Notes from Spain – Parasol wars

Fine weather for summer – that’s why there are a lot of fines being dished out, perhaps…

Fines?  Yes, authorities around Spain are fining folk who use parasols to establish a claim on sections of beach, much like those folk who ‘reserve’ sun-loungers at hotel pool areas.

Apparently, every day as dawn breaks, individuals troop down as close to the water’s edge as possible and erect their parasols (and sometimes with chairs, tables and even cooler boxes). Then they go back to their holiday chalets, hotels or wherever for some hours, secure in the knowledge they’ve secured a prime spot for when they do eventually turn up.

 Wikipedia commons

War has been declared on this selfish practice. New bylaws have been implemented or existing laws are being rigorously enforced in several coastal towns. Local police have been known to remove the items that turn a public space into a private space. Recovery of umbrellas removed can cost 30 euros.

Where fines are applicable, they can run to between 150 and 720 euros. Though finding the owners of the umbrellas does pose a problem: the offending umbrella owner considers he or she is better off abandoning it and buying another, rather than paying a fine!

Review - Fifth Columnist

Fifth Columnist is a crime short story by Frank Westworth. It also serves as an introduction to his novel The Redemption of Charm, as there’s an extract at the end of the story.

These books are labelled as for an adult audience, as they contain explicit language and scenes of a sexual and violent nature.

Initially, I wasn’t comfortable with the introduced nameless characters; however, I was soon sucked into the story, which was about a British army sergeant being hired for a hit by, of all people, the police.

The one-liners come thick and fast, there’s innuendo and some great enjoyable word-play, too. There’s not a lot of action until we get to the devastating end, when the tables are turned, and not only tables. The slick switcheroo worked well; I didn’t see it coming.

Westworth’s anti-hero is J.J. Stoner, a former soldier and black ops assassin, who appears in the excerpt. However, the short story ‘Fifth Columnist’ isn’t about Stoner but one of his contemporaries, a sergeant.

The novel excerpt begins with Stoner on his Harley in the American north-east, enjoying the scenery. Unfortunately, a group of bikers take exception to him and a little friction results. Here, we get to see action, plenty of it, swift, brutal and bloody, laced with irony and wit. While this episode can stand alone, the excerpt nevertheless does what is intended, arm-twisting the reader in wanting to read more.

Like a number of crime novelists, Westworth has latched onto a motif for his short story series titles:

First Contract

Two Wrongs

Third Person

Four Cornered

Fifth Columnist

He must be doing something right, because he has picked up reviews in double figures!

And with endorsements from R.J. Ellory and Maxim Jakubowski, I suspect that he’s going places, doubtless on his beloved Harley-Davidson. [Our neighbours in UK owned a Harley or two, and one of their retired greyhounds was called Harley…]

Good old sex and violence – can’t beat it!

Notes from Spain – raindancer required!

Here on the Costa Blanca we’re aware that there appears to be a water shortage. We’ve not seen or heard any official pronouncements about a ‘hosepipe ban’, however. 

Normally, we’re very impressed with how the water system is managed, considering the long hot months, the vast numbers of occupants of holiday hotels and homes, and the widespread agriculture in the area.

On very rare occasions, we find the water pressure has been reduced; at these times some householders higher up the hill tend to get no water. These restrictions are limited to a few hours at most.

Swimming pools can still be filled, and gardens are still watered – even the community gardens.

I don’t water the garden often, as the plants are well established with deep roots – oleander, bougainvillaea and roses mostly. The dish-washing bowl is emptied on plants in rotation, as is the receptacle from the air-conditioning outlet.

This year seems to be especially serious, the Alicante province having recorded the worst drought in 25 years, the lack of rainfall virtually half that of previous years. This inadequate rainfall has been noticeable since 2013. Forecasters don’t see any change for some time. The level of the La pedrera reservoir not far away has dropped, though it isn’t as bad as some places in Spain.

La pedrera reservoir

The effects are felt more inland, which affects agricultural communities, which rely solely on aquifers, whose reserves are constantly dwindling. The coast near us has alternative supplies, water transfers from the north or desalination plants. We’re also near the River Segura, which is diverted to countless irrigation canals. (A few years back, a hapless driver ended up in one of these canals; it cost him his life). Mountains are not far off, the plains sloping to the sea being highly fertile, with crops seeming to be constantly planted and harvested by hard-working farmers.

However, when it rains here, boy, does it rain! Torrential; the streets tend to flood very quickly. This is the main reason why the pavements have unusually high kerbstones, to channel the rain-water.

Books Monthly website

Lots to read, including reviews, and plenty of nostalgia here. A veritable treasure trove for book lovers and readers.

http://www.booksmonthly.co.uk/index.html

Writing – word-count – progress

From time to time, we hear writers talking about how many words they’ve written ‘today’. 

Some writers say that a book has taken months or even years to write. But in all probability it hasn’t. The writer wasn’t spending all hours on that book. The work was interrupted by ‘life’ – family, friends, work that pays the bills, holidays, and a multitude of other commitments that get in the way.

Writing a novel, I feel, is work, not play. Enjoyable work, granted. But it should be treated the same as ‘work’. 

