BOOK CLUB FRIDAY--AUTHOR MARTIN ROY HILL'S INSPIRATION FOR THE BUTCHER'S BILL

Award-winning author Martin Roy Hill writes the Linus Schag, NCIS, thrillers and the Peter Brandt thrillers. In addition, he’s the author of a sci-fi novella and a book of suspense and mystery stories that take place during and after the Cold War. Learn more about him and his books at his website.

Most of my plots are inspired by news events or historic facts. The plot for my thriller, The Butcher’s Bill, was no different.

A sequel to my first Linus Schag, NCIS novel, The Killing Depths, The Butcher's Bill revolves around one man's attempt to uncover the truth behind the real-world theft of nearly $9 billion in cash during the Iraq War. That theft was the biggest heist in history and it has never been adequately investigated.

What follows is the true story that inspired the fictional story in The Butcher's Bill.

During Operation Iraqi Freedom, the Bush administration made a controversial decision. Billions of dollars belonging to Saddam Hussein and his government sat frozen in financial accounts in U.S. banks. After the fall of the Baghdad government, the White House decided to confiscate those funds and use them to pay for the rebuilding of Iraq.

That, itself, was not controversial. How the administration did it was.

Rather than place the Iraqi funds in a holding account and pay contractor bills as they came due, the Bush administration decided to convert the holdings into $40 billion in U.S. greenbacks and send it to Iraq by the planeload. Once in Iraq, the cash was handed out to contractors without much regard to receipts for work performed. Some witnesses claim the money was simply stuffed into duffle bags and handed over to contractors.

While the haphazard distribution of $31 billion was controversial enough, there was an even greater outrage. Nearly $9 billion in cash—$8.9 billion to be precise—simply disappeared, apparently stolen. Any attempt to investigate the theft was blocked at the highest levels of the government.

Graft and corruption plague every war, but the Iraqi conflict may have seen the most overt war profiteering in history. The Bush administration's excessive use of private contractors for everything from operating mess halls to building bases set the stage for widespread illegal activities. The president's granting of immunity from prosecution to all contractors for any questionable activity only exacerbated the problem.

Contractor-operated mess halls knowingly served rancid food to troops. Construction of facilities for both U.S. and pro-U.S. Iraqi troops was at best careless. Several American service members died when electrocuted by improperly wired barracks. Inadequately constructed plumbing poured raw sewage into newly built buildings, rendering them uninhabitable.

The widespread use of so-called "security contractors"—i.e., armed mercenaries—was the most controversial. These private military companies claimed their personnel were highly trained former military or law enforcement professionals. In fact, many of these security contractors had little or no military or law enforcement background. Many had criminal histories and some were known former members of Latin American death squads.

Security contractors were responsible for some of the most egregious acts. There were allegations of security contractors smuggling weapons into Iraq, possibly to sell to insurgents. Some were accused of smuggling drugs, which they sold to U.S. troops. Many security contractors were accused of wantonly killing Iraqi citizens without cause. Only when a group of security contractors machine-gunned more than 20 unarmed Iraqi civilians in Baghdad in 2007 were any of these people prosecuted.

These are the facts behind the plot of The Butcher's Bill. Now for the fiction.

NCIS Special Agent Bill Butcher found himself in the middle of this byzantine environment when posted to Iraq during the war. A former Navy SEAL, Butcher is a man of high moral standards, with a strong sense of right and wrong, especially when it involves the welfare of serving men and women.

Butcher was continually frustrated when Bush's immunity proclamation prevented him from investigating the myriad acts of profiteering and corruption he saw around him. When pulled off an investigation into the missing $9 billion in cash, Butcher refused to give up. He continued to probe the theft even after returning to the States. His obsession with the missing funds eventually cost him his NCIS job as well as his marriage. When Butcher discovered the truth behind the missing money, those responsible for the theft come after him.

Those who stole the money want Bill Butcher dead. The cops want him for murder. Butcher's only hope is his former NCIS colleague and closest friend, Linus Schag.

Torn between loyalties, Schag walks a thin line between doing his job and helping his friend. Working from opposite ends, Schag and Butcher peel back the layers of conspiracy, revealing a criminal enterprise reaching into the highest levels of government.

