What is Humphrey Hawksley reading?

Featured at Writers Read: Humphrey Hawksley, author of Operation Icebreaker (A Rake Ozenna Thriller, 5).

His entry begins:

I have several on the go, all on my Kindle, and all in the swirl around my curiosity research on Arctic action.

The Wager and the Bear by John Ironmonger is a heart-warming tale about small communities and the wider world. This is one of the few novels with a setting in Qaanaaq, in far north Greenland, the Arctic area where my latest Operation Icebreaker is set. It’s a hard place to get to, and John wrote from talking to people and his own research, and his vivid descriptions are pretty much spot on.

Alongside, I’m deep into Cold Rush: The Astonishing True Story of the New Quest for the Polar North by Martin Breum, a gripping non-fiction account of...[read on]

About Operation Icebreaker, from the publisher:

Major Rake Ozenna faces dangerous choices and deadly consequences in this rip-roaring political thriller that takes you from the icy plains of Greenland to Washinton D.C., London and back again . . . Buckle up, this is a thrilling ride!

It was meant to be a routine visit. It became a bloodbath.

Special Forces veteran Major Rake Ozenna lands at America’s remote Arctic base in Greenland. His mission is simple. Build trust between allied communities on the frontline of a changing world. Instead, violence erupts, leaving Rake with a loss he cannot forget.

The devastating attack is blamed on Inuit extremists. Rake knows it’s a lie. There were assassins in the snow. And he will make sure they’re brought to justice.

But when things take a sinister political twist, Rake finds himself on the run from his own country. Someone deep inside in the Pentagon is determined to stop him and turn the base attack into something far bigger.

As global tensions reach breaking point, Rake must expose the truth before a war is ignited at the top of the world—pitting America against its closest allies…

Operation Icebreaker is the fifth Rake Ozenna thriller and will leave readers breathless . . . and eagerly anticipating the next heart-racing adventure!

Visit Humphrey Hawksley's website.

The Page 69 Test: The History Book.

My Book, The Movie: Security Breach.

My Book, The Movie: Man on Ice.

Writers Read: Humphrey Hawksley (May 2018).

The Page 69 Test: Man on Ice.

The Page 69 Test: Man on Fire.

Writers Read: Humphrey Hawksley.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Matthew Warner Osborn's "Night Hawk"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Night Hawk: A Nineteenth-Century Superhero and the Dawn of American Mass Culture by Matthew Warner Osborn.

About the book, from the publisher:

Unmasks the long-forgotten story of how a flying, superhuman vigilante played a pivotal role in the founding of the American labor movement.

On July 5, 1828, more than a century before Superman arrived on Earth, a superhero took flight in Philadelphia’s night sky. Buried on page three of a small local newspaper, the announcement of his arrival appeared under the title “The Night-Hawk, No. 1” with a cryptic epigraph from Romeo and Juliet: “I’ll be a candleholder and look on.” Who and what was the Night Hawk? As Matthew Warner Osborn reveals, this was the sobriquet of a mysterious columnist for the weekly Mechanics’ Free Press, the first radical socialist newspaper in America. Dressed in a mysterious cloak, the Night Hawk soared over Philadelphia, revealing the evil crimes of prominent gentlemen, fighting murderous criminals, and calling out fraudulent moral authorities.

The Night Hawk was the ingenious invention of an impoverished actor, Cornelius A. Logan, who created the character as a public champion of Philadelphia’s Working Men’s movement, the first successful American labor party. The Night Hawk’s nocturnal adventures transformed their socialist ideology into an entertaining fantasy that dramatized the struggle against industrial exploitation and the degradation of working people. The success of the character made Logan into a celebrity, and he went on to become a popular and innovative comedian on the antebellum stage.

A harbinger of the superheroes we know today, the Night Hawk promises to illuminate dark secrets from the past, but he can also shed light on our present. He ignites our need to see corrupt elites unmasked and held accountable for their actions, all while protecting the innocent and oppressed. Americans have always loved to fantasize about powerful superheroes who hide behind masks while chasing bad guys, and Osborn shows in this entertaining history how the Night Hawk was perhaps the first standard bearer for that enduring mystique.

Learn more about Night Hawk at the University of Chicago Press website.

The Page 99 Test: Night Hawk.

--Marshal Zeringue

Four bewitching novels for fans of "Practical Magic"

At Book Riot Megan Mabee tagged "four beautifully written books for fans of Practical Magic." One title on the list:

The Bewitching by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

For those who like the more spine-tingling elements of Practical Magic, like the creepy murdered boyfriends brought back from the dead, or the tangled webs woven by backfired love spells, you may also want to try this witchy horror read by Silvia Moreno-Garcia. Plus, you’ll find multigenerational women connected by magic in this book, too. As a grad student named Minerva investigates an elusive horror author named Beatrice Tremblay, her findings begin to mirror a witch encounter her great-grandmother Nana Alba faced in 1900’s Mexico.

