Decades: Compiling the Ultimate Library with Jo Perry

There is a LOT of reading to follow as Jo Perry joins me to take on my Decades challenge so I shall be brief.

I am compiling the Ultimate Library, each week I am joined by a guest who helps me curate my Library. My guests are all asked to nominate ANY five books which were published over five consecutive decades.

This week I am thrilled to be joined by Jo Perry. Jo’s Charlie and Rose books are big favourites at Grab This Book. I didn’t know how the story of a dead man and a dead dog could captivate me or even how it could work! Four books later I am utterly charmed, thrilled and heartbroken by the unlikely duo’s exploits. I could not wait to see which books Jo would nominate, I most certainly did not expect an author from Los Angeles to pick a book which featured my Scottish hometown of Airdrie!

Jo Perry earned a Ph.D. in English, taught college literature and writing, produced and wrote episodic television,
and has published articles, book reviews, and poetry.

She lives in Los Angeles with her husband, novelist Thomas Perry.

They have two adult children. Their three cats and two dogs are rescues.

You can follow her on twitter @JoPerryAuthor

Jo has five books published by Fahrenheit Press: Dead is Better, Dead is Best, Dead is Good, Dead is Beautiful and her latest: Pure. You can buy directly from Fahrenheit’s website: http://www.fahrenheit-press.com/authors_jo_perry.html

DECADES

“USED TROUT STREAM FOR SALE. MUST BE SEEN TO BE APPRECIATED.”

Compiling a list of the books most important to one’s intellectual, emotional or writing life would be a difficult task, but to be confined to five books from five consecutive decades is impossible. This cruel game forbids me from including books like Richard Brautigan’s Trout Fishing in America. But its Fred Astaire grace, its narrative-as-standup, its poignant, haiku’d prose, the slippery delight it takes in its own slyness and shyness, its literary rule-smashing, the exuberant fecundity and clarity of its metaphors, its benevolent voice and radioactive-with-meaning mayonnaise-white spaces on its pages were my first experience of what artistic freedom can produce and the courage and grace required to seize it. But since I’m sworn to abide by the rules of the Decades exercise, I will omit Trout Fishing in America, a representative of a decade I cannot include. Forget I ever mentioned it.

Clarissa, Or The History Of A Young Lady by Samuel Richardson

When I wrote my doctoral dissertation on Richardson in 80’s, I was no longer the reader who’d fallen hard for Trout Fishing in America. I wasn’t seventeen and greedy for influence, though I still wanted books to illuminate me to the point of ignition and “to [make me] feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off”—which is how Emily Dickinson described what poetry—real poetry––made her feel.

Richardson’s improbable, alchemical masterpiece (improbable because his biography and earlier work revealed none of the ambition, gravitas, or power of Clarissa) burns slowly because it’s long–the longest novel in the English language. And it’s the longest novel in English because it unfolds through letters from Clarissa to her closest friend, and from John Lovelace, the man who would possess Clarissa, to his friend. The plot is simple: Clarissa’s mercenary family maneuvers her into agreeing to marry a toad because the union will benefit them financially. Clarissa knows that the marriage, a dehumanizing transaction, will destroy her life. Lovelace manipulates Clarissa into running away with a promise of protection, then proceeds to ruin her. She dies, her soul and her self intact. Clarissa is a feminist tragedy, a class-novel, and a rape and disempowerment and transcendence novel. The abridged version you’ll find is just plot. A rich, powerful predator entrapping a woman disempowered by society was a story Richardson had already written in Pamela, the virtue-rewarded happy-ending version of this tale and also the first novel in English. Clarissa’s epistolary form immerses the reader in each character’s first-person voice, point of view and experience. These first-person narratives power a deliberate, intense, inevitable build-up to, and unfolding of a catastrophe in epistolary time, not glib narrator-time. The effect is grandeur.

Dance for the Dead by Thomas Perry

“The Old People believed that the place to obtain secret information was in dreams. Sometimes a dream would be an expression of an unconscious desire of the soul, and at other times a message planted there by a guardian spirit. Those were two ways of saying the same thing. If there were such a force as the supernatural, then the soul and the guardian both would be supernatural. If there were no such force, then the soul was the psyche, and the guardian spirit was just the lonely mind’s imaginary friend.”

“’I hear you’re one of those people who could kill me with a pencil,’ he says. Jane answers simply: ‘If I am, I wouldn’t need a pencil.’”

During the 90’s I was mostly reading Babar and the Boxcar Children, childcare books and my husband’s novels, which I’d been reading since he wrote The Butcher’s Boy (1982). During the new decade he created Jane Whitefield, a contemporary, mixed-race (Seneca and white) woman who lives in a town very much like the town where he grew up in western New York. Jane Whitefield is a guide; she helps people in danger disappear and teaches them how to inhabit the new identities she invents for them. Dance for the Dead, the second in the series, has always stuck with me. Being inside Jane’s head showed me how easily the person we think we are can be disappeared, and transformed my sense of the world––there are many more opportunities for violence, betrayal and hurt than I’d imagined; past and present are contemporaneous and this simultaneity can be realized with crystalline precision and emotion on the page. Jane Whitefield is heroic, but she makes mistakes. This second book is where Jane crossed over from fiction to being someone real and important to me.

The Sociopath Next Door by Martha Stout

“A part of a healthy conscience is being able to confront consciencelessness. When you teach your daughter, explicitly or by passive rejection, that she must ignore her outrage, that she must be kind and accepting to the point of not defending herself or other people, that she must not rock the boat for any reason, you are NOT strengthening her prosocial sense, you are damaging it–and the first person she will stop protecting is herself.”

“’I saw a werewolf drinking a pina colada at Trader Vic’s. His hair was perfect.’”

Yes, Stout quotes Warren Zevon’s “Werewolves of London,” maybe my favorite song.

Parenting means constant worrying about your child’s wellbeing and safety. Maybe that’s why The Sociopath Next Door by Martha Stout was so clarifying. A few of the things that were revelatory to me: The sociopath is invisible. The sociopath relies on our best qualities to exploit us: our kindness, generosity, empathy, the qualities the sociopath lacks and depends on us to stifle gut-feelings of fear or revulsion or that something is off with him. And we can’t avoid the sociopath. He or she is a permanent member of the human family. One in twenty-five people––ordinary, usually not violent, not usually criminal masterminds, often pleasant or charming––doctors, friends, teachers, caregivers of our children and our aging parents, neighbors, pastors, rabbis, roommates, bosses or colleagues, best friends––will fuck us over every chance he or she gets––usually with our help and tacit permission––and will probably know how to make us feel guilty enough when you catch them at it to do it again.

