xenon Pearl novel), the story picks up with Dr. Pearl still banned from neurosurgery at the hospital, and trying to take care of his girlfriend Jordan (she was attacked and is now paralyzed in spite of Pearl’s surgical skills). Xenon is still fighting his inner demons, his other selves that force him to pick up his sword and right the wrongs that he sees. His cop step-sister Wanda tries to warn him off, taking him to a prison in a ’scared straight’ sense; Jordan tries to stop him; Xenon even tries to stop himself, by seeking out new teachers to try and take the martial arts his nanny taught him (an unnamed art, with no roots given). But he cannot quell the need to ‘fix’  problems with his sword; he manages to alienate Jordan, and anger Wanda. He also finds that some of his victims from the 1st novel have a lawyer building a case against him. (more…)

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Bob Flynn is an award winning author of novels and stories about Texas and Vietnam, two places and cultures that he is well acquainted with through personal experience. In his new novel, Echoes of Glory, he blends both the culture of small town Texas with the remembrances and misunderstandings of war, into an excellent, interesting and well-paced story on the search for ethics and right.

Sheriff Timpson Smith (Timp) is the reluctant Korean war hero for the small town of Five Mills, the only survivor of the Second Platoon made up mostly of young men from Five Mills. The town has glorified the Platoon, built a statue of Timp, and made him Sheriff; he, in return, has told the town what they needed/wanted to hear about what happened in Korea (after he tried to tell them the truth). (more…)

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