Vincent Zandri's Blog - Posts Tagged "romance"

The following blog is now appearing at The Vincent Zandri Vox: http://vincentzandri.blogspot.com/201...


Week two into my foot reconstruction surgery.
People keep asking me how I'm feeling, and I always respond the same way. I feel like somebody has drilled two stainless steel screws into my right foot and jammed a steel rod into my second toe. That's how it feels (for all you runners out there, remember to take care of your feet or you'll end up like me). But seriously folks, I'm starting to feel like I'm on the mend. Thanks for all the good vibes.

One month into the New Year and already I'm taking notice of the vast changes occurring in the publishing business. Things are getting personal out there. The word of the day for full-time novelists these days is "relationships."

That's right, we ... I ... want to get physical.

We, and that means yours truly, are attempting to establish personal relationships with everyone of our readers. That means encouraging you (both readers and authors) to join my new monthly "For Your Eyes Only!" newsletter (subscribe at Vazandri@aol.com). By doing so you will be privy to daily, weekly, and monthly specials. There will be stuff in there for writers, and stuff in there for readers. I'm even featuring another author every month, so if you're a writer interested in getting some great exposure, please subscribe. I'll be giving away free stuff. Everything from t-shirts, coffee cups, to signed paper editions of my novels. I'll also be giving away $100 gift cards to both Kindle and Nook from time to time to selected subscribers. But again, you gotta join up or you'll miss out.

More than just free stuff though, I want to here from you. I encourage you to write reviews of my books and stories. Honest Reviews!!! I encourage you to send me an email, or when time permits, give me a call. For instance, if we both happen to be in New York City for the day or a weekend, let me know and we'll have coffee or a beer. Seriously, I want to see you, and I want to know you, and I want to make you feel like we have a personal relationship together, because we do.

Okay, I'm going to limp my way into the kitchen for some breakfast. We'll talk soon!

FULL MOONLIGHT is FREE today only!!!! Grab one Up and Review it!

Also, SUSPENSE MAGAZINE says "Zandri has brought back that wonderful ‘quest’ story ... THE SHROUD KEY is well worth every minute."


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The Shroud Key

The following post is now appearing at The Vincent Zandri Vox in slightly different form: http://vincentzandri.blogspot.com/201...


Time has been a precious commodity lately.

I've been nailed with a two developmental edits for two upcoming books at the same time, plus I had to write a 70 page novella for the mystery collective I belong to, and add to this a re-edit of an already published novel and my normal duties as a journalist and I'm about ready for the funny farm.

What did Hemingway once pen? "No one can work everyday...without going stale."

But hey, business is business, and while I have a nice advance riding on at least one of the two aforementioned books (more money than I made in an entire year five years ago), I'm not shirking my duties. However, I have noticed myself getting more and more agitated with the social media and the persistent onslaught of useless information that bombards me not day in and day out, but minute in and minute out.

No, I do not wish to be invited to play a Game of Thrones or whatever it's called.
No, I do not wish to like your "I love Fluffy Cats" page
No, I don't care about your impromptu selfie snapped in the office bathroom
No, I don't care that after twenty glorious years of marriage you and the hubby are still in love.
No, I don't care that the old girlfriend has a new boyfriend.
And for God's sakes, please don't IM me unless the house is burning down around you. Even then it might take me a while to respond.
As for texting me without being invited to text? You're risking your life here...

Okay, I can hear you loud and clear, "You're one to talk Zandri!" and it's all too true. I'm not casting cyber stones so much as I'm realizing the utter time suck and futility of the social media networks (don't forget to add in useless emails here...). Christ, you can't even pimp your books on Facebook anymore without having to pay out the ass for the, ummmm, privilege.

I think there was a time, not all that long ago, where social media played a vital role in an author's promotion. It got our names out there on a global level, and if our work was any good, we gathered many new fans and sold a few books. Some of those fans even became friends. Some of those good friends live in far away places like Moscow, Cairo, Florence, and many other places. I've never met some of these friends, but a few I have, and that is the beauty of social media.
But when it comes to the everyday posting of useless information, I find it to be a distraction of immense proportions and I'm more inclined lately to turn the damn thing off altogether while I tend to my work.

