160 books on sale for 3 days!

What have you nabbed in this year's world-famous Great Big Crooked Cat Not Christmas Sale?

All 160 of my publisher's Kindle Books are 99p/99¢ across the Amazon network, for three days only (beginning 28 December).

Start your journey with Crooked Cat and support indie publishing, here:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_1?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=crooked+cat+publishing

Among these bargains are my books:

SPANISH EYE
BLOOD OF THE DRAGON TREES

CATALYST
CATACOMB
CATACLYSM

THE PRAGUE PAPERS
THE TEHRAN TEXT

SUDDEN VENGEANCE

Writing - be patient, the story will come

'The End' might not be, after all.  Stories have a habit of refusing to go away, insisting that there's still life smouldering between the lines, no matter how many times it's been discarded or rejected.

For years, I've advocated, 'never throw away your failed tales'. I've resurrected several and they've been sold subsequently. Certain stories - or their theme or idea - are just not ready; whether that's the treatment, the characters, or the lack of writing experience; for some reason the story needs time to gestate.

A writer friend, Ray Foster, can certainly endorse this viewpoint. A story that evolved in 2000, changed and morphed in the intervening time until finally being accepted for an anthology this year, the third in an ongoing annual series, Spectacular Tales. Let him tell you about it here.

Of the many instances where I too have found that time was necessary to let the story grow, perhaps the first adventure of Tana Standish is apt. It began as a short story in the early 1970s, transformed into a 50,000-word novel in 1975, and was rejected by Robert Hale due to its paranormal elements (a psychic spy), though their rejection did say 'it's better than many books that are published'. Years later, I returned to the manuscript, piled up a great deal more research, and it was finally published in 2007 as The Prague Manuscript (84,000 words). Then the publisher ceased publishing and the manuscript languished until I revised it yet again and it was published by Crooked Cat in 2014 as The Prague Papers (75,000 words). Since then, another novel in the series has resulted, The Tehran Text (85,000 words) and a work-in-progress is 60,000-words and counting, The Khyber Chronicle.

So, take heed of Ray's closing comments, and never give up.

Weird numbers

I haven't been posting for a few days. My apologies. What is puzzling is that the daily views have been going stratospheric as compared to the times when I'm inactive. Yesterday and today they've been hitting the 300s and 400s. It seems that the big audience is Russia with 508 views yesterday and 979 today already!  Maybe they're reading the adventures of Tana Standish and trying to find out what is fact and what is fiction, even if it all 'happened' in the 1970s...!

Normal service will be resumed shortly.  In the meantime, I'm reading a non-fiction book entitled Life in Russia (1983) by Michael Binyon. Yes, more (never-ending) research.

Hot summer sale!

Crooked Cat Publishing's annual summer sale of about 150 e-book titles - from today until 10 July.  Get your bargains from Amazon here

These include my books:

The Prague Papers

The Tehran Text

Catalyst

Catacomb

Cataclysm

Sudden Vengeance

Blood of the Dragon Trees

Spanish Eye

Writing – research – Nazis – psychic-04

For the final glimpse into the book PSYCHIC DISCOVERIES BEHIND THE IRON CURTAIN by Sheila Ostrander & Lynn Schroeder (1970) this copy 1976, we’ll look at the Nazis and Hitler.

It’s already been mentioned (in psychic-01 here that Hitler was a believer in the occult. A good number of authors have mined this subject, among them Dennis Wheatley, Daniel Easterman, James Twining, Graham Masterton and James Herbert.

According to this book, Czechs said the Nazi movement was deeply involved with the black arts. Hitler was born in Braunau Inn in Austria, a town long famous for the large number of mediums it produced (including Willy Schneider, who had the same wet nurse as Hitler!)

Apparently, Hitler was trained in mediumship by Prof Haushofer of the University of Munich. (See The Morning of the Magicians).

