SUMMER READING

Many of us find summer is the perfect time to escape our day-to-day humdrum and immerse ourselves in books that help us escape to new places and different ways of looking at life.

Do you want to avoid the hassle of long flights but still still want to have exotic experience Explore India while you solve a mystery back home with scientist Sara Almquist in DIRTY HOLY WATER.

               https://www.amazon.com/dp/0960028587

In this psychological mystery, Sara is about to become engaged and leave for a vacation in India when a friend is murdered. She soon learns snake dances in India are no more bazaar than her friend's secrets. 

 

Are you tired of "superman-type" heroes in movies and ready for

adventure based on real people?  Read I SAW YOU IN BEIRUT.  https://www.amazon.com/dp/0960028544

In this international thriller, a mysterious source of data on the Iranian nuclear industry sends an email from Tabriz. "Help. Contact Almquist." As Sara Almquist is drawn into the plan to identify and rescue the agent, known only as F, from Iran, she is forced to remember and re-evaluate characters from her student days at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and from her career as a globe-trotting epidemiologist.

 

Maybe you'd like to learn more about Native American culture? Travel to Acoma Pueblo and other sites in New Mexico with A POUND OF FLESH, SORTA:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0960028560/

In this adventure story, a ticking package with the guts of animals is delivered to scientist Sara Almquist. The police think gang leaders are trying to prevent Sara from testifying at their upcoming trial. Sara thinks it might be a plea for help from a rancher in New Mexico after she learns the package is contaminated with the bacteria that causes the plague

 

Or maybe you want to take hard look at reality and look at the elderly 

who have made a van their home. Read Jessica Bruder's NOMADLAND. 

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0393356310/ 

This nonfictional account of transient older adults who travel for work from the beet field of North Dakota to the campgrounds of California to the Amazon's CamperForce programs in Texas is an eye-opener. 

No matter your choices, it's time to start your summer reading.

Does this sound like the memory of a spy?

Sara Almquist is in a lackluster love affair in I SAW YOU IN BEIRUT. Then an agent who has been undercover for thirty years in #Iran sends an email: "Help. Contact Almquist." As Sara is drawn into the plan to identify and rescue the agent, known only as F, she is forced to re-evaluate characters from her career as a globe-trotting #scientist and rethink what matters in #romance and her life in general. Available at: https://www.amazon.com/dp/0960028544

 

This excerpt from Chapter 3 of I SAW YOU IN BEIRUT, an international #thriller, is based on a real incident and a real Iranian student in the U.S. in 1978:

“I don’t remember how I met her.” She (Sara Almquist) noted the Major continued to tap the table. “I only remember… three incidents with Farideh.” She gulped. “I guess I’m ready. I’ll start with the most revealing. I hadn’t worked for Doc Steinhaus long. So, it must have been a Saturday in September or early October of seventy-eight.”

***

The day was hot. I heard a roar of the crowd at a football game in Camp Randall Stadium as I entered the almost empty, red brick Horticulture Building.

Four of Doc’s graduate students were in the workroom when I delivered printouts from the computer lab in a nearby building. Three hardly lifted their heads to acknowledge me. I knew why. Danny was yipping in his high tenor voice about inconsequential departmental gossip as he looked at his near empty desk. The other three politely refrained from telling him to shut up.

I sat down by Mike and waited for instructions. I had a bit of crush on Mike. As was the fashion then, he had a thick unruly beard. He muttered, “Think of a way to shut the fool up. Doc should be here shortly. He wants you to enter data for me at the computer center.”

I got up and sliced a thin sliver of chocolate cake for myself from a tired-looking birthday cake on the table in the center of the room. The grad students had celebrated Mike’s birthday the day before. Most of the cake was gone, but wax candles were strewn on the table. “Danny, do you want a piece of cake. It’s still moist.”

Danny drew a freckled hand through his carrot red hair and blinked his brown eyes at me in apparent surprise. “The baby talks.”