There are more elegant nonfiction books that I’d add to this list if I could: Brilliant: The Evolution of Artificial Light by Jane Brox changed the way I read literature; Through the Language Glass by Guy Deutscher––reveals so much about language and color and why Homer said “wine-dark” sea and not “blue.” Timothy Egan’s elegiac biography of Edward Curtis, Short Nights of the Shadow Catcher––but Stout gets the modus operandi of this perfectly selfish predator, most efficient opportunist, manipulator and emotional assaulter down.

Mortality by Christopher Hitchens

“In one way, I suppose, I have been ‘in denial’ for some time, knowingly burning the candle at both ends and finding that it often gives a lovely light. But for precisely that reason, I can’t see myself smiting my brow with shock or hear myself whining about how it’s all so unfair: I have been taunting the Reaper into taking a free scythe in my direction and have now succumbed to something so predictable and banal that it bores even me.”

“I don’t have a body, I am a body.”

“The most satisfying compliment a reader can pay is to tell me that he or she feels personally addressed. Think of your own favorite authors and see if that isn’t precisely one of the things that engages you, often at first without your noticing it. A good conversation is the only human equivalent: the realizing that decent points are being made and understood, that irony is in play, and elaboration, and that a dull or obvious remark would be almost physically hurtful. This is how philosophy evolved in the symposium, before philosophy was written down. And poetry began with the voice as its only player and the ear as its only recorder.”

If something is worth hearing or listening to, it’s very probably worth reading. So, this above all: Find your own voice.”

“With infinite life comes an infinite list of relatives. Grandparents never die, nor do great-grandparents, great-aunts … and so on, back through the generations, all alive and offering advice. Sons never escape from the shadows of their fathers. Nor do daughters of their mothers. No one ever comes into his own … Such is the cost of immortality. No person is whole. No person is free.”

I arrived in my 6^th decade and became interested in death and, I see now that I was also unconsciously working up to and researching for my first novel, Dead Is Better. I’d read other books on the topic, but Christopher Hitchens’ posthumously collected writings produced while he was dying of esophageal cancer––which killed his father and my grandmother––besides confirming that dying is a bitch––cruel, thieving, humiliating, disabling––is informative, funny, heartbreaking set-your-hair-on-fire enlightening, and heartening, a whatever life one has left-invigorating demo that that sharp thinking produces sharp writing, that sharp thinking requires courage, and that a writer’s relationship to his reader (imagined or real) is incredibly intimate and requires––if it’s going to go all the way––naked honesty––and that writing is a conversation like the ones Hitchens describes with friends as having been among the greatest pleasures of his too-short time on earth.

This Is Memorial Device by David Keenan

“Lucas was building a volcano in the middle of his caravan. The volcano, he explained, was the equivalent of a wheelchair for a physically handicapped person. It’s a means of transport, he said. It allows me to make connections. The volcano was constructed out of old shoeboxes, crumpled newspapers, folded greeting cards, balls of wrapping paper. Long feather boas – pink, blue and purple – took the place of flowing lava… …I have struggled with mental illness for most of my life. But the creative part, the creative part has been the most rewarding. He spoke in a soft, slightly distant voice. A moonie, I thought to myself, a gentle lunatic.

The issue was memory. He had none, or very little, or rather all of his memories were hidden, occluded by chemistry, by water particularly – water on the brain they called it – so that every moment was swept away, the specifics of his day-to-day existence like the splinters of a ship in a storm. This is the logbook, he said, thumbing through notes, moments reconstructed in the wake of a disaster. Then he pointed to the volcano. And this is where the memories live…”

“I don’t know. They were leafing through it one night and he turns to a page that has a picture of Elvis on it. Early Elvis. Young Elvis. Elvis where he looks like a flick knife. And just looking at him he feels like he has stuck his finger in a light bulb socket. He says he literally felt his hair rise up into a kind of electrified quaff. And you know what he means. That haircut was aerodynamic. It came from rushing headlong into the future. He asked his friend, who the fuck is this guy? And he says to him, it’s the new singer. But he mishears it as It’s Sinew Singer and his mind is even more blown apart. He mishears it and this guy whose every muscle, whose every vein, every fucking sinew of this body is singing, you know? Fuck Iggy Pop! And then he realizes his mistake though not really because in that moment he became Sinew Singer. He took on the mantle and it was down to him to live up to it. That’s genius right there, if you ask me. In my opinion genius is accidental, is mistaken, is actually wrong at first. And I don’t care what you say. But it’s hard to be wrong in a housing estate in Airdrie. Even though really they’re all wrong! But they want to be right at all costs. They want to have an ironing board, a cooker and a washing machine. A duvet instead of a sleeping bag. A fucking concrete house with four windows. Some shitty car. A hoover. A job like a fucking jail sentence. A bit TV in the living room. To be woken at six in the morning while it’s still dark. And on top of that they want respect. For being right. How is it possible to respect anyone for being right?

?

How fucking simple. How mind-numbingly fucking dull. Congratulations, You did the right thing. You know?…”

“…I think there is something fulfilling for Lucas and for all of us in being able to make ritual use of forgetting and remembering. And of course that’s how I came up with the name Memorial Device. To me it was like Shakespeare…”

“I’m drawn to madness… I admit it… but only if it energises you… or if it destroys you completely… Only if you blow up or go tearing off… into another life… and another life… and another life running after it…”

This Is Memorial Device by David Keenan. I am squeezing it into the current decade although I may have read it on the cusp. It’s a fictional memoir about what Amazon.com calls “the post punk scene” in Airdrie, a working-class town in Scotland. I read it as research for a character who is the hero of the book I am working on now who is based on a real person who is also a hero. Anyway, This Is Memorial Device is a novel about rock music built as a series of interviews about a band called “This Is Memorial Device.” The voices transcribed in the interviews are electric currents that crack stuff open like hammers against geodes. If there’s a connection between all the books on this list it’s that they are products of empathy and don’t congratulate themselves for following formulae or achieving a recognizable, conformist aesthetic. They’re poetry.

