Tag: robert chazz chute

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Vigilante Justice and the American Healthcare Dilemma

The murder of a health insurance CEO in New York is an interesting moment in American history. It is a little surprising (but not shocking) how many people don’t care that this person was killed. (Read reactions to Brian Thompson’s killing on Huffpost here.)

I’m not condoning murder. However, the more you learn about the practices of his company, the more you understand the impulse to dismiss the crime with, “Oh, well.”

I write stories about vigilante justice.

I prefer those stories to stay within the confines of fiction.

I spoke with an American friend recently who needed medical tests. They had insurance, but the co-pay was usurious. Another American friend had a series of worrying symptoms. He couldn’t afford to visit a doctor. He had to choose groceries and rent over the possibility of a horrible death.

I see my doctor a few times a year. I couldn’t afford to be a hypochondriac in the United States. Medical bankruptcy is not a thing in Canada. Here, there are no such things as pre-existing conditions. We just call that your medical history.

Non-Americans look at the richest country in the world and wonder, “How are you okay with this?”

We rarely visit the United States. We wouldn’t consider stepping south of the border for a moment without medical travel insurance. Going without insurance is one thing. Paying for insurance and still not being able to access healthcare anyway is especially galling.

People feel the way they do about this murder for genuine reasons. This one rich man’s death will get much more attention than the deaths of others. His company’s policies deny care to people in need, but that is already known. It doesn’t seem the demise of so many patients will be investigated with half as much vigor as the CEO’s death.

I am so grateful for universal healthcare.

I have had surgery to save the vision in my left eye. In 2023, I had two hips replaced. The care was excellent and timely. The most I had to pay for all that excellent care was parking fees. There is nowhere on Earth where universal healthcare is perfect. I prefer less-than-perfect to the confusion and deceit present in the American healthcare system.

What does that murder mean, though?

This murder, this moment, is not a cultural shift on its own. It’s a symptom of a sick system. When justice fails, people give up on norms. This has been coming a long time. In the middle of a stump speech to a conservative crowd years ago, Ron Paul spoke of providing healthcare to the poor. “Should we let them die?” Paul expected a resounding no. Instead, someone yelled, “Yes!” The assembled burst into a round of applause.

This is an increasingly dangerous time. When empathy disappears, society fails.

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Endemic: A Survival Story of Strength and Identity

Endemic is an apocalyptic novel, but what is it really about?

Ovid Fairweather is a survivor in what remains of New York after the fall of civilization. A pandemic has killed billions worldwide. Many of those who survived their infection have reduced mental capacity. Marauders swarm the city hunting for Ovid because she has a secret garden and survival skills.

That description only addresses the plot, not the theme.

Many apocalyptic scenarios can be shallow. I’m not interested in watching a hyper-prepared former soldier mow down rivals for supplies. I initially enjoyed The Walking Dead, but the story lines became too repetitive and the tone too relentlessly grim, devoid of any humor.

All the protagonists in my books are underdogs. Ovid isn’t a soldier. She’s a bookworm. She’s intelligent, socially awkward, asexual, and on the spectrum. She could flee to the relative safety of her father’s farm in Maine, but her dad doesn’t understand her. She’s too stubborn to leave New York, and doesn’t want to deal with him.

That struggle with her father is where the theme of Endemic emerged.

Through adversity, Ovid grows stronger. Forced out of her shell by circumstance, she helps others. She’s been a nail all her life. The complications she faces will make her a hammer. Eventually, she’s destined to become a queen.

Ovid changes and improves, but in the end, she remains true to herself. She does not flee to safety. She stays to lead and to protect her found family. In the final analysis, Endemic is an action-adventure novel about how gradually people change and how they don’t.

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And now it’s time for more coffee and a book.

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When Justice Fails, Molly Won’t

When people ask me where I get my ideas, I have to say, “All around me.” From my impatience in long lines at the grocery store to my anger at an unjust world, there’s plenty to spur my bitter imagination.

Vengeance Is Hers is the origin story for a vigilante. Molly Jergins sees a fellow student at her high school assaulted. The bully receives no real consequences. Molly launches a one-woman campaign get the bully and his awful family banished from Poeticule Bay, Maine. She’s only in high school, but Molly has found her life’s calling.

The novel is about Good versus Evil and where the line between the two blurs. It’s about growing up in a town too small for your big dreams. I also include a lot of ideas on how to get back at people who deserve your wrath.

The manuscript is with the editor. We’ll do three rounds of edits and polishing, plus the excellent work of beta readers. Launching in early 2025! Please stand by!

I repeat: This is not an instruction book! But….

Okay, yes, you can expect a lot of clever ideas of how to exact vengeance upon your many, many enemies. Where do I get those strategies? Mostly from my imagination. A woman on TikTok gave me an idea about how to best plague an enemy with the stench of sour milk. Listening to The Daily Zeitgeist podcast gave me some fresh fun on the helpful dangers of bouncy castles. I thank those influences in the Acknowledgments section at the back of the book.

