Edits
are wrapping up for The Witch's Lair, after that it's off to the
formatting team over at Indie Imprint (www.indieimprint.com),
and then delivery to Smashwords and Amazon. We are still on track for
my release on Valentine's Day, and I'm sure those who read will
understand why I picked that day. I should be able to set up
pre-orders through Smashwords, and possibly Amazon. When/If that
occurs I'll post it all over Twitter and Facebook. The Blurb from The Witch's Lair at the end of the post.
Today
we have a bit of a mysterious guest. A man who wants to remain anonymous
for the moment and goes by the name Lucian. He's here to talk about
his book Russian Assassins in America.
Blurb
The
Russians aren't coming. They're already here.
Vladimir
Koralov used to be on an elite KGB team many years ago. Then, a
mission went wrong and most of the team was killed. Or so everyone
thought.
In
truth four members killed several others so they could escape
communism and defect to the United States. Vlad has discovered what
happened and brings a team of assassins to kill the former Soviet
traitors.
Now,
a Section Chief at the FBI, Hank Rollins used to be a CIA agent
during the cold war. When he finds out someone's killing the men he
helped defect, he leaves his office and goes back into the field to
stop them.
In
another place and time, Mike Reagan was a KGB agent. But now, he's so
American, he votes, pays taxes, and serves on jury duty whenever he's
called. When he finds out people are coming to kill him, he resolves
to kill them first.
Al
Lincoln has no idea any of this is happening. He, his wife, daughter,
and son are camping. He's living the American dream. Until he sees a
man from his past in the forest and he realizes the decision he made
years ago may cost him and his family their lives. Years of the good
life have left him out of shape... but he still has his instincts.
From
the Florida Keys, to Manhattan, to Southern California, to the
mountains of Colorado, the Russian assassins hunt their prey... until
their prey hunt them back.
Will
Vladimir Koralov kill the men who betrayed him all those years ago?
Or will Hank Rollins get to the bottom of what's happening before
it's too late for the men who trusted him with their lives?
This
is the first in my Conspiracy series. Each book stands on its own
conspiracy. They can be read in any order.
Excerpt
Irina
threw her transmission in reverse and stepped on the gas. She drove
backward up the aisle and saw the black SUV turning at an angle to
block off the aisle. Cars were in parking spaces along both sides of
her car and she didn’t have enough room to scrape through. “Brace
yourself.”
Dmitri
was lying on the back seat and had nothing to brace himself with.
Before he could say anything, he heard the engine rev up and felt the
car lurch backward causing him to roll off the back seat and fall to
the floor. Now on his stomach, he still didn’t have anything with
which to brace himself.
Irina
figured she wanted to stay away from the SUV’s large, heavy, engine
block. She turned the wheel slightly and aimed her car’s rear end
toward the SUV’s rear end. It never occurred to her that the whole
thing was armor-plated.
The
car slammed its rear into the passenger side rear of the SUV. The SUV
budged backward about six feet. Her car’s rear bumper jammed into
its own passenger side rear tire and cut the tire to the rim. The
trunk crumpled in on itself like an accordion.
The
car bounced away from the SUV.
Irina
rocked back and forth behind the steering wheel. As the shock of the
impact wore off, her first thought was why the truck she’d just
rammed felt more like a wall and less like a car. “Are you hurt?”
she said.
Dmitri
turned over on his side, still wedged between on the floor between
the back of the front seats and the bottom of the back seats. “What
the devil did you hit?”
She
pulled the gun out of the small of her back as she looked out her
driver’s side window. Her door was blocked by a parked car she
hadn’t realized she’d hit after hitting the SUV. “Some sort of
American super truck.”
Dmitri
pushed himself off the floor and saw his gun lying in the back seat
next to him. He grabbed it. “I didn’t know Americans had super
trucks.”
“At
least one, it seems.” She pushed the front passenger seat forward
all the way, then leaned out and pulled the door handle. She shoved
the door open and stumbled out with her gun in her hand as she swung
around trying to regain her balance. She immediately got down on her
hands and knees and looked under the cars to see if there were any
soldiers around.
Dmitri
stumbled out of the car after her. Before he could regain his
balance, a bullet shattered the window of the car next to him. He
fell to the ground as another shot blew through the door.
“Did
I get him?” the sniper who killed Nikolai asked his spotter.
The
spotter looked through his binoculars. “I don’t think so. We
don’t have any kind of legitimate firing solution here and I hate
that we’re trying to shoot through cars to hit them.”
