The Face Transplant

The Face Transplant

by R. Arundel

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

BLURB:

Dr. Matthew MacAulay is a Facial Transplant Surgeon at a prestigious New York hospital. His friend and mentor, Tom Grabowski, dies under mysterious circumstances. Matthew is forced to investigate. He uncovers his friend’s secret. A new technique that allows perfect facial transplants. No incisions, no scars. The surgeon is able to transplant one person’s face to another with the perfect result. Tom was able to accomplish this monumental feat with the help of Alice, a supercomputer robot with almost human abilities. While trying to find the people responsible for murdering his friend Tom, Matthew realizes he is the prime suspect. Matthew must flee for his life with the help of Dr. Sarah Larsson, a colleague and reluctant helper who has a secret of her own. Alice helps them make sense of a baffling series of seemingly unrelated events. Matthew is forced to undergo a facial transplant to hide his identity and help to uncover the truth. The clues carry Matthew and Sarah around the world. Matthew stumbles onto a sinister plot of monumental proportions, the real reason Tom was murdered. This discovery leads Matthew all the way to The White House with a dramatic conclusion. Matthew never wavers in his quest for the truth and perseveres against all the odds. He must race to stop a major catastrophe, ratcheting up the excitement until the thrilling conclusion. The Face Transplant is a powerful medical suspense thriller of the first order. The novel was written by a surgeon. The novel has a realism that only a surgeon can bring. The plot weaves politics, medicine and espionage into a tightly paced, intelligent thriller. The novel crescendos page by page to a totally unexpected conclusion.

EXCERPT:

The missing face is found

The titanium canister slowly rose from the ground behind the glass door. When it finally stopped, two beeps were heard. Jason opened the glass door and took out the canister, a soft cold mist emanated from the canister. Maybe it was the temperature difference here, Matthew had never seen that when he brought up his canisters. The white mist slowly rose and then disappeared. Jason opened the titanium canister. As he had suspected, a red light began to flash. Matthew realized the canister had been altered. A signal was alerting someone that they had opened the canister.

Jason, “Don’t worry, I anticipated this, the wall will not allow the signal to transmit, we’re safe.”

Jason slowly removes the head from the canister. It is covered in what looks like a thin white cloth and wrapped precisely. Same technique used for all donor faces in the US. This face was harvested by Tom, no doubt about it. Slowly they unwrap the face.

Advice for writers

by R Arundel

It's always easy to give advice; much harder to take it, but here goes. 

Write because you have a desire to write and a desire to get better at the process.  Don't write to try to secure an agent, a book, money or celebrity. Writing is incredibly difficult and putting these extra pressures on the process guarantees frustration. 

Always keep your target audience in mind and be true to them  (even if the target audience is yourself). When you start your writing career think of yourself as if you were a surgeon who just was accepted into medical school. You have an interest in surgery, you may have done some prep courses, but you really don't know how to operate.  However, over the years someone will help you (the surgeons who train you) they've been through a lot of the frustration you will experience and will know how to help you deal with it.  Over time you will get better, you would not expect to perform brain surgery your first day of medical school.  Writing is a craft just like any other.  You need guidance; you can seek help from the many books, associations, and other writers. You also need to gain experience and over time you will improve, just like the novice surgeon.

Practical advice.  Be very careful about giving up your job to write full time. I was at a large book conference recently where I met someone who was thinking about giving up his or her teaching job to write full time.  I think you need a break from writing, especially beginning writers. A beginning writer is like a beginning surgeon; they cannot do a four-hour procedure.  They don't have the muscle memory; they can't remember all the steps and can't concentrate for that long. Start off with a 20-minute procedure.  Over time the surgeon will be able to do 4 or even 8 hour cases, but not at the start.  The beginning writer needs a break, they can't write quality all day. That break is called a paying job. If you are positive you have the next great novel, then it may make sense to quit your job, or if you think your topic is time sensitive and needs to get out immediately. Carefully examine your motivations for leaving your paying job. The good thing about writing is there is no objective evidence if you are doing it very badly, at least not until the book is written.  You can daydream reveling in the romantic notion of being a writer. It may be that you are just bored in your job and need to find a different occupation. You may just need to find another job.  You really may not need to quit your job.  Most people who write are not fortunate to make a living writing.  You may have the next blockbuster novel. Or then again (based on the odds) you may have the next self-published book that sells less than ten copies.  Follow your dreams but don't follow your dreams over a cliff. Develop your craft and be patient.

Keep writing.

AUTHOR Bio and Links:

Robert was born in London, United Kingdom.  His early formative years were spent in Toronto Canada.  Robert attended the University of Toronto Medical School.  After obtaining his Doctor of Medicine degree he completed surgical training in Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery at the University of Toronto and obtained certification from the American Board of Facial Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery. Robert Mounsey practices surgery in private practice in Toronto.

R. Arundel studied Film Studies at Ryerson University, after this he began writing screenplays and novels. The Face Transplant is his debut novel.

R. Arundel is married and lives in Toronto, Canada. When not writing or practicing surgery Robert can be found cycling.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Face-Transplant-R-Arundel/dp/0991979907/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1405768133&sr=8-1&keywords=the+face+transplant+r.+arundel

www.thefacetransplant.com

@TheFaceTranspla

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