Aging gray market dealer Asa Cire may not know exactly who he is or why he’s here, but he does know one thing: He’s going to find the murderer of the teenage girl haunting his visions, regardless of the cost.
Aided by Buddhist adept Tanya Ito and street-smart Neveah Arias, Asa tries to unravel the mystery surrounding the decades-old murder. His only leads are a small town drug dealer and a stolen manuscript that nobody can decipher.
Stalked by a Chinese mob that wants its manuscript back and the killer who wants to put Asa at the bottom of the river, Asa dodges disaster until he faces the brutal truth: To bring justice to the girl, he will have to die. Twice.
A woman shows up at Asa's house days before a storm is supposed to hit. The woman is suspicious and cagey about her business with him and she leaves before revealing anything. Asa tries to forget about the incident, but later that night he is plagued by a strange vision of a dead teenage girl. Later, upon visiting a friend in the historical society, Asa learns that the girl was named Elle Anderson and that she was the victim of an unsolved murder twenty years earlier.
Asa is not a detective, but something about the vision of the girl touches his heart and he decides to try to find her killer and solve her murder. However, the path forward becomes more complicated than Asa could have ever imagined, and he has to rely on help from his friends to help Elle and help himself in the process.
There is a lot to love about this novel. Asa is a great character, whose knowledge of strange and interesting facts really adds an extra layer that makes the whole book sing. I can't imagine how much research Avery Jenkins must have had to do to write this, but it definitely shows without being overbearing. Another thing that makes this story great? The side characters. Neveah, Asa's sassy and fun employee at his store and Tanya, his friend, yoga teacher and possible romantic partner were two of my favorites. The energy that they brought helped flesh out the small-town vibe and complete the whole atmosphere. I give it 5 out of 5 stars!
You have written as a journalist and essays. Now that you have written your first novel,
how does it differ?
Oh my word, it was like going from
riding a tricycle to a bicycle. Writing a novel is an enormously complex
project, with many things all going on at once and you have to keep track of
absolutely everything, from theme to plot to character arc to what kind of
cigar the rabbi smokes. Mind-bending.
My most memorable experience when
writing Dark River occurred when I had just finished writing an early
chapter. I had plotted the book out beforehand, and Event A had to happen in
this chapter so that Events B and C would make sense later on.
I finished the chapter, looked
back and realized that Event A didn’t happen. What the hell? Then, in my mind,
the two characters spoke up saying, “eh, we weren’t that interested.” From that
point on, a lot of what I did as a writer was try to keep the novel from going
completely off the rails as the characters started doing their own thing.
Describe yourself in five words
Compassionate, curious,
introspective, irascible, determined
How do you work through self-doubts and fear?
I’m a Daoist. I meditate daily,
during which time I feel I become more in alignment with the Tao. And when I’m
aligned with the universe around me, what is there to fear? Sometimes I will do
another form of meditation during which I examine the thoughts that arise
naturally when I empty my mind of meaningless chatter. That enables me to
comprehend the underlying roots of my fears and anxieties, which reduces their
impact on my mental state.
I’ve also trained in the martial
art of aikido since the 1980s. Though I do not live in an environment where
violent conflict is likely, it affects my attitude just as I go through my day.
I don’t walk with a swagger, but I walk with confidence, knowing that I
understand the vocabulary of conflict, whether physical, verbal or emotional,
and that I have at my disposal a vast range of techniques with which I can
respond. There is truth in the old trope that training in Eastern martial arts,
particularly the internal ones, translates into different behavior outside of the
dojo.
Finally, I’m in my sixties, and
I’ve lived a fairly active life. I can draw upon those experiences and see the
similarities to problems I am currently facing. Often this approach works
better in theory than in practice. We humans are awfully good at walking down
the street and falling in the same damn pothole time after time.
What motivates you to write?
So that my voice can be heard. I
grew up as the youngest child of three, in a family of strong personalities.
During my childhood, I often felt that I just was not being listened to. As an
adolescent, I turned to writing as a means of expressing myself.
Turns out I was good at it, and
that evolved into a career as a journalist. I eventually became a freelancer,
and wrote for multiple magazines and newspapers. One of the reasons I was
successful was because I had a gift for editorial mimicry. Whenever I would get
an assignment from a new editor, I would ask them to send me a copy of the best
article their magazine had ever published. I would soak up that style, and then
replicate it when I wrote the assignment.
