Love A Great Mystery! YA Works Fine!...

..."Exactly right" said Mr. Eldred, smiling with
delight. "Do you know it, by any chance? I sold a
clock to a very nice man who lived there not so long ago
which was also part of Miss Millichamp's clear out.
I always felt the clock belonged there myself. Now
what was the man's name?"
"Chambers, " said Oz...
...He held up the scarab brooch. "This came to us
from a spinster who had recently inherited...the
previous owner had been a collector...
"So this definitely comes from Penwurt..."

The Obsidian Pebble


By RA Jones









When I say this novel has three children--two boys and a girl, and quite a bit of the setting is at school, playing soccer, and magic is involved, you may think immediately of the Harry Potter series. Don't.. Because that's where the similarity ends...

And the mystery begins...

If you're one of those individuals like myself who enjoy reading mysteries, even those for "the young," then consider this one! And it's a perfect novel to give as a gift to your young readers. The characters are fun and, as with Harry and his friends, they make a perfect trio--each providing and complementing the skills of the other...

Of course it was Oz Chambers who was chosen...

In this first book which is the first in a series called Artifact, we don't find out why he was chosen. Oz was still missing his father who was killed in an accident several years ago. His mother, too, is still having a  hard time, after experiencing an emotional breakdown upon his death. Oz didn't want to return to that time, but he was also very concerned at the moment because his mother was starting to talk about moving from their home. Oz knew that his father would never have wanted that, and neither did he!

Penwurt had been inherited by Oz's father and had a long history. At one time the building had been merged with another large one next door. The older part, dating back centuries, had once been used as an orphanage and was said to be haunted. Indeed on Halloween night, when Oz, Ellie and Ruff were having a small party, they had heard footsteps from that older part of the building, long shut off from the living quarters. But when they went to look, the floor was very dusty and there were no footprints, no disturbances! And that was the beginning of their search--for a ghost, or whatever, that was causing things to happen.

Like pictures, one of them a scarab, floating on Oz's computer screen...

Oz's father had been a historian and often traveled, searching for and coming back with artifacts. Now Oz also had that desire, especially when they discovered a package that had been sent to Oz before his father died, which contained a small trinket box, with something else he later found...after his mother had angrily smashed the box!

The scariest part of this book is a man who is trying to talk Mrs. Chambers into selling their home to him. Here's a short hint/excerpt about what he's into:

Oz's gaze shot...to the fence, where a face was glaring at them out of the fog. It was a human face, but distorted and wild. The eyes black and sunken, the features pinched, yellow teeth bared, the nails at the ends of the dirt-encrusted arms filthy and broken. A low feral scream erupted from its red mouth and ended in a hissing snarl...

But finding out about what that was is just part of the complex mystery that readers are going to be putting together--tracking down old books, searching the computer, and exploring secret places are just part of what happens! A great mystery that shouldn't be missed!

And to make it even more fun, the author has a great site for all readers to explore! Check out just a few items below! Highly recommended!


GABixlerReviews

RA Jones was born in 1955 and grew up in a mining village in South Wales with his nose in a book and his head in the clouds. He managed to subdue his imagination long enough to carve out a career in medicine, writing whenever the chance arose.

In 1994, writing as Dylan Jones, he published his first scary book for adults, a thriller, which was subsequently made into a two-part film by the BBC. Other scary books followed.

A growing desire to move away from adult thrillers and write for children is what currently preoccupies him. The Obsidian Pebble is the first in a quintet featuring eleven-year-old Oz Chambers whose family inherits a ‘haunted’ house. His mother wants to leave, but Oz wants to unlock the house’s mysteries and uncovers a secret that will change his life forever.

RA Jones has three grownup children who have emerged remarkably unscathed into adulthood. When not writing, he practices medicine and lives in darkest West Wales with his understanding (very) wife and two dogs.


Want to hear an excerpt by the Author?

Click and Let the Pebble Lead You to Secret Stuff!

The Iris - A Study by Guest Photographer Rachel Eberhart...

Location: Sangston Cabin 2012
Photographer: Rachael Eberhart

Callinan Shares About Writing - Developing New Character...

Plotting my new Mike Delaney thriller

Although I say it myself, the character of Mike Delaney could have the attributes of a long standing fictional kickass hero. At least, I would like to think so. But he is more than a lookalike Jack Reacher or Jason Bourne. I deliberately sculpted the character of this Irish-American tough guy with a conscience to include what could be described as metaphysical, philosophical and spiritual elements.