One man who fought Nazism was Stefan Ossowiecki (1877-1944). He was a telepathist, clairvoyant, and could resort to astral projection. He helped the underground during the war, giving information on lost and imprisoned people. Holding a scrap of clothing, he was able to reveal where victims had been executed, and where they were buried.

Documented accounts speak of him locating specific bodies in mass graves layered with the dead.

On the day of Warsaw Uprising, he was killed by the Nazis; his body was never found, as he predicted.

***

From time to time, Tana Standish crossed paths with Nazis – bearing in mind that she was active in the 1970s and 1980s.

One nasty Nazi was Dr Wolf Schneider, who was born in 1920. He was responsible for torturing Tana in Czechoslovakia in 1975 (The Prague Papers). He didn’t employ black magic, just plain evil shock electric shock treatment. He was later recruited by Spetsnaz officer Aksakov in The Tehran Text mission.

Tana was not versed in astral projection, though she was learning to harness remote viewing - which is another subject worthy of comment in a later blog. Aided by recourse to bio-feedback, she used this in a haunting and poignant scene in The Tehran Text.

Tana Standish can be found in The Prague Papers and TheTehran Text.

Writing – research – psychic-02

More psychic tales gleaned from the book Psychic Discoveries Behind the Iron Curtain, some of which may prove useful when writing about Tana in Afghanistan (The Khyber Chronicle).

Nelya Mikhailova was fourteen when the Germans invaded Russia. She was then caught up in the siege of Leningrad from September 1941 until Jan 1944]. (p82)

She became a soldier, with her brother, father, and sister in the Red Army. The conditions were very severe in the city: the bread ration per day was about four ounces; hunger in Leningrad lasted almost 900 days; the winter temperature sometimes -40; and the water and electricity were cut off frequently. As time passed the city was razed by bombs and artillery fire.

Nelya served in Tank T-34 as a radio operator. Still in her early teens, she became a Red Army sergeant of the 226^th tank regiment. Later Nelya and some of her family served in an armoured train which helped bring desperately needed provisions to the stricken city.

She was seriously injured by artillery fire, but survived to marry an engineer, have a son in the army and become a grandmother. She also discovered she had PK (psychokinesis) ability. [In the late 19^th century Alexander Aksakov, a councillor to the Tsar became the first psychic researcher in Russia. He later became a spiritualist and studied mediums. He is believed to have coined the term ‘telekinesis’. He died 1903, aged 70.]

During her PK experiments, strain etched the dimples deep in Nelya’s cheeks, and her pulse beat up to 250 per minute. Apparently, her powers diminished in stormy weather, this being later attributed to the magnetic field around her body being affected (this attested by the Leningrad Institute of Metrology). Afterwards, she looked drained, and had lost over three lbs in weight. [To date, in the real world we inhabit, controlled experiments have found no proof of telekinesis.]

She died in 1990.

***

I’ve used Aksakov’s name for my Spetsnaz assassin, Lidiya, who first appears in The Tehran Text. She reappears in The Khyber Chronicle.

Tana Standish, my psychic spy, cannot move objects with her mental faculties. This, I felt, was a step too far. She can detect danger (bad vibes, if you will), being a sensitive, and when in close proximity can snatch the thoughts of others – if those people are in a heightened emotional state, for example. Again, it is not a parlour trick she can invoke at will every time. Some of her tests at headquarters have proved failures. But Dr James Fisk, the psychologist at Fenner House is encouraging, for he’s seen how she can exceed expectations at other times of high stress.

Tana Standish can be found in The Prague Papers and TheTehran Text.

Writing – research – Psychic-01

Research for my third Tana Standish novel (The Khyber Chronicle) has re-introduced me to one of my old books, Psychic Discoveries Behind the Iron Curtain by Sheila Ostrander & Lynn Schroeder (1970) my copy 1976.

