Feature article by Contributing Editor Azam Gill,

The Big Thrill, International Association of Thriller Writers

The Times praises the thriller’s “… convincingly cloying atmosphere of a city subjugated to a foreign power, a plot that reaches across war-torn Europe and into the rifts in the Nazi factions, and a hero who tries to be a good man in a bad world. Powerful stuff.”

Lloyd talks of his fourth novel as “a defining moment in French and European history,” illustrating “a generation that is disappearing. Their voices won’t be heard firsthand for much longer. It’s up to subsequent generations to make sure those voices and those stories continue to be heard.”

The Unwanted Dead by Chris Lloyd

By Azam Gill

THE UNWANTED DEAD, a French-Resistance historical thriller by Chris Lloyd, is “a thoughtful, haunting thriller,” in the words of Mick Herron, Crime Writers’ Association’s 2013 Gold Dagger winner.

The Times praises the thriller’s “… convincingly cloying atmosphere of a city subjugated to a foreign power, a plot that reaches across war-torn Europe and into the rifts in the Nazi factions, and a hero who tries to be a good man in a bad world. Powerful stuff.”

Lloyd talks of his fourth novel as “a defining moment in French and European history,” illustrating “a generation that is disappearing. Their voices won’t be heard firsthand for much longer. It’s up to subsequent generations to make sure those voices and those stories continue to be heard.”

THE UNWANTED DEAD features Eddie Giral, a Paris police detective living under the shadow cast by his experiences in World War I, who is now forced to come to terms with the Nazi Occupation. On the day German troops march into Paris, four refugees are found dead in a railway truck. Watching helplessly as his world changes forever, Eddie focuses on the one thing left under his control: finding whoever is responsible for the murders of the dead no one wants to claim. To do so, he must tread the razor’s edge between the Occupation and the Resistance, truth and lies, the man he is, and the man he was—all the while becoming whoever he must be to survive in this new and terrible order descending on his home.

Lloyd says he “wanted to explore the effects on Eddie of trying to keep a balance between doing his job, negotiating a path between working with the Occupier while also resisting them, and retaining some form of what he would see as normality under such extreme circumstances.”

The conflict of interest surrounding an officer of the law makes for a powerful character study. Eddie Giral’s country, city, and profession demand his unswerving loyalty, whereas the invaders and occupiers impose their own agenda.

Lloyd says he was intrigued by “how a police detective would be able to do their job and keep their focus while there was so much destruction and hardship going on around them. That immediately gave me the character—Eddie Giral—an emotionally scarred veteran of the First World War who has made many mistakes in his life but who tries to retain some semblance of humanity under the new order. The … situation is his chance for redemption for past errors, but it’s also a potential descent into the self-destructive ways of his previous life.”

Giral emerges as neither “an all-good action hero nor an all-bad antihero, but a person with the foibles and weaknesses that we all share, and who struggles to survive intact in adverse times.”

The induced challenge of managing such intersecting conflicts within a historical framework is not for the faint-hearted, but Lloyd chose and successfully met this challenge, leading Andrew Taylor, an award-winning, bestselling crime writer, to describe THE UNWANTED DEAD as “such a powerful and morally nuanced crime novel.”

Lloyd admits that “the book’s biggest challenge also proved to be its greatest opportunity—the research…. I wanted the period and the setting to be as accurate as possible. THE UNWANTED DEAD takes place in the first 10 days of the Occupation” and draws out “all the various nuances and visions of what resistance meant to the different groups, and the rivalries and disagreements that it engendered. This, alongside the equally complex factions within the Occupier, are areas that fascinate me and that I’m particularly looking forward to exploring in subsequent books in Eddie’s story.”

Lloyd claims he was born to write: “I can’t remember a time when I wasn’t writing—I was lucky in that my mum encouraged me to read and my dad encouraged me to write, and I spent my childhood writing short stories and sketches. It was when my mum gave me a copy of Ian Serraillier’s Silver Sword that it seemed to distil in my mind that that was what I wanted to do. Later, I loved the contrast between the golden-age writers, such as Josephine Tey and Agatha Christie, and the hard-boiled noir writers of the likes of Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett. I try to achieve a crossover between the two worlds. In more recent years, I love the historical works of Robert Harris, Philip Kerr, and David Downing, and the resonance their stories have on today’s world. They are all qualities to strive for.”

