A Turn From the Worst

So, I was thick into the development of the follow-up novel to THE GOOD KILL (any guesses what follow-up title will be?) when of a sudden it seemed like End Times had finally started to throw down with the Covid-19 pandemic and cult daddy trump’s horrific death-inducing response to it.

With the Killian Lebon storyline as dark and violent as it is, and with all the research into the real-life examples of darkness and violence it takes to bring it out fictionally, I just thought it best for my mental stability to shelve all the pretend mayhem for a while seeing how there was far too much of it going on within our apocalyptic twilight zone of a reality.

But of course I could not not write so I immediately began looking internally for a story that would be able to transport me away to a better place.

Some of my fondest memories are of the good times I spent in Tokyo throughout my life, but mostly when as a young sailor back in the Eighties… now those were some good times indeed.

Yeah…

So it was a no brainer for me to set RAINY SEASON there.

There’s something transcendent about Tokyo, the most populated metropolitan area in the world, a transcendence that projects both toward the future with all its Blade Runner neon and whizbang technology and sleek buildings and sleeker bullet trains, and also toward the past with the calm, gentle demeanor of its populace and their old time care for quality and service.

This isn’t the first story of mine in which Tokyo has made an appearance…

(While INSIDE THE SKIN is set primarily on a ship homeported at a U.S. naval base in Yokosuka, Japan, there is a noteworthy scene where the hapless protagonist and his merry band of oddball friends make a fateful excursion to the dreamlike metropolis.)

And it surely won’t be the last.

Courtesy of Erik Eastman of Unsplash

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