I ignored the insult and placed a big slice of cake on a napkin and was handing it to him when Farideh slammed into the office. As usual she wore hip-hugging, frayed blue jeans, the bell-bottom type. An off-white knit ribbed top, which showed her slim waist, clung to her torso. Despite her dark hair and black eyes, I doubt most would guess she was from Iran. She was about five-seven and moved with long, smooth strides.

Danny talked as he stuffed cake in his mouth. “Did you do your daily protest march against the Shah around the Bascom Hall?” Chocolate cake dribbled from his mouth. “From what I hear, he’s been good for Iran. That’s why you and your husband are in grad school here.”

Mike kept his head down. “Danny, leave her alone.”

Farideh plunked in her chair. “We were followed today by men in suits. I think from SAVAK, the Shah’s secret police.”

“You’re hallucinating,” said Danny.

“Don’t display your ignorance.” Farideh strode to the table and sliced the cake.

The three other grad students kept their heads down, as though they expected a blow-up.

“Hey, doll cut me another piece,” said Danny as he swallowed the last of the cake I’d given him.

Surprisingly, Farideh did. As she cut the cake, Danny rose to stand behind her. He rubbed his hands from her waist to her hips. “What a waste to cover this with a burqa, or I guess you’d say a chador in Iran.”

She dropped the slice of cake and rammed her elbow into his gut. Hesitated a second, before she picked up the knife. “Don’t touch me.”

Mike ran from the office. The mouths of the two other grad students hung agape.

Farideh turned the knife in her hand.

Danny, who about three inches taller than Farideh and quite muscular, laughed, “Doll, you know I can take the knife from you.”

Everyone gasped as the door opened and Doc rolled in, followed by Mike. Doc was obese, and he panted when he walked at a normal speed. Today he gasped from having hurried in the heat. “Farideh… come… to… my… office.” 

Danny squealed, “You’re in trouble now.”

She gripped the knife and lunged at Danny.

“Farideh!” Doc howled.

She stabbed the knife so hard into the cake that she broke its blade on the table. Then she stalked out of the office.

As he closed the door, Doc said, “Danny, try to keep your mouth shut until I return. And Sara, here’s what you need to do.” He handed me a stack of papers.

DON'T YOU WANT JTO FIND OUT WHAT HAPPENS TO FARIDEH AND SARA ALMQUIST?

Mystery Writers Are Like Scientists

 Writing a mystery novel is similar to conducting a science experiment in several ways.

·      Writers and scientists both do research.

·      They both organize their observations into a whole, which writers call plots and scientists call hypotheses.

·      They both test and refine their “whole.” Writers edit their prose; scientists run additional experiments.

·      Both require a lot of hard work to gain occasional flashes of insights. To paraphrase Thomas Edison, they’re “one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration.”

Why did I drag you through this discussion? I’m trying to explain why so many scientists and physicians became writers of mysteries and thrillers. Consider Michael Crichton (a physician by training), Kathy Reichs (a forensic anthropologist), Robin Cook (a physician). I’m also explaining how as a retired biology professor I came to write mystery/suspense novels with tidbits of science.

Through this discussion, I hope you learn how bits of science add realism to a mystery.

Let’s start with my thriller, I Saw You in Beirut. In this thriller, a woman’s past provides clues for the extraction of a nuclear scientist from Iran (http://www.amazon.com/dp/1610092201).

Did you know? In the early 1960s, scientists identified zinc deficiency in peasants in Iran. At that time, two to three percent of the villagers in some regions of Iran didn't pass the physical for the army because of stunted growth. Dr. James Halstead, Sr. who was married to President’s Roosevelt’s daughter, Anna, headed the research team at Shiraz. Surprised?

I created Doc Steinhaus, a fictional character in I Saw You in Beirut, who worked on the project in Shiraz as a grad student. He was a logical way to “show not tell” readers about science in Iran and advance the plot. Let’s face it most foreign agents don’t look or act like James Bond, but they can be a lot more nuanced.

