Blogger novelist

Richard Fernandez, who produces the Belmont Club blog, is one of Sydney’s most widely read international bloggers. He writes on current affairs and recently published his first novel, a political thriller, No Way In. 

Published by the author with Amazon technology and available as a paperback and in a Kindle edition, No Way In is an example of how independent authors can produce their own books and reach an international audience without going through the old system of agents, publishers, and bookshops:

An obscure academic becomes the last person to talk to a politician who’s stolen an election for a corrupt president. When the politician is killed on an airliner before he can double cross his boss, a team of professional killers is told to clean up the last possible loose end. But Alex Francisco proves unexpectedly hard to tie off as he draws on survival skills acquired from years in the anti-Marcos underground. With the help of another underground veteran Alex Francisco evades his pursuers through the Australian Alps in a desperate race to decipher the dead man’s secrets and to see if he can give his faded life one last purpose. 

Comments by Amazon readers: 

A highly enjoyable thriller from the author of The Belmont Club blog […]. I very rarely read a book in a single day, but I couldn’t put this one down. An engaging story with exotic locales presented with an authenticity that can only come from direct experience with some very interesting characters and places. An exceptional effort from a first-time author, but those familiar with Fernandez’s internet essays will recognize the well-honed style, excellent use of language and deep knowledge of people, cultures and technology that makes his essays essential reading. 

And: 

I can only repeat what other reviewers have said: this is a GOOD book, a fine thriller, with a background history of the Marcos Philippines, and the underground that fought through those years. The central character is a person who had an exciting past, one true (unrequited) love, and now lives as an unimportant middle aged academic nobody, in boredom and depression. Then he meets the Bad Guy, and soon is on the run, through the Australian wilderness, and as he goes, he remembers his days as a young fighter, in the hellish underbelly of Manila and Mindinao.

But I must remark on one really amusing detail: yes, the good guys bring down the thoroughly corrupt President of the Philippines. He is allowed to go into exile, where ‘he eventually found employment as head of a major international environmental organization devoted to preventing global warming.’ I LOVE that! 

See comments from other Amazon readers and buy copies of No Way In here…