Atone for the Ivory Cloud by Geoffrey Wells
March 1-31, 2017 Tour
Synopsis:
A brilliant composer and coder goes undercover to trap a cybercrime syndicate that has hijacked her website—to traffic blood ivory. She must survive impossible physical, virtual and cultural obstacles and choose between the opposing forces of privacy and responsibility.
Allison is stunned when the CIA leaves her no option but to go undercover to surreptitiously modify the code she wrote to protect her symphony. She is deployed from New York with a savvy street vendor to Tanzania, where he is from—and where the cybercrime trail goes dead. Their guarded love affair is sidelined when they are abducted by a trafficker who poaches elephants on a massive scale. To avoid betraying each other they abandon their CIA handlers and return to New York City. Allison must find a way to bring down the syndicate knowing that she might have to sacrifice her symphony, her loved ones and her privacy—for a greater good.
What Reviewers Are Saying About Atone for the Ivory Cloud:
"This book is loaded with insane plot twists. Every time you think you've got this whole thing figured out, something else gets tossed in... And then you finally get to the end of the book, and you think to yourself 'it's almost over, nothing else can surprise me now'. But it does. And it's great."
"There's a lot of programming and computer-y talk throughout this book... I never found that I was lost or confused about what was going on. Wells does a great job of making it easy for the reader to understand what's going on."
"The pacing in this book is amazing. It isn't so fast that you're feeling lost, but not so slow that you get bored and set the book down."
Book Details:
Genre: Thriller
Published by: Ice Wine Productions, Inc.
Publication Date: February 2017
Number of Pages: 309
ISBN: eBook: 978-0-9981666-0-5, Print: 978-0-9981666-1-2
Purchase Links: Amazon | Goodreads
Interview with Geoffrey Wells
When did you decide to become a writer?
I had a position as VP of Information
Technology for a national broadcasting network and began to notice that new
technologies started to change too quickly for me to implement them in the
corporate IT department that I managed. By the time a system was replaced, a
better technology had leap-frogged over it. What Thomas Friedman calls, “the
age of accelerations” in his book, Thank
You for Being Late, had begun. I recognized that this was my inflection
point: it was my opportunity to voice a creative side of me that had started as
an Art Director in advertising that led to my interest in filmmaking and storytelling.
I wanted to be back in control. I started to
write—mornings at 4 a.m. A short story turned into a novel. By habit, I applied
systems analysis—what I had done for years—to my story and it became tight,
acquired pace and turned into a thriller.
The writing (pun intended) was on the wall.
Corporate IT departments, and broadcasting itself was—and still is—being
swallowed by Internet services in the Cloud. It was time for me to make a
change. I published that first novel independently because I did not want to
trade one hamster wheel for another. A year later I left the corporate world to
write and run my own video and graphics production company.
What are your ambitions for your writing career?
My aspiration as a writer is to continue to
write eco/cyber thrillers and in doing so create lasting connections with loyal
readers.
I want my readers to know that a Geoffrey
Wells novel takes them to an unknown world where criminals exploit natural and/or
virtual ecosystems and where vulnerable, imperfect characters—always lost in
the personal chaos of searching for their identity or freedom—rise up to claim
their authenticity and become empowered to fight for and live in a world of
sustained abundance, strengthened by the power of diversity.
My readers will know that my books originate
out of the ethos of the New Citizen that show characters cutting loose and breaking
ties with past worlds (old countries) and striving for the universal ideal of
living in a safe, diverse land, protected by the rule of law, with opportunity
for worthwhile pursuits and an optimistic future.
Give us an insight into your main character. What does he/she do that is so special?
Allison is a brilliant electronic composer and
coder. After her identity was stolen she codes an anti-piracy solution to
protect her compositions on-line. However, she knows just enough about coding
to get her into trouble. Her unique talent is that she writes code as if she is
composing music and she is a master at hiding her code, which is just what the
cybercrime syndicate is looking for.
Do you have a special time to write or how is your day structured?
I am a morning person and start writing every
day at 5 a.m. till 8 a.m. Then I feed the dog, work out, feed myself, and get
ready to be back at my desk by 10 a.m. Then I write till noon. The afternoons
are for the business of writing and indie publishing. I put in a another two
hours before the end of the day, totaling about seven hours, six days a week.
Where do the ideas come from?
The answer lies in the type of idea we are
talking about. I have story ideas
that can come from anywhere. For example, I saw an accident in Central Park
where someone crossed the road while a 10K race was in progress. When he got to
the other side he knocked someone over onto the sidewalk. That scene became the
inciting incident that starts my thriller, Atone
for the Ivory Cloud. Premise ideas
are those that ask about what character attributes lead to what outcomes. These
ideas can come from people or news stories and, I find, have to do with the
frailty of human nature. Concept ideas
are spawned from a combination of ecosystems, whether virtual and/or real. In
the case of Atone for the Ivory Cloud,
the concept idea was that ivory trafficking is organized by cyber criminals.