My thanks to Jo for these amazing selections. My invitations to participate in Decades highlight that the book selection is a very personal choice. Having five books which were each read in five different decades of Jo’s life is indeed a very personal selection and falls within “flexing” of the Decades rules 😉

DECADES WILL RETURN

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March 26

Decades: Compiling the Ultimate Library with Chris McVeigh

Time for a new guest to nominate the five books they want added to my Ultimate Library. Today I am delighted to welcome Chris McVeigh to Grab This Book. Chris is Fahrenheit Press. He runs the show, decides which books they publish and will light up your Twitter feed with his feisty, punkish attitude.

Fahrenheit Press offer noir, thrillers, chillers and even some “spice”. They also do a cracking line in bookish merch. You can visit their website here – http://www.fahrenheit-press.com/ Buy some books and support an indy publisher. If you buy a physical copy of any of their books then Fahrenheit also give you a digital copy to upload to your favourite e-book reader.

What’s the deal with my Ultimate Library? Well for new visitors a quick recap: If a Librarian (me) wanted to fill a brand new Library starting with zero books I wondered which books I should be looking to put on the shelves. I wanted the unmissable, the best, the essential reads. But I knew I could not take on this task alone so I am inviting bookloving guests to help me with this mammoth undertaking – there are two rules which each guest must follow:

Rule 1 – Select Five Books
Rule 2 – They can only select one book per decade over any five consecutive decades

I call this my Decades project. If you are on Twitter search for online conversations using the #Decades hashtag.

Just two rules yet Chris joins previous guest-curator Heather Martin in finding a way to “flex” those rules. I may need to crack down on anthologies in future!

You can visit the Library here: https://grabthisbook.net/?p=5113

Decades

It’s fair to say books have always been a big part of my life.

Professionally I’ve been involved in the publishing industry for the best part of 30 years but my relationship with books stretches back even further to my weekly visits to the local library when I was a kid. Like a lot of working-class households, we didn’t actually own any books of our own. That doesn’t mean we weren’t well-read though. My ma & da came from a background of the self-taught, politically aware, working class that was such a feature of Glasgow life right through the first half of the 20th century. There was very much an attitude of “we might be poor, but we’re not stupid” – the public libraries in Glasgow were the backbone of that philosophy.

I started reading voraciously as soon as I was old enough to get my library ticket and I haven’t really stopped since.

The books on this list are the ones that have endured for me through my own 5 decades – though looking at the list I realise I found most of them in my late 20s & early 30s.

Keep The Aspidistra Flying by George Orwell (1936)

Like most people, I’d been aware of George Orwell from school where Animal Farm and 1984 were on the curriculum. I didn’t come across Keep The Aspidistra Flying though until I’d skipped off to London to seek my fortune and picked I up a battered old 23^rd hand copy somewhere on Camden High Street.

I was a cocky little shit – thought I was smarter than I was and was certain I was destined for better things. As far as I could see the only thing that kept getting in my way was a total lack of opportunity and the enduring absence of any funds – nothing to do with me poncing about in dive bars all day, talking about becoming a Rockstar – clearly it was all Thatcher’s fault.

The main protagonist of the book is fella called Gordon Comstock and it was his constant tallying and re-tallying of resources – cigarettes left, booze in hand, booze desired, number of days till payday – that first caught my attention because that was basically my life at the time. I’ll be honest though, the finesse and the fierce deep satire which Orwell throws at almost every character in the book was lost on me until I went back and re-read it in my 30s. Since then I’ve gone back to it time and time again and I always find something new to enjoy.

The Glass Bead Game by Herman Hesse (1943)

This book, honestly don’t know where to start.

The impact this book has had on my life is frankly ridiculous. I came to it young (too young) when I found a battered copy my hippy older brother had squirrelled away somewhere. It’s probably the book I’ve bought most often – in different editions for myself, or more usually as gifts for the people closest to me – but no matter where I’ve been or what’s happened in my life that very first copy, now battered beyond belief and pretty much spineless, has stayed with me – it’s on the shelf right in front of me now as I’m writing this.

As a precocious 14-year old I didn’t know much more than I liked the cover and the title sounded cool – both those things are still true btw.

The scope of the book is huge and takes in themes ranging from Eastern mysticism, classical music, mathematics, art, power structures, free will, and the challenges faced by individuals when faced with forces of fate that seem so much bigger than any person on their own could hope to overcome.

Obviously at 14 I didn’t have a clue about any of this and I didn’t really get stuck into the meat of the book first time around, it was really just a bedroom prop that made me look a bit smarter and cooler than your average Glasgow Joe (at least that’s what I imagine I thought).

A couple of years later I read an interview with David Bowie where he name-checked The Glass Bead Game, Herman Hesse and the I Ching – that was it – I was hooked – bought myself some yarrow stalks (okay, a box of toothpicks) and set myself up as part-drunk, part-punk & part mystic. Honestly, I really was a precocious little turd back then. Great cheekbones though.

Anyway, point is that once I stopped using the book as a fashion accessory and actually got stuck into it properly in my late 20s/early 30s it genuinely changed my life. It helped me change the way I looked at the world, it helped me celebrate and make peace with the dozens of different selves that were living in my head at that time. This book was only one part of my journey through some very difficult times, but it was an important one and it’s become a talisman for me because of it.

Oh, and it won Herman Hesse the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1946 – so it’s not just me.

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury (1953)

It’d be weird if this wasn’t on my list, right?

Only those closest to me know this because I keep it on the down-low but I’m a total Science Fiction geek. Always have been. When I want some time away from the world, you’ll find me slumped on the sofa working my way through a 20-episode binge of Star Trek, Stargate or BattleStar – not to fussy which – as long as it’s got shiny spaceships and lycra uniforms, I’m totally on board.

Fahrenheit 451 wasn’t the sci-fi book that kicked me off on this lifelong secret pleasure (that was probably Asimov’s Foundation series) but it’s the one I keep going back to.

Its importance in my life isn’t all about the book itself though it’s got a lot to do with the way it’s been re-imagined graphically by so many artists over the years. I must have collected 20+ different editions with different covers over the years.

The imagery of 451 Degrees Fahrenheit being the temperature when paper combusts has always fascinated me and when I set up a digital publishing consultancy it seemed like a no-brainer to call it FourFiftyOne – remember these were the days of 2008/9 when many people thought eBooks would replace paper entirely within a decade. Those who go way back with me will remember that my social media handle for the first ten years social media existed was @4fifty1. When I decided to set up a new publishing company back in 2015 it seemed only natural to continue the brand and that’s how Fahrenheit Press came to named.

