Minutemark

In honor of my pulp-thriller, Minutemark, advancing in The Writer's Network Screenplay and Fiction Competition, (Yipee!), I thought I'd celebrate by posting a working synopsis.

The intent of this story is much more in line with the hard-boiled, noir-ish page-turners penned by the likes of Ian Fleming, (James Bond), Raymond Chandler and others. Though meant to stand on its own as a novel, Minutemark also acts as a companion piece to five other stand-alone stories, which collectively make up the six-part saga, The Mantra. The next book in the series, Impetus, is currently being written.


Running in short, succinct chapters at approximately 115 000 words, Minutemark paints a stylized picture of a past and present world, where no one is quite what they seem, says what they mean, or means what they say. Filled with intrigue, pathos, adventure and a slew of colourful characters who use aliases to cover their aliases, it spans several decades and surrounds a self-estranged man and his crippling regrets pertaining to his two estranged children; one whom he fears it too late to save, and the other who longs to save him.


MINUTEMARK


Who is Sam Jett?
And why do so many seem to want in his head?

Estranged son, David Drake has flown all the way to Paris just to make a connection, only to be brutally rebuffed over and over, left in limbo at last by a ransacked apartment with one possible clue to his crude disappearance––
To top it all off, he’s been followed.
By the government, no less. They too want their piece of Sam Jett, with whom they’ve an old score to settle. After years of cold trails and downright indifference, it takes veteran war-horse, ‘Mr. Wednesday’ and his kindly old ‘missus’ to put things back in order, setting their cataracted sights on the man’s next of kin, in the hopes he will lead them right to him.
Then there’s Bianca.
A disfigured old adversary, she has taken and tortured Sam Jett to extract her mysterious reward. But is that all she’s after? Or is there, perhaps, something even more priceless between them?

But who is Sam Jett, anyway?
And what makes him so special?

To some, he’s insignificant; an aging playboy with a hasty bravado and flare for frivolity.
To others, a war hero turned spy, trained to survive and steal secrets, (or thoughts), straight from the mind of the enemy.
Some may even know of him best as a philanthropist and collector of rarities.
And still, there are those who would see little more than a scoundrel; a liar, manipulative, without one bone in his body worth trusting.
Though by far, the majority would simply dismiss him. A mere shadow of who he used to be, he now lives a reclusive, tentative non-existence, soaked in booze and self-loathing. A hermit on the verge of full mental collapse.

So who is Sam Jett, after all? And, perhaps more importantly…
How on earth did he get this way?

If there’s hope anywhere to redeem him; not the crafted persona, but the man who lies somewhere beneath, it rests squarely with David, disgruntled in his own right with a lifetime of regrets to prove it, and so many questions.
Now at the precipice of fatherhood himself, he seeks out his reclusive “father-by-birth,” Sam Jett, a fantastical figure he remembers mainly from cheques made out to his family and half over-heard stories that were mostly good fiction.
A man who, when last he’d inquired, wanted nothing to do with him.
Too bad.
Every bit as stubborn, David tracks this disparaged old hermit to Paris, where he lives out what remains of his not-so-golden years, embittered, veering into senility.
When he rudely goes missing less than twenty-four hours after their disastrous initial encounter, David risks life and limb to recover him alive, amazed along the way, to learn what he never dreamed possible; that most of those embellished stories––might turn out to be true after all.





As mentioned, the next book in the 6-part The Mantra saga, Impetus, is nearly through a first official draft. I'm having a blast with it so far, (as I did with the first), and can't wait to see how it shapes up.

D.A.