Peccadillo: A Katla Novel

Amsterdam Assassin #2

by Martyn V. Halm

Assassin Katla's legitimate business is the target of a hostile takeover...

Still recuperating from injuries sustained in Reprobate, freelance assassin Katla Sieltjes, expert in disguising homicide, has to take up arms against the Kau Hong, a Chinese Triad attempting a hostile takeover of her legitimate business. When not just her own life is at stake, but her lover and his friends are targeted, Katla has to wage a guerrilla war against the Kau Hong. The situation becomes increasingly complex, when a Hong Kong sniper arrives and teams up with a mute enforcer from the competitive 14K Triad. Amsterdam might prove too small for Katla to play hide and seek when her enemies are skilled in search and destroy.

Peccadillo is the second novel in the Amsterdam Assassin Series. With authentic details and fast-paced action, featuring an uncompromising heroine and a supporting cast of unusual characters, Peccadillo gives a rare glimpse in the local Dutch culture, information on the famous Dutch capital, the Chinese Triads, computer hacking, sniping, clairvoyance, circumventing car alarms, martial arts, and the brutal effectiveness of disciplined violence.

420 pages, Kindle Edition

First published December 15, 2012

About the author

Martyn enjoys reading reviews of his work, but doesn't 'respond' to them, so if you want to get a response, please provide direct feedback by sending an email to katlasieltjes@yahoo.com

Friend requests are welcome, but preferably from people with a compatible taste in books.



A Brief Bio:

Martyn V. Halm lives in Amsterdam, with his two children, one cat, two rats, and countless imaginary characters vying for attention.

Reviews

[Roberta Pearce · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don’t even know why I’m writing a review on this novel. Five stars. The end. Except . . . in this digital age of shared opinions, many books live and die on reviews. Word of mouth [or is that keyboard?] is everything. And so I share this with the world in the hope no one will miss out on this awesome series with a phenomenal heroine and her lover.

I won't rehash the plot, as I run the risk of accidental spoilers. The blurb covers all a potential reader needs to know. But I’ll add succinctness to it: don’t mess with Katla. And I can reveal that there are scenes of snipers, motorcycle chases, hand-to-hand combat, knives and guns and violence galore. Good times.

Peccadillo is the second book in the Amsterdam Assassin Series, immediate sequel to Reprobate: A Katla Novel. For anyone who read my review of the first, you’ll know I love Katla. I might be carrying around a bit of guilt about it, as being an upright, moral person [okay, I won’t play that card too hard], I shouldn’t really be so admiring of a heroine who kills for money . . . and not just bad people, either. I can only attribute my love of this character to the skill of the author, who crafts Katla with finesse, making her human, flawed [obviously], and knowable. [Yes, this is me laying the blame at the author’s feet!]

In Peccadillo, we find that Katla’s not invincible and her lover Bram is not helpless. Secondary characters - old and new - are fleshed out; even tertiary characters are more than cut outs - my favourite sample of this is Kiekendief, the terminally ill gunsmith who is still greedy for cash, as if he can take it with him.

I think I liked this novel better than the first - I felt more in the groove of the protagonists, and learned that Katla can still surprise me. Stylistically, the writing felt a bit tighter and, as a formal-style note I can never resist, the author has a better grip on commas. Though there were some comma splices.

I only make the observation as nothing is perfect, and it’s boring to cite unreserved squee. Isn’t it?

For my random thoughts on writing, visit my blog on Goodreads.

[Nurul Hanifah · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've read a bit of the reviews for this book and many said this one is better than Reprobate and I have to agree. And again, I'm feeling like there should be more as I reach the end of the book. Maybe, I realized, that's not because it's a 'short' story as the author himself pointed out to me in this comment, but because the way he ended it. It leaves one to wish there'd be a bit more.

The book continues on with corporate troubleshooter Katla, Katherine Sieltjes, as lethal as ever despite still recuperating from the gunshot wound she got from her last job. This time, she is involved with Chinese triads who wants her shipping company. And there is Bram, her lover, who obviously can't help but get sucked in to Katla's other less legal and dangerous occupation. So does his friend, Zeph. His addition to the story action makes it all the more exciting. And Bram's ease to wield a sword! Though it shouldn't be a surprise as the man does live in a Yakuza club and train regularly. But there's still something I didn't see coming at the end of the book regarding Bram and his sword. There's so much more to enjoy here. Even if the name of all those Dutch places still leaves me confused, I appreciate the added glossary.