Taken straight from today's headlines, the plot of The Butcher's Bill ranges from the California mountains to the waters of the Pacific and I hope, keeps readers on edge until its final, explosive climax.

The Butcher’s Bill

Meet William Butcher, aka The Butcher, former Navy SEAL, now a disgraced ex-NCIS agent.

Those who stole $9 billion in cash from Iraq want him dead.

The cops want him for murder.

Butcher's only hope is his former NCIS colleague and closest friend, Linus Schag.

Together Schag and Butcher tear away the veil of conspiracy, uncovering a criminal enterprise reaching into the highest levels of government.

Ripped from today's headlines, this sequel to Martin Roy Hill's highly praised The Killing Depths takes the reader from the California mountains to the coastal waters of the Pacific into the dangerous world of war-profiteers and international mercenaries, and is guaranteed to keep readers on edge until its final, explosive climax.

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#CRAFTS WITH ANASTASIA--WHERE CONNIE GOT HER OUTRAGEOUS CRAFT IDEA

photo credit: Parvathisri

By Lois Winston

Today I’m continuing my series on where I’ve gotten the ideas for my books and characters. Even though it wasn’t the first book I wrote, Talk Gertie To Me was the first book I sold to a publisher. It debuted in 2006 at the height of the chick lit craze, but the book wasn’t chick lit in the Bridget Jones’s Diary sense. It was a genre hybrid, combining chick lit and what came to be known as hen lit (chick lit featuring older heroines). Because chick lit is the genre that must not be spoken in the world of publishing nowadays, today we call such books humorous women’s fiction.

Talk Gertie To Me featured Connie Stedworth, a kinder, gentler menopausal Martha Stewart, her rebellious daughter Nori, and Nori’s acerbic imaginary friend Gertie. The book received critical acclaim and was the recipient of several awards.

When it comes to “write what you know,” I know crafts. I had a long career in the consumer crafts industry as both a designer and craft book editor. So it wasn’t a stretch for me to create Connie. But I wanted Connie to have a rebellious streak of her own. So I decided I needed her to come up with an outrageous craft project, one that would get tongues a’wagging in her conservative Iowa hometown. I needed to look no further than one of my fellow crafters.

For years I belonged to the Society of Craft Designers. Every year we held a conference where designers, craft book editors, and craft kit manufacturers gathered for several days of workshops and networking. One designer I got to know quite well was Priscilla Hauser, the queen of decorative painting. One night over drinks Priscilla told a group of us about her quest to appear on The Tonight Show.

Priscilla had developed an outrageous craft project involving plaster of Paris and a certain body part (No, not that body part!  My, you all have dirty minds!)  She wanted to demonstrate the technique on The Tonight Show.  Unfortunately, Johnny Carson’s people weren’t interested. Fast-forward quite a few years: I’m wracking my brain for a zany craft, and I remembered Priscilla’s story. Johnny Carson’s people might not have been interested in Priscilla’s craft, but David Letterman’s people are definitely interested in Connie’s craft. She winds up demonstrating it on Late Night, using a certain sexy movie star from Down Under as her guinea pig. (Of course, I gave proper credit to Priscilla and sent her a copy of the book when it came out.)

Ever since Talk Gertie To Me, crafts and some of my experiences in the crafts industry, have featured into many of my books, especially in my Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery series.

Talk Gertie To Me

Two years ago Nori Stedworth fled the conservative mentality of both her parents and Ten Commandments, Iowa, for Manhattan. She loves her new life -- until one devastating afternoon that culminates with the arrival of her mother. Mom is suffering from middle-age meltdown. Her only identity is as a wife and mother, but her husband is a workaholic, and her daughter is halfway across the country. Grandchildren would give her life new purpose. If only Nori would come to her senses and marry town mortician and most eligible bachelor Eugene Draymore.

To that end, Mom sets off to bring Nori home. But when she meets Nori’s neighbor, her plans take an unexpected twist, and she’s thrust headfirst into a career as the next Martha Stewart. Suddenly, she’s a somebody in her own right and reconsiders returning to her old life.

