Summer is the perfect time for a good thriller. This summer we are hosting a read-along of James Hayman's McCabe and Savage series.
We are hosting the read-along on our Witness Goodreads page and would ask that you pop in to Goodreads from time to time to join the discussion.
Title: The CuttingAuthor: James Hayman
Genre: Crime/Thriller/Mystery
Publish Date: June 3, 2014
Publisher: Witness Impulse an imprint of HarperCollins
Event organized by: Literati Author Services, Inc.
~ Book Synopsis ~
The first novel in the nationally bestselling McCabe and Savage series—perfect for fans of John Sandford and CJ Box.
Someone is stealing the hearts of beautiful women...
Detective Mike McCabe moved from a top homicide job with the NYPD to Portland, Maine to leave his failed marriage and suspicions of wrongdoing behind, and to find a more peaceful life for himself and his 13 year old daughter.
But the small New England city is not nearly as safe as he thought.
On a warm September night, a missing high-school athlete is found dead in a scrap metal yard, her heart removed from her body with surgical precision.As outrage over the killingspreads, a young business woman disappears while out on a morning jog.
McCabe is certain both crimes are the work of one man—a murderer skilled in cardiac surgery who is using his scalpel to target young women. With the clock ticking, McCabe and his partner Maggie Savage find themselves in a desperate race against time to find and rescue the missing woman before she becomes the next victim of the sadistic killer's blade.
“The summer crowds in the Old Port had thinned now that Labor Day had come and gone, but the air was warm and Exchange Street bustled with energy. Shops and restaurants were open late and busy. Packs of teenagers in varying states of grunge-some with piercings and tattoos and some without-spread themselves across the sidewalks, forcing middle-aged tourists out onto the narrow streets.”
“McCabe watched Kyra’s face, animated and alive, as she described a new series of figure studies she was working on, small oils of young dancers, bodies abstracted in fluid athletic poses. He found her quite irresistible, watching her when she didn’t know he was watching. In the end, he was happy shutting out the words and concentrating instead on the smooth peaty burn of the Scotch as it traced its way down his throat, wondering for the hundredth time how he’d managed to attract this sensual, sensitive woman.”
“Tonight they were heading for Arno, the city’s latest northern Italian hotspot. As usual, it was Kyra’s choice. McCabe’s restaurant habits were as predictable as they were unadventurous. He pretty much always ordered the same thing- a rare New York strip steak, preceded by a single malt scotch-no ice- and accompanied by a couple of bottles of cold Shipyard Ale. Kyra, on the other hand, was a real foodie. She was looking forward to one of Arno’s specialties, “Duck-meat ravioli, served,” she recited, practically drooling, “in a light brown sauce with thin slices of rare grilled duck.”
TIMELINE OF READ-ALONG
- June 20 - Start reading THE CUTTING, the first book in the series
- July 18 - Discussion with James Hayman on Goodreads
- July 21 - Start reading CHILL OF NIGHT, the second book in the series
- August 15 - Discussion with James Hayman on Goodreads
- August 18 - Finish up with DARKNESS FIRST
- September 12 – Discussion with James Hayman on Goodreads
We’re using the hashtag, #savagereads, to accompany discussions about the read-along. Feel free to tweet about it as well. Also feel free to tag the Witness Facebook Page in any Facebook messages you may right about the read-along: https://www.facebook.com/WitnessImpulse Hope you join our #SavageRead Along for a summer of chills and thrills.Add to Goodreads:
Purchase Links
About the Author
JAMES HAYMAN, formerly creative director at one of New York’s largest advertising agencies, is the author of the acclaimed Mike McCabe series: The Cutting, The Chill of Night, and Darkness First.Connect with the Author
Like McCabe, I’m a native New Yorker. He was born in the Bronx. I was born in Brooklyn. We both grew up in the city. He dropped out of NYU Film School and joined the NYPD, rising through the ranks to become the top homicide cop at the Midtown North Precinct. I graduated from Brown and joined a major New York ad agency, rising through the ranks to become creative director on accounts like the US Army, Procter & Gamble, and Lincoln/Mercury.
