DOG AND BITCH ISLAND (Ben Blackshaw #5) by Robert Blake Whitehill-Review and Interview
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ABOUT THE BOOK: Release Date April 1, 2018
Ben Blackshaw’s old friend Travis Cynter is dead. Cynter was Blackshaw’s comrade-in-arms in the U.S. Navy SEALs. He was killed in full tactical gear during a black-ops mission on American soil. FBI Agents Molly Wilde and Pershing Lowry try to draw Blackshaw into helping them solve Cynter’s murder. The agents need Blackshaw because the case landed in their laps from an American intelligence agency with overseas interests. From two previous cases, these Feds have come to appreciate how Blackshaw can work in the shadows, off the books, and be easily disavowed should his investigations implode.
Blackshaw is torn. He has a longstanding mistrust of doing any kind of clandestine work for government intelligence agencies. In fact, when patriotism has led him to do the right thing in the past, usually against his better judgement and instincts, his friends and loved ones have suffered; many have died. Helping Wilde and Lowry always comes at too great a cost. This unhappy history weighs heavily against Blackshaw’s profound desire to solve the mystery of Travis Cynter’s death. Should he serve with patriotic duty to an ideal that might not exist, or act with honor to clear the name of his murdered friend?
Against the wishes of LuAnna, Blackshaw’s expectant wife, and contrary to the grim and hard-won advice of his friend Knocker Ellis Hogan, Blackshaw reluctantly launches the investigation with a close study of the murder scene on Dog Bitch Island near Ocean City, Maryland. The trio finds the exact spot where Travis Cynter died. It is LuAnna who discovers a clue which spins the team into a deadly transatlantic chase; she quickly learns that the Feds have not told them the whole truth about Cynter’s final mission.
Thanks to Ellis’s wisdom and wealth, and LuAnna’s independent deductive logic, Blackshaw operates like a small covert agency unto himself. Along the way, he tangles with an old enemy, discovers an unfinished SEAL mission, and cuts out rot at the highest levels of government, including a scandal that could rally terrorists the world over. And it is all controlled by the iron hand of a shadowy syndicate called Faction.
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REVIEW: DOG AND BITCH ISLAND is the fifth installment in Robert Blake Whitehill’s contemporary, adult BEN BLACKSHAW military suspense series focusing on continuing adventures and investigations of retired Navy SEAL Ben Blackshaw. DOG AND BITCH ISLAND can be read as a stand alone without any difficulty. Any important information from the previous story lines is revealed where necessary.
Told from several third person perspectives including Ben Blackshaw and his wife former Natural Resources Police officer LuAnna Blackshaw DOG AND BITCH ISLAND follows Ben, LuAnna, and their friend, former business partner and Vietnam veteran Knocker Ellis Hogan as they hunt for the person who killed one of their own- Lieutenant Travis Cynter had been killed; a classified and covert mission focusing on the retrieval of an unknown package; and Ben Blackshaw was now the target of an FBI investigation that will take our hero from Smith Island to Bermuda as he searches for the truth.
DOG AND BITCH ISLAND is a fast paced, action packed, infinitely detailed story of intrigue, corruption, and the hunt for a killer. The political machine and the power elite are part a multi-faceted tool that controls the who and what of a mix of information that is revealed to the world- a world that is completely unaware of the backroom, and war room decisions that govern our lives and the lives of the people in the news. The allure of power, and the battle for control attract the wannabes and has-beens in a story that could be ripped from the headlines in a world at war. Robert Blake Whitehill’s DOG AND BITCH ISLAND is a thrilling, clever and intelligent tale of one man’s unique vision of right and wrong.
Reading Order and Previous Reviews
Deadrise
Nitro Express
Tap Rack Bang
Geronimo Hotshot
Dog and Bitch Island
Copy supplied for review
Reviewed by Sandy
TRC: Hi Robert and welcome back to The Reading Café.
Robert: Hi Sandy! It’s a genuine pleasure to visit with you again. Your support putting readers together with authors and their books is so important.
TRC: For anyone who does not know you, please tell us something about yourself?
Robert: For a while, I was bucking the family tradition of writing (my father, Joseph Whitehill, was a novelist, and my mom, Cecily Sharp-Whitehill is a poet and editor) by studying acting. But memorizing roles, and even just working with great monologues, always brought me back to the power of the written word and how I enjoy writing them rather than only interpreting them. I love writing tight, pithy, sayable dialogue. I’ve written for true crime shows on Discovery, like The New Detectives, and screenplays.
Writing a novel was the suggestion of a good friend. It took the poor guy two years of nagging to get me started. I worked for eight years off and on to craft Deadrise, the first title in the Ben Blackshaw series. Of course I was researching the story’s location on the Chesapeake and on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, even though I grew up there. I needed to see it afresh with an author’s eye, even the Chesapeake Bay islands, including Smith Island. During that time, I was looking at the big picture of the series, plotting later books that would follow Deadrise, which include Nitro Express, Tap Rack Bang, Geronimo Hotshot, and now, Dog & Bitch Island.
