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In the beginning ...
The
Puppet Master was conceived out of a question. Every time I go on holiday to
the Costa del Sol there are more resorts, hotels, golf courses, villas and
apartments. I'd been out for a drive in the hills behind Marbella, and found
myself wondering - how much of this is paid for with dirty money?
The book started as a
story about organised crime and money-laundering, but as the characters took
over, they started to write another book. They told me their story and I just
filled in the pages
What it
says on the back cover
Greed – Corruption –
Blackmail – Murder – Fear; the ties that bind the puppets to their master. He
exercises his power without conscience; manipulating and destroying lives,
because he can. It's a game and he doesn't need reasons. Ask him – Why? And
he'll answer – Why not?
Chief Inspector Mike Barton and his team are closing in on a huge drugs and
human trafficking operation. But they still don't know the identity of the man
behind it all – the 'Puppet Master' – and time is running out
Driven by a ghost from his past – taking risks and bending rules, in his quest
to expose the Puppet Master's identity – things become personal as Barton
uncovers the dark secrets of the Puppet Master's double life
The trail leads from a dark world where human life is a commodity – traded for
profit, abused for pleasure, written-off for expedience – to a more sinister
one, where, behind façades of respectability, greedy men are willing puppets
Will the puppets protect or betray their Master? Will Barton be vindicated and
see the Puppet Master brought to justice or is he just another puppet?
Find out as this fast-moving story twists and turns to its dramatic conclusion
What the Puppet Master is
really about
Like most crime novels, The Puppet Master isn't really
about crime. Indeed, like most novels, in almost any genre, it is about people.
It's about love and hate, trust and suspicion, loyalty and betrayal, and of
course, life and death. It's about relationships – fathers and mothers, sons and
daughters, sisters and brothers, friends and enemies, wives, husbands and
lovers; the things that people do to, and for, each other; and why they do it –
their real motives, not the excuses they hide behind. The crimes were created by and for the
characters, not vice versa, and are part of their story. A story that will take
you to some dark places. It might make you cry, although sometimes it will make
you smile, and maybe even laugh. Because fiction is born from the experiences of
life.
The Characters
My
characters could never have been complete inventions – many of their
characteristics I have observed in others. And, if you know me and I have stolen a
little piece of you, I make no apologies, but I thank you for your contribution
– but they are, like Frankenstein's monster, assembled from many parts, and some
didn't turn out as expected. That was the
part I most enjoyed – creating people who existed only because I allowed
them to, and who could be and do anything I wanted them to. And even though they
took over at times, they always needed me to tap the keys on my laptop and keep
them alive. Some of course didn't make it to the end – it was fun being their
puppet master
Like most of us Mike
Barton is a flawed character. and anyone who knows me, will know where many
of his flaws come from. There is quite a bit of me in that particular melting
pot and perhaps even more of what I would like to be. I hope that you will like
him, although I know that at times he'll frustrate you.
Barton
is very good at his job, and he does it with a passion. Sometimes too much
passion and that's when he's at his weakest ... when the chip on his shoulder
becomes too much of a burden, when the ghost stirs to haunt him, when the Puppet
Master is tugging at his strings ... when he most needs his friends, he pushes
them away. Barton genuinely cares about the people around him and wants to do
the right thing by them – but it doesn’t always turn out that way. Would you
want him on your side? Almost certainly. Would you want him as a friend? -
That's for you to decide
Twisted, cruel,
psychopathic perhaps, a callous user of people - there is little if anything
that might redeem The Puppet Master. And he is also very good at what he
does; and he does it because he can, and without a thought for others.
Damaged as a child, the only lessons that he learned were to look after number
one and to hell with anyone else; and not to pity those less fortunate, but to
despise and abuse them. Would you want him on your side? – The only side he
takes is his own. Would you want him as a friend? – He doesn’t know the meaning
of the word.
The Settings
Place - The Puppet
Master takes you on a journey from London and the Home Counties, to Liverpool,
Edinburgh, Spain, the USA and a Caribbean island. The world that the characters
inhabit is an important element in any story and real locations have been used
wherever possible..
When choosing a book to read, other than that which is intended as fantasy, I am
naturally drawn towards those authors whose use real places. So it is not
surprising that my favourite authors include Ian Rankin, Colin Dexter and Arthur
Conan Doyle. I hope that I have managed to evoke a sense of place, and that
anyone familiar with a particular location will not have too much difficulty in
recognising it
Time – Set in 2003,
the book also looks into the past - back twenty years to the tragedy that still
haunts Barton, and a further forty years back to events in The Puppet Master’s
childhood that he cannot forget. And for both men,
the anaesthetic of
time has numbed the pain, but will never heal the wounds.
The Fight Against Organised
Crime
The events in
this book are the invention of the author, but the inspiration came from actual
reported cases. One only has to turn on the news or read a newspaper to know
that, unfortunately, real life can often be more terrible than fiction. The
criminal organisations involved in the illegal trafficking of drugs and human
beings are like cancers eating away at our society; making huge profits from
their trade in human misery and devastating the lives of countless numbers of
innocent people. Law enforcement agencies around the world are engaged in a
seemingly never-ending war, in which the enemy is assisted by modern
communications technologies, the growing global economy, corrupt
administrations, greedy businessmen and weak politicians.
At the time of
writing this book, in England, the main police agency in the fight against
organised crime was the National Crime Squad. Established in April 1998, the NCS
was responsible for many successful operations against international drug
trafficking, money laundering and organised immigration crime. In 2006 the NCS
was merged with a number of other agencies to form the Serious and Organised
Crime Agency (SOCA)
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