The book’s not bad either.

A State Of Denmark by Derek Raymond (1964)

For many people crime writer Derek Raymond is regarded as the founder of British Noir (though mention this in the vicinity of a Ted Lewis fan and they’ll most likely dispose of your body in the trunk of a crushed car). Suffice to say though that if you like your crime fiction gritty you should definitely read Derek Raymond’s Factory Series.

A State Of Denmark though, isn’t part of that series, it was published some twenty years before back in the mid-60s under his original pen-name Robin Cook. Brought back into print by Serpent’s Tail in the mid-80s I first came across it in the early 1990s.

It’s literally a book in 2 parts – the story is split between Italy and the UK – and set in a dystopian near-future where Italy has become a sort of haven for bohemian free-thinkers while back in Britain, Scotland, Ireland & Wales have declared independence and England has sleepwalked itself into a dictatorship where political dissenters are held in internment camps and all non-white immigrants have been deported.

It’s pretty grim stuff in parts to be fair but the writing, particularly about Italy, will raise you up – I first read it on a trip around Sicily and the book and the island have been intertwined for me ever since.

Politics in recent years has thrown this book back into sharp relief and when I re-read it again last year I found it more relevant than ever.

A proper hidden gem which I promise you wont regret hunting out.

The Deptford Trilogy by Robertson Davies (1970-1975)

Fifth Business
The Manticore
World of Wonders

Bit of a cheat this one as it’s really 3 books in 1 but as I first read it in a single-volume I’m going to include it anyway.

I didn’t go to university or college, closest I ever got to a qualification was my City & Guilds in Floristry. In almost all the ways that matter, these books were my university.

I was first given a copy of this trilogy in the late 80s by the father of a girlfriend. They were one of those hugely posh, well-off, North London, liberal families. Christ knows what they must have thought when their beloved daughter dragged me back to them – all leather, and make-up, and carrying working-class chips on both shoulders. The romance didn’t last long but against all the odds me and her dad hit it off. He noticed I was smarter than I was pretending to be, and he started lending me a few books he thought I’d like. They weren’t really the sort of books I’d come into contact with before but I’d read them and then we’d chat about them.

The Deptford Trilogy was his ace in the hole – he suggested that whenever I came across a word or anything I didn’t recognise I should go and look it up and see where it took me. There was no internet in the 80s so that meant more trips to the library and that’s exactly what I did. All those years I spent boozing it up in Camden and trying to be a rock-star I was also spending afternoons in the library reading up on Rabelias, Hieronymus Bosch, Bach, Rimbaud and a hundred other subjects that I’d scribbled down in my notebooks while reading The Deptford Trilogy (and subsequently the other two trilogies in the series). Every time I came across anything I didn’t know I looked it up and each time I did my knowledge spread like a spider’s web. The internet definitely makes research quicker, but I’m really pleased it didn’t exist back then because every single book I read sank deep into my brain, it was an effort to find out the stuff I wanted to know and it lodged inside. The whole process set a habit that became a pattern ever since and to this day I still don’t really trust anyone who never asks questions or pretends they know everything.

This probably makes these books by Roberston Davies sound worthy and dry – I promise they’re anything but, the storytelling is better than almost anything else I’ve ever read, they’re funny and joyful and mischievous and wise. I’m always constantly surprised that he isn’t more well known than he is. If you haven’t read them you’re in for a real treat.

Okay, that’s my 5 books from 5 decades, thanks to Gordon for asking me to take part in this – such a belting idea – I’ve really enjoyed the whole thing.

I am extremely grateful to Chris for giving up some of his time to share his selections. He did suggest a bottle of bourbon may be needed to help him remove some of his favourite books from his final five, I hope the decicion making process wasn’t too traumatic.

Decades Will Return

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June 13

Dead is Beautiful – Jo Perry

“These books are weird, unique, funny and sad all at the same time.”

DEAD IS BEAUTIFUL, finds Rose leading Charlie from the peace of the afterlife to the place he hates most on earth, “Beverly Fucking Hills,” where a mature, protected tree harboring a protected bird is being illegally cut down.

The tree-assault leads Charlie and Rose to a to murder and to the person Charlie loathes most in life and in death, the sibling he refers to only as “his shit brother,” who is in danger.

Charlie fights-across the borders of life and death–for the man who never fought for him, and with the help of a fearless Scotsman, a beautiful witch, and a pissed-off owl,

Charlie must stop a cruel and exploitative scheme and protect his beloved Rose.

My thanks to Emma at Damppebbles for the chance to join the blog tour. I received a copy of Dead is Beautiful from the publisher – Fahrenheit Press.

The 4th book in the Charlie and Rose adventures and one of the most loved (and unusual) series which I follow. Here are the need to knows:

Charlie is dead. Shot in the chest and life extinct.

Rose is a dog. She too is dead. Left tied up with no access to food or water until life drained away.

Charlie and Rose can visit the living world if they choose to do so but cannot interact or influence anything which happens.

Dead is Beautiful can be read as a stand alone story but I’d urge you to read all the Charlie and Rose books as they are hugely enjoyable.

Now you’re caught up on the basics – lets consider Dead is Beautiful. Guided by Rose, Charlie finds himself in Beverly Hills or “Beverly Fucking Hills” as he calls it – this area seems to represent everything Charlie hated about society when he was alive.

The story begins with a tree being felled – Rose is a frenzy of spirited activity as she tries to prevent (ineffectively) the destruction of a protected tree which is home to an equally protected species of owl. Fortunately for Rose a very naked woman is also nearby and willing to put herself into harms way to save the owl from murder.

Needless to say the presence of an angry woman and the arrival of the police to investigate an attempted murder allegation grants both owl and tree some reprieve. However, there are people at work who need that tree gone and will not permit a small owl to thwart their plans – they consider there are much bigger priorities to address.

As you may have gathered, Dead is Beautiful takes a dark humoured view on society and our priorities. Charlie and Rose will watch events unfolding and guide the reader through the story, the reader learns what is happening as they do.

For Charlie the events in Dead is Beautiful will be personally challenging as this return to the real world sees him encountering his “shit brother”. Clearly there was no love lost between the brothers and Charlie finds it hard to be sympathetic to the problems his brother will face. Actually he rather enjoys quite a lot of the misfortune which shall befall his elder sibling.