TRC: How did publishing your first book change your writing process?
Robert: Deadrise came out in 2012, and it was life-altering in so many ways. First of all, with thanks to reviewers like you, Sandy, I started meeting the Blackshaw readers, who up until then had been a dream. I mentioned I took eight years to shape the Blackshaw series and the first book. Now I really had to step it up, and create one book per year, which is the usual output for an author crafting a popular fiction series.
The prospect of that workload was terrifying, but I had already taken the time to lay important groundwork that would serve the entire series. In order to keep up with the new demands of press interviews, readings, signings, I needed a highly structured work-week to make sure I could have a new book ready for publication a year later. Thank goodness, after all the research and preparation, I was able to bring out Nitro Express on time.
TRC: Would you please tell us something about your new release DOG & BITCH ISLAND?
Robert: In Dog & Bitch Island, the FBI calls upon Ben Blackshaw to assist in solving the murder of Lt. Travis Cynter, Blackshaw’s buddy from the Navy SEALs. Cynter died in full assault gear, but on the eponymous island near Ocean City, Maryland, which is very odd, since SEALs are always deployed overseas. Blackshaw reluctantly agrees to help the FBI, I think because Cynter is a little like Blackshaw himself, an independent operator working outside the system; Cynter went rogue. Blackshaw, himself a maverick, is the best guy to help figure out what happened. What’s fun about this fifth Blackshaw book is that LuAnna, Blackshaw’s wife who’s expecting their first baby, comes along to help with the investigation. Her insights are crucial to completing the mission. Of course, Blackshaw’s old friend Knocker Ellis Hogan is also right there with him start-to-finish.
TRC: What direction do you plan for the Ben Blackshaw Series?
Robert: The direction for the Blackshaw series is both outward and inward. It’s an outward direction, in that Blackshaw, though from a small Chesapeake island community, will continue to fight to right wrongs that affect us all, especially the weak, throughout the world.
The series direction is also inward; I want to deepen the relationships between Blackshaw, his wife LuAnna, and his friend Ellis. I want to learn more about Blackshaw’s relationship as a grown man with his parents, both of whom abandoned caring for him when he was a teenager. They’re still alive, and they drop into the stories from time to time. There is still a lot to explore there. And what is Blackshaw’s relationship with his half-sister Annie Vo, and her wife? Relationships, and the emotional truths that surround, support, and infect them, are so important to the evolving arc of the Blackshaw series.
TRC: What type of research/plotting do you do, and how long do you spend researching /plotting before beginning a book?
Robert: I pull my plot cores from world events, local news, anything where the downtrodden need Blackshaw’s helping or his avenging hand. The Southern Poverty Law Center is a constant source of news about righteous fights on behalf the disadvantaged. And Project Censored always dives deep into news stories that might not be telegenic enough for CNN or Fox News.
Though the series starts in the Chesapeake Bay environs, there are far flung locations that require travel to research. When I can’t do that, I take extra time on the internet to get to know every aspect of a place.
That said, I don’t have a set research phase in the writing of a book. It’s always ongoing, and guided by plot turns and twists. I might study the plot core before starting the book, but I do so much more research between writing one line and the next while the work is in progress.
TRC: How often do real-life events influence your story lines and, ultimately the direction of your books and series?
Robert: Real-life events, both on grand and deeply personal scales, lie at the heart of the Blackshaw series. As an author, I have to be able to empathize, sympathize, or at the very least identify with every aspect of a book, every character, action, every line of narration, and every line of dialogue, or I can’t keep it. If it doesn’t move me, it won’t move a reader. That’s where my absorption with news media feeds the engine. Who needs help? Who needs avenging? Who has been forgotten? When I find the victims and the survivors, I quickly meet their oppressors. And then the oppressors quickly meet Blackshaw. And that’s all it takes to seed a Blackshaw story.
TRC: What has been your hardest scene –ever-to write?
Robert: In the main, I love writing, and letting moments emerge from my subconscious that shock even me. In Deadrise, LuAnna was badly and terribly injured. I asked myself, how could I do such a thing to such a wonderful, sterling character? However disturbing they are, I know I have to keep moments like those.
I suffered awfully once again when writing Tap Rack Bang. There were a number of scenes in which young children were in danger, and suffering in complete and bewildering terror. I remember being so afraid and alone at times as a child, so I had to relive those memories writing those scenes. I suppose having a vivid recollection aids me in writing these scenes as truthfully as possible. Blackshaw readers will be the ultimate judges of this.
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?
Robert: I absolutely believe a book cover plays an important role in helping a book or series find its audience. There was a time I worked as a pitch man, and the most important lesson I was taught to make a sale was put the item in the buyer’s hand. As soon prospect took hold of the product I was selling, it wasn’t mine anymore. The prospect immediately began to feel as though the item was theirs. Since I can’t be present whenever and wherever readers are looking for exciting new books, or a great new series, the book covers have to stand in for me. I’m always trying to imagine what kind of cover will make someone want to pick the book up at a store, or buy it on line.