Mostly, I think a lot about the people who have wronged me or someone else and contemplate what might be a useful weapon I could pick up at any hardware store. You will, too. It’s fun fiction

Vengeance Is Hers is still in the editing process. If you can’t wait for an excellent story of vigilante justice, read The Night Man now.

The Night Man cover

Easy Jack isn’t a bad guy, but to survive, he will have to act like one.

“You’re guaranteed a mighty fine read.” ~ Claude Bouchard, USA Today Bestselling author of the Vigilante Series.

From the author of the Hit Man Series comes a new killer thriller.

Returning home after serving his country, Ernest “Easy” Jack hoped his family’s reputation had been forgotten. No such luck in Lake Orion. Small towns have long memories. Grudges run deep. Worse, his high school sweetheart is trapped in an abusive marriage. Family bonds, love and loyalty will be tested when a sociopathic billionaire and a dirty cop conspire to use Easy in a deadly bomb plot.

Escape is unlikely. Easy’s odds are not even.

BUY THE NIGHT MAN NOW
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Vengeance is Hers: A Gripping Tale of Vigilante Justice

COMING IN EARLY 2025!


If you can’t forgive and forget, what’s next?

When a fellow student is attacked and run out of town, police and the school administration in Poeticule Bay, Maine prove useless. Enraged, Molly Jergins launches a campaign of vigilante justice against the school bully. 

As threats and vandalism escalate to a war ending in death, the line between right and wrong blur. Molly tries to be good, but when hunting monsters, she will be safer if she becomes a better monster.

Revenge is the best success.

Robert Chazz Chute is a former crime and science journalist for newspapers and magazines. A graduate of the University of King’s College and the Banff Publishing Workshop, Robert has won fifteen awards for his writing. He pens suspenseful crime fiction with muscle and apocalyptic tales with heart. His hidden headquarters is a blanket fort in Other London. Vengeance is Hers is his twenty-ninth book. 

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How I Got the Best Sleep of My Life

Every exercise, diet, and brain performance guru tells you to prioritize sleep. Where their advice often falls down is the how of it. Last night, I had the best sleep since the womb. I’m going to tell you how. I’m not a doctor. Consult your own. I can only tell you what worked for me.

I have two sleep disorders, so when I went to a sleep specialist, I was hoping for easy answers. He had lots of answers, and they were easy. They just weren’t entirely effective.

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I got the usual advice first.

Since my sleep apnea was under control, the sleep specialist gave me the same suggestions to improve sleep that you’ll find on any listicle:

Exercise, but not too close to bedtime.
When you’re sleepy, go to bed like an adult
(or a toddler forced to go to bed).
Keep the bedroom cool and dark.
Cut off screen time a couple of hours before bed.
Avoid excess stimulation in the evening.
Wind down with a book. (As a writer, I highly encourage this.)
Ditch heavy meals late in the day.
Avoid caffeine after noon.
Try a warm shower an hour or so before bed.
If you can’t sleep, get up, move to another location, and read something until you’re sleepy
Reduce stress.

Try again.

I am a hot sleeper, so I’ve tried cooling blankets and all manner of cooling pillows. None of them stay cool for very long. I’ve even tried ice packs in the bed. All to little or no avail. Every morning, two of my four pillows are on the floor, the sheets are twisted into nooses, and it looks like I lost a fight with ghosts and demons.

What worked for me.

  • I upped my magnesium intake, including a magnesium cream 30 minutes before bed.
  • I had a CBN edible. (This one has no THC or CBD in it, though I’ve found that can help.)
  • The newest additions to my sleep strategies were (a) noise-canceling earbuds made of silicone, and (b) silicone tubes in the nostrils.

The noise reduction was significant. All I could hear was my own breathing. I’d tried nose strips before, but they did nothing for me. With the tubes in my nose, my sinuses opened up to nice cool air. I could sleep with my mouth closed, and I slept deeply. I also knocked out for much longer than usual without interruption.

I will grant you, these are not sexy strategies. However, I woke up refreshed and greeted my wife with, “It’s a beautiful world, full of beautiful people doing beautiful things!” And I had a productive day. It was a good day. Good days are sexy, especially when you are unused to good days.

It’s early evening as I write this. I have enough time and energy before bed to go over suggestions from beta readers for my next novel. It’s nice to have more energy for that, too.

Shoveled twice again this morning. It’s beautiful, but the snow on either side of my driveway is beginning to get so high, I’m throwing snow high in the air and getting quite a workout.
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How to Add Value to Novels

In my previous post, I discussed replay value as it applies to novels. What else can we do to delight, entertain, and enchant readers?

I have a couple of ideas to excite readers.

My first suggestion is so dead easy, you’ll wonder why you haven’t done it already! In the back matter of your novel, include a list of questions to stimulate discussion. For whom? For book clubs, of course!

In Vengeance Is Hers, I added a list of questions to get book clubbers talking and possibly arguing. The hardest part of getting a book club on track is keeping everyone on task, reading the books, and not devolving into a wine club. (There is nothing wrong with wine clubs, but I’m talking about getting more readers on board.) Make it easy for book club organizers to choose your novel for their next read. When everything else is in order, this is an easy add-on.

