J.F.Penn

Thrillers, Dark Fantasy, Crime, Horror

J.F. Penn

Pentecost, An ARKANE Thriller. The Research Behind The Book.

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pentecost j.f.pennMy aim is always to write a thriller that could be real, because it is so grounded in real places and real historical events. There's an edge of fiction that takes you further, but you should be wondering what that is.

In this video, I explain the research, ideas and inspiration behind Pentecost, an ARKANE thriller (Book 1).

It was originally recorded for a book club, but I think you'll find it fascinating if you enjoy travel and religious places around the world.

 

There are no spoilers, just some insight into my thought process and the places that inspired me.

  • My trip to India back in 2007 and how Varanasi gave me the idea for the opening scene on the burning ghats, where bodies are burned on the edge of the Ganges. How my travels are a source of inspiration for me.
  • flooded veniceThe original title of the book was ‘Mandala,' based on Carl Jung's Red Book, which at the time had just been released for the first time. It contains Jung's personal diary and paintings, made during a time of breakdown. Some of the images within the book inspired me to think of an idea around a stone and a pillar of fire.
  • During a trip to Venice one flooded New Year, I visited St Mark's Basilica which has the amazing Pentecost dome. That mosaic forms an important part of the plot.
  • I talk about my MA Theology at the University of Oxford, Mansfield College 1994-1997 when I studied the early church, and how I became fascinated with the Apostles. Where did their bodies end up after they were martyred? The Pitt Rivers and the Bodleian both make it into the book.
  • jung red bookScenes feature the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela in Spain, which has the bones of St James, and St Peters in Rome, both likely places for adventuring on the hunt for the Apostle's stones.
  • I talk about Jerusalem and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. How Israel is my fascination and my addiction, and how it appears in practically all my books. Morgan Sierra was brought up there, and in Pentecost, she visits again as part of the hunt.
  • Jung and Freud were in the USA during the 1920s and I was able to use that as part of the plot, taking the hunt to America and into the electric storms of Arizona and the Biosphere.
  • Why sense of place is so important to me

The first in the ARKANE series, PENTECOST is a fast-paced thriller that explores the edges of faith against a backdrop of early Christian history, archaeology and psychology.

Available in print, audio and ebook formats at Amazon.com, or for free in ebook format at Kobo.

Full transcription of the video

Hi, everyone, hi Rhonda and the book club, I’m really excited to be here today. I’m Joanna Penn, writing as J.F. Penn, and I’m really excited that you’ve chosen “Pentecost” as your book club read, so I hope you’ve all got your copy or on your e-book reader.

And today, I’m just going to talk a little bit about the ideas and inspiration behind the book, because I love research, and I hope you’ll find some of this interesting. Now, there’ll be no spoilers, I promise, so if you haven’t started the book yet, don’t worry, I will just give you some insight into some of the places and things that you’ll experience along the way.

So, the very first inkling for the ideas for “Pentecost” came when I had a trip to India, back about five years ago now.

And that’s me, sitting at dawn in Varanasi. Now, Varanasi’s on the Ganges, so it’s a holy city, and also, if you die in Varanasi, basically, you get to heaven, you escape the circle of life, as such. And that’s the Burning Ghat there. Now, visiting that was quite confrontational, I guess, those bodies being burnt openly there, and that scene, being there, really inspired me. And if you’ve read the opening of the book, you’ll know that that is the first scene.

And actually just as an aside, whilst you’re doing your book club, at the moment I’m back in India, I’m cycling in South India, so that’s pretty exciting. I love to travel, and my travels are a real source of inspiration for me.

So, when I got the idea, at this point the book was going to be kind of about Eastern stuff, and it was going to be called “Mandala,” because the other thing that was happening at the time was this book. Now, any of you who know a bit about psychology, Carl Jung is obviously huge in psychology, and this book, the “Red Book,” it’s huge, it’s like a huge, huge, oversize, full color, lovely pages book. It’s actually his personal diary of a kind of breakdown that he had, and he did art therapy whilst he was going through this. And this is one of his mandalas.

The book was going to be called “Mandala,” it was going to be an exploration of the kind of unconscious, and having crimes and thriller stuff as well, but in terms of the theme behind the series. Now, Jung’s “Red Book” had been kept secret by his family for many years, and had only just been released to the public, so these drawings were available to the public for the first time, and this sort of burst into my consciousness.

So, the book was going to be “Mandala,” and then, I saw, this image. The one on the right, both of these are within the book, and the snake there, with its gorgeous, gorgeous artwork that he did, all himself, but the one on the right, if you can see at the bottom left there, there’s a man prostrating himself before a small object–could be a stone–and a pillar of fire coming out. Now, that phrase ‘pillar of fire,’ if you’ve read the Bible, is essentially at Pentecost, the pillar of fire in Exodus, with God in the desert, but the tongues of fire coming down on the Apostles at Pentecost is what kind of came into my head, the tongues of flame. And when I looked at this, I thought, “Well, what if, that would be really interesting, if there was some object that could have this effect.”

So, again, another travel, my travels just seem to inform my ideas, and then they all sort of mush up into some kind of crazy thing, but I was in Venice, and you can see there that that’s me in my puffball jacket, because it was freezing, we were there for New Year, and it was flooded, so flooded Venice being beautiful but quite tragic, in a way. But inside St Mark’s Basilica is this tremendous gold dome, and on it, you can see there some of the figures of the Apostles, with the tongue of flame alighting on their heads from the throne of heaven. So it’s the Pentecost Dome.

And when I kind of put all these ideas together and thought about, “OK, well what if each of those Apostles had a stone that they kept in memory of their time with Jesus, and what if they were buried with the bodies of the Apostles,” because, of course, the history of the Early Church, which I studied–I did Theology at the University of Oxford, Mansfield College, which also comes into the book.

Essentially I thought it would be really interesting to look at where did the bodies of the saints end up? And could there be something mysterious, hidden with the bodies?

So, I just mentioned Oxford, but there’s some of the places there that I talk about in the book. That’s the Pitt Rivers Museum, which is amazing, this mad, Victorian explorer went around the world, kind of taking stuff from tribes–terrible, really–but an amazing museum full of interesting things. And the Bodleian, where I used to study, that’s the Radcliffe Camera, where my actual library was, the Theology Library, and once you get into the series, you’ll see later on, that there’s a sort of virtual library with arcana, and that’s modeled on the Bodleian. So that’s quite exciting.

When I was doing my research around where the bones and the relics of the saints ended up, the really famous one and the most obvious one is St James in Santiago de Compostela in Spain. There’s a brilliant cathedral there, and they have this amazing bottafumeiro, it’s called, it’s an 80kg big incense swinger, and it swings over the congregation, and it’s very famous, and I really wanted to get that into the plot, so, when you get to that bit, I hope you’ll enjoy how I wove that in.

But it was fascinating to me to kind of look at what is real, or at least belief, for a lot of people, and then weaving that in to a thriller, how can I make it so true  that you think it could possibly be real? That’s kind of my aim. And what’s quite amazing about many of the things as I researched, was the synchronicity, which is also a Jungian kind of thing, that things happened, more than coincidence, let’s say. Slightly more than coincidence. I’ll come back to that in a minute.

So, obviously St Peter in Rome would be another obvious place, the bones of St Peter lie underneath the cathedral, and there’s some amazing stuff in St Peter’s which I obviously needed to bring into the story, and there’s me outside there. And on the left, that’s actually the Feast of Epiphany, when we managed to get into the Basilica and see the Pope, which was pretty exciting, before he abdicated, of course.

I love Rome, I love Italy, and I love Israel.

So, if you do get into the series, you’ll find that Jerusalem and Israel come into the book over and over again, and Morgan Sierra, my main character, was brought up in Israel–her father’s Jewish. I love to weave that in, and Jerusalem is a very important place to me, it’s probably my spiritual home, I would say. I obsess about it, I read about it all the time, I would love to live there for a while. I’m really fascinated by the place, and the Church of the Holy Sepulcher is just mad. I couldn’t find any pictures of the stuff on the roof, which is in the book, which is the Ethiopian Coptic church, which is just really interesting, and obviously very poor, but, the church is just a mish-mash of all the different denominations of the Christian religion: it’s fascinating.

