Have this ever happened to you? You meet a complete stranger, and for some unexplained reason, it feels like you have known that person your whole life. The two of you connect right away, and one of the first conversations you have includes the phrase: “Where do I know you from?” Sometimes you find out that you used to attend the same school years ago, or that you briefly met at some party through some mutual acquaintance, and you forgot. Sometimes, though…. there is no explanation for the bond that you and this stranger are feeling. It happens to a lot of people. It certainly has happened to me! This is the kind of experience that leads people to explore religious and mystical ideas about what, exactly, is the source of this strong connection. It is this intriguing concept that is explored in Stones Skipping on Water.

John Kincaide attends an art show, and sees the beautiful Vanessa Dean for the first time. The two are instantly attracted to each other, and this attraction quickly leads to a passionate relationship. Vanessa has been making art that centers around her need to find a familiar face in a crowd, and then exploring that connection. Each of the lovers has found a little piece of what was missing from their lives in the other person, as lovers often do.

Their bliss is broken when Kincaide gets an urgent phone call from one of his employees. Kincaide owns a company that has been manufacturing and testing a new drug called ClearThought. The drug was designed as a memory aid, something that would eventually be marketed to college students, graduate students, and other people who have the need for a temporary memory boost. John learns, from this frantic phone call placed in the wee hours of the morning, that something has gone terribly wrong.

Gordon Bischof, the inventor of ClearThought, appears to have gone crazy. Bischof has been secretly sampling ClearThought, and the result is that he has lost his mind. He is sitting in the lab, with a gun, and a bottle of alcohol, demanding to speak with Kincaide, and calling his coworkers by names that are not actually their names. The most terrifying aspect of this extremely unsettling scene is that Bischof believes that ClearThought has enabled him to see and experience past lives.

As if that weren’t bad enough news, there is more. Bischof firmly believes that he has discovered exactly who Kincaide was in a past life, is angry about what transpired, and is interested in settling the score. It is a grudge held onto from a lifetime ago. Passion and rage, multiplied by time, equals an imminent explosion.

What follows is an intense roller coaster ride of a story, as Kincaide, Vanessa, and Bischof try and make all the little pieces fit into the big picture. The reader sits somewhere inside Kincaide’s head, as he struggles to figure out what is fact, what is fantasy, and what the right move is as the situation continues to intensify. There are many chapters that ended with statements so shocking that it literally made me gasp, and quickly devour the next chapter, dying to know what happens next. Readers who appreciate stories that do not fit neatly into a categorical box created by big chain bookstores will greatly enjoy this book. Those that crave a thriller with a touch of metaphysics will not want to miss this book.

In some ways, Arson, is a typical teenager. He has a part time job at an ice cream shop, with a horrible manager, and coworkers who like to slack off and make Arson do most of the work. He’s definitely not the most popular guy in his high school… far from it! Arson is a social outcast, and most people think he is weird. Arson, like many teenage boys, has an intense crush on the most popular girl in school. She’s blond, and beautiful, and completely out of his league. In these ways, Arson is normal.

However, there are things about Arson that are unusual. He lives with his grandmother, instead of with his parents. His closest friend is a girl who chooses to constantly wear a Halloween mask. She has some very valid reasons about why she selected this strange choice of accessory, but still, it’s not the sort of thing that helps a teenager make friends. Arson has an unusual name. It’s really a nickname, but he has gone by it for so long that it has become his name.

The oddest thing about Arson is that he sets fires. Only, he doesn’t need a match, or an accelerant. Arson can start fires just by thinking about it, and he is still learning how to control this ability that he hates, that he loves, that defines him.

Estevan Vega is the author of the book The Sacred Sin. Both books blur the lines between good and evil, right and wrong, moral and immoral. Vega’s books contain characters with lots of layers, each with their own demons to face and fight with. I’ve greatly enjoyed reading his work.

Estevan Vega was kind enough to do a second interview with me for Book Sandwich.

Jen Thorpe: Arson has a very special ability. One might even say he has a “super power”. I can’t quite decide if I think Arson is a superhero, or a super villain, based on his thoughts and his actions. Which do you consider Arson to be?

Estevan Vega: I guess I couldn’t really decide what he was either. He was a sort of ambiguous character. Is, and I liked that. It’s hard to say that any person is always good or always evil, because I believe as humans we have different sides to us. Sometimes we’re the hero and sometimes we’re the villain. During the story, Arson feels like a monster, feels like he’s the villain of the story, and at the climax I suppose people may come to the conclusion one way or another about what they think he is…but I’m rooting for hero…with divided sentiments.

JT: Do you prefer Marvel, or DC Comics? Who is your favorite superhero and favorite super villain? I’ve noticed that many little boys self-identify with a particular superhero (usually when they are between ages three and six). One of my brothers would tell people he was Spiderman. Which superhero did you identify with, (if any)?

EV: Since I was really young, I always loved Marvel characters. I think the reason was that I felt they were just cooler. I definitely like some DC stuff, but some of my favorite heroes (X-men, Spiderman) came from the Marvel universe. The character I really connected with was Wolverine. I remember this one time at band camp…I mean, wait, I was actually in the backseat playing with some action figures, and one of them was Wolverine. I said something, like, “I’m gonna kill you, punk,” something very Wolverine to say, and my mom said I couldn’t watch X-Men anymore. I was heartbroken. I loved that show. To this day, he’s one of my favorite characters. Maybe it’s the cool hair cut…or the claws…not sure.

