Saturday––Jeff
Yesterday,
I missed my traditional Saturday posting time because of a horrendous stomach
flu, but now I’m back in the game.
Precisely
one month from today–that’s February 6th for the finger counting
challenged––AT ANY COST, my 13th Chief Inspector Andreas Kaldis
mystery thriller, will be released by my new Publisher, Severn House, an
imprint of Canongate Books.
That
means this is my once-a-year opportunity to blatantly promote myself in the
hope of convincing all my friends and fans to preorder AT ANY COST at any of
these sites—and perhaps stop by one of my live in-person book signings listed
at the end of this post (more will be added the closer we get to February):
BOOKSHOP.ORG
BARNES & NOBLE
BAM!
AMAZON
European customers can order AT ANY
COST from Grantham Book Services, or through Severn House’s Sales Director
Michelle Duff at michelle@severnhouse.com
And
if you’ve already ordered it, THANK YOU and consider this a plea for a five-star
review on Goodreads (four stars is acceptable if you never give five stars except
to family :).
Those Goodreads reviews
are important…especially for a new publisher.
So,
what can I tell you besides please order AT ANY COST?
How
about if I share my in-depth answers to questions put to me by Eleni Sakellis
of the New York City-based Greek and English language versions of The National
Herald (in Greek, Ethnikos Kirix). She’s
an astute interviewer who’s followed my career since the beginning…for which I’m
eternally grateful to Eleni and The National Herald--the Greek-American
community’s newspaper of record.
Take it away, Eleni, in
your front page story!
Hearing that the next book
in your favorite series is about to be published is one of the joys of being a
mystery fan. So fans of the Chief Inspector Andreas Kaldis series, rejoice! At
Any Cost, the 13th book in the bestselling mystery series by Jeffrey
Siger, is set to be released on February 6. Siger spoke with The National
Herald about his compelling new book and also shared a sneak peek at his next
one, #14 in the series.
TNH. What inspired this particular mystery?
JMS. Your question is a sterling example of how the
simplest of questions can elicit an inordinately complex answer. In this instance that’s especially so because
I am a “seat of the pants” writer who works without any outline whatsoever and
allows my seed of an idea to germinate and grow as it wishes in whatever
direction it chooses. For years, I’d toyed with writing about the horrific
forest fires that plague Greece each summer, with an emphasis on those who
profit from torching the land. But try
as I might, I couldn’t see that issue alone generating the sort of gravitas
implicit in the societal issues at the core of the other books in my Chief
Inspector Andreas Kaldis series.
In July 2021, after a year
and a half of Covid isolation, and even longer time away from Greece, I
returned home to Mykonos, looking as always for a theme for my next book. A
trip to Syros, an island I adore and always think of as the Grande Dame of the
Cyclades, led me to wondering how Syros’ citizens felt about their island’s
role as the region’s economic power having long past it by, while unimaginable
prosperity had come to other Cycladic islands, such as Mykonos and Santorini.
What if there were a way
to restore that glorious past without sacrificing its soul to tourism?
At around that time I became
more aware of something called the metaverse and chatbots; artificial
intelligence terms everyone now knows but were not that prominent in the summer
of 2021. Then along came China pressing ahead heavily into establishing itself
as a world power in the metaverse, Russia expanding its own propaganda efforts to
meddle in other nations’ affairs, and an oil rich middle eastern nation seeking
to use its wealth to obtain a seat at the table of major world powers. It was a
eureka moment for inspiring my plotline.
A consortium of three of the world’s richest autocratic nations seeking
to change the world order by establishing the hub of 21st century artificial
intelligence development in a state-of-the-art facility at the cradle of
democracy. All I was missing was a Greek location offering sufficient electric power
to meet the extraordinary demands of the required technology.
It was as if the Fates
were reading my thoughts, for it was then that I learned of the Greek
government’s commitment to establishing major wind power operations on wildfire
devastated Evia, and potentially transmitting that newly generated power to the
Cyclades via Syros! All the bits and pieces of inspiration had come together,
ordaining Syros as the setting for my new book. Now all I had to do was write it.
TNH. How long did the process take from idea to
publication?
JMS. The simple answer would be two-and-a-half
years. The more complicated one is that I
started writing the book in late summer 2021, delivered it to my then publisher
in late summer 2022 with the expectation it would come out in late 2022 or
early 2023. That did not happen and so I took it to my new publisher who
promised to publish it in February 2024.
TNH. What made you decide on Syros
as the setting?
JMS. As I set out in more
detail in response to your first question, Syros has always drawn me to it as
the perfect setting for a story exploring how a community with a glorious past,
now struggling to maintain its old ways, might respond to an unexpected opportunity
offering riches and status in a measure beyond the island’s wildest dreams. It
is an existential dilemma, for if accepted could well prove to be a deal with
the devil, but if rejected, a decision mourned forever for what might have
been.
TNH. What are you working on next?
JMS. Book #14 has a
working title of “Not Dead Yet,” and is tentatively set in the middle of the
Mediterranean Sea, the southern Peloponnese coastline, and Athens. Here’s the
opening scene:
The media had declared him dead a week ago,
yet there he was, grizzled, tattered-clothed, and shoeless, plodding bear-like
along a rugged Mediterranean shoreline head-down and oblivious to the pain
inflicted upon his naked feet by the rough, uneven rocks. The breezy
late-summer afternoon turned slightly chilly once the sun had completed its
ritual deep orange setting, but the crisp sea-scented air and starlight-filled
sky drove him on.
Until he found the body.
He stood stiff-backed and stared.
Then lay down beside her.
And cried.
–Jeff
Jeff’s upcoming events:
2024
All Live Events
Thursday, February 8, 7:00 p.m. MT
The Poisoned Pen Bookstore
Author Speaking and Signing
Scottsdale, AZ
Saturday, February 10, 2:00 p.m. PT
Book Carnival
Author Speaking and Signing
Orange, CA
Thursday, February 15, 7:00 p.m. PT
Third Place Books
Author Speaking and Signing
Lake Forest Park, WA
Wednesday, February 21, 6:00 p.m. ET
Mysterious Bookshop
Author Speaking and Signing
New York, NY
Friday, February 23, 7:00 p.m. ET
Mystery Lovers Bookshop
Author Speaking and Signing
Pittsburgh, PA
Thursday, February 29, 7:00 p.m. PT
Vroman’s Bookstore
Author Speaking and Signing
Pasadena, CA
