The first Burn Zone print review - Posted2/11/2008 7:38:10 PM
Book review: Burn Zone by James O. Born
Oline H. Cogdill | Mystery columnist
February 10, 2008
Burn Zone. James O. Born. Putnam. $25.95. 320 pp.
While Florida bulges with excellent mystery writers, each has found his or her own niche. Lake Worth author James O. Born has become the go-to guy for action-packed procedurals brimming with well-developed components of the thriller and the adventure novel.
In Burn Zone, Born's focus returns to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives as he continues the story of agent Alex Duarte, who made his debut in last year's superb Field of Fire. Born ratchets up the suspense in an accelerated plot that takes hairpin curves at a breathless rate while also delivering a novel about power, greed and racism. Born also shows how not giving up and acknowledging emotions can make a person stronger.
Born, an agent with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, draws on his insider's view of police work to create a realistic story.
Alex is hoping his next assignment leads to a promotion in the ATF. He and agents from the DEA and FBI are off to New Orleans where a mysterious Panamanian named Ortiz is supposed to be bringing in a huge load of marijuana and some guns. The shadowy Ortiz is a wealthy and vicious man who has never forgiven the United States for its treatment of his country. He has more in mind than a simple drug trade.
What starts as a routine assignment soon evolves into a matter of national security as a white supremacist and a Panamanian colonel become involved. As Alex's relationships with the two agents assigned to the case changes, he begins to wonder about their loyalties as the assignment takes him cross country.
But Burn Zone isn't just one big chase. Born subtly weaves in Alex's personal problems, including his attraction to a forensic scientist, adding texture and heart to Burn Zone.
Born's fifth novel showcases his skills at character development and authentic suspense. The laconic Alex is a conflicted hero whose entire life has been as an outsider and this transfers to his job. He grew up in a close-knit Paraguayan family in West Palm Beach — he and his lawyer brother live in an apartment over their parents' garage — but he never learned to speak Spanish. As a soldier, he was a bomb expert in Bosnia, a role that crops up frequently in his ATF job.
Born is equally carefull in shaping villains, showing them as human. Ortiz never gains our sympathy but grabs our attention, especially when he becomes increasingly out of control. Without using gimmicks, Born shows how bad guys can be dumb and dangerous.
Burn Zone's action switches from Panama to South Florida, New Orleans and Texas with aplomb.
Born's first three novels featured FDLE agent Bill Tasker, who shares Alex's dedication. Escape Clause, the third novel in that series, won the 2007 Florida Book Award.
Burn Zone should earn Born more accolades.
Meet the author
James O. Born will discuss Burn Zone at the following venues:
7 p.m. Friday at Murder on the Beach, 273 Pineapple Grove Way, Delray Beach, 561-279-7790.
Born also will be among the authors at Sleuthfest, the mystery writers conference Feb. 28-March 2 at the Deerfield Beach Hilton. For info, visit mwa-florida.org/sleuthfest.htm, or e-mail SleuthFestRandy@yahoo.com.
Born also has several March signings set; visit jamesoborn.com
A new movie!!! - Posted2/4/2008 8:22:00 PM
Pneumatics and Mnemonics.
This is my effort to try something new and perhaps a little less harsh than Literature and Lead.
Feel free to let me know what you think.
