Please welcome Austin Camacho to the blog today!
Because I’ve been talking about True Target so much, I’ve been thinking about where the idea for the story came from. This story grew from two separate ideas. First, I was invited to submit a short story for an anthology called Insidious Assassins. For that story I created Skye, an African American, female professional assassin who was not a thug but more like a samurai or a ninja. I was pleased with the way the story turned out and like all my fictional characters, Skye went into the shadows for future use.
Later, I got an idea for a mystery or thriller plot: what if some master criminal tried to pull all the big gangs together today? What could stop them? While I pondered that, Skye kept rising to the surface in my mind. I realized I wanted to explore the mind of this streetwise yet sophisticated killer. Then it occurred to me that I had stumbled on the answer to “who could stop them” and it would be fun to watch that battle.
While researching modern day assassins I stumbled upon the idea of them having rules they lived by to separate them from common hoods. When Skye’s guidelines surfaced, they helped define her. This sentence became pivotal: “The first rule of the assassin’s doctrine. The target has got to deserve it.”
Suddenly it was easy to back up and build the plot. A revenge job drags Skye into a web of dirty judges, gang killers, and a shadow cartel. Along the way the hunter becomes the hunted. For continuity I pulled in Detective Orson Rissik, a familiar law enforcement character for fans of my Hannibal Jones private eye series. Naturally he wants Skye behind bars, but he may need her to expose the rot crawling through the city’s power brokers.
In addition to non-stop action and suspense, True Target introduces a character you will come to care about. Skye is conflicted – she knows something is broken inside her, but she continues her work as a professional in a world of amateurs. . It all came together in an action thriller of which I am quite proud.
About the Book:
Skye Maddox is a contract assassin driven by both personal demons and professional discipline. Hired by grieving father Milo Williams to hunt down the chain of men responsible for his son’s death, Skye takes on a mission that escalates into a war with Washington, D.C.’s most dangerous underworld figures led by a man known only as Hetman. As she climbs Milo’s ladder of revenge, Skye uncovers a web of corruption that links drug dealers, judges, mobsters, and even international crime syndicates.
The story escalates through brutal shootouts, betrayals, and psychological games, as Skye pushes deeper into Hetman’s empire. Each success makes her a bigger target. In the end, she must weigh the cost of finishing Milo’s revenge against the danger of becoming just another expendable weapon in someone else’s war.
Read an Excerpt:
When Jayla stood, Skye raised a palm to stop her. “Yes. Yes, all right. I just finished an assignment, but it was part of a larger contract so I’m feeling like both the situations you mentioned. I’m on the job, and I just took a player off the board.”
Jayla jotted in her notebook. She always collected the euphemisms Skye used for her profession. “So, tell me about this latest assignment. How do you feel about this player you’ve taken off the board? Was it, in your mind, a just action?”
“You always want to go there,” Skye said, shaking her head. “What did I tell you? The first rule of the assassin’s doctrine. The target has got to deserve it.”
“Oh, yes,” Jayla said with a half-smile. “Your job, while criminal, does have rules
“I misspoke earlier,” Skye said, sliding a slim dagger out of her boot. “It’s not a job. It’s a profession. All professions have their rules. For doctors, rule number one is ‘do no harm’, right? For an assassin, it’s that the target has got to deserve it.” Skye began to absently flip the dagger in the air, catching it by its tip each time. “In this case, this bastard kidnapped my client’s son. I don’t know how they got him. My client kept his family totally under the radar. But once he got the ransom demand, the client agreed to pay, and the ransom money was in transit but not fast enough to suit the kidnappers. They killed the boy, I think just to make a point. Just to be snotty. The action took place overseas and no way the police would ever have gotten close to the killer.”
Jayla nodded. “I think I understand. So, you were hired to…”
“Correct the balance,” Skye said, standing.
About the Author:
Austin S. Camacho is the author of eight novels about Washington DC-based private eye Hannibal Jones, five in the Stark and O’Brien international adventure-thriller series, and the detective novel Beyond Blue. His short stories have been featured in several anthologies and he is featured in the Edgar nominated African American Mystery Writers: A Historical and Thematic Study by Frankie Y. Bailey. He is a past president of the Maryland Writers Association, past Vice President of the Virginia Writers Club, and one of the creators of the Creatures, Crimes & Creativity literary conference.
Website: https://ascamacho.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61572508767550
Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/ascamacho135
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/austin-camacho-1a5a622/
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Thank you for featuring TRUE TARGET today.
ReplyDeleteYou're welcome!
DeleteHi, Austin here. First wanting to thank Sapphyria for featuring True Target on the blog today. Also, asking readers if knowing where the idea came from makes them more curious about the book.
ReplyDeleteMy pleasure!
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