 

Now how about Malignancy? In this suspense novel, a woman scientist tries to escape the clutches of a drug lord and accepts a risky assignment in Cuba (http://amzn.com/1610091779.

When I visited Cuba in 2013, I learned Cuban researchers had patented a therapeutic cancer vaccine to treat non-small cell lung cancer. This drug revs up a patient’s own immune system to produce cells, which recognize substances found on the surface of tumor cells but not on the surface of normal cells, and kills the cancer cells. For those surprised about the sophistication of this work, please note the researchers had spent a lot time at Harvard despite the embargo.

I also read the editorial in Science (6/6/2014) on scientific exchanges between the U.S. and Cuba. I thought Sara Almquist, as an epidemiologist and heroine of my previous medical thrillers Coming Flu (http://amzn.com/1610090985 and Ignore the Pain (http://amzn.com/1610091310), would be the perfect protagonist to do a little “scientific diplomacy” in Cuba.

Of course, Sara gets involved in a lot more than science in both novels; they wouldn’t be thrillers without danger. Why don’t you read them and learn a little thrilling science?

MEMORIES IN FICTION

Novels and short stories by definition are fiction, but that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t contain bits of reality. Sometimes an author can introduce reality into her fiction by using her memories—personal, and probably slightly biased, facts. I guess a purist would say memories and facts are often distinctly different. I don’t want to argue the point today.

Turning my memories into a thriller, I Saw You in Beirut.

I combined several of my memories with facts and lots of fiction. The University of Wisconsin-Madison was awash with Iranian students protesting the Shah in the late 1970s. I was a professor there and the graduate advisor of one of these students. Conversations with her and her friends served the basis of creating the fiery character Farideh in I Saw You in Beirut.

For example, in an early scene in I Saw You in Beirut, Farideh takes a knife, which she was using to slice a cake, and threatens an annoying fellow grad student. Unfortunately, the incident really happened in my lab, but I changed the names to protect the guilty. I thought this incident was a #way to show not tell about Farideh’s temperment. 

Collecting memories for a short story collection?

Before I wrote The Good Old Days? A Collection of Stories, I talked to dozens of people about their memories, especially of their childhoods and adolescences. Thus each of my stories has a different perspective, but they all address historical or social problems in the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960, a time that many refer to as the good old days. I think these vignettes demonstrate past events are often funny, but many would rather remember than relive the events.

Here are two examples of the memories that triggered stories: Do you remember your first bra? (Sorry guys, you missed that experience.) Did it look a bit like Madonna’s costume with two cones of foam strung together with straps? Enjoy the humorous memories in I Look Like Papa.

Many towns in the Midwest and New England are awash with grand Victorian ladies (large houses with endless brightly-painted decorations). As an old man remembers his glory days as a high school athlete in Dirty Dave, he also reveals secrets about domestic violence in these so-called grand homes.

We all have memories usable in fiction. Perhaps, you can remember with horror a car accident or the death of a love one. You could use your painful memories of you raw emotions to make a scene in a novel memorable to others.

Why don’t you search you memory for ideas for your next novel or short story?

I Saw You in Beirut Blurb: Sara Almquist’s past, as a student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and as a globetrotting epidemiologist, provides clues for the extraction of a nuclear scientist from Iran.

The Good Old Days? A Collection of Stories Blurb: Are many nostalgic accounts of the good old days examples of selective forgetfulness? Before you argue the point, read these fourteen short stories.

Does Your Writing Bark, Purr, or Neigh?

A recent poll of users of social media had a bit to say about pets. Almost two-thirds of pet owners claim they post two comments or photos of their pets on social media weekly. Half of these pet owners claim photos and notes on pets draw more comments and likes than their other posts.

Are these bits of trivia relevant to fiction writers?

I think there are at least three reasons for including animals in novels.    

 Authors may increase the appeal of their novels to a wider audience by including dogs, cats, and other pets in their tales (Pun intended.). Consider all the cozy novels built around clever dogs and cats. Come to think of it, Westerns would be pretty blah without horses.