So, a fascinating place. Then, talking back again about synchronicity, when I brought Jung into the story in various ways, after starting with the “Red Book” and the mandala, and bringing him in to the story later on, I found some amazing synchronicity in the fact that he was in America, that’s a famous picture, that’s Jung and Freud, at Clark University, and essentially, they launched psychology in America in the 1920s, and this famous meeting, I was able to use in the book. And only kind of found that after I went into the research of where he would have been at different dates and how it would have fitted in with my story, so an amazing piece of synchronicity there.

And this is the Biosphere in Arizona, another place that has been in my mind for many years, and really fascinated with the storms, electric storms that you have in America.

So, I hope you can see that I kind of weave in all of this stuff into the book, and that that adds a kind of layer of intrigue and interest and sense of place to the book. I am an obsessive traveler, so all my books feature interesting locations.

OK, so I hope you found that interesting, and what we can do is if you’ve got any questions, Rhonda will email me those, and I’ll do you another little video, answering any other questions that you will have about anything, whether it’s the book, or the writing life, or being English, whatever else you fancy.

The series is available, “Pentecost” is in print, e-book and audiobook, as are the other ARKANE books. “Prophecy” is about the hunt for the Devil’s Bible, which contains curses that will basically do evil things to mankind, and it has, again, a psychological edge to it, the psychology of obedience, when Abraham was going to sacrifice his son, or when people do things in the name of God. So, I’m really interested in those, the Stanley Milgram experiments from America in the 50s, there’s a lot of interesting stuff in “Prophecy,” in terms of psychological research behind the thriller.

And then “Exodus” is about the hunt for the Ark of the Covenant as the Middle East counts down to a religious war, and in that one I did a lot of research, obviously, about where the Ark of the Covenant might actually be, and that was brilliant, I really enjoyed that, and going to Ethiopia and Jordan and fascinating places like that.

And then “One Day in Budapest,” which has just come out as you watch this, is more of a political thriller: if you like Daniel Silver, you might like this book. It’s got a political edge, it’s kind of a day of terrorism by neo-Nationalists, in Budapest, and Morgan Sierra just happens to be there, delivering some ancient objects back to the Synagogue, as it all kicks off. So it’s a very high-paced novella.

But anyway, those are my books. You can also sign up for my list, if you’d like to get specials or giveaways, that type of thing, at jfpenn.com/list

OK, well, I hope you enjoy the book. I look forward to hearing from you all, and thanks for having me, Rhonda, and thanks to all of you in the book group.

Legal Thrillers And Finding Jack Reacher. Interview With Diane Capri

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Legal thrillers and finding Jack Reacher with Diane CapriDiane Capri is the USA Today bestselling and award-winning author of the ‘Hunting Jack Reacher' series, as well as legal thrillers, featuring victims' rights advocate Jess Kimball and judge Willa Carson. Diane is also one of The Twelve, award-winning and bestselling authors collaborating on some exciting fiction projects.

Joanna: Welcome Diane, please start off by telling us a bit more about you and your writing background.

“I think that life is a mystery”

Diane: Well, I write legal thrillers, primarily, with a heavy element of mystery, because I think life is a mystery, and that’s one of the reasons that I read and one of the reasons I write, and why I’m still here, you know, to find out what happens. So, we’re heavy on the mystery and thriller and suspense in my series.

Most recently I’ve been writing some stuff on the hunt for Jack Reacher. It’s a frightening project, because Jack Reacher has tons and tons of fans, and some of them are happy with me, and some are not. But it’s a lot of fun: I really enjoy it.

And then I write a series set in Florida, involving Judge Willa Carson, and that’s really lots of fun. If you like, say, Travis McGee and those kinds of stories where you’ve got an unusual, idyllic lifestyle and also a little mystery thrown in, you’ll like that.

And then I have started a new series: my protagonist is Jess Kimball and her mission in life is to hunt down the guy who stole her child.

So you were a lawyer. How much of that is woven into all of your books?

Diane: Oh – well, a lot. All of my books have lawyers in them, they all come from me, because I draw on my fatal distractionpersonal experiences and my thoughts in the characters, and it’s what I know. And readers find it really fascinating. What I try to do is highlight things about the law that they don’t necessarily know: I try to find some gaps, try to make some mystery out of it where a lot of it’s just kind of dull. So it’s fun to write something that’s not quite so dull!

You’re obviously very focused on justice, but what are some of the other themes that come up in your writing over and over again?

Diane: Well, I think – and it’s kind of related to justice in the broader sense, not the legal sense – but I write a lot about trust and betrayal. And that really is what justice is, in society. You know, when we trust someone and they betray us, and you feel unjustly treated, and you want justice.

And then the other thing is, I just like to kind of write things. And it’s really fun for me to do research for these books, and I like to share what I’ve learnt. It’s one of the reasons why I was attracted to the Lee Child Reacher books initially: they’re just full of little arcane facts that you would never know, like the perfect shape of a button cuff, for example. And I think that’s fun, and that’s the stuff that attracts me. If it’s unusual or clever or different and I didn’t know about it, it’s like “Wow, hey, did you know that?” and that’s how I usually end up with it.

Joanna: I’m the same: I love finding out little things. And if I don’t learn something from someone else’s book, I get very annoyed! Coming back to the Jack Reacher series, obviously Jack Reacher books are kind of archetypal masculine hardness, and you obviously write kick-ass female protagonists.

How do you balance the gender issues between the Reacher series and your own writing?

Diane: Well, you know, there’s no question that the Hunting Reacher series of books are, like you say, harder than my Justice series, and I guess the Jess Kimball books are kind of in the middle of that. And it is a different perspective for me: you’re absolutely right.

get back jackI’m enjoying the Hunt for Reacher series: I hope someday there’ll be a showdown between my character, Kim Otto, and Jack Reacher. I discussed this with Lee Child, and I’m not really sure that Reacher’s going to win this one. I mean, I think, she’s tough, and she’s clever, you know.

The way Reacher is, it’s part cerebral and it’s part that he's just so huge. So he can just roll in there and wipe the floor with the bad guys, and he’s done, you know. My girl, she obviously can’t do that! So she has to be more clever, and it would be interesting to think one day they could eventually square up what happened there. Now, fans tell me all the time there would be no contest between them, but just let’s wait and see.

Joanna: Yeah! I’m keen to see that, too, actually.

Tell us a bit more about Get Back Jack, and what people can expect in that book.

Diane: Get Back Jack is my newest book in the Hunt for Reacher series. It’s the second novel. There was a novel called Don’t Know Jack, and then two shorter books, and there’s now the second novel. So, now we have our FBI agents, Otto and Gaspar, still hunting for Reacher, and by the way, this is the Hunt for Reacher series. Some people think Reacher’s going to be the main character, and he isn’t. They’re looking for him. So we’re kind of going where he’s already been.

We always have a launch book, and the Lee Child book that we’re launching from this time is his book called ‘Bad Luck and Trouble‘. And that was a story where Reacher got involved with his old army buddies, and they got into a whole bunch of trouble, and Reacher made some mistakes. I know we think Reacher never makes any mistakes, but I’m telling you he does. And so Kim and Gaspar go behind that, and they also get into a whole lot of trouble, because Jack didn’t take care of business first time round.

Joanna: Obviously, I’m a Reacher fan, and I really like this idea. Just coming back to your research process: when you’re researching these books, is it primarily delving into the source book, as such.

Do you do any other research on scene, or do you go visit places?

Diane: Sure. You know, I really never write about somewhere that I’ve never been physically, because I bring my own inner perspective to it. Everybody, I’m sure, has had this experience, it’s different to go to a concert and watching it on TV. Or even going to one of those movie theaters where they show the concert on the screen: that’s still different in feel from being in a place. So I never write about a place I haven’t been.

jack in a boxSo far, in the Reacher books, I have been all the places that we are covering. I think it may end up one of these days that that’s not the case, and then I’m in a lot of trouble. I mean, we have to sacrifice for our art, right?

