Mark Budman

Mark Budman

About

Mark Budman's works have appeared or are about to appear in such magazines as Weird  Tales,  Mississippi  Review, Virginia Quarterly, The London Magazine,  Iowa Review,  McSweeney's, Turnrow,  Connecticut   Review,  WW Norton anthology "Flash Fiction  Forward," and elsewhere. He is the publisher of a flash fiction magazine Vestal Review. His novel "My Life at First Try" has just been published by Counterpoint Press, the anthology "You Have Time for this" he has co-edited came out in November 2007 from Ooligan Press, and a yet untitled anthology is forthcoming in 2009 from Persea Books.

Dark Pursuit (Emily Stone Series Book 5)

Dark Pursuit (Emily Stone Series Book 5)

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Description

<p>AWARD WINNER for ACTION - 2015 International Book Awards Readers' Favorite<br />SECOND PLACE AWARD WINNER - 2015 East Texas Writers Guild First Chapter Book Awards<br /><br />Vigilante detective Emily Stone has covertly hunted down killers and closed more serial cases than most seasoned homicide cops combined. Her exceptional profiling skills and forensic techniques, along with deductive crime scene investigations, have made her a compelling force that cannot be beat.<br />She has reached her ultimate breaking point and now must face her toughest opponent yet – her biggest fears.<br /><br />With preciseness, the Tick-Tock Killer has taken his next child victim and promised to dump the body precisely four days later, mocking police and the community. Stone struggles to balance her inner demons and ghosts from the past, against the wits of a brutal and cunning serial killer in an all-out battle of psychological warfare.<br /><br />Can Stone save the next child in time? Dark Pursuit is an action-packed cat and mouse game that will take you to dark places rarely explored.<br /><br /><br />From the Award-winning Emily Stone Thriller Series:<br /><br />“… a highly recommended pick!” The Midwest Book Review<br /><br />“Intriguing alpha female character… impressive action scenes.” Kirkus Reviews<br /><br />“The writing is impeccable and the story is fresh and tight.” Best Selling Author Gary Ponzo<br /> </p>

Story Behind The Book

Reviews

<p>Mark Budman has a pitch-perfect ear for the rhythms and sounds of English filtered through the hypervigilant sensibilities of an immigrant. The narrator's mordantly witty, deadpan account of his life is told in short discrete segments like a string of linked stories, and the cumulative power of this voice drives the novel from first page to last. Mark Budman is a powerful, exciting, and original writer, and &quot;My Life At First Try&quot; deserves recognition and success. </p> <p><em>Katharine Weber, the author of &quot;Triangle&quot; and &quot;The Little Women&quot;</em><br /> </p> <hr style="width:100%;height:2px;" /> <p>Just when you think you've seen enough autobiographic novels, Budman's debut makes you thankful you kept the door open. In prose that is simultaneously droll and sincere, unflappable yet laced with pathos, this is a book that will stay with you not in pithy quotes but as the texture of an experience.</p> <p><em>Cris Mazza, the author of &quot;Waterbaby&quot; and &quot;Homeland&quot;</em></p> <hr style="width:100%;height:2px;" /> <p>Mark Budman’s &quot;My Life at First Try,&quot; is smart and funny and compelling, and in an era when both the immigrant experience and the resurgent aggression of the once-Soviet Russia are central issues, the novel is timely, as well.  This is a splendid debut by an important new American voice.</p> <p><em>Robert Olen Butler, a Pulitzer Prize winner, the author of &quot;Intercourse&quot; and &quot;Severance&quot;</em></p> <hr style="width:100%;height:2px;" /> <p><em>From Publisher's Weekly:</em></p> <p>This blazingly fast and funny &quot;semi-autobiographical&quot; novel follows a Russian man's comically earnest pursuit of the American dream. As a child, Alex, living in 1950s Siberia with his parents and grandparents, sees a picture of his American-born second cousin, Annie, and he believes he has found his destiny. Throughout his formative sexual experiences, he fantasizes about Annie, who embodies the exoticness of Western culture and the wholesomeness of the American dream. By the late 1970s, when Alex's parents decide to decamp for the U.S., Alex packs up his wife and their young daughter, too, and after the trio land in upstate New York, Alex goes to work at the IBM-like HAL Corporation while his wife, Lyuba, an internist, takes longer to settle in. At first, Alex is content with his new freedom-loving democratic identity, but as his children grow and Lyuba becomes more independent the dream begins to lose its sheen. The novel is hilarious, eye-opening and, by the end, a little depressing. It's tough not to have Alex's buoyant energy rub off on the reader.</p> <hr style="width:100%;height:2px;" /> <p><em>From Kirkus Review:</em> </p> <p>A funny, little-seen version of the American dream.</p> <hr style="width:100%;height:2px;" /> <p><em>From Booklist:</em></p> <p>Readers who enjoy a fast-paced narrative will take pleasure in Alex’s inquisitive journey.</p> <hr style="width:100%;height:2px;" /> <p><em> <a href="http://m.people.com/detail.jsp?key=1018800&amp;rc=books">From People Magazine</a>:</em></p> <p>A mordant dreamer, the protagonist of this first novel is deliciously at odds with his comrades in Russia; in college, the son of Jewish refugees disses a Chechen brute and barely escapes a mugging. ... this soulful tale about a perpetual outsider marks a debut well worth celebrating.</p> <hr style="width:100%;height:2px;" /> <p><a href="http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/12/12/RV90149LTC.DTL">From San Francisco Chronicle</a>:<br /> <br /> Life zips by, a cascade of events that we can barely assimilate. If we have enough time to jot down even a few well-made observations - and there are more than a few in this entertaining novel -- that will have to suffice. </p> <hr style="width:100%;height:2px;" /> <p><em><a href="http://www.boston.com/ae/books/articles/2009/01/11/a_juggernaut_unleashed/">From the Boston Globe:</a></em></p> <p>Budman's description of his attempt to become an even more exotic specimen - himself - in the USSR and later in the United States, may be more memoir than fiction, but the novel's exuberance demolishes such boundaries.<br /> </p> <hr style="width:100%;height:2px;" /> <p><em><a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/story/2008/12/19/ST2008121901680.html">From The Washington Post:</a></em></p> <p>He's an endearing narrator, who plunges into idiomatic English with a winning sense of fun at his own expense and just a touch of that wonderful Russian accent. &quot;I'm an indestructible charm machine,&quot; he tells us, &quot;smooth and naturally well-oiled.&quot; Through high school and then engineering college, he wages a &quot;private war against the internal enemy -- my own virginity.&quot;<br /> <br /> </p> <hr style="width:100%;height:2px;" /> <p><em><a href="http://www.timeout.com/chicago/articles/books/70556/my-life-at-first-try-by-mark-budman">From Time Out Chicago:</a></em></p> <p>Budman tells his story (it’s admittedly semi-autobiographical) in tight, tiny vignettes, a form he’s accustomed to as the publisher of the flash-fiction magazine <em>Vestal Review</em>. Told in such short sections, the story comes through in patches that, over time, enmesh, overlap and weave together into a rich, if haggard, story of a life.. </p>