Category: THRILLER

Blog: Operation Crossbow

This week: Sneak Preview, Reviews and Sales of Attack Hitler’s Bunker!

Sneak Preview

This week’s is from December Radio (aka The Farmer’s Wife). By the way the tongue-in-cheek title of the blog this week refers to the mediocre George Peppard film featuring V2 rockets; these feature in the current project December Radio.

December Radio

Copyright © 2013 by Lazlo Ferran

All Rights Reserved.

The needle scratched yet another circuit of acetate from Duke Ellington’s Cotton Tail locked groove. A ray of sun threw it’s first shadow over the boy’s buttock cheeks, muscular escapees from a pair of Levi’s. From under them a Maria had only minutes before unhooked herself, checked her purse and quietly shut the door. The click had opened one of the boy’s blue eyes. Without moving he surveyed the strewn cushions, vino stains, fag buts and ash; soirée memorials. No neighbour complained. Membership of the right-wing NSB party guaranteed this. Continue reading “Blog: Operation Crossbow” →

Carnival of Souls and Hammer Movie Review

This week: a story’s soul,  Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell, Strunk & White: The Elements of Style.

A Story’s Soul
This week I have returned to another incomplete work, December Radio. The story is a sci-fi WWII whodunnit of sorts. So far I haven’t written much, although I have spent many hours thinking about it. The problem is that the story’s soul as I last envisaged it may be too obvious. The problem has been compounded by the recommendation by a friend, based on my description, to read Gravity’s Rainbow. I am on page 50, and so far I have very little idea what is going on; a British Agent is investigating V2 rockets amidst a chaotic kaleidoscope of disjointed feelings, weird characters and disparate locations. What is clear is that the main story is uncomfortably close to mine.  A battle has begun for the soul of my story. Attack Hitler’s Bunker was a simple story; men fighting against immense odds for Good. Its soul was born without hiccups on page one. The Ordo Lupus series have their origins in my own private obsessions with the darker side of Religion and more specifically, Faith, God, the Devil and luck. However, both Escher’s Staircase and December Radio have been born of the nebulous (to quote William Shatner) inspiration of a relationship; they have neither a beginning or end. I think the former title has now settled into a comfortable childhood, but the latter may lack something to distinguish it from its distinguished competition. Once I have the soul, the story will tell me what to write. This probably probably sounds kinda whimsy and not a little bit pretentious, but I believe it! If a book doesn’t have a soul it can’t live. Continue reading “Carnival of Souls and Hammer Movie Review” →

Blog: Adolf Hitler – My Part in His Downfall

This week: Attack Hitler’s Bunker released and a sneak preview.

Attack Hitler’s Bunker
This book is now available as a kindle book on Amazon and will be available as a paperback in the next 6 days. Response has been good so far, plenty of people have responded to my posts and tweets: 190 people read the first post on Facebook which is a higher figure than in the past.

Sneak Preview
This week’s is from a story which I am provisionally calling December Radio (I might have referred to it in the past as September Radio but it’s just a working title). I am back working on this now and I will attempt to complete this before December. This book can best be described as WWII/sci-fi and is about a whole number of characters in the War gradually discovering a secret plot by some unknown enemy. They do this through evidence from a series of supernatural events. It’s quite an existential project. Continue reading “Blog: Adolf Hitler – My Part in His Downfall” →

Best Seller: my Marketing Strategies

This week: Stats from FREE Promo, sneak preview from Escher’s Stairs (published as Lotus) and another FREE OFFER. This week’s title is from an obscure movie but starred James Woods and Brian Denehy, both great actors. What happened to Woods after that recent Lawyer series?

Best Seller
BookCoverPreviewThe big news this week is that I had over 2500 downloads of Ordo Lupus and the Temple Gate last week during it’s free promotion during which it made it all the way up to #74 in the Amazon US Best Sellers lists!! I can hardly believe it. Anyway more of that in a moment but don’t despair; the sneak preview is below this section this week. Continue reading “Best Seller: my Marketing Strategies” →

Blog: The Fast and the Furious

This Week’s Excerpt
This week it comes from the upcoming publication which is currently going under the name Lotus. I am going off that title though; anyway its an erotic suspense novel with deep philosophical angles (I hope!). This part is from an unnamed section but lets call it The Detective. If you read the novel you will know where it fits in.

Lotus
Copyright © 2013 by Lazlo Ferran
All Rights Reserved.