Although they cannot interact with the real world there is a distinct threat for Charlie to face in Dead is Beautiful and the consequence of his failure was just too grim to consider. The fact ghosts can also be unpleasant bullies should (with hindsight) not have been too much of a shock but when a ghostly bully turns on our heroes I can’t say I enjoyed seeing them reeling.

I did very much enjoy the bonus appearance of an outspoken Scottish punk who was happy to have a vocal and very direct opinion on many things which were occurring. I always enjoy seeing a fellow Scot displaced from their native land and bringing a touch of “home” to far flung places! These scenes were joyous and had me grinning like a loon as I read them.

Jo Perry once again delivers a cracking story with her oddly paired protagonists. Dead is Beautiful is recommended – as are all the Charlie and Rose stories.

Dead is Beautiful is published by Fahrenheit Press in paperback and digital format. You can order a copy here: http://www.fahrenheit-press.com/books_dead_is_beautiful.html

Remember: if you order a paperback copy of a Fahrenheit Press book they also make sure you receive a digital copy of your purchase too.

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May 30

Killer Impact – Linden Chase

As Tranquility comes to terms with the bloody repercussions of the events documented in Killer Intent, Zane King reluctantly sets off on a mission to finally find out the truth about the island.

Accompanied by self-acknowledged psychopath Travis and amoral mercenary Blaine, it’s fair to say Zane doesn’t rate his chances of success very highly.

And as expected, things don’t go smoothly, anything but.

Will Zane finally confront the shadowy forces behind the Tranquility Experiment?

Will he find the answers he needs?

Will anyone live to tell the tale?

In this thrilling conclusion nothing is as it seems, and nothing can be taken for granted as The Tranquility Trilogy stabs, shoots, strangles and gouges its’ way to a bloody and wholly satisfying conclusion.

My thanks to Fahrenheit Press for an early review copy.

All good things must come to an end and Killer Intent brings Linden Chase’s Tranquility Trilogy to its conclusion. But before the final curtain is drawn Zane King has one more adventure to survive (possibly).

I have been eagerly awaiting Killer Impact as I was a huge fan of the first two books in the trilogy (Killer Instincts and Killer Intent). The story began in Instincts with main protagonist, Zane, arriving on Tranquility Island to investigate what was taking place on the secretive island. It was a bloody, violent and captivating story – Lord of the Flies with added brutality.

Then came Intent, Zane out of the frying pan and into the fire with another desperate fight for survival. Tranquility island is perhaps the most inappropriately named location on the map!

Now Killer Impact will give the readers some answers. The battlegrounds of Tranquility are left behind as Zane and his psychotic companions Travis and Blaine will meet the people behind the Tranquility Project. There are answers to be found but it is clear there are also questions still to be asked and answered about the Project. Those behind Tranquility need to consider if their venture was successful, has the Project got scope to continue or should it be shut down?

The people behind Tranquility are not in agreement as to how to proceed. Unfortunately for Zane, Travis and Blaine this means they are pawns in a new game. Political powerplays using psychopaths as test subjects leaves all parties at risk of making fatal mistakes. Some will find this out the hard way and Zane cannot know who to trust – worse still is the prospect of trying to help the wrong side and being caught up in the fallout.

Linden Chase rounds off the Tranquility Trilogy in the only way I wanted. More blood gets shed. Alliances are shattered and the body count is high. Throw in lots of sex, cussing and destruction of property and all the ingredients are there for a roller-coaster of a read.

Killer Impact is published in paperback and digital format by Fahrenheit Press. You can order a copy on the link below – if you buy the paperback then you get a digital copy to own too.

http://www.fahrenheit-press.com/books_killer_impact.html

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March 31

Book Chains 2.1 – Derek Farrell

A couple of years ago I started a Q&A feature which I called Book Chains. The idea was that I would chat with a guest and ask my guest to nominate the next guest – chaining together a sequence of interviews.

I broke my own chain when work interfered with blogging and my planned interview with Derek Farrell (as nominated by Mark Hill) never saw the light of day.

Until Now.

Book Chains is back – this is the second chain (as I broke the original) and it only seemed right that I begin afresh by FINALLY catching up with Derek Farrell.

Hi Derek. My first Question is always the same, I ask you to introduce yourself and give you the floor to shamelessly promote your books…

Hi. I’m Derek Farrell, and I write The Danny Bird Mysteries, which are a series of contemporary crime novels set in London and centering around the Grimiest Gay Bar in the world.

I grew up in Dublin a couple of streets from the Guinness brewery, but moved to London many years ago, and have lived in – and fallen in love with – most parts of the city over the years, while still managing to hold down a range of jobs as a Burger dresser, Banker and David Bowie’s paperboy. And now I wrangle Danny and the gang at The Marq.

Next I have to ask for another introduction – can you tell us about Danny Bird?

Danny Bird is an everyman character. He’s smart and he’s loyal and he’s funny. And he has a very developed sense of justice and a pronounced aversion to injustice, which makes him a great detective to have in a series like this. Unlike certain other detectives, he’s not always entirely convinced of his own ability to navigate the world, which is why he needs his family and his friends around him. I very much wanted to make Danny – right from the start – part of a community; someone who wasn’t a lone wolf, but who was loved by – and loves back – people.

Death of an Angel sees Danny drawn into the centre of events for reasons he doesn’t immediately understand. Is it more fun to screw with your character and place them under suspicion than having them take the “outsider looking-in” approach to an investigation?

Oh, always. I think we’ve all been unfairly accused of stuff in our lives. And outside looking in gives you the option to walk away. Unfairly accused tends to suck you in so that you either prove the accusation unfounded or you’re haunted by it – and the repercussions – for the rest of your life.

Is it fair to say that your books offer readers an alternative to the domestic thrillers where families with 2.4 children keep their secrets securely hidden behind their privet hedges? Why do you feel there a reluctance for publishers to look to different family or social dynamics in the books they release?

Actually, all my books are about family secrets, in one way or another. Danny’s family is a really close unit – his dad is a huge part of the first couple of books, his nephews are fan favourites, and as we progress, the rest of his family are becoming more present in the stories; on top of this he has his found family too – Caz, Ali, Nick and so on – and so I’m fairly happy saying that at the heart of every Danny book is family or community. I’ve talked before about how Death of a Diva was dismissed by some in the industry as “Too gay,” “Too camp,” etc, but to be honest, I think most industries – especially those in the creative space, where success is dependent on so many variables – tend to look for something that resembles something else that’s already been successful, hence the reluctance to put investment behind a book with a more overt LGBT lead than the average Dan Brown. But things will change.

