ROBUST discussion

REVIEW
*****
5.0 out of 5 stars
One of the best thrillers I will read this year
By Matthew Posner

EIGHT DAYS IN WASHINGTON by Andre Jute is a revenge thriller that pits an on-the-outs FBI agent against a revengeful female killer. The crimes fits the crimes, as it were, with each of the mostly politically connected victims murdered creatively according to his own wickedness and perversion. These murders are striking and awful to contemplate, but they are, in every case, richly deserved. All the same, I couldn't help relating to the viewpoint character, FBI agent Denny Cartwright, who, despite great skill and strong political connections, has been "on the bicycle," i.e. being transferred from one undesirable posting to another by his FBI superiors in order to humble him. Denny is a very human protagonist, skilled but flawed, more realistic than some thriller protagonists in terms of vulnerability.

Supporting Denny is a cast of hard-nosed fellow agents and supervisors, slimy Washington insiders, stupid police, many muddleheaded civilians, and one charming Italian fashion designer, Gelica, who gives the book a sympathetic humanity to contrast with the awful violence inflicted upon the deserving victims.

Although it has the feel of a police procedural all throughout, Eight Days in Washington is not without touches of Andre Jute's characteristic depth and tough-minded view of the world.

I'm sure this is one of the best-written thrillers I will read this year. Andre Jute is a writer I trust to give me a good book every time.

— Matt Posner on Amazon (extracts only)

You are the master of thrillers.

Thanks, Jeremy. Today everyone and his donkey has written about serial killers. But a quarter-century ago, when EIGHT DAYS IN WASHINGTON first appeared, all the grace notes I put in from my training as a psychologist must have seemed pretty startling to readers and reviewers.

It's another example of what infuriated my agents, and some of my less classy publishers, that I would establish, or help to establish, a genre with a single book, and then move on to something else. Commercially a very poor decision, but artistically perfectly sound. I said everything I wanted to say about serial killers in this one book, and (as Matt sensitively perceived) it was also my one police procedural, though in one of the volumes of my forthcoming series COLD WAR, HOT PASSIONS http://coolmainpress.com/CWHPseries.html one of the characters starts out as a Moscow Militia drugs detective and later does essentially the same thing for the KGB, so the subtler readers will recognize in that volume the structure of a police procedural underlying a bunch of events carrying another theme forward.

J.A. wrote: "You are the master of thrillers."

Andre always thrills me.

XXX

That's a supurb review, Andre. I put it on my 'to get' list, as I'm knee deep in action development for my current WIP. That list is already huge, but worthy of getting longer until I get this production bug out of my system.

It hit me that when I finish my current novel, I will have written six full length books in just two years.

Again, Kudos Andre! You've got talent, that goes without saying. What I would give to stop time for a few years so I could catch up on my TBR list. ^_^

Daniel, drop an email with the words "review distribution" in the subject to info at coolmainpress with the commercial extension and I'll have you put on the distribution list. There's absolutely no reason for you to buy my book when my publisher is willing, indeed keen, to give you a copy.

Andre Jute wrote: "Daniel, drop an email with the words "review distribution" in the subject to info at coolmainpress with the commercial extension and I'll have you put on the distribution list. There's absolutely n..."

I'll get the email sent out tonight, bro. Thanks. ^_^

Training as a psychologist, eh? We love those guys. All three of us. You know, me, myself and I.
You should have been there for my own clinical eval. I was asked, as an icebreaker question between me and the overpaid but cute lady shrink on the other side of the mahogany desk, "Do you smoke?"

I replied with supreme fun, "Only if you set me on fire, hot stuff."

I got signed off to evaluate suicide cases, but barely. Haha. Wish you were there, man. Best time I ever had riding a career on the edge, and quite on purpose.

Alina Holgate, whom we haven't seen here for a while, works with firefighters and the victims of bush fires in Australia. Strikes me as another high-stress job.

From 1994 to 1998, the State of Florida de-institutionalized 'ALL' of their criminally psychotic patients. I was tasked by the Marion County Court System to visit them at home, make sure they were med compliant, and the second half of the day was suicide crisis/intervention for teens in the juvi system.

That was only one of three jobs I was doing at the time. I switched careers in 1998 because computers didn't require high cost malpractice/negligence insurance. I never, ever 'lost' anyone or was ever considered for a lawsuit. But. And I stress But. (One T in some cases, two T's in other cases) I went full time into a technology career because when a computer dies, nobody sues the tech for multi-million dollar figures on a regular basis.

My most stressful job, though, was that of a hazardous chemical compounder. If I mixed the dry ingredients in the wrong order, I would blow myself to pieces, not to mention killing the other three guys in my department. That was my old career in the early 90's.

So being a writer today is... SWEET

Bloody hell. Never mind the liability insurance, that must have been a dangerous job. Who knows when, and why, a psychopath takes against you? He's called a psychopath because his "rationality" runs on a different track.