What is Ed Kovacs reading?

This weekend's featured contributor at Writers Read: Ed Kovacs, author of Burnt Black.

His entry begins:

I've been in a brief pause between projects: I'm prepping for the release of Burnt Black:, #3 in the Cliff St. James series; St. Martin's Minotaur just accepted my manuscript launching a new conspiracy/espionage thriller series; and I'm about to start writing a stand-alone thriller spec novel. Hence it was a good time to read a book.

My agent suggested I read a novel written by one of his other clients, F.J. Chase, a.k.a. William Christie, called Darkness Under Heaven. An American security consultant working in China, Peter Avakian, gets into a lot of trouble during an international crisis and has to fight his way out to avoid imprisonment.

Sounded interesting, so I downloaded it onto my e-book reader. It's a straightforward, page-turning action/adventure thriller with a keen understanding of how the Chinese police/military apparatus thinks and operates.

There was a lot...[read on]

About Burnt Black, from the publisher:

Cliff St. James returns along with his partner Honey to investigate a baffling series of ritualistic deaths that may be connected to a bizarre secret society, in Ed Kovacs' Burnt Black.

New Orleans Homicide Detective Cliff St. James and his partner Honey are still trying to piece their lives together a year and a half after a killer storm decimated the city. They find themselves probing a succession of unusual deaths that may or may not be homicides.

The investigation not only proves frustrating, but it strains at the very fabric of St. James and Honey’s relationship. The puzzling deaths connected to a secretive occult group seem to only lead them deeper into an unsolvable maze fraught with strange occurrences and brutal death.

When their sleuthing uncovers a connection to a ruthless Mexican drug cartel, a complex murder conspiracy emerges, but with shifting suspects. St. James and Honey catch nothing but bad breaks as they struggle to determine which of their suspects is the killer, or perhaps the next victim.

Learn more about the book and author at Ed Kovacs's website.

Burnt Black is the third book in the Cliff St. James series.

My Book, The Movie: Storm Damage.

The Page 69 Test: Storm Damage.

Writers Read: Ed Kovacs (December 2011).

Writers Read: Ed Kovacs (December 2012).

The Page 69 Test: Good Junk.

Writers Read: Ed Kovacs.

--Marshal Zeringue