·       Authors can often show a different side of human characters in their novels by allowing characters to talk to or interact with their pets. Asta in Dashiell Hammett’s The Thin Man, Cat in Truman Capote’s Breakfast at Tiffany’s, and Argos in Homer’s The Odyssey demonstrate pets belong in serious adult fiction.

·       Pets are fun to write about. I enjoy including Bug, my Japanese Chin, in my thriller series (Coming Flu, Ignore the Pain, Malignancy, and I Saw You in Beirut). Besides being beautiful, he’s smart. He deserves attention for his work as pet therapy at local hospitals for more than eight years. (Don’t I sound like the typical pet owner in the survey?) And he definitely allows me to show a soft side to my world-traveling scientist and heroine, Sara Almquist.

 

Maybe, you should include a dog or cat in your next novel. Or be creative and give your human character a more unusual alter ego, like a fish, raccoon, or elephant. 

All my books (paperback & Kindle versions are available on Amazon.

• In I Saw You in Beirut, a woman’s past provides clues for the extraction of a nuclear scientist from Iran. http://www.amazon.com/dp/1610092201

• In Malignancy, a woman scientist tries to escape the clutches of a drug lord and accepts a risky assignment in Cuba. http://amzn.com/1610091779

• In Ignore the Pain, an epidemiologist learns too much about the coca trade and too little about a sexy new colleague while on a public health assignment in Bolivia. http://amzn.com/1610091310

• In Coming Flu, is the Philippine flu or a drug kingpin caught in a quarantine is more deadly? http://amzn.com/1610090985

Garage Sale Your Writing

I’m not talking about selling your books at ridiculously low prices. I’m talking about editing your writing.

1. Get rid of what isn’t useful. The first step to a garage sale is recognizing you don’t need and will never use many of the treasures you’ve stashed in your house, garage, and/or storage unit. They’re just clutter and prevent your enjoyment of useful items.

Similarly, an author needs to read a draft of his/her writing and think. Does this sentence or section advance the plot, develop characters, or establish the location? If not, perhaps the sentence/section should be deleted.

If you really love a section of writing but know it adds nothing to your current story or novel, create a file of deleted sections, which you hope will be useful in the future. These are the items I put a high price tag on at a garage sale and don’t mind if they don’t sell because I can put them out at the next garage sale.

2. Organize your material. I find shoppers are more apt to buy items in a garage sale if the objects are arranged logically and attractively. For example, at my last garage sale I was trying to sell necklaces. (My mother had a fetish for beads of all colors and “heart” necklaces and had bought hundred of them over fifty years. None were of much value individually.) I hung the necklaces from an old wooden clothes dryer rack so that shoppers could examine the wares without tangling or breaking the chains. I sold about a hundred.

Creativity is the key to good writing, BUT many readers today prefer organized material that is easy to read. Paragraphs with more than ten sentences and sentences with three or more commas generally slow the reading process. This is one reason why many readers report they like dialog. The paragraphs and sentences tend to be short. Readers can peruse pages of dialog quickly. 

3. Never call your material junk. A positive attitude is important in any activity. If you don’t value what you’re selling or writing, why should anyone else?

4. Work hard. Successful garage sales and editing are hard work. You may enjoy the work (or maybe not), but you’ll be proud of the final result—a neater house or an improved novel.

5. Laugh at yourself and learn from your mistakes.

So are you ready to garage sale your writing and step up your editing efforts?

Maybe you’d like to examine tow of my editing efforts in the last year.

In Murder...A Way to Lose Weight, two ambitious diet doctors are testing a new way to lose weight. One doctor is killed after she develops a conscious and admits they took “short cuts,” which are endangering the lives of their obese patients. As the police turn up clues, the readers learn a bit about weird poisons and the social mores of a medical school. 

In I Saw You in Beirut, a woman uses memories of her student days at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and of her career as a globetrotting epidemiologist to provide clues for the identification and extraction of a nuclear scientist, known only as F, from Iran. But memories are often biased or incomplete, and she travels to the sites of her memories to gather new evidence.

