The Event Horizon Murder / Murder in Retrograde by Greg Hickey-reviews and interview
THE EVENT HORIZON MURDER
by Greg Hickey
Genre: Sci-Fi, Crime, Thriller
Amazon.com / Amazon.ca / B&N / KOBO /
ABOUT THE BOOK
A battle-scarred detective. A dead-end case. In a future of omnipresent cameras and digital disguises, can he find an elusive killer?
Law enforcement is in Detective Marcus Carver’s blood. And with the help of Chicago’s citywide surveillance, he excels at tracking and catching killers. But when a politician’s son is slain in the city’s blacked-out cyberpunk gang territory, Carver has everyone’s attention and no leads on the murderer.
His boss breathing down his neck doesn’t help Carver’s authority issues, but with the victim’s family growing desperate, Carver runs down every hint of a trail. And when his most promising lead evaporates, Carver finds himself out of clues and short on time.
Can Carver catch the killer before someone buries the truth for good?
The Event Horizon Murder is a thrilling science fiction crime novella. If you like stories about mass surveillance, futuristic cityscapes and hard-boiled detectives, then you’ll love Greg Hickey’s tense sci-fi whodunit.
••••••
REVIEW: THE EVENT HORIZON MURDER by Greg Hickey is an adult, sci-fi, futuristic crime novella focusing on Chicago PD Detective Marcus Carver.
NOTE: Due to the nature of the story line premise, there may be triggers for more sensitive readers.
Told from first person perspective (Marcus ) THE EVENT HORIZON MURDER follows Detective Marcus Carver on the search for a killer but with no help, and fewer clues, Carver finds himself the target of the CPD, and a deep fake video tells another tale.
THE EVENT HORIZON MURDER is a fast paced, quick read; a dark yet intriguing short story of murder, $ex trafficking and deception. Regardless of his successes, Marcus Carver finds himself the victim of vengeance, sabotage and workplace betrayal. The premise is dark and captivating yet limited in sci-fi elements; the characters are questionable and desperate.
_________
MURDER IN RETROGRADE
by Greg Hickey
Genre: Sci-Fi, Crime, Thriller
Amazon.com / Amazon.ca / Amazon.uk / Amazon.au /
Don’t own a Kindle? Download the FREE Amazon Kindle App for your mobile device or pc
ABOUT THE BOOK
A near-future private detective. A case that would cover all his debts. When the first body drops, can he catch a killer before he’s cashed out?
In a litigious future America, detective Marcus Carver sticks to civil cases. When a space tech CEO wants him to investigate a business rival for illegal hydrocarbon combustion, Carver reluctantly agrees. But the case takes an explosive turn when the police find the target’s head of security murdered.
Determined to get to the bottom of things, Carver finds himself sucked into a morass of cyberpunk gangsters, cultish environmentalists and crooked cops. And when another body turns up, it’s clear this ruthless killer doesn’t intend to stop.
Can Carver crack the case before it blows up in his face?
Murder in Retrograde is a thrilling science fiction crime novel. If you like stories about dystopian systems and hard-boiled detectives battling corrupt institutions, then you’ll love Greg Hickey’s propulsive futuristic whodunit.
••••••
REVIEW:MURDER IN RETROGRADE by Greg Hickey is a futuristic sci-fi, crime novel focusing on former Chicago police detective turned PI Marcus Carver as he is contracted by a tech billionaire to ‘spy’ on the competition.
Told from first person perspective (Marcus) MURDER IN RETROGRADE follows former Chicago police detective turned PI Marcus Carver as he is tasked with investigating a possible environmental lawbreaker but what Marcus will discover is something much worse. Two suspected murders linked to organized crime, an abduction, missing persons, and now a target on his back, PI Carver finds himself on the run, in a world where with the push of a button, you can become someone else.
The world building is detailed and intriguing as the wildfires of LA continue to encroach on the million dollar homes; big business and high tech clash for control on Mars, and dirty law enforcement runs rampant and free.
The secondary and supporting characters are an eclectic mix of diverse, ethnic and designated representation of good and evil. We are introduced to founder and CEO of iRise Space Exploration Naomi Battle, and her assistant Mirlande Joseph; Naomi’s head of security Dev Chaudry; CEO of Schuyler Space Industries Ellory Schuyler, as well as several law enforcement, house assistants, and members of organized crimes.
MURDER IN RETROGRADE is a captivating and gripping tale of secrets and lies, betrayal and vengeance, power and control. The character driven premise is twisted and inviting; the characters are diverse and determined.
