Guest Author Bobby Nash of Bethlehem, Georgia.

He’s back!

The Scribbler has the pleasure of hosting Mr. Nash previously when he shared an excerpt from Alexandra Holzer’s Ghost Gal: The Wild Hunt. If you missed Bobby’s first visit, please follow this LINK. We’re happy to have him return for a 4Q Interview and an excerpt from his latest work.

An award-winning author, Bobby Nash writes novels, comic books, short stories, novellas, graphic novels, and the occasional screenplay for a variety of publishers. Bobby is a member of the International Association of Media Tie-in Writers and International Thriller Writers. On occasion, Bobby appears in movies and TV shows, usually standing behind your favorite actor.


He was named Best Author in the 2013 Pulp Ark Awards. Rick Ruby, a character co-created by Bobby & Sean Taylor also snagged Best New Pulp Character of 2013. Bobby has been nominated for the 2014 New Pulp Awards and Pulp Factory Awards for his work. Bobby's novel, Alexandra Holzer's Ghost Gal: The Wild Hunt won a Paranormal Literary Award in the 2015 Paranormal Awards. The Bobby Nash penned episode of Starship Farragut "Conspiracy of Innocence" won the Silver Award in the 2015 DC Film Festival. Bobby's novel, Snow Drive was nominated for Best Novel in the 2018 Pulp Factory Awards. Bobby's story in The Ruby Files Vol. 2 "Takedown" won the 2018 Pulp Factory Award for Best Short Story.


For more information on Bobby Nash please visit him at www.bobbynash.com, www.ben-books.com, and across social media.

4Q: Many of your stories fit into the horror genre. What draws you to these kind of stories?

BN: I love thrillers. There’s something exciting about feeling that tingle on the back of your neck or that creepy feeling going up your spine while reading a thriller that gets the blood pumping. As a writer, if I can evoke those kind of feelings in my readers without the atmospheric music or mood lighting, I an a happy writer.

4Q: You’ve co-written several novels with Chuck Miller. Tell us about that experience.

BN: Not really. Chuck and I have never co-written anything together. He and I both have a story in The Avenger Double Feature. We did not collaborate on the writing of the book, but we did work together to promote it, did some podcasts together, that sort of thing.

4Q: Please share a childhood anecdote or memory.

BN: For a time, my mom was a stay at home mom. My brother was two years old at the time. I was at school. My dad was at work. Mom went to wash some dishes and looked out the window over the sink and saw a monkey standing on the wooden fence that separated our front yard from our back yard. Suffice to say, this confused her as we did not own a monkey.

Calls to animal control, the police, etc. yielded no results. None of them believed my parents when they called, assuming it was a prank. So, for two weeks in 1982, I had a monkey living in my back yard. To our parent’s frustration, I, and the other local neighborhood kids, played with it, fed it, and generally had a ball knowing we had a monkey.

Eventually, my parents called a local news channel. They did a story on the monkey living in our back yard. Suddenly, animal control and the police took the report seriously and swarmed into the neighborhood like stormtroopers, terrifying the monkey, which led them on a merry chase. The irony is, any of us kids could have walked the monkey right to them, but they chose another way. Sadly, the scare tactics works and the monkey bit someone and was then killed. It wasn’t rabid, thankfully, but we learned after the fact that it had been pregnant, which made it even more tragic. The prevailing theory was that it had been a pet someone had let loose in the wild. That has never been confirmed, but it makes as good of a theory as anything else.

4Q: When we visit your website, there is an invitation to support your writing by visiting Patreon. Tell us about this.

BN: Patreon is a site where patrons of the arts can support their favorite creators with a monthly donation to help them continue creating. The creators offer up specials for their patrons as well. My patrons who pledge $5 or more are enrolled in the ebook of the month club. They get one of my books each month, plus patrons get new books as they release in ebook form. Some months, it’s one book. Others, it’s four or five. I also run a weekly serialized novel as a patreon exclusive. Patrons get a chapter each week. When it’s finished, they will get the ebook also and then it will be put on sale to the general public. They also get sneak peeks at upcoming projects, behind the scenes info, giveaways, and discounts on books. In return, the little bit of money helps me buy books, go to conventions, or maybe pay a bill here or there. I have patron tiers at $1, $3, $5, $10, and $20, or patrons can choose a custom amount. You can learn more about my Patreon page at www.patreon.com/bobbynash

4Q: Anything else you’d like to mention?

BN: I appreciate everyone who has visited me on social media, patreon, at conventions, visited my websites, bought and/or read my books, and left reviews. It is appreciated.

My small press imprint, BEN Books recently got a new website. You can visit the new BEN Books at www.ben-books.com for news and updates. There are several BEN Books releases coming in 2019, including collections of my older stories.