The normal working day consists of eight hours. Yes, I’m sure that many writers spend eight hours in any particular day working on their book – that is, thinking, researching, juggling words and phrases, tweaking, and even writing new material.

For quite a while now, I’ve advocated that it’s helpful to keep a record of progress, and one of the ways to do that is by using a spreadsheet.

I write in ‘sessions’ – they may be for an hour, 2 hours, or even 30 minutes. I record each time period session. When the sessions add up to 8 hours, I call that a ‘day’.

For interest, I’ve looked back on my latest work, The Khyber Chronicle, which has just hit 45,000 words (about 35,000 to go!)

For the last 5 days of work (that is, 5 x 8-hour sessions), the word-count came out thus:

Day     word-count

1          5895

2          4816

3          5189

4          4975

5          8231

I go into this aspect of calculating word-count on pp18-19 in Write a Western in 30 Days – with plenty of bullet points! (Suitable for not only writers of westerns, but writers of all genre fiction). There are a few good reasons to apply this method. It isn’t the only method, it may not be the best, but it works for me.

Naturally, writing the requisite number of words is only the beginning. Then comes the self-edit, the checks for logic, plot holes, lack of description and all the rest. But getting the words down in the first place is the most important part. Something to build on, to hone thereafter.

Good luck!

'A highly entertaining adventure'

Here's a snippet from a thoughtful and lengthy review of Coffin for Cash.

"...As the pages fly by and the action intensifies the story-lines slowly came together in another great read well worthy of this long running series.

"Coffin for Cash is the latest in the series and one that is guaranteed to stress the reader quite a bit more than one place. A highly entertaining adventure, this latest read serves as a great introduction for readers new to the series while also providing a quality tale for those of us who have been fans since the early days.

"It is a mighty good read and highly recommended."

The full review is here

Thank you, Kevin Tipple!

COFFIN FOR CASH
Cash Laramie has been in plenty of tight spots, but this—being buried alive—may be his last!

It all started innocently enough, as a favor for his boss, accompanying a rich woman in her search for her brother. The trail leads to The Bells, a strange hotel run by a brother and sister team, which just happens to be adjacent to the funeral parlor and cemetery ...

His friend Gideon Miles is nearby, intent on escorting a suspected murderer to Cheyenne for trial. Yet Miles discovers that his charge might be not guilty, after all, and lingers to ask questions. And those inquiries mean upsetting some people, which leads to an ambush, and a final reckoning at the outlandish casino complex constructed by a wealthy, bigoted German baron.

Throw into the mix the attractive Berenice, a schizophrenic bank manager, irate miners, Chinese workers, a boisterous slot machine salesman, and a devious lawyer and you have another explosive adventure for the Outlaw Marshal.

Book review - The Shadow Walker

This debut crime thriller The Shadow Walker by Michael Walters (2006) is intriguing because it’s set entirely in Mongolia, a country about which most of us in the West know little.

The capital Ulan Baatar has its fair share of crime, but not too many murders. And certainly no previous murdered corpses missing the head and hands. And alarmingly the bodies start to mount up…

It’s winter so citizens have to wrap up or they might freeze to death. These temperatures play havoc with identifying the time of death, too. Nergui was transferred from the police to the Ministry of the Justice, but these murders suggested he was needed back in the Serious Crimes team to help his relief Inspector Doripalam solve the case.

Alas, the clues are few. Until one corpse doesn’t resemble the others – it’s identifiable as an English geologist. Detective Inspector Drew McLeish is flown in from the Manchester force as he’s an experienced murder investigator. Politics seem of greater concern than the risk of more citizens dying a ghastly death. Alas, McLeish doesn’t seem to contribute much to the investigation, nor to the story, save that he becomes a reason for the ‘ticking bomb’ finale.

Nergui is an interesting character, and after initial resentment Doripalam works well with him. We also learn a bit about McLeish and see aspects of Mongolia through his fresh eyes. Point of view within a scene switches on occasion from Nergui to Doripalam.

Mongolia is a resource-rich country where various outside mining and business consortiums vie for access. Inevitably, there’s corruption and complicity.

I was expecting more description and feel for the Gobi, but the visit here was spare and even sparse. The descriptions of the city in the freeze put the reader there, but there was no feel that the culture was particularly alien. Sure, Nergui tells McLeish (and the reader) some Mongolian idiosyncrasies, but we are not shown much.  

There seems to be a cunning mastermind behind the murders, though I felt it was a bit contrived, and the final confrontation where it was all explained over several pages by the perpetrator was stretching credibility. The villain was a bit of a nonentity, even a shadow, though whether he was the shadow of the title is debatable.

I enjoyed the first half, mainly concerning Nergui, but then for me the story seemed to deteriorate. The resolution owed little to either McLeish or Nergui, in fact, and was therefore a disappointment. Readers want the main protagonist to resolve the case, not a minor character. I’m not sure why the book is called The Shadow Walker, which is an over-used title, also found in the fantasy genre.

A brave first police procedural novel that that I wanted to like, despite its shortcomings.

There are two more in this series:

#2 – The Adversary

#3 – The Outcast

The author also writes as Alex Walters.

Burkini Bother

Here's my cartoon on the subject...