New writer Hans Gaskin’s first published book, spy thriller The Ashgabat Verdict, was officially launched yesterday.
The book by the first-time published writer was launched at a simple ceremony at the Moray House. It is Gaskin’s second attempt at a novel.
Gaskin explained that he began writing Ashgabat Verdict in February 2012 after he learnt numerous skills from his first written book. This first book was never published but was the impetus for him to continue writing.
“After I completed it, I was met with a feeling that, ‘now that you know you can do this, you have to do it again’,” he explained.
Though Gaskin is a well-known jeweller, he stated that writing was something that he always wanted to do.
“It was a satisfying experience to stare at a blank sheet of paper and start to put words on it and then start another page and another page and use those words to describe scenes and characters of my own creation and put it all together to actually tell a story that could be exciting and intriguing and readable,” Gaskin said.
He added that working on the second book provided a sort of “stress relief” for him.
“I began to enjoy little things like the power to kill off a character and have people badly beaten up on a whim. If I came home in a bad mood, somebody’s going to get a beating,” he jokingly said.
He further said that he used as many opportunities as possible to write and many of his notes were scribbled by hand in notebooks; Gaskin would write while standing in lines at banks or waiting around in an airport terminal.
“What I wanted to write was a suspense type novel, a thriller,” Gaskin said.
His novel hits the mark in its genre, Dr Paloma Mohamed said.
The story is set in motion when a business tycoon hires Kevin Bradley, a former Green Beret turned international troubleshooter, after close relatives are mysteriously murdered one by one. Bradley, the protagonist, accepts the job and deems it a simple enough project – that is until his life is put constantly at risk at every turn and becomes intertwined in a multibillion-dollar feud over natural gas.
The story follows Bradley as he attempts to unravel the mystery before he becomes the latest victim in a series of others.
The book is set in Turkmenistan in central Asia. Gaskin explained that he initially wanted a more “mainstream” location such as Washington, DC. However, research on the central Asian republic piqued his interest and he eventually settled on its capital, Ashgabat though he’s never been to the country.
He further said he deliberately did not want to write a story that could be easily identified as a “Guyanese story,” a decision that received somewhat mixed reviews.
One attendee stated, “I am extremely happy that you did not centre your whole story in the Caribbean.” She explained that this allowed readers to expand their horizons.
In contrast, however, Mohamed expressed hope that his next book would be “closer to home.”
Mohamed nevertheless gave the book high praise and lauded Gaskin for writing a 20 chapter, 364 pages book with minimal error and gripping, believable characters.
“The bottom line here is that he’s telling a story and we get it,” Mohamed said. She went on, “It’s a simple elegant tale of murder, betrayal, espionage… there’s a lot going on in this novel and the challenge for any writer is to be able not to overwhelm his readers with everything so that they’d be unable to grasp anything,” a feat Gaskin was able to successfully do, Mohamed said.
She went on that though there are numerous murders in the book, these are not committed in a “crass manner” but are rather “teasing, lingering deaths.”
The book was written, formatted, edited and self-published by Gaskin and he encouraged other interested writers to do the same. He also presented copies of the book to the National Library, the University of Guyana Library and Moray House.
The Ashgabat Verdict is available at the Austin’s Book Store as well as in the Kindle bookstore on Amazon.
