Tom Vater's Posts - CrimeSpace2024-03-29T16:03:10ZTom Vaterhttp://crimespace.ning.com/profile/TomVaterhttp://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/60997942?profile=RESIZE_48X48&width=48&height=48&crop=1%3A1http://crimespace.ning.com/profiles/blog/feed?user=2kndhr52takjz&xn_auth=noReview: Ghost Money by Andrew Nettetag:crimespace.ning.com,2012-12-03:537324:BlogPost:3616842012-12-03T07:00:00.000ZTom Vaterhttp://crimespace.ning.com/profile/TomVater
<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/70762129?profile=original" target="_self"><img class="align-full" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/70762129?profile=original" width="177"></img></a></p>
<p>Max Quinlan is a PI on the trail of a shady Australian businessman who’s gone to ground in Southeast Asia. Quinlan, a half Vietnamese, half Australian ex-cop, has only recently taken up the detective mantle but he quickly becomes embroiled in post-war shenanigans in a 1996 Phnom Penh that is populated by shady characters, both foreign and local. He teams up with a…</p>
<p><a target="_self" href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/70762129?profile=original"><img class="align-full" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/70762129?profile=original" width="177"/></a></p>
<p>Max Quinlan is a PI on the trail of a shady Australian businessman who’s gone to ground in Southeast Asia. Quinlan, a half Vietnamese, half Australian ex-cop, has only recently taken up the detective mantle but he quickly becomes embroiled in post-war shenanigans in a 1996 Phnom Penh that is populated by shady characters, both foreign and local. He teams up with a Cambodian journalist and trawls back in time, through the UNTAC years, the long civil war, the Vietnamese liberation, the Khmer Rouge genocide and the Killing Fields.</p>
<p>Quinlan is a contradictory guy, an ex-copper who blushes when spoken to by an Asian woman but can’t get his clothes off quick enough with a girl from Central America. He is in almost-denial of his Asian heritage and he absorbs Cambodia’s tragic history from a number of sources like a sponge without ever falling into the cynicism one might expect from his kind.</p>
<p>There is plenty of action, especially in the second half of the book, as Quinlan edges closer to Cambodia’s heart of darkness, the nexus between a beleaguered Khmer Rouge and shameless foreign businessmen – the last game in town, in this instance Pailin, a Khmer Rouge hold-out near the Thai border, an independent economic zone that finances itself by selling gem stones and offering every vice known to man, precisely the kind of thing the Cambodian revolution had tried to eradicate only a couple of decades earlier.</p>
<p>Writing a crime novel set in this sad and violent Cambodia without delving into the country’s extreme history is impossible. Nette knows his shit when it comes to the bloody convolutions of the Southeast Asian kingdom and spins a gripping yarn of greed and madness in the late 20<sup>th</sup> century. While feeding the reader with the horrors of our time, he also finds the space to skillfully reward us with the conventions of the genre – memorable femmes fatales, effective bad guys, and not just one, fast action and lively dialogue. Quinlan, our man in Cambodia, beaten and pushed, cornered and outgunned, takes it all in his stride, ready, for a sequel to <strong>Ghost Money</strong>, apparently.</p>Review: Ghost Money by Andrew Nettetag:crimespace.ning.com,2012-12-03:537324:BlogPost:3616372012-12-03T07:00:00.000ZTom Vaterhttp://crimespace.ning.com/profile/TomVater
<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/70762129?profile=original" target="_self"><img class="align-full" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/70762129?profile=original" width="177"></img></a></p>
<p>Max Quinlan is a PI on the trail of a shady Australian businessman who’s gone to ground in Southeast Asia. Quinlan, a half Vietnamese, half Australian ex-cop, has only recently taken up the detective mantle but he quickly becomes embroiled in post-war shenanigans in a 1996 Phnom Penh that is populated by shady characters, both foreign and local. He teams up with a…</p>
<p><a target="_self" href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/70762129?profile=original"><img class="align-full" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/70762129?profile=original" width="177"/></a></p>
<p>Max Quinlan is a PI on the trail of a shady Australian businessman who’s gone to ground in Southeast Asia. Quinlan, a half Vietnamese, half Australian ex-cop, has only recently taken up the detective mantle but he quickly becomes embroiled in post-war shenanigans in a 1996 Phnom Penh that is populated by shady characters, both foreign and local. He teams up with a Cambodian journalist and trawls back in time, through the UNTAC years, the long civil war, the Vietnamese liberation, the Khmer Rouge genocide and the Killing Fields.</p>
<p>Quinlan is a contradictory guy, an ex-copper who blushes when spoken to by an Asian woman but can’t get his clothes off quick enough with a girl from Central America. He is in almost-denial of his Asian heritage and he absorbs Cambodia’s tragic history from a number of sources like a sponge without ever falling into the cynicism one might expect from his kind.</p>
