You're Booked

http://www.harrogate-festival.org.uk/yourebooked/

You're Booked is the new website brought to us by the lovely folk behind the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival (Harrogate), and is a superb resource for crime readers and writers alike. Take a look see via the link.

Freebie E-Book: WATCHLIST

Here’s an ITW holiday gift – a free ebook!

Download a free copy of ITW’s latest thriller Watchlist – a killer collaboration between 22 authors including Jeffery Deaver, Lee Child, Joe Finder, Lisa Scottoline, David Hewson, David Liss and more.

USA Today said: “Entertaining and intriguing....the action is full-boil.”

PW (Publishers Weekly) gave it a starred review and said: “A suspenseful, action-packed international thriller filled with plenty of twists and turns.” 

To get your free ebook sign up at Peroozal.com – where recommendations from authors guide readers to great books.



Note: neither ITW or I, Matt Hilton, have any connection to Peroozal.com

Slash and Burn gets the Bury treatment

It was really nice to see that Slash and Burn (Joe Hunter 3) made it to the list of Col Bury's crime fiction choices. Some people might point out that Col has become a good writing buddy of mine - and he has - but he is also truthful and insightful in his book reviews, and has always delivered reviews of my work unsolicited. I really appreciate it, man. I'd also like to say a huge thanks to those who left comments, and for the great feedback and support the writers of the blogosphere have given me (both at Col's blog and elsewhere).

To read Col's crime fiction choices, double digit here:


http://colburysnewcrimefiction.blogspot.com

Off My Bookshelf

At this time of year, many people out in the blogosphere start making their 'best of' lists, and often the books that make the lists are dominated by the big hitters. My reading this year has primarily been dominated by authors that I admire, alongside authors that I have grown to admire in a very short period.

I'm a huge fan of John Connolly, Robert Crais, Jack (J.A.) Kerley, Dean Koontz etc, and will read and enjoy their books every time, as do many thousands of others, therefore when thinking about the best books I've read this year, I decided to go with the books that might not have been spotted by everyone yet and give these lesser known authors a nudge up the ladder (hopefully).

So in no particular order and without further ado:

Books I'd recommend to you the reader are...

Free Country by Jeremy Duns
Spy thriller

Deadlock by Sean Black
Crime thriller

The Interrogator by J J Cooper
Spy/military thriller

The Twelve by Stuart Neville
crime thriller/supernatural

Nightfall by Stephen Leather
Crime thriller/supernatural

Switch by Grant McKenzie
Crime thriller

Red Station by Adrian Magson
Spy thriller

Mr Shivers by Robert Jackson Bennett
Supernatural thriller

These are my stand out choices of the books I've read this year (off the bookshelves). I've also had the honour of reading a few books in manuscript form - including Thorn in my Side by Sheila Quigley, Revenge School by Myles Knapp, Dead Beat by Remy Porter, and these are all books I would recommend to anyone.

I hope you decide to pick up a couple of these books (remember that Christmas is coming and books make ideal presents), as well as hope you continue to pick up my Joe Hunter series.

Happy reading, and I hope you enjoy them as much as I did.

Matt

Triple the thrills

As many of you know, I'm a proud member of International Thriller Writers and attend Thrillerfest in New York as often as I can.

The ITW, without doubt, represents the best 'thriller authors and books' around, and is growing all the time. Recently it has become necessary for them to expand their platform, and predominantly this has taken form in the shape of developing their existing website to three new ones.

You can now keep up to date with all the news about your favourite writers and their projects at these fresh new sites:
http://www.thrillerwriters.org/

http://www.thrillerfest.com/

http://www.thebigthrill.org/

A real drama!

If you would like to listen in to the radio interview I took part in last night with John Raab at Suspense Radio, click here: http://www.blogtalkradio.com/suspensemagazine

The show runs for an hour and I follow thriller author Joseph Badal and I had a great time, after a fraught day.

Murphy's law struck for me. After living in my current house for thirteen years with the same landline and no problems whatsoever, my phone decided to pack in hours before I was due to go live on air in California.

My attempts at making things right failed miserably, as did my telephone service provider. Now then, living in a very rural area my mobile phone is as much good as an ornament sitting on my desk beside me, so I could not use it either. That meant a forty mile round trip to the nearest town to purchase a new phone, but on my return it was as useless as the phone I already had. Hence the fault was in the cabling. Every effort to strip back to basics didn't help, and by now time was rushing in on me.

Thankfully, some neighbours jumped to my rescue and offered their phone for my use...remember this was at 02.30 in the morning UK time. I am indebted to Mike and Sandy and thank them profusely for opening their home to me at that ungodly hour. It goes to show that there are good people in the world who are willing to help when the chips are down (ala Joe Hunter?). So, if I sound less than lucid or a bit distracted during the interview, now you know the story. And the end of the story: my landline's still broken, my mobile reception is still pooh, and when I do finally get through, I can't get to speak to a real person at my service provider exchange.

Anyway, hope you enjoy the interview. After everything was said and done I had a good time and John Raab was a real gent and top interviewer. Thanks John.

Suspense Magazine radio show

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/suspensemagazine

For those night birds among you out there, I will be appearing on Suspense Magazine's radio show at 02:00 am this coming Saturday morning (20th November) GMT, speaking with Host John Raab. The show goes out from Los Angeles where it will be 18:00 (6 pm) on Friday 19th - I know, it's the weird vageries of time zones - and it's live. So, having come home from the pub and caught a late night movie, you might want to listen in via the link above. If you miss it, don't worry, the interview will be cached and can be accessed at a later date and time via the same link. In fact, if you go there now, you can hear some great prerecorded interviews with some of the top authors in the fields of crime, mystery, suspense and thriller books.