Amazon sells both the paperback and Kindle versions of Murder…A Way to Lose Weight (http://www.amazon.com/dp/1610092392) and I Saw You in Beirut (http://www.amazon.com/dp/1610092201).

Mixing facts into a thriller helps to develop characters and plot

 Major characters in novels need backstories. Instead of fantasizing histories for all the characters in my novels, I like to plant several into real situations.

Here are the facts: In the early 1960s, scientists identified zinc deficiency in Iran. At that time, 2-3% of the villagers in some regions of Iran didn't pass the physical for the army because of stunted growth. The head of the research team Dr. James Halstead, Sr., was married to President’s Roosevelt’s daughter, Anna.

I used these facts to explain how certain characters in I Saw You in Beirut became involved in espionage in Iran. Isn’t that a lot more believable than the backstory for James Bond?

Facts are often stranger than fiction. When I wanted to show, not tell, the readers about another fiery character in I Saw You in Beirut, I used a real incident from my research lab.

Summary of the real incident: On a fall Saturday in 1979 or 1980, one of my foreign female graduate students at the University of Wisconsin-Madison became so annoyed with a fellow student that she threatened him with the knife, which she was using to cut a birthday cake.

Science headlines can advance plots. The development of a nuclear “industry” in Iran has long been a source of headlines. I enhanced common fears to create the plot for I Saw You in Beirut. Then I included a map with major cities and important sites for the nuclear industry at the front to the novel to add authenticity.

Plot summary: A mysterious source of leaks on the Iranian nuclear industry, known only as F, sends an email from Tabriz: Help. Contact Almquist. Intelligence sources determine the message refers to Sara Almquist, a globetrotting epidemiologist, and seek her help to extract F from Iran. As Sara tries to identify F by dredging up memories about her student days at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and her work in Lebanon and the Emirates, groups ostensibly wanting to prevent F’s escape attack her repeatedly. She begins to suspect her current friendship with Sanders, a secretive State Department official, is the real reason she’s being attacked.

I Saw You in Beirut (Kindle & paperback) is available at Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/dp/1610092201.

WHAT REVS UP YOUR IMAGINATION?

Pet peeves, news headlines, travel, dreams, and memories are all sources of ideas for writers. The list of ways to rev up an author's imagination is endless.

Do the novels you read rev up your imagination? Do they encourage you to  travel to a cited location, learn more about a mentioned topic, read other novels by the author, or write a novel yourself? If so, great. Maybe, this blog will rev up your imagination to try something new. 

The initial ideas for I Saw You in Beirut, my latest international thriller, came from two main sources: my pet peeve that there are so few woman protagonists in thrillers and my love of exotic locations.

First, my pet peeve. Most thrillers feature men. The women who populate thrillers are generally young action heroines, like Lara Croft. Census data indicate the fastest growing population groups in the U.S. between 2000 and 2010 were those over forty-five years of age. Women outnumber men after forty. My conclusion is: women over forty are a big reading market, and they read more than romances.

Accordingly, the heroine in my thrillers is Sara Almquist, a globetrotting epidemiologist (a professional medical busybody) who has passed her fortieth birthday. I like to imagine her being played on film by Helen Mirren, Sigourney Weaver, Salma Hayek, or Marcia Gaye Hardin. And yes, there is a bit of romance in this thriller.

Next, my love of exotic locations. In the 1990s, I consulted on biological (medical and agricultural) issues at the United Arab Emirates University in El Ain and the American University of Beirut in Lebanon. I got chills as I watched ships lining up to pass through the Strait of Hormuz. I smiled as I toured the laboratory and swimming pools, which one sheik in the Emirates built to help keep his racing camels in optimum form.

I was also awed by the beauty and history of the region. Did you know Lebanon has Phoenician tombs that are contemporary with the Egyptian pyramids? Several major medical discoveries were made in Iran and Iraq in the 1960s. I knew several of the researchers involved in the Shiraz experiment, which identified zinc deficiency in villagers in Iran.