<p>There is plenty of action, especially in the second half of the book, as Quinlan edges closer to Cambodia’s heart of darkness, the nexus between a beleaguered Khmer Rouge and shameless foreign businessmen – the last game in town, in this instance Pailin, a Khmer Rouge hold-out near the Thai border, an independent economic zone that finances itself by selling gem stones and offering every vice known to man, precisely the kind of thing the Cambodian revolution had tried to eradicate only a couple of decades earlier.</p>
<p>Writing a crime novel set in this sad and violent Cambodia without delving into the country’s extreme history is impossible. Nette knows his shit when it comes to the bloody convolutions of the Southeast Asian kingdom and spins a gripping yarn of greed and madness in the late 20<sup>th</sup> century. While feeding the reader with the horrors of our time, he also finds the space to skillfully reward us with the conventions of the genre – memorable femmes fatales, effective bad guys, and not just one, fast action and lively dialogue. Quinlan, our man in Cambodia, beaten and pushed, cornered and outgunned, takes it all in his stride, ready, for a sequel to <strong>Ghost Money</strong>, apparently.</p>Review: The Underground by Lawrence McMorrowtag:crimespace.ning.com,2012-12-02:537324:BlogPost:3617732012-12-02T07:28:24.000ZTom Vaterhttp://crimespace.ning.com/profile/TomVater
<p> <a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/70762037?profile=original" target="_self"><img class="align-full" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/70762037?profile=original" width="300"></img></a></p>
<p>Late 1940s America, a world in which deserving has little to do with what you get, and the Irish immigrant Maura arrives as an almost-rebel. Despite her Catholic background, she has lost her virginity on the boat to the New World and, upon arrival in the US, she falls in love with Frank and gets pregnant. Frank is no ordinary man, he is a communist, and, at the height…</p>
<p> <a target="_self" href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/70762037?profile=original"><img class="align-full" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/70762037?profile=original" width="300"/></a></p>
<p>Late 1940s America, a world in which deserving has little to do with what you get, and the Irish immigrant Maura arrives as an almost-rebel. Despite her Catholic background, she has lost her virginity on the boat to the New World and, upon arrival in the US, she falls in love with Frank and gets pregnant. Frank is no ordinary man, he is a communist, and, at the height of the Cold War, he is hounded and persecuted by the police and the FBI. Frank suggests Maura become a sleeper for the revolution and disappear into small town America until the time is right. Maura forfeits her lucrative teaching job, changes her name and starts working in a small town diner. She is hardly an ideologist or a fighter for the cause. Most likely it is boredom and her attraction to Frank that has driven her into what was then and would be now radical politics in the US. In small town America she meets John, an FBI agent who is out to hunt people like Frank. She also meets Gus, a trainee lawyer who helps her find an apartment and who, it turns out, is a comrade. Maura’s Underground becomes crowded very quickly.</p>
<p>What’s interesting about <a title="The Underground by Lawrence McMorrow" href="http://www.amazon.com/The-Underground-Laurence-McMorrow/dp/1780033885" target="_blank">The Underground</a> is the Noirish, uncertain character of Maura. Throughout this short novel, she is indecisive, blown this way and that by politics and love, by a need to be with somebody, anybody perhaps. Ironically and unusually, it is this fatalism that makes her captivating, because it makes for an unpredictable narrative.</p>
<p>The paranoia of late 1940s America, the demonization of left-wing politics and the quasi-fascist pursuit of dissenters to the American Dream form the backdrop to Maura’s lost journey. The language is understated and the plotting is smooth and nothing much actually happens. As the tale of secrecy and betrayal progresses, Maura gets more and more mired in the conflicting demands of the men in her life in this slow motion race to the bottom.</p>
<p>A quiet and intriguing debut by Irish writer McMorrow.</p>Mindfulness and Murder by Nick Wilgus, the fourth Crime Wave Press title, is out now!!!tag:crimespace.ning.com,2012-10-30:537324:BlogPost:3593192012-10-30T16:51:09.000ZTom Vaterhttp://crimespace.ning.com/profile/TomVater
<p>W<a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/70761802?profile=original" target="_self"><img class="align-left" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/70761802?profile=original" width="97"></img></a> hen a homeless boy living at the youth shelter run by a Buddhist monastery turns up dead, the abbot recruits Father Ananda, a monk and former police officer, to find out why. He discovers that all is not well at this urban monastery in the heart of Bangkok. Together with his dogged assistant, an orphaned boy named Jak, Father Ananda uncovers a startling series of clues that…</p>
