Christopher Smith, former film critic for the Bangor Daily News and one of the paper’s picks for those to watch in 2012, has released a new thriller on Amazon.com that’s also available in trade paperback and for the Kindle, titled “A Rush to Violence.” On its first day of publication, the book became an instant best-seller. The book is the first in a three-part trilogy that will conclude in 2013 with the thrillers “A Rush to Murder” and “A Rush to Vengeance.”
Set in New York City, the book follows the fallout of a billionaire investor’s grisly death. The suspects? Six of his seven children, all so desperate for their father’s money, they’d kill for it.
His seventh child, Camille, a former assassin who left that life behind to raise her now 16-year-old daughter Emma, must tap into old instincts to learn who killed her father and why. What she never sees coming are Emma’s plans to go into Manhattan and find out on her own.
Meanwhile, Camille must be found. Private investigator Marty Spellman is threatened by a mysterious man to find her. He has 72 hours to do so — or members of his own family die.
Over the course of one day, Spellman, Camille, Emma and Spellman’s own 15-year-old daughter, Beth, must intervene to finish this and shut it down. Twists abound. Few are who they appear to be. Soon, all parties are in a rush to violence, but in spite of how quickly they act, no one is safe.
During the past year and half, Smith has released 12 books, all of which have become major best-sellers in the U.S. and throughout Europe. He is among Amazon’s most successful independent authors, with his thriller “Fifth Avenue” spending seven months in Amazon’s coveted Top 100, reaching as high as No. 4. Smith will end 2012 with two additional books. In July, the thriller “From Manhattan with Revenge,” a sequel to “From Manhattan with Love,” will be released. At the end of the year, look for “Park Avenue,” which follows “Running of the Bulls” in continuing the author’s successful “Fifth Avenue” series.
What — beside the fact that Mr. Smith used to be an employee — makes any editor at the BDN think it’s even remotely acceptable to publish this un-bylined and obviously self-written press release as news?
How about a disclosure? How about getting a lifestyle reporter to, you know, actually do some reporting?
I also love the fact that even though this is 100% shameless self-promotion trying to pass as news, they didn’t even bother to actually link to the Amazon.com pages for the books.
I for one have read all these books. They are all riveting page turners that rival any other best selling author’s novels. I, as well as many others, eagerly look forward to each and every new release from Christopher Smith.
It’s fantastic that there is an article about LOCAL talent. I would much rather read about someone from our community that is successful than some author from another state.
Chris brings yet another positive focus to Bangor. It doesn’t matter who wrote the article, what matters is that the article show’s inspiration to our potential authors that success is out there for them. It’s easier to believe you can become successful when you read about someone from your town accomplishing their goals.
LZ Prescott –
I completely agree with you that the BDN should be doing more to highlight positive stories in the region; in fact I stated in my original comment that the BDN should’ve done the right thing and assigned a reporter to contact Mr. Smith and interview him for an *actual* article. Instead, they took the lazy and unethical route of posting an un-bylined press release as news.
Dear Jason–
You make a lot of assumptions in your reply to this post. So, wanting to know more about you, I clicked on your name and went to your website here: http://jasonclarke.org/ Looks to me that you’re a writer, you write movie reviews and you’re into digital publishing. Sounds a lot like Christopher Smith, who is a writer, who wrote movie reviews for this paper for years and who has been successful in digital publishing in ways that you haven’t. Why the attack? Are you jealous of him? Maybe it was an oversight of the paper that they didn’t include a byline or that it was a news release. (P.S., news releases are meant to raise awareness of something–many people use them, including Stephen King, right here in this very paper.) I think it’s great that we have local talent doing well in the Bangor area. I think it’s pretty amazing the success Smith has achieved. I also think it’s a shame anyone would try to tear down that success when so many people here are struggling to succeed. Bravo to Smith for his success. Writing novels, let alone best-selling novels, can’t be easy. His hometown should celebrate that effort. I’m inspired by it.
Brezygal –
Unlike you (and this article), I’m not anonymous when commenting here, and I’m proud of that fact. Yes, I’m a writer, and I’ve been incredibly lucky to have had success in a variety of venues, including with my book. If you bothered to look that far into my past, I’m surprised you didn’t notice that my book was also an “instant best-seller”; in fact it spent 6 weeks on The New York Times best-seller list and reached #2 on *all* of Amazon.com – not just the crime/e-book sections. Those facts right there should show you I have absolutely nothing to be jealous of.
Those facts are pointless though, because you’re making an incredibly lame straw man argument by attacking me in the first place. My past has nothing to do with the fact that the BDN should not be printing un-bylined press releases as news without any kind of disclaimer attached.
Shame on you, Jason! JEALOUSY raising its damned head.
Jason, since you’re so ethical, how about giving credit to your co-author, which you mysteriously left off. I mean, isn’t that like leaving off….a byline? And taking the credit for yourself? In fact, it is. The irony is staggering.
I can’t understand what is wrong with this article. It’s barebones factual and presumably accurate. It doesn’t attempt to make judgments about Mr. Smith’s ability as a writer. Press release or not, it’s certainly newsworthy, given that Mr. Smith has been a local public figure for a number of years. It’s hardly unreasonable to think that many readers would want to know more about his continuing commercial success.