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Why you must read Michael Patrick Hicks’ Convergence

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Jonah Everitt is a killer, a DRMR addict, and a memory thief.

After being hired to kill a ranking officer of the Pacific Rim Coalition and download his memories, Everitt finds himself caught in the crosshairs of a terror cell, a rogue military squadron, and a Chinese gangster named Alice Xie. Xie is a profiteer of street drugs, primarily DRMR, a powerful narcotic made from the memories of the dead. With his daughter, Mesa, missing in post-war Los Angeles, Everitt is forced into an uneasy alliance with Alice to find her.

Mesa’s abduction is wrapped up in the secrets of a brutal murder during the war’s early days, a murder that Alice Xie wants revenged. In order to find her, Jonah will have to sift through the memories of dead men that could destroy what little he has left.

In a city where peace is tenuous and loyalties are ever shifting, the past and the present are about to converge.

Post-war? Is the story set in the 1940s?
It’s a near-future story, set in a post-war Los Angeles, and is told from the perspective of a man who was on the losing side of that war. Jonah Everitt lost everything in the conflict, and now lives in a refugee camp and struggles with drug addiction. He’s also a hired gun who’ s on the outs with his daughter, and after she goes missing, he’ll do whatever he has to in order to find her.

What genre is your novel?
I think sci-fi readers will find plenty to appreciate here – CONVERGENCE has the grungy high-tech cyberpunk feel to it, set in a near-future America that’s been shattered by war and political in-fighting. But it’s also a neo-noir-thriller, and rests just as comfortably in the mystery/thriller mould as it does sci-fi. It’s definitely a hybrid-genre read and should appeal to a pretty broad audience.

And it has, hasn’t it? Reviewers and awards panels have been very complimentary.
CONVERGENCE  placed as a quarter-finalist in the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award 2013 contest. Publisher’s Weekly called it a “smart splice of espionage and science fiction. … frighteningly realistic.”

Getting back to the story, tell us about Jonah Everitt.
Jonah Everitt is the narrator. He’s also a killer, an addict, and a memory thief. His wife died on the eve of the war for California, before they even really knew the country was at war, and he’s been struggling to keep his daughter in his life after having to do some bad things to survive.

He does wet-work for Alice Xie, a Chinese gangster, who has hired him to kill a general in the Pacific Rim Coalition occupying LA and to steal his memories. Jonah takes the job without much thought. Snuff mems like these are illegal, and can replicate the sensory experience of death giving the users a psychedelic high. Jonah’s only looking for a new score, but Alice… Alice has some deeper designs on these memories, which hold the key to solving her own family’s death during the war’s early days.

Have you written any other books that we should read next?
None that are published! I am, however, hard at work on my second book, so buy CONVERGENCE and keep an eye out for what comes next!

How can we do that? Have you got a website?
Yes! Head-on over to http://michaelpatrickhicks.com and stay tuned for news on Book 2 and random blog posts about whatever strikes my fancy.

What about social media?
Tweet to and follow @MikeH5856

Point your browsers to my FB page and hit Like at http://www.facebook.com/authormichaelpatrickhicks.

Tell us a bit about yourself.
I’ve been writing forever, and it’s always been my dream job since I was in high school way too many years ago now. Before going the indie route, I was a probation officer, and then made the career change to freelance photojournalist and full-time office staff, while also writing comic book reviews. I guess it’s been kind an eclectic decade for me career-wise. In addition to writing, I’m a big reader and avid video game player. I’m married. I have a cat. What else do you want to know? Drop me a line and I’ll discuss anything that’s not classified or top secret.

How easily do new storylines come to you? If we give you four random words 
– Man, Woman, Mexico, Future – can you give us a brief storyline?
In the near future, cartel warfare has spilled across the border and international relations between Mexico and the US are rapidly fraying. Caroline Jacobsen has the key to preventing an inevitable conflict, but the secrets trapped inside her skull promise certain death for many. If she can be found.

Edward Marcus has been hired to track her down, and in order to discover her whereabouts, he’ll have to get close to her old CIA handler, a man who has been drummed out of the Agency and disavowed, and who is hungry to put his Texan militia to the ultimate test.

One man wants war. Another will do anything to stop it. And Caroline? She just wants a stiff drink and a one-way ticket out of the States. And she’ll kill whoever gets in her way.

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