He writes at a “lovely old wooden desk,” surrounded by “books, paintings and objects that have meaning for me. Outside the window, I see houses, trees, and hills, but I’ve turned my desk at a right angle to the window, so the view is there for when I need it, not a distraction.

“When I write, I like working with two screens—one to write on and a second where I have the story outline in view.”

Lloyd has had a lifelong love affair with the conflict between the Resistance and Collaboration in Occupied France, which continues in France to this day.

He grew up in Cardiff, Wales. Following his graduation in Spanish and French, he spent twenty-four years in Catalonia, teaching English, working in educational publishing, translating, and travel writing. He has also lived in Grenoble, France, researching the often-underappreciated depth and complexity of the French Resistance movement.

He now lives in his native Wales where he also works as a writer-translator and is an active member of Crime Cymru, a “collective of crime writers who are from Wales, live in Wales, or set their stories in Wales. A former rugby player and committed supporter, he is also an avid traveler.

by Azam Gill, Contributing Editor of the monthly publication of the International Association of Thriller Writers, “The Big Thrill”.

Novelist, war historian and leadership guru Ed Ruggero has launched a new historical fiction series—Victory in Europe.

BLAME THE DEAD is the first in the series, written with an insider’s feel for the US army and its history. It follows the detective work of a military policeman after the murder of a doctor at the 11th Field Hospital in the summer of 1943, in Sicily.

Two days after FDR’s “Day of Infamy” speech, Philadelphia police patrolman Eddie Harkins enlists in the US Army, which assigns him to the military police. In the bloody summer of 1943, behind allied lines in Sicily, a US Army surgeon is gunned down in the middle of a busy field hospital. Harkins is assigned the case, his first ever homicide.

Cooperation is hard to come by, in part because the universally despised victim bullied and tormented nurses. A key witness is shot to death just when Harkins is starting to retrieve some facts from the confusion. Meanwhile, the flood of broken bodies and spirits never slows in the hospital just behind the battlefront. Then an exhausted and demoralized Harkins discovers his old neighborhood friend, Nurse Kathleen Donnelly.

Though overworked, and no longer the teenaged beauty Harkins once mooned over, Kathleen’s fierceness and even humor in the face of the daily horror show are just as alluring. Finally, it’s Kathleen Donnelly who helps Harkins discover his most important clues.

Ruggero published five novels with Pocketbooks in the 1990s before turning to non-fiction with HarperCollins. Of the six non-fiction works, two have been co-authored with Dennis Haley. One of his military histories is about the Allied invasion of Sicily. So, in BLAME THE DEAD, he treads familiar ground.

Despite a lifetime of reading military history, Ed Ruggero’s research into the work of combat zone US Army nurses astounded him. He uncovered stories of service and sacrifice by silent young heroes which just had to be told.

“In an era when women were expected to stick close to home in a safe environment, there were female rule-breakers and trend-setters,” Ruggero says. “Their expertise was sorely needed, and they delivered.”

He acknowledges the influence of stylists and storytellers who produce character and that of non-fiction masters of prose.

Concerning “the biggest influences in this genre,” he recognizes “Michael Connelly and Robert Crais, who create tight stories and interesting characters with minimalist strokes. Robert Crais is also funny, which I enjoy. Ralph Peters is a phenomenal storyteller who resurrects an entire era in prose so good it begs to be read aloud. Among nonfiction authors the greatest influences on my prose style are Rick Atkinson and Susan Orlean.”

Ruggero has revitalized an era while bringing recognition to forgotten, silent World War II heroes whose characters embody humility and humor. Ruggero likes “people with a sense of humor. I try to create characters out of a sense of humor—a little bit of the absurd, humor and humility.”

His writing upholds women’s rights and lauds their transition from stereotyped homemakers to competent professionals. Hardly surprising, considering he graduated from the first co-ed West Point class and has “been surrounded by athletic, bad-ass women my whole adult life, so it seems only natural to make some of those women main characters in this book … these nurses … under terrible conditions … did it admirably.”

Ruggero acknowledges Tom Clancy as a “huge help” for forwarding his manuscript to his own agent after they met during Clancy’s first visit to West Point at the former’s invitation. Answering a question, he was also quick to point out that despite superficial similarities, Clancy’s Jack Ryan, is fictional whereas he is not.

Although Lee Child and Ed Ruggero have both brought the US Army’s Military Police into focus, the comparison ends right there.