The “Death Of” series now comprises four books, Death of an Angel reaching readers within the last few weeks. Is there more Danny to come or would you consider a stand-alone story at some point?

There’s more. Number 5 is currently Death of a Title Pending, but is well under way, and number 6 has a slot in the diary. In between I’m going to work on something else – a non Danny novel, with crime and dark secrets at its heart, but that’s all I’m going to say about any of those projects for now.

When Death of a Diva first released was it always your intention to go on to develop a series of books?

One of my totems all along, to be honest, has been the Tales of the City books by Armistead Maupin. I loved the idea of exploring London at first and possibly the world through the eyes of these characters, and of their family becoming family to the readers over time, but honestly, when Diva was written I had no idea it would ever be published. My approach was to write really detailed character sketches for each of the characters (including the pub itself) and so by the time I started the book I already knew their life stories, their familial relationships, what they loved in and wanted from life, and what terrified them. So – as a result – I had a bunch of ideas for other stories in my head which had come out of their histories. But when I pitched Diva to Fahrenheit press I hadn’t got beyond a plot sketch for Death of a Nobody.

They, of course, asked if it was a series, and I said “Oh yeah. Absolutely. Second one’s almost done,” then wrote furiously in terror they’d ask to see it.

Your publisher, Fahrenheit Press, are one of the most vocal and…lets go with edgy… publishing houses on Social Media. They have their devoted following of Fahrenistas. Likewise, Karen Sullivan’s Orenda Books have a very dedicated fanbase amongst bloggers and readers. Do you feel Indy publishers have to operate as a more supportive network and does that make it more fun?

So my only direct experience is of the indie publishing world, but I have friends who are published across the spectrum from self to indie to trad to big 5 to Thomas & Mercer, and almost every single author I have met has been welcoming and funny and humble and I can not thank the universe enough for getting me to this place. My husband and I were talking a week or two ago. Many people know that Diva was accepted for publication a few months after my mother died, and that her death was an almost impossibly dark time for me. I really didn’t know how I’d go on from that, and my husband commented on how from so much darkness this brilliance has come: I’m making art that people have fallen in love with, “And you’ve found your tribe,” he said, smiling.

And I knew exactly what he meant.

Writing – making any art and putting it out into the public sphere – is scary. It really is. But being surrounded by other people who are doing it – who are succeeding and failing and trying – is an amazing and genuinely beautiful thing. And getting to do events – in the next few months I’ve got a panel at Newcastle Noir with some great mates, I’m reading from Danny at Noir At The Bar in Newcastle, and I’m part of a Polari Salon in Morecambe – is brilliant because everyone – readers, bloggers, authors, publishers, editors – gets along, has fun, and makes amazing memories (none of which can ever be written about. Them’s the rules.)

Lets do a few quick fire questions.

Where was your first author appearance?

Iceland Noir. Reykjavik. 2016. I was on the Swearing panel with Val McDermid, Craig Robertson, James Law and moderated by Grant Nicholl. The other three ate me alive.

Your bookcases are on fire and you can save one single book from your collection – which book?

The Aztec Skull by Anthea Goddard. I read it when I was 8 or 9, and then borrowed it from the library every month for about a year. A few years ago I got an old copy via EBay and it still makes me cry when I read it, but it’s out of print now so would be hard to get hold of.

Lord of the Rings. Epic fantasy classic or load of old tosh?

Not for me, thank you. I love me some epic fantasy – the Dorian Hawkmoon / Count Brass books by Michael Moorcock are some of my favourites of all time, but they are all story, and I find LOTR, well, isn’t.

Beyoncé or Kylie?

Kylie. Every time. Her mere existence makes me so happy.

Last film you saw at the cinema?

Captain Marvel. I loved it – it had a plot and didn’t spend an hour and a half referencing other MCU movies I couldn’t remember seeing.

First record you bought?

First one I loved: The OST of My Fair Lady with Audrey and Rex on the cover. First one I bought: The 7” single of Mama Mia by Abba (I was 7 years old so probably bought with birthday money). I still have the single cos I am an inveterate hoarder.

Give me an unpopular opinion which you will argue blind to defend?

David Bowie’s 80s output wasn’t as bad as people think it was.

Huge thanks to Derek for taking the time to answer my questions. He has a lush new website where you can discover more about the man himself (and I am sure his books get a mention or two as well). https://www.derekfarrell.co.uk/

Derek has very kindly nominated my next guest. If this new Book Chain is to continue beyond a single “link” then his nominated author will need to agree to chat with me. Fingers Crossed!

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February 4

Video Killed The Radio Star – Duncan MacMaster

Money in the bank and his dream girl on his arm – life was looking pretty sweet for Kirby Baxter.

Of course it couldn’t last. Where would the fun be in that? This is a sequel after all.

After solving the murder of a movie starlet the previous year, Kirby is doing his best to live down his burgeoning reputation as part-time Interpol agent and amateur sleuth.

Then reality TV comes knocking next door.

Million Dollar Madhouse is a reality TV show where a bunch of washed up celebrities are thrown together in a dilapidated mansion while their attempts to renovate the building are broadcast 24/7 for the viewers delight.

Kirby’s quiet town is thrown into chaos by the arrival of camera crews, remote control video drones and a cast of characters including disgraced actress Victoria Gorham, political shock-jock Bert Wayne and reality TV royalty Kassandra Kassabian.

When one of the cast members turns up dead the local police turn to the only celebrity detective in town for help and draft an unwilling Kirby into their investigation.

The first body is only the beginning of another rip-roaring adventure for Kirby Baxter and with Gustav his loyal driver/valet/bodyguard/chef/ass-kicker at his side, our hero plunges into the fray with his usual stunning displays of deductive reasoning and sheer bloody luck.

I received a review copy from the publishers.

It is #Fahrenbruary which is the brainchild of one of my blogging chums @LaughingGravy71 aka The Beardy Book Blogger aka Mart. Fahrenbruary is a month long celebration of the many wonderful books published by indy publishing house Fahrenheit Press. I am a big fan of Fahrenheit and you will find quite a few of their titles reviewed in the archives of my blog.

