Book Launch Coming

This post is a message from my pal, David Robinson, who is the most prolific author I know.  He writes in several different genres, and I have read pretty well all his books and really admire his work. Here he writes about The Deep Secret, the sequel to a thriller called the Handshaker, which other Kindle readers have called "a rollicking roller coaster of a read" that "will leave you gasping for breath". And I thoroughly agree. The Handshaker kept me reading well into the night as I just had to find out what happened next.

The Deep Secret will be released by Crooked Cat Publishing on Friday October 25th 2013.

David writes:

Despite having written the first draft in a month or two, The Deep Secret has been almost two years in the making, partly because of the amount of research I had to do.

Spanning eighty years from pre-war Germany to modern Britain, odd bits of it were written in German, and I have a slight problem with that… I don’t speak German.

Fortunately, Steph Patterson, one of the co-directors at Crooked Cat Publishing, comes from Germany. Not only that, but she comes from the Heidelberg region, which is where much of the early flashbacks are set.

It meant that after the initial editing by our old and trusted friend, Maureen Vincent-Northam, the manuscript then passed to Steph for verification and more accurate translation of the German phrases than I could obtain on Google Translate.

The result is a thriller which continually casts us back to a Germany where the Nazis had begun their inexorable rise to power, through Britain in the war and post-war years, all helping hero Felix Croft and his partner, Detective Inspector Millie Matthews, hunt down a serial rapist and murderer who wants only one thing: The Deep Secret.

What is that secret? Well you’ll have to read the book to find out, but here’s a little appetiser.

In the scene that follows, it’s 1943, and Julius Reiniger, a member of the Garman Intelligence Services, has asked for political asylum, in exchange he will use a hypnotic interrogation technique in order to ‘out’ German spies working in Britain. Reiniger is about to demonstrate his skills to Corporal Graham Burke and Captain John Stokes.

***

“Du wirst mir den echten Namen geben.”

“Beg pardon, sir,” Burke said, “but how do we know what Reiniger is saying? I mean, I don’t speak any German.”

“Fortunately, I do,” replied Stokes. “He’s just said, ‘you will give me your real name’.”

They were stood in a small, darkened room, hidden from the interrogation room by a two way glass, and watching Julius at work on one of the suspects he had named. Douglas Kenworthy, a forty-year-old supposed businessman from Norwich, was suspected of being a German agent before his name appeared on Julius’s list. He had been held for four weeks and so far resisted all attempts to break him.

Julius had been under careful supervision while he manufactured what he called his ‘hypnotic cocktail’, which consisted of a dash of Veno’s cough mixture, blended with a small tot of brandy, to which he added a few drops of chloral hydrate.

“It’s a bloody truth serum,” Stokes had declared.

“Not so, sir,” Julius replied. “Truth serum like sodium pentothal will make a man talk liberally, and at some point in the conversation, he may give himself away. This mixture, which was taught to me by my master, Franz Walter, mimics the first stages of light hypnotism, and permits a lowering of the subject’s guard so that my suggestions will be more readily accepted. Within minutes, the subject will be deeply hypnotised, and under my control.”

Still suspicious, still ready to order a firing squad for both the suspected agent and Julius Reiniger, Stokes watched while Julius persuaded Kenworthy to drink the mixture, and had Burke standing by to comment on the process.

Julius’s usual clothing was standard POW issue chocolate coloured drills, with a white patch, denoting him as low security, non-Nazi, but the dress could be varied according to the grading of the prisoner he was interrogating. For the interrogation of Kenworthy, he had asked for and been given a blouse with a black patch, indicating a hardline Nazi sypmathiser.

“It will help to reassure him that he is dealing with a devout follower of the Führer, Captain,” Julius ha explained, “and that will make him more amenable to drinking the hypnotic cocktail.

And so it had proven, but on Burke’s protest at his lack of German, Stokes tossed the wording in his head. “Curious thing to say.”

“Sir?”

“Normally, when we’re interrogating, Corporal, we would say, ’tell me your name’. Reiniger didn’t. He said ‘you will tell me your name’. I was thinking it’s a curious way of expressing it.”

“Standard hypnotic practice, sir,” Burke explained. “Commands need to be put as suggestions. Reiniger is using pretty forceful tones, but he’s still constructing the order as a suggestion.”

***

The Deep Secret is released on Friday October 25th, and will be available as an ebook and paperback. You can pre-order your paperback from Amazon at : http://www.amazon.co.uk/Deep-Secret-David-Robinson/dp/1909841234/

You are also welcome to join the Facebook Launch event on the day of release at https://www.facebook.com/events/212542592248132/

Caution: The Deep Secret contains scenes of graphic sex and violence.