“Reacher is a former MP full of superpowers,” Ruggero says.

In BLAME THE DEAD, former Philadelphia beat cop Eddie Harkins, an active-service MP, is “a little unsure of himself… no investigative experience and has to struggle.. to carve a little order out of the chaos.”

There are few books inspired by the US Army’s military police and, Reacher and Harkins allow their work to be appreciated. Ruggero further explains: “There’s a contact point between friction and chaos.” The infantry in the front line “create chaos” and just behind that are people who create order. That’s where the MP and medical personnel fit in.

Once acquired, soldierly qualities such as self-discipline tend to settle down for the long haul, as with Ruggero. A “self-disciplined person,” he isolates himself in the morning to write in his house in a little town near Philadelphia, not far from the ocean. Research and voluntary work take up his afternoons.

His stories “start with … fundamental conflict, … an outline and even use graph paper at the very beginning” before the “detailed outlines … characters are critically important. You have to have a sense of who these people are … The exciting thing is getting to know a character as they develop.”

Dedicated to his craft, Ruggero wields a powerful and versatile pen.

*****

Ed Ruggero is a West Point graduate and former Army officer who has studied, practiced, and taught leadership for more than twenty-five years. His client list includes the FBI, the New York City Police Department, CEO Conference Europe, the CIA, the Young Presidents Organization, and Forbes, among many others. He has appeared on CNN, The History Channel, the Discovery Channel, and CNBC. Ruggero’s previous work includes the nonfiction books Duty First: West Point and the Making of American Leaders and The First Men In: U.S. Paratroopers and the Fight to Save D-Day. He lives in Philadelphia.

To learn more about the author and his work, please visit his website.

Azam GillAzam Gill is a novelist, analyst and retired Lecturer from Toulouse University, France. He has authored eight books, including three thrillers — Blood Money, Flight to Pakistan and Blasphemy. He also writes for The Express Tribune, a New York Times affiliate and blogs on his website. He served in the French Foreign Legion, French Navy and the Punjab Regiment.

Scavenger Hunt by Michaelbrent Collings

MichaelBrent Collings is the internationally bestselling author of didactic horror, western romance, a Bram Stoker finalist and produced screenwriter. SCAVENGER HUNT is his latest thriller in a distinguished pedigree of books under different names.

Collings’ own life challenges fiction in binaries that defy stereotyping—a Sunday School teacher and seasoned practitioner of overlapping martial arts, open in his opinions and relationships, once recruited as a spy, a writer of Western romance as Angelica Hart, a morality guru through the horror sub-genre under his own name, and “madly” in love with

ollings’ own life challenges fiction in binaries that defy stereotyping—a Sunday School teacher and seasoned practitioner of overlapping martial arts, open in his opinions and relationships, once recruited as a spy, a writer of Western romance as Angelica Hart, a morality guru through the horror sub-genre under his own name, and “madly” in love with his wife.

The sumptuous critical response to his last novel, Terminal, in reviews ranged from “outstanding … fast-paced … hard-edged … brutal … captivating and frightening,” to “… suspense will have you on the edge of your seat … a gripping white-knuckler.”

There is every reason to believe that SCAVENGER HUNT, too, will stand as tall as its siblings, if not taller. Just take a look at the plot.

Five strangers have woken up in a white room.

A room with no doors, no windows.

A room with no hope.

Because these strangers have been kidnapped, drugged … and brought here as the newest contestants in the world’s most high-stakes scavenger hunt.

Run by a madman named Mr. Do-Good, the game offers only two options: win or die.

All they have to do to survive is…

… complete every task…

… on time…

… and not break any of Do-Good’s rules.

Playing the Game will bring the players to their breaking point and beyond. But play they will, because Do-Good has plans for these strangers, and their only chance to live through the night is to play his Scavenger Hunt.

Applied morality and its conflictual relationship with intention lie at the heart of SCAVENGER HUNT. Should compassion be exercised at the price of mediocrity? Or should heartlessness be allowed to feed the pursuit of excellence among the elite?

And, of course, the moral complexity of wielding power, as in the hands of Mr. Do-Good in SCAVENGER HUNT.

Even without an attack by another form of Dietz’s alien Hudatha, how political leaders engineer a society will actually affect their own shelf-life.

