Monday, February 12, 2018

Pulling strings by Nick Dewolf



SYNOPSIS:

The feeling you're being watched. Knowing what card is next out of the deck. Guessing what someone's thinking... and always being right. Or maybe you can move things. Maybe you can hear people's thoughts. Maybe you can make fire out of nothing. Maybe, just maybe, you're different. Maybe, you're psychic And maybe, there's a place for you. Rebecca Colt was different, and used her abilities to become the best psychic Secret Agent in America. She traveled the world, hunted down foreign agents, had wild car chases and adrenaline pumping shoot outs. Until one day, in Austin, Texas, when everything went wrong. When a little girl died. When Agent Colt's life fell apart. Now, she's sitting around a field office in Kansas, thinking of the good old days, begrudgingly awaiting retirement. She just wants one last shot, one thing to put her back on top for a while. So when people start turning up in hospitals nearby, their minds broken into a thousand pieces, she thinks she's found just that chance. But once she starts her investigation, every answer she gets only leads to more questions. Things don't add up. She starts to realize she's dealing with something bigger and badder and scarier than she's ever dealt with. It's not a foreign sleeper agent she's tracking; it's a puppeteer, the most dangerous kind of psychic there is. And she has no idea what to do. Or even who it is. But she knows she's alone. She's caught. And she's going to have to fight her way out.




ONE

AUSTIN, TEXAS

            Two days ago, in Austin, Texas, workers went into a factory but didn't come out. The morning shift never left. The afternoon shift went in and didn't leave. When family members called the corporate offices, frantically looking for their loved ones, corporate buzzed the managers. Then the factory floor. They even tried the break room.
            No answer.
            Eventually, a regional VP humped his butt to the factory. A crowd had gathered.  Those witnesses said he didn't storm over, but meandered, looking back over and over.  They said he got halfway there, then froze.  He staggered, then crept to the door, opened it, called inside, and went in.
A minute later, the screaming started.
The witnesses said it sounded like a 'stuck pig'. They said it wasn't human.
            But it was.      
            Colt didn't need to read the briefing to know the police rolled in, lights flashing, tires squealing. She knew they probably treated this like any normal situation.
            This was anything but.
            This situation needed something more than cops, something more than covert ops, even. To know what was going on, you had to be special.
            You had to be psychic.
            So, any cop who rushed the door ended up lying on the ground in front of the factory, paralyzed. After the third wave of deputies went down, the sheriff realized what happened to anyone who got within twenty yards of the front door. They shivered. Their stomachs churned. They couldn't breathe. They felt things crawling on their skin; or a hot breath on the back of their neck; or fangs scraping the edges of their ears.
            And the ones who kept going?
            Standing in the corporate building on the other side of the parking lot, Colt scanned with her binoculars. Her circular view swung up through the crowd, across the yellow tape marking the edge of the psychic barrier, and to the few bodies still lying on the hot asphalt. She peered at a female officer who was face down, limbs twisted like a dead roach's spindly legs. Outside the police tape, firefighters had managed to get a lasso around the woman's foot. They'd been at it for hours, but there were still people left to fish out.
            Synaptic overload. Basic psychic attack anyone with enough mental abilities can use. Undefended, it's like getting slammed on the back of the head.
            Though, Colt had never seen it applied this way.
         The briefing she'd received in transit said that, after the victims were pulled from the barrier, they regained consciousness. That was par for the course. Unfortunately, no one could get anything coherent from them. Some babbled, some cried, and a few just screamed and screamed until they were sedated. 

What some say about this book. 

One of the cool things about this book is that after you buy the print copy, you get the Kindle copy as a free download. Which means you don't have to wait until the print version arrives; you can immediately start reading...and reading...and reading...
That's what I did. I ordered the print copy, then downloaded the Kindle version for free and started reading. And trust me, that's what you're going to do, too. You're going to read the heck out of this book. You'll probably read it all in one sitting (minus bathroom breaks) because you're going to want to see how it all plays out.
Once the print version arrives? You're not going to put it up on a shelf and forget about it. You're not going to sell it on eBay. And you're certainly not going to loan it to a friend.
No, you're going to keep it close by so you can open it from time to time and re-read some of the wild action scenes. Or a line or two that made you laugh out loud. Or a scene that made you squirm.
Because there's plenty of that in this book:
Scenes that will make you sit up and suddenly forget about the outside world.
Scenes that will make you shift uncomfortably in your chair and wonder what kind of dark thoughts the author mined in order to come up with some of the sick, twisted stuff that goes on in this book.
Scenes that will make you wonder if the hero will prevail and the villain will get their comeuppance. (It's not always a guarantee in Nick DeWolf's world.)
What is PULLING STRINGS about? Oh, come on. You can read the plot synopsis yourself. Why would I waste time rehashing what you already know?
The synopsis wasn't enough to get you to buy the book? What about this:
Much like the villain in his book, Nick DeWolf likes to mess with your head. PULLING STRINGS is like nothing else out there: a trippy, surreal story of suspense where no one is safe, and the next twist in the story is nothing you can predict. The hero is tarnished, the villain is despicable, and the action and set pieces in this book are like nothing you've seen (or read) before. In fact, if there's an author out there that can write a better action scene than Nick DeWolf...
Forget that. There isn't.
Reading PULLING STRINGS is like barreling down a mountain road at a hundred miles an hour, and realizing your driver is a madman. Pick it up and read it before Hollywood gets the rights and screws it up.
Slade Grayson 


AUTHOR'S BIO:

Every story Nick DeWolf has ever written that's any good came from a dream. Clearly, he doesn't sleep well. 
He's a father, a worker, a beer brewer, and cooks a half-decent stir-fry. He waited until the age of 37 to both get a tattoo, and learn to ride a bike. He loves his five kids, hates prejudice, believes in science, and sometimes gets uncomfortably excited about well prepared food.
He is the author of PULLING STRINGS, FRIGHTFULLY EVER AFTER, and the short story RUSTY'S RUN from THE WILL TO SURVIVE: A CHARITY ANTHOLOGY FOR HURRICANE RELIEF.



LINKS:


A link to a blog review of Pulling Strings:  https://www.readtrywrite.com/pulling-strings-nick-dewolf/

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