Wednesday 2 December 2015

More Early Praise for 'The Perfectionist'

It's been a busy few weeks for the book promotion.

After uploading the video trailer on YouTube (https://youtu.be/6rXPMFLeKTg) on November 16th, I followed up with a promotion on Dailymotion (http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x3edhfz_the-perfectionist-trailer_fun) on November 23rd.

On December 1st, I was also pleased to be included on Paul Norman's Books Monthly. Paul's review of 'The Perfectionist' will appear in the January 2016 edition. Thanks for the support, Paul. Much appreciated!

Check out Books Monthly at this link: http://www.booksmonthly.co.uk/crimeb.html

On Friday 27th, Kate Moloney, who runs Bibliophile Book Club, reviewed 'The Perfectionist' and gave it 5 stars on Goodreads. She followed that up with the publication of our interview today.

Kate, thank you so much for the opportunity! The full book review and interview can be accessed at Kate's website at https://bibliophilebookclub.wordpress.com

I invite you to like her page on Facebook and show your support for the great work she is doing: https://www.facebook.com/BibliophileBookClub/

Here are a few excerpts:

REVIEW

"I was really looking forward to reading The Perfectionist as I loved the premise of the book, and I wasn’t disappointed ... Simon Duke has written a very well crafted novel, with a truly evil villain. If I had to pick a favourite character, honestly, I’d pick The Perfectionist. Intelligent, patient, calculating and just wicked. I liked Stokes as well, but The Perfectionist won out ... I would highly recommend The Perfectionist. Fans of crime thrillers and serial killer novels would devour this book. I thoroughly enjoyed reading it and I gave it 5 stars on Goodreads! Thanks again to Simon for giving me the opportunity to read The Perfectionist!"

Q&A

– First off, can you tell everyone a little about yourself?

I was born in Stoke-on-Trent (UK) in 1979. I lived a while in rural England and had a very happy childhood. My family moved to France when I was eleven and I was parachuted into a French school without really speaking French. It took me a while to get up-to-speed with the other kids and I was (and I guess I always will be) an outsider and an observer. I grew up in the 80s and 90s, reading books and watching many American movies of that period. Meantime I grew fond of the modern gangster and of the transition from film noir and epic to the more gritty and realistic portrayal of crime in more recent times. Today, I’m a journalist and I’m often on the lookout for good stories. I’d also like to reassure you that, contrary to the dark subject matter of my books, I’m considered a rather well-rounded person with my heart in the right place, more often upbeat than a preacher of gloom and doom. I have yet to murder someone, but I do keep a list of potential victims in the drawer of my bedside table!

– Can you tell us how you got the inspiration for The Perfectionist?

I’ve always wanted to write about serial killers. I’ve read many serial killer books (fiction and non-fiction) and watched my fair share of movies on the persona. Some direct movie influences for The Perfectionist include Manhunter (Michael Mann, 1986), Se7en (David Fincher, 1995), Zodiac (David Fincher, 2007), Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer (John McNaughton, 1986), The Silence of the Lambs (Jonathan Demme, 1991), Natural Born Killers (Oliver Stone, 1994)…

Serial killers fascinate me. In fiction, they are highly stylized, and even real-life serial killers have become celebrity monsters through media coverage. I read somewhere that serial killers are for adults what monster movies are for children: that is the guilty pleasure of scary fun. Serial killers are so extreme in their brutality and in their behaviour that we can be drawn to them out of basic and intense human curiosity. Their behaviour is seemingly inexplicable, so we feel a duty to try and understand what their motives are. And they appeal to our most primal feelings: fear, lust or anger. So I reckoned I’d give it a shot myself, but with a novel angle.

The killer in The Perfectionist could be considered the ultimate serial killer. He seemingly chooses his victims at random across America; he has been at large for more than two decades; he has flown under the radar of the cops and the FBI by navigating through the loopholes of the federal law enforcement system; he respects a unique and horrific modus operandi and fine-tunes methods of execution to seek artistic perfection. In the world of law enforcement, there exists a scale on which to rate killers. My killer does not feature on the scale.

Finally given my journalistic background, I’ve always dreamed of stumbling on a killer myself and pursuing him before submitting the proof of his guilt to the police. Gerry Stokes in the book lives that dream for me.

– Some of the killing methods are very violent, I bet your browser history is fun! Are they true to life and as gruesome as they are described in the book? How did you decide on the various modus operandi?

Indeed, I hope the FBI hasn’t hacked my computer. I’d have trouble justifying my highly suspicious Internet history! I must’ve researched dozens of the methods of execution and selected just some of the disturbing MOs that are out there. It’s a frightening realization that some of the methods of execution in The Perfectionist are shockingly quite commonplace. The Colombian necktie, for instance, is a frequent statement that is made in the world of drug cartels. Other methods I refer to in the book where used on a regular basis in the Middle Ages, Feudal Japan, or in Roman times. The killer in The Perfectionist respects a unique and horrific modus operandi and fine-tunes various methods of execution to seek artistic perfection. He has surgical precision. He’s highly intelligent and methodical. The human body is his canvass and he’s not afraid to experiment.

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