Getting Ready to Find a Literary Agent - Synopsis for HATE

Late October 2005 in an upscale San Diego neighborhood, two men kill Jewish elementary school students and Craig and Cate Winter’s two teen children in a planned hate crime shooting.

Craig and Cate Winter are mid-forties, methodical, successful, well-healed business professionals whose idyllic life is shattered with their loss.

One of the shooters, Drake, is arrested and extradited to San Diego.  At the arraignment, Drake defiantly mocks Craig and Cate.  Drake is set free because the DA loses their lone eyewitness who recants her testimony after receiving death threats from white supremacists.

Craig conducts intensive research on hate groups and uncovers a blog from Drake reveling in the death of his daughter. He shows Cate the blog and Cate’s emotions turn from terror to anger and hate in an instant.  After debating their course of action, the pair agree to hunt, abduct and kill Drake.

With the help of Craig’s best friend and attorney Gregory, they meticulously layout a step by step airtight plan to exact their revenge. Craig and Cate abduct Drake take him to an abandoned mine and torture him, revealing his accomplice and the backers of the hate shooting.  Upon completion of Drake’s confessions, Cate shoots and kills Drake.  The pair remove and dispose of Drake’s identification.

Cate and Craig stalk the second hate crime shooter and kills him.  The pair’s revenge rings hollow as they know the backers are still at large. They embark on a morally ambivalent course planning to kill all the backers.  With help from Gregory, they are introduced to Pembrook, a retired MI6 operative.  Pembrook trains Craig and Cate mercilessly to become methodical, patient killers.  The pair kills 12 neo-Nazis living in the compound in Idaho.

As expected, the media blows this event up giving way to a national debate of free speech vs hate speech. Craig and Cate seek to further the media coverage with the assassination of the Grand Wizard of the KKK.

Shortly after killing the head of the KKK, a copycat killer, an ex-Army Ranger with PTSD kills another higher profile white supremacist, before taking his own life. The Ranger, Eddie Smith, penned and delivered to the press a manifesto outlining his views on how hate speech should be regulated.

After the assassinations and the release of the manifesto, Senator Sarah Roxbury, Craig’s sister, is tapped to head a panel on possible First Amendment reform and new laws curtailing hate speech.

The FBI ties all the shootings and assassinations together.  They now have pictures of Craig and Cate near the scene of the KKK shooting just days before.  They only have circumstantial evidence and not enough for an arrest.  Finally, the FBI catches a break.  Blood is found in the abandoned mine and reveals Drake’s DNA. An eyewitness comes forward positively identifying Craig and Cate walking near the mine at the time of Drake’s disappearance.  They are arrested and held pending arraignment.  Sarah Roxbury works a deal with the DOJ to quietly exonerate and deport the pair, after their faked deaths.  The U.S. government does not want more copycat killings or martyrs.

Roxbury gives an impassioned speech on her panel’s findings on the Senate floor, outlining possible changes to how hate speech could be regulated.

Now living in Australia under alias Dover, the pair get a surprise visit from Pembrook.  He asks if they would take a meeting with a lifelong friend who needs help.  Help from the pair who have unique skills.

Online Writers Tools

First without the internet I would not have been able to complete any of the books. It’s so easy to become an expert on any topic. Whether its sniper rifles, computer hacking or stats on AR shootings, in a matter of minutes you can find the information.

Cloud based editing software is also so helpful. I am using Autocrit and Grammerly for the book Peril. Autocrit looks for word choices, tense, and incorrectly used words. Grammerly is like spell check on steroids. It looks at punctuation, homonyms word choice.

As a writer, I can read a manuscript 20 times and still miss things. These tools truly help flush out the inconsistencies.

PERIL is Done!

The third book in the trilogy is now complete. Editing and re-writes starting.

David Gilmore Nails it Again

I had my first book HATE re-narrated by the same narrator of BURNED. I enjoy his pace and delivery. He sounds like exactly what I was thinking in my head. The new audio book will be available in a few days.

Another Teaser from PERIL

Within 30 seconds the front door of Wallace’s cabin is slowly opened.  Wallace emerges from the cabin through the doorway and steps down three steps from a wooden stairway to a gravel path. All the while FBI agents have their weapons drawn and trained on Wallace.  One hundred feet away from the cabin Wallace is told to kneel. He complies, separating his laced fingers for a moment for balance and kneels on the ground. 

What the agents can’t see is a device tethered with a nearly invisible wire protruding an inch or so from Wallace’s jacket collar in the rear.  Wallace slowly moves his laced fingers back on his head towards his collar.  Officers are now shouting at Wallace to not move or they will fire. Two seconds later Wallace thumbs the device and detonates a bomb concealed by his coat. 

