Two Novels by Craig Smith
Requirements: Mobi or ePub Reader | 2.1 MB
Overview: I grew up in the Adelaide Hills, where my family ran two shoe shops. Paints and brushes were always around as my dad painted posters for the shops, copied from lettering and style manuals. I liked to copy comic characters but, really, was much more interested in making contraptions in the shed. My home town, Woodside, was close to an army barracks where soldiers were training for the Vietnam war. From inside our classroom, we heard the rattle of machine guns on the target range while Iroquois helicopters d-d-d overhead, practising fast landings and take-offs. Out of school, mates and I mucked around at the local rubbish dump, finding excellent stuff to use in our pretend combat-helmets, bits of uniform and rucksacks, ammo boxes, bullet-riddled targets, stretchers. It was hardly an artistic upbringing, but there was plenty of imagination and play. Lots of play.
Oh, and lots of football. My sister, Maire - who had always been, even as a small kid, very skilled at drawing - left home to go to the South Australian School of Art. I later followed in her footsteps. I studied graphic design, and photography, but typography (lettering), was my main interest. We were also made to draw naked people, mainly women. I grew to like drawing. It was much funnier than typography. An assignment was to illustrate a story. It was a struggle. I submitted it to a publisher in Sydney. She rejected it, but encouragingly added in her letter, 'If you ever come to Sydney, drop by'. I hitchhiked up there almost immediately. This led to my first picture book, Christobel Mattingley's 'Black Dog'.
I have been a freelance illustrator since 1976. For some of the early years I had part-time jobs - dish washer in a restaurant, and scraping rust off the Sydney Harbour Bridge. And doing advertising illustration - groan! One interesting job was working as a nurse's aide in a hospital for the elderly. In that role I was able to observe the human body - something artists usually do in a life drawing session. This experience has stayed with me and has affected the characterisation of my work.
I live with Erica, in Melbourne. We have four grown-up children. And three little grandchildren.
The Painted Messiah
"The Painted Messiah" is an intelligent and superior example of a genre whose popularity shows no signs of abating. It combines a blistering action thriller set in the streets of Zurich and on the lakes and wooded slopes of Switzerland with a compulsive and convincing account of first century Romano-Judaean politics and the real reason for Pontius Pilate's condemnation and execution of Christ. A legend persists that, after the 'scourging', Pilate commanded that his victim be painted from life. Somewhere, the painting survives, the only true image of Christ, granting the gift of everlasting life to whoever possesses it. Kate Kenyon, the wealthy young widow of an English aristocrat killed on a Swiss mountain, has an addiction to mortal risk. She feeds it by engaging in the armed robbery of priceless artefacts with her accomplice and lover Ethan Brand, a Tennessean who owns a bookshop in Zurich. Their latest target is a priceless 'Byzantine' icon hidden in the tower of a chateau by Lake Lucerne. So far they have never had to shoot anyone. This time will be different. Thomas Malloy is a retired CIA man looking for his first lucrative freelance assignment. His chance comes with a presidential favour to a rich but ailing televangelist. Malloy's task seems simple enough: pick up the preacher's newly acquired painting from a Zurich bank and get it to the airport. But, once in Switzerland, Malloy's old friend, the enigmatic Contessa Claudia de Medici tries to warn him off his mission. Sir Julian Corbeau is an international criminal holed up in Switzerland to avoid US extradition proceedings. He is also the sadistic head of the modern Knights Templar. He had the painting and now he desperately wants it back as well as to wreak a bloody revenge upon those who stole it. As the contenders vie for possession the bullets fly, the body count rises and the secrets of the portrait gradually unfold. We learn how and why it came to be painted and how an object depicting the Light of the World could exert such a baleful and malignant influence on those who possess it.
The Blood Lance
Kufstein, Austria, 1939 - At the foot of a mountain known as The Wilder Kaiser lies the body of an SS officer, his neck broken but his face a picture of bliss and serenity. The dead man is known to history as Otto Rahn, Himmler's own archaeologist. Rahn's pursuit of the legendary Blood Lance of the Cathars has not only led to his own downfall but set in motion a tragic chain of events reaching far beyond the holocaust. Switzerland 1997 - Lord Robert Kenyon is a wealthy financier and a senior member of a humanitarian order calling themselves The Knights of the Holy Lance. Whilst climbing the North face of the Eiger with his new bride, he is attacked and murdered and his young wife Kate left for dead. New York City 2008 - When billionaire Jack Farrell, long suspected of connections to European crime syndicates cuts loose after defrauding his own company, ex CIA agent Thomas Malloy is assigned to track him down. The trail leads to Germany and the Order of the Holy Lance. With his friends, former art thieves Kate and Ethan Brand, Malloy set out to unlock the secrets of the order: Malloy seeks his man; Kate must find the truth about what happened on the slopes of the Eiger eleven years before and exact her vengeance. Their first step is to kidnap a corrupt lawyer, connected to the order, from his home in Hamburg. Things don't quite run to plan and all hell breaks loose.
