Guest Author Interview: Brian L. Porter

Today I would like to welcome guest author Brian L. Porter.  Brian is the author of Pestilence, Dracula Doesn't Live Here Anymore, Kiss of Life, Purple Death, Avenue of the Dead, The Voice of Anton Bouchard and Other Stories, and A Study in Red: The Secret Journal of Jack the Ripper.

Interview with Brian L. Porter

EJ: When did you begin writing?

Brian:  I only started writing my novels about 5 years ago, after a successful spell as a poet and short story writer. It seemed a natural progression to move into full-length novel writing, and, after studying the Jack the Ripper murders for over thirty years, it also felt 'right' to base my first novel on the subject that was so close to my heart. As a result, A Study in Red - The Secret Journal of Jack the Ripper was born, and, thanks to its success others have followed and been equally well received.

EJ:  What brought you to the suspense thriller genre?

Brian:  I've always been an avid reader, and list some very talented thriller authors among my favorites, Tess Gerritsen, Jeffery Deaver, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. I wanted to try and re-create some of the tension and the mystery that such writers are able to produce in their books and to try and make people feel a little apprehensive and 'thrilled' by the stories I created. So, I aimed to produce dark psychological thrillers that have an 'edge' to them, something that might make the reader feel a little uncomfortable in places, as I try to make my characters as true to life as possible and often use ordinary situations with which to create an element of terror and suspense. In almost every book I write there is an element of true history woven into the fabric of the story, so the boundary between fact and fiction is very closely interwoven and I like to think that people find it hard to differentiate between what is real and what is fiction, thus creating that unsettling feeling I mentioned earlier.

EJ:  If you could be any paranormal or have any one supernatural talent, what would it be? Why?

Brian:  I'd love to have the ability to travel through time, to be able to view some of the great (and not so great) moment s in history. Imagine being able to witness Jack the Ripper committing his foul crimes, or to see the Spanish Armada being repulsed by the British Navy at Trafalgar and so on, and then being able to return to your own time and write the story as a factual 'witness statement'.

EJ:  Tell us why readers will enjoy your new release.

Brian:  My latest release is Pestilence, from Double Dragon Publishing, which was released almost simultaneously with Purple Death from Moongypsy Press. Pestilence is a multi-layered thriller, set in a 1950s English village where an outbreak of pneumonic plague begins, and soon overwhelms the newly arrived doctor, a young woman recently qualified as a general practitioner. What no-one realizes however, is that the plague is only the beginning of their troubles as a long buried secret and a conspiracy that reaches the highest levels of society threatens to destroy the village of Olney St. Mary. There is something for everyone who enjoys a thriller in this book and I hope many readers will enjoy it. It is available in paperback and e-book from the publisher and from Amazon.com etc. 

Pestilence by Brian L. Porter.

From award winning author Brian L Porter comes the thriller sensation of the year. 'Pestilence' leads where others will follow in creating a scare-fest that will terrify, entertain and astound the reader. Pestilence....breathe if you dare!

The year is 1958, the place, an idyllic village in the heart of the English countryside. Olney St. Mary has stood in its peaceful rural location for over 900 years. Suddenly however, the peace of the community is shattered when two teenage boys are stricken with a mystery illness. The newly arrived village doctor suspects 'flu to be the cause of their malady. Her initial diagnosis is terribly and tragically wrong!

Before long, Doctor Hilary Newton and the residents of Olney are plunged into a nightmare of Biblical proportions as the death toll rises and no cure can be found for the disease that ravages the local population, despite the doctors employing the latest antibiotics available to them. Somehow, this plague is different! Help arrives in the form of a medical team from the outside, but the bodies continue to pile up. Someone, somewhere, perhaps within the community itself, knows the reason behind the pestilence that has struck at the heart of the village, but will themedics learn the truth before it's too late, or will they too join the growing list of names that appear on the roll of death roll in Olney St. Mary?

When a mysterious explosion wreaks havoc in the children's playground, followed by a second lethal blast in Olney's makeshift field hospital the sinister and unbelievable truth behind the pestilence begins to slowly reveal itself.

Award-winning author Brian L Porter takes terror to a new dimension as an age old horror returns to nineteen fifties rural England. This time however, the pestilence itself appears to have evolved!

Watch out for the movie adaptation of Pestilence, coming soon from Thunderball Films LLC.

 














Purple Death by Brian L. Porter.

Tranquil suburban Richmond-on-Thames, home to such landmarks as Hampton Court Palace and Kew Gardens, becomes the setting for a series of shocking and particularly gruesome murders that lead Detective Inspector Sean Connor and his team into a labyrinthine investigation in which all roads lead towards a thirty-year-old unsolved murder. The victims, all apparently unconnected to each other, are being dispatched by the use of a singularly unique poison, previously more closely associated with the notorious medieval Borgia family.    As the murders begin to multiply at an alarming rate, Connor finds clues hard to come by, and every lead takes him down yet another blind alley. The killer seems to be one step ahead of the police at every turn. Together, he and his assistant, Sergeant Lucy Clay, must piece together the shreds of evidence that will lead them to the mysterious Chocolate Woman and in turn to the brain behind the horrific murders that soon come to be known as "The Purple Death." 


Purple Death is soon to appear as a motion picture produced by Thunderball Films LLC of Los Angeles,
 
EJ:  If your book(s) were being made into a movie, who would you cast for the leading roles? Why?
 
Brian:  A Study in Red is currently in development as a movie by Thunderball Flms and the producer and executive producer are currently in talks with various actor's agents with regard to the casting of the major roles, so it would be inappropriate I think for me to comment on that one at present, as they are talking to some rather 'big' names at present. My other books are under contract with Thunderball Films for future adaptation and I must say I haven't given much thought as to who might fill the major roles in those yet. I must say I'd love to see Alan Rickman appear in one of my movies. He's such a good 'villain' and would be great as the bad guy in either Purple Death or Legacy of the Ripper. By the same token, I'd love to see Glenn close as the villainess in The Nemesis Cell. The central character in Pestilence, the young doctor, Hilary Newton, brings to my mind Kate Beckinsale.  I remember her as the nurse in Pearl Harbor and she'd be great in the part.

Thank you Brian for joining us here today at From the Shadows!