My third book, a short story titled The Big Day, was published late summer 2022.
Dit boek is ook in het Nederlands verkrijgbaar.
Title:
The Big Day – A deadline thriller
In short:
Retired Army man Mac from Scotland, now runs a farm in Arctic Sweden. One day, Mac is approached to make a wish come true for tenths of parents of murdered children. If he accepts, it will also solve a decades-long dilemma for the Norwegian government.
Summary:
In this short story, we follow Mac, a retired Army man from Scotland, who now makes a living on a farm in the Arctic part of Sweden. But he also has another business on the side: an international service in making wishes come true. This covert and anonymous business is a lucrative one, but the wishes his business fulfills are of a deadly nature.
One day, Mac is approached on his website on the dark web with a request that would grant a deeply cherished wish for a group of parents whose children were murdered in a school shooting in Norway years ago. Due to a quirk in Norwegian law, the mass murderer is about to be released from prison. Accepting the request would also solve a decades-old dilemma for the Norwegian government and society.
While Mac as a rule always works alone, this unusual request poses several impossible problems for him, and he is about to reject it. But then inside help is offered. Apparently qualified help.
Who can the informant be? Can the informant be trusted? How good is his or her information? Can Mac now accept the request? And if he does, should he accept?
With Mac’s business conducted in total anonymity, what is the catch? Will Mac be able to do what he is asked to do?
Follow in Mac’s footsteps to an unexpected conclusion.
# #
The plot is set in the USA, Sweden, and Norway, but also in Scotland. The story in this book is fictional but inspired by an atrocious mass murder and murder trial in Norway.
This story is fiction – it is nothing more. The only point the author is trying to make is the sometimes too loose relation between crime and punishment, and how this can be perceived by the victims of the crime and the public. In the case of Norway, the relation between crime and punishment was finally lost when a twenty-one-year sentence was set as the consequence of committing the ultimate crime.
This book is available as e-book, paperback, and audiobook. It is also available in paperback and e-book in the Dutch language under the title ‘De Grote Dag – Een deadline thriller’.
Cover:
Buy (or get for free) and read (or listen):
Ebook for Kindle (for free if you joined Kindle unlimited!)
The book is available as an Audiobook on these websites:
Here’s the book on one of the sites:
This example shows the book on Storytel, but it looks quite similar on the other sites. The sites offer either downloading or streaming of the book.
The listening time of the audiobook is just about an hour and a half. Just as long as a movie, and much shorter than my other books would be in audio format. Perhaps an easy and fast way to acquaint yourself with my work?
Happy reading!
Review:
The Big Day by Paul Van Doorn:
Once again, Paul the author tells a fictional story based on retalliation, When the paragraphs of law and order are more inclined to reduce the penalties of the criminals rather than lock them away for their obvious crimes.
The story is somewhat short but covers many areas for thought. From sheep farming on the beautiful slopes and valleys of Northern Sweden, to the ugly reality of the dark Web and its vile and shady activities.
Paul’s private interest for motor biking and car technology shine through , which is the writer’s privilege as he owns the story.
Mac, the main character, an ex-soldier whose skills were (sometimes) for sales gets an unexpected result at the end of the story. As I also did.
Well done Paul, looking forward to your next one.
Mike Coleman, Sweden October 2022.
Author’s comment:
Criminal proceedings, and criminals in general, should be followed up by court convictions to a penalty suitable for the crime. In many cases, this goes quite well. But unfortunately, there are cases where the law did not foresee the severity of a crime and leaves the criminal convicted to a penalty too low for the general public to be acceptable.
Norway landed in such a situation when a criminal guilty of a mass-shooting was convicted to the maximal penalty of twenty one years – in total. It was this obvious yet unforeseen flaw in the law that tempted me to write this short story.
The chosen format, a short story, could have easily developed into a 250+ pages pocket-size novel. I decided not to in order to have a cheaper book more easily accessible for new readers. It is even included in the Kindle Unlimited program that allows it to be read without cost for enrolled readers.
Paul
2023-04
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Tags:
#lawandorder #justice #schoolshooting #masshooting #revenge #norway #sweden #scotland #usa #thebigday #degrotedag