Here's a direct link if you prefer:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rsumD8NefKs
Schedule for Burn Zone signings - Posted1/19/2008 10:41:55 PM
2/15 – Murder on the Beach, Delray Beach 7 PM
2/16 – Circle Books, Sarasota, 1 PM
2/16 – Haslam’s Books, St Petersburg 4:30 PM
2/17 – Barnes &Nobles, Ft. Myers 1 PM
2/17 – Borders, Naples 4 PM
2/19 – Books & Books, Coral Gables 8 PM
2/20 – Borders, Boca Raton 7 PM
2/22 – South Carolina Book Festival 3 days
2/25 – Coffee Buy the Book, Roswell, GA 7:00 PM
2/26 – Bayou Books/ Library, Niceville, FL Evening
2/27 –Citrus County Library, Beverly Hills, FL, 1 PM
2/27 – The Muse, Deland, 6 PM
3/1 – Sleuthfest, Ft Lauderdale TBA
3/5 – Vero Beach Book Center, Vero Beach 7 PM
3/8 – Low Country Writers, Charleston S.C. TBA
3/8 -- Barnes and Noble, Charleston, SC
3/12 – SW Florida Museum fundraiser Evening
3/15 – Ninth Annual Southwest Florida Reading Festival TBA
3/18 –Barnes & Noble, Wellington 7PM
3/19 – Barnes & Noble, Plantation 7 PM
3/22 – Hooked on Books, Islamorada 1 PM
3/22 -- Moore Books, Key Largo 4 PM
3/26 – Poisoned Pen, Scottsdale, AZ 7 PM
3/27 – Murder By The Book, Houston, TX
3/28 – Virginia Festival of Books, 4 PM
4/4 – Vero Beach Literacy Foundation
4/5 – Naples Press Club Writer's Conference
4/22 – Florida Library Association
My short film - Posted12/12/2007 10:59:42 PM
I combined my work as a police officer with my dreams of being a book critic to make a short film which is posted on Youtube
Last year's novel, Escape Clause, has won the gold medal in the inaugural Florida Book Awards. I travelled to Tallahassee on March 28th to accept the award.
I'm thirlled to have won the award. I am especially happy because the jury was composed of librarians. You guys know how I feel about librarians.
I am speaking at a number of libraries across the state during the entire year.
I will also attend a number of book festivals outside of Florida.
Thank you also to all of you who came out during the Field of Fire tour. I loved seeing everyone.
Best,
Jim B
Naked Authors - Posted7/16/2007 5:43:41 PM
Don't forget I am the Thursday blogger over at nakedauthors.com. I'm on with Patricia Smiley on Mondays, Paul Levine on Tuesday, Cornelia Read on Wednesdays and Jacqueline Wimspear blogging on Fridays.
We post on everything from writing to politics.
Drop by and have a look.
News Video - Posted2/12/2007 8:40:39 PM
My daughter has managed to post a local NBC segment about me and the books. It's up at http://www.myspace.com/jamesoborn
It's a hoot. Give it a look.
Our Canadian Cousins - Posted8/6/2006 9:04:33 PM
I like Canadians. I don’t mean the Montreal Canadiens, although I have nothing against them. I mean the people who live in Canada. The nice folks with the funny accents that seem to visit Florida on a regular basis. I am not being sarcastic or insincere. I just realized that I had never met a person with a Canadian visa who I didn’t enjoy talking to or hanging out with.
This past week I attended a FEMA course on critical incident command. I was not necessarily looking forward to an academic class after a long and fun vacation. The class was to help me do my job when the next hurricane ripped through Florida. To my surprise and relief the class was taught by an interesting, retired Royal Canadian Mounted policeman with a real sense of humor. He turned what could have been coma inducing subject matter into a useful tool that may help the next time I’m called up for a disaster.
I started thinking about my other experiences with citizens of our neighbor to the north and realized the country turns out some really cool people.
I once worked a case that required me to travel to Toronto. The Toronto cops never let me feel alone. They took me out every night and I learned an important lesson: Canadian beer has more alcohol in it than American beer.
One of the best crime fiction websites, Confessions of an Idiosyncratic Mind, is operated by the lovely Sarah Weinman. A woman who has a greater knowledge of crime literature than any five writers. She can hold her beer too.
I just met writer Jeff Buick who reinforced the notion of a good natured, funny Canadian without having to change his basic personality.
These are simple basic examples but it’s one of the stereotypes I believe in. This and the one about women finding heavyset middle-aged men irresistible. Well, maybe that’s more of a fantasy than a stereotype
I’ll stand by my original statement: I like Canadians.
January Magazine Interview - Posted3/27/2006 2:54:28 PM
Anthony Rainone was very good to me over at January magazine. Check out the interview at January Magazine.
A nice review and a nice story. What a great week. - Posted2/13/2006 8:37:59 PM
First, the great Oline Cogdill reviewed Escape Clause in the Sun Sentinel
Mystery Writers of America article - Posted1/31/2006 11:04:33 PM
Who Influences Who? Or is it Whom?