<p>W<a target="_self" href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/70761802?profile=original"><img class="align-left" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/70761802?profile=original" width="97"/></a>hen a homeless boy living at the youth shelter run by a Buddhist monastery turns up dead, the abbot recruits Father Ananda, a monk and former police officer, to find out why. He discovers that all is not well at this urban monastery in the heart of Bangkok. Together with his dogged assistant, an orphaned boy named Jak, Father Ananda uncovers a startling series of clues that eventually expose the motivation behind the crime and lead him to the murderers. "Mindfulness and Murder" is the first in the Father Ananda murder-mystery series.</p>
<p>An award-winning movie based on <b>Mindfulness and Murder</b> was released in 2011 by DeWarenne Pictures in Bangkok and nominated for Best Screenplay by the Thailand National Films Awards 2012.</p>
<p><b>Press:</b></p>
<p>"A gripping read peppered with fascinating insights into the day to day life of a Buddhist monk. Nick Wilgus's Mindfulness and Murder puts a new spin on an old genre." – <b>Untamed Travel Magazine</b> <br/> <br/> "Wilgus ... has a good fix on temple boys, the precepts of Buddhism, the jaundiced eye with which the populace regards the constulabary, the vendors, the weather, the air pollution." – <b>The Bangkok Post</b></p>
<p><b>Published by Crime Wave Press</b> (<a href="http://www.crimewavepress.com">www.crimewavepress.com</a>), a Hong Kong based crime fiction imprint. <b><br/></b></p>
<p><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Mindfulness-and-Murder-ebook/dp/B009SMJ65Q/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1351615760&sr=8-2&keywords=Mindfulness+and+Murder">http://www.amazon.com/Mindfulness-and-Murder-ebook/dp/B009SMJ65Q/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1351615760&sr=8-2&keywords=Mindfulness+and+Murder</a></p>The Devil's Road to Kathamandu on amazon worldwidetag:crimespace.ning.com,2012-07-15:537324:BlogPost:3490302012-07-15T06:12:08.000ZTom Vaterhttp://crimespace.ning.com/profile/TomVater
<p><a target="_self" href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/70761035?profile=original"><img class="align-full" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/70761035?profile=original" width="600"/></a></p>
<p><a target="_self" href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/70761035?profile=original"><img class="align-full" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/70761035?profile=original" width="600"/></a></p>The Devil's Road to Kathmandu now a Kindle eBooktag:crimespace.ning.com,2012-07-03:537324:BlogPost:3483692012-07-03T09:31:12.000ZTom Vaterhttp://crimespace.ning.com/profile/TomVater
<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/70761108?profile=original" target="_self"><img class="align-left" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/70761108?profile=RESIZE_320x320" width="200"></img></a></p>
<p>My first novel, <strong>The Devil's Road to Kathmandu</strong>, was published by short-lived imprint Dragon's Mouth Press in Hong Kong in 2006 and garnered some great reviews in the regional press at the time. The Bangkok Post called it a better backpacker novel than The Beach.</p>
<p>Now, The Devil's Road to Kathmandu has been republished by…</p>
<p><a target="_self" href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/70761108?profile=original"><img width="200" class="align-left" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/70761108?profile=RESIZE_320x320" width="200"/></a></p>
<p>My first novel, <strong>The Devil's Road to Kathmandu</strong>, was published by short-lived imprint Dragon's Mouth Press in Hong Kong in 2006 and garnered some great reviews in the regional press at the time. The Bangkok Post called it a better backpacker novel than The Beach.</p>
<p>Now, The Devil's Road to Kathmandu has been republished by <a href="http://www.crimewavepress.com" target="_blank">Crime Wave Press</a> as a Kindle ebook and has just garnered a first 5-Star review on amazon UK:</p>
<p><a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B008E71INO" target="_blank">The Devil's Road to Kathmandu on amazon UK</a></p>
<p></p>
<p><strong>About the book:</strong></p>
<p>In 1976, four friends, Dan, Fred, Tim and Thierry, drive a bus along the hippy trail from London to Kathmandu. En Route in Pakistan, a drug deal goes badly wrong, yet the boys escape with their lives and the narcotics. Thousands of kilometers, numerous acid trips, accidents, nightclubs and a pair of beautiful Siamese twins later, as they finally reach the counter-culture capital of the world, Kathmandu, Fred disappears with the drug money.<br/> <br/> A quarter century later, after receiving mysterious emails inviting them to pick up their share of the money, Dan, Tim and Thierry are back in Kathmandu. The Nepalese capital is not the blissful mountain backwater they remember. Soon a trail of kidnapping and murder leads across the Roof of the World. With the help of Dan’s backpacking son, a tattooed lady and a Buddhist angel, the ageing hippies try to solve a 25-year old mystery that leads them amongst Himalayan peaks for a dramatic showdown with their past.</p>