The theme of SCAVENGER HUNT hangs on the title by inverting the old folk games that evolved into treasure hunts. Although in the scavenger hunt variant nothing material is bought or acquired, the activity in itself feeds the baser human instincts of covetousness and dominance. It is the intention of achieving goodness by morally deplorable acts — the classic means and ends conflict — that SCAVENGER HUNT brings under scrutiny through a spine-chilling read.

“Hell is full of good wishes and desires” is attributed to the 12th century Benedictine abbot, Bernard of Clairvaux, who also provided the framework for the Rule of the Knights Templar in 1128 at the Council of Troyes in France.  And, of course, the well-worn “The road to hell is paved with good intentions,” referenced in Henry G. Bohn’s 1855 Hand-book of Proverbs, was obviously dismissed by SCAVENGER HUNT’s Mr. Do-Good.

This, then, is where SCAVENGER HUNT’s Mr. Do-Good and living, breathing but heartless political leadership cross paths. Seeking to strengthen their societies by natural selection within walled-in spaces will litter the wayside with rejected cyborgs.

This state of affairs is the content of headlines covering unrest from Asia, to Africa, to Latin America and the periphery of the West. Freedom of choice and of expression have been hijacked by the Mr. Do-Goods whose pretty speeches are their bus ticket to hell.

It is thrillers and horror stories that will bring the sordidness of existence to the bedside tables and quicken the disgust required to stand up and be counted to halt the Do-Goods in their tracks or escort them to the International Court of Justice.

As Michaelbrent Collings says, “SCAVENGER HUNT is much less a dystopian than a cautionary tale. The hunt is about a group of seemingly disparate people who come to understand that they are all connected via the common thread of black-market organ trafficking. Most are perpetrators, a few are victims of one stripe or another. As the tale unfolds, readers (hopefully) will realize that this problem is serious and something that has gone under the radar for most of us. And though in this instance there is an “avenging angel” of sorts, in our real world those harmed—largely the impoverished and the desperate of developing nations—are all too often simply overlooked, forgotten, or straight-up ignored. …The black market supplies a stunning percentage of organs for transplants, and those who benefit—desperate themselves—do so at the explicit expense of those who are already in circumstances that range from less-than-optimal to outright horrific. No easy answers to the problems, but problems they are.”

A seasoned craftsperson, Collings creates connectable characters among whom even the villains are unaware of their evil. He then throws them into the story which generates situational heroism. In his moral universe, right and wrong do not blur into gray. They matter. Just like people and his attitude to them, irrespective of any defining parameters. Collings’ characters emerge from and further define his societal ideas and attitudes.

At another level, his writing is also about fear but, since that fear relates to our common moral universe, it signals that something has gone wrong. And when that is the case, the light shines on what is right, and thus needs to be brought into play.

SCAVENGER HUNT and Suzanne Collins’ dystopic Hunger Games in which a lottery selection pits children in a televised death match are cousins—both uphold an allegorical tradition of social didactics started by Yevgeni Zamyatin’s 1924 We, considered to be the first dystopian novel ever written and that, too by the first Soviet dissident.

Yet, irrespective of the form chosen, writers have been warning, pleading and raging against allowing society to degenerate into cold-blooded scavenger hunts.

Collings is one of these writers and at the end of the day can also spin one hell of a spine-chilling yarn under the acknowledged influence of “Dean Koontz, Stephen King, and—most of all—my dad, who is a World Horror Grandmaster and an outstanding author and literary critic specializing in horror and speculative fiction.”

*****

One of the most versatile writers around, Michaelbrent Collings is an internationally bestselling novelist, produced screenwriter, and multiple Bram Stoker Award finalist. While he is best known for horror (and is one of the most successful indie horror authors in the United States), he has also written bestselling thriller, fantasy, science fiction, mystery, humor, young adult, and middle grade works, and Western romance.

As a novelist, Michaelbrent has written dozens of bestsellers that have also received critical acclaim, and he and his work have been featured on everything from mom-and-pop podcasts to Publishers Weekly, The San Francisco Book Review, and NPR.

Find more about him at his website.

Azam Gill

Azam Gill is a novelist, analyst and retired Lecturer from Toulouse University, France. He has authored eight books, including three thrillers — Blood Money, Flight to Pakistan and Blasphemy. He also writes for The Express Tribune, a New York Times affiliate and blogs on his website. He served in the French Foreign Legion, French Navy and the Punjab Regiment.