By James O. Born
I am a career cop. Although I’ve had several jobs in the field, from DEA agent to my current position as an agent with the Florida Department of law Enforcement, the investigative arm of the state police, I consider myself a cop first. But I’ve always written too. Does that make me a writer first? Does one influence the other? We know cops advise writers all the time. I do it myself. But writers influencing cops? You bet.
I remember the first time I ever had to defuse a bomb. It was attached to the bottom of a school bus with kids inside. Noon in Miami during the summer and so hot I couldn’t see through my goggles because they fogged from my own body heat. My hands could hardly hold the wire cutters as I studied the colors and positions of the wires inside the device. Wait a minute. That never happened to me. In fact, aside from training, I’ve never even seen a bomb. I doubt I would take the opportunity to diffuse one if it was offered to me. I’d be too busy cleaning my underwear. But I like to read about cops and bombs and I’ve seen a couple of good movies about them. That must be where I developed this recovered memory.
Police work, even in a relatively interesting investigative agency, is not Hollywood’s conception of excitement. It’s a lot of interviews, reports, more interviews, research, surveillance and finally, interviews. When writers ask me about my years on a SWAT team they always seem disappointed that I never shot anyone. They’ve seen it in movies. But in real life the whole point of an organized and well-trained tactical team is to surprise and overwhelm suspects. I always thought it was a badge of honor that we never shot anyone in all the search warrant entries we performed.
Police work in books and on TV is a different animal. Those cops see a lot of action, get the chicks and live well on a civil servant’s salary. I prefer police work on TV. That’s the type of activity that attracted most cops to the business in the first place. I remember as a kid watching Hill Street Blues. How could life be any more exciting, gritty and real? I still reference the show in all of my novels. But not only was the police work unreal, the city itself didn’t exist. The show never identifies the town. Regardless of this fact, I still occasionally call suspects “dirtbags”, more than one cop has growled at someone thanks to Sergeant Belker, and Detective LaRue inspired a generation of cops to chew tooth picks and call people “babe”.
One of the first popular culture references to the term SWAT, meaning special weapons and tactics, was in Joseph Wambaugh’s groundbreaking, and still untouchable, Police Story. As a teenager I can recall seeing Jan Michael Vincent and his teammates confront the most dangerous of situations. Near the end of the episode, after an armed robber has taken hostages, Vincent sees a man with a shotgun come out with a “hostage” in front of him. Vincent, using his phenomenal police powers of observation, realizes that something is wrong and that the hostage has a pistol too. It’s a switch!. Vincent calls over the radio to the team sniper, “Shoot the hostage.” When the smoke clears, he was right. To give you an idea of writers influencing police I will confess that I have been to very few SWAT team practices where, at some point in the day, while we are in training scenarios, someone didn’t say over the radio, “Shoot the hostage.” Thanks Joe, it always brings back fond memories.
As a cop I have been trained, like all other cops, to hold a pistol in front of me and point it where I might need to shoot. On TV, to capture a camera shot, actors hold guns up so their face and the gun can be in the same frame. Visit a police training facility and you’ll see cop after cop do the same thing as they enter a room. They wait right next to the door with their pistol next to their mug pointing straight up in the air. We even nicknamed it a “Sabrina” as a tribute to female cops of the seventies. Thanks, writers.
Fights in books and the movies are often elegant ballets of feet and fists where shaking your head often clears the cobwebs and extends the fight. Real fights, especially ones featuring middle-aged, overweight cops are not quite the artistic display of martial ability. Think lots of panting, sweat, vomit and sore backs. I know form personal experience that there is little as psychologically devastating as chasing someone and then having to fight them and your blows seem to have little or no effect. Watch a video of a police fight. It often affects a cop more psychologically than physically when all is said and done. The movies like to focus on big guys as the threat. For me, and many cops I’ve spoken to, there is one class of low-life who strikes fear in us all: The rail thin, wiry, toothless redneck. They’re fast, bony and don’t care. My parents spent a lot of money on oral health. I am one of only nine native Floridians with all my original teeth. I worry about getting punched in the mouth. It may not be life threatening but I scares the crap out of me. A redneck who already gums his Slim Jims only wants to strike where as a cop wants to not get hit as well as strike. But still we focus on muscle heads. Our attention is diverted to the large, lumbering, bulldozers and we view the F-15 of street fighters as practice. That’s Hollywood.