And I read a book for a few reasons, some being the story and the other being the characters in the story. I find myself not only immersed in this rather brutal novel for all the homicides, but also intrigued by Bram because there's always a character in a book that just holds my heart. His music taste is seriously causing me to consider and look them up. Maybe that's what I'll exactly do. Though there's still no answer to Bram's dreams and how his scars came about, I like how there's more to know about him in this book. We've plenty of information of Katla from the first book and despite this book doesn't seem to tell a lot of Katla's new personality bits, there's a lot to learn of Bram. And why he and Anouk broke up. I wish there'd be a bit more of Bianca, but maybe then the book will definitely exceed any norm for novels word count.

To sums it up, it's a thriller story with a bit of romance, wit, philosophy and originality. Sure there's the mature contents but I assume kids don't come across this book. Not yet, at least.
Heard the third book in the series will be out soon, looking forward to it.

[Martyn Halm]

I cannot review or rate my own work, so I'll use this space for something readers might be interested in... Reprints of blog interviews.

The Interview below was featured on the Book Goodies website, link: http://bookgoodies.com/tag/martyn-v-h...

What inspires you to write?

Basically, I write the stories I wanted to read but couldn’t find.

I always enjoyed stories about assassins, but my opinion on assassins differed from the books I read. Since most fictional assassins are antagonists, they are often warped individuals, with freaky childhoods. However, I have come across mercenaries (basically the same field), who are pretty regular people. Sure their view of the world differs from ordinary citizens, but they’re not ‘warped’. This made me want to write about an assassin who has no deep-seated frustration or abused childhood, but who just realised that killing was what she was good at and who had the appropriate world view and lack of conscience to pull it off.

Tell us about your writing process.

I’ve been writing and editing my own work for over twenty years now, but that doesn’t mean I’m not open to new ideas. When I first started writing, I wrote on paper using a typewriter, retyping whole sections to edit out the errors. Needless to say, my current work process differs from the process I had when I started out.

I have a MacBook with Scrivener. I start with scenes that I export to SimpleNote. With the SimpleNote app on my iPad, I can open these files and write them wherever I am. SimpleNote has no advanced features, so you cannot format or change font or even use bold, italic or underline, which allows for distraction free writing. Instead of ‘saving’ my work, I email the notes to myself as backup. When I get back home, I connect the iPad to WiFi and it will upload the updated scenes to their website. Then I open Scrivener on my MacBook and import the updated scenes by synchronizing with SimpleNote.

When I finished my rough draft, I use Scrivener to edit and arrange the scenes, divide them into chapters, and compile an e-book. That e-book is then uploaded to iBooks on my iPad, where I can read it back and highlight/notate anything that I want to edit later. This part is a modern version of the old advice to print out your manuscript and go through it with a red pencil. The main advantage is that you’re not carrying 500 loose A4 pages, but what is also important is that the old method required leafing through the printed manuscript to find the highlights, while the e-reader on my iPad will just make a list of edits.

Once corrected, I make an updated version of the e-book and send it to my beta-readers, who will provide me with feedback. Using the feedback I will correct the manuscript and make an Advanced Reader Copy or ARC, that I sent to reviewers so they can form an opinion and write a review to be published when the book is launched.

I don’t use ‘outlines’. I know more or less the arc of the story and will write scenes, often out of chronological order, sometimes the key scenes first and the intermittent scenes afterward. The scenes will be arranged in the ‘book order’ when I finished the rough draft. Most of the time, after I ordered the scenes and read the entire first draft it becomes apparent if I need more scenes in-between. I have files on characters to remain consistent about stuff like injuries or if they have a tattoo on their left or right shoulder, but not much on characteristics. That’s all in my head.

For Fiction Writers: Do you listen (or talk to) to your characters?

I listen to my characters talk to each other. They don’t talk to me, I’m not important.

What advice would you give other writers?

If you’re starting out, don’t try to write ‘a book’. Write drafts. A draft is not meant to be read by outsiders, so you can put into the draft whatever you want. If you feel like a long description, go ahead. Five pages of dialogue? Just put it in. Don’t listen to your ‘inner editor’, don’t listen to outsiders who will tell you what rules you have to follow. Forget all that, you have permission to write eight hundred pages of total crap.

