JackHammer on sale now

Today, August 1, 2017, is the official release date of JackHammer for Kindle, Nook, and e-book. The trade paperback will appear this fall.


JackHammer is filled with depictions of graphic violence and bodily mutilation. It’s a taut thriller, a realistic police procedural, and a gruesome psychological horror novel all-in-one. I want readers to experience fear. I want to engage your fight, flight, or freeze response and make you shake in your shoes.


But JackHammer is also a love story. And love can conquer fear.


Connie Kelly and Andy Sinnott are two of my favorite characters because they’re madly in love with each other. Both appear in Meat Cleaver and SledgeHammer, and Andy is a major character in Pickaxe and Icepick. Troy and Sally Nolan are back, as are Linda Davis, Rat, and Harvey “George” Fredriks. Their ongoing story arcs constitute the bulk of the Instruments of Death series, of which JackHammer is Book Nine.


Tom Wesley and Danny Norman from Daddy’s Home also play important parts in JackHammer. They, as well as Illinois State Police Lieutenant Dave Mullins, will return in Tire Iron and other novels as the series progresses.


Next up in the series is Box Cutter, followed by Nail Gun.


Once upon a time, I worked for the US Army Construction Engineers, both as a reserve officer and as a DA Civil Service employee. I was a supply man at headquarters S-4 and G-4 shops. I supervised the supply and maintenance of all types of construction equipment. I planned and accounted for the men, money, and materiel allocated in TOEs and TAs. I budgeted for and approved requisitions, arranged transportation of heavy equipment, and visited job sites around the country. I personally transported demolitions and acted as an armed escort on convoys. That was long time ago, but I still have fond memories of seeing sunrises at job sites.


I live in the State of Illinois where politicians are notoriously corrupt. I went to school with, or worked day jobs with, close relatives of prominent organized crime figures. My own neighborhood is currently riddled with daily crime and violence, and I see and hear red and blue flashing lights and sirens throughout the night. Many of my friends and neighbors are thinking of leaving the state, but I’m sticking around. What better environment for a crime writer to have?


You may notice I’ve taken some artistic liberties with campaign finance reporting requirements. These laws have become so complicated not even the politicians know what’s currently required.
JackHammer is a work of fiction, and I am, first and foremost, a fiction writer. None of the events depicted in this novel happened, to the best of my knowledge.


But beware! They could.


As I explained at F. Paul Wilson’s panel on writing horror during Thrillerfest2017, I write cautionary tales that teach you how to survive. Demented serial killers and mass murderers are a reality. Do you know what you would do if you met one? What makes you vulnerable? How would you react if you were choked, bound and gagged, and your body was about to be violated or mutilated? How would you escape? How would you flee? How would you fight?


These are the very real situations confronting characters in JackHammer. How would you react differently if your loved ones were threatened instead of, or as well as, you?


My novels are survival manuals as well as thrillers.


JackHammer is on sale now at https://www.amazon.com/JackHammer-Instruments-Death-Book-9-ebook/dp/B074FDQZB4/ or https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/jackhammer-paul-dale-anderson/ or Kobo or i-Books.


Be a victor, not a victim.

I'm Paul Dale Anderson, and I Kill People for a Living (TM)

SF writers love to astound people. Suspense writers love to leave people hanging, oftentimes from cliffs and sometimes from ropes. Thriller writers love to take people on fast roller coaster rides. Mystery writers love to lead people on a merry chase, often with hounds nosing up the wrong trees while the fox hides in plain sight. We horror writers love to shock people.

I read aloud from my works recently at a public library. I was the last writer to read that afternoon. I shocked people awake by saying, “I’m Paul Dale Anderson, and I kill people for a living.”

The nine mostly-mainstream writers who preceded me identified themselves as fiction writers or biographers or historians or journalists who celebrate the lives of either real or fictional people in books.

.

I write about death and dying.

I identify with serial killers. I identify with trained assassins. I kill people for fun and profit. I love to get into the minds of my villains as much as, or perhaps more so than, the minds of my protagonists. I want to show why, as well as how, people do what they do.

Like I said, we horror writers love to shock people. I write shock suspense stories that cross genres, but all of my stories and novels turn into cautionary tales. I am the executioner who holds an axe over your head, and I love to watch the hairs on the back of your neck bristle.

Make one false move, and feel my Instruments of Death!

Why Writers Need Swelled Heads

This morning I responded to requests for an updated bio. Those who know me understand my reluctance. I’m a shy guy who would much rather extol the accomplishments of others than my own.

“You? Shy?” I hear some people say. “I don’t believe it!”

“I am shy most of the time,” would be my truest answer. Both my father and mother were shy people who hid their accomplishments. I had no siblings, and I grew up in an environment where each of us was allowed to be a private person with our own private personal spaces. My parents were basically introverts, and so am I. Shy is my comfort zone.