We both married beautiful brunettes. McCabe’s wife, Sandy dumped him to marry a rich investment banker who had “no interest in raising other people’s children.” My wife, Jeanne, though often given good reason to leave me in the lurch, has stuck it out through thick and thin and is still my wife. She is also my best friend, my most attentive reader and a perceptive critic.
Both McCabe and I eventually left New York for Portland, Maine. I arrived in August 2001, shortly before the 9/11 attacks, in search of the right place to begin a new career as a fiction writer. He came to town a year later, to escape a dark secret in his past and to find a safe place to raise his teenage daughter, Casey.
There are other similarities between us. We both love good Scotch whiskey, old movie trivia and the New York Giants. And we both live with and love women who are talented artists.
There are also quite a few differences. McCabe’s a lot braver than me. He’s a better shot. He likes boxing. He doesn’t throw up at autopsies. And he’s far more likely to take risks. McCabe’s favorite Portland bar, Tallulah’s, is, sadly, a figment of my imagination. My favorite Portland bars are all very real.
From Ox to Smack
James Hayman: Anyone who’s read my third McCabe/Savage thriller, Darkness First, knows the story opens with a bad guy named Conor Riordan smuggling 40,000 80mg oxycontin tablets stolen from a Canadian pharmaceutical distribution center in Saint John, New Brunswick back into Eastport, Maine. In the book, these tablets have a street value in Maine of nearly five million dollars. They also are ultimately responsible for the murders of nine mostly not so innocent people.
The idea for Darkness First was initially triggered by a newspaper article I read about prescription drug abuse in Maine and most particularly in poor rural areas like Washington County.
To research the book, I spent a day talking with Sheriff Donnie Smith of Washington County. In our discussion Sheriff Smith estimated that, at that time, nearly half the teenagers and young adults in Washington County were addicted to “ox.” I was stunned by the number and asked where all these pills came from. He told me most were bought and sold in small quantities, some initially stolen from pharmacies, others sold by people who had legitimate prescriptions they hadn’t finished, still others purchased by “doctor shopping”, which means getting multiple prescriptions for pain relief needs from a number of different doctors.
When I pressed for more information, Smith referred me to his liaison with the Maine Drug Enforcement Agency. In discussions with this agent, I learned that the usable supply of “Ox” in Maine was dwindling and that, as a result, prices were going up. The tightening of supply was due, in part, to more energetic enforcement policies and stricter limits on the number of tablets doctors were allowed to prescribe.
It was also due to changes in the manufacturing process. To fight abuse of its product, Purdue Pharma, the number one American manufacturer, had developed a harder time-release coating that made it much more difficult, if not impossible, for addicts to crush and snort the tabs for an instant high. Melting for use in hypodermics was also more difficult. Due to the more limited supply, street price (at the time I talked to him) had risen to $120 for an 80 mg tablet. Far more than most addicts could afford.
I asked if such high prices might not tempt professional drug dealers to import tablets from somewhere else. He agreed that this was indeed possible. He suggested one likely source might be Canada since Canadian manufacturers had yet to adopt Purdue’s new process. In his mind, a worst-case scenario was the one I used in the book, the large-scale theft and smuggling of Canadian 80’s by boat into Eastport.
Unfortunately, the real worst-case scenario turned out to be heroin. Confronted with stricter enforcement policies and sky-high street prices, oxycontin addicts in Maine and elsewhere in New England simply turned to a cheaper and more plentiful alternative.
Over the last three years the supply and use of heroin in Maine and other Northern New England states has skyrocketed. Dr. Mark Publicker, an addiction specialist in Portland, was quoted in a Bangor Daily News article as saying “We had a bad epidemic (before), and now we have a worse epidemic. I’m treating 21-, 22-year-old pregnant women with intravenous heroin addiction. It’s easier to get heroin in some of these places (in Maine) than it is to get a UPS delivery.”
