Did you know you can begin reading a free sample of a great book like The Storm Killer without leaving your iPad browser?
Earlier this year I received an email that began "Stephen, I hope you will consider my book, The Storm Killer
, for your Kindle Nation Shorts program." I was struck immediately by the humility of tone in the sender's email message. The next morning, after I had read most of the novel, I went back and read the email again and I was even more astonished by that humility, because I knew the book I was reading was the real thing, in a way that one expects to come upon only once or twice in a year of reading.
I quickly wrote back and scheduled the publication of the excerpt here for today, and for the past three weeks I've had a strange feeling that must be something akin to what Olympic judges must go through when they know that the best skating or gymnastic performance must be coming near the end of the program. I've been lucky enough to be able to share some great stuff with you here over the past three weeks, and I've let you know what I liked. But I've also been aware -- not to put fine a point on the analogy since fiction cannot be rated in the linear way that one rate a performance, say, on the balance beam -- that I wanted to save the 10s, because I knew The Storm Killer was coming. If a novel could be a 10, I'd say this is a 10. It is a wonderfully ambitious historical novel, and the author, Mike Jastrzebski, delivers on its potential in every way, with every sense, and with an astonishing ability to create, or perhaps recreate, the times and places and characters in this work of fiction.
Let me share a couple of reviews, and then I'll leave it up to you whether to click on the link to buy or sample this novel or to check out the generous excerpt in a recent Free Kindle Nation Shorts excerpt.
"Time: 1935. Place: New York City. Crime beat reporter Jim Locke gets sucked into a quagmire of death, deceit, and danger when his actress sister is murdered - and he becomes the prime suspect. When he uncovers a pattern of similar murders, he is convinced that a serial killer is on the loose. But the police aren't buying it, and it's up to Jim to stop the madman. The hunt takes him from the grimy streets and smoke-filled bars of Manhattan to deceptively laid-back Key West, just as a killer storm bears down on the island. THE STORM KILLER has it all: hard-boiled narrative, gripping suspense, period detail, an unlikely hero battling his inner demons, and a stunning conclusion that you won't see coming. Highly recommended!"
, for your Kindle Nation Shorts program." I was struck immediately by the humility of tone in the sender's email message. The next morning, after I had read most of the novel, I went back and read the email again and I was even more astonished by that humility, because I knew the book I was reading was the real thing, in a way that one expects to come upon only once or twice in a year of reading.I quickly wrote back and scheduled the publication of the excerpt here for today, and for the past three weeks I've had a strange feeling that must be something akin to what Olympic judges must go through when they know that the best skating or gymnastic performance must be coming near the end of the program. I've been lucky enough to be able to share some great stuff with you here over the past three weeks, and I've let you know what I liked. But I've also been aware -- not to put fine a point on the analogy since fiction cannot be rated in the linear way that one rate a performance, say, on the balance beam -- that I wanted to save the 10s, because I knew The Storm Killer
was coming. If a novel could be a 10, I'd say this is a 10. It is a wonderfully ambitious historical novel, and the author, Mike Jastrzebski, delivers on its potential in every way, with every sense, and with an astonishing ability to create, or perhaps recreate, the times and places and characters in this work of fiction.Let me share a couple of reviews, and then I'll leave it up to you whether to click on the link to buy or sample this novel
or to check out the generous excerpt in a recent Free Kindle Nation Shorts excerpt."Time: 1935. Place: New York City. Crime beat reporter Jim Locke gets sucked into a quagmire of death, deceit, and danger when his actress sister is murdered - and he becomes the prime suspect. When he uncovers a pattern of similar murders, he is convinced that a serial killer is on the loose. But the police aren't buying it, and it's up to Jim to stop the madman. The hunt takes him from the grimy streets and smoke-filled bars of Manhattan to deceptively laid-back Key West, just as a killer storm bears down on the island. THE STORM KILLER
has it all: hard-boiled narrative, gripping suspense, period detail, an unlikely hero battling his inner demons, and a stunning conclusion that you won't see coming. Highly recommended!"--Miriam Auerbach, author of Dirty Harriet Rides Again
"Mike Jastrzebski's stunning historical debut takes readers back into the hard-boiled world of Chandler and Hammett -- and brings Ernest Hemingway back to life in a book as big as the man himself. The Storm Killer
, a top grade thriller with a heavy dose of noir, hurtles you from New York to Key West at a pace that will leave you breathless."-Christine Kling, author of Surface Tension, Cross Current, Bitter End, and Wrecker's Key
"Jastrzebski's hard-boiled thriller storms through New York's gritty streets down to Prohibition-era Key West with Ernest Hemingway providing the tailwind. A crisp, fast-paced detective story, which Humphrey Bogart would have loved to play the lead in."
--Award-winning author Sharon Potts, In Their Blood.
No comments:
Post a Comment