The Bride Collector

Ted Dekker's The Bride Collector is one of the better crime thriller novels I've read.  To tell the truth I haven't read a whole lot of fictional books about serial killers and the chase to bring them to justice, preferring stories more like spy-thrillers or historical thrillers.  But when the chance came to review an Advanced Readering Copy (ARC) of a Ted Dekker novel, I decided to give it a try.

Never having even opened a book written by Ted Dekker, I wasn't sure what to expect.  I knew he had roots as a "Christian thriller" writer but I understand he has for several years now branched out into both fantasy and mainstream thrillers, the later usually featuring serial killer plots.  This book is a taut, well written novel that really leads the reader along the plotline but also reaches into the very nature of good and evil.  The main protagonist is FBI special agent Brad Raines who is faced with a serial killer situation.  Somebody is kidnapping beautiful young women, draining their bodies of the blood, and hanging them on walls of abandoned barns and other places, with nothing but a bridal veil to wear.  The reader is introduced early on to the killer, himself, allowing us inside his mind and motivations.  Seems he is fulfilling God's plan for him by offering seven brides, culminating in the perfect bride for God.

Agent Raines, based on the psychotic nature of the killer, searches for clues in several Mental Health Facilities in the area and is drawn to one particular group of patients which includes a young woman by the name of "Paradise".  Through her and her friends' eyes, we actually learn quite a bit about the nature of mental health care as we work our way through the novel.  With Paradise's assistance, and some good old fashioned police work, Agent Raines is able to close in on the killer's identity.  I won't go into further detail for fear of spoilers but I can honestly say it was a thrill ride. The pace of the novel is just right, building up the level of suspense as we near the climax and not letting go until the very end.  Mr Dekker is not afraid to take the predictableness out of the plot and make this one an original idea.  He also isn't afraid to to throw in emotional matters of life and faith and relationships, ultimately tying it all together in a very neat package.  This will not be the last book I read by Mr Dekker!

The novel will be on store shelves in April.

I've also begun the next short story collection, "The Best Time Travel Stories of the 20th Century", edited by Harry Turtledove and martin H. Greenberg.  The first story, "Yesterday was Monday" was written by the late great science fiction author Theodore Sturgeon and is a delightful story about a regular guy named Harry who somehow goes to sleep on Monday night and wakes up in Wednesday.  I say "in" Wednesday because he has somehow gotten off the track of normal time where all of us actors live our lives and stepped into the behind-the-scenes set-building that is going on for Wednesday.  The characters there are trying to put the finishing touches on the scenery before the actors (that are still in Tuesday) arrive.  Harry, trying to get back into the normal time flow makes a quick side-trip to "yesterday" which is Monday. and sees all of the workers there that are breaking down the old, used set.  It's a pretty nice little story; I hope the others in this collection will be as interesting.

Next up, another Advanced Reading Copy, a historical novel by Kate Quinn called, Mistress of Rome.

Selling Used Books On-Line

As mentioned briefly in recent blog posts, after 20 years, I am now in my last couple of weeks of my Air Force career.  I have hopes for other career options but am choosing this opportunity to do something I've always wanted.  Since I've loved books (and reading them) my entire life, I've long wanted to own my own book store.  I've actually planned to do that for about 15 years now.  But as the years passed and I got closer to that magic date when I would actually be able to achieve my dream, the more it was becoming elusive.  It was at least 10 years ago that I discarded the idea of a traditional new book store.  Afterall, it is darn near impossible to compete with the likes of Barnes & Noble and Borders. 

My thoughts turned to a used book store and while that remains doable, I just don't relish the risk associated with the investment necessary for an actual storefront complete with leasing costs, employee costs, utilities, advertising, etc.  Nor do I want to be tied down to such a full-time commitment.  Besides all that I just don't have the funds available to start up such a venture.  So a few years ago I turned to the idea of an on-line bookstore and have since refined it even further to selling used books on-line via Amazon.com and other venues.  I've done some solid research on the topic and now feel ready to tackle the idea head-on.  I've even managed to accumulate almost 4,000 books (now stacked in boxes in my basement) as my opening inventory.