As a writer of fiction, one doesn’t have to believe everything, particularly where the so-called pseudo-sciences are concerned. A significant proportion of the population (US, UK, elsewhere) believe in the existence of some form of supernatural or psychic phenomena, though it does seem difficult to prove under strict laboratory conditions.  The writer’s mission is to suspend disbelief, and in this case that requires a certain amount of research in the literature on the psychic subject.

When creating my psychic spy, Tana Standish, I realised that she couldn’t attempt to utilise too many abilities, only a few, otherwise she'd be 'superwoman', and these 'talents' could not always be called upon at will. Emotions and environment play a part in receptiveness, as we know.

In the 1970s I had amassed a fairly large collection of books on the supernatural; this decade seemed to be the heyday of paranormal phenomena, and it was the ideal period to set my psychic spy series. 

One interesting example from the Ostrander-Schroeder book was Wolf Messing, a Jew. 

In a Warsaw theatre in 1937 in front of a thousand people he predicted, ‘Hitler will die if he turns toward the East’. 

At least one psychic had been murdered by the Nazis for ‘knowing too much about their plans’.

Hitler, apparently a believer of the occult, heard of the prophecy and put a price of 200,000 marks on Messing’s head.

The German Army invaded Poland on September 1, 1939 and Messing hid but he was captured and identified. He was beaten up, losing six teeth, and then taken to a police station. Here, he used all his powers of mind to compel all the police to go to one room where he locked them in, and he escaped to the Russian border. His father, brothers and his entire family were slaughtered in the Warsaw Ghetto.

At Brest Litovsk he was among many refugees fleeing the Nazis. His telepathy convinced the manager of the Ministry of Culture to give him a job.

People’s thoughts came to him as pictures, he explained, visual images of a specific action or place. If he touched the person, the thoughts were clearer, stronger, but touch wasn’t essential.

Later, Wolf Messing trained NKVD officers and had a number of encounters with Stalin.

He seemed able to telepathically project his thoughts into another person’s mind, to control or cloud them… In one test, he penetrated Stalin’s dacha, got past the many guards and servants by mentally suggesting to them he was Beria (Lavrenti Beria was the feared head of the Soviet secret police). He didn’t look like Beria, either!

Messing died in 1974, aged 75. 

***

Some aspects of Messing's ability would be employed by Tana. She was a child of five when she escaped the Warsaw Ghetto with her brother. Her psychic powers were slight at this time, but growing, despite the hunger and fear - or perhaps because of those life-threatening stimuli. She would have a psychic link with anyone she'd touched. As an adult and a spy, she would not balk at shaking hands with the devil; all the better to slay him...

Tana Standish can be found in The Prague Papers and TheTehran Text.

'... fight scenes that rival the best of Bourne or Bond'

'Morton knows how to write a kick-ass action sequence, too, with fight scenes that rival the best of Bourne or Bond.'

Thank you Rowena Hoseason for this review on the site 
https://murdermayhemandmore.wordpress.com/2016/05/27/the-tehran-text-the-psychic-spy-returns/

The Tehran Text - e-book available at these Amazon sites:

http://authl.it/56r

Enchanted by the lovely Tana…

The Tana Standish psychic spy series - #2 The Tehran Text

Tana Standish, a child-survivor of the Warsaw Ghetto, was adopted by a British naval lieutenant and in 1965 joined the British Secret Intelligence Service. She is a psychic with a photographic memory. Each adventure begins with the passing of a collection of papers and manuscripts to the author (Nik Morton) by one of her secret service associates. He then writes down her experiences.

The first was The Prague Papers (Czechoslovakia, 1975), and this is followed by The Tehran Text (Iran, 1978), [both of which were previously published (2008 & 2009 respectively), though the latter received minimal exposure as the collapse of the publisher occurred almost at the same time as its release. Both are now available as Crooked Cat e-books.

At least two more adventures are planned: The Khyber Chronicle – (Afghanistan, 1979/80), a work-in-progress, and The Caldera Cryptogram (Argentina, Falklands, 1982).  