When you have enough material for a book, then you put on your editor cap. Make a copy of the original draft and edit the hell out of it. Turn the five pages of rambling dialogue into 1-2 pages of killer interaction. Cut all the unnecessary crutch words like ‘very’ and all ambiguity like ‘kind of’ and ‘sort of’. Hunt down and kill all of your adverbs. Make everything consistent, so that characters keep the same name and particulars throughout the book/series. When you’re finished with that, then it’s time to show your work to outsiders and ask their opinion.

How did you decide how to publish your books?

I tried to get a publisher, but US and UK publishers were hesitant to work with me because I lived abroad. I got a lot of positive responses on my manuscript, but nothing definite. I got a few offers, but the terms and conditions were not favorable to me. Another consideration was guarantees of print. I write a series and if I would end up with the wrong publisher, I could get in a situation where the first book in the series would have a different publisher than the other books. They could stop printing the books without reverting the rights to me, and I’d end up with an incomplete series nobody would want to read.

Self-publishing allows me to keep all the rights, make sure I’m distributed worldwide, follow my own publication schedule instead of publishing just one book per year, and keep my prices low because I don’t have the overhead of a large publishing company.

Although I started self-publishing in August 2012, in just a little over a year there have been incredible changes in the publishing industry and the image of self-publishing, which was equated with vanity publishing, is now a more legitimate possibility for authors. As evidenced by the flux of former trade-published midlist authors self-publishing their backlists.

If you’re a new author, self-publishing your work allows you to try out if you have what it takes to build a following. And you will need a following or social media presence to get trade publishers interested in your work. Just quality writing isn’t enough anymore, you have to prove you can draw mass appeal.

What do you think about the future of book publishing?

I personally think that ‘content’ publishing, like mass market paperbacks novels, will shift to e-publishing. Print will remain for books that appeal to collectors of hardcover novels, coffee table and art books. There was an item in Publishers Weekly about publishers no longer offering print to everyone. Seems like publishers will test out new authors on the e-book market and Print-On-Demand first before they’ll invest in print runs. That said, going with trade publishers seems to be bringing fewer and fewer advantages to the table.

[RyooT · Rating 5 out of 5]

Following closely after the events of Reprobate, Katla, assassin extraordinaire, is still recovering from her injuries, when a Chinese triad is attempting a hostile takeover of her shipping company. Katla isn't easily intimidated, but with a group of highly motivated Chinese criminals on her trail she soon finds herself putting all her skill and expertise to the test to stay ahead of the game; and to keep her friends out of harm's way when they are being targeted, too.

This second installment is as good as the first, if not better. The narrative is even stronger and this does the growing attraction and relationship between Katla and her blind boyfriend Bram excellent justice. Again their interactions reminded me of a slowly evolving dance. And while we already know about Katla's kick-ass abilities, this time Bram gets an opportunity to prove his katana skills, too.

The cast of supporting characters is idiosyncratic and interesting, but none of them are overdrawn. I think that is one of the things I enjoy most about these books; that each character is fundamentally realistic. Even when it's an arthritic Chinese sniper or his deaf-mute assistant, they never seem over the top.

Apart from dealing with the Chinese we get another interesting glimpse into how Katla troubleshoots corporate problems. Like in the first book the amount of detail and thought that went into the story is amazing. I am definitely looking forward to the next book in the series.

[Andy Peloquin · Rating 5 out of 5]

When I cracked open the first book, I didn't think I'd enjoy it. I was wrong. Obviously I had to pick up Book 2 to continue the story, and I'm very glad I did.
I'd compare Pecadillo to some of the better Tom Clancy novels I've read. It's a fast-paced, intriguing, and well-crafted story, with all the rich details that make the world come alive. The information presented in the book is clearly heavily researched. The author has taken the time to understand their character's world (assassin for hire) with all the tricks and gadgets of a modern world.
I wasn't a fan of the romance angle in Book 1, but it's grown on me in this book. I actually enjoyed the interactions between Katla and Bram. It deepens the book and makes it more personal.
One of the best books I read in 2016, and I can't wait to dig into the third book in the series!