That does not mean I’m always an introvert. Like all humans, my essential personalities tend to cycle in 90 to 120 minute intervals. I go from quiet, shy, and retiring to loud and boisterous literally at the blink of an eye. Read studies by Ernest L. Rossi or my 2003 States of Consciousness and Cognition (http://www.worldcat.org/title/states-of-consciousness-and-cognition-a-study-of-state-dependent-learning/oclc/55033686&referer=brief_results) if you doubt this normally happens to practically everyone almost every day. Has it ever happened to you? Probably.

I spent twenty years helping various hypnotherapy clients, many of them very successful high-achieving professionals, overcome what researchers call “The Impostor Syndrome.” Here is a brief description from Wikipedia: “Despite external evidence of their competence, those exhibiting the syndrome remain convinced that they are frauds and do not deserve the success they have achieved. Proof of success is dismissed as luck, timing, or as a result of deceiving others into thinking they are more intelligent and competent than they believe themselves to be. Some studies suggest that impostor syndrome is particularly common among high-achieving women,[2] while others indicate that men and women are equally affected.”

I possess two of the syndrome’s major symptoms: diligence and avoidance of displays of confidence.

What that means is, I believe I need to work harder than others to achieve success. And, no matter what I do, it’s never enough.

My parents, puritans to the core, taught me that blowing my own horn was sinful.

So imagine my reluctance to write my bio. Major trauma! I was conflicted to the max.

What I did was to wait 90 to 120 minutes. My biorhythms switched over. Then I wrote down the following facts:

Paul Dale Anderson is the author of The Instruments of Death series of police procedurals from Crossroad Press, the Winds Cycle of supernatural thrillers, and other genre novels and short stories.

Do I need to say anything more?

I could say I’m a panelist this year at Odyssey Con, StokerCon, Thrillerfest, MidAmericon2, Bouchercon, and World Fantasy Con. I could say my stories have appeared in major anthologies and genre magazines, and I have two published collections of short stories available and another in the works.

The reason I’m asking these questions is because others have asked me to supply bios. I have pitch sessions scheduled with several agents and editors who also want bios.

And because some readers have asked me to tell them more about myself. Like the Lone Ranger, I have hidden behind masks. Much of my early work was written under pseudonyms. I’m a private person who prefers to work behind the scenes rather than on stage.

In short, I keep shooting myself in my own foot. It matters not that the bullets are pure silver.

Intellectually, I realize I need to blow my own horn. If I don’t do it, who will?

The solution, of course, is to hire a publicist. Does anyone know a good publicist who works cheap?

Meanwhile, I guess I’ll have to limp along as best I can.

I’ll need to be diligent and work harder. And I’ll need to develop a swelled head so I can act confident when I appear in public.

And that brings me to the the theme of this short tale: Why writers need swelled heads.

There are simply too many books out there for readers to choose which to buy without some guarantee they won’t waste their time and money on trash. Readers want to know in advance what else the author has done and if that work proved successful. Someone has to introduce the writer to the reader and tell the reader good things about the writer.

In today’s marketplace, that someone is often the writer himself or herself.

Publishers have reduced the money they spend on publicity in order to maximize profits. These days, writers have to arrange and pay for their own book tours, including attendance at conventions and bookstore signings. Midlist authors like me aren’t considered worth the investment.

How can I convince them otherwise? Write a blockbuster best-seller that earns millions and gets made into a major motion picture.

Do I have the confidence and diligence to make that happen?

I’ll have a chance next week when I pitch proposals to agents, editors, and film-makers at StokerCon. I’ll have another chance in July when I pitch at Pitchfest during Thrillerfest in NYC.

So, please excuse me if I seen to have developed a swelled head. I’ll need it if I want to overcome my impostor syndrome and become the best-selling author I want to be.

Wish me and my swelled head luck. We’ll need it.

Some of my best friends are fictional characters

Sledgehammer is Book 8 in my Instruments of Death series of suspense thrillers from the Gordian Knot imprint of Crossroad Press. I like Sledgehammer a lot, and I think you’ll like Sledgehammer, too. You don’t have to read the other 7 novels first. You can start anywhere in the series and have a good read.

But once you read Sledgehammer I hope you’re hooked. Even as the author, I found myself wanting to go back to earlier novels because the characters have developed such interesting interrelationships.

Jackhammer is the next novel in this series. By the time one novel sees print, I’ve already finished the first drafts of several more novels. What I love about reading and writing is that you get to meet such interesting fictional people and travel to other locales and even other worlds and other dimensions. But West Riverdale is one of my favorite places, and Troy, Andy, Connie, Linda, Sally, Rat, and George have become some of my best friends.