I pitch my initial idea to the cover artist, and then we work through to the most intriguing image possible. I’ve worked with graphic artists like Carol Castelluccio at www.Studio042.com to create several exciting covers. Buffalo Gouge (https://www.facebook.com/buffalo.gouge) did amazing work on Geronimo Hotshot and Dog & Bitch Island. Betty Horne Fowler (https://www.facebook.com/betty.fowler) provided a totally haunting photograph for the cover of Tap Rack Bang. My covers are not standardized. They run the gamut in style, color palette, and original media. They are eclectic because my taste is eclectic; I never can tell which style of cover is going to draw a reader to a Blackshaw book for the first time.
TRC: How do you select the names of your characters?
Robert: No one’s asked me that before, Sandy! I sit through the end credits of movies, and text myself any names that are real grabbers. It might be a first name. It might be a last name. It might be a name that I change, but it’s inspired by a gaffer or a make-up artist, or a stunt double. I hate vanilla names. I really prefer names that are evocative, and that reveal something of the nature of the character. There you have it. Movie credits!
TRC: Do you listen to music while writing? If so, does the style of music influence the storyline direction? Characters?
Robert: I need serious quiet when I’m writing. Music just carries me away. I start listening, and stop writing. My father listened to classical music when he was writing. I can’t handle it. I don’t know how he did it. Music drowns out the voices of the characters rattling around my skull.
TRC: What do you believe is the biggest misconception people have about authors? About yourself?
Robert: Some readers might think writers are bookish loners, and introverts. I like being with other people, but only for short bursts. Then I need some quiet time to charge the batteries. What folks might not know is that authors have to generate new work all the time, but after that first book comes out, they also must think and act like entrepreneurs, planning and executing marketing strategies, thinking about covers, making appearances at readings and signings. It goes from being a quiet life to an insanely busy life very quickly.
Thank goodness on the screenwriting side of things, I work with Liza Moore, who is an amazing producer in addition to being a manager with a strong guiding vision. On the book side, I am lucking to have amazing interns, like Erin Blake and Haylee Berry, and formerly, Heather Bailey. They free me up so much designing the Blackshaw travel app (available in the App store for Apple and Android as a guide to visit Smith Island where the series is set), and handling social media for me in such imaginative and creative ways. In return, the interns and I collaborate on Blackshaw short stories that are published at the end of the novels. Karl Guthrie is an amazing attorney who sees to it that I don’t make any mistakes with contract negotiations. An active author really needs a supportive team as soon as possible.
TRC: What are your thoughts on e-books vs paper? Traditional vs Independent publishing?
Robert: I sell mostly ebooks, but I make sure an attractive paperback edition is also available for those who prefer print books. The paperbacks are also important if you ever want to do signings in brick-and-mortar bookstores.
When it comes to the question of legacy vs. independent publishing, I guess I’m a hybrid case, Sandy. For English language Blackshaw books, I still believe in independent publishing for both the ebooks and paperbacks as I said. But the German publisher, Luzifer-Verlag bought the German language rights in a legacy, or traditional agreement structured in the usual way, with advances followed by royalties. They purchased the rights to the first four Blackshaw books all in a bundle like that. I’m happy to break the tremendous news here that Luzifer-Verlag have just agreed to purchase Dog & Bitch Island as well, for release in 2019. I am so fortunate to be associated with such a terrific publishing company. Their translations are excellent, the covers are mind-blowing, and their marketing team is quite creatively aggressive. It boils down to which style of publishing offers the greatest creative freedom for the greatest financial opportunity. Every situation is different. One no longer has to handle publishing in just one way.
TRC: What is something that few, if anybody, knows about you?
Robert: Very few folks know that one of my former gigs was as a bridge tender on the Old Severn River Bridge outside Annapolis, Maryland. I had twelve and twenty-four hour shifts, opening the bridge now and then for passing boats. I could get pizza delivered at any time, the view was spectacular both up- and downriver, and it was a tremendous private office for a writer.
TRC: On what are you currently working?
Robert: At the moment, I’m working on the screenplay adaptation of Tap Rack Bang, the third book in the Ben Blackshaw series. After that is complete, I’ll continue with Blackshaw Book 6, entitled simply, Blast.
TRC: Would you like to add anything else?
Robert: As ever, I would like to thank the Ben Blackshaw readers for all their support and encouragement for the series. I must also thank them for their patience awaiting Dog & Bitch Island. Other writing commitments prevented my bringing this new book out as quickly as I would have wished. I truly hope readers will share their enjoyment of Blackshaw with their friends and family.
I welcome emails directly from Blackshaw readers at rbw@robertblakewhitehill.com anytime, and try to reply as promptly as possible. You can sign up for newsletters, or follow Blackshaw and me at:
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TRC: Thank you Robert for taking the time to answer our questions.
Robert: Your questions teach me about Blackshaw and his world, and about myself as an author.
TRC: Congratulations on the release of Dog & Bitch Island.
Robert: And thank you Sandy. You are such a terrific advocate for readers and authors alike.
