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"Armstrong's first two novels (The Game and The Last Troubador, both 2007) amply demonstrated his talent, but his latest, a mesmerizing satirical thriller, is the best of the lot. Alban Bane, from The Game, returns as the caustic Scottish doctor who is head of the World Advance Response Team (with the unfortunate nickname WART). This time Bane is called upon when otherwise normal, happy people seem to be going on murderous rampages across the globe. Yes, Bane learns the cause of the pandemic (a virus intending to cure violent has made its way into society), but how can WART possibly stop its spread? Bane puts together a team made up of three women—his “angels” (and you can call him Charlie . . . )—including his kung-fu expert assistant, a Harvard-trained (and gorgeous) doctor from the CDC, and a pop star; together they make a plan to save the world, which requires globetrotting from L.A. to Hong Kong to Africa as they pursue the virus and its origins. Armstrong manages the difficult proposition of satirizing the very genre in which he's writing but not settling for a simple spoof. Like Ian Fleming, he somehow combines over-the-top satire with genuinely suspenseful action. His ear for funny and believable dialogue goes a long way to making this trick possible. Celebrate the upcoming centeneary of Ian Fleming's birth by reading this book."
Reviews for The Last Troubadour Booklist Review, Sept 2007: Kat Black, Creator of the Golden Tarot: Look forward very much to the next books in the trilogy! best, kat =^..^= Gayla Uslu on Tarot Channel: The Last Troubadour is set in 13th century Europe with the Inquisition is full swing. The southern city of Carcassone has fallen under the control of the crusading Christians and it is a dangerous time for anyone who does not subscribe to the doctrine of the Catholic Church. The cast of characters are based on the Major Arcana, which doesn't seem extraordinary at first, but it is the way Derek Armstrong builds the characters persona's around the archetypes which makes it unique. I have a personal technique for reading books. I read a chapter or two so I can savor and contemplate the character and story line for a couple of days before moving forward. The primary characters of this book had me enchanted immediately and my imagination soaring between chapters. However, as I got closer to the end, I had grown so attached to some of the characters, I couldn't put it down. The Fool, Ramon, is a jester by day and hero by night. He and his motley crew of talented friends, most of which he brings to Carcassone with him and a few he picks up along the way, set out to rescue The Priestess of the story, know as the Dame, during the annual Mayday festival. He uses his charm, whit, courage, and skills to weave a network of relationships and craft a plan to accomplish the impossible ... steal back the most priced possession of the Cathar Christians. This story is filled with passion, adeptness, intent, struggle, relationships challenges and pure, unconditional love. It draws on the basic meaning of the archetypes, but delves deeper to encourage the reader to view their attributes from different perspectives. Derek Armstrong finds a way to focus on the strengths, weakness, and sui generis of their personalities. My favorite character of the book is Nevara, the albino pagan sorceress of the Baug Balar Circus. She is the Magician of the story who consults her self made Tarot cards for guidance and performs many tricks and spells to help Ramon carry out his heroic rescue. The victorious, but turbulent and unsettling end to the story left me anxious to read the next books of the trilogy, The Last Quest and The Last Stand which is set to be published in 2008 and 2009. I am anxious to learn the fate of each character and see how they find their way out of the Phanton Wood. Will Nevara and Ramon become lovers? Will Perce remain loyal to Seigneur? Will Adelais find the adventure to be more than she is able to handle and return home to her father, the Viscount? What will become of Magba and the children of the Baug Balar? Will Ramon avenge his mother by putting a end to the existence of the cruel Diableteur? Will Nevara's magic stand up to the Diableteur again or was the first time pure luck? So many questions...too long to wait for the next installment of the story. :) AND, I simply cannot wait to see the Troubadour Tarot scheduled for release next year. I recommend this book to all, especially anyone who seeks a unique way to understand the infrastructure of the Major Arcana. It's a excellent example of how the archetypes interface with each other. There is a limited amount of sexuality, but in my opinion not enough to keep it from being suitable for teen readers. However, parental discretion is advised. This story is classic struggle between good and evil, but untypical because the author has consciously and methodically used all 22 archetypes in a meaningful, viable role. Derek Armstrong has managed to weave the characters of the Major Arcana into an adventure for the mind, heart and soul. I loved it! Accent on Tampa Bay: "Action-packed second novel" Publishers Weekly: "Recommended for all public libraries." Library Journal: "A wonderful work of art." Of note to Tarot aficionados is the use of Tarot as an important part of the story. Armstrong considered the ramifications of including the Tarot ... Was it a strong enough base to bring in significant readership? Would he lose readers because of it? In the end, it became an important tool in the telling of the story. Each major character is an archetype from the Tarot: Ramon Troubadour, the Fool who leads the quest to save the Silver Dame of Montsegur (the High Priestess) from the fires of the Inquisition (fires that took his own mother years before); Nevara, the albino pagan sorceress (Magus/Magician) who heals and plays tricks with equanimity; Hugh d'Arcis, conquering Viscount of Carcassonne (the Emperor); Seigneur, the one eyed "Cyclops" crusader (Strength/Lust); and the Diableteur, the feared witch-hunter (Death). Armstong has a solid background in the Tarot, and his characterizations are perfect! We laugh, we cry, and we pray with his people. We meet the Templar who chose a solo path (although he does ride with Knights loyal to him), the monk who is suicidal, the Grand Duo who are not at all what they seem, and the Silver Dame who heals with unconditional love, and holds the key to it all. The story revolves around the Fool (Ramon Troubadour), and his quest to save the Silver Dame from the fires of the Inquisition. Along the way he partners with Nevara, the witch, and Arnot, the disenfranchised Templar. His sworn enemy becomes his greatest support, and a feared woods his escape and sanctuary. Why is the Silver Dame so important to the Inquisition (and to the Pope)? What sacred religious relics does she hold knowledge of, and why are they important not only to the Pope, but to the two men who are vying to succeed him in office? Who is the Pope's man, the Diableteur, the witch-hunter that all fear, who is after the sacred relics in the name of the Pope? It is quite interesting to see the archetypes of the Tarot come to life in this amazing setting! To see how important the Templers became not only as warriors but as bankers, and how the shadows in an individual's life can drive them harder and farther than anything visible. Here we see politics at it's finest (and deadliest), and how fear knows no boundaries. There is such magic in this book, and more to come! With the second book in this trilogy (due out in 2008), we should be seeing an accompanying deck that is in the process of being created specifically for this series. Kudos to Derek Armstrong ... this is a wonderful work of art, and I highly recommend it to all who are interested in the Tarot, in the history of the 13th century, and in a mystery that crosses many boundaries! Bonnie Cehovet is a professional Tarot reader with over ten years experience, holds a Bachelor's Degree in Psychology and is certified as a Tarot Educator with the American Board For Tarot Certification. Bonnie has served in various capacities with the American Tarot Association, is co-founder of the World Tarot Network, and Vice President (as well as Director of Certification) for the American Board For Tarot Certification. She has had articles appear in the 2004 and 2005 Llewellyn Tarot Reader. "Must Read." Films and Books Magazine: "The Last Troubadour is a must read, a sizzling blend of satire, adventure, historical romance and comedy. This is as unique as novels come, and it seems Armstrong has found a remarkably distinctive style that crosses genres, a prose signature that is at once unique and approachable. The tarot-based characters are inspired. This is definitely an author to watch."
THE GAME
Like Ben Elton’s Dead Famous (2001), this offbeat mystery features a Big Brother–like reality TV show, a murder, and a cantankerous detective, Alban Bane, who must overcome his revulsion for everything and everyone connected with the show if he is to find out whodunit. There’s also a touch of the hit TV series House here, too: like the small-screen physician, the cranky, pain-pill-popping Bane adds a delightfully sarcastic tone to the action. But, for all of that, the novel somehow manages to avoid feeling derivative. Armstrong’s abundant enthusiasm for his material, combined with the semi-satirical plotline, compel us to keep reading, and his prose style keeps us chuckling. The sleuth who disdains the world in which he finds himself is an idea as old as Raymond Chandler, but Armstrong injects the trope with new vigor. This is a series to watch from a new publisher to watch. "Dark Tongue and cheek thriller." Library Journal The Game is reality TV at its worst. Contestants live in a haunted mansion for six months, with all their activities televised to the audience in real time-which is why having a gruesome murder occur there is almost impossible. That this murder is a copycat version of the crimes committed by a recently executed serial killer makes it a top priority for Alban Bane, former FBI agent and now lead investigator for the Vermont State Troopers. Narrated in a dark tongue-in-cheek manner. "Gruesome, suspenseful, and rich with dark humor...in the thriller tradition of Weisman and Connolly." FICTION : THRILLER Aspirin-popping, tartan-accented Alban Bane pushes his way through the crowd outside San Quentin with an open umbrella. He carries a badge, he says, he’s allowed to be a jerk. Bane’s come to witness the execution by lethal injection of an old nemesis, Tyler Hayden, who tortured and killed 13 youngsters on a spree from Florida to California. Bane had been with the FBI back then. He’d had a wife back then. As Bane watches Hayden die on the gurney, IVs strapped to each arm, the killer speaks to him: Friend Bane, he says. I know who killed your wife. As much as Bane would like to get to the bottom of that sodium thiopental revelation, fresh kills keep getting in the way. Less than 24 hours after the execution, Bane is in a chopper in the middle of a snowstorm on the other side of the country. As chief detective for Vermont’s Bureau of Criminal Investigation, he’s been called to the scene of the state’s biggest