Bent, Not Broken-A Modern Romance is Now Available!

Dwayne Johnson knows he is different. He lives in a world that can always be depended on to remind him of his strangeness. Despite his social awkwardness, Dwayne meets a beautiful woman at a bus stop and soon his entire life transforms. Unfortunately his obsessions work against him, keeping the couple apart pushing Dwayne to the point of alcoholism and insanity.

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I really want to tell you about “Bent, Not Broken" a story that should not be missed.

Dwayne suffers from OCD. I think that after finishing the story that some of my own compulsive tendencies have flared, but I’m not Dwayne. Dwayne must live in a world of odd numbers preferring 3s, 5s, and 7s. One of the more touching moments is when Dwayne is out on a date and he needed an extra chair and place setting at the table in order to feel comfortable, and I think that I’m hard to live with.

Dwayne is excellent at his job. He calls people that he refers to as “marks” and asks them about their preferences, surveys them about food, TV, etc, and rewards those who answer them with valuable coupon books. He holds the record for the most completed surveys in one shift. He is loved by his boss; hated by his co-workers. To Dwayne, his co-workers are the terrible trio. They play games with this desk, putting an extra pen in his up so that they number 4 or 6 or 8. These games make it impossible for Dwayne to focus.

The one thing that Dwayne has going for him is a mysterious woman that he calls Black-Coat Girl who is at the bus stop everyday at the same time he drives by on his way to work. Dwayne has made up several stories about Black-Coat Girl, who she is, what she does, why she takes the bus.

What is really nice about this story is that it has a very Punch-Drunk Love romantic twist that takes a seven car pileup on a snowy day to kick off. Dwayne has to take the bus, the very same bus that Black-Coat Girl takes. And on that day, Black-Coat Girl sits down beside him and admits that she thinks of him as her 20-Second Boyfriend.

The writing is really well done. The descriptions of Dwayne’s inner experience are strange and wildly detailed. They have a bumpy start to things, but their story ends well, not the happily ever after kind of ending, but an ending that suits the characters and left me wanting for more.

by Aaron Wilson www.soullessmachine.com

Available in Kindle at Amazon.com

Also available in Multiple ebook foramts at Smashwords.com

My Interview at Pinnacle Writing

This interview was previously published at Thomas Drinkard's Pinnacle Writing blog

I’m happy to say that today’s interview will not only cover William’s writing, but will also focus on the Independent Author Network (IAN). I’ll let him explain.

T. Hello, please give us a bit of biography to start.

WRP. I live in New Westminster B.C. Canada with my wonderful wife; my son, Alex 7 and daughter, Meghan 5. I have self-published two books including my short story collection Lighting the Dark Side, which won an editors choice award in 2009.

T. When did you start writing?

WRP. I attempted my first novel at age 11 after watching the first King Kong remake in 1979. Later in my teens I would enjoy poetry and later short-stories before returning to pen my first novel in my late 30’s.

T. Was there a favorite writing teacher or mentor?

WRP. No, none that I recall.

T. With a family and full-time job when do you find time to write?

WRP. Whenever and wherever I can find a few minutes.

T. Please tell us about your current book.

WRP. My latest is called Dead of Knight. It’s a murder mystery thriller/police procedural. A synopsis: Believing he is a soldier of justice, a young man begins a callous campaign of terror, murdering women on their birthdays. Convinced of his righteousness, he continues his brutal crusade forcing the citizens of Hanson, B.C. to acknowledge a serial killer is active in their rural community. Anxious to work the biggest case of his career, Detective Jack Staal is forced to the outside when the Royal Canadian Mounted Police’s Integrated Homicide Teams are assigned to the case. Not one to sit on the sidelines, Staal convinces his colleagues to follow his lead and pursue a serial killer who the media has dubbed Birthday Boy. Dead of Knight is told from two perspectives, that of the cat, and the mouse, but who is who? Is the detective chasing the murderer, or is the murderer chasing the cop?

T. What was the inspiration for writing a mystery/crime thriller?

WRP. Writing and publishing a novel has been a life long dream. I made a few attempts at sci-fi novels in my teens and twenties without completing them. Some of my earliest television memories are of gritty 70’s cop shows like Starsky and Hutch, The Streets of San Francisco, and SWAT. As an adult, I couldn’t read fast enough the works of Michael Connelly, Patricia Cornwell and John Sanford. My first attempt in the genre was a Jack Staal short story. Readers and reviewers of Prominent Couple Slain enjoyed the piece and encouraged me to write a Staal novel.

T. What’s the significance of the book’s title?

WRP. The villain (Birthday Boy) calls himself Damian Knight…and therefore his victims are “Dead of Knight.”

