What is James Thompson reading?

The current featured contributor at Writers Read: James Thompson, author of Helsinki Blood.

His entry begins:

I’m researching my novel in progress, so these all get lumped together, a small library of tarot reading and magick. I’ll list them by level of difficulty:

Tarot for Beginners: A Practical Guide to Reading the Cards
Barbara Moore

Tarot Basics
Janet Boyer

The Pictorial Key to the Tarot
Arthur Edward Waite, Matthew Vossler, Pamela Colman Smith, Matthew Vossler, Pamela Colman Smith

The Golden Dawn: The Original Account of the Teachings, Rites & Ceremonies of the Hermetic Order (Llewellyn's Golden Dawn)
Israel Regardie

Grimoire of Aleister Crowley
Rodney Orpheus, Lon Milo Duquette, Cathryn Orchard

I began studying the occult a decade ago, from an academic standpoint, while working on...[read on]

About Helsinki Blood, from the publisher:

A missing woman too unimportant to raise alarms . . . criminal masterminds too powerful to pursue. And when the system fails, Inspector Kari Vaara must dispense his own brand of justice.

Kari Vaara is recovering from the physical and emotional toll of solving the Lisbet Söderlund case when he’s approached with a plea: an Estonian woman begs him to find her daughter, Loviise, a young woman with Down syndrome who was promised work and a better life in Finland ... and has since disappeared.

One more missing girl is a drop in the barrel for a police department that is understaffed and overburdened, but for Kari, the case is personal: it’s a chance for redemption, to help the victims his failed black-ops unit was intended to save, and to prove to his estranged wife, Kate, that he’s still the man he once was. His search will lead him from the glittering world of Helsinki’s high-class clubs to the darkest circles of Finland’s underground trade in trafficked women ... and straight into the path of Loviise’s captors, who may be some of the most untouchable people in the country.

As Kari works his new case, a past one comes back to haunt him when powerful enemies return to settle unfinished business. In a dangerous game of cat-and-mouse, he is propelled toward a reckoning in which the stakes are life or death ... and only the victors will be left standing.

Learn more about the book and author at James Thompson's website and blog. Helsinki Blood is the fourth novel in the Inspector Vaara series.

The Page 69 Test: Snow Angels.

The Page 69 Test: Helsinki White.

Writers Read: James Thompson (April 2012).

My Book, The Movie: Helsinki White.

Writers Read: James Thompson.

--Marshal Zeringue