Joanna: Yes, it’s important to do a lot of sacrificial travel!

Diane: But as far as research goes, it’s very challenging to stay true to the Reacher world, and yet add something new to the mix. So that’s where the intersection is, for me, and that’s where I have to spend the most time. So, I need to be true to what happened before, but I am writing a new story, so it has to flow from that, but it has to add a new element as well.

So, you know, Kim sees the world differently than Reacher does. I mean, they’re both cops in a way. He’s sort of gone over to the dark side, and she’s tried not to, so they see the world differently, and that is a challenge. It’s fun, I like it.

Joanna: Talking about writing and a sense of place, you write a lot about Florida.

What does Florida mean to you, personally?

Diane: To me, Florida’s a state of mind, really. I mean, I love it here, and right now, I especially love it, because it is freezing cold everywhere north of me! Right now, it’s really perfect here. I like to live where it’s perpetually summer. So that’s what Florida is to me: it’s all the summers in my mind, and I try to be there as much as I can.

Joanna: And you bring that kind of feeling into the books?

Diane: I really try to. You know, a lot of people, people who live here, even, will say, “Wow, I didn’t think about that”, or “That sounds like fun”. You know, if you live in a place, you sort of don’t see it anymore. It just becomes home; you’re not really noticing the things that strangers will notice.

Joanna: I haven’t been to Florida. I’ve been to other places in the States, but not Florida. Maybe one day!

Diane: Well, you should come here, and I can buy you some café con lecce, which is fabulous, and you will enjoy it, it’s very fun. I mean, it gets a bit chilly where you are, sometimes.

Joanna: It is. I’m freezing in London right now. Just a question, and I ask this of all the people I talk to on this thriller series: we write these exciting characters who have fights, and explode things, and shoot. How exciting are you in comparison?

Tell us some thrilling things about you, Diane!

raw justiceDiane: Oh, my gosh: I am really very boring. All of the exciting things that I’ve done in my life just sort of happened, you know?

Like a lot of writers, I’m very much an observer. I’m a little bit adventurous, but I don’t love danger. I’m not afraid of things, people say that when you write thrillers or noir, you’re really exploring what you’re frightened of. So it’s kind of a challenge for me, because I’m not afraid of a lot of things, like I’m not afraid of heights, and I go up in hot air balloons, and helicopters and things like that. But my life in general, I try to keep it quiet.

Joanna: Keep the drama on the page! That’s great. And then what about your writing life?

Do you have a special writing space?

Diane: Oh, I do, and we’re there right now. I guess it’s like a den. For me, it’s an office in my home, and I have a desk and a computer, and that’s about it. I have a couple of photographs on the wall that were taken – not by me – in Venice during the Carnival. And what I like about them is that they’re very inspiring for a writer, because they give you the impression that there are a lot of people out there, and they all have shadows, you know: there’s all kinds of things you can’t see, stuff going on that you don't know, and that’s where I like to put my books. When I read, I like that, I like there to be something behind the words that I didn’t catch. So, you look up and you see these pictures and you think, “OK, there’s something that you can’t see: what is that thing?” and that’s what I like.

Joanna: I’m a very visual person as well: I love images. Do you get a lot of ideas from physical images or seeing things, or do you read stuff?

How do you get those ideas?

Diane: You know, I think that’s magic, don’t you? I mean, I don’t really know the answer to that. What I have a tendency to do is to take in a lot of stuff in a variety of ways. I think writers are like sponges. You know, think of a sponge, and then maybe you spill some milk, and then maybe spill some red wine, and you’re wiping it up with the sponge, and then when you squeeze the sponge out, it’s going to be totally different, right?

Joanna: And much nicer in a book than in that metaphor!

Diane: Right! So, I travel a lot, I read a lot, I watch a lot of films. I meet people and talk to people about their lives. I think people are pretty fascinating – you know, there’s that catchphrase on one of the TV shows, I think it’s called Biography, where they say, “Every life tells a story”. Well, I think everyone tells a million stories, and if you talk to people about different experiences they’ve had, even though they’ll say, “Oh, I’m not interesting”, you know, if you chat for five minutes, you find out a whole lot of things.

Joanna: Yes. And you mentioned reading different books there.

Who are your favorite thriller authors to read?

Diane: I have a list that’s endless.

Joanna: You can just pick a couple!

Diane: I read everybody. And do that, obviously because I like it, but also because I want to see what’s out there in the world. I don’t want to do something that everybody else is doing: I want my stuff to be different. So you have to stay aware of what’s going on in your genre. And I also read writing outside the genre.

But out of writing by others, my favorites are Lee Child, and Michael Connolly is a favorite. I like James Rollins. I have kind of a love-hate relationship with John Grisham, sometimes I like him, except when he’s beating me on the bestseller list, then I don’t! I enjoy some of James Patterson’s work, some of them are not for me, some are in other genres. I love Jeffrey Deaver. They all do really, really well, and they all write books that are really exciting.

jack and killI like Robert Crais, and I’m so excited that he’s been made the Grand Master this year. I love Sue Grafton. That's some of my favorites. It’s a long list.

Joanna: Yes, a long list! I’m interested, then, because a couple of the names on your list could be considered more crime authors. I feel that I write thriller/crime/horror.

Do you feel that there’s any real distinction between genres, or are we blurring the lines now?

Diane: Well, I think we are blurring the lines. I think the lines have been blurred for a while. You know, for a long time I resisted the idea that I would write thrillers, because to me that was wrong, and I wasn’t sort of in that box. I don’t like that. Or supernatural, or whatever they call it – paranormal. It’s not that I don’t like that stuff, but I don’t write any of that. So, to me, that’s where the thrillers go. And crime fiction was something else. And when it started out, it was called Mystery, regardless of what it was, and then they broadened it to crime fiction.

So I think it’s really all blended together. I think it’s very hard to kind of draw those distinctions now. So I don’t know – that’s a very interesting question.

Joanna: It is interesting. Following on from that, and with your legal background, one of the biggest kind of attacks that we get, I think, as thriller writers, and  particularly as women, is,

“You’re writing too much violence: why don’t you write something more edifying for humanity?” What do you say to that?

Diane: Well, you know, we do hear that. I think the kind of work that I do, and I enjoy reading, is sort of a modern morality play.

And we really are sort of demonstrating – hopefully in an entertaining and exciting way, because if we’re not entertaining and exciting you might as well watch the news on TV – how to behave and how not to behave.

So, one way you don’t behave in life is you don’t betray people who trust you. You don’t take advantage of people who are weaker than you are. You don’t hurt others intentionally. And in most of our books, unless they have, I guess, a Jack Reacher, in most of our books, what we do is to highlight that, and to say, you know, “OK, if you do those things, you’re the bad guys, and if you’re trying to bring those people to justice” – because my books are always about justice – “then you’re on the good side”.

And I think that kind of moral instruction, if done well, in an entertaining environment, is really kind of what we’re doing here. I think in an earlier age, this same role was played by Dickens, for example. That’s what he wrote: all the misery out there, you know, don’t be Scrooge, try to be Tim Cratchit instead. In general, I think that’s what we write.

Joanna: I agree, and I think as long as we come down on the side of the angels, and our books have that message, and good always wins, which, let’s face it, with most thriller writers, good always wins, then that’s cool.

Diane: Well, unless it’s in the middle of a series and you’ve got to come back to the next book!

secret justiceJoanna: So, on that, you’ve got a book that’s just come out, Get Back Jack, but what’s next?

What are you working on next?

Diane: Oh, my gosh! See, this is always a secret, because I’ve promised my readers that I will tell them first. So, what I can say right now is that I’ve got a novella and two novels in the pipeline that I’m working on. I’m a slow writer. I know lots of people are faster than me, but I’m just not. I try to be faster, but really I’m just not. So it takes me a while.

Coming soon, I hope, in early 2014, is a German translation. Lots of German readers enjoy their crime fiction, so that’ll be good fun.

Joanna: Thanks ever so much for your time, Diane, that was great.

