with D S Kane
We are delighted to welcome author D S Kane to Omnimystery News today.
D S's new spy thriller, the first book of the Spies Lie series, is Bloodridge (The Swiftshadow Group; April 2014 trade paperback and ebook formats) and we recently had the chance to talk with him a little more about it and the series.
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Omnimystery News: Introduce us to the books in this series and their lead characters.
Photo provided courtesy of
D S Kane
D S Kane: Bloodridge is about a young orphaned Brit, Jon Sommers, who discovers that his entire life was fabricated for him by an intelligence service. When Jon finds out his fiancé Lisa Gabriel died in a terrorist bomb attack, he is visited by spymaster, Yigdal Ben-Levy, who throws Jon's life into chaos, when he tells him that Lisa was not a fellow graduate student but a Mossad spy sent to bring him to Israel. Ben-Levy convinces Jon to seek justice for Lisa's murder by joining Mossad as a kidon (assassin) and going after Tariq Houmaz, her alleged killer. But things are more complicated than he was told, and soon he finds himself in the middle of a global conspiracy. Jon emerged into my consciousness when I found myself thinking about an MI-6 operative I'd spent time with on an covert assignment. His gritty determination served as an example for me.
In DeathByte, Book 2, William Wing is the protagonist and Jon Sommers and Cassandra Sashakovich, a covert operative and thief are the main supporting roles. William Wing grew from cojoining the personalities of a hacker friend of mine and an Asian who I knew at NYU.
In Swiftshadow, Book 3, Cassandra returns as the protagonist with William Wing as the primary support. Cassandra was one I built from scratch. I wanted a female who was bright and arrogant, determined to complete what she set out to do.
In each of these, Avram Shimmel, a mercenary, is also there as a supporting character. Avram was also built from scratch, mirroring the David and Goliath conflict in a single soul.
OMN: How do the characters change over the course of the three books?
DSK: All my characters arc in every book. Many thriller writers refuse to arc their protagonists. In my books, everyone arcs, even if it's just a bit. My reason is to give the reader something to think about besides the plot and theme of the story. That means that if you read the books out of sequence, you might very well wonder how someone has changed too much for a single story or how someone now appears younger and less mature than they did in the book you finished earlier.
OMN: As a male author, how did you find the right voice for your female characters?
DSK: My only female protagonist, Cassandra Sashakovich, call-sign "Swiftshadow," was vetted by several female novelists who write woman's fiction. I learned a ton from getting their feedback and correcting my world view of women. It made me "a better man." I choose to write a female for reasons of plot and character. I needed my protegonist hobbled by circumstances that could only occur with a woman. And I needed someone who would be less likely to react in anger until they became desperate. Women tend to show more patience with circumstance, from what I've seen.
OMN: Into which fiction genre would you place this series?
DSK: My books are techno-thriller espionage. I think it's an advantage to have a more narrow definition of my genre. I know my competition and have met some of them.
OMN: Give us a summary of Bloodridge in a tweet.
DSK: Bloodridge, Book 1 of the Spies Lie series by DS Kane: "A globe-trotting spy thriller dense with intriguing insider's knowledge." — Kirkus Reviews
OMN: How did you go about researching the plot points of your stories?
DSK: James Rollins once told me he does his research on the web. So, I tried that. Barry Eisler told me he always visits the places he writes about. When my wife and I were invited to Barry's daughter's Bat Mitzvah in Masada, Israel, we went there and I did first hand research in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and Herzliyya. It made a big positive difference. Now, I visit the places I write about. I research people as best I can. As for weapons, combat tactics and such, I have friends at the Naval Postgraduate School and some folks I know from DARPA who will talk to me about things not covered by secrecy acts. The most challenging topic I've researched was in Beijing. When I visited, a tour guide helped me find the building where the Chinese version of the CIA is located. I have not visited either Vladivostok or Somalia, and took some liberties with my settings there, although I had some help from experts.
OMN: If we could send you anywhere in the world, at our expense, to research the setting for a book, where would it be?
DSK: Back to Hong Kong and Shanghai. Hong Kong is a great thriller setting, crowded and full of noise. Shanghai is China's Wall Street, very elegant, and is the home to some incredible hackers. Beijing is too calm a place for a good thriller scene, although it has many alleyways that might be useful in a chase scene.
OMN: How did the books in this series come to be titled? And were you involved with the cover designs?
DSK: I create my book titles by thinking of the theme of the particular book in question, then take two words I would use in that theme and joining them together. Hence, Blood Ridge becomes Bloodridge, Death Byte become DeathByte, Swift Shadow become Swiftshadow.
Jeroen Ten Berge, in New Zealand, does all my covers. His work is exceptional. He does the covers for Barry Eisler and Joe Konrath.
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D. S. Kane worked as a covert operative for over a decade, traveling globally. Now a former spy, he is writing fiction that exposes the way intelligence agencies craft lies to sway and manipulate their national policy, driving countries into dangerous conflicts.
For more information about the author, please visit his website at DSKane.com and his author page on Goodreads, or find him on Facebook and Twitter.
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Bloodridge
D S Kane
A Spies Lie Novel
To find justice for those he loved, a man finds himself at the center of a dangerous global conspiracy …
When Jon Sommers finds out his fiancé Lisa Gabriel died in a terrorist bomb attack, he is visited by spymaster, Yigdal Ben-Levy, who throws Jon's life into chaos, when he tells him that Lisa was not a fellow graduate student but a Mossad spy sent to bring him to Israel. Ben-Levy convinces Jon to seek justice for Lisa's murder by joining Mossad and going after Tariq Houmaz, her killer.
Shortly after training, Jon's entire new team is executed by the bomb maker, who murdered Lisa, and only Jon escapes the massacre. As he leaves the scene, Jon finds himself captured, threatened and turned into a double agent for MI-6. When his Mossad handler, Ben-Levy learns this, he wants Jon dead as an example to other Israeli coverts.
If being a hunted double agent isn't enough, Jon comes across information in his spying for MI-6 that suggests Israel is in impending danger from Houmaz. To stop this catastrophe, Jon must put together his own team, one he can trust with his life. Can Jon bring justice to Lisa's murderer, or will millions of lives be lost?
