The past is a dangerous place. Craig McIntyre s mere presence removes people s inhibitions and turns their darkest thoughts into actions. As Craig McIntyre tries to escape bounty hunters from the Dark Web, he discovers that his details are linked to a clandestine government project. Might it hold answers to his past as well as dangers for the present? Back on the run in North America, McIntyre hooks up with some unlikely allies. But can he trust them any more than those who want to use him to shape the future...and to further their personal ambitions? Have those behind Factor really given up on their pursuit of him? Or is McIntyre being reeled in with some politically toxic bait? McIntyre is the key to an explosive secret that could change mankind forever.
Deepest Wounds by Gordon Brown was published by Strident Publishing on 28 February 2018. As part of the #RandomThingsTours Blog Tour I'm delighted to welcome the author here to Random Things today. He's talking about the books that are special to him in My Life In Books
My Life in Books - Gordon Brown
This is the book that sparked my interest in writing. Prior to reading The Fog I was into Tom Swift, the Hardy Boys (even Nancy Drew), etc. It was my grandmother who, because I was too lazy to get off my backside, walked to the library one Saturday morning and brought me back The Fog. She didn’t know what it was about and that’s probably just as well. In essence an earthquake releases a fog that turns anyone it touches into a homicidal killer. Not quite what I had been used to. I loved it.
Christine by Stephen King
The start of my on/off love affair with Mr King. I first read Christine when I was working in a hotel bar on the shores of Loch Lomond during the summer of 1983. I literally couldn’t put it down (I received a couple of warnings from the hotel manager for reading in the cellar when I should have been working). It’s the story of a haunted car that transforms its owner into an evil
piece of work - and kills those that get in its way. But the real story is of the trial and tribulations of growing up in small town America.
The Mote in God’s Eye by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle
This is my sci-fi side coming out. This is a classic ‘first contact with aliens’ book. It’s a monster at nearly 180,000 words – and that was after they cut 60,000 words from the original draft. This is space opera in the best possible sense – pure escapism.
One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovitch by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
This was a school reading book and the idea of classic Russian literature was not welcomed by my class. That soon changed. This book is a work of art. Ivan is serving time in a Siberian prison camp for ‘spying’ and the book tracks one day in his life and details what Ivan needs to do to survive. The insights into Ivan’s world (remember that Solzhenitsyn had served time in just such a camp) are wonderful.
Nightmare Blue - Gardner Dozois and George Alec Effinger
My guilty secret of a book. It has probably the daftest storyline I know. Aliens come to earth and want to take over the planet. A German private detective has to team up with an alien (that looks like a giant beach ball with tentacles)
to defeat the aliens. I’ve read this book at least 6 times – and will read it again. Why? Just because.
A Man in Full by Tom Wolfe
An epic tale told from multiple viewpoints but the real meat for me is in the Charlie Croker story, a real estate mogul in the American south who has overstretched himself with a new build and is going bankrupt. At 742 pages it’s classic Wolfe charting the self-destruction that people bring on themselves.
The Good Immigrant edited by Nikesh Shukla
This is a collection of 21 essays that, as Nikesh says, is ‘a document of what it means to be a person of colour’ in Britain. The quality of the essays vary but all are hard hitting, thought provoking and left me with a very different take on race and what impact it has on individuals. Nikesh makes a powerful point when he says, ‘For people of colour, race is everything we do because the universal experience is white.’
Made in America by Bill Bryson
A history of the United States of America written by Britain’s favourite adopted American son. It’s stuffed with humour, facts and endless de-
bunking of classic American myths e.g. Paul Revere never made it to Concord on his famous ride, he was stopped by the Brits before he could get there and the Puritans, despite their reputation, had just as much fun as anyone else.
Farewell Horizontal by K.W. Jeter
Sci-fi fun where people live on the outside of a cylinder floating in the sky. Axxter, our hero, lives on the horizontal top (where it is safe – because you can’t fall off) but decides to take to the vertical side for adventure. I adore the imagination of Jeter in this book.
A Twist of Sand by Geoffrey Jenkins
Old school action adventure set on the south west coast of Africa about a secret Nazi nuclear submarine – amongst other things. I’ve got lost on this treacherous, sand shifting coast more than once. As a side bar, Geoffrey also wrote Per Fine Ounce, a James Bond book that was rejected - only 14 pages still exist with his son.
Laidlaw by William McILvanney
I had the joy of meeting Willie on a few occasions – and this book, often cited as the birth of Tartan Noir, makes me realise how far I have still got to go to be a good author – the word craft is astounding.
Any of the New Scientist books
If you want to know why I like these books all you need to know is that I’m a ‘fact nut’ and, anyway, how could you not like books called – ‘Why Don’t Penguins Feet Freeze’, ‘Does Anything Eat Wasps’, ‘Do Polar Bears Get Lonely’, ‘Why Can’t Elephants Jump’, ‘Why Are Orangutans Orange’ or ‘How Long is Now’.
Gordon Brown - August 2018
Gordon has been
writing since his teens and has six crime thrillers published – his latest,
Deepest Wounds, being the third in the Craig McIntyre series, is out now.Gordon helped found Bloody Scotland – Scotland’s International Crime Writing Festival and lives in Scotland. He’s married with two children. Gordon once quit his job in London to fly across the Atlantic to be with his future wife. He has also delivered pizzas in Toronto, sold non alcoholic beer in the Middle East, launched a creativity training business called Brain Juice and floated a high tech company on the London Stock Exchange.
He almost had a toy launched by a major toy company, has an MBA, loves music, is a DJ on local radio, compered the main stage at a two-day music festival and was once booed by 49,000 people while on the pitch at a major football Cup Final.
Want to know more - go to http://www.gordonjbrown.com/
Follow him on
Twitter @GoJaBrown
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