The bomb detonates and radiates from the front of Wallace.  The bomb was constructed in a deliberate manner that the shrapnel would spray who ever was in front of Wallace.  Jeremy Mintz and six other FBI agents died that day.  12 other officers were wounded during the melee.  

David Gilmore Nails BURNED

David Gilmore completed the narration of BURNED a few weeks ago. He was perfect! His rendition was exactly what was in my head. I enjoyed his narration so much that he will be re-recording my first book HATE in a few months.

I am Mad as Hell!

Saturday, as I was watching the news regarding the Poway Synagogue shooting, I was engulfed in an acute panic attack and actually felt guilty that life was imitating my art.  How does a writer, several years earlier, predict with some accuracy a hate crime shooting at a Synagogue located in Poway?  In Poway.  Not LA or Miami or even San Diego but Poway. Sheer, chilling coincidence that’s how.

Since the 2016 election, all kinds of hate crimes are on the rise.  They are on the rise because white nationalists, or whatever you call them now, have a platform that is condoned by many. Couple that with the NRA peddling death via an AR-15, and we are quickly approaching a de facto civil war.

For me I will keep writing about issues such as looking at hate speech vs. the First Amendment reform. I will continue to write about Second Amendment reform and the way the NRA helps buy elections.  And finally, I will continue to write about ferreting out those who weaponize hate.

LA Times Book Fair

Zoe and I just got back from the LA Book Fair held on the USC campus. I didn’t sell too many books, but that wasn’t the real reason for attending. What I found most interesting was I sold a half dozen books to teen girls of all ages. I believe the issue of hate crimes and school shootings weighs heavily on them.

I do really enjoy when a passerby looks at the banners and books, walks completely out of view and does a u-turn. comes back and is intrigued. I also love watching their faces as I explain the plot and they get it!

First Chapter of BURNED

Hope you like it!

David Gilmore to Narrate BURNED!

No not that David Gilmore from Pink Floyd. David is a prolific narrator of audiobooks. I selected him because his delivery including his cadence and tonal qualities sounded like the main character in the books, Craig Winter.

"We are condemning anti-Semitism, Islamophobia and white supremacy, " Nancy Pelosi 3/7/19

No, I’m not Nostradamus!! However, this very topic, dubbed the Roxbury-O’Conner Bill, in the novel HATE rings true!

Tucson Book Fair

My first book exhibition booth. Wow that was a lot of work! 8 to 5 for two days. You need to be engaging, scintillating, and constantly being “on” We crashed at 7:30 the first night. The ROI might still be out of whack, but I’m trying to get exposure.

Next up is the LA Times Book Festival at USC. This is the largest book fair in the US. 150,000 people in a weekend. Zoe will be there with me and my daughter will also be there to help man the booth.

Epiphany at a Book Fair

This weekend we attended the Tucson Festival of Books in Tucson, Arizona.  The two-day event draws over 130,000 people.  We met some very interesting people.  It was exhausting but fun at the same time.

My epiphany revolves around why between 2003 and 2017, did my screenplay/novel collect dust with no work on it.  It was the 2016 election and our current political climate that became the impetus to complete books number one and two.  It also serves as a catalyst for book number three.

The story, before the election, was a stale revenge yarn.  Both novels morphed into a political thriller.  The funny thing is, before 2016 I was uninterested in politics. 

Fiction Becomes Reality

HATE was started in 2003. Well before the rancorous political diatribes. Today the media is full of stories that center on hate speech that lead to violence or hate crimes.

HATE’S many storylines can be plucked from the headlines:

Fiction - Two white supremacists kill a bunch of Jewish children at a school. They use AR-15’s.

Reality - An antisemitic gunman kills 11 in a synagogue, using an AR-15.

Fiction - The debate of free-speech vs. hate speech is ratcheted up.

Reality - The debate of free-speech vs. hate speech leading to violent acts is ratcheted up.

Fiction - White nationalism speech and platforms get more airplay.

Reality - White nationalism speech and platforms get more airplay.

Fiction - A bipartisan bill gets introduced to put limits on hate speech that leads to violence.

Reality -

Inside Cover of Hate

BURNED....a teaser

It’s a chilly morning many miles north of Toronto, Canada.  A jogger is running his daily route at fast clip down a road cut from the wilderness of dense trees and brush.  His breath is visible from his quick pace and the low temperature.  The road bends to his right past a small clearing on his left.  He suddenly stops, puts his hands on his hips and catches his breath for a few seconds and turns back towards the clearing.  He cautiously walks towards something he saw that was out of place.  As he draws nearer he sees a disturbing sight.  It’s a naked woman lying face down in the leaves and pine needles.

The man is unsure what to do.  He anxiously squats next to the woman and feels for her pulse.  He can make out a faint pulse. He then recoils, retreats a few steps from the woman, pulls out his cell phone, and with shaking hands, dials 911.