T. What inspired you to craft the story from the perspective of both cop and killer?

WRP. Writing from both points of view allows me to put the reader into the head of a killer and not just the people who catch them. Getting deeper into the why and how a killer does what he or she does paints a stronger picture showing the two sides of a story. Plus it is a great deal of fun to write this way…today I’m the good guy…tomorrow not so much.

T. Is Detective Jack Staal based on a person or people you know in real life?

WRP. Staal isn’t based on real people. After thirty years of watching and reading in the police procedural genre, I have a clear picture in my mind of what I believe a homicide cop is. So many cop characters have a bullet proof, unflinching style. I wanted Jack Staal to be tough but realistic. Staal gets the job done but takes a beating physically and mentally, as I real detectives on the job do everyday.

T. Likewise, who/what inspired the “Birthday Boy” killer?

WRP. Birthday boy was inspired by a teenager in my high school in the mid 1980’s. Like Birthday Boy, he was bullied and teased relentlessly. I remember thinking all those years ago…what if this kid comes back some day looking for vengeance…what if he kills all these bullies? Hmm….

T. Do you have a sequel or prequel in mind or in progress?

WRP. I have a stand alone novel coming out this year and two sequels of Dead of Knight in the works.

T. What are your ideas about the future of digital publishing?

WRP. Print publishing is like vinyl LP’s just before cassette tapes and later CD’s took over the recording industry. New e-book formats will continue to improve the e-book reading experience leaving print extinct by 2020.

T. You founded the Independent Author Network. What is IAN and why start up a book promotion website?

WRP. The Independent Author Network is a group of like-minded authors who are self-published or published by a small indie press. The group uses social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook to promote authors as a group. After looking for an affordable and effective book promotion site for 3 years and finding none that truly offered value and increased exposure I came up with the basics of IAN and began to mention the idea to my author friends.

T. Does IAN work?

WRP. I think so. Members can directly affect the traffic to their IAN member page by tweeting and facebooking the page daily. This sends a great deal of traffic to all the membership. Those who are active are seeing over 1200 hits to their IAN page per month. Also, IAN pages are showing up on the first page of Google and Yahoo searches. Members are selling signed copies on their page and seeing increased traffic to their personal website and blogs.

T. Back to your writing. Do you ever suffer from writer’s block?

WRP. No, quite the opposite. I have too may ideas and not enough time to work on new projects.

T. Do you mainly write by day or by night?

WRP. I do the majority of my writing on Saturday and Sunday between 5 and 9 A.M. I get up at 4:30 in the morning most weekends and fuel myself with gallons of coffee and then type away on my laptop until the kids wake up three or four hours later. I have a fulltime job and throw in two kids under eight and you can see how my writing time is very limited.

T. Thank you.

WRP. Thank you for this interview.

Falling Down The Hole Chapter 1 (Coming Soon!)

CHAPTER 1 of my next book

Falling Down the Hole

Sometimes when I finish the Windsor on my necktie I feel like I’m caught in a hangman’s noose. It’s a new spin on an old insecurity, where I feel like no matter how well I’m doing it will all inevitably come crashing down. I shook my head to clear the weak moment and brushed a speck of lint from my shirt.

I had strayed from my regular Saturday morning routine of waking at 7am and bolting out the door by eight. I was up before six and had spent more than an hour watching the tape of my 12-year-old daughter Samantha’s piano recital from the night before. I re-watched her twenty-minute solo until it felt as though I had not missed the show. However, Sam would not forgive me, as easily as I wished, nor would she care how much I had earned while absent.

I put in eighty-hour workweeks with Friday marking the only scheduled rest day. Lately I had worked them as well. The real-estate market was booming higher than anything experienced in the last century. Record sales meant record commissions. I had everything I had ever dreamed of including an M-Class Mercedes and thousand dollar Italian suits. All I needed was more time for my wife and child.

In the kitchen was a new dilemma. By 7:30, the Mr. Coffee had long since passed its automatic shut off time and the urn was ice cold.

No problem, nuke it. I filled a clean mug, placed it in the miracle of modern convenience, and pushed the beverage button twice. I leaned my back on the stove and rubbed the remaining sleep gunk from my weary eyelids.

My thoughts shifted to Samantha. Her misty-eyed disappointment and her harsh words….

“You don’t give a damn about me…only care about making money!”

My father would never have stood for such talk from a child. Though he’d been gone thirty years, I still occasionally sensed his presence; a hand on my shoulder or a peripheral image that of course wasn’t there.

I opened my eyes in time to watch the timer roll down from twelve seconds. A superstition that always brought me a fine tasting re-heat.

Eleven-ten-nine. A strange sensation flashed my senses. I knew I had had the dream again last night. This time I could not remember the images, however, the emotional impact remained. I recalled the racing heart, a suffocating shortness of breath and jolting awake to cold darkness.

Three-two-one. Ding-ding.

I stared at the screen that read zero for almost a minute thinking about the dream and why it continued to plague my sleep.