You can learn about all of my upcoming books at www.bobbynash.com and/or sign up for my monthly NASH NEWS email newsletter at www.subscribepage.com/NashNews.

SNOW FALLS EXCERPT

Written by Bobby Nash


(copyright held by author - used with permission) 

Abraham Snow knew he was about to die--

--and the thought of it pissed him off to no end.

Everything had been going according to plan.

Before it all went to hell, everything was moving forward as laid out. The meet was set. All of the details had been checked and rechecked. Every i had been dotted, every t crossed. It had taken him years to get this far inside, but he was finally getting a face to face with Miguel Ortega. The man was a ghost, a legend. Ortega was a phantom that law enforcement operatives all over the world had been chasing for decades. No one had even come close to catching the elusive Miguel Ortega despite the fact that he was rumored to have his hands in everything from the drug trade to arms dealings and human trafficking to murder for hire. There was a good reason for this, however, and Agent Snow was one of a select few people alive that knew the truth.

Miguel Ortega was an alias.

It was a code name frequently used by less than reputable men and women who preferred to remain anonymous while keeping their questionable business dealings close to the vest. This alias provided the Ortega’s of the world with a sense of security. Snow had finally made it past the middlemen and low-level goons inside the organization belonging to the Miguel Ortega he was after.

That’s how Abraham Snow, in his alias as James Shepperd, found himself standing on the blisteringly hot tarmac of a tiny smuggler’s airfield in the middle of a South American jungle in a suit, sans tie, standing next to a beautiful woman named Daniella Cordoza. She was Ortega’s right hand and was as dangerous as she was alluring in her formfitting custom dress. They both stood out of place against the jungle backdrop. Snow didn’t trust her, but he needed Cordoza to get to her employer.

One minute everything was going according to plan.

The next-- well, the next minute was not so good. Time moved as though it was trapped in amber. The man in the white suit was all smiles as they walked to meet one another across the airstrip’s tarmac. Snow was finally getting his face to face. It was the first step in the final chapter of his undercover operation.

“Agent Snow.” the man said once he was within earshot.

It took half a second to realize what he had said. Snow did a double take. Ortega had called him by his real name, Abraham Snow, not the James Shepperd alias he had been working under the past eighteen months. How the hell does he know my name?

“I think you’ve got me mixed up with someone else, Mr. Ortega. My name is…” Snow started, but it was no use. He could tell by the man’s demeanor that there would be no fast-talking his way out of this one.

His cover was blown.

Somehow, someway, someone had sold him out. The list of possible rats was small. Only a handful of people knew his true identity and most of them he had known and trusted for years. His mind raced through the possible scenarios-- a leak inside the Pentagon or the CIA, a compromised asset, or a mistake he’d made himself, a slip up that had given him away. Each of these played across his mind in less time than it took to realize how deep in the shit he was at that moment.

He was all alone.

There was no backup close by, no one to swoop in and save the day.

Snow reached for the gun tucked into his belt behind his back.

Ortega moved faster.

Still smiling, he pulled the Glock-30 from a shoulder holster and squeezed the trigger. 

Snow felt the first impact, but it wasn’t until the second that he realized he had been shot. The next thing he knew, he was knocked off his feet, flying backward through the air. Snow dropped to the asphalt, unmoving, blood leaking out of two very large holes in his body. A tingling sensation in his extremities told him that the blood loss was substantial. Despite the humid clime, he felt a chill run through him.

He was dying.

Ortega had only fired three shots. The first clipped Agent Snow’s arm, spinning him around. The second missed completely. The third hit its mark, center mass.

Snow stared up into a brilliant blue sky punctuated with a few fluffy white clouds as blood pooled beneath him. Above him, Ortega and his companion stood and looked down at him. He was smiling, but she wasn’t. That surprised him. Although they had been intimate with one another, neither of them had pretended it was anything more than a physical convenience. For him, she had simply been another asset to get him closer to his target.

Mission accomplished.

He had found Ortega.

Surprisingly, he didn’t finish the job. After a moment, Miguel Ortega shook his head, turned and walked away, out of Snow’s line of sight, presumably back to his plane. Daniella Cordoza stayed a moment longer and he thought he saw sadness in her eyes, although he couldn’t be sure of anything as he lay there gasping for air.

And then she was gone.

He assumed she had a plane to catch.

Snow’s vision grayed around the edges as he struggled to catch his breath. Then, surprisingly, followed the sensation of flight, as if gravity no longer held sway over him. Trees and clouds flashed past his vision at dizzying speeds until gravity re
asserted itself and he crashed back to Earth.

And just like that it was all over.

All that remained was darkness--

--and pain.

© 2019 Bobby Nash and BEN Books

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Thank you Bobby for being our guest once more. Good luck with all your writing.

