Today on Day 6 of Self-published Authors Appreciation Week I am bringing you a spotlight of another self-published author, whose books I read last year. So far I have read four out of five of his books. That is the largest number of self published books from any one author I have read (unless Shakespeare counts as self-published…). So that deserves a Spotlight.
Meet the Author:
Hi! I’m Carl Rackman, a British former airline pilot turned author. I spent my working life travelling the world and this has given me a keen interest in other people and cultures. I’ve drawn on my many experiences for my writing.
I write suspense thrillers with a grounded science-fiction theme. I like reading novels that feature atmospheric locales and I enjoy complex, absorbing storylines combined with rich, believable characters, so that’s the sort of fiction I write. I try to create immersive worlds for the reader to explore, and characters who are more than just vehicles for the story.
I come from a naval military background and have held a lifelong interest in military history and seafaring – all my books usually contain some of these elements!
Bring On The Books
IREX
In the harsh winter of December 1889, the sailing vessel Irex leaves Scotland, bound for Rio de Janeiro. She carries three thousand tons of pig iron and just three passengers for what should be a routine voyage. But Captain Will Hutton soon discovers that one of his passengers hides a horrifying secret that threatens the lives of everyone on board. As the Irex battles relentless storms, Hutton fights battles of his own as he becomes mired in the intrigues of his passengers.
When the Irex is wrecked off the Isle of Wight six weeks later, it falls to the county coroner, Frederick Blake, to unravel the events that overtook the doomed ship. He quickly runs into opposition – powerful forces within the British Establishment are working to spike his inquest. Locked in a conflict with the sinister agents sent to obstruct the investigation, he begins to discover that nothing aboard the Irex is what it first seemed, while the evil that stalked the ship now threatens anyone who seeks to expose it…
Irex is an atmospheric mystery, set in a rich Victorian world, packed with intrigue, twists and unforgettable characters — the gripping first novel by Carl Rackman.
Irex took the Silver Medal in the Historical Fiction category of the #RBRT 2017 Book Awards
Jonah
The war is almost over. But not yet.
At Okinawa, the US Navy destroyer Brownlee grimly prepares to battle a swarm of Japanese kamikazes suicide aircraft.
Mitch “Lucky” Kirkham, a young gunner on the Brownlee, wakes up miraculously unscathed after his crewmates are killed by a fearsome kamikaze strike. Bullied and resented amid accusations of cowardice and worse, Mitch re-boards his patched-up ship for the long voyage back to San Francisco. All he wants is to go home.
But far out in the boundless emptiness of the Pacific, a strange madness begins to seize the sailors on the Brownlee. Terror, hysteria and suicide torment the men amid sightings of ghosts and a terrifying monster that stalks the ship by night.
Mitch stumbles upon a possible explanation for the madness. But as the ship presses on alone, deeper into the vast Pacific Ocean and the grip of insanity, will anyone listen to him before his famous luck runs out for good?
Jonah is a searing, psychological suspense thriller, the latest from Carl Rackman, author of Irex and Voyager.
Amazon | goodreads | My Review of Jonah
Incendiary
‘She’s like nothing you’ve ever seen. She is beautiful – a perfect fusion of physical and mental supremacy. And she hasn’t been free for forty years. Who knows what she’ll do?’
Cambodia, 1970. A US Army platoon creeps through thick jungle searching for hidden North Vietnamese supplies. What they find instead is a terrifying creature from the darkest pages of ancient mythology.
Almost 50 years later, Dr Mel Villiers, a researcher at the UK’s top secret Porton Down research centre, shivers in the pre-dawn darkness by a remote dockside at Southampton, England. She awaits the delivery of a unique specimen from the Plum Island biological research facility in New York State. Only a handful of government scientists and spies even know it exists.
When contact with the transport ship is lost, an elite SBS unit led by Mel’s boyfriend, Captain Steve Warren, is sent aboard to investigate. They find an empty container and lots of dead bodies. Things get worse when he learns that the creature is still hiding somewhere aboard the ship. And its escape was no accident.
As time runs out, a frantic race is triggered to stop the deadly creature before it escapes captivity for good. The very future of humanity as the dominant lifeform on Earth is at stake.
Incendiary is the relentlessly gripping, suspense-filled fourth novel from Carl Rackman, author of Jonah.
Amazon | goodreads | My Review of Incendiary
Voyager
Voyager One is the remotest human object in existence, hurtling through the void of outer space more than twelve billion miles away.
It should be all alone.
Callie Woolf, Project Manager at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, is stunned when the tiny probe unexpectedly downloads a series of highly disturbing images. Within 24 hours she is running for her life.
FBI Agent Brad Barnes is assigned to the case and unwittingly stumbles into a conspiracy which threatens to bring the United States to its knees. Unable to tell friend from foe, Brad and Callie must play a deadly cat-and-mouse game with the conspirators’ shadowy agents as they confront the unthinkable – that mankind may not be alone in the Universe.
Voyager is an intelligent, modern-day conspiracy thriller by Carl Rackman, author of Irex.
Amazon | goodreads | My Review of Voyager
Sentinel
The Voyager story continues…
Four years have passed since Voyager One sent back chilling photos of a spaceship from deep in interstellar space.
A shocked world prepared to meet the Visitors, but terrorism, pandemics, and global political turmoil have now consumed it. Discredited as a hoax, the Visitors have faded from public attention.
But the powerful global conspiracy known as the Triumvirate is behind much of the chaos. Creating a screen of subterfuge and misdirection, they prepare a clandestine welcome for the Visitors, whose origins may be more sinister than the aliens of popular fiction.
Standing in their way are the few brave men and women who foiled the Triumvirate’s last attempt to upset the world’s fragile balance of power:
Former FBI agent Brad Barnes leads Sentinel, a private intelligence and counter-terrorism operation founded in the wake of the Triumvirate’s last deadly plot.
Alex Ephraim – the former Triumvirate assassin known as Mirage – is Sentinel’s major weapon against terror.
Matt Ramprakash, former airline pilot and now an officer of the British intelligence agency MI5, is embroiled in a deadly standoff when an airliner is hijacked.
Callie Woolf, once the project manager of the Voyager mission, struggles against the sceptical government’s bureaucracy to continue the search for the elusive Visitors as her time and funding runs out.
Sentinel is the only organisation capable of taking the fight to the Triumvirate’s door – flexible, unorthodox well-funded and free of government red tape.
But as they pursue the Triumvirate from the streets of London to the wild, deadly wastes of Antarctica, Brad will need Matt and Callie’s help to stop the Triumvirate, which has its own plans for putting Sentinel – and especially Alex – out of the picture for good…
Sentinel is the pulse-pounding second instalment in the Voyager trilogy by Carl Rackman
Amazon | goodreads | My Review of Sentinel
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