I punched the door release, and then grabbed the cup of steaming liquid. When I removed the cup and moved it to the stovetop, two drops of coffee hit the floor, and another rained on my foot. A leak?

I lifted the mug, tipped it forward on a slight angle, and held it so I could see the bottom. Sure enough, drips of dark liquid were trickling from a chip on the edge of the cup below the handle.

POP!

My face boiled and I staggered away from the stove. My 20-20 vision flared from searing red to blinding white to a drowning blur. My head spun, nausea swept over me, and I needed to scream.

“Peter!” my wife, Danielle, called to me.

I heard her worn slippers on the hardwood flooring of the dining room.

“Pete, what was that? Did something break?”

I thought she was standing in the doorway.

I turned to her and said, “I dunno.”

I heard a horrified gasp from her and then, “Oh, God! Oh, God!”

“Dan. I-thin-I-gonna-pass-out,” I mumbled.

“Oh, God.” I heard her behind me and she moved something. “There is a chair right at your butt. Just sit gently.”

I sat and slumped forward. Then Dani was gone. Fear washed over me, and then she returned.

“Oh, shit. Oh, God, this phone isn’t charged—its dead,” she said.

My heart hammered in my ears, so loud and so fast. I put my left hand to my face and felt a sharp object jutting from where my left eye should be. “Dani?” My voice sounded weak.

“I’m using the living room phone,” she said. “It has a cord, remember? So hang on! Ambulance!” Dani’s words sounded distant. “My husband. His coffee mug exploded. His…his face is all cut and bleeding!”

My mind drifted to when I first met Dani when we were barely twenty. Her father was buying her a used car and I sold the wrecks part-time. She visited my lot several times, even though she could have found a quality vehicle anywhere.

Oh, God, what happened?

“Dani—I’m sore. I’m sore I worse so mush.” I tried to apologize for putting in so many hours and for leaving her alone too often.

“Tell Shammy I love her.” I heard my words slur and I knew I would never see my daughter again. My legs weakened and I slid forward on the chair until I slumped on the floor.

“No, I can’t stay on the line!” Dani sounded angry. “Just hurry!”

I felt her hands on me.

“You’re going to be okay.”

I didn’t believe her.

“You’re going to be fine.”

Then I felt nothing.

If anyone has a minute to comment it is much appreciated!

The Night Reader Reviews Dead of Knight

This psychological thriller was of special interest to me because a lot of the action centered around the area where I grew up, Vancouver and the Lower Mainland of British Columbia. According to the cover blurb, Canadian author William R. Potter began this book in 2002, put the book on hold, and after completing other work, returned to Dead of Knight. I for one, am very glad he did.

A descriptive book, it takes place in the fictional town of Hanson in British Columbia. The book begins with a journey into the mind of a psychotic murderer, nick-named the Birthday Boy, because his victims were murdered on their birthdays. He sees himself as a hero; he is currently Tyro, training to become what he perceives to be a super hero who will be Damian Knight, Soldier of Justice. He believes he is on the same side as the law. The character is well-defined, as is the character of Jack Staal, the detective who becomes Knight's focused nemesis.

The story is also a police procedural that doesn't always follow procedure, often a sign of office politics versus either the very caring or the corrupt. Jack Staal is one of the caring, but he is fraught with demons of past cases. Some might call him flawed, others a hero. No matter, this is one man who is determined to stop Damian Knight, the psycho-serial killer with a mission. But what is the mission? How do the murders connect?

Jack and his group of allies on the police force must buck authority to bring in the "perp" as soon as possible, while the authorized group bungle and follow wrong leads, rumours abound. This is a very satisfying thriller, complete with background descriptions of what has led to this killing spree, internal strife in the police department, a vendetta against Jack Staal by Damian Knight when he thinks he is getting too close to solving who Damian Knight is, false leads, taunting hints left for Jack, death and injury. The methods of putting the pieces together is compelling. The plot was well thought out, played out with passion and resolve. A complex and taut story that kept my attention throughout. Written for mature readers.

Reviewed by Betty Gelean The Night Reader

Book Review: Dead of Knight

Dead of Knight: A Jack Staal Mystery

William R. Potter

RealTime Publishing (2009)

ISBN 9781849610261

Reviewed by Charline Ratcliff for RebeccasReads (11/10)

I was recently asked if I would be interested in reviewing “Dead of Knight” by author William R. Potter. This book falls into the murder/mystery category and while it’s not my usual reading genre I agreed to review it. I’m glad I did because it was a great book.