Diane: Thank you, Joanna, I really enjoyed it.

You can find Diane and her books at DianeCapri.com and on twitter @dianecapri

Her latest book is ‘Get Back Jack,' available now.

26 Thrillers For A Winter’s Night

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Winter has definitely arrived.

26 thrillers for winter's nightThe trees are almost bare and I've dug out my woolly jumpers and mittens. The pubs are serving mulled wine, and Brits are certainly drinking it!

It's time to curl up by the fire with a good book, so here are some of my recommendations for winter themed thrillers. Please do leave your recommendations in the comments!

the shiningThe Shining – Stephen King

As the harsh winter weather sets in at the Overlook Hotel, the idyllic location feels ever more remote . . . and more sinister. And the only one to notice the strange and terrible forces gathering around the Overlook is Danny Torrance, a uniquely gifted five-year-old. Click here to sample or buy.

Wolves of ParisThe Wolves of Paris – Michael Wallace

It's the winter of 1450 and Paris is in a panic. A pack of ravenous wolves is loose in the city, feasting on human flesh … These are no ordinary wolves. And if they are not defeated, the city's filthy alleys will be awash in blood. Click here to sample or buy.

white fireWhite Fire – Preston & Child

Colorado, 1876: At a remote mining camp high in the Rocky Mountains, eleven gold miners are killed, their bodies horribly mutilated, flesh devoured.

136 years later … As the winter snows fall, Corrie's life depends on unravelling a dark secret… the key to which may just lie in a lost Sherlock Holmes story, a tale allegedly so horrifying that its author never dared publish it. Click here to sample or buy.

kill zoneKILL ZONE: A Lucy Guardino FBI Thriller – CJ Lyons

Four days before Christmas, visions of sugar plums and sleeping through the Nutcracker with her husband at her side are dashed when FBI Special Agent Lucy Guardino becomes trapped behind enemy lines as a vicious drug cartel declares war on Pittsburgh.  Click here to sample or buy.

james rollins subterraneanSubterranean – James Rollins

Beneath the ice at the bottom of the Earth is a magnificent subterranean labyrinth, a place of breathtaking wonders – and terrors beyond imagining. A team of specialists led by archaeologist Ashley Carter has been hand-picked to explore this secret place and to uncover the riches it holds.

But they are not the first to venture here – and those they follow did not return. There are mysteries here older than time, and revelations that could change the world. But there are also things that should not be disturbed – and a devastating truth that could doom Ashley and the expedition: they are not alone. Click here to sample or buy.

One Day In BudapestOne Day In Budapest – J.F.Penn

A relic, stolen from the heart of an ancient city. An echo of nationalist violence not seen since the dark days of the Second World War.
As the snow falls on the city and the Danube begins to freeze, Morgan Sierra must race against time to find the Holy Right and expose the conspiracy, before blood is spilled again on the streets of Budapest.

miss smilllaMiss Smilla's Feeling for Snow – Peter Hoeg

A little boy falls off a roof in Copenhagen and is killed. Smilla, his neighbour, suspects it is not an accident: she has seen his footsteps in the snow, and, having been brought up by her mother, a Greenlander, she has a feeling for snow.

Click here to sample or buy.

icefallIcefall – David Wood

When the bones of the Magi are stolen from their resting place in a German cathedral, the whispered words of a dying priest catapult Dane Maddock and Bones Bonebrake into the midst of a deadly race to solve a centuries-old conspiracy. Click here to sample or buy.

macbethMacbeth, a novel – A.J.Hartley and David Hewson

As winter draws near in Scotland, Macbeth meets a trio of witches and the frustrated hero begins to think that perhaps Scotland needs a new king—him. But what begins as a plan fueled by the best of intentions soon spirals into murder, treachery, and personal collapse. A superb, modern rendition of the classic. Click here to sample or buy.

lockdown sean blackLockdown – Sean Black

It may be Christmas Eve in New York, but for ex-military bodyguard Ryan Lock it's business as usual. His task: to protect the CEO of the world's largest bio-technology company from a group of radical, and highly determined, activists. Click here to sample or buy.

cold earthCold Earth – Sarah Moss

A team of six archaeologists from the United States, England, and Scotland assembles at the beginning of the Arctic summer to unearth traces of the lost Viking settlements in Greenland. But as they sink into uneasy domesticity, there is news of an epidemic back home, and their communications with the outside world fall away. Click here to sample or buy.

drop by dropDrop By Drop – Keith Raffel

Professor Sam Rockman's search for his wife's killer takes him from conspiracy amidst winter snows in Washington D.C. to an abandoned underground center for nuclear weapons in frozen Russia. Click here to sample or buy now. 

ice station matthew reillyIce Station – Matthew Reilly

At a remote US ice station in Antarctica, a team of scientists has made an amazing discovery. They found something unbelievable buried deep below the surface – trapped inside a layer of ice 400 million years old. Something made of metal…something which shouldn't be there…it's the discovery of a lifetime, a discovery of immeasurable value. And a discovery men will kill for. Click here to sample or buy now.

get back jackGet Back Jack – Diane Capri

As ice shards pelt her skin on the streets of DC, New York, and Chicago, Kim Otto slips around the edges of Jack Reacher's lethal enemies, only one shot from death, until she faces an enemy with nothing to lose. Click here to sample or buy now.

antarktos risingAntarktos Rising – Jeremy Robinson

Antarctica, freshly thawed and blooming, has emerged as a new hope. Rather than wage a world war no nation can endure, the leading nations devise a competition, a race to the center of Antarctica, with the three victors dividing the continent … But the dangers awaiting the team are far worse than feared.

Click here to sample or buy now.

second shotSecond Shot – Zoe Sharp

After a bloody shoot-out in a frozen forest, Charlie Fox is left fighting for her life. As she battles to recover from her injuries, she's still fiercely protective of the girl she's trying to protect, even though her actions will catapult them both back into the firing line. And this time, Charlie's in no fit state to protect anyone, least of all herself … Click here to sample or buy now.

defector daniel silvaThe Defector – Daniel Silva

Grigori Bulganov once saved Gabriel Allon's life in Moscow-and Allon always repays his debts. So when the former Russian intelligence officer vanishes, Allon gathers his team of operatives to go after those responsible. But, in a running battle that rages across the globe, Allon soon realizes that his enemy may already hold the key to victory. And that if he continues, it will cost him more than he can bear… Click here to sample or buy now.

freezing pointFreezing Point – Karen Dionne

In a drowning, desperate world, the Soldyne Corporation sees an opportunity: Melt Antarctic icebergs into drinking water using their microwave satellite array, ship the water to thirsty nations around the globe, and make a fortune. But deep within the ice waits an enemy more deadly than anyone could imagine–and an apocalyptic horror Earth may not survive. Click here to sample or buy now.

the terrorThe Terror – Dan Simmons

The ships have now been trapped in the Arctic ice for nearly two years. Coal and provisions are running low. Yet the real threat isn't the constantly shifting landscape of white or the flesh-numbing temperatures, dwindling supplies or the vessels being slowly crushed by the unyielding grip of the frozen ocean.