This didn't prove to be as straightforward as it seemed at the outset. The immediate result of this personality shaping was to throw up all kinds of conflicts; his hopefully serious pledge to never kill another human being while being inevitably thrust into life and death situations.

In the first book, The Immortality Plot, the bad guy or antagonist was an equally powerful character; a transvestite killer with a narcissistic nature and a teddy bear fixation. I just couldn't bear to get rid of Lucius Gynt at the end of the book. So, rather like the one-armed man in 'The Fugitive', Hannibal Lecter or Sherlock Holmes's Moriarty, I decided to bring him back as Delaney's nemesis in another book.

But, should that be the follow up book or another book down the line? 


I struggled with this question and I still am.

My first instinct was to write a different story and then revisit Lucius Gynt in book three and that is what I have been doing. But I am still not certain I am right.

The book I am working on is tentatively titled 'Good Girl Bad Girl' set in the US and in Ireland. In fact, I have set a section of the action in the city where I was conceived but not brought up; the city where my parents were born, grew up and emigrated from to the UK. The city of 'Angela's Ashes': Limerick.

I am using for the first time a book writing program called Scrivener and it is proving to be very valuable as a way of keeping everything together. I have also created a new bad guy that has me writhing in my seat as I write: Oswald Dante, a bookseller, poisoner who keeps his preserved and adored mother in a sepulchre.

Although I tend to let my imagination and my characters take me where they will, with a thriller as intricate as this one that needs to appear simple on the surface, I find I need to do a lot of plotting and research. I am now on the last third of the plot where I need to extricate Delaney from some impossible situations and hold the reins of half-a-dozen plot threads before weaving the climax.

Wish me luck.

Naked? Did You Say Pierce Brosnan? Tell Us More!

English: Brosnan Pierce at Cannes in 2002. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I saw Pierce Brosnan naked

 and lived to tell the tale...

Yes, I, David Callinan, state it is true.


I did see Pierce Brosnan naked; in fact, more or less every night...


and in public...


because I was working with him at the time but it was some considerable time ago. 

Before I ever had the notion of writing a book or a screenplay I was heavily involved in music - what is now called folk-rock or an even newer, voguish moniker, folk-psych.

It was also the early days of the Edinburgh Festival when the pubs closed early and you couldn't get a drink for love nor money after about ten o'clock.

I had co-written an ambitious Celtic rock-opera called 'Pucka-Ri' (English translation: Goat King). I was playing in various bands but had teamed with my old oppo, Mick Flynn, to write the music and the songs and the 'Libretto'.

We found a producer/director, teamed up with a small theatre group, hired a ten-piece rock band, a brilliant jazz singer, Maggie Nichols and assorted acrobats, jugglers, goats, dogs. 

'Pucka-Ri' needed a lead actor to play the part of 'One Man' in this Celtic ring cycle that sees him descend into the Celtic underworld, undergo a form of redemption, copulate with 'Midwinter Child' and be reborn as man and spirit in pure harmony with the world and the Gods.

Enter a young Pierce Brosnan. We rehearsed at the Oval House theatre where he kept his pants on before transferring to Edinburgh where 'Pucka-Ri' became one of the hits of the Fringe. 'One Man' was accompanied by a goat (a real one), but it turned out to be a nanny so Pierce had to milk her every night.

HIs first entrance was stone butt naked leading the goat in through the audience. He spent a long time giving the audience a good eyeful before the script had the good sense to cover up his dangly bits. This was well before 'Hair' or the liberated theatre of nudity that followed and, I can tell you, a naked Pierce Brosnan holding a goat on a leash caused gasps of astonishment and admiration.

And no, I am not going to fall into the trap of blabbing about the size of his organ. That would be a step too far and very uncool.

When the Festival was over I gave Pierce a lift back down to London in my beat up old van. There was little to suggest what he might become. I was certainly a fan of James Bond books but never in a million years could I see him playing that part although he did have genuine charisma and was clearly ambitious.

It would nice to think that I modelled my protagonist in 'The Immortality Plot', Mike Delaney, on the Pierce I knew briefly but I didn't. I can't imagine the former US government assassin, Hong Police enforcer and esoteric monk with blistering martial art skills striding naked through an audience with or without a goat.


Note: If Pierce is in the Vid...he has to be behind the mask!???

DeSilva's "Cliff Walk" Amazing Second Novel!

"A mystery that began with a single murder more than five months
ago now had tentacles that stretched from Newport's scenic Cliff
Walk to a bloody bedroom in the Chad Brown housing project,
from a Pascoag pig farm to a bullet riddled strip club in
Providence. It had taken the lives of an ex-navy SEAL, three
snuff film producers, a Brown University dean, a New Jersey
child porn aficionado, and a pedophile priest in Michigan. I
didn't give a shit about any of them, but it had also snuffed out
an uncertain number of children..."