A Fringe, A Cut and A Run: Sounds like making off without paying your hairdresser but it isn't!

http://thefringemagazine.blogspot.com/2010/11/book-review-cut-and-run-by-matt-hilton.html

The Fringe Magazine is an online magazine (based in Australia) dedicated to books and short stories of any genre. It also has book reviews, and they kindly reviewed CUT AND RUN this time round. Thanks folks.

The end is nigh...or is it? Nah! For Joe Hunter it's all steam ahead.

Something just struck me hard!

No it wasn't a phantom missile launched from a nuclear submarine off the Californian coast (anyone been following the news?) but the realisation that it's the second week of November already. Not only that but it's the second week of November 2010. We are only a few weeks away from the cusp of 2011. Can anyone believe it? It seems like no time since we were all anticipating the New Millenium, and all the doomsday stories were doing the rounds. Remember the Millenium Bug that was supposed to crash all of our computers, revert us back to the end of the nineteenth century or even the dark ages, or cause a chain reaction that would annihilate the entire world in a thermo-nuclear holocaust?

Now that the Noughties are about to end, and we enter the Teenies it brings to my mind the new doomsday prophesies (OK, they're not new if you ask a Mayan) and that the world will end in just over two years time in December 2012. Blooming typical, isn't it? I wait all these years to achieve my dream as a published author and then the world is going to come to a cataclysmical ending!

Not that I buy into the stories, mind you.

But just in case there is any truth in it, I'd better get a move on with my writing because (here's the real reason for this post), I can now announce that Joe Hunter will continue and I have agreed  to deliver books 8 and 9 in the series to my UK publisher, Hodder and Stoughton.

I am over the moon at the prospect, and I hope that you, my readers, are too.

So, between now and doomsday you can watch out for the upcoming Blood and Ashes (JH 5), Dead Men's Harvest (JH 6) and No Going Back (JH 7 - working title), and - hoping those Mayans were just blowing hot air - books eight and nine shortly afterwards.

Oh, and there's also good news for my followers over in the USA: my publisher there - the esteemed William Morrow and Company - have picked up Cut and Run and will be following the current three book run as well.

So, you can count on Joe for many more adventures to come, and nothing short of a direct nuclear strike will stop me from bringing his tales to the page.

Now...where did that mysterious missile go? Uh...

I'm chuffed!

Hey! I'm chuffed to be named author of the week at Tararua District Library over in New Zealand. Thanks you kind folks!!
http://tararualibrary.wordpress.com/2010/11/09/author-of-the-week-8-november-%E2%80%93-14-november/

Out Today - Das Blut Gericht - Joe Hunter 2

DAS BLUT GERICHT (The Blood Court), the German edition of Judgement and Wrath is out today from Heyne and can be ordered here: http://www.amazon.de/exec/obidos/ASIN/3453435176/verlagsgruppe-21/

I've just received copies of the book in the German translation (by Stefan Rohmig) and think the covers look awesome - I'm sure I've mentioned this before, but actually seeing them in the flesh they look even better - supremely Gothic looking.

The Fluffy Navel Lives!! (AKA 'Can you tell what it is yet?')

Upkeeping my blog has been on the backburner for a few weeks now and I apologise to those of you who keep tuning in to find out what I've been up to recently, or to read my take on the writing game. It's not that I haven't anything to say, just that 'real life' has caught up with me and certain tasks that I've put off (for way too long) have demanded attention. For the past fortnight I've been giving the house a long over due make over.
So here's the thing:
Why is it I loathe wielding a paintbrush and roller during household chores when - if I was facing a blank canvas - I'd relish the task of creating a painting? I love painting pictures, and can quite easily lose a few hours slapping colours onto canvas (see the art tab above for some of my creations), though I don't get the opportunity to do so these days. I guess it's the mundaneness of painting a wall that turns me off, the same as I couldn't write a mundane book - althought that's debateable concerning the opinions of some of my detractors ;-)
No, I love the vibrancy and viceral feeling I get from writing high-octane action, the same as I do when daubing paint onto canvas ala Bob Ross style. Painting a wall a uniform colour just doesn't give me the same experience. I suppose that means I'm a colourful writer? I'd agree with that. But is there also uniformity in my writing? I believe there is, and it's important in my opinion that it is there.
Uniformity in my case is that we have ongoing characters and situations - Joe Hunter, Rink, Harvey etc versus some ultra bad guy/guys to overcome. It's kind of expected in a sense, that readers of Joe's adventures know exactly what they are going to get but with a twist. Uniformity in this case is like a pallet of colours: red, yellow, blue, black and white. They are the only colours (or shades if you take the latter two), but they have infinite connotations when mixed. That's what I try to achieve with my writing, that I take the uniform 'colours', mix them all up and see what creations I can form from them. The options are endless, I think, but always in the background there will be the base hues. Therefore, although we feel like we recognise the basic building blocks - the style if you like - there are always new ways of delivering the end product. Usually, in my case, it's the 'happy little accidents' that make all the difference.
I read a review of Vince Flynn's latest book where it was said that the story was treading on old ground. I think this is unavoidable when writing a series following ongoing characters, but, though I haven't read the book yet, I'm pretty sure that Vince has done a great job of delivering something new and fresh as well. We all want to read and learn something new, but we also love the familiarity of a much loved ongoing character. We pick up books in an ongoing series with a certain sense of expectancy after all, and without those base colours that we've come to recognise and absorb they just wouldn't deliver the same.To coin a very overused phrase, we expect that the next book in a series 'does exactly what it says on the tin'.
Pity my 'one coat paint' didn't live up to the same promise.