Copies supplied for review
Reviews by Sandy
TRC:Hi Greg and welcome to The Reading Cafe
We would like to start with some background information. Would you please tell us something about yourself?
Social Media: Goodreads / Website/X (Twitter)/ Facebook/
Greg: I am a former international professional baseball player and forensic scientist, and a current endurance athlete and author of entertaining stories for smart readers. I live in Chicago with my wife and daughter.
TRC: Who or what influenced your career in writing?
Greg:It’s hard to point to a single influence. I’ve always loved reading and I’ve been writing stories for as long as I could put together a coherent plot. I started writing my first novel the summer after seventh grade. It was based on a story I had written for school about the passengers of a shipwrecked cruise ship forced to coexist on a deserted island. I didn’t get very far, because I quickly realized I wanted to spend the summer playing outside with my friends. That story and the completed stories I’ve published since come from a mix of influences ranging from middle grade authors like Matt Christopher and Brian Jacques, to my high school creative writing teacher Ms. Johnson, to the first time I read Orwell’s 1984 and Wells’s The Time Machine, to my adventures abroad.
TRC: What challenges or difficulties did you encounter writing and publishing this story and series?
Greg: I think every sci-fi creator starts with either the social/philosophical aspect or the technological aspect of their invented world. As an example, The Matrix seems like a project that started with a philosophical question. “How do we know our experiences are real?” is a question humans have been asking since at least as far back as Plato in the fourth century BCE. But the Wachowskis matched the intrigue of that question with their vision of a world controlled by machines and powered by human batteries tamed via elaborate virtual simulations. In contrast, I think Star Wars started with the technological aspect (lightsabers, space battles, the Death Star) and then supported those elements with rich social/philosophical world-building (Jedi vs. Sith, Rebellion vs. Empire). But no matter where the creator starts, the challenge is to make the two aspects complementary and integrate them seamlessly into the world of the story.
I was a college philosophy major, and I’ve long believed science fiction is a great vehicle for exploring philosophical questions. So that’s where I tend to start. In the case of the Marcus Carver books, I was intrigued by the increase of U.S. state laws passed in the last six years that are enforced by citizens filing lawsuits against offenders rather than by the police or the state. Taken to its extreme, it sounded like the perfect backdrop for a noir detective story—a grimy world where citizens rat out their neighbors and turn to private investigators to find evidence for their claims. So the challenge I faced was imagining what kind of technology that society would demand—like holographic masks and underground dwellings to shield people from their litigious fellow-citizens.
TRC: Would you please tell us something about the premise of THE EVENT HORIZON MURDER / MURDER IN RETROGRADE?
Greg: Both stories take place in the world I described above: a near-future America with people looking for excuses to sue each other, mass surveillance, and organized crime dealing in personal information rather than drugs or gambling. The Event Horizon Murder follows protagonist Marcus Carver’s last case as a homicide detective for the Chicago Police Department: the gangland murder of a politician’s son. Murder in Retrograde follows Carver’s first case as a private detective, in which a space tech CEO hires him to investigate a business rival for illegal hydrocarbon combustion—a civil case that soon leads to multiple murders.
TRC: What types of research/plotting did you do, and how long did you spend researching /plotting before beginning the series?
Greg: I started thinking about the series in 2022, two years before I published The Event Horizon Murder. The plots for both books came together pretty quickly, but I spent a lot of time researching the technology and other futuristic aspects of the story world. In addition to what I mentioned above, my research proved to be an ongoing process to account for all the ways our world might change over the next several decades. How are cities organized? How do people get around? How has climate change affected the world? How is automation/AI integrated into everyday life? What materials are used in buildings, infrastructure and clothing? And so on. I’m currently editing the next book in the series, so the research process continues.
TRC: How do you keep the plot unpredictable without sacrificing believability or content?
Greg: The author always has an advantage over the reader in terms of unpredictability because the author knows what’s going to happen. With that in mind, I don’t feel like I need to force plot twists. Between having multiple characters with multiple competing agendas, multiple mysteries to be solved, and using red herrings and misdirection naturally rather then forcing them, I feel like I have a lot of tools at my disposal to enhance unpredictability without sacrificing believability.
TRC: Along the same vein, believability is an important factor in writing story lines especially stories of science-fiction and fantasy, such that the reader can place themselves into the story. How do you keep the story line believable? Where do you think some author’s fail?