money-maker, Mason Place mansion, home of the reality TV show Haunted Survivor. There, in a sub-basement, dangling upside-down from a beam, is an “unrecognizable lump that might have been Colin Lorentz, television producer.” In a murder reminiscent of Tyler Hayden’s style, the body is shorn of head, genitals, fingertips, identity. Most ominous of all however, are the injection marks, one on either arm—not like Tyler Hayden’s style, rather just like the dead Tyler Hayden. Over a period of 21 days, from Golden Gate Bridge Park to the bat-filled caves of Vermont’s Green Mountains, Detective Alban Bane is whirled from victim to victim. Within the labyrinthine Mason Place, through attics, dungeons and mansion halls, the glass eyes and ears of reality TV spy silently from behind walls. Reporters crowd the mansion gates and cameramen crowd the detective’s back as the murders become a “game,” a personal war of revenge between Bane and the daddy of all killers. Derek Armstrong writes with tremendous force and self-confidence. The co-author of a book of nonfiction, The Persona Principle (Simon & Schuster), he has another book of fiction, a historical thriller, in the works at Künati.The Game promises to be the first in a series of Alban Bane thrillers. Gruesome, suspenseful, and rich with dark humor, Armstrong moves the reader through time and space with a keen sense of momentum and dash. His characters are diverse, bold, unforgettable, from the detective’s adolescent daughters to the Renfield-like doctor on the set of Haunted Survivor. Armstrong’s swashbuckling Scotsman is a welcome addition in the thriller tradition of Weisman and Connolly. Reviewed by Heather Shaw "Hugely cinematic thriller with hilarious dark comic moments." Full Review Premise and Originality: 10 out of 10 Fathering two teenage daughters, you’d think detective Alban Bane would have enough to fret about, but in The Game, a hugely cinematic thriller with hilarious dark comic moments, we find him quickly dealing with headless corpses. Not that headless corpses give you much trouble because they’re usually real still and don’t talk back and you don’t have to worry about making meaningful eye contact with them, it’s just that this scrappy, witty cop is pretty motivated to find out how they lost so much weight real quick … especially after he gets a creepy letter inviting him to come find out. This is an irresistible story that centers around a new American reality television show called Haunted Survivor, where a boiling-pot mix of soon-to-be-dead-but-they-don’t know-it-yet contestants see how long they can survive in an old Vermont mansion haunted by its former occupant, a mass murder, who left the planet in the first chapter by execution by lethal injection. Survive and get one million dollars, but these contestants are having a hard time surviving. They’re having an easy time, however, getting slaughtered. You’ve got to love a novel that crystallizes, in a single line, our squirmy fascination with this sort of thing, delivered by Haunted Survivor’s uptight producer who finally becomes good and unstrung at the end of the story herself, “We’re assuming,” she said, “America’s fascination with reality television and crime will continue.” Sure does, lady. Sure does. And you’ve got to love a thriller, like all great literate thrillers, that makes you feel pretty sure you know who the killer is … but guess what. Depending on how you lean, Bane pulls for the Boston Red Sox, so this gives him a dangerous or desperate quality, or both. The poor cop’s pretty beat up by the end of the story, but he knows how to take a bullet and a good stabbing and bleed all over the place as he attempts to save one of those pesky teenage daughters of his who got caught up in the slaughter. Bane doesn’t know it, but one of the best fight scenes you’ll ever read … and there are a bunch of them in The Game … is being videotaped by the show’s sinister creator, and later shown as a news clip as a testament to Bane’s professional viciousness. Good job, Dad, saving your daughter’s head like that. Videotape is fine for now, but from the first few lines of The Game, you can see this book on the big screen, too. Of course, by then you’ll know who the killer is … but who cares. We’re fascinated with reality television and crime and we just can’t help it ... because it’s so much bloody fun. "Promising premise...gory resolution." Publishers Weekly ISBN: 1601640013 Promising premise: having a murderer stalk the cast and crew of a top-rated reality TV series, Haunted Survivor , which is set in a spooky mansion in the Vermont mountains. Alban Bane, the Scottish-born, Burlington, Vt.-based detective assigned to the case, is alarmed by the copycat style of murder, which mimics that of his longtime nemesis, serial killer Tyler Hayden. The perpetrator can't be Hayden himself, though; Bane recently witnessed-and was unnerved by-his execution at San Quentin in California. (Moments before the lethal injection, Hayden whispered that he knew the identity of the man responsible for making Bane a widower.) The detective's psyche is further rocked when he finds several people linked to the Haunted Survivor case who also figured in the Hayden investigation. Suspicion is briefly cast on the program's ambitious, sexy producer, Abbey Chase. Copyright © 1997-2005 Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. "A Multiplicity of Games." Kirkus Reviews Review Date: OCTOBER 15, 2006 Alban Bane, a crusty Vermont cop with a super-sleuth rep, handles the letter gingerly. It's been personally delivered, a courtesy that spells obvious danger. And it's suitably terse, reading