Porlock Counterpoint by Sam Smith (eBook)
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There are criminals … and there are criminals!      Where sit the guilty? Around your dinner table? Grubbing for pennies on a street corner? Where does poor innocence cross the line? When does ‘middle-class’ become sordid?      In this sprint-paced, intriguing book of words, Sam Smith poses these questions.      He suggests there is a difference between good and bad … depending only from which standpoint you examine the scene of the crime.      Like a master crossword-puzzle compiler … he lays a trail of clues to your own private stance and leaves you to find the only fitting answer for yourself. A luckless young couple with a baby on the way stumble onto a treasure-trove drug dump when they joy-ride an expensive car to the maternity hospital … in desperation.      A rich, middle-aged yuppie couple with a private yacht, a home in the country and their very own drugs ring count their money … in their own kind of innocence.      Porlock Counterpoint explores the descant between the two couples and explodes the myth of attraction of opposites. Each couple detests the morals and social status of the other.      The earthy detectives on their trail despise them both … they even despise each other! They all play in counterpoint. Sam Smith is the skilled questionmaster. The reader decides who’s on the side of the angels. Read an excerpt from Porlock Counterpoint Click here for more information about Sam Smith Also by Sam Smith: Marks | The Care Vortex | Vera & Eddy's War | Sick Ape Reviews: In his book, Porlock Counterpoint, Sam Smith explores the reality of life, reminding the reader that men and women live not in a realm where existence is defined simply in black and white. Mr Smith, through the machinations of his central cast of characters, demonstrates to the reader that more often than not, life is lived in sketchy shades of gray. Porlock Counterpoint focuses on the inadvertent collision between two hapless couples: A poor, young couple with a new baby and a wealthier pair. The lives of these two couples intertwine over a cache of illegal doings. The upper class couple created their higher dollar existence via involvement in a drug ring. The male partner of the younger, economically deprived couple happens to stumble upon the yuppy couple's drug stash, recognizing that the illicit substance may provide him and his partner, the mother of his child, a far better life. What ensues is a complex, entertaining caper. Mr Smith develops believable characters in his book. The foursome that make up the two couples are particularly compelling. The reader is left feeling sympathy for them, to varying degrees. Yet, even in expressing sympathy, a reader will condemn their conduct, again to varying degrees. A reader will respond to Mr Smith's characters quite like he or she responds to real life folk. This occurs because the people that populate Mr Smith's book are, indeed, believable. Enshrouding Porlock Counterpoint as a whole is a "gray mist." Mr Smith manages to envelope his work in a veil of moral ambiguity that buttresses the fine efforts he makes with his cast of characters. The plot is nicely woven. The story itself progresses smoothly and illustrates well Mr Smith's underlying themes. Other reviewers have remarked on Mr Smith's ability to dissect human character. This reviewer agrees and believes Mr Smith has done a commendable job of addressing the true nature of the race once again. Reviewed by Mike Broemmel, Author of The Miller Moth It’s difficult to juggle one’s time when trying to be a productive writer as well as running a business. It’s an even more difficult task to be a reader and a writer as well as looking after the ‘proper’ day job. So when I read a book, it has to be good or it doesn’t get finished; until someone invents the thirty-six hour day, that is. When I started on Sam Smith’s Porlock Counterpoint, I soon forgot my own writing and the demands of work. And it was mainly Sam’s utterly engaging style of writing that prevented me from putting the book down. The use of galloping present tense, a collection of characters so real that it wasn’t long before I knew and sympathised with each and every one of them, and a fresh, almost innocent, take on drug smuggling, combined to make this a fast-moving read -- my favourite novel of 2002. Such is Sam’s description of the geography of the area, I feel I could drive there, follow the movements of the characters and plot and not get lost while enjoying the scenery. Porlock Counterpoint is the only book in a long time that I enjoyed so much I read it twice. A couple with a small computer program business become a link in a drug smuggling chain, just to make enough money to sail away somewhere nice one day. The reader empathises with them; they are not villains, desparados or murderers; just couriers and almost naïve about using their sailing boat to make pick-ups in the Bristol Channel. But a local lad with a pregnant girlfriend has a problem when the girl starts contractions and his old car will not start. So he ‘borrows’ the drug-smugglers car to rush her to hospital, unaware that the car contains packages of the contraband substance. The car is left in the hospital car park and the police, both the local ‘plods’ and the more upmarket drug squad boys, try to unravel who is who and what they are doing. Once again, the reader sympathises with the personal problems of each and every cop as they get some things wrong and some things right. I am envious of the way Sam Smith colours his plot and characters with the minimum of narrative yet so effectively. His dialogue is concise, often colloquial and never wooden or forced. An editor’s dream, I imagine, but certainly a reader’s delight. The conclusion of the story surprised me (no, you’ll have to read it yourself) but the way Sam gets the reader sympathetically involved with all his characters in equal depth means that you are going to be happy or disappointed for someone. It’s good that the story is not told as a good-triumphing-over-evil theme and does not judge; it does not even ask the reader to judge – it just gets one completely involved. And there lies its success as a story. Film and television companies take note – it’s called PORLOCK COUNTERPOINT and it’s by Sam Smith and published by BeWrite Books! Reviewed by Barry Ireland Lliam and Kate are a young couple about to have a baby. While visiting Porlock Weir, a small coastal town, Kate goes into labor. Lliam runs to get the car, but it won't start. So he steals a Volvo that the keys were left in. What he doesn't know is that the car belongs to a middle-aged couple that smuggles drugs. While the car is in the parking lot of the hospital, it comes under surveillance of the police. After their baby boy is born, Lliam leaves and takes the car to go back to Porlock Weir, with Policeman Joe behind him. But not for long, as Joe gets caught behind a stalled bus. Once Lliam has gotten back to his own car, he realizes that the Volvo must have been under surveillance, starts checking it out and finds the cocaine. He jumps out, goes to his car and leaves, hoping he doesn't get connected to the Volvo and its contents. So starts the adventure of two different couples, the police and others who have an interest in the stolen car and its contents of two gerry cans full of cocaine. Mr. Smith knows how to flesh out his characters to make them believable and to give descriptions of the scenery and towns that has the reader seeing them. This is a book that you'll want to curl up with and read until the very last page. Reviewed by DonnaJ for Timeless Tales Never have I read a crime story with more levels than this – above and below ground. You rush through the pages to reach the conclusion … but the conclusion is your own. Magnificent. What a storyteller, what an interrogator is Sam Smith. Alistair Kinnon - Crime Novelist.