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Requirements: Mobi or ePub Reader | 2.1 MB
Overview: I grew up in the Adelaide Hills, where my family ran two shoe shops. Paints and brushes were always around as my dad painted posters for the shops, copied from lettering and style manuals. I liked to copy comic characters but, really, was much more interested in making contraptions in the shed. My home town, Woodside, was close to an army barracks where soldiers were training for the Vietnam war. From inside our classroom, we heard the rattle of machine guns on the target range while Iroquois helicopters d-d-d overhead, practising fast landings and take-offs. Out of school, mates and I mucked around at the local rubbish dump, finding excellent stuff to use in our pretend combat-helmets, bits of uniform and rucksacks, ammo boxes, bullet-riddled targets, stretchers. It was hardly an artistic upbringing, but there was plenty of imagination and play. Lots of play.
Oh, and lots of football. My sister, Maire - who had always been, even as a small kid, very skilled at drawing - left home to go to the South Australian School of Art. I later followed in her footsteps. I studied graphic design, and photography, but typography (lettering), was my main interest. We were also made to draw naked people, mainly women. I grew to like drawing. It was much funnier than typography. An assignment was to illustrate a story. It was a struggle. I submitted it to a publisher in Sydney. She rejected it, but encouragingly added in her letter, 'If you ever come to Sydney, drop by'. I hitchhiked up there almost immediately. This led to my first picture book, Christobel Mattingley's 'Black Dog'.
I have been a freelance illustrator since 1976. For some of the early years I had part-time jobs - dish washer in a restaurant, and scraping rust off the Sydney Harbour Bridge. And doing advertising illustration - groan! One interesting job was working as a nurse's aide in a hospital for the elderly. In that role I was able to observe the human body - something artists usually do in a life drawing session. This experience has stayed with me and has affected the characterisation of my work.
I live with Erica, in Melbourne. We have four grown-up children. And three little grandchildren.
The Painted Messiah
"The Painted Messiah" is an intelligent and superior example of a genre whose popularity shows no signs of abating. It combines a blistering action thriller set in the streets of Zurich and on the lakes and wooded slopes of Switzerland with a compulsive and convincing account of first century Romano-Judaean politics and the real reason for Pontius Pilate's condemnation and execution of Christ. A legend persists that, after the 'scourging', Pilate commanded that his victim be painted from life. Somewhere, the painting survives, the only true image of Christ, granting the gift of everlasting life to whoever possesses it. Kate Kenyon, the wealthy young widow of an English aristocrat killed on a Swiss mountain, has an addiction to mortal risk. She feeds it by engaging in the armed robbery of priceless artefacts with her accomplice and lover Ethan Brand, a Tennessean who owns a bookshop in Zurich. Their latest target is a priceless 'Byzantine' icon hidden in the tower of a chateau by Lake Lucerne. So far they have never had to shoot anyone. This time will be different. Thomas Malloy is a retired CIA man looking for his first lucrative freelance assignment. His chance comes with a presidential favour to a rich but ailing televangelist. Malloy's task seems simple enough: pick up the preacher's newly acquired painting from a Zurich bank and get it to the airport. But, once in Switzerland, Malloy's old friend, the enigmatic Contessa Claudia de Medici tries to warn him off his mission. Sir Julian Corbeau is an international criminal holed up in Switzerland to avoid US extradition proceedings. He is also the sadistic head of the modern Knights Templar. He had the painting and now he desperately wants it back as well as to wreak a bloody revenge upon those who stole it. As the contenders vie for possession the bullets fly, the body count rises and the secrets of the portrait gradually unfold. We learn how and why it came to be painted and how an object depicting the Light of the World could exert such a baleful and malignant influence on those who possess it.
The Blood Lance
Kufstein, Austria, 1939 - At the foot of a mountain known as The Wilder Kaiser lies the body of an SS officer, his neck broken but his face a picture of bliss and serenity. The dead man is known to history as Otto Rahn, Himmler's own archaeologist. Rahn's pursuit of the legendary Blood Lance of the Cathars has not only led to his own downfall but set in motion a tragic chain of events reaching far beyond the holocaust. Switzerland 1997 - Lord Robert Kenyon is a wealthy financier and a senior member of a humanitarian order calling themselves The Knights of the Holy Lance. Whilst climbing the North face of the Eiger with his new bride, he is attacked and murdered and his young wife Kate left for dead. New York City 2008 - When billionaire Jack Farrell, long suspected of connections to European crime syndicates cuts loose after defrauding his own company, ex CIA agent Thomas Malloy is assigned to track him down. The trail leads to Germany and the Order of the Holy Lance. With his friends, former art thieves Kate and Ethan Brand, Malloy set out to unlock the secrets of the order: Malloy seeks his man; Kate must find the truth about what happened on the slopes of the Eiger eleven years before and exact her vengeance. Their first step is to kidnap a corrupt lawyer, connected to the order, from his home in Hamburg. Things don't quite run to plan and all hell breaks loose.
Download Instructions:
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Mirror:
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