Deluge Reviewed at jackboston.com

A First-Order Disaster Story About an Atmospheric River

It’s to his credit that he focuses his attention on the human element of the deluge, rather than going all technical on the reader. We read as citizens, law enforcement, academia, politicians and outlaw gangs deal with the deluge. In the process, Best makes this a compelling—indeed frightening—story. Again and again I was impressed with Best’s characterizations and grasp of how profoundly a storm such as this can disrupt life. The potential power of water stayed with me for days. This is a highly recommended natural disaster thriller, written with acute attention to reality and little, if any, needless melodramatics.

Read the full review here.

Storms, politics and street gangs pummel California ... and that's not the scary part.

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Selfish San Francisco

Water Source for San Francisco

San Francisco supports denying water to the Central Valley so a tiny fish called the Delta Smelt has a pristine habitat. Except San Francisco gets its drinking water from the other side of the Central Valley. If the O'Shaughnessy Dam below Yosemite was demolished, the Sierra runoff would flow naturally into the Central Valley.

To further explain the source of San Francisco water, here is an excerpt from Deluge.

“The TV.” She pointed to a television mounted high on the wall. The sound had been muted, but the agitation of the newscasters was obvious. The chyron read, “O’Shaughnessy Dam collapse harms San Francisco.”  In smaller letters below, it read “Water and power at risk.

Smith grabbed the bottles and said “Come on. Let’s get back.”

When they entered the flat downstairs, Wilson and Ashley were chuckling like a couple of teenagers. Baldwin had the impression that if they hadn’t returned when they did, they might have found the flat locked, with a man’s tie hanging from the door handle.

Smith immediately went to the remote and turned on the television.

The newscaster was saying, “San Francisco receives eighty-five percent of its water from the Hetch Hetchy Reservoir, which sits behind the O’Shaughnessy Dam. A dam that no longer exists. This dam also produced over seven hundred million kilowatt-hours of electricity per year for the city. The mayor has declared an emergency, and water as of this moment is severely rationed. It appears that for the first time in a century, San Francisco will be forced to pump and filter its water. The question on the minds of nearly three million people in the Bay Area is, how long it will take to replace the water supply for the city? Our sources said months. The irony, of course, is that after over a week of nonstop rain, how can the city be out of fresh water … and potentially short of electricity?”

“Oh, crap,” Smith said. “The Restore Hetch Hetchy activists got their wish. They’ve hated that dam since John Muir fought its construction early in the last century. Now we’ll see how Sierra Club members with a 94123 zip code like rustic living.”

“Don’t fool yourself,” Wilson said. “The rich always live comfortably. It’s the peons who’ll suffer. If need be, the rich will have Perrier home-delivered in quantities large enough to shower whenever they want.”

Ashley pointed at the faucet. “This water comes from the Sierras? That’s hard to believe. Why? The Delta always has water.”

“It’s pure mountain water,” Wilson said. “We’re one of the few major cities in the world that doesn’t filter its tap water. It’s uncontaminated … and delivery is gravity fed. The city moves it from the mountains to that tap without fossil fuels.” She stroked the faucet spout. “Our pristine mountain water is a matter of civic pride.”

“As well as the pee on the sidewalks,” Smith said. “Gravity fed, pure, and one hundred percent organic.”

“Guys, quit squabbling,” Baldwin said, pointing at the television. “The Don Pedro Dam just below Hetch Hetchy also failed. Modesto and outlying areas are in the flood path. People are dying, and you’re worried about showering.”

Storms, politics, and gangs pummel California but that isn't the scary part.

Deluge: A Fictional Account of What Would Happen if Extreme Weather Hit California

Deluge is a disaster story. A real potential disaster is bearing down on the East Coast, and people would be wise to take every precaution. Everyone stay safe.

 Here is an snippet from the book that tries to put moving water in perspective.

Evarts examined the sky. He could discern not even a dull glow where the sun would be at this hour. He swiped water from his eyes.  The rain was bad enough, but the wind made the ocean surface bumpy, and the nose of his surfboard kept splashing salt water in his face as he paddled. He wanted to keep a clear eye out to sea, so it presented more than an annoyance. The larger, outside waves could be brutal, and he didn’t want to be caught inside in what surfers called the impact zone. People generally thought of water as benign. It watered gardens, you could drink it, bathe with it, freeze it to chill a drink or a sore back, swim in it, or laze on the surface in a boat or on a floater. Water was an essential element of life, useful and often great fun. But surfers knew water could also be a killer. No one who had been hit by a huge wave disrespected moving water. You couldn’t fight it. You couldn’t beat it. You could only get out of the way or let it throw you around like a rag doll in a Rottweiler’s grip.

Storms,politics, and gangs pillage California but that isn't the scary part.

4,000 Goodreads Ratings. Cool!

Woke up this morning and went through my normal internet routine with my first cup of coffee. I check Twitter, Facebook, and my book sales and reviews. At Goodreads, I saw something that made me smile. I had hit exactly 4,000 ratings for my books for 4.0 stars. Thank you to all my readers, especially those who take an extra moment to write a review or rate the book.

Why do my characters boss me around?

No Peace starts at del Monte Hotel in Monterey (photo circa 1880s)

In a previous post I wrote that I had started the next Steve Dancy Tale and the title of the seventh book in the series would be Coronado. I had a plot outline, a nifty cast of characters, and enough research on San Diego history to fill a nonfiction tome. Steve had other ideas. I started the story in Monterey, California, intending to travel down to San Diego by way of Redondo Beach and Pasadena. Don’t ask. I won’t tell you the storyline because I’ll probably use this material in the next book. Suffice it to say that Steve got himself into so much trouble in Monterey that he can’t go anywhere until he cleans up his mess.