Read about another title on the list.

The Bewitching is among Carolina Ciucci's eight books of immersive dark gothic fantasy for horror fans and Daphne Fama's eight folklore-inspired horror novels.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Jessica Siskin's "Looks Perfect"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: Looks Perfect: A Novel by Jessica Siskin.

About the book, from the publisher:

What comes between a fashion icon’s perfect image and her genuine self? The perfect stranger―in a sharp and witty novel about identity, performance, and what it takes to make a true connection.

One million people follow Stella Lerner’s every move. And now the buzzy fashion designer is fulfilling her lifelong dream and taking her indie clothing brand global with the help of the industry’s biggest investor. Sounds perfect. Except offline, the optics aren’t so great.

Her relationship with her boyfriend, Alex, is crumbling just as the pressure to curate her image online only builds. Feeling trapped between the picture-perfect life she’s promised her followers and the messy reality she’s facing, Stella anonymously joins a new dating app. Blindr promises deep, private conversations, free from the burden of anyone’s expectations, especially her own. That’s when Stella connects with a stranger called Pineapple who’s intuitive, honest, and empathetic. Stella may be watched by millions, but this man, who’s never even laid eyes on her, makes her feel seen.

What starts as a diversion becomes a journey of radical transformation. As Stella’s search for authenticity intensifies, every chat with Pineapple takes her further down a path she never could’ve imagined.

Visit Jessica Siskin's website.

The Page 69 Test: Looks Perfect.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five powerful horror novels for animal lovers

Carrie Lee South earned her MFA at the Arkansas Writers Workshop where she served as the fiction editor for the literary magazine Arkana. She's currently the fiction editor at StoryBottle Co. Her work has appeared in Waxwing, F(r)iction, Iron Horse Literary Review, Tales to Terrify, and elsewhere. She is the author of In the Woods They Wait. When she's not reading and writing, she's spending time with birds: the ones outside and the four parrots that live in her house.

At CrimeReads South tagged five powerful horror novels in which "the animal characters are given agency." One title on the list:

Kira Jane Buxton, Hollow Kingdom

Speaking of The Incredible Journey, if it took place in the world of 28 Days Later, you’d get something like Kira Jane Buxton’s Hollow Kingdom. A pet crow named Shit Turd narrates this bizarre but heartwarming zombie apocalypse story. The humans (or as ST calls them, Mofos) have all succumbed to a strange sickness. It’s making them violent and unrecognizable–literally, their body parts are falling off.

ST and his fellow pet, Dennis the dog, set out to find help for their owner, Big Jim. It looks like the Mofos might be beyond saving. But you know who else needs saving? All the pet cats and dogs and birds trapped in their zombified owners’ houses. Hilarious, devastating, disturbing, and gorgeously written, I seriously cannot recommend this book enough.

Read about another novel on the list.

Hollow Kingdom is among Liberty Hardy's five top SFF novels centering older characters and E.B. Bartels's thirteen books about the joy in a life filled with non-human creatures.

My Book, The Movie: Hollow Kingdom.

The Page 69 Test: Hollow Kingdom.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Philippe Huneman's "Profiling"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Profiling: How Predictive Algorithms Shape Identity and the Social Fabric by Philippe Huneman.

About the book, from the publisher:

In this book, philosopher Philippe Huneman aims to offer an unprecedented and systematic understanding of a simultaneously banal and singular phenomenon of modern life: the digital profile. Diving deeply into the algorithms that produce these profiles, Huneman examines the way in which an individual becomes a predictable subject, both as unwilling producer of their digital profile and unwitting subject of digital marketing's attempts to influence beliefs and behaviors.

As the book demonstrates, today's society of profiling has profound implications for our understanding of self and politics. The book unfolds across three sections. In the first, Huneman explains profiles and profiling as they operate today and describes their contemporary pervasiveness, using examples from a variety of fields and considering the wide range of types of data that can be digitalized―be they traces, search histories, metadata or the like. In the second section, on profiles, Huneman reflects on who is the subject of profiling societies and what kind of consequences profiling has on individuals―from behavior to memory. And, finally, entering into metaphysical questioning, the book shines a spotlight on the feedback loop that develops between algorithmic profiling and reality.

Visit Philippe Huneman's website.

The Page 99 Test: Profiling.

--Marshal Zeringue