MY publisher and I have hatched a plan. She’s in London, I’m in Jersey, but that didn’t stop us scheming over Zoom.
You see, this month will see the launch of my third novel, House of the Judas Goat, a dark and twisty thriller about child traffickers lurking behind the smokescreen of a student exchange programme.
It’s a special one for me, because it’s my first novel to be published in the UK. And so we decided to go to town on the launch.
Our ambitious little plot begins with the announcement of several author appearances at venues up and down the Thames, but, while fun, that part is still conventional. It’s step two that breaks the mould. And carrying it out may kill me. But everyone has to go some time, and why not in a blaze of literary glory, doing something you love?
So here’s our master plan for global domination. We will be extending an open offer to every single book club in the entirety of Great Britain. And, frankly, any other place beyond that falls reasonably within our time-zone. The offer is simple: Would you like to meet the author? He’ll come to you, anywhere, live, via the magic of Zoom.
Doesn’t matter if your book club consists of two people, a bottle of Prosecco, and a confused Spaniel. I will join you. I’ll perform a live reading from the text, and stick around for a chat.
So, what’s the book about?
Let’s begin with the title. What on earth is a “Judas goat?”
It’s a sinister term derived from traditional farming. When it came time to slaughter sheep, farmers often struggled to herd hesitant stock up the ramp and into the slaughterhouse. So they would employ a “Judas goat”. The goat’s job was to befriend the sheep, but he was most assuredly not on their side.
He would lead the sheep up the ramp, and they would follow him, because he was confident, and they were scared. At the last second, the Judas goat would veer off down a separate ramp. The sheep went on to the slaughter. The goat’s entire function was to be a traitor.
Now. What might happen if a kid were to serve the same function today?
In House of the Judas Goat, we encounter an international child-smuggling syndicate posing as a harmless student exchange programme. The con is executed flawlessly. Kids from around the world travel to California, excited to meet their host parents.
But first, they must take part in “orientation week”. The kids are gathered into a vast mansion on a hillside, and given free rein of the house.
Things soon head south. They begin to wonder why there is no adult supervision in the vast mansion. They discover that their passports are missing. They find they can’t get out of the house, and suspect they’re being watched. And then, one by one, their friends start disappearing without explanation.
Their situation is worse than they realise, for they are also being managed from within. Every attempt at escape is foiled by subtle misdirects. One of their number is a traitor, the purest kind of psychopath. But who?
The most satisfying feedback I’ve had so far came from one delightful lady who said: “I kept holding my breath as I turned the pages!” As shameless manipulators of emotion, authors revel in that sort of thing.
And the genre? Well, that’s an interesting one. The easiest classification is “suspense thriller”. But honestly, it borders pretty closely on horror. And although it’s a book about a bunch of kids, it isn’t actually a kids’ book. Some outlets are splitting the difference and filing it under “young adult”, though it was really written for mature audiences. Think “Lord of the Flies” meets “Silence of the Lambs”.
Recording the audio book was also uniquely enjoyable. Sure, I had to work around the screeching of Jersey seagulls, plus the odd ambulance siren echoing across St Helier. But the most enjoyable part was striving to master the host of accents for the cast of kids.
Reckon I can now do a reasonably competent New Zealand. Judge for yourself, if you enjoy audio books. It’s live on the Audible platform.
So, that’s the idea. And that’s my life for the foreseeable future. And who knows, I may have all of two book clubs take me up on the offer. Or two thousand. Either way, I’ll read for them. It’s thrilling for an author to meet the people who read their tales, and a challenge to explain how these dark and disturbing ideas ever occurred to them in the first place.
If you’d like to have me, just drop an email introducing yourself to douglas@douglaskrugerspeaker.com, and suggest some dates and times that might work for you. We can take it from there.
Finally, Jersey is quite dense with authors. Which is different to saying Jersey authors are quite dense. Collectively we cover crime, horror, ghost stories, love sagas, history and more.
One thing we all have in common is that we love telling you our tales, and want nothing more than to keep doing so. And few things help us quite like reviews, which are worth their weight in gold. So, if you read one of our books and enjoy it, won’t you take a moment to say so on Amazon? It makes the world of difference, and paves the way for us to keep going.
So, see you on the Zoom call? Here’s the opening, which I’ll endeavour to read for you in my most sinister voice:
“The Polish girl was a high value item. They would risk no damage during transit. That was why she woke up in a dog cage.”
Douglas Kruger is an author and speaker who lives in St Helier. His books are all available via Amazon and Audible.