JT: I always wonder what an author was listening to while he was writing his book. Did you listen to a certain kind of music while writing Arson? Was there a particular CD or artist that you gravitated towards while writing this book? Did you listen to podcasts? Or, were you writing in silence?

EV: I don’t typically like to write with music, not with lyrics anyway. I’ve never tried writing to Beethoven or the Star Wars soundtrack, though that might eventually prove to be an epic journey. I don’t know, I prefer to write in silence. Although I definitely got some inspiration from the song “Glass to the Arson” by Anberlin. I decided to name Arson because partly because of that track, so that was kinda cool.

JT: Emery is a fascinating character! There were so many layers to her personality, and she was such a strong person, (despite the personal tragedy she faced). Did you have any plans to include Emery in, if not a sequel to Arson, than in another story, someday?

EV: Yeah, she is. I’ve been getting a lot of feedback on her character. It’s funny, because she was never initially part of the book. When I originally started writing the book, I had no idea a character like her was gonna be in it, but I totally love her, and she is a huge part of the story. I am working on book two right now, trying to finish that up. Hopefully it’ll be out next year, though I am terrified of setting goals for myself. But yeah, you’re not done with Emery yet. She rocks.

JT: Where can my readers find you on the internet?

EV: Check out my website: www.estevanvega.com. All things ARSON are on there, plus some info about my current book tour and where I’ll be heading next. Also, there’s some stuff on there about my other books. My email’s on there. I love getting feedback, so write me and let me know what you thought of ARSON!

You can also check me out on twitter and facebook. I frequent those sites way more often than I should, so there are plenty of ways to find me. Don’t tell the government!

Now please go out and pick up ARSON…and tell everyone you know to get a copy! Let’s get Hollywood’s attention!

Jen Thorpe: Thank you, so much, for doing this interview with me for Book Sandwich!

Estevan Vega: No problem. Thanks for having me.

Freedom’s Call is a fairly mediocre novel wrapped around a somewhat intriguing concept. The year is 2013. The book’s protagonist, Johnny Locker, is the leader of the Social Security movement. I don’t recall if this movement’s purpose is specifically described anywhere in Freedom’s Call, but Locker is its leader. And a quietly reluctant leader, at that. A former media personality (radio talk-show host, I think), he had become the figurehead of the movement, presumably due to his outspoken opinions on… whatever it is the Social Security movement is protesting. The novel begins at a rally in Washington, D.C. Locker is there, leading a march on the American capital. From out of nowhere, he is scooped up by a group of friends who tell him he has to get out of there right away. Locker’s buddies are all military types, and even though all of them (including Locker) are in their sixties, they’ve got the stamina to escape the crowd through a chain of events that’d put a James Bond film to shame. There’s gas masks, a secret passage in a subway, some impromptu swimming, an old boat and for some reason, a 1958 Pontiac Chieftain. (Not sure why the vintage Pontiac was included here. The author describes it in such loving detail, I kept waiting for it to return at a future point in the book. Alas…) Our heroes manage to make it to an airfield. They commandeer a plane and fly away from the city, all the while, Locker is stunned, having no idea exactly why he’s been taken on this adventure. Not long after their plane is a safe distance from Washington, D.C. the crew learn that a nuclear bomb was set off within the city. Whew! They made it out just in time.
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This is another book in the Jesse Stone series by Robert B. Parker.  Jesse Stone is a police chief in the small suburb town of Paradise, Massachusetts.  Stone lost his job as an L.A. homicide cop after his wife divorced him and he took on a drinking problem. Now in Paradise he’s still friends with his ex-wife, he is talking to a psychiatrist about his love life and his drinking, and he doesn’t show up to work drunk.

The plot of this book was kind of silly while still being entertaining to listen to.  A husband and wife serial killer have started picking off seemingly random people in Paradise.  They go around town taking pictures of people they may want to kill, decide, “hey let’s kill a woman this time” or “how about this guy” while looking at the digital pictures on the computer and then shoot the victim once each in the chest with a .22.  When they kill a Paradise attorney woman Jesse used to date and only moments before had made love to, Jesse starts taking the killings more personally.

The book’s subplot  involves a gang rape at the local high school where some football stars took a girl in a back alley, raped her and took pictures of the rape which they threaten to share with the school if the girl squeals on them.  Jesse manages to get the girl to confess to him and spends a lot of his resources trying to protect her and arrest her rapists even though the media is questioning why he isn’t putting all of his force behind the serial killings.  Because he wants to protect the young girl, Jesse tells the media and the town selectmen that he has a cop at the high school trying to bust a drug ring.

Jesse Stone is a good guy that you want to root for.  He is prone to temper and beating up bad guys, but he really just wants to protect and serve his small community.  Parker’s Jesse Stone books are entertaining cop/mystery novels, but nothing deeper than that.  Again, and I mentioned this in the last Parker novel I reviewed, there are an awful lot of “saids” in the book as in he said she said that it gets annoying especially when listening to an audio version.  Once I got beyond that, though, the book was a fun listen.