The next Carver is on its way!
04 February 2009
One of the weirdest things about being an author is having to live in several different timeframes at once as different books go through various stages of the publication process.
In the past month or so, The Survivor has been published in paperback in the UK. meanwhile, in the US they've just produced the paperback edition of the previous book The Accident Man. The US hardback of The Survivor - which is called No Survivors over there - doesn't come out till 5 March. And meanwhile, as of this morning, I have just delivered the manuscript of Carver 3, provisionally titled Assassin.
So what can anyone who reads it expect? Well, the action quotient is pretty much up to the usual levels, I think. And there's a torture scene which makes Carver's brain-scrambling experiences in that Swiss cellar look like a walk in an Alpine meadow in springtime (God knows where I get his stuff from, but the sicker the horrors to which Carver is subjected, the easier it is to write!). But the difference from the previous book is that the tory is really pared-down. I feel a bit like the singer in a band that's done a massive, sprawling, incredibly complicated double-CD and says, 'Right, the next one is going to be flat-out rock'n'roll.'
I hope that's what Assassin is like. You know really early who the bad guy is. You know he hates Samuel Carver and wants to wreck his life as brutally as he can, before ending it as painfully as possible. So the two of them then go at it, full on, with ever-escalating stakes. It all plays out against the backdrop of the international slave-trade. The locations include Dubai, a ranch in the mountains of Idaho and the roof of the Oslo Opera House, but the climax happens right here in England.
Carver has a new girlfriend. Significant characters meet agonizing ends. And Alix Petrova, heroine of the first two books is ... no, that would be telling!
It should be out this summer ... hope you like it!
2 comments
Written by Neil Funk on 25 March 2009 at 22:57:22
When can I expect the third Carver book....The first two are fantastic....He may be more fun than Jack Reacher...You and Lee Child are the best....
Written by Andrew on 30 January 2011 at 07:44:00
Please, please get your Carver #s 3 and 4 to the States!!