Confession time from me…I have read quite a few books which have not yet been reviewed here on Grab This Book. I don’t always win the work/life/blogging juggle and some books are enjoyed but not immediately reviewed. Today’s review is for Video Killed The Radio Star – by coincidence it is published by Fahrenheit Press and happily it allows me to share some book love during #Fahrenbruary (even though I read Video Killed The Radio Star in November).

Did you notice that I want to share “book love”? It’s true – I really loved Video Killed The Radio Star and I was most vexed that I was not in a position to share my review when I first read it. By the way from now on I am going with “Video” or this review will take hours to finish writing.

Step forward Kirby Baxter – he first appeared in MacMaster’s A Mint Conditioned Corpse. No requirement to have read the first book to enjoy the second, just the usual caveat of getting better background info on the characters and their respective places in the world. Kirby is hugely enjoyable to read about. He has a personal assistant called Gustav who never seems to speak yet Kirby will recount lengthy chats they have. Kirby has previous form in assisting the authorities with a murder investigation so when a celebrity death occurs on the set of a reality tv show, which is being filmed near his home, Kirby is called to assist to ensure the show can go on.

I loved the premise of assembling a cast of D-list Celebs, locking them in a secure village (where it seems that almost every move they make is recorded for tv broadcast) then bumping off one of the more odious “stars” and make everyone else a suspect. It is a Big Brother murder story with a DIY reality show keeping the suspects assembled and distracted.

Keeping a cracking whodunnit murder story zipping along whilst also delivering on the gags and humour is no mean feat but major kudos to Duncan MacMaster who aces it in Video. I came for the murder but stayed for the jokes. Okay that sounds like an episode of Scooby Doo. No. No. No. That’s not right. Video Killed The Radio Star is a great murder mystery which does not take its-self too seriously and gives readers light-hearted moments to enjoy while the players in this reality tv murder fest try to stay alive.

Kirby will need to mingle with the “stars” and the production team. He needs to work out what made the victim a target, establish who had opportunity and confidence to commit murder in an area surrounded with video cameras and try to keep his girlfriend and her celeb-stalking cousin safe from harm. Their snooping will not be tolerated by those with secrets to hide and Celebs trying to get that one big breakthrough into mainstream awareness do not want any of their secrets revealed. It all makes for some engaging conversations.

I firmly believe that reading should be fun. I don’t get a kick from picking up a novel which other readers have said left them in tears. I want thrills, puzzles, good guys thwarting bad guys and exciting moments of tension which keeps pages turning long into the night. Video Killed The Radio Star delivered on all those fronts and I highly recommend it.

Video Killed The Radio Star is published by Fahrenheit Press and can be ordered in paperback or digital format from their website here: http://www.fahrenheit-press.com/books_video_killed_the_radio_star.html

Other online bookstores are available.

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November 20

Stoned Love – Ian Patrick

Detective Sergeant Sam Batford has been lying low at a remote safe house in the highlands of Scotland. He’s doing his best not to attract the attention of the enemies he made, on both sides of the law, during his last under-cover operation but Batford knows he’s just killing time.

Inevitably the sharks begin to circle and as Batford is called back to front-line action in London he’s thrown into a deadly game of cat and mouse where it seems everyone is out to get him.

After having to endure a frustrating resolution to their previous undercover operation together DCI Klara Winter from the National Crime Agency is determined to prove that Batford has crossed the line into criminality and finally bring him to face justice.

All Sam Batford wants is to outwit his enemies long enough to stay alive and come out ahead of the game.

My thanks to Kelly at Love Books Group for the chance to join the blog tour.

After an outstanding debut appearance in Rubicon, Sam Batford returns for another outing in Ian Patrick’s Stoned Love. Another ripper lies ahead.

Batford has been hiding out in the Scottish Highlands, a terrific place to keep off radar. Events in Rubicon have made life tricky for Batford – he needs to lay low and shift some of the drugs he stole when we last met him. But his escape to the country will be short lived as he is summoned back to London to take on a new assignment.

We are thrust straight into the action. As Sam makes his way South he realises he is being followed and a pursuit through Edinbugh ensues. Ian Patrick writes a good chase scene and I felt the tension of Sam’s plight as I followed his dodging and weaving through the city.

On eventual arrival in London we see Batford being thrown back onto the front line. A new undercover assignment awaits and the chance for another profitable venture if he can pull it off. However there are dangers awaiting. A contract on his life for crossing a drug dealer. His own police force have suspicion Sam is not being entirely honest with them. Plus Sam is haunted by ghosts from his past.

Keeping one step ahead of everyone around him will be a huge strain on Sam. Reading about Sam trying to keep one step ahead of everyone is extremely entertaining. Once again Ian Patrick delivers an edge of your seat adventure – this is a terrific story and I highly recommend it to anyone that has ever enjoyed an action adventure tale.

More stories like this would be most welcome, this is a good’un.

Stoned Love is published by Fahrenheit Press and is available in paperback and digital format here: http://www.fahrenheit-press.com/books_stoned_love.html

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October 11

The River Runs Red – Ally Rose

Berlin is in the midst of its worst winter in decades. Against the backdrop of freezing temperatures, blizzards and snowstorms, the city refuses to grind to a halt. Lurking within the shadows is a Stasi victim, out for revenge against the former East German informants known as ‘The Ears’. Their dark secrets are about to be exposed. A mix of ice and water and a single gunshot, provides the ultimate payback.

With the Millennium approaching, Hanne Drais, the criminal psychologist working within the Berlin Mitte Police team led by the irascible Oskar Kruger and his laid-back sidekick, Stefan Glockner, are seeking the perpetrator of these violent crimes. Who is the man they’ve nicknamed Snowflake? Who is turning the river red?

My thanks to Fahrenheit Press for my review copy

The River Runs Red takes readers back to Berlin at a time before the wall came down and it was still a divided city. However, the heart of the story takes place well after the collapse of the East German state. It is during this time of new-found freedom that a number of murders are committed and our lead character (Hanne Dreis) becomes involved in the resulting investigations.

Most of the early story features the story of an East German rower, training hard to make the Olympic squad for the Seoul games in 1988. His progress is closely monitored by the state police as the rower’s father had recently escaped to the West and the focus was on the remaining family to ensure they did not try to follow or to see if their father contacted them.

Suffice to say that when contact was made the Stasi swooped and two brothers were detained for interrogation.

Although I remember the fall of the Berlin Wall and the Seoul Olympics it really did not seem possible that it was just 30 years ago that Berlin had a secret police and that violent interrogations were distinctly possible behind strong prison doors. Ally Rose captured the feel of those chilling days really effectively and I was horrified to read what happened to the two captives.