Thus, I included lots of tidbits on science, geography, and history of the Middle East in I Saw You in Beirut. Why not arm chair travel there with Sara Almquist? See if the story revs up your desire to travel and explore new options.

Blurb: In I Saw You in Beirut, a mysterious source of leaks on the Iranian nuclear industry, known only as F, sends an email from Tabriz: Help. Contact Almquist. Intelligence sources determine the message refers to Sara Almquist, a globetrotting epidemiologist, and seek her help to extract F from Iran. As Sara tries to identify F by dredging up long-forgotten memories about her student days at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and her work in Lebanon and the Emirates, groups ostensibly wanting to prevent F’s escape attack her repeatedly. 

I Saw You in Beirut (paperback and Kindle versions) is available at Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/dp/1610092201 and Barnes and Noble (Nook version): http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/i-saw-you-in-beirut-jl-greger/1123184446?ean=2940158046957.

DORIAN GRAY REVISITED

Oscar Wilde in The Picture of Dorian Gray said, “The only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about.” Was he right? All publishers seem to agree publicity (now politely called a platform) is necessary for sales.

Is publicity really just a form of advertising?

That question demonstrates I’m no expert on communications and perhaps a bit cynical. Here’s what one expert said, “Advertising and publicity are two very different communication tools, even though both employ the mass media as a vehicle for reaching large audiences… Advertising buys its way into the media… Publicity is presented by the media because it's newsworthy."

What works in advertising?

Probably millions of words have been written on the topic. These two ideas may be useful to authors.

1. Extend engagement. Consumers are more apt to buy a product if they spend more time looking at an ad or better still interacting with the advertiser.

Accordingly, I am starting a CONTEST: WIN A CHANCE TO BE A CHARACTER IN MY NEXT NOVEL. To enter, post a comment to this blog or any of my guest blogs during the next six months. I’ll draw the winner out of a hat and name a character after them in an upcoming book in my thriller series.

2. Associate your writing with things readers like. Advertising often sells products not by providing factual information but by surrounding the product with other things shoppers liked (like cute pets in toilet paper ads).

I suspect that’s why so many novelists write blogs. They’re trying to tempt readers with a slightly funny blog.

Many readers would love to travel to exotic spots, but lack the cash and maybe the guts to face long flights, endless lines, and questionable food. That’s why I have my heroine Sara Almquist travel to Bolivia in Ignore the Pain, Cuba in Malignancy, and Lebanon and Qatar in I Saw You in Beirut. Should I send Sara to India or Laos in my next novel? Which country would you rather visit vicariously?

Please extend your interaction with this author and leave a comment. Thanks.

P.S. DID YOU NOTICE I PUT A PICTURE OF BUG AT THE START, SO YOU'D THINK POSITIVELY?

Here are thumbnail sketches of international adventures with a middle-aged woman. Maybe, I shouldn’t use the words (middle-aged) because it isn’t a pleasant thought to many. However, I suspect her views are closer to most readers’ attitudes than those of James Bond.

See BOLIVIA in Ignore the Pain, as public health consultant, Sara Almquist, learns too much about the coca trade and too little about sexy undercover agent Xave Zack.

Available at Amazon: http://amzn.com/1610091310 and on Nook: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/ignore-the-pain-j-l-greger/1117532777;jsessionid=C54A000FC8C6FFBE5237D52396D7B8C6.prodny_store01-atgap03?ean=2940157799212

 

Visit CUBA in Malignancy, when Sara Almquist arranges scientific exchanges

between the US and Cuba and learns more about undercover agent Xave Zack.

Available at Amazon: http://amzn.com/1610091779 and on Nook: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/malignancy-jlgreger/1123390529?ean=2940157827649

Explore LEBANON, QATAR, and THE EMERATES with Sara in I Saw You in Beirut. Her past has the clues for the rescue of a nuclear scientist from Iran.

Available at Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/dp/1610092201 and on Nook: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/i-saw-you-in-beirut-jl-greger/1123184446?ean=2940158046957