The second enhancement is harder to do and not always scalable, but it would entice more readers.

If you’ve spent any time on TikTok’s Booktok, you’ve seen videos of books with spray-painted edges. Some of them are really beautiful. I love gilded edges. Some edges continue or are consistent with the jacket design.

If you have an artistic streak with a paintbrush, you could elevate your game by decorating the edges and shipping special editions directly. There are other options, like using stickers. Most authors will probably try the DIY approach.

A quick Google search reveals a bunch of companies that will pretty up your edges for you. The first time I heard of this, the author added to the print specs so the printer could add edge art or messages. For direct shipping special editions, selling on Etsy, or to enhance your in-person sales, I see the value in artful edges.

Want more on this? Here’s a place to start:

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Write Drunk, Edit Slightly Tipsy, Wow the Fans

Hemingway said, “Write drunk, edit sober.” I say, stop being such a chicken. Take more risks.

In my fiction, I look for opportunities to do innovative and unexpected things. The chapter titles to This Plague of Days trilogy aren’t just numbers. Go to the table of contents, and the chapters form an epic poem that hints at the complex events across the narrative. Is that weird? I don’t care if it’s weird. The clues to the story are there, but it’s actually more fun for the reader to go back to read that poem again after they’ve completed the trilogy. They’ll gain a deeper understanding once they’ve read the story. (In gaming, they call that replay value.)

In my new thriller, every chapter title is one word that ends in -ion, and relates to what’s happening in that chapter. For instance, instead of Copyright, Table of Contents, and About the Author, you get Notification, Configuration, and Confession, respectively. (And yes, there really are that many useful words with the -ion suffix.)

Some publishers would clutch their pearls at such deviations from the norm. Who cares? I am the helmsman on this voyage, and I say we skip the Panama Canal and risk the storms around the Cape of Good Hope. No one remembers a voyage over calm seas.

Have you got anything besides title tricks, Rob?


Sure. Proper editing ensures that we communicate well and do not confuse readers in our efforts to entertain them. I’m not getting in the way of that, but I will deliver the unexpected. Editors make prose clear, not safe. Who said it was supposed to be safe? To quote another sage of our age, Captain James Tiberius Kirk insisted, “Risk is our business.” Put another way: Let’s be interesting. Resurrect old idioms. Come up with new idioms. Experiment with expressions that have never existed in real life. (Not yet, anyway. I’m hoping some of my innovations catch on.)

I look at Papa’s advice with the same dim view as, “Kill your darlings.” That mindset done too broadly will eliminate your most clever stuff. Inside jokes can be okay. That’s the writer writing for themselves and the die-hard fans. As long as you don’t disappear up your own metaphorical butt, it works a treat. “Works a treat” is a dated British expression some beta reads would flag. Leave it in. They are readers, so assume they’re smarter than stale toast. Trust them to pick up context clues. Free yourselves! Break the rusty chains of the Olde Gods!

Readers who aren’t in the know will skip right by sub-references.

In 1985, I met with the great science fiction writer Spider Robinson. I was a fan, but I hadn’t read all of his stuff yet. He sat me down over coffee and spoke of his origins as a writer. He looked very serious as he opined something like, “I was on my bed, naked, with some good tunes on the stereo, a drink in one hand, some hash in the other, and a book in my lap. It occurred to me that I was bored.” So Spider decided to write his own novels instead of just reading them.

Only after I read more of his work did I run across those words in one of his novels. I didn’t know it at the time, but he was quoting himself. Good on him. When you’ve got good words, don’t give the same speech once.

On Black Friday, I visited Villains, the companion shop to Heroes, the best comics shop in Other London. I bypassed the men-in-tights stuff of my youth and went straight to the indie publishers’ offerings. On the hunt for fresh and interesting stories, I found them. Think in terms of Harvey Pekar’s American Splendor. Or lush watercolors without a single line of dialogue that still tells a story. I’m a fan of Iron Man, but you can’t say Marvel and DC are taking risks. Their products are dependable, but you won’t experience many new flavors.

Writers, take risks. Readers, please indulge us. We’ll make it more fun for both of us.

Now about those pictures

Last night, I could not sleep. With an appointment to get to this morning, I decided to do battle the snowstorm. The first snowfall has always been a tentative thing, a warning of what’s to come. It’s Motherhumping Nature asking, “Have you got your snow tires yet? Did you remember to pull the snow shovels from the shed?” (Yes, to the first question, negatory on the second, dammit.) No mere warning this time, though. Got a big dump of snow that is still pummeling us as I write this.

At 4:45 a.m., I was out there slinging it, testing my new hip. Worked fine and barely raised my heart rate. I shoveled about a foot of snow. By the time I was done that and had cleaned off the car, I had to shovel again. Dug a fresh six inches at 8:45 a.m. Saints preserve us, winter is here. I prefer palm trees, but I do like how quiet the landscape becomes once the sharp edges and hard surfaces are soundproofed under a thick blanket of snow.

And when it gets very cold — Moon cold — the snow squeaks underfoot. Of course, by then, I’m afraid to go outside and hide in my blanket fort, writing the next novel.