Cliff Walk:
 A Mulligan Novel


By Bruce DeSilva








Rogue Island, Bruce DeSilva's first novel, won the Edgar and Macivity Awards, with good reason. Having gotten to know Bruce a little on line, when he wrote Cliff Walk, I'm fairly certain he was thinking, "You 'ain't' seen nothing yet..." In his second novel, DeSilva has shown us he's the writer to be watching, a new best-seller whose name will be on the lips of mystery thriller readers everywhere! Sure, I loved It!

DeSilva mentions several authors in this novel, including his wife, Poet Patricia Smith. But even if he hadn't mentioned him, I recognized his kindred spirit with Robert B. Parker. I haven't enjoyed the dialogue and quips DeSilva zings us with since the early books starring Parker's Spenser. If you know what I'm talking about, readers, be prepared to meet a new Spenser-investigative leading man--Liam Mulligan style! Mulligan captures us in this novel, keeping us fully entertained with smiles and laughter...

And we need it, because the topic covered is very important to all those who care about children--child pornography and abuse/murder...

I especially liked that Mulligan, along with other characters, was written to show his emotional response to the grim crime scenes to which he was called. In fact, by the end of this novel, readers will have fallen for Mulligan--and I'm sure many of us will want to comfort him as he laments being alone...LOL...

As a newspaper man, Mulligan tells us much about Rhode Island and this time is no exception...Did you know that prostitution had been legal in Rhode Island until recently? So when an arm of a child was found--you don't want to know where--it was natural for Mulligan and the police to look at those involved with the sex business.
Poor Mulligan had to investigate all the strip joints, and tell us about them of course. But the owner of these bars, who was also producing pornographic vids, swore he was not involved. And, surprisingly, Mulligan later finds out why he could cross him off the suspect list, at least for the murders that continued to result in body parts being found... But he did confirm that the governor had been receiving "donations" from the pornographer!

Mulligan continues to have a good working relationship with a local cop and their byplay adds much to the credibility of those activities in which Mulligan finds himself involved. And there is much in which he does touch upon, including religion as several were priests who were found to be involved in child pornography.

As we all know, child pornographers and pedophiles can be found everywhere, especially on the Internet. That makes solving a case much more complex and spread across states and borders. For readers, that makes for a page-turning thriller as we try to solve the case with Mulligan. I applaud DeSilva not only for taking on an important issue and handling it with sensitivity to the extent possible...but also for broadening Mulligan's character to include more of his personality through humorous as well as touching scenes. Let's hear it for a leading man we readers will love to follow--including moi!

And I knew I liked Bruce DeSilva even more when he closed with his comments about the signature move of the star of a TV show--which I refuse to watch because of that same "look!" LOL

This is a must-read from a new DeSilva "Favorite Author" Fan!

GABixlerReviews

Bruce DeSilva worked as a journalist for 40 years before retiring to write crime novels full time. In April of 2011, he was awarded the Mystery Writers of America's prestigious Edgar Award in the best first novel category for "Rogue Island." In September 2011, he was awarded the Mystery Writers International's Macavity Award for best debut novel. The book was also a finalist for the Shamus, Barry and Anthony Awards.

The sequel, "Cliff Walk," was  published by Forge in May.

At the Associated Press, DeSilva served as the writing coach, responsible for training the wire service's reporters and editors worldwide. Previously, he directed an elite AP department devoted to investigative reporting and other special projects. Earlier in his career, he was an investigative reporter and an editor at The Hartford Courant and The Providence Journal.

Stories edited by DeSilva have won virtually every major journalism prize including the Polk Award (twice), the Livingston (twice), the ASNE, and the Batten Medal. He also edited two Pulitzer finalists and helped edit a Pulitzer winner.

He has worked as a consultant on writing and editing at more than 50 newspapers including The New York Times and The Dallas Morning News, and he has been a sought-after speaker at professional journalism gatherings including the National Writers Workshops and the Nieman Foundation. He has also been a speaker at crime writers conferences including Thrillerfest, Bouchercon, and the Mystery Writers of America.

His reviews of crime novels have appeared in The New York Times book review section and continue to be published occasionally by The Associated Press. He is currently an adjunct professor at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.

He and his wife Patricia Smith, an award-winning poet, live in Howell, NJ, with their granddaughter Mikaila, a huge mutt named Rondo, and an enormous Bernese Mountain Dog named Brady.