The story location for “Dead of Knight” is Canada which, for me, was a really nice change. The book’s premise is this: A delusional young man believing himself to be a “soldier of justice” starts what he feels is a righteous crusade of cleansing. His victims are handpicked and meticulously stalked in order to learn their daily habits until he finally slaughters them on their birthday. I, for one, will pass on that birthday surprise thank you very much… Because of this killer’s gruesome practices the media has nicknamed him “Birthday Boy.” This nickname doesn’t sit too well with him - he wants to be taken seriously but…what’s a serial killer to do? And of course no tale featuring a heinous villain would be truly complete without an equally good counterpart trying to bring the evildoer to justice. Meet Detective Jack Staal who is assigned to this gruesome case. Jack is understandably horrified at the trail of bodies “Birthday Boy” leaves in his wake and he is determined to put an end to his reign of terror. Consequently Jack Staal will stop at almost nothing in order to apprehend this psychopath.

I’m happy to say I found “Dead of Knight” to be a fantastic read. Potter possesses great writing skills; he is appropriately descriptive and the story flows smoothly. “Dead of Knight” was suspenseful and I would agree with the back jacket’s statement that “Dead of Knight” is a cat and mouse thriller sure to delight fans…” I also appreciated that “Dead of Knight” wasn’t too easy to figure out and I admired the various plot twists that the author skillfully threw in here and there.

In summary I give “Dead of Knight” a five-star Amazon rating. It’s a riveting read but it is definitely aimed for mature readers.

Available at Amazon.com

Dead of Knight Reviewed by Review the Book.com

“There is a great streak of violence in every human being. If it is not channeled and understood, it will break out in war or in madness.”
~Sam Peckinpah

The murderer is known by many names. He is called Tyro, a apprentice title, until he has killed more then his name is Damian Knight, soldier of justice, that passes judgment on the guilty. In the bar where he plays video games he is known as Retro, the police call him the Birthday Boy, but soon everyone will hear his true name. Jack Staal is a detective with the Hanson Police and has vowed to bring the killer in. “Dead of Knight” is told from the murderer’s and the detective’s perspective, which allows the reader to get a sense of both characters’ personalities. Detective Staal is a veteran cop who is dealing with demons from a past case gone wrong and the killer is also trying to come to grips with a event from his past that has marked him for life.

“Dead of Knight” is set in British Columbia in a fictional town called Hanson where the Royal Canadian Mounted Police are enforcers of the law of the land. The book gives a “real” look at what it takes to solve crimes and that it is not done in an hour as seen on Television. DNA samples take weeks instead of minutes and the suspect is not caught in the last 15 minutes of the show. Suspect after suspect are questioned and ruled out, while the killer continues to murder.

Although “Dead of Knight” in not a true murder mystery since you know the killer, the reasons for his actions are not clear until later. It is still a psychological trip with road block around every corner. It gives a chilling outcome of what can happen to someone who was a product of bullying. The characters are realistic and interesting. I recommend this book to mystery buffs that are old enough to read detailed content regarding killing, sex and drug use.

Reviewed by Michele Tater for Review the Book

Available in print and Kindle at Amazon.com

Dead of Knight is a thrilling and original mystery novel.

George WilhiteAuthor,

“On the Verge of Madness”

“Dead of Knight” by William Potter is a thrilling and original mystery novel. The main character, Jack Staal, was introduced in Potter’s exceptional collection “Lighting the Dark Side” in the short story, “Prominent Couple Slain.” There, in the span of an average length short story, Potter provided readers enough information about Staal and his fictional hometown, Hanson, B.C., to leave us wanting more, and “Dead of Knight” certainly delivers.

A serial killer is on the loose, murdering women on their birthdays. The police slap the moniker “Birthday Boy” on him which only fuels his psychosis—he prefers “Soldier of Justice.” How do we know this? Ah, because thanks to Potter, we get the story from two perspectives, Staal and the Soldier of Justice, cop and killer, cat and mouse.

This is a brave undertaking and not easy to pull off. Most mystery and thriller writers stick to the police procedural formula and simply demonize their serial killer as an evil “Other,” a monster, without providing any real insight into their character or purpose.

Thomas Harris raised the bar long ago with Hannibal Lecter, The Tooth Fairy and Buffalo Bill and their complex relationships to agents Will Graham and Clarice Starling, and I think few writers have entered his arena out of fear of failure.

Potter takes on the challenge and succeeds with a fully satisfying, well rounded novel. It is both an exciting page turner and an equally effective insight into human nature and psychology.

Fans of the mystery genre and mainstream readers alike will enjoy this entertaining and thought provoking thriller. Potter’s dialog is brisk and naturalistic and he does not shy away from the graphic verisimilitude necessary to create sufficient terror and repulsion within the reader toward his perpetrator.

Hanson, B.C. is a thoroughly believable fictional town that blends seamlessly into reality and Jack Staal is a multi-dimensional, sufficiently flawed character with plenty of his own inner demons to battle while hunting down his antagonist--the perfect ticket for a successful series. I look forward to reading more Jack Staal mysteries.

I highly recommend “Dead of Knight” and any fiction by William Potter.