Most of the heroin used in Maine is grown and processed in Colombia and then crosses the border through Mexico. From there substantial quantities flow up through New York to Lowell or Lawrence, Massachusetts and from there on into Maine. Instead of $120 for a single oxycontin tablet, a gram of heroin might cost $45 in Lowell or Lawrence and a single dose $5. An addict can cover his own heroin needs and make a profit selling to others by making the drive. Small time dealers from Maine can find even cheaper prices in Boston and New York.
According to an article by Katharine Q. Seelye in the New York Times, “a $6 bag of heroin in New York City fetches $10 in southern New England but up to $30 or $40 in northern New England. The dealer gets a tremendous profit margin, while the addict pays half of what he might have to shell out for (oxycontin)…”
Today, heroin is not only cheaper and more readily available than oxycontin, the high is stronger. And smack, as its called, is also more addictive. New users who start by injecting small amounts find they quickly need larger and larger doses to get the same high and satisfy the craving.
All too often the results of heroin addiction can be tragic. Heroin killed 21 people in Maine last year, three times as many as in 2011. Sadly, those numbers are likely to rise further.
Katharine Seelye’s piece in the Times describes one case. She writes: “Theresa Dumond, 23, who lives on the streets of Portland, said she sells her body three times a day to support her heroin habit. She lost custody of her two young children about a year ago (“I can’t keep track”), and their father died.
“I’ve lost everything,” she said as she and a companion, Jason Lemay, 26, walked to an abandoned train tunnel, littered with old needles and trash, to shoot up. “The heroin numbs the pain and makes you not care about life,” she said.
Her only concern now is scoring more heroin. She pays no attention to food and sleeps where she is or in a shelter.”
Crime Writers Beware: You Can’t Make This Stuff Up.
In my last post I wrote about unusual ways of knocking off victims in crime novels. This post I’ll be writing about one of the weirdest reasons to kill anyone I’ve ever come across. Karaoke. And guess what? It’s not fiction. It seems that people who sing Karaoke…especially Frank Sinatra’s My Way and John Denver’s “Country Roads” in bars in places like Malaysia, Thailand, China and the Phillipines are getting gunned down or hacked to death largely because of what they decide to sing.
My first clue that this was actually happening came in an article I found not in the National Enquirer where I might have expected it , but in America’s most respected “Gray Lady”, our “newspaper of record,” the New York Times.
Under the headline “Karaoke Killing,” the Times reported:
“A 23-year-old Malaysian man was killed on Thursday night after reportedly enraging other customers who felt that he “hogged the microphone” at what Malaysia’s Star Online described as “a coffeeshop-cum-karaoke outlet” in the town of Sandakan, on the island of Borneo.
The Guardian’s Ian MacKinnon adds some regional context:
Karaoke rage is not unheard of in Asia. There have been several reported cases of singers being assaulted, shot or stabbed mid-performance, usually over how songs are sung.
Frank Sinatra’s “My Way” has reportedly generated so many outbursts of hostility that some bars in the Philippines now do not offer it on the karaoke menu anymore. In Thailand this year, a gunman shot eight people dead after tiring of their endless renditions of a John Denver tune.”
A little further research via Google revealed the John Denver tune in question was “Take Me Home Country Roads.”
Britain’s Daily Telegraph, a generally staid and politically conservative paper, reported last March that “John Denver Karaoke Sparks Thai Killing Spree.” According to the article
“A gunman in Thailand shot-dead eight neighbours, including his brother-in-law, after tiring of their karaoke versions of popular songs, including John Denver’s Country Roads.
Weenus Chumkamnerd, 52, put his gun to the head of a respected female doctor and seven of her guests as they partied at her home in Songkhla Province, South Thailand
“When I began shooting nobody pleaded for his life because they were all drunk,” he said after his arrest.
He said he was so furious with their awful singing that he did not notice he had murdered his own brother-in-law.
“I warned these people about their noisy karaoke parties. I said if they carried on I would go down and shoot them. I had told them if I couldn’t talk sense into them I would come back and finish them off,” he added.