My pleasure. Thanks for having me.

Bobby

Guest Author Angela Wren of the UK.

Like Mysterys? I do too!

So this week, we are pleased to have Angela Wren as our guest. She has kindly agreed to a 4Q Interview and is sharing a brief extract from Montbel.

Having followed a career in Project and Business Change Management, I now work as an Actor and Director at a local theatre. I’ve been writing, in a serious way, since 2010. My work in project management has always involved drafting, so writing, in its various forms, has been a significant feature throughout my adult life.

I particularly enjoy the challenge of plotting and planning different genres of work. My short stories vary between contemporary romance, memoir, mystery and historical. I also write comic flash-fiction and have drafted two one-act plays that have been recorded for local radio. The majority of my stories are set in France where I like to spend as much time as possible each year.

4Q: We met on Susan Toy’s recommendation page and as a result I have ordered the first novel in your Detective Jacques Forêt series, Messandrierre. I was intrigued by the subject matter and look forward to reading it. Tell us about your detective.

AW: Thank you and I hope you enjoy the story. Jacques is a really great guy. He began his police career in the Judiciaire (the equivalent of Scotland Yard in London) in Paris and quickly became an Inspecteur Principal (in the British police that would be the rank of Detective Inspector). But, while working on a particular case he was injured, and it took him some time to recover from the wound. It also caused him to re-assess his life and his priorities. After talking to his boss, he secured a post in the rural gendarmerie, moved to the Cévennes in south-central France and that's the location for Messandrierre.

Jacques is intelligent, he loves puzzles, and he is steely and determined. He always gets the baddies, and he does that through honest hard work and carefully following the evidence. He can be a bit of a maverick, though, if feels he needs to be and that it will deliver the desired result.

He has his flaws, too, as we all do. You'll never find him taking a lift as he always uses the stairs. He also has a grudging acceptance of computers and technology, but he recognises the usefulness of such aids. He's always very fair and honest in his dealings with the villagers in Messandrierre, and can be relied upon when one of the local farmers needs a helping hand… and the rest; I'll let you find out for yourself, Allan.

*** Since the interview was prepared by Angela and myself, I did receive Messandrierre and read it. A terrific story. 

4Q: I compliment you on your cover choices. Please tell us about their development.

Photo by Angela Wren

AW: Thanks, I absolutely love them too. My publisher, Crooked Cat, did the artwork. We had an exchange of emails about the look and feel of the covers. I was very keen that we tried to capture the loneliness and silence of that part of France. It is an upland area, and the actual village that I use as my model for my fictional village of Messandrierre sits at around a 1000m above sea-level. The landscape is pear-green in spring and jewelled by clumps of genêt; it gets parched by the scorching summer sun, the acres of trees become a rich tapestry of red, gold and brown in autumn and in winter, if the wind is from the east, the snow can come early and stay late.

Because of the geography, the towns and villages are small and sparse. The city of Mende, despite being the préfecture for the département of Lozère, only has a population of around 13,000. By comparison, Leeds in Yorkshire, is a town of equal importance and has a population of 780,000. In the books, I try to convey that smallness along with the impact of the geography on the ordinary people who live there. So, my characters have to endure the changeable, and sometimes challenging, weather. And, it was an overnight change in the weather that sparked the initial idea for the whole series of books. On September 27^th, 2007 I woke up to snow and a stunningly beautiful landscape covered in a glistening white blanket. Shortly afterwards, my thoughts turned to murder and how easy it would be to hide one's misdeeds with snow.

All of this was also conveyed to my publisher through our e-discussions, and I sent them some photos too so that they could get a real feel for the area. About four months later I opened an email and saw the cover of Messandrierre for the first time, and I was bowled over with delight. I even cried… but just a bit.

4Q: Please share a childhood memory or anecdote.

AW: I suppose one of my most enduring memories is of being taken to Foyles bookstore on Charing Cross Road in London by my Dad. I was about 4, and I was told that I could choose a book for myself. I remember being completely over-awed by the acres and acres of shelves and books. I did eventually make a selection, and that little rag book went with me everywhere for some considerable time afterwards. It was so frequently read that my Mum used to put it in the washing machine and iron it for me! Sadly, I no longer have it so, if I didn't read it to destruction, then the washing machine must have done the job instead. However, that visit to Foyles, set me on the path of becoming a collector and my house is full of shelves which in turn are full of books and I can happily spend hour after hour in bookstores.

4Q: Tells us about your favorite authors and inspirations.