Do you think cops don’t watch TV? When I was a recruit going through the DEA academy, which, back in the eighties was housed in the same facility as the FBI, we would watch Miami Vice on Friday nights in the communal TV rooms on the first floor. There would be a group of twenty DEA guys cheering Crockett and Tubbs most Friday nights. Never an FBI face to be found. Then, after a week of NBC teasers about a “DEA agent goes bad” you couldn’t find a seat due to the crowds of young FBI agents eager for the show.
Now, as a more mature, or we call it, “veteran cop”, my reading habits have progressed to the more realistic and intelligent literary police work of John Sandford and Michael Connelly. I notice a lot of cops reading them. If these two titans of the crime fiction world were to start having cops call their vehicles “tooters” (no double entendre, no reference) it wouldn’t be long before we heard real cops saying, “I gotta get a new set of tires on my tooter.“
Watch what you write, you don’t know whom you’ll influence.
Crime Spree magazine - Posted1/11/2005
I Hate James W. Hall
By James O. Born
It actually started in January when I met Mr. Hall in person for the first time. We were both at Coral Gables' famed independent bookstore, Books and Books. We were there to see our mutual friend and Godfather of modern crime fiction, Elmore Leonard, deliver one of his famous readings in which one must marvel at the dignified form of a seventy-eight year-old man using the F word in such an eloquent manner. I was introduced to Mr. Hall and promptly determined him to be, in fact, a very nice guy. He was friendly and, after finding out about the impending release of my first book, encouraging. He never talked down to me and by any standard was exactly what I had heard from others: A really good guy. It made the transition to hating him that much more surprising. Read full story
Mentioned as the one of the best debuts of 2004! - Posted12/19/2004 2:19:55 PM
The outstanding Mystery reviewer for the Ft. Lauderdale Sun Sentinel, Oline H.Cogdill, picked Walking Money as one of the best debuts of 2004. She should be recognized for her good taste. Oh yeah, she is all the time. See the paper's online edition for December 19, 2004. Sun-Sentinel
W.E.B. Griffin interview for Barnes & Nobles - Posted6/7/2004 10:46:21 AM
The important part of this great interview is that he picked Walking Money as one of his all-time favorite summer reads. Take a look Griffin interview
Upcoming Events
/ All year
Friends of the library
Jim will be speaking at a number of Friends of the Libraries luncheons and dinners across the state. If you support libraries like you should, keep an eye out for his appearances.
In addition, Brandeis University supporters have invited Jim to a number of luncheons. This is a worthy cause.
2/15/2008 / 7:00 PM
Opeing party
Join Jim for a party at Murder on the Beach in Delray Beach. There'll be food and drink and lots of fun.
Featured links
Publisher's Weekly
The first article that appeard in PW's "Hot Deals" section.
A site devoted to reading. Suzanne Beecher oversees this important effort to get people reading again. Give it a look and while you're at it see what you can do to help your local library.
“After only two books, Born has proven
himself one of the best in the business. Step aside Carl Hiassen,
for there’s a new sheriff in town!”
—Chicago
Sun-Times
“Shock Wave is a first rate sequel to Walking
Money.”
—Book Page
“Special Agent James O. Born knows how the tropical heavies
and Caribbean bad boys operate, and proves it in Walking Money.
This book reads as lean, hot and fast as a Gulf Stream muscle
boat.”
“Jim Born is the real thing: a South
Florida lawman with an authentic sound that puts you at the scene.
Walking Money is a winner.”
—Elmore
Leonard
“Only a cop could know this stuff – only a natural
writer could put it down in a novel that’s so smart and
suspenseful. Jim Born is a new star.”
—W.E.B. Griffin
“Special Agent James O. Born knows how the tropical heavies
and Caribbean bad boys operate, and proves it in Walking Money.
This book reads as lean, hot and fast as a Gulf Stream muscle
boat.”
