It's Raining Books: Murder by Munchausen by M.T. Bass

Monday, August 24, 2020

Murder by Munchausen by M.T. Bass

This post is part of a virtual book tour organizee by Goddess Fish Promotions. M.T. Bass will be awarding a $50 Amazon or Barnes and Noble GC to a randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter during the tour. Click on the tour banner to see the other stops on the tour.

Welcome to It's Raining Books. Why do you write in your genre? What draws you to it?

Well, here’s the problem: I don’t write in a genre. I get ideas for characters or plot lines and just go with it. When I’m done, I have to figure out what the heck I’ve got with my manuscript. Sometimes it ends up being a Mystery or a Spy Thriller or a Satire or a Romance or a Sci-Fi/Police Procedural/Serial Killer Murder Mystery/Tech Thriller—like the Murder by Munchausen Trilogy. And you know what? I don’t read in only one genre, so why should I only write in one? And that keeps it interesting for me, too.

What research is required?

Sometimes it seems like I am doing as much research as I am pounding out words of my manuscripts. You definitely have to have information on your setting—whether that’s the Alaska pipeline, San Francisco, Washington DC, or Cleveland, Ohio. You don’t always need to put in a lot of info, but you need to get it right. Then, there are all the different kinds of characters and their jobs, hobbies, and even their inner thoughts, good and bad. I guess it would be easier if I only worked with things in my own wheelhouse, but that’s a pretty shallow pool. A good friend of mine, author Jay Spencer Green, said that it’s not about writing what you know, but knowing what you are writing about.

Name one thing you learned from your hero/heroine.

Jake is already a lot like me. But Maddie…When I wrote The Darknet from her point-of-view, I had to really stretch myself to get a totally different world-view from her perspective.

Do you have any odd or interesting writing quirks, habits or superstitions?

I am much more of a re-writer than anything else. I only write the first draft once, but I go over it again and again and again. And again. I actually never finish a novel. I just get it to a point where I finally have to abandon it and put it into print.

Are you a plotter or pantser?

Definitely a pantser. I get started and never really know where I’m going to end up. Even when I try to plan things out, the characters inevitably seem to have their own ideas. And it’s always better—more natural to do what they want for them and for the story.

Anything new coming up from you? What?

The sequel to my very first book, My Brother’s Keeper, will be coming out on October 22. It’s called Jungleland. I am working with a narrator named Kristi Alsip to record the audiobook of The Darknet and get it out early next year. I’m also about 25% done with Murder by Munchausen Book #4: Motherless Children. With more to follow…

A Cyber Crime Thriller Series: Notorious serial killers digitally resurrected to live & hunt again in hacked replicants, pursued by detectives of the Artificial Crimes Unit.

Read an Excerpt

It sat on a bench outside the dormitory of nursing students, waiting with its kind’s infinite patience. Originally acquired and programmed for landscaping at the Cleveland Clinic, the synthoid was one of a brigade of units which had been hacked and Munchausened, then returned to their menial daily services to mankind to await the Baron’s call.

There was no adrenalin surge behind the extremely life-like facade of humanity when that call came. Data packets, sent scatter-shot through the Atlas Grid, coalesced at the location outside the Cole Eye Institute where the synthoid methodically trimmed and shaped the immaculate shrubbery around the building. To avoid Q’s metadata sniffing algorithms from detecting a download spike in the grid, the information came in digital sprinkles over the course of its human handler’s work shift, slowly building a malevolent intent to be executed that night. In the middle of the afternoon, the synthoid left the unfinished topiary to melt into the hospital shift change and disappeared.

Personality modules were a Gen-3 feature upgrade, which is why the earlier models were initially preferred. Swapping out a few IC chips and uploading hacked firmware was a relatively easy way to turn a quick buck with an automated contract killing. But evil innovates, too, and the same features that made synthoids even more human-like in their behavior also helped create robotic assassins which could better camouflage their malicious intents and evade the reach of the Artificial Crimes Unit by melting into and moving undetected through the humanity that surrounded them. For the Baron, it allowed for a greater measure of artistic expression in programming the synthoid’s behavior to not only recreate infamous crimes of the past but to mimic the behavior of their perpetrators, which intensified the thrill of watching the video feed through the eyes of Jack the Ripper, Ted Bundy or, this particular evening, Richard Speck. Jake wasn’t the only history buff, and it amused Jamal that London police had photographed the eyes of Jack the Ripper’s victims, hoping to capture the last thing they ever saw: their killer’s face. If only Scotland Yard could have imagined the future…

About the Author