For my final bit of research I bought three books written by people who have done just what I want to do and I've studied them carefully.  The first one, On-Line Bookselling by Michael Mould I actually read over a year ago as my first piece of formal research and I found it to be excellent.  He covers all of the details and since the author is a structural engineer by day (he runs his book business part time), he is very thorough and exacting in his techniques.  He even includes a CD containing business tools like spreadsheets he uses for accounting, inventory, sales tarcking, etc.  The second book, The Home-Based Bookstore, by Steve Weber appears to be the leader among books on this subject.  I found it to also be excellent.  Of course many of the tips and strategies were similar to the first book but there were enough different aspects to make it worth the cost.  Finally, the third book, The Stay-at Home Mom's Secret Guide to Selling Used Books on Amazon, by Christine Miller was a less formal approach and probably not neccessary to my education.  Her book was more fluff than substance.  For example, she spends almost the first third of the book providing motivation for opening a store in the first place, no doubt aimed at other part-time non-business people to get them to realize it ain't that hard. But she does bring home some points that are worth pondering as I begin my venture, especially in the book scouting chapter.

All in all, these three books have provided me with enough information to get started with this project.  All three have good reference sections loaded with websites for the tools I'll need to be efficient and productive.  While I already know a lot about business processes (I have an MBA and have been a small business consultant) I now know a lot more about the particulars of what makes this niche-business tick.  Hopefully, I'll be able to reduce those 4,000 books down to a more manageable level!

Next up: back to the Advanced Reader's Copies as I pursue another new author for me, Ted Dekker's The Bride Collector.

Cat O'Nine Tales

I'm a little late getting this post up; I actually completed the last short story in Jeffrey Archer's Cat O'Nine Tales: And Other Stories back on Saturday.  But I've been very busy working around the house as well as working on transitioning to my next phase of life after retirement from the US Air Force.  Not as much time on the weekends as I hope for, but then there never has been.

I won't go into details of the stories in this collection because I've blurbed about them as I've completed them.  Regular readers of this blog will know that I like to read one short story between each novel.  This particular collection is by Jeffrey Archer, an author that is almost always a big hit for me and only occasionally misses, although it seems like his later works are suffering somewhat.  He is an interesting character in his own right, having been elected to English Parliament at the young age of 29.  He lost his first fortune as a victim of a fradulent investment scheme, and for a time was the owner of an art gallery.  In 1999 he ran for mayor of London but ultimately withdrew when it came to light that he was facing a charge of perjury from a case in 1987.  He was sentenced to four years in prison and it was from this time that he developed this book of short stories.  All of the stories pertain to real people who got into trouble with the law (or managed to avoid it) in one form or another.  Nine of the twelve stories were actually told to him by fellow prisoners while he was incarcerated and although Mr Archer clearly states that he embellished most of them somewhat, they are substantially true circumstances.

Mr Archer can flat-out tell a story.  He obviously uses events in his own rather colorful life to come up with ideas; he has written many stories concerning political intrigue, art collecting, etc.  A major theme of his, captured best in one of my favorite novels by any author, Kane and Able, deals with two people growing up in opposite worlds (rich-poor, famous-forgotten, etc) and how they come to interact.  Many times it's about how ordinary people rise to extraordinary positions, many times only to fall again.  Very often, his characters build elaborate schemes to foil the authorities.  It's fascinating to me to read stories written by Mr Archer even before the very same thing happened to him.  While he may haven fallen from grace in political circles, he continues to write extraordinary fiction, and always in a pleasant story-telling manner.  He is one of the few authors I've read who can consistently pull off a twist ending without making the reader feel like a fool.  I highly recommend you try his novels, especially Kane and Able, The President's Daughter, and As the Crow Flies.  And, of course, any of his short story collections are wonderful.