Inside Passage
Book 1 of the Corey Logan Trilogy
by Burt Weissbourd
November 1-30, 2020 Tour
Synopsis:
Corey Logan was set up. She knows Nick Season’s terrible secret. Coming home from prison, all Corey wants is to be with her son. To get him back, she needs to make a good impression on the psychiatrist evaluating her. Dr. Abe Stein doesn’t believe she was framed — until his well-heeled mother falls for the charming state attorney general candidate, Nick Season. As the dogs of war are unleashed, Corey and her son run for their lives — taking her boat up the Pacific Northwest’s remote Inside Passage.
“A stunning, fast paced thriller that took me on an intense ride and kept me on the edge of myseat the entire way through … If you love beautifully executed thrillers that will play with your mind as well as your heart, this is the book for you.” ~ Midwest Book Review
Inside Passage is the first in Weissbourd’s haunting, heart-stirring Corey Logan Trilogy.
Click here to find out more about the Corey Logan Trilogy.
Book Details:
Genre: Crime Thriller
Published by: Blue City Press
Publication Date: October 20th 2020
Number of Pages: 290
ISBN: 1733438246 (ISBN13: 9781733438247)
Series:A Corey Logan Thriller, #1 || STAND ALONE MYSTERY
Purchase Links: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | IndieBound | Goodreads
Author Bio:
Burt Weissbourd is a novelist, screenwriter and producer of feature films. He was born in 1949 and graduated cum laude from Yale University, with honors in psychology. During his student years, he volunteered at the Museum of Modern Art in Paris and taught English to college students in Thailand. After he graduated, he wrote, directed, and produced educational films for Gilbert Altschul Productions. He began a finance program at the Northwestern University Graduate School of Business, but left to start his own film production company in Los Angeles. He managed that company from 1977 until 1986, producing films including Ghost Story starring Fred Astaire, Melvyn Douglas, John Houseman, Douglas Fairbanks Jr., and Patricia Neal, and Raggedy Man starring Sissy Spacek and Sam Shepard, which The New York Times called “a movie of sweet, low-keyed charm.” In 1987, he founded an investment business, which he still runs. Burt’s novels include the thrillers Danger in Plain Sight, The Corey Logan Trilogy (Inside Passage, Teaser and Minos), and In Velvet, a thriller set in Yellowstone National Park.
Q&A with Burt Weissbourd
What was the inspiration for this book?
Writing a woman who was very capable in the wilderness, on the water, in rough neighborhoods in the city, but not very self-aware, I wanted to write about how becoming more insightful would help her realize her capacity.
She’s a fisherwoman in Alaska, strong and capable in that wild water. She comes out of prison and has to get an evaluation by a psychiatrist in order to get her son back, and that relationship is the beginning of her path to becoming more introspective.
What has been the biggest challenge in your writing career?
The biggest challenge so far has not been the writing, but in marketing the books. The Corey Logan Trilogy were originally published by a small, capable publishing company run by a bright publisher. He got me started, listened to me about what the books should look like, He encouraged many, many book readings and signings in LA, NYC, Chicago, Boston, Bozeman MT, Yellowstone General Stores, Seattle, and so on. He supported me to interview more than 50 people—well-known movie people, prominent Seattleites, bookstore owners, other writers, TV personalities, accomplished Seattle architects, newspaper writers, and so on for his channel on blog talk radio. I liked him; I still like him. There was one problem for me—he wasn’t selling enough books.
Of course, anyone who knew publishing, knew that it was always possible that even if you had a great product, your publisher might not be able to sell that type of book. So, I decided to take the next, final step. I would control the final product, and for better or worse, I would decide how to sell it. So here I am, selling my new book, Danger in Plain Sight, then recovering and republishing all four of my earlier books. It’s too early to predict the outcome, but I’m hugely happy that I’m making the decisions and that my success will not depend on someone else’s product nor a hesitant or unconvinced publisher. I couldn’t be happier about the process so far, and as they say, “let the chips fall where they may.” I’m responsible. I’ll take the blame, or I’ll lead the celebration for the outcome.
What do you absolutely need while writing?
Free time and lack of distractions.