Wait a minute, isn’t Steve Dancy a fictional character? Yeah, that’s what irks me. Who gave him the right to change my story? When I start a new work, I know the beginning and how it ends, but allow the characters to show me the way to get from one end to the other. Many times, I put the characters into a scene, give them a couple lines, and then transcribe the rest of their conversation. I know them so well that I trust them. But never has a character taken me off the rails and done his own thing. This is outrageous. Perhaps he’s miffed that I abandoned him for a spell to write Deluge. Hell, I thought Steve and Virginia wanted to be left alone on their honeymoon. Which brings to mind the first time I knew something was going haywire. The new book starts about two years after our newlyweds rode off into the sunset. I’m writing the first chapter and Steve and Virginia suddenly announce they have a one-year old son. I’m typing away, and suddenly Jeffery Joseph Dancy enters the story uninvited. Cute kid, though.

The bottom line is that I’ve changed the title for the book. It is now called No Peace, A Steve Dancy Tale, but who knows, it could change again. Now I have a true appreciation for what it means to have a character driven story.

One last thing; because of my recent focus on westerns, I was concerned that Deluge might not be accepted by my readers. It was contemporary, and although there were horrific gunfights, the main antagonist was a nasty storm. I’m pleased that the initial reception has been great. The ratings on Goodreads score it 4.4 and the initial Amazon reviews rank it 4.6. Thanks to all of my readers.

Gotta go. Steve's telling me to get back to work.

Return to The Scene of My Crime

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.

The Shut Mouth Society

Deluge

Excerpt from Deluge, A Disaster Novel

Greg Evarts and Patricia Baldwin are back and this time they only need to save the state of California. Here's an excerpt from the first chapter of Deluge.

Baldwin said into the phone, “Mr. Gleason, I understand. I’ll be in Sacramento first thing Tuesday morning.” After a pause, she added, “Of course, sir. Thank you.”

She tapped to end the call, turned off her phone, confirmed that it had gone dark, and then exclaimed, “Shit!”

“The lieutenant governor?” Evarts asked.

She lifted her eyeglasses slightly and let them fall back on her nose. “Yes, damn it. They’re in a panic over this damn rain. Rain, for Pete’s sake.”

“I take it they want you up there Tuesday?”

“I wish,” Baldwin answered. “The commission meets at 8:00 AM on Tuesday, meaning I leave noonish Monday, and they want me to bring a week’s worth of clothes. Damn it, I have classes, committee meetings, office hours, and a speech in Los Angeles on Thursday night.” She threw her phone onto the couch. “I wish I had never accepted the governor’s appointment.”

The governor of California had appointed Baldwin to the Seismic Safety Commission, and she had been on the advisory council for less than a year.

“I thought that commission dealt with earthquakes, tsunamis, and volcanoes.”

“Some idiot evidently believes a few days of rain can trigger one of those. I don’t need some volunteer work to destroy my career. This is stupid.”

“It may hamper your career, but it won’t ruin it. It’s Saturday. This storm will probably pass before you sit down for your meeting. You’ll be back in time to make your speech.”

Suddenly, she asked, “What are you eating?”

He held up the chop by the bone. “Last night’s leftovers. I need protein.” He ripped off a piece of meat with bared teeth like he was ravished, and she laughed at his antics.

“Don’t we make the couple,” she said. “You walk around chewing on a bone like a caveman, and I’ve been talking to the lieutenant governor in pajamas. I’m surprised they don’t deport us back to Oxnard with the riffraff.”

“We had fun there. Maybe I can buy back my old house.”

“No, I’m good. Just frustrated that this stupid commission can jump up and disrupt my life.”

“You’ll be back soon. You know bureaucrats, always making a big thing out of nothing.”

She walked over to a sofa table and picked up her coffee. She took a sip while staring out to sea.

“Perhaps not this time. I heard fear in Paul’s voice. They got seven inches of rain in the last week.”

“Seven inches? Our drizzles haven’t added up to squat.” He thought about the implications. “Did he say if any dams were in jeopardy?”

“Yes.” She didn’t turn away from the murky, cloud-enshrouded ocean. “All of them.”

Disaster, gangs and political inertia, but that isn’t the scary part.

New James D. Best Novel on June 4th!

In 1862, a sixty-five day downpour pummeled the western United States. California suffered the brunt of the storm. Almost a third of the state was under water, roads were impassible, telegraph lines down, rivers overflowed, hundreds of people died, and hundreds of thousands of animals drowned. Sacramento remained under water for six months, forcing the state government to move to San Francisco.

Geological evidence shows that a flood of this magnitude hits California every one to two hundred years.

What if it happens again?

I took a break from Steve and his friends to write a disaster story. This one's a corker. I didn't know I could imagine such mayhem.

For Steve Dancy fans, I have started Coronado, A Steve Dancy Tale and it should be available before the end of the year.

Back to Deluge. Greg Evarts and Patricia Baldwin are back from The Shut Mouth Society. The stories are unrelated, so Deluge is not a sequel. The novels just shares the same cast and locale. The characters have changed, of course. Greg is now chief of police in Santa Barbara. Patricia is still a history professor, but has transferred from UCLA to UCSB. When the sky falls on California, our two heroes must once again save the day. There's rain, inept and ept politicians, murading street gangs, cage fighters, spies, and collapsed dams that send mountains of rolling water toward everything we hold dear.

Deluge will be available in print and Kindle formats on June 4th. Happy reading.

Can a 150-year-old conspiracy be unraveled before it’s too late?