Then there are experience ideas drawn
from my own biographical bank: ideas from a previous life in South Africa—a
farm, game reserves, mountain climbing, Mozambique, a garage band. Or
experiences from my early days in Los Angeles: waiting tables, freelancing on
Hollywood movies and making a ten minute animated/CGI movie with my wife.
Do you work to an outline or plot or do you prefer just see where an idea takes you?
I am a plotter. Perhaps because of my
application development past I am acutely aware of the hazards of diving into a
project without a plan. Or perhaps it’s just that I like structure. However, I
cannot imagine how I would be able to foreshadow plot twists without a plot
outline. My goal is to never have to rewrite due to lack of planning.
Any tips on how to get through the dreaded writer’s block?
For me, writer’s block is nonsense. Waiting
for genius is a waste of time. As Thomas Edison said, Genius is 1 percent
inspiration and 99 percent perspiration, which, for a writer is putting words
into sentences. Waiting for the 1% muse is silly for my method of tightly
plotted writing because the truth is, my muse often appears during revisions.
What can we expect from you down the line?
Next up I will be taking characters from my
first and second thriller and writing a new thriller on the theme of water pollution.
For more information please see my website
Media Kit at:
https://geoffreywellsfiction.com/media-and-press/
IVORY TRAFFICKING Trailer for the thriller, Atone for the Ivory Cloud:
Read an excerpt:
Voices. Unintelligible fragments. Words she didn’t recognize. Faint, distant—the sound of city traffic. A tone—plaintive, sung. The smell of cumin. And diesel. Incense. A flurried breath of diaphanous light across the white mosquito net. The awareness of being alive. The air, saturated. Four notes.
Allison stretched out her arm, her hand touching the cold steel pole that held the IV bag. A hissing clamp dug into her nostrils. In a hallway perhaps—nearby—a woman’s voice: elderly, clear, solidified into a black shape in the doorway, the same abaya shape that had stolen her away from the resort—that stole her from him. She shut her eyes and felt adrenaline surge through her. Regulate your breathing, she thought. Her limp arm was carefully lifted and placed inside the mosquito net. Try to ignore the gnawing anguish in your brain. They can’t know yet; they can’t know that you are conscious, that you are Allison Schwartz, that you have forgotten the name of that other person you are supposed to be.
Sleep. Later, the low sun having painted the walls of the room yellow and red, Allison heard the kalimba—her sipho, or was this Sipho himself, luring her from her unconscious mind? Again—four notes: three words and four consonants to go with them—the sum-mer wind. Impossible, yet it could only be him. She listened. Outside on the quiet street, again the four notes played, repeating, waltzing. She woke again. This time painfully, step by step, she detached from the IV and the oxygen tube clamped to her nose. She was able to sit up, to touch the cool ceramic tiled floor with her toes. With a pounding headache, she gingerly hobbled to the open window, taking deep breaths of the humid ocean breeze. How true, she thought, the line from their song about the wind being a fickle friend. Closer—those four notes again.
From her second-story window she peered down into the narrow street, now suffused with hues of blue and purple light, bare lightbulbs here and there spilling yellow across the cobbled road, turning the Muslim pedestrians into silhouetted abstractions that silently shuffled toward the minaret, thin and resolute at the intersection. There, lying on the windowsill, a mobile phone rang with the ringtone she heard. So, no Sipho on the street below, beckoning to her, like Romeo. Yet only he could have thought to create that ringtone, the significance of which only she and he would understand. When she swiped the glass on the phone, she saw her own wallpaper screen. The CALENDAR app date showed that two days had passed.
She had an unread text message, respond.
Behind her, a noise. She scrambled back into the bed, her heart churning as she reattached the oxygen, leaving the IV dangling. She set the phone to mute and tucked it into her panties. She resumed her former comatose state. A burka and abaya-clad woman approached, re-inserted the IV needle, and took Allison’s pulse. Think of nothing, Allison; of Central Park at dawn, when the sleeping snow is left behind and the storm has moved on. Be calm. The woman called out abruptly and left. Allison reached frantically for the phone.
Passcode? She remembered keying it in at Amsterdam airport, the sea of faces coming and going, paying her no attention. How naive she was. She keyed her mother’s phone number, remembering that the agent had told her to swap the first and last numbers.
The reply came back immediately: Pay 50% in bitcoin asap. Use BOX. Have Ts delivered to fabric stall at Kariakoo market - north side of Tandamuti Street. Pay remaining 50% after we weigh/inspect and after they supply 1989 certs. I will get u soon—only text if u have issues. DELETE THIS MESSAGE THEN TURN OFF YOUR PHONE
k, she texted, now thankful for the ingrained system she had been using for years to memorize sheet music: Walking through the score in rehearsal, organizing the sequence of events, elaboration—the assignment of meaning by association, and mapping the score to a familiar location—in this case, Central Park, for which she now pined. As she read the text ten times and applied these principles, she found hope in the message. First, only Sipho and she referred to the device as “the box”, and second, she confirmed that the box was close enough to be discovered by her phone, all of which led her to hope that Sipho had found her. The rest was instructions on how the deal needed to go down—and this, too, meant that her usefulness on this mission had an end point.
