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| What happens when a relentless downpour, politics, and street gangs attack California? |
I recently
arrived back in California, a state that my latest book makes soggier than a wet biscuit.
Deluge
is my first disaster story. Usually I kill off a villain or two, but not
an entire state. Without disclosing a spoiler, Deluge fits nicely in the
disaster story genre, which means that the powers-that-be eventually listen to
the smarty pants who keep proposing a wild scheme to save the day, or in this
case, the state. Not having previously written in the genre, I had to do wide-ranging
research. To my wife’s chagrin, I watched every disaster film produced in Tinsel
Town. Well, maybe not all of them, but
the ones I watched ran the gamut from the still entertaining Twister,
to the classic Andromeda Strain, to the recklessly realistic Sharknado.
Needless to say, I had trouble sleeping for months.
Why a disaster
story? Steve Dancy and his new wife insisted on being left alone for their
honeymoon, so I needed to document other happenings. I always intended to do a
follow-up to The Shut Mouth Society, but the sequel I have in mind requires my
characters to age a bit, so they needed a transitional adventure. Now that I’ve
given them one, they may not speak to me again. It should be okay. Since I’ve
returned to Steve, Virginia, et al., they have time to get over being peeved.
I’m staying at my San Diego condo for three weeks. I going to do a little
surfing and a lot of writing on the next Steve Dancy Tale. I plan to have the
seventh in the series available by Christmas. So far, so good. I
like the storyline and it has bad guys—and gals—aplenty. In the meantime, try Deluge.
It’s the most adrenaline you’ll can experience while reclining in a Barcalounger.
Here’s a snippet:
Evarts did a quick reverse K-turn to get going in the opposite direction. As he accelerated down the slight incline, a rush of brown water came blowing across the road in front of him. It looked like a dozen fire hoses all sprayed in unison. If he tried to stop, he’d slide into the torrent, maybe sideways because of the slick pavement, so he pushed the gas pedal to the floorboard. Everyone except Evarts yelled as they hit the water. He gritted his teeth as he focused on timing a hard turn into the horizontal waterfall. When the water hit the truck, he had already turned into it as they blasted through the gush, emerging on the other side, the truck’s rear end swinging back and forth. Then he lost control. The truck spun around two full turns and righted itself, pointed down the road in the direction they had been heading. Lucky. He looked at his speedometer. He was rolling downhill at fifteen miles an hour. To hell with that. He punched it and they sped toward town.
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| The Shut Mouth Society |
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| Deluge |