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.

Hidden Gems by David Robinson

We are all lucky today because I have a guest post for you.  I get an excellent blog post without the pain of drafting it. (Didn't you know writing can be painful?) And you get a great writing tip from a successful author.

David Robinson is a pal of mine who has been active on the Writelink site even longer than I have. He is one of the most prolific successful authors I know, turning out several novels a year.  He also has a cracking sense of humour and writes side-splitting blog posts.

David has said he's less comfortable writing non-fiction, but today's post proves that he is just as good at it. Enjoy it, and then please go and visit him. And while you're at it, why not buy one of his e-books advertised in my side bar.  If you click there and buy, we'll all be even happier.  You'll get a spiffing yarn at a reasonable price (or the very useful how to tome), David will get a sale and I'll get a commission.

For a preview of his writing style. read on.  I know you'll enjoy this.

Hidden Gems

Like Jean, I’m a much travelled man. Leaving aside the rest of the world, there is no part of Great Britain that I haven’t visited, whether on business or holiday.

Wherever I go, if I have a little free time, I always head for the second hand bookshops, and I’ve been fortunate enough to pick up a few treasures here and there. A first Penguin Edition of Nigel Kneale’s Quatermass & The Pit dated 1960, a first hardback edition copy of a little-known novel by Keith Waterhouse, Office Life.

I was scouring the shelves of one shop in (I think) Whitby when I picked up a book entitled Hypnotism & Crime by Dr H. E. Hammerschlag.

I trained as a hypnotherapist in the early 90s. I was also writing crime fiction and I’d had this idea for a detective who was a ‘forensic hypnotist’. I bought Dr Hammerschlag’s book sometime around 2003, with the feeling that it would more than repay the £5 I paid for it.

Understatement! Hypnotism & Crime contained a hidden gem.

The book details a series of cases where hypnosis has been used in the committing of crimes, and within its pages there was an account of The Heidelberg Case.

Without going into great detail, this case, which happened in Germany from 1927-1934 blew away the notion that a hypnotised subject cannot be made to do something which would be against his/her moral standards. The subject, only ever identified as Mrs E, made six attempts to murder her husband and when they failed, the criminal hypnotist persuaded her to commit suicide. It was only good fortune that prevented her doing so.

To someone who writes crime fiction, mysteries, dark sci-fi and paranormal horror, The Heidelberg Case was a gift from the gods. From it, I developed a 100,000 word novel which, as I write, is with my editor, in preparation for publication.

My point here is not The Heidelberg Case, or the potential for abuse of hypnosis, or even the writing of such fiction. It’s research.

As writers, we all know the value of research, but people often say to me, “you write sci-fi and horror, you don’t need to research anything.”

Wrong. Many of my titles are set in the here and now, and at the very basic level, I have geographical research to carry out. Some of my sci-fi titles are set within the Solar System and I need to know the names of Jupiter’s moons or the orbital period of Saturn.

When it comes to more complex tales, such as the abuse of hypnosis, I’m up against a community which will swear that I have my facts wrong. Dr Hammerschlag disagrees with them, and so do I.

But it’s not simply establishing fact to mingle with the fiction. Having this research material to hand permits me to speculate. Why did Mrs E never remember a hypnotic induction? How did the hypnotist entrance her without saying a word? Why did Dr Ludwig Meyer’s original account of the case disappear?

These are questions to which there is no answer, but they’re questions upon which I can allow my fictitious forensic hypnotist to speculate.

And all this from a book that is almost 60 years old.

So the next time you’re wandering through the second hand bookshops and have your eye on a title, pause a moment and ask yourself what hidden gems you may find in those pages.

David Robinson is a freelance writer, novelist and humorist, who self-publishes his works on Smashwords and the Kindle. You can find him at http://www.dwrob.com and http://flatcapfritters.wordpress.com/. His titles are listed at http://www.amazon.co.uk/-/e/B004M204BC and http://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/dwrob