The Fixer by Joseph Finder A Review

Readers soon realize that the title of this thriller has a double meaning. Rick Hoffman has come back to the house he grew up in, a money pit of a 1903 Queen Anne house that has been on the market for months with only one offer, so lowball that the realtor didn’t even acknowledge it.

Rick, a former investigative reporter who’s just lost his job as editor of a slick metropolitan magazine called BACK BAY, is in need of some fixing up himself. Unemployed, uncoupled (his ex-fiancée has moved on) and basically unmoored, Rick latches on to the idea of fixing the house up with the help of his next-door neighbor and then selling it for seven figures.

And then he finds the money in the wall.

What happens next sends Rick on a journey he never expected and shows him a side of his law-abiding lawyer father he never suspected existed. Leonard (Lenny) Hoffman looms large in the narrative even though as the story opens, he’s lying in a long-term care nursing home, a stroke patient unable to speak. He is able to communicate though, and his message to Rick is clear. Let sleeping Benjamins lie. But Rick used to be a reporter and old habits die hard.

This book is written in a cinematic way that keeps the action moving at a brisk clip. The plot keeps opening out and getting more and more sinister with each revelation that Rick uncovers. And along the way there are old girlfriends, former neighbors, and a whole lot of people who have been keeping a couple of really dirty secrets.

I can’t say it wasn’t a little formulaic and there were elements that were kind of predictable, but honestly—if you read a lot of thrillers, it’s harder and harder for a writer to surprise you. It’s enough that this book entertains.

Just for Precious in Canada about James Patterson's Masterclass

but also fo anyone else who has tried to post a comment here. My comments section seems to be broken. Precious, I read your question about the James Paatterson masterclass and wrote a long reply and that was deleted too. How. Very. Annoying.
For those of you just joining us...
The question was--is it worth it?
I said YES and here's why.

I have supped full wuth horrors

That lines comes form Act 5, Scene 5, Line 13-15 - Macbeth. I know it's upposed to be bad luck to quote "the Scottish play" but I always felt like that was an actor's superstition, not a writer's one. I always thought that if high schools had students read Macbeth instead of Julius Caesar, there would be more Shakespeare enthusiasts in the world. But no one asked my opinion. (It's Julius Caesar and Romeo & Juliet, which has a higher body count than Hamlet and I honestly don't think those are the best plays to start with.)

If you haven't supped on any horror lately but would like to, check out my longish short story Unsanctified, which is free on Kindle this week. I did a lot of spider research for that story--yet another example of getting lost in research.  I so love Google.)

A Quiet Shelter There is coming

Gerri Leen's charity anthology (proceeds go to help homeless animals in Northern Virginia) is now edited and proofed. I just finished reading it and can tell you that it is chock full of strong stories and evocative poetry. And there are stories that will make you cry unless you're made of stone. And some that will make you smile. And a few steampunk stories that will convince you there's hope for the genre.
The anthology is called A Quiet Shelter There. I'll let you know when it's coming out. And in the meantime, a totally gratuitous picture of Orange Cat lounging on the bed in the spare room.

Master classes all around!

I have mentioned my enthusiasm for the James Patterson masterclass video learning experience and now it seems Writer's Digest books has taken note of it as well. They're offering a fantastic deal on 14 of their books and recordings on every aspect of writing. The bundle is currently selling for $50, which is a little more than $4 per item. The item that caught my eye was a recording of this: Thrillers, Killers, and Fanboys: How to Succeed as a Writer by Knowing What Not to Do: Writer's Digest Conference Session Recording

It's really exciting to me to know that I have such great tools available. Add Stephen King's On Writing and you're good to go.

Arthurian fantasy set in Vancouver?

Why not? This series actually looks like a lot of fun. for more information go here.

the Djinn Wars trailer

christine Pope's book FALLEN publishes today. It's the latest book in her Djinn Wars series. She had Book Candy whip up a trailer for the release and it's great. (The music gave me chills.) Check it out:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xs0q96NIbUk&feature=youtu.be

New cover reveal

I have a new longish short story that I'm about to put up as a kindle "short read" and I found this cover on a pre-made site. I fell in love iwth the font and also with the spider photographs. I once encountered a spider just like that one with the striped legs. Only one of us survived the encounter. Spite is, as you can imagine, a horror story. But I've been playing around with vmapire mythology and I'm pretty pleased with the way it turned out.

