Chinese Take-out

For something different, here's a novel to try. It's a spy thriller based on a true story.

Chinese Take-out (Kindle Edition)

Ian Mathie is a well-established author of non-fiction. He has published several volumes of memoir, based on his work in the 1970s in Africa, where he developed water resources. Chinese Take-Out is his first novel. It is a spy thriller, based however on the true story of Fanng Lizhi, a Chinese astrophysicist, who with his wife was offered sanctuary in the United States at the time of the Tienanmen massacre.
Fact weighs strongly in the first chapters as the interwoven politics of China, America, Russia and Britain are set down, fixing the reader in time and place. The story opens with Green, a US government agent, being pulled off an operation on the Chinese/North Korean frontier, his preferred area of focus in Asia, to investigate a claim concerning smuggled arms and the possible export of nuclear secrets. A United States senator may be implicated. Green and his team carry out enquiries, bug the senator’s private hunting lodge and set up decoys to delay the operations until definite charges can be brought.
Meanwhile, in China, the protests in Tienanmen Square and demands for less rigid control by the government are turning nasty. The army is brought in, biding its time, while Chong (the fictional equivalent of Fanng Lizhi) seeks refuge with his wife in the American Embassy in Beijing. From there, they are airlifted out to safety under the nose of suspicious Chinese officials, in a daring rescue operation.
With two complex interwoven stories, the book maintains suspense, switching between story lines. The reader moves between high-flying naval and air force personnel, government agents, wire-tapping experts and the President himself. Between the defecting Chinese couple and the shady senator’s devious operations, the stories merge via the keen-nosed Green, who scents irregularity with unfailing instinct.
Readers of spy thrillers will not be disappointed in the author’s first book in this genre. It is a complex, fast-moving story with numerous twists and turns and deserves 5 star rating. However, Ian Mathie prefers not to be pigeonholed in any one genre. Who knows what he may surprise us with next?

Gritty, gripping, and perceptive

Here is the first review of Saving Shelby Summers. And it's one that will be hard to beat!

I am happy that Shelby's dilemmas and their solution have moved this reviewer to award the story 5 stars.

 

5.0 out of 5 stars Gritty, gripping, and perceptive July 21, 2014

By Ian Mathie

I used to say I don’t read romance, but if this is the genre yardstick, I’m ready to change my mind. Margaret Sutherland doesn’t mess around with sloppy, lovesick heroines, mooning over impossible dreams, or mushy idealistic ramblings though unlikely situations. Her version of romance gets tough, gritty and personal from the first page of Saving Shelby Summers.
Her heroine is a gutsy young lady with a traumatised past. Emerging from the wilderness of confusion and hurt, she is beginning to find her way, like a bird first learning to fly, when she suffers a very real catastrophe whilst out riding a friend’s horse. A passing stranger, pausing during a moment of transition in his own life, manages to rescue her and then mysteriously vanishes. This gives a dramatic start to a novel where all the characters have baggage, many have unresolved life issues, and all are seeking, in their different ways, a path forward to an unclear future.

Character building is one of the great strengths of this writer’s work, and it is built on her detailed understanding of the emotional and practical dilemmas that face every one of us. Her characters come across as real people we all know and can identify with; sometimes irritating, sometimes inspiring, and frequently frustrating us, the readers, when they can’t see the obvious opportunities a situation offers. But this is real life she’s showing us, with real people portrayed, warts and all. She also has a strong plot, so it makes the romance gritty, gripping, and compelling as she introduces complications, drip feeding in new revelations about her protagonists just as you think you know how they’ll behave and where things are going.

This book offers a good, compelling story, and the style of writing makes rewarding reading. Beautifully written, and offering a real flavour of life in provincial Australia, it is nevertheless right up to date with the trappings of the modern world. Her use of animals as catalysts in the story proves an interesting vehicle to open up other aspects of human behaviour and interaction, contrasting the inherent unselfishness and trusting nature of the animals against the confused desires, emotional volatility, and hesitance to take risks of the humans.

Just like her New England Romance, this book can be read at several different levels, each delivering layers of insight into the human condition and to how people handle, and often mismanage, their relationships. There is a lot to be learned from Margaret Sutherland’s books, as well as in enjoying their great entertainment value. She sets a high standard most romance writers struggle to attain.

On the downside, her publishers clutter the front few pages of the e-book version with advertising for other books. This is irritating for the reader who wants to read Saving Shelby Summers, and should have been attached to the back end if it has to be included.

Despite this, the book is worthy of its five stars. Do read it.

www.friends

My old Collins dictionary defines a friend as 'a person known well to another and regarded with liking, affection and loyalty.' It's an old dictionary and does not comment on the phenomenon of internet friends-- names that pop up on our Facebook or LinkedIn  page, requesting or accepting friendship. True, some folk take this reaching out to extremes, claiming hundreds, even thousands of contacts collected like model cars or stamps.
Is it possible to interact with people we have never met? Of course it is. How many penpals form lifelong friendships? With the easy availability of the Web, nobody need feel isolated. Sometimes the influx of mail is overwhelming. All too often I hastily skim, scan and delete, but I never disregard a friend's name, shining like a flake of gold amongst all the dross. Somebody has remembered me and bothered to write. My Inbox friends are as much a part of my life as relatives.
I was thinking about friendship as I raised a call for help to set up this blog. The authors and staff at Secret Cravings Publishing, my publishers, rallied when I confessed my technical ignorance and feelings of incompetence. People offered help, assured me it was fine to make mistakes, and set out the process of building a blog site. Here it is! Just like that. I want to thank supportive and warm friends, my fellow authors. You know who you are. I hope I can be of equal assistance to you some day.

Writers' World

I write books. I'm a wordsmith, a craftswoman. I like that aspect of writing. Did you think writers are inspired creatures whose heads are littered with fresh verbs, original adjectives, characters who you know better than your family? Writers today are marketing slaves, competing with literally millions of motivated, hopeful beings like themselves. We have to go forth and be known.
This is not why I write. (Actually I don't know why I write and I don't really care.) If a reader likes my work I feel gratified and happy. We all like praise.
But the imperative to sell one's own work is simply reality today. There are no gentlemen/lady publishers left...those dear, respectful people who once took a protege out to lunch, where literary bon mots were exchanged over a free(for the author) meal. These people existed. They were 84 Charing Cross Rd book loving beings who cared for their writers, nurtured them like little ducklings while trying to help build a backlist.
Wistful memories tend to reveal that one is ageing and the world ain't what it used to be. Moving on, books fly from the hands of self-publishers, online publishers, even a few big name publishers. So keen are we to sell that we are grateful to shift our book, for $5, for $3, maybe even for free. Next we will be paying our readers to take a copy off our hands.
So here I am, blogging away. A friend thought that successful bloggers need to be rather opinionated so I will have to work on that. A lot of my opinions have mellowed into sludge. Do you have an answer for everything? My certainties diminish by the day. I didn't think I needed a blog, but wise friends tell me it is essential. Why? Perhaps I'll figure this out as I go along. Now I've got started, maybe I can go write a few pages of my new novel. Bye, world!