Do you adhere to a strict routine when writing or write when the ideas are flowing?
I try to write every day. I prefer a character-driven approach to writing. As a producer in Hollywood developing a screenplay, I always looked for stories with strong, complex characters and a “rich stew”—that is to say a situation with conflict, emotional intensity, and the potential to evolve in unexpected ways. That is exactly how I approach the books that I write. While some authors choose to map out their plots before all else, I choose to craft complex, unexpected characters first. From there, I write sequentially, allowing my characters to take the lead.
The most surprising and most satisfying part of writing for me has been how characters take over when you’re writing really well and go down unexpected paths to unintended, often more complex, more satisfying outcomes than you anticipated.
The most rewarding part of the entire writing process for me has been learning to write, rewrite, then rewrite again until I know that I’ve written precisely what I hoped for and found exactly the emotional complexity I was reaching for. And that all begins with clear, emotionally and mentally developed characters.
Who is your favorite character from your book and why?
My two favorite characters in Inside Passage are my protagonists, Corey and Abe. Corey is a strong woman who’s coped with painful, debilitating hardship. After serving 22 months for drug smuggling, a crime she didn’t commit, Corey Logan is finally released from a Federal Correctional Institution. All she wants now is to get her teenaged son out of foster care and make a home for the two of them in Seattle. But there’ll be a Psychiatric Evaluation first, with some shrink named Dr. Abe Stein, and assuming she gets by him, there’s the threat of Nick Season, the candidate for State Attorney General who set her up, tried to have her killed in prison, and now, more than ever, wants her out of the picture. Her problem—she can neither prove nor say what she knows, for fear of losing her son forever.
Corey is very able in the world, but she doesn’t do well with her feelings. She doesn’t talk about her inner life. In fact, she really doesn’t see insight as the first and essential step to solving problems. She’s never had a wonderful relationship with a partner. She’s not able to sort through and understand her emotional life. She’s not able to see how to make decisions that might dramatically change the reality she’s stuck in. But everything changes for her when she meets Dr. Abe Stein. The last man that Corey could ever imagine having a relationship with is Abe Stein. He’s distracted. He sideswipes cars. He sets fires in ash trays or in waste baskets, where he carelessly throws lit matches from his pipe. He’s uneasy on her boat because he can’t swim. He misjudges her at the start, not believing that she was framed. While it is Dr. Stein whose work with Corey liberates her, it is Corey who brings Abe back to life.
Who is your least favorite character from your book and why?
I don’t think I have a least favorite character in this book. Even the villains, though horrifying and unlikeable, become understandable. I strive to deepen the emotional lives of all my characters to their fullest extent, so much so that I enjoy writing all my characters, protagonists and antagonists alike.
Give us an interesting fun fact or a few about your book?
I’ve been a fly fisherman for many years, and I’ve been fishing up the Inside Passage. Much of those descriptions of that area are from my own experiences.
Do you have anything specific that you want to say to your readers?
Thank you, and I truly hope you enjoy the book.
Tell us a little about yourself and your background?
I came to Hollywood in 1977 to produce feature films. I was 28 years old. I didn’t know anyone in the movie business, but I’d stumbled onto a timely idea — I was going to work with, and most importantly, back screenwriters. That is to say, stand behind their work — and I say this with hindsight — protect them from being rewritten, include them in the process of choosing a director, casting the picture, all of the decisions that go into making a feature film.
Early in my producing career, I had the privilege of working with author Ross Macdonald, a legend in crime fiction, on his only screenplay. Working with him, I began to see how characters could drive plot.
I left Hollywood in 1987 — the golden age was over, and I wanted to write. With hindsight, the best screenplays I’d worked on never got made. Nevertheless, it was a great experience. As a producer developing a screenplay, you learn to look for stories with strong, complex characters and a “rich stew” — that is to say a situation with conflict, emotional intensity, and the potential to evolve in unexpected ways. That is exactly how I approach the books that I write. I learned how to do that as a producer working on screenplays.
What’s next that we can look forward to?
My next book, In Velvet, a wildlife thriller set in Yellowstone National Park, will be released in February of 2021.