She deleted the text.
Allison stretched out her arm, her hand touching the cold steel pole that held the IV bag. A hissing clamp dug into her nostrils. In a hallway perhaps—nearby—a woman’s voice: elderly, clear, solidified into a black shape in the doorway, the same abaya shape that had stolen her away from the resort—that stole her from him. She shut her eyes and felt adrenaline surge through her. Regulate your breathing, she thought. Her limp arm was carefully lifted and placed inside the mosquito net. Try to ignore the gnawing anguish in your brain. They can’t know yet; they can’t know that you are conscious, that you are Allison Schwartz, that you have forgotten the name of that other person you are supposed to be.
Sleep. Later, the low sun having painted the walls of the room yellow and red, Allison heard the kalimba—her sipho, or was this Sipho himself, luring her from her unconscious mind? Again—four notes: three words and four consonants to go with them—the sum-mer wind. Impossible, yet it could only be him. She listened. Outside on the quiet street, again the four notes played, repeating, waltzing. She woke again. This time painfully, step by step, she detached from the IV and the oxygen tube clamped to her nose. She was able to sit up, to touch the cool ceramic tiled floor with her toes. With a pounding headache, she gingerly hobbled to the open window, taking deep breaths of the humid ocean breeze. How true, she thought, the line from their song about the wind being a fickle friend. Closer—those four notes again.
From her second-story window she peered down into the narrow street, now suffused with hues of blue and purple light, bare lightbulbs here and there spilling yellow across the cobbled road, turning the Muslim pedestrians into silhouetted abstractions that silently shuffled toward the minaret, thin and resolute at the intersection. There, lying on the windowsill, a mobile phone rang with the ringtone she heard. So, no Sipho on the street below, beckoning to her, like Romeo. Yet only he could have thought to create that ringtone, the significance of which only she and he would understand. When she swiped the glass on the phone, she saw her own wallpaper screen. The CALENDAR app date showed that two days had passed.
She had an unread text message, respond.
Behind her, a noise. She scrambled back into the bed, her heart churning as she reattached the oxygen, leaving the IV dangling. She set the phone to mute and tucked it into her panties. She resumed her former comatose state. A burka and abaya-clad woman approached, re-inserted the IV needle, and took Allison’s pulse. Think of nothing, Allison; of Central Park at dawn, when the sleeping snow is left behind and the storm has moved on. Be calm. The woman called out abruptly and left. Allison reached frantically for the phone.
Passcode? She remembered keying it in at Amsterdam airport, the sea of faces coming and going, paying her no attention. How naive she was. She keyed her mother’s phone number, remembering that the agent had told her to swap the first and last numbers.
The reply came back immediately: Pay 50% in bitcoin asap. Use BOX. Have Ts delivered to fabric stall at Kariakoo market - north side of Tandamuti Street. Pay remaining 50% after we weigh/inspect and after they supply 1989 certs. I will get u soon—only text if u have issues. DELETE THIS MESSAGE THEN TURN OFF YOUR PHONE
k, she texted, now thankful for the ingrained system she had been using for years to memorize sheet music: Walking through the score in rehearsal, organizing the sequence of events, elaboration—the assignment of meaning by association, and mapping the score to a familiar location—in this case, Central Park, for which she now pined. As she read the text ten times and applied these principles, she found hope in the message. First, only Sipho and she referred to the device as “the box”, and second, she confirmed that the box was close enough to be discovered by her phone, all of which led her to hope that Sipho had found her. The rest was instructions on how the deal needed to go down—and this, too, meant that her usefulness on this mission had an end point.
She deleted the text.
Author Bio:
Impressions on a South African farm, boarding school, a father who read from the classics to his children, and a storytelling mother, sparked Geoffrey Wells with a writer’s imagination. Though the piano and drum kits and Mozambique led to his first thriller, A Fado for the River, his career as Art Director in advertising led him to the American Film Institute, and an awe of digital technology propelled him to VP/CIO at Disney, ABC-TV stations and Fox. Wells wrote an award-winning animated film, has visited elephant reserves, and climbed to the tip of Kilimanjaro. He lives on Long Island where he swims the open water and runs a video and design company. He writes thrillers about imperfect characters who, always with a diverse band of allies, fight villains that devastate our natural and virtual ecosystems.“Atone for the Ivory Cloud is a compelling, fast-paced thriller with an exotic international flavor. Geoffrey Wells takes the reader on an enthralling ride, skillfully entwining cybercrime, music, and the fate of African elephants in a breathtaking tale of danger and romance.”
Pamela Burford, best-selling author of Undertaking Irene.
Catch Up with Geoffrey Wells on his Website, Twitter, & Facebook!
Tour Participants:
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