Writerly Wednesday Ian Walkley

Writerly Wednesday Welcomes Ian Walkley.

Writers website
Buy link
Bio

Ian Walkley wanted to write novels since his teenage days, but like many people pursued a career. He was a social researcher and worked in business development, until eventually starting his own market research agency in Brisbane, Australia. As well as writing many business reports, Ian contributed to a national e-magazine Marketing Update. He also co-authored and edited two publications on small business.
He began writing No Remorse in late 2008, in his spare time, and it was published in January 2012 by Marq Books. Ian has won recognition for a screenplay. No Remorse is a well-researched, fast paced thriller. Ian enjoys applying his experience as a consumer researcher to the motivations underlying the behaviour of his characters and researching the technical detail of jobs, locations, weapons and other aspects of his writing. Ian continues to undertake marketing consulting, travel writing, and copywriting, which blends creative writing with his experience in marketing. He lives in Brisbane, Australia with his family.
About No Remorse:
His best friend’s daughter has been abducted in Mexico. This is no ordinary kidnap for ransom. But then, Lee McCloud is no ordinary man.

Having suffered the horror of witnessing his sister kidnapped when he was fourteen, the abduction of his goddaughter Sophia in Mexico is an opportunity for Delta Force operator McCloud to deliver some badly needed justice.

Things don’t go as planned, and McCloud finds himself forced out of the army and teamed with Tally, a computer hacker in a secret organization that raids the bank accounts of wealthy terrorists, and Scotty, a British SAS soldier.

The trail of Sophia’s kidnapper—known only as The Frenchman—leads from Martinique to Paris, where McCloud and Scotty find a lead, but not Sophia.

Their lead is Ziad, the security director of a celebrity billionaire Saudi exile, Sheik Khalid, who is suspected of supporting terrorism. Determined to save Sophia at all costs, McCloud soon finds himself on a collision course with Khalid, whose ambitions feature a key role for Sophia. She is to be a living donor of a liver for an ailing Al Qaeda leader with the same rare blood type.

As McCloud and Tally get closer to locating Sophia, they find themselves trapped in a larger conspiracy, hunted by assassins and betrayed by their own side. And conflicted by their feelings for each other.

But time is running out for Sophia and for the world. With their haunted pasts catching up, McCloud and Tally need to escape from being killed for Khalid’s pleasure, in time to stop a horrific plot hatched by someone who knows too much about them.

Success may mean death. Failure will have profound consequences for an already unstable world.

Interview

1.        In three days, all power will go off, everywhere for a very long time.  What will you include in your author survival kit?  

1. My wife; my editor Jodie Renner; the ladies from the Cerebella Book Club (never know how useful a women’s book club can be); my bookshelf of books, including Donald Maass’ Writing the Breakout Novel; lots of rollerball pens and A3 paper; endless packets of Tim Tams; and my mechanical orange juicer. And a genie in a bottle to give me everything else I wish for.

2.       Where did the idea for the work you are promoting arise?

2. About 2007, I read an article about Iraqi terrorist groups kidnapping kids to raise money for the war against America. I started digging and came across other stories on orphans being kidnapped for their body organs. As the story evolved I found more information about foreigners being kidnapped in Mexico and never being found. I wove together these various elements to come up with the story of a Delta soldier trying to find two girls kidnapped in Mexico for their organs. I also found some fascinating material on links between terrorism and international banking, and some software that could penetrate databases and analyze incredible amounts of data to come up with relationships, which I included in the story.

3.       What do you like to read?

3. I like to read action thrillers and suspense crime thrillers: Robert Ludlum, Harlan Coben, Nelson DeMille, David Baldacci, Vince Flynn, Robert Crais, Lee Child, Wilbur Smith. But I’ve broadened my genres since I’ve been writing, so I now read police procedurals, romance, chick lit, some fantasy and sci fi. Getting time to read is the problem.

4.       Tell us about the most exciting place you have ever visited?

4. There’s been lots: A couple of years ago I was in Damascus, and was crossing the street when the Presidential motorcade came past. All of a sudden lots of burly guys in leather jackets came out of the crowd and pushed me and other people back from the roadway for several blocks. I had no idea what was happening. Then a motorcade of at least a dozen cars and motorcycles came past. One of the vehicles was an ambulance. I guess they were worried about assassination attempts. Can’t imagine why.

5.       What is the most mundane, day to day, thing you can share about yourself?

5. I try to take our two dogs out once a day for a walk. It’s mundane, but I use the time to play audio tapes of Writers Festival presentations, and come up with new ideas. Sitting at a computer all day writing a book is not very exciting, except of course when you are getting into the story and then it is really exciting!

6.       What scares you the most?

6. Being buried alive. I hate going underground. I’m going to be cremated when I die, just in case I wake up in the casket. I could never watch the movie Buried.

7.       Tell us anything but keep it G rated.

7. I thought finishing the first book was a milestone. Now I realise you need to have written at least two books to be recognized as an author. You have to prove the first one wasn’t just a fluke.

Thank you Ian for letting me use you for Writerly Wednesday.  And I came into the writing world with the Catch 22 that you had to be published to, well, become published.  Does it ever end?

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