Shakespeare, gender identity, and Caitlyn Jenner

We kick off the third summer of Shakespeare with a few thoughts about gender identity. Shakespeare wrote several plays where women masqueraded as men and of course, back in his time, all the female roles were played by boys, so it must have gotten a little confusing in there somewhere. Caitlyn Jenner is not the first celebrity butterfly to emerge from a chrysalis of gender and she won't be the last. (Chaz Bono--we have not forgotten your gender journey. You're a class act babe.)
My dislike for celebrity culture is pretty deep and the constant bombardment of Kardashian/Jenner trivia (effluvia) just makes me sad. But Caitlyn Jenner's emergence has opened a national dialogue on gender issues that will be far more useful in the long run than all the politically correct reminders about not using certain terms and slurs.

When Ellen DeGeneres came out ("Yup, I'm Gay"), it was huge because she was so warm and funny and so damn likable that people who would swear they didn't so a single gay person (oh, yes you do) could suddenly say, "Wait. I like Ellen. And she's gay. So...maybe it's okay." Not that anyone needs permission to live their lives but in the real world (where my gay little sister lived), living out and proud isn't always that easy.
I think Caitlyn Jenner's legacy is going to be less about the Olympic medals and much, much more about the way her life transformed the way people look at gender issues. I hope so anyway.   And omg, that Vanity Fair  cover photo by the ever-awesome Annie Leibovitz is stunning.

Violets & Vetiver

I have always been interested in Aromatherapy--making my own bath products and such. I've written two diffrent books on the subject for two different marketing cmpanies and also, under my pseudonym "Delia Fontana," I've written a longish paranormal suspense story about a modern-day apothecary called Vetiver Quinn. (It's called The Fourth Sense and I had a lot of fun writing it.) I decided to create a logo for my character's shop, Violets & Vetiver, and I'm also creating a new blog where I'll be writing about aromatherapy and sharing lore and interesting tidbits and reviewing books about fragrance and perfume and the like. I'll be using this cool logo on the products i make for myself and my friends.
Every girl needs a hobby.

Shameless Self-Promotion Saturday

This is the summer I finally get all the bits and pieces of writing up and out there. Joy Sillesen of Indie Author Services has created a great new cover for me as I collect all the L.A. Nocturne stories and add them to new ones as a "teaser" for my Misbegotten novel. (Urban Fantasy, set in L.A. There are vampires and werewolves and shapeshifters but no chicks with swords or tramp stamps.)

Tanith Lee 1947-2015

One of the people reviewing my book Bride of the Midnight King compared my prose to Tanith Lee's. I could not have asked for higher praise. I discovered her through the Science Fiction/Fantasy book club, picking up the two novella book--Sabella, or the Blood Stone and Companions on the Road as one of my freebie choices.
I LOVED her writing.
So I immediately went in search f other books she'd written. Even then, she had a slew of titles in her backlist and by the time I'd gone through them, she'd written about ten more. (With Stephen King and Tanith Lee on my list of go-to authors, I never had to worry about not having anything to read.)
Except, now she's dead at 67 and there won't ever be any more of her gorgeous dark fantasies, the words piled up on each other like oil pigments, so thick and luscious it was a multi-sensual experience reading her books.
RIP Tanith.

Introducing: Mickey Cozart--cozy sleuth

One of the reasons I moved from L.A. is that I wanted more time to write. Now that I've been herein Bellingham six months, I've been able to go through my pending projects and start getting them into shape. Joy Sillesen of Indie Author Services  has been helping me with that--providing covers and formatting and other assistance. Check out Indie Author Services here.
I've been writing a lot of fantasy lately, which is fun, but my heart will always belong to mysteries. This is the first of what I envision as a three-book series about Mickey Cozart, a woman of a certain age whose best friend is an actress making the awkward transition from leading lady to character actress. (She keeps losing parts to Glenn Close.) She has a daughter whose best friend is a gay man who works as a production designer on a "pretty people" show on the CW. Mickey--which was my mother's nickname--is a no-nonsense type who was widowed early. She met her husband when she was waitressing at a pie place near JPL where he worked. He was 20 years older. He died when she was 37 and she still misses him, even though she has a full life. But there's this cop...
I have been working on this book on and off for a few years. Some of it even got written longhand during the hours I was sitting at the eye clinic waiting for the monthly shots of Lucentis to wear off. (And wasn't it a treat tramscribing those scribbles?) Unlike a LOT of the stuff I write, this is a book I think my mother would have enjoyed. I hope so anyway. It'll be out this summer. Finally.