Greg:I read other science fiction and crime fiction and find out what I like and don’t like in those stories. Having a first-person narrator helps in certain respects. Even though I’m actually writing these books in the 2020s, it wouldn’t make sense for Carver to tell the story like he’s speaking to someone in 2026. So I approach each book as though Carver is telling the story to a contemporary in his future world. Everything in that world has to make sense to him, and he wouldn’t have to spend a paragraph explaining that a holohead is a holographic mask that people use to disguise themselves in a society where everyone is watching them. That information has to be conveyed more subtly. I think trying to see through Carver’s eyes eliminates problems like unbelievability, info-dumping, un-realism, etc., and helps immerse the reader in the story and world.
The downside of a first-person narrator is that it can be easy for an author to get hung up in the narrator’s internal monologue. I don’t like when a detective first-person narrator walks the reader through their thought process as they analyze the evidence. I try to give my readers credit and trust that they can follow the story, pick up on clues and form their own conclusions about what’s going on and which characters are prime suspects.
TRC: Do you believe the cover image plays a deciding factor for many readers in the process of selecting a book or new series to read?
Greg:I think cover design is important, but it’s not a deciding factor for me. When I search for a new book to read, I rely on the cover to tell me the book’s genre. If it’s the genre I’m looking for, I’ll read the book description. What the book is about and how well it has been received are the deciding factors for me in selecting a book.
TRC: When writing a storyline, do the characters direct the writing or do you direct the characters?
Greg: It depends on the story and the scene. In a murder mystery, at least one character has to die, and there must be at least one killer. So I will choose certain characters for those roles and shape the storyline so that they arrive at those ends with the proper motivation and emotional impact. In literary fiction, the story requirements are more open-ended, so the characters have more free rein. And in a scene that doesn’t have an essential plot point, I like to imagine how my characters would act given their personalities and goals in the scene and allow them to behave naturally.
TRC: The mark of a good writer is to pull the reader into the storyline so that they experience the emotions along with the characters. What do you believe a writer must do to make this happen? Where do you believe writer’s fail in this endeavor?
Greg:Give readers a main character with at least one trait or problem readers can identify with. Give the character a goal and enough obstacles standing in their way that achieving the goal is not a foregone conclusion. I’m most annoyed by stories in which the main character has no goals or desires. “Slice of life” and “coming of age” aren’t stories. They’re genres. A story is the journey the main character goes on to get what they want. Even Seinfeld—a show supposedly about nothing—featured characters with desires, whether it was making a relationship work, saving their job or even something as silly as Kramer wanting to build levels in his apartment.
TRC: Do you listen to music while writing? If so, does the style of music influence the storyline direction? Characters?
Greg:No, I find music too distracting when I’m writing. And I try to do a lot of first-draft writing by dictation while I’m walking outside. Listening to music at the same time would be too much.
TRC: What do you believe is the biggest misconception people have about authors?
Greg: Before my first book was published, I didn’t realize how much non-writing work goes into being an author. That realization was one of the main reasons I switched to self-publishing after my first two novels were released by small presses. Aside from my cover designer and editor, I’m a one-man show. I format my books and organize their distribution, email my newsletter subscribers, run my social media accounts, maintain my website, manage my advertising platforms, etc. Writing still takes up a lot of my time, but the additional tasks required to produce and sell a book quickly add up.
TRC: What is something that few, if anyone, know about you?
Greg: David Foster Wallace was a visiting professor at my college while I was there, and one of my greatest regrets is that I never took a creative writing class with him.
TRC: On what are you currently working?
Greg: I sent the latest draft of the next book of the Marcus Carver series to my beta readers, and I expect to publish it later this year. In the meantime, I’m planning the fourth Carver story.
TRC: Would you like to add anything else?
Greg: No, this was very thorough. I appreciate the insightful questions.
LIGHTNING ROUND
Favorite Food
Honestly, too many to choose just one. But for the purposes of this interview, I’ll say tacos.
Favorite Dessert
Anything chocolate
Favorite TV Show
Comedy: Seinfeld, drama: Game of Thrones
Favorite Sport
Baseball
Last Movie You Saw
Train Dreams
Dark or Milk Chocolate
Dark
Secret Celebrity Crush
Jennifer Connelly
Last Vacation Destination
Provence, France
Do you have any pets?
No
Last book you read
A Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare
TRC: Thank you Greg for taking the time to answer our questions. Good luck on your future releases.