No, the real threat is far more terrifying. There is something out there that haunts the frigid darkness, which stalks the ships, snatching one man at a time – mutilating, devouring. A nameless thing, at once nowhere and everywhere, this terror has become the expedition's nemesis. Click here to sample or buy now.

 the world beneathThe World Beneath – Rebecca Cantrell

Software millionaire Joe Tesla can't go outside, but he knows it's getting on toward Christmas because New Yorkers are hurrying through Grand Central Station with snow-dusted coats and red-wrapped packages. He also knows that one fourth of them might die bloody Christmas deaths if he can't contain a mysterious disease he's discovered in his subterranean realm. Click here to sample or buy now.

blood and iceBlood and Ice – Robert Masello

Journalist Michael Wilde—his world recently shattered by tragedy—has come to the South Pole looking for solace and a new lease on life. But what he finds on a routine dive in the polar sea is something else entirely: the bodies of a young man and a young woman, bound with chains and sealed forever in a block of ice. Click here to sample or buy now.

the price sokoloffThe Price – Alexandra Sokoloff

In the dead of a Boston winter, a district attorney begins to suspect his wife has made a terrible bargain with a mysterious hospital counselor to save the life of their dying child. Click here to sample or buy now.

icebound Icebound by Dean Koontz

In an Arctic icefield, a special team of scientists has planted bombs that will detonate automatically at midnight to break away some of the ice. Before they withdraw to the safety of their base camp, a shattering tidal wave breaks loose the ice on which they are working. Now they are marooned on an iceberg during the worst winter storm of the decade. The bombs in the ice beneath them are buried irretrievably deep…and ticking. Click here to sample or buy now.

red king of helsinkiThe Red King of Helsinki – Helena Halme

A fast moving Nordic Noir spy story, set in the wintry streets of Helsinki. The year is 1979 and the Cold War is all but over in Helsinki, the playground of the Russian KGB, when a former British Navy officer Iain is asked to work undercover. He’s to investigate Vladislav Kovtun, a violent KGB spy, dubbed The Red King of Helsinki by the Finnish secret service. This is Iain’s first assignment, and when he discovers the bodies left in Kovtun’s wake, he quickly gets embroiled in danger. Click here to sample or buy now.

dark placesDark Places – Gillian Flynn

Libby Day was seven when her mother and two sisters were murdered in “The Satan Sacrifice of Kinnakee, Kansas.” As her family lay dying, little Libby fled their tiny farmhouse into the freezing January snow … Years later, Libby’s search for the truth takes her from shabby Missouri strip clubs to abandoned Oklahoma tourist towns, the unimaginable truth emerges, and Libby finds herself right back where she started—on the run from a killer. Click here to sample or buy now.

Thousand Fiendish AngelsA Thousand Fiendish Angels – J.F.Penn

Three short stories inspired by Dante’s Inferno, linked by a book of human skin passed down through generations. On the edge of horror, thriller and the occult.

Sins of Treachery: On the death of their Grandfather, twin brothers Simon and Gestas are left a map covered in alchemical symbols that could lead them to great wealth and power. But they find more than they expected in the frozen wastes of the Arctic north … Click here to sample or buy now.

What's your favorite thriller based in or around the snowy winter? Please do leave a comment below.

An Interview On Corpse Art, Genetic Science And Body Modification

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My latest crime novel, Desecration, is definitely darker than my previous books, and it tackles themes of corpse art, body modification and genetic science.

corpse art and body modificationI was interviewed about some of my thoughts around these areas by author Dan Holloway, who is himself a connoisseur of the dark side.

Here's an excerpt:

Dan Holloway: There’s a wonderful scene in Hannibal where Thomas Harris describes Dr Lecter standing amongst the exhibits of a collection called Atrocious Torture Instruments. The real horror, he says, is to be found not in the exhibits but in the gawping fascination on the faces of the crowds. I wonder if something similar could be said about the Hunterian Museum.

J.F.Penn: When I first visited the Hunterian Museum at the Royal College of Surgeons, I felt physically sick as I studied the medical specimens in their jars, and I try to capture that revulsion in Desecration. The display of historical medical instruments could certainly be categorized alongside torture, used as they were before anesthetic and before antibiotics. It’s true that visitors stare into the cases with fascination, but I think it is more about looking within ourselves, than some kind of schadenfreude at someone else’s pain, as the Lecter example.

I felt the same way at the Von Hagens’ Bodies exhibition, where corpses are plastinated, partially dissected and posed in various tableaus to illustrate aspects of life. The descriptions of the corpse art within Rowan Day-Conti’s studio in Desecration are straight out of that exhibition. As I looked at the figures, examining the muscles and veins, the displayed organs, it was both obscene and fascinating. The most disturbing thing was a room full of foetuses, of all ages right up to full-term still-born with its eyes open. Those desecrationimages haunt me and that definitely comes through in the book.

You can read the rest here at Dan's blog: Desecration: Twisting bodies out of shape.

You can read more or purchase Desecration here.

Image: Flickr Creative Commons Phossil

Winner: One Of The Guardian Top 100 Creative Professionals 2013

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I'm thrilled to announce that I was voted one of The Guardian's Top 100 Creative Professionals 2013 on 18 November 2013.

Guardian top 100 2013The nomination process was secret, but when the announcement came out, I really thought I had no chance of winning. I was up against luminaries from the writing and publishing world including JK Rowling, Iain Banks, Caitlin Moran and Charlie Redmayne (UK CEO of Harper Collins).

JoannaPennJKRowlingBecause of our names, I was next to JK Rowling in the nomination program – very cool!

The winners were chosen by a public vote and announced at a reception at The Hospital Club, a fantastic venue for creatives in London, with bars, recording studios, meeting spaces and more.

There were 10 winners in 10 categories and amusingly, the winners list includes Benedict Cumberbatch, The Rolling Stones, Idris Elba, Damian Lewis … oh yes, and me!

This award means a great deal because I'm an independent author and not a part of the traditional publishing industry. In previous years, publishing wouldn't have considered someone like me because of the stigma of ‘self publishing'. But that is almost gone now, replaced by the creative entrepreneurship of indie authors – in the same tradition as indie musicians and indie film-makers.

It's an exciting world for authors right now, with huge shifts happening in this creative space. I'm looking forward to the next year!

Rebecca Cantrell On Writing In Berlin, The Hannah Vogel Mysteries And Blood Gospel

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Rebecca Cantrell on writing in BerlinI just spent the weekend in fantastic, artistic Berlin and while I was there, I met up with bestselling and award-winning author, Rebecca Cantrell.

Rebecca writes the Hannah Vogel mysteries, set in 1930s Berlin, and has recently started The Order of the Sanguines series with uber-thriller-author James Rollins. I loved Blood Gospel, so I was thrilled to talk to Becky about her books.

You can watch the video interview below, or here on YouTube.

In this on-location video in front of the Berliner Dome, we discuss:

  • Why Rebecca moved from Hawaii to Berlin, and how the city influences her writing.
  • What drew Rebecca to the history of Nazi Germany, and why she uses the perspective of crime reporter Hannah Vogel to explore the issues around the establishment of the regime. How the issue of gay rights in Germany became a focus based on a friendship she had back in the 1980s when she lived in Berlin when the Wall was still up. When Rebecca visited Dachau, she realized that her friend would have ended up in the camps because of his sexuality.
  • Rebecca's research process through original printed material and also films made in Berlin in the 1930s. She also managed to get a whole load of 1930s newspapers on eBay.
  • On writing Blood Gospel with James Rollins. How they met at a writer's conference years ago and stayed in touch, when the opportunity for the book came up, Rebecca was intrigued by the idea. The premise is that there is a group within the Catholic Church, the strigoi, who live on sanctified wine, when it is turned into blood through transubstantiation. So yes, it's a vampire series, but so much more than that! Here's my 5-star review on Goodreads. The next in the series is Innocent Blood, coming Dec 2013.
  • The World Beneath is coming soon, featuring a software millionaire who is stricken by agoraphobia and descends into the tunnels beneath Grand Central Station, NYC to solve crimes without ever going outside. Researching the tunnels was a lot of fun!
  • The themes that keep coming up for Rebecca include justice, as well as the stories of non-famous people behind the famous events.
  • How Rebecca spends her writing hours. She's a veteran cafe writer. She's currently reading Doctor Sleep by Stephen King at the moment, and also reads a lot of non-fiction historical books for research.

Cantrell BooksYou can find Rebecca at her site RebeccaCantrell.com and on twitter @rebeccacantrell.

Her books are available on Amazon and all online bookstores. If you like some mystery, thriller and a touch of history, you'll love the books!

 

 

Kick-Ass Thrillers: Zoe Sharp Talks About Charlie Fox And The Blood Whisperer

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kick ass thrillers zoe sharp charlie foxI love to read books with strong female characters, and if you like my Morgan Sierra books, you will enjoy the Charlie Fox series by Zoe Sharp.

I met Zoe at Bristol Crimefest earlier this year and in this interview, we discuss how she started writing, how her ideas develop and the themes that resonate in her books.