Okay, so much for my rant about social media. Time to finish this essay and get it out there on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Google+, ...

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The Remains

The following post if now appearing in slightly different form at The Vincent Zandri Vox: http://vincentzandri.blogspot.in/2014...



The sweat that soaks my khaki shirt has nothing to do with the relentless heat that covers this land like a heavy, hot water-soaked, wool blanket. I'm at the border between Nepal and India. It's six in the morning. Skies ominously overcast with gray/black clouds that threaten monsoon season rain. It's been raining heavily on and off all night and the narrow road that accesses both countries is nothing more than a thick layer of gooey brown mud that, taken along with the ramshackle single and two-story wood, concrete and brick buildings that flank it, looks more like the setting for a Clint Eastwood spaghetti western.

My guide and I are stopped by a soldier dressed in olive green who bears a World War II era bolt-action rifle over his shoulder and a thick black leather belt around his waist. He tosses our backpacks onto a wood table and begins inspecting them inside and out. India's mega Hindu population gets along swimmingly with its smaller, but major Muslim population. However, no one gets along with the radical Islam component that has snaked its way into the country via Pakistan and other ports of entry. That said, the bags are checked thoroughly.

After looking us over ...up, down, and up again...the solider gives us the go ahead to proceed across the border. I've already made it through Nepal customs and received my stamp. But it wasn't Nepal I was worried about. What's in the back of my mind is all the trouble I got into recently at the American India Embassy back in the States. The short of it is that the embassy wouldn't issue my journalist's visa unless I met with them in person in Manhattan and attended one of their "press lectures" regarding the benefits of the "New Era India." An invitation I blew off entirely. I didn't come here for politics, but something else instead. Originally that reason was to research a new Chase Baker novel, and to write a couple of travel pieces while also writing for the Vox. But now, having spent a little more than a week in this part of the world that will slam you with a million different sensory alerts at once (from the persistent smells of curries to cow shit, from huge, colorfully decorated trucks speeding directly for you, to millions of people who peer at you with their dark, penetrating eyes as if you are the very first westerner they've ever seen), I'm not entirely sure I can put my reasons for being here into mere words.

Trudging through the mud past the many overloaded cars, 4X4s, and trucks queued up before the wood-pole gate, my guide points out the immigration office and, heart in my throat, I immediately go for it.

It's not much of an office. A couple of rooms in a very old building the interior of which is shaded by old wood shutters left over from the filming of Gunga Din. There's a counter on one side, and a wood table on the other. An overhead ceiling fan blows the hot humid air around somehow pleasantly, while behind the counter, a pot of tea boils atop a hot plate set upon an old wood desk that also supports a computer and a Royal typewriter from the 1950s.

There's a middle aged man manning the counter. He wears loose slacks and an even looser button down shirt. He collects my passport, along with those of a half dozen other people waiting to cross over the border. College kids mostly who look like they haven't slept or bathed in weeks. It makes me smile inside to know that I must appear as a much older version of their wanderlust-filled selves.
After filling out the immigration form, I hand the passport back to the counter man. He in turn hands it over to a second, smaller man, who takes it with him to the computer. As he runs the passport over a scanner I see my face pop up on the computer screen. This is it, I think. The moment where they'll ask me to accompany them into the back room where they'll spend hours lobbing questions about my intentions for visiting India. "Why did you not attend the lecture in New York?" the men will shout while blinding me with a single bright white light. Eventually, the tall one will turn to the smaller one. "See if you can get him to talk," he'll say. Then, as the tall man leaves the room, locking the door behind him, the smaller man remove his shirt, bearing a chest filled with scars from knife fights too numerous to count. He go behind a desk and pull something from out of a drawer. A pair of brass knuckles maybe. As he slips them onto his right hand, he'll smile at me, bearing a gold tooth. "So what's the weather like in New York this time of year?" he'll say.

But within a few minutes, something far different occurs.

The little man behind the desk takes hold of his stamp, and positioning it above the page that contains my visa, brings the inky business end down hard onto the page. The little man hands the big man the passport. And the big man, in turn, hands it to me. He smiles politely but genuinely.

