Thursday, July 14, 2011

Badwater - Toni Dwiggins

Bio:
Toni Dwiggins has done magazine work, both fiction and non. She’s author of a US History textbook, and has contributed to texts in the sciences. She's done tech-writing for the Silicon Valley computer industry, and that experience hatched an idea that became her first novel, about an attempt to sabotage the nation's telephone system (INTERRUPT, published by TOR Books).

She went in a different direction with her second novel, BADWATER, into the world of rocks and radiation. Always a rock collector, she became hooked on geology, and then came across a textbook on forensic geology and was further hooked. She found a generous forensic geologist who showed her around his lab and taught her the basics.

And then one day she was looking through old camping photos and came across pics of a trip to Death Valley, and thought: now there's a place to set a story.

And then she learned that---on the perimeter of Death Valley National Park---there once was a radioactive waste dump.


Product description:
BADWATER is part mystery, part ecothriller.  It is the first in an intended series: The Forensic Geology Series. Reviewers have compared it to the books of Nevada Barr:

What if your job is to find the thing you fear most?

When a freight truck is hijacked, forensic geologists Cassie Oldfield and her partner Walter Shaws track the mineral trail into Death Valley. The stolen cargo they seek is hotter than the desert in August: radioactive waste.

As scientists, Cassie and her partner Walter are familiar with background radiation in the rocks they study. But as a woman of child-bearing age and a man of advancing years, they become acutely aware of the risk of their hunt. How many exposures are too many? What’s safe? More immediately, what’s lethal?

They find out when the unstable radwaste thief unleashes the power of the unstable atom.


Q: What will e-readers like about your book?
I sure hope they’ll be entertained. The book is an unusual mix: part forensic geology and part ecothriller. There are l puzzles to be solved, and ongoing danger to be faced. And I’d be thrilled if readers are moved to ask a couple of questions about radioactive waste: where will we put all this lethal-hot stuff coming from nuke plants, and what happens when humans make mistakes in an unforgiving line of work—the Ooops Factor.

Q: Why did you go indie?
My subject matter was suddenly topical. I read a couple of indie books and was really impressed—I wanted to join that club.

Q: Who are your favorite authors in your genre?
Nevada Barr, CJ Box, J. Carson Black, Debbi Mack, Dana Stabenow

Amazon http://www.amazon.com/dp/B005466WQ6

http://www.tonidwiggins.com

1 comment:

  1. I've never heard of the term 'ecothriller'. This book looks very interesting! And I love Nevada Barr's books!

    ~Donna~
    The Merry-Go-Round
    Return of the Runaway Bride
    Taking Love in Stride
    Mountain Laurel

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