AW: Wow! That's a really big question and who do I choose? I guess I have to start with the brothers Grimm, Perrault and Anderson. I loved fairy tales as a child, and I still do. I even write them occasionally. Shakespeare has to be on my list too. I've been reading, learning and reciting him since I was six years old. At one point I even decided I was going to be Shakespeare when I grew up! I'm still working on that one. At about 12/13, I discovered Agatha Christie, and then I read everything she had written including her short stories. I still re-read her books from time to time. Dickens, Wilkie Collins, D H Lawrence, Thomas Hardy, Nathaniel Hawthorne and of course, Austin and the Brontes. More modern writers that I love are Minette Walters, James Patterson, Peter James, John Grisham. Oh, I almost forgot, I'm an absolute Robert Louis Stevenson groupie.

An excerpt from, Montbel, my third Jacques Forêt mystery.

la lettre

…families fracture, Monsieur Forêt. No one desires it or intends it, but it happens. A harsh, unforgiving word begets a rash and revengeful action, and a sliver of ice takes hold in a dark corner of the hearts of those at odds with each other. And there it wedges itself, the frost gradually deepening and destroying. One of us has to stop the cold, as this impasse can continue no longer. I have to put things right with my son, Monsieur…

june 3rd, 2011


For those interested in knowing more about Angela and her writing, please follow these links.

Amazon UK

Amazon US

Website : www.angelawren.co.uk
Blog : www.jamesetmoi.blogspot.com
Facebook : Angela Wren
Goodreads : Angela Wren

Contact an author : Angela Wren

Thank you Angela for being our guest this week. I look forward to more of your stories. Happy Writing!

Thank you, Allan, and I hope regular readers enjoy the post.

Returning Guest Author Bretton Loney of Halifax, NS.

Any Hockey Fans out there?

Bretton was our guest several weeks ago when we talked about his novel The Last Hockey Player and he shared the first two chapters of this intriguing story. As a very kind gesture, he sent me a copy of the novel as a gift. When I received it, I meant to glance at it and get back to it later but became immediately captivated by the story. Not at all what I expected. I thoroughly enjoyed the book. I’m happy to say he has agreed to a 4Q Interview.

Please go HERE to read Loney’s bio and the excerpt from his last visit. 

4Q: Please tell us how this went from a short story to a novel and what inspired it.

BL: As odd as it sounds, the seeds of this dystopian novel of survival in a bleak, wintery Nova Scotia came to me in 2007, in the midst of a sunny winter vacation in Cuba with my wife and friends. I awoke from a dream about playing hockey on a cold pond some time in a bleak future. I quickly scribbled down a few lines and it became the basis of a short story called Hockey Night in the Canadas which has appeared in two Canadian literary magazines over the years – subTerrain in British Columbia and Between the Lines: A Journal of Hockey Literature, out of Saskatchewan.

People told me that there was a full novel in that short story, including my very wise wife, Karen Shewbridge. After half a dozen years, I too began to see the possibilities. Three years later, after a great deal of help and support from my wife and children, my writer’s circle and my editor, I had a published novel.

In the end I think the combination of imbibing a few too many Bucaneros beer in Cuba as well as good friends and great music inspired the original story idea.

4Q: Would it be safe to suggest you are a hockey fan?

BL: I am a fan and played until, at age 50, I had to hang my skates up due to a bad knee. I come from a hockey family. My father played hockey and so did my two brothers. My youngest brother, Troy, played for about a decade in the NHL and won two Stanley Cups with the Pittsburgh Penguins in the Mario Lemieux days. These days I am at the rink watching my grandson play, which is a blast.

4Q: Please share a childhood memory or anecdote with us.

BL: I remember walking home on Saturday

mornings from Tiny Mite hockey practice. We had a cold rink and my feet would be frozen and start to thaw out as I walked home with all my hockey gear on and my Dad’s old canvas duffel bag swung over my shoulder.

The roads were so slippery I could practically skate along them in my rubber boots and the sun overhead was so bright that its rays bouncing off the snow banks pierced my eyes. My feet hurt and my eyes were sore, but I went back to practice, again and again, every Saturday. I wouldn’t have missed it for the world. 

4Q: What can we expect in the future from Bretton Loney, the author?

BL: Something totally different. My first book Rebel With A Cause: The Doc Nikaido Story was a traditional biography of a very untraditional doctor in my home town in southern Alberta. Dr. Nikaido’s life was forever changed by the resettlement of Japanese-Canadians during World War Two.

My second book, The Last Hockey Player, was a dystopian novel. My next book will be a novel too. The only thing it will have in common with this book is that it will be set in Nova Scotia. Hopefully, in three to five years time my idea will have grown into a full novel. 

For you readers that missed Bretton’s first visit and the link above, please go HERE to read the first two chapters of The Last Hockey Player.

Thank you once more Bretton for being our guest. All the best with your writing.

Thank you also dear readers for visiting. Take a minute or two and leave a comment below.