“We
don’t have to hit them. We’ve just got to give them another thing
to worry about so the guys on the ground can hit them,” the sniper
said still looking through his scope.
Dmitri
was on the ground, stunned. Irina was staring at him. Neither one of
them had heard the shot. They were both thinking the same thing.
Irina
saw the golf ball sized hole in the truck’s door the second bullet
had made. “If they have a sniper we should surrender.”
“Nikolai
is up there. He’ll handle it,” Dmitri said.
“I’m
assuming he’s dead.” She went back to her hands and knees to look
between tires for more soldiers. She saw a pair of military boots by
themselves.
Irina
crawled to the end of the car, taking care to stay out of the
sniper’s vision, and looked out. The driver’s door to the black
SUV was open. She assumed the driver had gotten out and was now
hunting them on foot. “We’re going to get out of here by stealing
the American super truck.”
Dmitri
was on his stomach next to her. “That’s ambitious.”
“See
his boots?”
Dmitri
looked under his car, between the tires of the black SUV. He saw
them. “Yes.”
“I’m
going to circle around. Count to twenty and then shoot him in the
foot from here. I’ll finish him off from behind and pick you up in
the super truck.”
She
got up to a squat and squat-walked away, making sure to keep out of
the sniper’s sight.
Mike
Reagan’s car was parked ten parking spaces behind the black SUV and
one aisle over. He had picked the spot because there were enough
empty parking spaces for him to be able to see six and seven aisles
down in both directions.
He
sat behind his steering wheel and scanned the parking lot.
He
saw some movement between parked cars but wasn’t sure what it was.
A second later, he saw a blur of blonde hair. It was four parking
spaces behind the black SUV.
He
took the foot off his brake and let his car coast in closer.
Irina
looked under the car she was hiding behind. The only boots she saw
were four parking spaces in front of her next to the super truck. She
had an approximate location where the sniper was. As soon as Dmitri
shot the man in the foot, she would roll out, finish him off, climb
into the SUV, get Dmitri if she could, or leave him behind if she had
to.
Link http://www.amazon.com/Conspiracy-Russian-Assassins-America-Lucian-ebook/dp/B00KURL2IW/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8
Main
Character's motivations
It’s
an ensemble novel but I guess the main character is an ex-KGB agent
who has assembled a team of assassins and brought them to America to
kill four ex-KGB agents who defected to the US before the fall of the
Soviet Union.
What
are their secret strengths/weaknesses
Not
secrets but his strength is his leadership. It’s rooted in
intimidation. His weakness is his temper which he’s worked on not
letting it get the better of him.
Any
philosophical issues in this story?
Some
of the good guys in the novel have betrayed their country (The Soviet
Union) and abandoned the belief system imposed upon them and embraced
the belief system of the U.S. that they chose for themselves. He sees
them as traitors. They also killed fellow KGB agents in their escape
so he’s doubly enraged.
When
did you start to write this one and why?
It
started as a screenplay. Maybe 1997. Then a comic book in 2005 maybe.
The Kindle came out and Self-Publishing became an actual possibility
so once more into the breach I went. I published it as a novel in
2014.
What's
your next book?
Next
in the series is Conspiracy: Global Warming
It’s
about a Grad Student and University Cop discovering and trying to
expose how solar panels cause global warming.
When
will it be available?
I'm
expecting a release in February/March time frame
Stalk
the Author
https://twitter.com/lucianwords
Junior
Inquisitor Book One
Amazon - http://goo.gl/D6KrbX
Inquisitor Series - http://goo.gl/mJtTf8
Soulless Monk Book Two
Smashwords - https://goo.gl/NXw3Gr
Amazon - http://goo.gl/p9fBn0
Inquisitor Series - http://goo.gl/5lCyaX
The Witch’s Lair Book Three
Pre-order links coming soon!
Blurb
from The Witch's Lair
Brother
Sebastian is back, and facing new monsters and challenges. Sarah,
Sebastian's dead wife, continues to plague his sleep, but now a new
woman has joined her. Sebastian's dreams have become even
more...disturbing.
Thaddeus
may have been strong and terrible, but there is worse evil out there.
From the deserts of Arizona, to the decaying inner core of Portland,
to the Cascade Mountains, Sebastian is on the trail of the wizard who
summoned a Gut Ripper and almost wiped out a priory of Hammers.