But I always disliked that it was
not my voice I was writing in, but someone else’s. Writing Dark River
is the first time in my life that my voice, unencumbered, has been published.
And that’s quite the emotional rush for me. I’m certain I will do it again.
What are you most proud of in your personal life?
My daughters and my marriage.
I have had the enormous good
fortune to have raised two extraordinarily talented, strong daughters who are
each in their individual ways making the world a better place. Daughter #1 graduated from college, kissed my
wife and I on the cheek, and took herself off on a five-year tour of the world,
where she lived with and photographed people living on the edges of war or in
the depths of poverty. Her photography is stunning, and brings to life the
people who are often forgotten and left behind. Daughter #2, she of the huge heart,
became a kindergarten teacher, introducing children to new skills, new ideas,
and instilling in them a sense of community and caring for others. I couldn’t
be prouder of these two women and my part in their becoming.
My wife and I just celebrated 30 years
of marriage. She’s a trial attorney and I am by nature independent and cranky.
It takes work – a lot of work – for two people like us to make a go of it for
the long term, and when I look at her today, I see not only the beautiful young
woman that I married but also the wise and powerful woman that she is today. I
see reflected in her eyes, as she sees in mine, the trials, troubles and joy
that we have shared. It’s all been worth it.
What books did you love growing up?
As most authors will tell you, I
became a voracious reader as soon as I learned how to turn a page. As a boy in
the 1960s, I devoured books by writers who were to become the classic authors of science fiction
– Asimov, Heinlein, Bradbury. I also loved fiction involving magic and fantasy
– Lord of the Rings, of course, as well as the Narnia books, and
the Tales of Magic series by Edward Eager. The latter was a series of
short books about cousins who stumble into magical adventures, and was my
introduction to what is now called contemporary fantasy. I have little doubt
that I drew upon that early exposure in writing Dark River.
As a young man living on my own in
Boston, I discovered Robert B. Parker’s Spenser novels. For better or
worse, Spenser became a model for me as I molded my own identity as a man.
Parker’s gift of terse action writing and witty dialogue had a large influence
in how I approached the characters and conversations in Dark River.
Location and life experiences can really influence
writing, tell us where you grew up and where you now live?
I grew up in southwest Ohio. The
day after my last high school class I boarded a train for Boston and didn’t
look back. For a few years I built and reconstructed trails in the White
Mountains for the Appalachian Mountain Club, worked for a family-owned
lumbering company, and generally lived the life of a modern lumberjack.
I subsequently moved down to
Virginia to go to college. I dropped out, lived in the Pacific Northwest for a while and then returned to Ohio where I
had been accepted into a unique interdisciplinary studies program at Miami
University in Oxford. As soon as I graduated, I returned to Boston because I
had fallen deeply in love with New England and I have spent the rest of my life
here. I now live in a rural town in northwest Connecticut.
Nemaseck, the small town in which
Dark River takes place, is an amalgam of several of the New England small
towns I have lived in and takes some of its characters from the people in them.
If you could have a dinner party and invite anyone
dead or alive, who would you ask?
This may end up being the dinner party from hell, but I would first
invite Robert B. Parker and Ernest Hemingway, as they have had the most
influence on how I write. I would invite Samuel Clemens because the man knew how
to tell a story with humor and meaning and hard-headed compassion.
To round out the table, I would set plates for Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
and political philosopher Hannah Arendt.
The seating arrangements would be astronomically difficult and the
whole affair might end with the police being called, but the stories from such
a soiree would be worth it.
--------
These have been delightful and thought-provoking questions to answer! Thank you for the opportunity. – Avery Jenkins
Dr. Avery Jenkins is a former award-winning journalist and essayist who took a 25-year break from the writing world to become a chiropractor and acupuncturist. He holds a 2nd degree black belt in the martial art of aikido and is in his final year of training to become a Daoist priest.
Dr. Jenkins lives in northwest Connecticut with his wife and two dogs of uncertain temperament. Dark River is his first novel.
Website: www.averyjenkinsauthor.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/averyjenkinsdc
Facebook Fan:https://www.facebook.com/DarkRiver06759
Twitter: https://twitter.com/avery_writer
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/averyauthor
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