Friday Q&A: author Jeremy Bates on his latest suspense novel 'The Taste of Fear' released this October!

Well folks, the time is fast approaching. The suspense novel ‘TheTaste of Fear’ by author Jeremy Bates (our review HERE) will be released on October 19. His first novel ‘White Lies’ has been nominated for several awards. He was an International Thriller Writers debut author for the year of 2011-2012 and a guest speaker at Thrillfest in New York this July. It was great of Jeremy to make time to answer a couple of quick Q&As with BOOKFABULOUS!

Q. How did you come up with the idea for ‘The Taste of Fear’? You also seem familiar with the region in which the story takes place, have you been to any of the countries mentioned in the book?

A. I’d done a lot of traveling over the years, and when I was thinking about the next novel a couple years back I wanted to do something that took place outside North America. Originally I had called the story something silly like Passport. Anyway, I must have heard or read about the anniversary of the bombings of the American embassies somewhere and thought it would make an interesting story to explore. I have been to a couple of the countries in which the story takes place but not to the Congo.

Q.What research did you rely on to bring everything together?

A. Mostly the Internet. Google Maps played a big part, so I had an idea of the geography etc. I also referenced a couple books along the way. One of the problems, however, was that there really isn’t that much stuff written about the Congo in relation to other countries.

Q. There is quite a strong cast of characters in ‘The Taste of Fear’ and all have a presence and personality that come through in the novel but which character did you most enjoy creating?

A. I probably enjoyed writing the bits with Damien Fitzgerald the best. He’s the bad guy, and bad guys are always fun to write because they can do stuff that other people can’t, morally and often physically. I once heard an actor say a similar thing: that he liked playing villains because it was so much more fun.

Q. Do tell more about Australian character ‘Thunder’. He seems out of place with this lot abducted in the African jungle. How did he come about?

A. He came about because Scarlett had just had that big fight with Sal (her husband), and they split up on a road in Tanzania. I needed a way to get Scarlett to the embassy right before the attack. But I had a lot of fun writing him too, and he ended up staying around until the end!

Q. Your heroine Scarlett baffles me. How would you sum her up in three words?

A. Rich, stubborn, and grounded.

Q. Will there be a sequel?

A. No, I don’t think so.

Q.  What are you reading now?

A. 'Don’t Blink' by James Patterson.

Young Londoners' Secret War Against Apartheid

This new book is a collection of important and previously unrecorded accounts of some of London's brave men and women who secretly came together against racial segregation in South Africa. They remember what they did, why they did it and how they feel about it today.

October is officially Black History Month and here is a fact I was not aware of: London played a very big part in anti-apartheid activism in South Africa. How? Well, when in 1964 Nelson Mandela went to prison and other members of the African National Congress (ANC) were either subsequently jailed or killed, the remaining members of the ANC had to go into hiding. It was the bleakest of times for the ANC and it faced its biggest challenge yet: How could its hiding members prove to the people of South Africa that the ANC was still alive and well and that the government had not succeeded in silencing it?

The day was saved thanks to the brains of one man. Enter on to the scene Ronald Kasrils (aka Ronnie) who flew to London and formed along with Yusuf Dadoo, Joe Slovo, and Jack Hodgson, a special committee to develop underground activities in South Africa operating from London. One such activity included recruiting young, white, non-South African students who would pose as tourists in South Africa but would actually smuggle in loads of ANC material right under the South African government's noses. The recruits were mainly from the Young Communist League. Many answered the calling.

These students would enter South Africa posing as couples on honeymoon or just flamboyant young tourists on holiday or even young people looking for a job. It was easy for them to get into the country and the government could not fathom that any white, 'civilized' person could ever be on the ANC's side. The jobs assigned to them included planting 'exploding leaflet buckets' (totally harmless) that would release thousands of leaflets at non-white bus stops or in crowded non-white areas proving to the people and the South African Government that the ANC was still going strong. Thanks to these recruits (unknown to each other), these buckets were released simultaneously in five cities every year between 1967 and 1971. 

In addition to these buckets or suitcases, other Young Communist League members were assigned the task of operating cassette recorders attached to amplifiers that would broadcast a recorded message from and songs by the ANC. As soon as the buckets exploded these cassette recorders would be activated. Needless to say, it drove the government mad. 

It is no surprise that I learn that not many people know about this. The recruits have all kept their stories secret, even from family and friends up until recently that is. One such recruit, editor Ken Keable, has decided to put pen to paper and record his account of events along with those of others that were involved in similar (yet separate) activities. The book called 'London Recruits: The Secret War Against Apartheid' collects the stories of some of these men and women who not only strongly believed that apartheid was wrong and unjust, but took active steps to do something about it.

According to the latest edition of Greenwich Time, many of these recruits it turns out come from South East London and many will be available to chat to this Saturday October 6,  at Waterstone's in Greenwich city center at 12:30pm. All royalties from this book will go to The Nelson Mandela Children's Fund.

To buy the book, Click HERE.

Here is a very interesting clip by Graeme Whyte who has written a chapter in the book, demonstrating how the suitcases were used to smuggle the leaflets into South Africa, (from You Tube).

