THE SURREAL KILLER WINS AN AWARD

I just received an e-mail telling me that "The Surreal Killer" won the Indie Book of the Day award today.  This novel, the third (and soon to become the second) in the Roger and Suzanne South American mystery series, is the best seller in the series thus far.  I recommend it highly for those of you who haven't read it yet.

The image of the award is embedded below.

SOUTH AMERICAN MUSEUMS AND CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY

-->

One of the things we never learned about when I went to school was the history of South America before the Spanish Conquest.  There was (and still is) a rich history, much of which we know about in some detail, culminating with the ascendency of the Incan Empire in the 15^th Century.  One of the benefits of wandering through Argentina, Chile, Peru, and Ecuador is getting exposed to this rich and fascinating history of pre-Colombian South America.

TOURISM IN SOUTH AMERICA

-->

OK, you're ready to visit some of the places I've described in my South American mystery stories.  What should you do next?  Most of South America, especially in the poorer and less developed countries, has a much more complicated system and infrastructure to support tourism than we are accustomed to in the United States and Western Europe.  Banking systems are less reliable, currency values are less stable, and credit cards have not yet replaced cash in many transactions as they have in North America, especially for international visitors.  So, if you want to go from where you are to a different major tourist attraction it takes some planning.   You don’t go on-line and make plane and hotel reservations, nor do you hop on a flight with stand-by tickets and find a hotel when you arrive at your destination.   

A Prequel to the Galapagos Islands

-->

Before we visited the Galapagos Islands several years ago, Elaine and I traveled from Salta, Argentina, the setting for my first novel The Empanada Affair, to Santa Cruz, deep in the Bolivian jungles, to Quito, Ecuador, which is high in the Andes.  Along the way we went to La Paz and Lake Titicaca and then on to Cuzco and Machu Picchu, which became the setting for part of one of my earlier novels, “The Surreal Killer”.  From there we went on to Quito, Ecuador and The Galapagos.  A current Work In Progress (WIP) brings Roger and Suzanne to the The Galapagos Islands, so I thought it might be fun for Jerry and Elaine to share a few of the spots in between the places where Roger and Suzanne have already solved multiple murders and one of the current WIPs.

The Magic of Machu Picchu

-->

For all of you interested in The Magic of Machu Picchu, which really is a magical place, I wrote a fairly extensive blog entry I just posted on the topic that I highly recommend reading at http://www.rachelleayala.com.  It's a good introduction to one of the most fascinating places on Earth, The Sacred City of the Incas.  Machu Picchu plays a key role as a location in The Surreal Killer, and is one of the two must-see places if you ever are a tourist in South America, at least in my opinion.  The other is The Galapagos Islands.  Machu Picchu in the Peruvian Andes near Cuzco, along with several islands in Lake Titicaca high in the Andes on the Peru-Bolivia border, were the most sacred cities to the Incas, who maintained a far-flung empire stretching across all of South America from Colombia in the North to Argentina in the South just prior to the Spanish conquest of the region in the 16th Century.

The Surreal Killer, an Excerpt

Chapter 1. Santiago, Chile, A Year Ago

            He always thought of this part as cutting the calf out of the herd.  The problem:  Pick up the woman somewhere, somehow without any witnesses to the event.  The solution this time:  he found her hitchhiking late at night on the deserted street in a poorly lit part of town.  He stopped the rented car and offered her a ride.  She looked at him, decided he was safe, jumped in the car, congratulated herself on her good luck, and asked if he was heading towards the next town. 

            "Yes, I am.  Where can I drop you off?"

            "Anywhere near the middle of town would be great."

            "You've got it."

            The car started off in the right direction.

            "Can I offer you a little brandy?  It's cold out there," he said.

            "I'd love a sip or two."

            He removed a flask from his pocket and passed it over.

            "Thanks a lot," she replied, and took a long slow swallow.  She returned the flask to the driver.