Watch the video below or here on YouTube. You can also watch the rest of the KillerThriller TV episodes here. The show notes are below.

zoe sharp Zoe Sharp is author of the bestselling and award nominated thriller series featuring Charlie Fox, ex Special Forces turned bodyguard, compared by many to Lee Child's Jack Reacher.

In the interview, we discuss:

  • How Zoe got started in writing after she received death threats for her photo-journalism. It also gave her a keen interest in learning self-defense which has become a key aspect of the Charlie Fox books, and she continues to learn new physical skills.
  • How much of Zoe Sharp is in Charlie Fox? The motorbike, the travel, the self-defence … Zoe explains some of the similarities and differences
  • On violence in crime/thrillers with a female protagonist, and how the cumulative effort of violence affects Charlie’s life
  • Writing in first person and the dark humor that comes through in Charlie’s voice
  • The Blood Whisperer is a new stand-alone crime thriller, with a new character, Kelly Jacks, ex-CSI based in London now working as a crime-scene cleaner after a conviction for a murder she has no memory of.
  • Die Easy, the 10th Charlie Fox is set in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina and is Zoe’s homage to Die Hard. As long as Charlie keeps talking, Zoe will continue to tell her story.
  • Blood WhispererThe themes that keep coming back for Zoe are the search for respect and Charlie’s search for redemption
  • Zoe does a lot of writing in pencil on scraps of paper. She does plot the structure but then writes the characters and reactions as they happen in a discovery method.

You can find Zoe’s books on Amazon and other online bookstores, as well as on her website ZoeSharp.com and on twitter @authorzoesharp

 

Zoe Sharp Interview Transcription

charlie fox booksJoanna: Hi, everyone, I’m thriller author J.F. Penn, and today on Killer Thriller TV, I’m interviewing Zoe Sharp, author of the best-selling and award-nominated thrillers featuring Charlie Fox, ex-Special Forces turned bodyguard, compared by many to Lee Childs’ Jack Reacher, which is brilliant, and I love Zoe’s books, so very excited to have you on the show, Zoe!

Zoe: I’m excited to be here!

Joanna: Fantastic.

Well, first up, tell us a bit more about you and your writing background.

Zoe: One of the first questions I ever got asked when I went onto a panel in the States was what made you start writing crime books, and everybody had their usual, “I always wanted to write and I’ve been a very interested reader for years,” and I said, “Well, when I started getting the death threat letters, that was what set me off writing crime books,” and everybody on the panel kind of turned and looked and went “What?” But I worked as a photojournalist for many years, and when I was doing a regular column for one of the magazines I worked for, I actually got death threat letters, and that’s what originally sparked off with the idea for the first of the Charlie Fox books. And it also gave me a very keen interest in learning a lot of self-defense.

Joanna: Wow, I’ve got to ask, what did you get that for? Did you take some Enron pictures or something?

Zoe: No, that would have been much more understandable. It was a weird thing, it was a long story and I won’t go into it, but it was a really weird thing, and I think it was a guy who had just taken against me for some reason. I’d never met him before, the police never tracked down who exactly was sending them; they never caught him, but eventually they just stopped. So that was great. But they were, you know, cut out of newspaper like a ransom note, and telling me my days were numbered.

Joanna: Wow, so you went and learnt, because of course,

Charlie is really good with self-defense and things. So how much did you really get into all that, how much of that is your learning?

Zoe: Yeah, I had a guy who was a karate black belt instructor, and he was brilliant. He also did a lot of kyusho jitsu, which is pressure points, and a lot of knife work. So, between that, and I’ve since learnt from a friend of mine, she’s another author, she hasn’t published her first book yet, K.D. Kinchin, she studies ninjitsu, so whenever we get together, “Ooh,” she says, “I’ve got this great move you need to learn!” So I’ve learnt a lot of it as I’ve gone along. And I’ve cherry-picked from different disciplines that kind of suit me, and you have to know your limitation, and I try and pick stuff that I know will work for me. And I’ve actually done demonstrations of this at some of the crime-writing events, which is great fun. I do a thing called “You can’t run in high heels,” and that always goes down very well.

Joanna: I want to come on one! I want to come on one of your workshops: that would be so fun!

Zoe: You’re on.

Joanna: So, you also ride a bike, a motorbike, right?

Zoe: Yes! Yes.

Joanna: From some pictures that I’ve seen.

Zoe: Yes, I’ve had a bike license for too many years that I really don’t want to count, and I’m just looking longingly at my next bike at the moment, so yes, before the summer gets too far over.

Joanna: And, the travel, I mean, you’ve just come back from Jordan, you’ve traveled a lot.

So, there’s the bikes, there’s the travel, there’s the kind of kick-ass stuff: how much of Charlie is you?

Zoe: I used to deny it completely, you know: she’s just a fictional character, and now I just say, “Oh, it’s all entirely autobiographical.” It’s a lot easier!

Joanna: Yeah, but I mean, we all bring aspects of ourselves, to our characters, I mean like for me, my Morgan Sierra is like a kind of alter ego: I’d love to experience life in that way. But you are a bit more of a daredevil, I think.

Zoe: Well, when I was still doing my day job working as a photojournalist, I specialized a lot in the motoring field, so I used to say that I spent my days hanging out of moving cars, scraping my elbows on the road, taking photographs of other moving cars, which is not the usual kind of picture of a photographer. But, I just like to go and experience a lot of this stuff, because I think it gives you a better standpoint to write about it. Having said that, when I had Charlie shot in one of the books, I didn’t go that far. I went and talked to a guy who’d been shot instead: that was much easier.

Joanna: Yeah, and of course she’s been through some nasty experiences in the military and stuff that you wouldn’t wish on anyone.

Zoe: No. Well, when I first started the series, there was a military base in the UK called Deepcut that was having a lot of scandal to do with hazing of trainees, and that sort of all went into the back story for the character in that first book.

Joanna: I think, you know, thriller authors, crime writers in particular, and you’re kind of in the middle I think, there’s crime and thriller, we kind of get done for violence against women.

What’s your feelings about portraying violence as a female writer writing a female protagonist?

Zoe: Well, it’s odd, because it’s not as acceptable, I think, coming from a woman. A lot of the time, you find that women are either portrayed as they’re the victims, or if they are a bit more capable of taking care of themselves, they’re either psychopaths or ice-cold assassins. And I wanted somebody who had the capability to react with really great violence, when the situation dictated, but was nevertheless not comfortable with that aspect of her own personality. And, you know, the guys are all expected to shoot the baddies and go and have a beer afterwards, and for women, the female characters, I thought that that just wasn’t quite as credible. So I wanted to show that yes, she can, and does kill people when she has to, but it all leaves a mark, an those marks are having a cumulative effect on the character, I think.

Joanna: And there’s a scene in the first book, where, in the nightclub, there’s a really big guy, and there’s no way any woman is going to beat this massive trunk, and she deflects it with humor, and I think that’s one of the hallmarks of your books, there’s this kind of dry humor throughout.

So is that your humor?

Zoe: Oh, anybody who reads my, my stuff on Twitter or Facebook knows I have a very lowbrow sense of humor normally. But yes, and a lot of the time you do get that kind of quite dark humor from people who are dealing with that kind of situation all the time. And besides which, I think the point Charlie makes in the book is that she’s into self-defense, and anything that allows you to get out of a dangerous situation, be it humor, be it whatever, is effective self-defense.

Joanna: Absolutely. And I think possibly the equating you with the character is also because you write in first person.

Zoe: Yes.

Joanna: So that makes it – do you get this a lot? It’s like when you write your first person, it feels like it is the author?

Zoe: Yes, I, I think so, and it is very interesting, because I’ve just written a new, stand-alone mystery thriller called “The Blood Whisperer,” and I’ve done that in third person, and, but quite close third person, so I swap almost into the thoughts of various different characters throughout the book, and that was a very interesting exercise, having done ten books now in the Charlie Fox series, all in first person. To, to suddenly have that wider stage to play on was very interesting.