Snippets from 6 Amazon reviews of The Tehran Text follow, with sections excised to avoid too much repetition.

‘Playing mind games…’

The book opens in fine dramatic style, with an assassination and more than a hint of psychic powers which quickly dominate the story of Tana Standish and her action-packed adventures in the Middle East. The intricacies of the plot unfold in masterful manner and I don't want to put the book down as Standish wriggles out of one situation into another while playing mind games and trying to rescue her friends. – Amazon review, February, 2016

‘Not for the faint-hearted…’

… overall it was a fabulous and smartly paced read... Tana definitely leads an exciting life as a British agent extraordinaire, her psychic abilities making her even more successful than normal… The double life she leads under cover is not for the faint-hearted and it was a sad read when some of her locally based activist friends meet their grisly end. Spies and double agents abound in the novel, many with almost comparable psychic abilities to Tana, which make life very deadly at times for her and her fellow British agents. I certainly wouldn’t want to meet the Spetsnaz female agent Aksakov in real life but I am looking forward to reading more of the empathetic Yakunin… – Amazon UK, November 2015

‘Characters who are so alive…’

There are not too many books that stay with you long after you finish reading them, not too many characters who are so alive it seems like you recently met them. And so it is with Tana Standish, the psychic spy created by Nik Morton in this page-turning thriller.
            We travel to Iran, Afghanistan, Kazakhstan and England and meet a variety of brilliantly portrayed characters - both chillingly cruel and highly talented, some of them torturers, others who control a team of remote viewers, others traditional British MI6 characters. The locations are so finely drawn we can almost reach and touch them, the atmospheres so vivid that we can shut our eyes and sense ourselves there. - Maureen Moss, travel journalist, August 2010

‘Scary women in droves’
Nik Morton places the very fanciable Tana's missions for the British Intelligence Service in Iran in 1978 but his narrative and prose are nonetheless what we expect of espionage/thriller writers in the 21st Century. Male readers may find themselves enchanted by the lovely Tana, whom the author presents as very believable in his revelations from `deep throat' MI6 mole Alan Swann, but do bear in mind that she's probably drawing a civil service pension now so I would suggest that, like me, they forget the erotic fantasies. In any case, not only can Tana kick arse very well indeed, she's also psychic. Do you really want a relationship with an older woman who can not only read your thoughts but can also throw you around the room for having them?
            In addition to the nasty males running the Middle East terrorist groups, the book has scary women in droves, with deadly female Spetsnaz operative Aksakov out to abduct our Tana, whose assistance from Kazakhstan-based friendly psychic Yakunin is blunted by an unfriendly psychic in a strategic battle of the minds. But masterful Morton handles them all very nicely and serves up a ripping read with a plot clever enough to stand up with the best of them. - Review in Round Town News by author Danny Collins, May 2010

‘Compulsive spy novel’

For those who like their plots laid out skilfully and with painstaking research, Nik Morton's latest Tana Standish thriller, The Tehran Text is where you should be. When she knows her friends are in danger, Tana pits her physical skills against evil adversaries to secure their freedom. But because of Tana's phenomenal psychic ability, she is constantly under threat from the mind games of the Soviets. Although Tana has an ally in the Soviet camp, Yakunin, he cannot show his hand as he battles to warn Tana of the threats against her. While Tana pits her wits against the evil agents of the Shah's secret police, she is hounded by the brilliant, but deadly Spetsnaz agent, Aksakov… Tana Standish stands out as a heroine worthy of the pages of this compulsive spy novel. - Michael Parker, author, April 2010

‘Psychological gifts beyond the normal’

Thriller number two in the series of Tana Standish, English agent with psychological gifts beyond the normal. Many have read the book or seen the movie based on Richard Condon's The Manchurian Candidate. An eerie story about brainwashing of an American soldier during the Korean War days. Here, we have such a modern tale where Tana has the ability of the mind to see things at enormous distances... While she goes against an Islamic revolution and the old Ayatolla Komenih figures now and then, Tana's worst opponent is the female sadist and Spetsnaz agent Aksakov. - Review by Iwan Morelius in the Swedish online magazine LÄST OCH HÖRT I HÄNGMATTAN, translated, May 2010

My thanks to all of the above reviewers!