Here is a clip of Ken Keable talking about the book (from You Tube)

Book Review: 'Out of It' by Selma Dabbagh

In 1993, following the Oslo Accord signed by Israel and the Palestinians, it was agreed that Israel Defence Forces (IDF) would withdraw from parts of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank captured in the 1967 war with the Arabs, and Gaza would be included in the territories of the Palestinian National Authority. In 2005, when Israel pulled out its final troops from the Gaza, it declared its occupation of that area as over. A fact disputed by the Palestinians because Israel still controls Gaza's land and water borders as well as its airspace.

Two military factions inside Gaza, Fatah and Hamas, fought to gain control inside of Gaza (sometimes with deadly gun fighting and assassinations). In 2007, the Islamist militant group Hamas won the elections and in response, Israel to this day continues not only to impose severe restrictions  from and into the city of Gaza but has carried out various military operations against Hamas claiming that it is protecting its borders and its inhabitants from  Hamas' militant rocket shelling. Many civilian lives have been lost and casualties sustained on both sides in the process.

It is during one such military Israeli bombing operation of Gaza (exact timeline not specified) that the novel 'Out of It' opens. Rashid, a twenty-something member of the Mujahed family is terrified out of his mind by the bombing that has struck a nearby hospital. Thanks to his cannabis plant 'Gloria' he eventually passes out stone cold under his bed. As he awakens with 'face and floor tiles sealed together by a membrane of spittle' and checks his emails he finds that he has managed to secure a one-year scholarship to London. As far as Rashid is concerned this opportunity along with the work at The Human Rights Documentation Centre he set up with his best friend Khalil to record the violations happening against Gazans mean one thing and one thing only: a one-way ticket out of Gaza.

Iman, Rashid's twin sister, has just returned from studying in Switzerland. They are obviously a family with better means compared to other Gazans; their father (who now lives in Dubai with his Lebanese girlfriend) used to work for the Palestinian Authority when it was in exile. Already back for a year and teaching at a local school she feels that she is alienated by those who had not left during the occupation. She is desperate to be taken seriously to show how much she wants to help the situation in Gaza. After the night's bombing claims one of her students and his cousin (who she had a crush on) she blindly comes to a decision that could spell a disastrous outcome to everyone.

Sabri is the family's older brother, who has lost his legs, his wife and his child in an attempted assassination. But, in spite of his losses Sabri, the weakest character physically in the novel, is by far the strongest. He seems to rise above his disability (confined to the family's top floor apartment with no lift) and to rise above his daily humiliations (his mother has to change his catheter daily) channeling all his energy to compiling information and documentation and writing a record of the Palestinians' struggle for freedom. Throughout, he holds on to the hope that peace and justice will one day be granted to the Palestinians.

The novel is split into five parts. The first and fifth take place in Gaza, the second and fourth in London and the third in Dubai. We follow Rashid's life in London with Lisa where things don't turn out quite exactly as he had planned. In London, Rashid and Iman come face-to-face with notions of the Palestinians as a 'desolate and abandoned people' (neither of which Rashid feels) and of Israel as 'the most democratic country in the world' (which Lisa utterly refutes). Eventually, Rashid ends up arrested in a case of mistaken identity and ultimately has to leave London to return back to Gaza when his father will not pay for his tuition any longer. 

For the brief period that Rashid is there, Iman also joins him after spending a brief and disastrous time with her father in Dubai. In London, she meets Charles whose skin "was foreign and on it his sweat had the smell of wet potato peel." Iman, unlike her brother, does not lose sight of wanting to eventually return to Gaza after her temporary exile. She soon returns in the last part of the book and when Rashid questions her why when she could have stayed longer, she simply answers, "but I don't exist there" as if it were 'incredibly obvious'.

In the novel it seems that everyone is trying to get out of something. The father who has decided that there really is no cause to fight and gets out of it to live a rich man's life in the Gulf. His girlfriend, a Palestinian from the Lebanon camps, trying to put as much distance between herself and the camps as possible. Rashid who just wants out of it: out of Gaza, out of the conflict and out of his Palestinian skin. Iman trying to 'get out' of the feeling of being an outsider in her own country and with her own people, the fighter Ziyyad Ayyoubi trying to get out of his parents' shadow to carve a destiny and legacy of his own. The mother (aka The Sparrow), Abu Omar, Lisa, and many others throughout the novel including carrot boy who is a terrifying personality born of the dire situation in Gaza.

In the final part of the book Rashid has reached the ultimate truth: Gloria is dead, and he is trapped in Gaza. It is in this final utterly sad (at the same time strangely hopeful) part of the book that  Rashid finds his own happiness and comes to terms with his life confident in the realization that he is finally free to choose his own way 'out of it'.

Selma Dabbagh has managed to touch upon a lot of current Arab and Palestinian themes in her novel ingenuously avoiding over-crowding. A feat that is testimony to a very skilled writer indeed. Dabbagh shows supreme confidence in handling her characters and in the weaving of the various elements allowing the story to unfold and ultimately flow beautifully and with ease. This is a sensitive, gripping, compelling, powerful and assured novel. A beautiful story of  love, tragedy and ultimately hope. I smell a sequel!

For more on British Palestinian author Selma Dabbagh, click HERE.