            Five minutes later the long-acting drug in the brandy had worked its magic and she was completely helpless.  Wide awake, but totally unable to move or speak.  She stared at the driver with terrified eyes.  The driver steered the car onto a dirt road and drove about half a mile into the woods.  After stopping the car, he came around to the passenger side, and pulled her out onto the ground.  She noted that there was grass and dirt in the clearing.  He pawed her body for a few moments, but didn't seem interested in undressing or sexually assaulting her beyond the unwanted touching.  Out came his syringe, and with a few well-coordinated movements he injected a few mL of fluid directly into her jugular vein.  The powerful drug did its work and she was now completely paralyzed.

Things To Do In Lima, Peru

In my third South American mystery novel, The Surreal Killer, one of the detectives, Suzanne, goes shopping for baby clothes at the Mercado de Las Incas in Lima with several women she meets at a scientific meeting.  Two of these women worked as scientists from government agencies in Lima and are based (their physical descriptions and their willingness to adopt Suzanne and show her the techniques for shopping at The Inca Market) upon the actual Peruvian government scientist who hosted our group from the University in Montevideo and me in 2010.   We spent that week in Peru teaching a course to about 50 Peruvian scientists and engineers about analysis and toxicology of the Microcystins, toxins produced by Blue-Green algae that can contaminate drinking water supplies.  A highlight of the week was Friday morning’s session, when we presented a condensed version of the 1-week course over the World health Organization’s (WHO) broadband network, which reaches to 19 different Latin American countries simultaneously in real time.  The WHO regional network, called the Pan-American Health Organization (PAHO), hosted almost 500 participants in 19 different countries for our morning course.  It’s a strange feeling knowing that you are talking to almost 500 people as you deliver your lecture or discussion to a camera mounted on a computer.

Blue-green algae grow in lakes, reservoirs, and wherever else you might find slow-moving or stagnant water that contains the nitrogen and phosphorus nutrients they need to make little algae from.  Some of these algae make powerful toxins that can kill people and animals.  The recipe for disaster is a body of water, sunlight, and nutrients from agricultural fertilizers or urban sewers.  This is a worldwide problem, including the countries in South America that my novels are set in, and just about everywhere else.  It's also an area in which my scientific colleagues in Uruguay are making a major contribution to developing new and better methods to test drinking water supplies for the presence of these toxins. 

The traditional Peruvian delicacy that tourists flock to in Lima is ceviche, fresh raw fish or seafood marinated in lime juice and seasoned with herbs like cilantro.  This South American spin on sushi is really, really good, especially when it is accompanied by a cold beer as a snack or appetizer before dinner.  There is an interesting juxtaposition between sampling the ceviche and worrying about whether the ubiquitous blue-green algae we were discussing in the course shared the water with the fish we were eating so cheerfully.  This may be one of the places that the new assays being developed in Uruguay for the algal toxins will have some direct relevance for tourists in Lima in the future.

Where Do All of Those Characters in the Books Come From?

As we try to create the imaginary worlds of our books, to be believable we have to rely on reality for inspiration.  I try to use the places I’ve lived in and visited in South America as settings in my South American Mystery novels.  These novels have to be populated with people, both the central characters like my detectives Roger Bowman and Suzanne Foster, and all of the rest of the characters they will meet as they investigate the murder or murders.  We quickly encounter a problem of how to make these other characters into distinct individuals rather than just 20 clones named Pedro or Jose.  To solve this problem I try to use real people I’ve met in South America as models for fictional characters in these books by visualizing someone I actually met for a physical description or taking part of their personas to start building my fictional characters.  Let me introduce you to the path from reality to book pages of a few of the suspects in the murders being investigated and a couple of the minor characters from two of my novels.

A Brief history of Guest Appearances on Various Blogs

Sunday January 15, 2012:  An interview with "the other" Stephen King on his blog site "http://theotherstephenkingonwriting.blogspot.com" about the second book in the series, The Ambivalent Corpse.

You Can Tell a Book by its Cover

 To Buy The Empanada Affair, go to

To Buy The Ambivalent Corpse, Go To

To Buy The Surreal Killer, Go To

Where Do Roger and Suzanne Hang Out?