I’m also finishing a book, ROUGH JUSTICE, I started years ago. It’s also a thriller, with a wide canvas going from Hollywood in the 80s and 90s to Seattle, Chicago, Paris, Vancouver Island, and then Laos. When I finish this, I intend to write the sequel to my novel DANGER IN PLAIN SIGHT when main characters Cash and Callie are together.
Catch Up With Burt Weissbourd:
BurtWeissbourd.com, Goodreads, BookBub, Instagram, Twitter, & Facebook!
Read an excerpt:
“Wouldn’t you like to get married in your own backyard?”
“Of course I would. You know that,” she snapped. “But I can’t.”
“Why not? Because Nick Season says you can’t. You have the right to live the life you want to live. Don’t give it up for that son of a bitch. Hell no. You don’t have to do that.” Abe leaned closer. There it was, those laser-like light blue eyes. “It won’t be easy, but together, we can figure out what to do. You and I can do this. We have to.”
“My God, what are you thinking? This isn’t like psycho-therapy.” She held his eyes. “We can’t ‘figure it out’ or ‘work on it.’ It’s not a head game. We have no evidence. Nothing. Nick’s a foolproof liar and a stone-cold killer. And he’s going to be Washington’s state attorney general.”
“And he has to be stopped.” Abe looked into their fire. “It’s not just about what you’d have to give up … think about what he’ll do if he ever finds out that you and Billy are alive. And though you might be okay for a year, or even two, eventually, he’ll start to wonder. And then to worry. It’s who he is. You’ve told me that. And then he’ll never stop checking. He’ll have me followed. Every year, he’ll run your prints, and Billy’s, through some Canadian database. And that’s just the beginning … unless we stop him.”
“And how do you propose to do that?”
Abe’s bushy brows furrowed in a “V” until they almost touched. “I understand the problem now.” They touched. Corey had never seen that. Very cool. He meant business. He turned to her, full face. “To begin, I’ll comb my hair and look this devil in his shiny black eyes.”
What? What was that? Corey was dumbstruck. Eventually, she softly mouthed, “What?” And louder, before he could answer, “Aren’t you afraid of him?”
“He’s very frightening, and I’m painfully aware of what’s at stake. And of course I see how very dangerous he is and yes, that scares me.” He scowled. “But I have other feelings that are even stronger than my fear.”
“What does that mean?”
“What I’m afraid of, what keeps me up at night, is losing you. Nick wants to kill the person I love most in the world. That makes him my archenemy, my nemesis. What I feel for Nick is inexhaustible rage.” He tapped his pipe against the log, emptying it into the sand, then he carefully set it down. When he looked up, his expression had turned fierce. Abe took both of her hands. “Nick Season be damned!”
“You’re being crazy.” She had never seen Abe like this.
“No, I’m telling you how I feel. I want to marry you Corey. I want to live with you and Billy in Seattle. I want to go to parent night at Billy’s school. I want to take you guys to dinner at Tulio and for pizza at Via Tribunali. I want to fish at your favorite spots near Bainbridge —”
“He’ll kill us all.” And Abe was really scaring her.
“I have to keep that from happening.”
“This isn’t a storybook. Nick isn’t like anyone you know. And this isn’t an insight kind of deal. Look what happened the last time you tried to help. They almost got Billy, and I had to kill someone. Look what almost happened last night. This time you and Billy and I, we could all die. Do you understand that?”
“Yes, I do. But I won’t let that happen.”
“Won’t let that happen?”
“No, I won’t.”
“How?”
“I’m working on that. “
“Working on it? How? You’re going to comb your hair? Look this devil in his shiny black eyes? What is that about?”
Abe considered her question. “It’s a way of starting.”
Corey put her head in her hands. She didn’t know what to say.
***
Excerpt from Inside Passage by Burt Weissbourd. Copyright 2020 by Burt Weissbourd. Reproduced with permission from Burt Weissbourd. All rights reserved.
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This is a rafflecopter giveaway hosted by Partners in Crime Virtual Book Tours for Burt Weissbourd. There will be 5 winners of one (1) Amazon.com Gift Card each. The giveaway begins on November 1, 2020 and runs through December 2, 2020. Void where prohibited.