As a coping mechanism, Nori resurrects Gertie, her adolescent imaginary friend. A laptop mix-up lands her musings in the hands of Mackenzie Randolph, a talk-radio station manager on deadline to boost sagging ratings or lose his job. He knows he’s found the answer to his prayers when he reads Nori’s make-believe correspondence. 

And maybe he’s found much more.

Meanwhile Dad, with Eugene in tow, comes in search of his AWOL wife. Tempers flare when Mom refuses to return home. However, when she and Dad hear Nori on the radio, they unite to “save” her from the corruption of both Mac and Manhattan.

And that’s when things really get interesting.

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WHERE DO AUTHORS GET THEIR IDEAS?

By Lois Winston

Ask any fiction author, no matter the genre, the most frequently asked question readers ask her, and she’ll answer, “Where do you get your ideas?” Ask any fiction author, no matter the genre, what advice she’s heard most often, and she’ll answer it’s to write what you know.

Some may wonder how the two can be compatible. What about authors who write about zombies or stories which take place on distant planets or back in ancient times? Zombies aren’t real, and no writer has ever traveled to a distant planet or hitched a ride in a DeLorean to go back in time.

“Write what you know” doesn’t mean write only what you’ve personally experienced. Once you research a topic, you know about it. And research can take many different forms, including reading books by other authors who write the kind of books you want to write. Once an author immerses herself in the world of zombies or interstellar travel or life in medieval England, she can put her own unique spin on the genre.

Since I’m often asked where I get the ideas for my stories, I thought I’d write a series of posts in the coming months on how the ideas for each of my books came about. I've also invited some of my fellow authors who write in a variety of genres to join me. Today I begin the series. Look for more posts on the topic in the weeks and months to come.

I get most of my ideas for both my characters and my plots from the world around me. I’m a die-hard news junkie who has always believed that truth is stranger than fiction. That belief is reaffirmed every time I pick up a newspaper or turn on the evening news. I’ll hear a news story or read an article, then give the event a “what if” spin. The voices in my head take over from there, and the next thing I know, I’ve got a plot, a subplot, a scene, a protagonist, or a secondary character.

When the writing bug first bit me, I started penning a sweet romance, a story that came to me one night in a dream. Prior to that, I hadn’t written any fiction since Freshman Comp in college. I called my romance Spilled Coffee because of the way the heroine and hero meet at the beginning of the book.

At the time I was living in a Philadelphia suburb. While I was writing this romance, a shocking murder occurred in a nearby town. Each day the news was filled with more and more gruesome details of this horrific crime. To my surprise, the murder began influencing my writing.

Eventually my sweet romance morphed into a story about secrets and revenge and the lengths some people will go in order to bury the former and achieve the latter. The plot is ripe with scandal. Drugs, violence, blackmail political machinations, and attempted murder. My heroine is a wealthy young widow whose abusive, cocaine-snorting, deceased husband was about as low as a low-life can get.

A decade after I first sat down to write a romance, Spilled Coffee became the award-winning romantic suspense Love, Lies and a Double Shot of Deception, the second book I sold. The novel is by no means a fictionalized retelling of the murder and attempted cover-up perpetrated by Main Line Murderer, Craig Rabinowitz, but elements of the crime played a huge role in how the story developed.

Love, Lies and a Double Shot of Deception

Life has delivered one sucker punch after another to Emma Wadsworth. As a matter of fact, you could say the poor little rich girl is the ultimate poster child for Money Can’t Buy Happiness — even if she is no longer a child.

Billionaire real estate stud Logan Crawford is as famous for his less-than-platinum reputation as he is his business empire. In thirty-eight years he’s never fallen in love, and that’s just fine with him — until he meets Emma.

But Emma’s not buying into Logan’s seductive ways. Well, maybe just a little, but she’s definitely going into the affair with her eyes wide open. She’s no fool. At least not any more. Her deceased husband saw to that. Besides, she knows Logan will catch the first jet out of Philadelphia once he learns her secrets.

Except things don’t go exactly as Emma has predicted, and when Philadelphia’s most beloved citizen becomes the city’s most notorious criminal, she needs to do a lot more than clear her name if she wants to save her budding romance with the billionaire hunk someone is willing to kill for.

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