So far (as of 4/14/2012) they've appeared in three novels:

(1) "The Empanada Affair" 3 stars, $0.99, a Kindle E-book mystery novel set in Salta, in Northwest Argentina is available on Amazon at http://www.amazon.com/The-Empanada-Affair ebook/dp/B005BFCVYW/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1312339722&sr=1-1, as well as through Amazon DE and UK, Smashwords at https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/77930, and directly from Apple (iPad, iPhone), Barnes and Noble (Nook), Kobo, etc.  This is the first book in the Roger Bowman and Suzanne Foster South American mysteries series.

The Empanada Affair is a hard-boiled thriller, featuring Private Detective Roger Bowman and Scientist Suzanne Foster trying to solve the mystery of who murdered Suzanne's father while he was visiting Salta in Northwest Argentina. The book features a whodunit mystery, travel through the region, local food and wine, and a steamy romance that begins on the long flight south from California. 

(2) "The Ambivalent Corpse" is available for only $2.99 as a Kindle E-book from Amazon at http://www.amazon.com/Ambivalent-Corpse-Crime-Meant-ebook/dp/B0060ZFRQG/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1319989507&sr=1-1, from Amazon UK, DE, FR, and ES, and in other convenient formats from Smashwords at http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/100325. The book is also available for Apple iPhones and iPads at the iBook store, for Nook readers at http://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/the-ambivalent-corpse?keyword=the+ambivalent+corpse&store=ebook, and for Kobo readers at http://www.kobobooks.com/search/search.html?q=The+ambivalent+corpse. This fast paced mystery book set in Montevideo, the capital city of Uruguay, and Iguazu Falls, on the border of Brazil, Argentina, and Paraguay, has garnered multiple four 4- and 5-star reviews.

The Ambivalent Corpse is set mainly in Montevideo, Uruguay.  Roger and Suzanne find parts of a dismembered corpse on a rocky stretch of beach in Montevideo, apportioned equally between the Memorial to a German cruiser sunk in World War II and the Memorial to Jews killed in the Holocaust.  Because of the murder victim's strategic location shared between two antithetical monuments, the Uruguayan press names her “The Ambivalent Corpse”.  Private detective Roger Bowman and his girlfriend, scientist Suzanne Foster, find themselves traveling through Uruguay, Southwest Brazil, and parts of Paraguay and Argentina to help solve the case.  Along the way they experience the local tourist attractions, lots of intrigue, and a complex murder mystery that Suzanne and Roger both play essential roles in solving.  The plot races along at a rapid pace that makes this book very difficult to put down once you've started reading it.  Start early if you want to get a full night's sleep.  This fast paced mystery has plenty of action, atmosphere, and sense of place.  While the novel is basically a hard-boiled mystery story, it bends the genre slightly so that it should also appeal to readers interested in travel, romance, Indigenous creation legends, and South American food and wine. 

(3) 

THE SURREAL KILLER, 5 Star reviews, is the third Roger Bowman-Suzanne Foster South American mystery novel in the series, and is presently available only as a Kindle E-Book from Amazon (+Amazon UK and DE) for $2.99 at http://www.amazon.com/The-Surreal-Killer-ebook/dp/B007H21EFO/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1330988453&sr=1-2.  The book is currently free for Amazon Prime members to borrow. 

A serial killer is leaving a trail of dead women across Chile, Peru, and Bolivia.  The gruesome corpses all seem to have died in exactly the same macabre way.  There may be a link to a small group of scientists who meet annually in different locations in the region.  Roger Bowman and Suzanne Foster are asked by the local police to attend this year’s meeting of the group in Lima, Peru to try to find out who was present at the previous meetings when the murders occurred.  And the reader is off on a fast paced pursuit of the killer through Lima, Cuzco, and Machu Picchu in Peru and Chile’s Atacama Desert.  This is a true whodunit mystery novel set in an unusual and exotic locale. This tightly written mystery story will keep you guessing all the way to the thrilling conclusion.