Joanna:

Tell us a bit more about “The Blood Whisperer,” while we’re here, waving it – I think you’ve got a copy there!

Zoe: I have, yes, my trade paperback copies arrived this week: lovely! I still wanted to keep with a very strong female protagonist, because I thought, well, if people do like the Charlie Fox books, then that’s one of the main threads of the books, is the fact that it’s a strong female character. So I ended up with another strong female character, who’s called Kelly Jacks. She’s an ex-CSI, based in London, who is now working as a crime scene cleaner, because six years ago, she woke up with a knife in her hands next to the body of a man, and she was convicted for killing him, but she has no memory of it. So, the book starts when she goes to clean up another crime scene, and gradually she starts to think that maybe this nightmare is starting all over again. And the title came from the fact that she was so good at pulling almost invisible evidence from crime scenes, when she was working as a CSI, that they called her the Blood Whisperer, because she seemed to be able to tease evidence out of those scenes. So, it was great fun to write, I really enjoyed it.

Joanna: And that’s out now?

Zoe: It is just hot off the press, yes.

Joanna: Exciting! So people can go and get that. And you’ve got another, your latest Charlie Fox, I believe, is out as well: “Die Easy,” is that right?

Zoe: “Die Easy” has been out since earlier on in the year.

Joanna: Oh, sorry.

Zoe: That’s alright. But I’ve just finished writing, in the last few days, a novella, a Charlie Fox novella, which kind of bridges the gap between “Die Easy,” which is Book Ten in the series, and what will be the next installment. Basically, I’m getting bullied by fans who keep saying, “When’s the next book out?” so I thought, right, I will fill in a little bit of what’s happening for Charlie between the last book and the next one. But “Die Easy” I set in New Orleans, after Hurricane Katrina. I went there a couple of years ago, and was fascinated by the way that great swathes of the place are still in ruins. And I wanted to really kind of show that contrast.

Joanna: That’s fantastic. And what are the themes? I mean, obviously there’s strong women in your books, but

what are the themes that keep coming back into the stories that you write?

Zoe: I try and work around sort of different themes, but a lot of them are search, people’s search for respect, and latterly, I suppose, Charlie’s search for redemption, for things: she feels she’s heading down a path which, if she’s not very careful, could take her to a place that will probably ruin her. So she’s looking for a way to justify her own abilities.

Joanna: And when you’re thinking of the next book, what is the thing that sparks the idea? Is it, “I want to write a book in New Orleans, so I’ll go and do the trip and then I’ll come up with a plot”? I mean, I’m one of those people; I’m like, “Let’s go to Budapest and then write a book”! I know you’ve just been to Jordan as well.

Or do you come up with the story and then fit it to a place?

Zoe: Well, a little bit of both. It very much depends on the location and the idea for the book. As I said, I knew I wanted to set something in New Orleans; it was such a fascinating place. I’ve also, for a lot of years, wanted to do a sort of my take on one of my all-time favorite movies, which was Die Hard. So, of course, what could I call the book but “Die Easy,” because it’s Die Hard set in The Big Easy. And I wanted to put Charlie in a situation, she ends up in a hostage situation, where she is on the outside, trying to work out how to rescue a lot of people, and also, she is unarmed, so that was her kind of bare feet handicap if you like, that she has to cope without her usual abilities with firearms.

Joanna: Oh, wow!

Zoe: So I like to keep testing her.

Joanna: You do: you really do.

Do you have an end in mind, for Charlie, you know, at ten, the series starts, do you go, “Right, this is going to go forever”?

Zoe: As long as she keeps talking to me – which sounds very strange, I know: the voices in my head and all that. But as long as she keeps talking to me, and has a story to tell, then I will keep telling it. She still has a lot of places to go, and I’ve got most of the plot worked out, I suppose, for the next book, and it’s still another place that interests me that takes her somewhere. I think because I try and make the actual plots of the books more or less stand alone and be self-contained, Charlie’s own personal journey is on-going throughout the series. So she has developed and changed, and evolved, I suppose, as she’s gone on, and that’s what keeps a lot of it interesting for me, is that sort of personal angle to the books, for the character.

Joanna: And you mentioned the voices there in a joking way, but

what is your writing process like? Your writing routine, I guess.

Zoe: Well, I tend to do an awful lot of my writing in pencil on scrap bits of paper, and I can do that more or less anywhere. I’ve written bits of books on planes, in doctors’ waiting rooms, in the car on the motorway – passenger seat, I have to say, I haven’t quite gone that far! But I do find, if I make notes to myself for the next scene that I’m thinking about, then by the time I come to actually type that up, it’s already got a skeleton; it’s already got a framework, and I find I can work much faster that way. But I do like to outline, I must admit: I’m not a very good seat-of-the-pants writer. I tend to go off in lots of hare-brained directions if I don’t have a fairly good idea of where I’m going. But I tend to plot kind of the structure, and then leave the reactions of the characters a lot more free-form, because I want them to react in a way that feels believable for that character at that time, and therefore I don’t plan that to the nth degree. And sometimes people surprise you: they turn out to react in a completely different way to the way you were expecting! Or they have a sense of humor you didn’t know they'd got until you start writing them–that discovery is always fun.

Joanna: And what about your actual physical place, because we can see all the books behind you.

Do you have a special place, or do you go somewhere?

Zoe: My desk, normally. My morning commute is about ten feet, into the office! I tend to sit, just sit at my desk with one of these ergonomic keyboards, which is very nice for my wrists and everything, and sit and scribble. Listening to music, normally: all sorts of different music. I really do like to have, that going in the background when I’m writing. It creates an instant atmosphere in my head.

Joanna: And you, you live in the Lake District, is that right?

Zoe: I do, yes.

Joanna: So do you go out for walks and hills in between writing?

Zoe: Sometimes. I mean, doing something that’s physical, as opposed to, I suppose, sitting and sedentary and cerebral, gives you so much time for mulling over ideas, and problem-solving and things like that, so I’ll go out and mow the lawn, or weed the drive, or wash the car, do something like that, and that gives me problem-solving time, even, in my subconscious: I almost don’t know I’m doing it.

Joanna: And what do you like to read for pleasure?

Or what are you reading at the moment – I know it’s always a hard question!

Zoe: At the moment, I’m reading some great books, because I’m moderating a panel at Bouchercon later this month, so I’m reading my panelists’ books, which is great, because they’re a really nice, wide selection. I'm also moderating a panel at Iceland Noir in November, so I’ve got a couple of new to me Icelandic authors to read for that. So I’ve always got stuff either for panels I’m doing, or a lot of people will say, “Would you have a read of this book?” and I desperately try and fit them in, but my TBR pile – it should be an MBR pile, really, because it’s a Must Be Read rather than a To Be Read. But for pleasure, I’ll read all sorts of stuff. I read a lot of crime and thrillers, I also read sci fi, I’ll read more or less anything. I love books that are personal journeys. Not quite biographies, but memoirs and travel, travelogues and all sorts of stuff. If it’s well-written, I’ll read it.

Joanna: Fantastic books, you know, I’m a real fan.

Zoe: Thank you very much.

Joanna: Really love Charlie and the series, and I’m going to try your new stuff. So, let everybody know where they can find you and your books online.

Zoe: They can go to my website, which is www.zoesharp.com, there are the Bookshelf pages on there, which have all the links to everywhere the books are available in all the different formats, so large print, audio, e-book and the printed versions. I’m also on Twitter, @authorzoesharp and I’m on Facebook as well, as facebook.com/ZoeSharpAuthor, and, as I think we’ve already mentioned, I have a very lowbrow sense of humor, so don’t go and look at my Facebook pages if you’re easily offended!

Joanna: It’s a lot of fun, just like the books!

Zoe: Absolutely.

Joanna: Alright, so thanks so much, Zoe, that was brilliant.

Zoe: Thank you.

 

One Day In Budapest. The Research Behind The Book.

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one day in budapest. The research behind the bookIn November 2012, I visited Budapest with my husband for a research trip. The resulting novella, ‘One Day In Budapest' is now available on Amazon, Kobo and all ebook stores.

