THE SEED OF CORRUPTION received a 4+ star review, making it an IndieReader Approved title.
Following find an interview with author A.I.Fabler. His 2021 novel Agenda 2060 was described by Kirkus Reviews as ‘A laser-focussed, irresistible lampoon of woke culture’, and won the 2022 IndieReader Discovery Award for Popular Fiction.
A noir murder-mystery set in seventies New York titled A Song for Leonard is due to be published later in the year.
What is the name of the book and when was it published?
THE SEED OF CORRUPTION. Paperback and Hardcover published July, 20 2022
Kindle published September 1, 2022
What’s the book’s first line?
“In the deserted foyer of the Grand Rivière Hotel on the western bank of …”
What’s the book about? Give us the “pitch”.
A chance meeting of two strangers in a deserted French hotel in the Mekong Delta starts them on a journey together; he in search of a forged painting, and she in pursuit of an NGO assignment in Vietnam’s Northern Highlands. While flirting with the idea of a romance, they stumble into a remote world gripped by fear and death as a SARS epidemic breaks out. As the epidemic rapidly spreads, they find themselves embroiled in a high-stakes international conspiracy involving corrupt charities, unscrupulous drug companies, and foreign agencies.
What inspired you to write the book? A particular person? An event?
In 2004 I made a journey through Vietnam collecting material to support a story exposing corruption in an international Non-Governmental Organisation I had been following. My journey coincided with the outbreak of the coronavirus known as Bird Flu, or SARS. What I learned about the complicity between Big Pharma and the international health agencies led me away from my original storyline in a way that had remarkable echoes in what took place when Covid-19 arrived.
What’s the main reason someone should really read this book?
The parallels between 2003 and 2019 are striking, particularly in the way in which open reporting is suppressed in favour of a narrative that supports the often corrupt alliance between corporate and state elites. Fiction can explore the moral and ethical crimes more vividly than journalism allows. The reader who shares the conflicts and emotions of the central characters needs little convincing about the rights and wrongs underscoring events.
What’s the most distinctive thing about the main character? Who-real or fictional-would you say the character reminds you of?
Anton Faraday is a reclusive painter and not at all suited to dealing with the dangers they encounter. He is an anti-hero. Caroline Brinkley, however, is determined, resolute, and a very modern young woman. Readers may be reminded of Justin and Tessa Quale in John Le Carré’s “The Constant Gardener”.