"Welcome to India," he says. "I hope you enjoy your stay."

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Check out the first Chase Baker adventure novel, THE SHROUD KEY, and look for CHASE BAKER AND THE GOLDEN CONDOR coming early this Fall.

The Shroud Key

The following post is now appearing at The Vincent Zandri Vox: http://vincentzandri.blogspot.com/201...

...or is it just the start?


A month on the global road:
--16,860 miles traveled by air, including a perfect circle around the globe, heading on an east-bound course the entire way (NYC to NYC)
--Seven flights
--Six countries, three continents
--At least four different time zones (I've lost count)
--Temperatures ranging from 45F to 115F
--Modes of transportation: Airliner, boat, rickshaw, tuck tuck, tram, train, 4x4, car, van, elephant
--Food: vegetarian, seafood, mutton, beef

--Average amount of sleep per night: 4-5 hours
--Number of currencies: Four
--Terrorist attacks while en route to Dehli: two (both by Maoist Rebels aimed at the railroads. Total dead and injured: 100+)
--Top memories: The burning of the dead in Lumbini. The cleansing of the body in Varanasi, the giant orange swastika a holy backdrop. Monsoon rain and winds pummeling our little boat on the upper Ganges, and a human skull lying jaw up on the banks where we anchored and held onto our ratted rooftop tarp for dear life. Swimming downstream in the Ganges, nearly drowning when we hit a stretch of water so deep, the clear-over-gravel-color river turned to blue. The overnight train to Agra, sleeping beside dozens of Indians, young and old. The woman who rushed the train on a stop from Occha to Agra, slipping between the car and the platform, her right leg cut off just below the knee as the train pulled out of the station. Touching, for the first time, an elephant's ear, its smooth almost silky texture taking me by complete surprise. The nervousness of a rhino cooling itself with mud only a few feet away from where I stood in the back of the 4x4 ...

Next stop...who knows.

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The RemainsVincent Zandri

The following Press Release has been issues by Down & Out Books: http://downandoutbooks.com/2014/09/01...


Down & Out Books is publishing New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Vincent Zandri’s latest fast-paced, grizzly thriller in the Dick Moonlight series, offering readers plenty of wry humor, bullets, car chases, and Scarface references.

Dick Moonlight can’t help himself. Moonlight, the private detective known as the head case with a bullet lodged in his brain, should be grateful for his current job. But when it becomes clear the cash-starved brain surgeon he’s been hired to drive around is protecting his son from a rape conviction, Moonlight is disgusted.

Worse, when the charges turn into a case of “reckless murder,” Moonlight’s the only one trying to keep the kid from the electric chair though the girl—a state senator’s daughter—clearly committed suicide.

Then Moonlight and his unwilling assistant, a fat Elvis impersonator owing him money, stumble into a much bigger plot and are soon dodging Hollywood obsessed drug-running Russian thugs, corrupt government officials, and the specter of Moonlight’s recently diseased girlfriend.

Praise for Zandri’s previous Moonlight books
has been overwhelming positive.

“Sensational…Masterful…Brilliant.”—New York Post

“Gritty, fast-paced, lyrical and haunting.”—Harlan Coben, bestselling author of Six Years

“Tough, stylish, heartbreaking.”—Don Winslow, bestselling author of Savages

“Vincent Zandri nails reader’s attention.”—Boston Herald

“Well worth every minute…”—Suspense Magazine

Moonlight Weeps is available in trade paperback and ebook formats.

Kindle | Nook

Amazon TP | BN TP | IndieBound TP

Moonlight Weeps

The following essay is now appearing at The Vincent Zandri Vox:


It's being reported that eight or more aid workers and journalists have been brutally killed inside what's described as a remote village in Guinea, West Africa. The deaths are apparently the result of a toxic distrust amongst locals for the foreign presence in their land. The distrust seems to be spreading as fast if not faster than the Ebola virus itself. However tragic and disturbing, this comes as no surprise.

