WELCOME to:
The Turning Point
&
A Warming Death
This first page on my site is supposed to be introducing WJ Blackwood, author - well that is the normal way to start these things, but I am introducing my books and not myself. Please page down and get to know them first. Perhaps later I can reveal whether I've ever been in the Foreign Legion, live in a remote hilltop village in Croatia or have an endearing Labrador who inspired some of my work: spoiler - none of these apply.
The Turning Point is a story about our troubled times and how so much of the apparently inexplicable nature of what is going on, seems to have a common source. It is, I suppose, a kind of political thriller, or perhaps you might call it an anti-establishment thriller. It was initially about the trafficking, for political ends, of a young American girl, but Judy quickly took centre stage and my sketches went out the window. She effectively wrote herself, although some of the other characters had to be worked on. The Scottish lawyer/farmer who teams up with Judy for the fightback is I suppose secondary to her, as together they take the fight to the U.S. There are many who come to their aid through the book and of the enemy we see only the bureaucratic middle level - and only one of them ultimately survives the backlash from their own organisation. This single figure and the retired policeman who goes with Judy to the U.S are both from 'A Warming Death', although this first story has no bearing on The Turning Point, which stands alone as a narrative.
Troubador Publishing - ISBN 978 - 1 - 80514 - 111 - 2 as Paperback and e-book.
A Warming Death is a story of what happens to Chalmers, a true anti-hero, when the political climate turns against him, and all the assumptions on which he has based his relentless rise, start to change around him. This is not a problem for him, as he is murdered just as he sees his empire start to collapse. The rather world-weary policeman who is landed with his case fills the role of hero, and as he digs into Chalmers' history he discovers a thoroughly nasty story. I put the murder first in the book and the rest is taken up with the unravelling of its causes, which leads to a surprising source and one that the investigation allows to walk away. It is a sort of conspiracy theory story, and also a cross between a conventional thriller and a political one. Chalmers, despite being an amoral misogynist and ruthless in the pursuit of self-advancement, manages to project himself as quite the opposite - there are a rising number of such in circulation today.
Troubador Publishing - ISBN 978 - 1 - 78901 - 132 - 6 as Paperback and e-book.