In the video below, I explain the inspiration for the story – both from the political angle as well as the historical. You can also view the video here on YouTube. Below the video is the description and the buy links.

One Day In BudapestA relic, stolen from the heart of an ancient city.
An echo of nationalist violence not seen since the dark days of the Second World War.

Budapest, Hungary. When a priest is murdered at the Basilica of St Stephen and the Holy Right relic is stolen, the ultra-nationalist Eröszak party calls for retribution and anti-Semitic violence erupts in the city.

Dr Morgan Sierra, psychologist and ARKANE agent, finds herself trapped inside the synagogue with Zoltan Fischer, a Hungarian Jewish security advisor. As the terrorism escalates, Morgan and Zoltan must race against time to find the Holy Right and expose the conspiracy, before blood is spilled again on the streets of Budapest.

One Day In Budapest is a chilling view of a possible future as Eastern Europe embraces right-wing nationalism. A conspiracy thriller for fans of Daniel Silva, where religion and politics intersect.

The novella features Dr Morgan Sierra from the ARKANE thrillers, but is stand-alone and can be read separately from the ARKANE series.

Sample or buy now in ebook, print and audio formats

amazon-iconnook-iconKobo_Icon-150x150ibooks11912

Audiobook on Audible.com and on iTunes

Full transcript of the video

Hi, everyone, I’m thriller author J.F. Penn, and I’m here today to tell you a bit about my research process and the ideas behind “One Day in Budapest,” my novella, which is out now and available on all e-book platforms. And I promise there’ll be no spoilers, so don’t worry about that if you haven't read the book yet.

So, the story opens as Morgan Sierra is returning some items back to the synagogue, the Dohany Street Synagogue, which is the main one in Budapest. Now, these items were taken from the Gold Train which was a train, obviously, that was taken from the Nazis towards the end of the Second World War, so this is actually true, and I love to involve a lot of true stories in my books.

So, the Dohany Street Synagogue is one of the first places that I visited in Budapest, when I went there in November 2012, for partly a research trip, and also partly more of a personal trip. My husband is half-Hungarian, and also Jewish, so we were visiting the synagogue to have a look at his family history. So, it was a personal trip, it was also a deeply moving trip. And what you can see here is the gorgeous Dohany Street Synagogue, which is in the kind of Moorish style, beautiful architecture. And was kind of scary, this window, the rose window there you can see, is actually where Eichmann sat as they decided on who would go to the camps and who would stay in the ghetto, and this was where the Budapest Ghetto was. So, a kind of deeply disturbing historical area.

And the tree there, it’s a weeping willow tree in silver that is a memorial to the Jews killed in the Second World War, and behind there is actually a really amazing memorial to some of the Righteous Among Nations, who were the non-Jews who helped the Jews during that time.

So the Jewish history in Budapest is, is pretty sad, and you can see here a list of names, and the graveyard there–which is actually within the synagogue grounds, very unusual–is a mass grave for those people who died within the Budapest Ghetto, and they are actually buried there, within the synagogue grounds. And this brought home in a much more detailed manner, I guess, the deaths of the Second World War. It’s very hard to imagine millions of people, but you can imagine the thousands that are within these mass graves.

So that was a really deeply moving experience, and also, that memorial there, the shoes you can see, is some shoes cast in metal on the banks of the Danube. And that’s called The Shoes on the Danube, Memorial, which is within the book–I won’t tell you how. But it is basically a memorial to the people who were killed, the Jews who were shot by the Arrow Cross fascist militia, again in the Second World War. And again, they were just shot–told to take their shoes off and then shot, and their bodies fell in the water.

So, obviously, this was not a happy trip as such. Going back into this kind of history is very emotional. And when I was there, I really wanted to tell a story somehow that would bring in this history and would talk about the history of Budapest and this community, as well as the other people who’ve suffered, which I’ll come to in a minute. So, it’s I guess a dark history in Hungary. But what’s kind of interesting is it’s not just the history, and this is where the ideas behind the book come in.

These are some screen prints from The Guardian, which is a newspaper in Britain. And this is 2012, some of the news around Hungary’s right-wing neo-nationalists. And, essentially, in November 2012, which was while I was in Budapest, one of the Hungarian politicians actually called for a register of Jews in the country. And it was just so stark a contrast to me, seeing this synagogue, and the graves, and hearing about what had happened in the 40s, and then hearing news that was essentially what was happening before all of that. And in my head it was just kind of, well, what if this could happen again. And this party could very well become the dominant party in Hungary. It’s not just Jews: in the same way as the fascists in the past, they also target Roma and other kinds of ‘undesirables’ in quotation marks.

So, really interesting, and shocking, that there is this kind of neo-nationalist, anti-Semitic feeling, amongst some people in Hungary–not just Hungary, of course, it’s a worldwide issue. But what I wanted to do with my book was to kind of imagine what could happen, if a party like this got into power: what would happen. And so that’s the kind of political angle. It is also a kind of religious angle, but this is essentially political.

So that was the basis for the story, and then, as I’m a travel junkie, I really love to involve amazing places and interesting bits of history in my books. And here’s some pictures here of the Basilica of St Stephen, or St Istvan, as he’s known in Hungary. And you can just see in that picture of the shrine there, that is called the Holy Right. Amazingly interesting: this is the actually the holy right hand of St Stephen.

Now, the, the story goes that in, in around 1000A.D., St Stephen was the king of the Hungarian Empire at the time, and he was dying without an heir to the throne. And he called to the Virgin Mary, lifted his right hand and said, “Holy Virgin, look after the nation, become Queen of Hungary and look after them for me,” and then he died. But his right hand–this is over 1000 years old–this mummified fist, cut off at the wrist, it’s really, really cool, is there in the Basilica. And again, in the opening scenes of “One Day in Budapest,” you will see what happens with the Holy Right. But I love, relics, I think they’re fascinating, and the church is, is beautiful, so highly recommend a visit there.

Again, a very important place in Budapest, and quite stunning, because Budapest is really kind of showing this dark history, there’s a museum now, it’s called the House of Terror, and they’ve even got the big word ‘Terror’ over the house, it’s quite amazing. But inside, this is the tank inside, and a wall with all the victims. This building, 60 Andrassy Way, was actually the headquarters of the fascist Arrow Cross and the Fascist Party, as well as, then, the Communist Party, and some of the other awful things that happened to Hungary in, in the 50s.

So what was so amazing to me, or so distressing, I guess, was how many layers of suffering there have been in Hungary, in even the last 100 years. It’s a fascinating history to look at, and we think, “Ohthis is historical, this could never happen again,” and that’s why I wanted to write this story. But really, this House of Terror was fascinating. It’s been, sort of recreated and kept in the same way, and you can actually go into the rooms with all the records and a fascinating place to learn about what was happening there.

And then, of course, you have to bring in Castle Hill: that’s a, a view from Castle Hill over to the Parliament, at night, obviously. And that bird there is actually on the castle itself. It’s called a Turul–I’ve probably butchered the pronunciation, but the Turul is this magical bird from Hungarian myth. It represents power and strength. You might think it’s an eagle, but it’s actually a Turul, and it comes from the Magyar history and it can fly between the different worlds. And I wanted to bring in this sort of Magyar myth, it’s really fascinating. So I bring in a bit of shamanism and other things there.

And under Castle Hill is actually a cave system and tunnels, and a labyrinth, which unfortunately was closed to tourists, but I was able to research a lot of that on the Net with videos and pictures and things. So you’ll see how I bring that into the story. But, essentially, the, the whole city of Budapest has got these layers of, of intrigue and historical facts and just a fantastic place. So I wanted to really bring the city alive in the book, as well as try and talk a bit about the kind of political possibilities of the political future.

OK, so that is “One Day in Budapest,” a thriller novella, now available in e-book format everywhere. And you can also check out the ARKANE series, which is in print, audio and e-book. You can also check out my website at www.jfpenn.com, and I have a list, and you can get giveaways and all kinds of things, so yeah, come and check me out.

Thank you, I am thriller author J.F. Penn.