The red 1971 Pontiac LeMans Convertible streaked along the highway at full speed. The muscular driver behind the wheel was wearing Ray Ban’s and his medium-length brown hair was ruffled violently by the air-stream over the windscreen. He seemed intent only on the road ahead. He held the accelerator flat to the floor with his foot. On the passenger seat was an elegant blonde. Her hair too was flowing out behind her head in the turbulent air. Her head was reclined and at rest on the top of the seat. She appeared to be asleep. The car raced on. Continue reading “Blog: The Fast and the Furious” →

11 May Updates – Preview of Lotus

Sneak Preview
This week’s is a unique (to date) look at a book I have been working on on and off for two years. It has no title as yet, but for the purpose of this I will call it Escher’s Staircase. It’s not easily categorized, so I think I will just give you the excerpt and let it speak for itself.

Escher’s Staircase (Later published as Lotus)
Copyright © 2012 by Lazlo Ferran
All Rights Reserved.

“I’m not fucking going down that! You gotta be crazy!”
I pulled away from the open hatch. “Don’t anybody think about pushing me either! Six hundred and eighty bloody feet! That’s … that’s like as high as a bloody sky-scraper!”
“Well, if you don’t do it, you will never get beyond Cadet Helmsman. Up to you matey!”quipped Shorty, lifting the glass bottle’s open neck to his scowling lips. Everything about Shorty was a tattoo – gaudy, colourful and in bad taste. Continue reading “11 May Updates – Preview of Lotus” →

27 April Updates – Draft of WWII Drama

I am getting very close to a final draft of the WWII drama Attack Hitler’s Bunker! so hopefully there will be an excerpt from that here next week. For now, however, another excerpt from Worlds Like Dust, this time an amusing one.

Worlds Like Dust
Copyright © 2012 by Lazlo Ferran
All Rights Reserved

(Unedited excerpt)

The four Ischians made a comical sight, squeezing their huge bodies into the small Maintenance POD. With two minutes to go, Luxmi Davidos had just finished rigging the main Nitrogen and Oxygen tanks to explode when she heard a tapping sound beside her. She had just sent the last grunt back with some tools, and grabbed her laser to defend herself.
There was a small grubber tank – filled half way with liquid around a rocky island, next to her. “Oh God, I had forgotten about you. Why the hell did you have to emerge right now! Now I will have to take you too!”
She grabbed an old oily towel, hanging next to a disfunctional diesel engine, and lifted the lid of the tank. Scooping the cat sized, grub-like, wriggling creature, she wrapped it in the towel and stuffed it under her arm.
“Who knows? You may be the only life-form from Earth alive, besides us, when this is all over! Time to go!” Continue reading “27 April Updates – Draft of WWII Drama” →

Fighting a Dip in sales – 6 April Updates

Here is this week’s sneak preview – a short story provionally entitled Vampire: Beneficence, to be published as the first story in the new Short Stories Volume III along with The Jesus Monster. The punctuation may seem a little strange without the paragraphs before this excerpt but it is correct.

Vampire: Beneficence

Copyright © 2013 by Lazlo Ferran
All Rights Reserved

On a warm evening at the end of the 2010 summer, I was stalking the Vicar of St James Church in Clerkenwell. I am what is commonly called a vampire, d’you see …?
“Let me get one thing straight, though. We have been around forever. Homo Sapiens wouldn’t be Home Sapiens without us. We are the more evolved manifestation of the species. I know all this because I was once a writer, and have spent many lifetimes researching the subject. I have even visited the far-past … but that is another story … Continue reading “Fighting a Dip in sales – 6 April Updates” →

Competition – Solve Codes to Win £15!

I hope you like the new look of the blog. I have also added a permanent link to the Lazlo Ferran Merchandise on the right in the Lazlo on the Web section of links, so you will always be able to find it. The Merchandise is part of the prize in the competition.

Competition
In line with the release of my WWII thriller Attack Hitler’s Bunker! – at the end of June, I am having a competition. Ordo Lupus and the Temple Gate: Second Edition had secret codes at the beginning of each chapter, which I hoped, added some depth to the book, once they were solved. Attack Hitler’s Bunker! will also have codes – to be broken, at the beginning of each chapter. So it seemed appopriate to base the competition on breaking one of the codes in Ordo Lupus and the Temple Gate: Second Edition.

The coded cryptic puzzle in question is at the beginning of the Epilogue. These codes are used by the Ordo Lupus to conceal their secret teachings. If you feel you have what it takes to join the Illuminati, Knights Templar (if they still existed), or the legendary Priory of Sion you will have no trouble solving this coded message. Please email me with your answer at the email address at the top of this blog. Continue reading “Competition – Solve Codes to Win £15!” →