Apparently he couldn’t talk sense into them. A third and even more horrific example of Asian Karaoke killings was reported by the Telegraph exactly one year ago today on August 30, 2012. The headline read: Chinese Toddler’s Karaoke Tantrum Ends in Bloodbath “
The article went on to report:“A Chinese toddler’s refusal to give up the microphone during a family karaoke evening started a quarrel that left two men hacked to death with a meat cleaver.
The evening began jovially enough when Mr Yun, the owner of a noodle shop in the central Chinese city of Xi’an, invited his family to celebrate Qixi, China’s Valentine’s Day, with a singing session at a local karaoke parlour.
But by 11pm, there was discord in the room. Mr Yun’s four-year-old son was hogging the microphone and his parents were indulging him.
Two of the boy’s uncles began chastising Mr Yun and his wife for having raised a spoilt child; a “Little Emperor”, as the Chinese say.
According to the Xi’an police, the argument became heated to the point where the two uncles began pushing, and then punching, Mr Yun.
Finally, Mr Yun’s nephew, who also worked in the noodle shop, ran back to the restaurant and fetched a meat cleaver.
The man, named as Mr Hui, hacked the two uncles to death, inflicting at least ten wounds on each uncle. He has since been arrested.
Lest you think these cases are unusual, just try Googling “Karaoke Murders Asia.” When I did I got 3,460,000 hits. Admittedly many of these must be repeats of the same stories but still…
Now in our roles as crime writers we are charged with coming up with interesting and unusual motives for murder. But I have a feeling that if any of us (with the possible exception of James Patterson who can get away with anything) ever tried in a million years to make the motive for murder somebody singing a Frank Sinatra song in an Asian Karaoke bar, your editor would laugh you out of the room. Which would be bad, unless of course you were Carl Hiaasen who likes making his editors laugh.
Rave Reviews for James Hayman’s McCabe/Savage Thrillers:
- “A stunning debut that gripped me from first page to last. A thriller of a thriller.” -Tess Gerritsen, New York Times Best Selling Author of Ice Cold
- “This is one terrific mystery. I had already read Hayman’s first book,The Cutting. Darkness First is just as good, maybe even better with a truly compelling plot, the same great detectives (Savage and McCabe), and a fascinating Maine location.Hayman writes so well that he makes a nifty mystery into a literary experience that is a pleasure to read.” SusanKL Reviews
- This crackling thriller from a former New York advertising man packs a terrific punch, and comes complete with pace and panache. Taut, deft, and with a delicate sense of place, this is supremely accomplished storytelling.” - The Daily Mail (UK)
- “Pick of The Week” -Boston Globe
- “A suspenseful police procedural whirling around a character who has the brains, courage and human concern to be the reader’s hero from start to finish. All in all, if that sounds like a rave review, it’s because I intend this to be one. Rarely does a new novelist make a debut, in Maine or anywhere else, as polished, well-paced and plotted as this one. Even less often does a writer create characters as well-drawn and centered as Hayman gives us with his Portland Police Detective Sgt. Mike McCabe, three years into life in his new city.” -The Portland Press Herald
- “Hayman’s pacing is perfect. An unsettling thriller, not because Portland and the state have a history of madmen killing strangers on a rampage. What’s frightening is that Hayman makes it seem possible, even probable.” -The Bangor Daily News
- “Readers of James Hayman’s second mystery novel are in for a treat. “The Chill of Night” is an engrossing, character-driven novel… As the who-dun-it plot unfolds, one comes to admire Hayman as a genius of suspenseful writing.” Lloyd Ferris, Maine Sunday Telegram,
- “Hayman has penned an engrossing whodunit with a tenacious investigator, who luckily also happens to have the gift of a photographic memory. Highly recommended for readers of suspenseful, captivating mysteries with a cast of colorful yet believable characters.” -Library Journal Starred Review
- “A twisting, action-filled plot. This one puts Portland, Maine firmly on the crime fiction map.” -Booklist.
- “A formidable detective tested to the limit in Hayman’s atmospheric puzzler.” -Publisher’s Weekly
- “Suspense-filled and action-packed…It’s a real page-turner, unpredictable and smart, and i can’t think of a better beach read, than that! Read it!” -Paging Amy
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