Events during that period of interrogation define the path of the lives of several characters in the book and I enjoyed reading how they coped with challenges and adversity. For one character, however, the incarceration will never be forgotten and a determination to make his captors pay for their actions will lead to bloody endings.

The River Runs Red is the third book to feature Hanne Dreis. I confess to not having read the first two and as Dreis is not featured too much in the first half of the book I wasn’t immediately aware she was the central character. (I read this book without first reading the blurb). The reason I explain this is to provide the assurance that The River Runs Red can be easily enjoyed as a stand alone thriller with no qualms needed if you have not read the first two Dreis novels.

What struck me about The River Runs Red was that this was a story where you knew who the murderer was from quite early in the tale. You understood why murders were happening and I pondered whether I wanted the killer to be caught. Nice to have a moral dilemma to consider and top marks to the author for positioning events so skillfully to ensure you do empathise with much of what occurs.

Not just a great crime story but a book which is also loaded with social history and background from a period not so far into our past but which still seems a very long time ago.

With short, snappy chapters and a well defined cast of characters there is a lot to enjoy in The River Runs Red. It also made me want to catch up on the first two novels in the collection – always a good sign.

You can order The River Runs Red here: http://www.fahrenheit-press.com/books_the_river_runs_red.html

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August 31

Crack Apple & Pop – Saira Viola

Tony is a handsome young boxer is forced into a life of crime after suffering a vicious blow in the ring.

Seduced by the glitz and glamour of London and mentored by charismatic gang lord Don March he rises rapidly up the crime ladder until he spies an opportunity to start a semi-legit Natural Highs business.

Bank-rolled by an eccentric British dandy and accompanied by a cast of starry misfits including a 3ft tall blue-haired money man, an Etonian drug mule, two dominatrix debt collectors, a dodgy lawyer and a host of demi-celebs, Tony carves out a life for himself in a city where money creates its’ own morality.

All seems to be going well until in the shadows, a Bollywood mobster threatens to derail their plans.

Chaos ensues, of course it does – wonderful, beautiful, visceral chaos.

The deft wit of Hammett meets the vivid poetics of Chandler: Crack Apple and Pop is slick smart and razor sharp. A gritty and sometimes metafictive slice of London noir.

A city of artful dodgers, yardie gangsters, kinky aristos, cocaine dusted starlets and social thrill seekers where everyone’s hustling and everyone’s getting high.

Whether it’s law, finance, the music biz, or the boxing ring: money is king. And only the ones prepared to risk everything will survive…

My thanks to Emma at Damppebbles for arranging the blog tour and to Fahrenheit Press for my review copy.

Fahrenheit Press release books which are dark, edgy, “noirish” and their regular readers love the unpredictable stories on offer.

Crack Apple & Pop is not going to be to everyone’s taste. It is cleverly written, loaded with lives and stories, anecdotes and glimpses into the lives of colourful characters but cosy crime fans will not embrace the darkness on offer here.

As a Scottish blogger I review a fair few Scottish crime thrillers – the biggest gripes I see about Scottish books I love is that “local dialect” upsets some of Middle England. Crack Apple & Pop is pure London (and not the pleasant BBC Radio 4 London voices). There is slang, drug references, gang culture and dozens of vulnerable lives being manipulated by the powerful.

The reader is taken to snapshots of different scenes, a return to the lead characters then an aside to a random encounter. Everything feels 100mph and there are so many incidents which may shock or amuse. I find it hard to do describe how it feels to read (as you can clearly see).

An example: the opening chapters are about a developing boxing career. The rhythm of the writing is amazing in that it is punchy, it weaves and bobs and bruises the reader then it is over and all slows and the pattern of writing changes.

This happens over the story – fast scenes are sharp, stacatto or spiked. Then slower, calmer scenes are detailed and comfortable. It is very cleverly done as it changes the feel of the story.

If you want to read a character driven book this has to be a contender. It is lives laid out for our inspection – these may not be happy lives so proceed with caution.

Crack Apple & Pop is published by Fahrenheit Press and is available in digital and paperback format. You can order a copy here: http://www.fahrenheit-press.com/books_crack_apple_and_pop.html

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May 30

Rubicon – Ian Patrick

Two cops, both on different sides of the law – both with the same gangland boss in their sights.

Sam Batford is an undercover officer with the Metropolitan Police who will stop at nothing to get his hands on fearsome crime-lord Vincenzo Guardino’s drug supply.

DCI Klara Winter runs a team on the National Crime Agency, she’s also chasing down Guardino, but unlike Sam Batford she’s determined to bring the gangster to justice and get his drugs off the streets.

Set in a time of austerity and police cuts where opportunities for corruption are rife, Rubicon is a tense, dark thriller that is definitely not for the faint hearted.

My thanks to Fahrenheit Press for my review copy and to Emma Welton (Damppebbles) for the chance to join the Rubicon blog tour

On rare (but happy) occasions I sit down to write a review and cannot think of any way to convey just how much I loved the book I have just finished. Going forward I may refer to this predicament as The Rubicon Dilemma.

Rubicon is utterly brilliant and you should make sure you read this book as soon as possible.

Not sure what else I can add…

…

Okay some information about the book may help. Sam Batford is working undercover for the Metropolitan Police, he is a wonderfully complex character who will do whatever it takes to complete his mission. But Sam is serving many masters and his motives and methods keep you guessing and you are never quite sure how he will behave next.

Sam is the main focus but we also keep track on DCI Winter – she wants drugs removed from the streets of London and will let nothing get in her way. With the two leads operating in very different ways it is inevitable that Rubicon will deliver some delightfully twisted and tense situations for readers to enjoy.

Reading about Sam spinning so many plates and keeping up the facade of confident bravado is engrossing. Yet the readers also get sneak peeks at the pressures it brings on him when he is alone and his guard lowered.

There always seems to be something happening in Rubicon. Some books will see the story ebb and flow but with this story there never seemed a good point to put the book to the side (even when I *really* needed coffee). If you want a story which delivers dark, twisty entertainment then I cannot think of many finer examples. Ian Patrick delivers a wonderfully crafted tale of tension and intrigue and I just did not want to stop reading.

Top, top read. The purchase link is below – use it.

Rubicon is published by Fahrenheit Press and you can order a copy here: http://www.fahrenheit-press.com/books_rubicon.html

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