only, "Welcome to the Game." Before the game begins, however, hold for a subplot. In a remote, castle-like mansion, once the home of an infamous Vermont mass murderer, Real TV is producing a reality show titled Haunted Survivor. The idea is to imprison a dozen people, scare them silly (snakes and things), film each meltdown with hidden cameras and pay $1,000,000 to the last contestant standing. "Survivor meets Fear Factor" is how it's being marketed. Bane is on the set because someone's been decapitated. Other decapitations follow in due course. Are they the work of the grisly gamester? True enough, there's a subsequent letter in which Bane is taken to task for not being an adroit enough player. But how about these militia guys in the Green Mountain Freedom movement? Bane wouldn't put it past them to murder for the sake of publicity. Suddenly there's a multiplicity of games in town. “Derek Armstrong is good,” Michael Korda, Simon & Schuster VP “Clever thriller and a clever setting,” Marjorie Braman, VP Harper Collins “Original and different.” Charles Spicer, St. Martin’s Executive Editor "The Game rocks," Dr. Audra Himes, Professor of literature. "The Game is very strong." Dave Shields, author of The Race and The Tour “Reality television as a backdrop to this high-pace suspense thriller is just brilliant.” Pat Brown, author L.A. Heat “The Game is all mystery, and a marvelous psychological suspense drama. A great read.” The Persona Principle: How to Succeed in Business with Image-Marketing "The Persona Principle is more than the literary equivalent of a shell game... Image Marketing is bound to increase in importance." Debra Phillips, Entrepreneur Magazine "Buy their book. It's a quick read, smartly designed, and one of the best business tomes around." How Magazine "The authors, both advertising experts, show you how to create an effective plan to reach all your business, sales and marketing goals--on image alone." Don Morris, Dayton Daily News. "This top ad team's book on image marketing makes marketing accountable. It's proven to work every time." Patti Summerfield, Strategy Magazine. "The author's methods should help you excel with very precise tactics called Persona Factors. Any business can benefit from these principles." Profit Magazine Four and a half stars average reviews on Amazon “The best of the best -- bar none! .” To succeed in business or a career, you not only have to do your job well, but you must market yourself successfully. I'm in the middle of an MBA, and I read this book at the same time that I was taking Marketing. The Persona Principle applies the principles of branding and image-making to people, and it's so much easier to read and more fun than a marketing textbook. Armstrong distills the important principles of image and brand marketing down to their essences, then explains succinctly and clearly how to apply these principles to your business or your career to best achieve success. There are two great obstacles that you have to overcome before you can succeed, either in business or in a career: invisibility and incredibility. Basically, people have to know that you exist and know you can do the job well before they can hire / buy from / promote you. The Persona Principle perfectly explains how to overcome these two obstacles, and not with silly aphorisms but with concrete help. This is the best book I've ever read on marketing yourself for success. TK Kenyon “Open the door!” We live in a world of incredible media noise. In the competition for attention, voices get louder and messages turn into slogans. For the person with a product, idea, cause or candidate to promote, the temptation is to merely imitate the loudest and most mindless of the current slogans and use the most obvious channels. The virtue of The Persona Principle is that it quietly and rationally cuts through all the noise and lays out a set of principles to guide you through the development and implementation of a sound marketing strategy. The beginning of the program is the development of visibility and credibility. We all know how easy it is to be victimized by 'word of mouth'. We end up repeating what we take to be the conventional wisdom and, when there seems to be some weight behind it, to accept it uncritically. Here at last, is a road map to creating that kind of credibility for ourselves, our projects and our products. Lynn Hoffman, author of The New Short Course in Wine “I can't wait to apply what I've learned through this book...” “The authors will help you...” “Underated Bible of everything you need to know about image.”
MADicine Advance Praise for MADicine (forthcoming Fall from Kunati Books) “Better than the last Crichton novel.” B.J. Ryan, novelist “Definitely of best seller quality, and much better than the last thriller by a name author I read.” Doug Osborne, author Anna and Mel “I absolutely loved this book. ALL of your characters were engaging and interesting. They were cruel, funny, bratty, snooty, smart, brave and absolutely crazy. Your writing is perfection. I have no doubt at all that this will soon be on the best seller list.” Erika Morin, novelist
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Kunati focuses on the funky and fun, the wild and outrageous, the hilarious and the horrible. We’re all about honest, fresh voices. No subject is too edgy for Kunati. From a total lack of inhibitions come brilliant new voices and great books. Read more... US$ 24.95 US$ 24.95 The Persona Principle: How to Succeed in Business with Image Marketing hardcover and softcover books are availabled in bookstores and on-line bookstores. |
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