A few years ago I traveled to West Africa to report for RT on the work of a Christian hospital ship that was docked in the Port of Cotonou in Benin beside civil-war torn Nigeria. What struck me as strange was the way the indigenous people refused and even ran from the methods by which the ship's medical crew attempted to educate them in the ways of western hygiene. Fliers were distributed with simple illustrations showing a human being defecating into a toilet. The next illustration would show a pair of hands being washed with soap and water. Said drawings would then be circled in bold green as if to indicate, "Good."

Below those drawings might be the same drawing of the person defecating, only this time he or she would be doing it in a field. A red circle would surround that drawing as if to indicate bad. But to a native living in West Africa, crapping on a toilet that other people use is the most disgusting and unsanitary concept ever thought up. Better to go find your own "clean" spot of grass and do your business there. Never mind that the waste then filters into the water system. Such are the challenges of culture and geography.

One such challenge is distrust. The coast of West Africa used to be known as the Slave Coast. It's where most of the slaves who were shipped to the Americas and to points south came from. Out of this practice grew the belief in Voodoo which is still extremely prevalent in West African nations like Guinea and Liberia where Ebola is spreading fast. Many natives will practice Christianity or Islam during the daytime hours, but at night, revert back to voodoo beliefs. If something terrible like a bad debt or lack of food, or a sickness like Ebola strikes these people, chances are the effected person will believe that he has not become the victim of bad luck or a deadly virus, he will believe instead that he has become the target of bad voodoo. When foreign aid workers come to help, many natives are so frightened of them they feel they have no choice but to lash out, and even destroy the very people who are trying to cure their disease. To some locals, the foreign aid workers are doing the work of bad voodoo.

It's difficult to change what amounts to an ancient culture in just a few days in the interest of stopping the spread of what is now a serious epidemic. But if you ever have the chance to drive a 4x4 through the bush country of West Africa, do not be surprised when you come upon an old abandoned town that might have been constructed by the French many decades ago. Or don't be surprised when you see the shell of a modern skyscraper that might have been under construction two or three years ago, but that's been abandoned while the money for the project is now lining some corrupt official's pockets. Don't be surprised if you see the natives giving you a strange look because you're stepping inside a porta-potty to relieve yourself. To them, nothing is more disgusting and distrustful.


The Remains
Vincent Zandri
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The following essay is now appearing at The Vincent Zandri Vox: http://vincentzandri.blogspot.com/201...


Today is Release Day for the 9th novel in the Chase Baker action/adventure series,
CHASE BAKER AND THE SEVENTH SEAL.

I traveled to the Middle East in May of this year and "Seal" is the book that resulted from it. Judging from the reactions of my beta readers, it just might be the best Chase yet. In fact, for those authors who feel as though they can get away with Googling all their information about a specific locale somewhere outside their writing room, I'd like to submit this: You can't possibly get an idea of the true smell, taste, or feel of a place unless you immerse yourself in it for a while.

In Jerusalem, I climbed the stone walls in the Old City, explored the tunnels under the Wailing Wall, bribed a teenage kid to take up through the Muslim cemetery to the top of Golgotha where Christ and two thieves were crucified for all of Jerusalem to see and be fearful of. The top of the skull-like hill is exactly 777 meters above sea level and it's the highest natural point in the city (the Bible speaks of 7 codices and when the seal on the 7th one is breached, the end of times will be upon us). It's located right outside the Damascus Gate on what was the Damascus Road back in the 1st century AD. There's a garden nearby and a tomb which has only been used once in its two centuries of existence. One of the two resting places was hastily chiseled out to accommodate a man who measured 5'11", the exact height, it turns out, of the man whose likeness appears on the Shroud of Turin. Coincidence? Or fact.

Or perhaps you believe in tradition...that Jesus was crucified on the spot in which The Church of the Holy Sepulcher now resides. I spent a lot of time there as well.

But you be the judge. Read the book...

Chase Baker and the Seventh Seal is one of those novels that will elevate your heart rate and make you think...


Chase Baker and the Seventh Seal


Here's the deal: It's offered up here for just 24 hours only at a 1.99 so that we can sell as many as possible on opening day and propel this one right up the charts.

Lock n' load

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Vincent Zandri