You can purchase The Tehran Text from any one of the international Amazon sites here

The Tehran Text - e-book published by Crooked Cat Publishing

The Blurb

The tense and explosive sequel to The Prague Papers

1978. Iran is in ferment and the British Intelligence Service wants Tana Standish’s assessment. It appears that CIA agents are painting too rosy a picture, perhaps because they’re colluding with the state torturers…

Allegiances and loyalties are strained as Tana’s mission becomes deadly and personal. Old friends are snatched, tortured and killed by SAVAK, the Shah’s secret police. She has to use all her skills as a secret agent and psychic to stay one step ahead of the oppressors and traitors.

As the country stumbles towards the Islamic Revolution, the Shah’s grip on power weakens. There’s real concern for the MI6 listening post near the Afghan border. Only Tana Standish is available to investigate; yet it’s possible she could be walking into a trap, as the deadly female Spetsnaz fighter Aksakov has been sent to abduct Tana.

Meanwhile, in Kazakhstan, the sympathetic Yakunin, the psychic spy tracking Tana, is being sidelined by a killer psychic, capable of weakening Tana at the critical moment in combat with Aksakov. Can Yakunin save Tana without being discovered?

In the troubled streets of Iran’s ancient cities and amidst the frozen wastes on the Afghan border, Tana makes new friends and new enemies…

Worth reading twice!

Taking a few minutes off from writing to a couple of deadlines:

Today, just found a great 4-star Amazon UK review of The Tehran Text.

"I don't often read a book twice, and this one benefits from a second read as you can sort out the characters better and appreciate the quality of the writing. The book opens in fine dramatic style, with an assassination and more than a hint of psychic powers which quickly dominate the story of Tana Standish and her action-packed adventures in the middle east.

"The intricacies of the plot unfold in masterful manner and I don't want to put the book down as Standish wriggles out of one situation into another while playing mind games and trying to rescue her friends.

"I enjoyed the Foreword - an unusual and intriguing insight into the origin of the book..."

Thank you Jlbwye. It would be great to learn that a lot more people have read it once, let alone twice! I really appreciate this reviewer's dedication; a good review also appeared for The Prague Papers. Trouble is, I now have to get the next in the series finished - The Khyber Chronicle. As they say, every silver lining has a cloud, or something similar...

 http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00TLMK81Y?keywords=nik%20morton&qid=1455717020&ref_=sr_1_5&s=digital-text&sr=1-5

'... moving on to the rest of the world...'

In the light of this weekend’s terrible atrocities committed in Paris, I was drawn to some research I conducted a few years back.

When I was studying Iran for my thriller The Tehran Text, I was conscious of the time-frame in which the story would be set – 1978: the lead up to the Islamic Revolution from a British psychic spy’s perspective.

James Clavell wrote two interesting fast reads about that period – Whirlwind (1986) and its parallel love story novel Escape (1994). There were many other books I referenced, and one of them was Christopher de Bellaigue’s In the Rose Garden of the Martyrs (2004). Bellaigue was the Economist’s man in Tehran at the time of writing, and speaks fluent Farsi. He now lives in London with his wife Bita Ghezelayagh, who is an Iranian architect.

Like people the world over, Iranian men, women and children merely want to get on with their lives and are not particularly interested in the dogma of imams or religious leaders. However, one observation of a person in Bellaigue’s book tends to emphasize what most of us should know and fear: ‘The (Islamic) Revolution would start in Iran, before moving on to the rest of the world. Muslim countries would be first…’

These revolutionaries can bide their time, but that is their goal.

No dialogue, no compromise.

***

The Tehran Text published as an e-book by Crooked Cat Publications

 

 

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