[Eric_W · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow. This second in the series is really a page-turner. Halm takes us in a slightly different direction. A gang of Chinese underworld are anxious to take over Sphinx Shipping of which Katla is a majority stockholder (in reality probably the brains behind the operation) and that want it for free. Katla is not about to give away her investment. A rapid chess game results as each side seeks advantage.

Katla’s circle of friends expands (I recommend reading the books in order) adding Anouk, a talented artist and sculptor, ex-girlfriend of Bram. Zeph, Bram’s Rastafarian friend who is raising organic ganja, also becomes more involved which permits Halm to create several layers of moral tension as Zeph is as non-violent as possible and Bram wants to protect that innocence. Katla even takes on a fellow professional as backup.

It will be interesting to see how Katla manages to maintain her anonymity in the third volume after as the number of people who know that she is Loki continues to increase. Given the number of dead bodies after the attack on the triad, surely the police will take a more pronounced interest in Loki.

Very fun read. This one will be hard to top.

[Amber Foxx · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an addictive series. I think a reader would do well to start his or her habit with the first book, Reprobate. With some series , you can jump in at any point and it doesn’t matter, but with this one, the author has made a good choice not to slow down a thriller with backstory. You could follow the plot without having read the first book, but in this second Amsterdam Assassin book, the characters and relationships develop in depth. A reader will appreciate this more having read the first book. Events and characters in Reprobate are essential to making Peccadillo a full experience.

Like Reprobate, this book lives in the black spot in the white curve of the yin yang symbol, and the white spot in its dark side, the essence of the story spinning in the whole. There are no wholly good or wholly bad people. Everyone is flawed, and most have done something that a person with a conscience would struggle to process. Some have consciences, some don’t.

Halm writes fight scenes with grace and precision, finely choreographed and biomechanically accurate. There’s a fine balance in this tale between violence, and friendship and love. I said this about Reprobate —it feels Japanese to me, with delicate attention to domestic and intimate details like the Tale of Genji and swordplay like a samurai movie.

The main characters, Katla and Bram, are quite unlike the rest of us in many ways: Katla’s homicidal occupation, of course, and her physical strength and her intelligence; and Bram’s martial arts skill and his extraordinary self-discipline. This makes them intriguing and special. Halm writes Bram’s point of view in a manner that makes the reader experience the character’s blindness. People like Bram’s friend and guide Zeph give balance to the story—characters readers can relate to more easily while following the story of the protagonists. The wit in some of the dialog is great and the ordinariness of criminals is well portrayed. They are not that different from the rest of us. In some ways.

I found few flaws in this book. On rare occasions the dialog feels like an author intrusion, but that’s minor. There are a few rough spots in the writing—again, minor. The plot is strong and the characters compelling.

[Cat Amesbury · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 stars.

I received a copy of Peccadillo for review because of my continued interest in the dark world inhabited by Halm’s characters.

Peccadillo begins the way it means to go on- with a brutal, unflinching look into the graphic underbelly of Halm’s Amsterdam. However, in Peccadillo, the underbelly has a distinctly human side. As I commented in my review of Reprobate, my particular weakness is well-written psychological tension between well thought-out and fully realized characters. Katla is a character who shifts from brutality to relaxation, from frustration to understanding, in breath-takingly short periods of times. In this story, I felt as if I was getting some insight into the mind that handled those kinds of rapid shifts.

This understanding was created largely because of the rich and detailed secondary cast in the story. While occasionally the number of characters and viewpoints can become overwhelming, Halm guides the story with a skillful hand. Characters serve not only as foils, but as fully realized people, even if they appear only in short snippets.

There is a pendulum swing in Peccadillo that I find particularly interesting. While Katla confronts her vulnerability, often in the form of unexpected friends, her lover, Bram, begins to confront his own points of darkness. These swings bring a real depth and dimension to the tight and brutal thriller plotline.

This is a graphic story with a plot that reaches an inevitable and ruthless conclusion. For those who are fans of thrillers, this is a story with both the suspense and characters to add depth to the trials of criminal Amsterdam.

The Amsterdam inPeccadillo is not a place I would want to work in or inhabit. But in the hands of Halm, Katla’s Amsterdam becomes a place where it is well worth taking the trip into its darker shadows.

[Martin Mackay · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book opens with Katla being approached by the Kau Hong a triad off shoot who want to take her legitimate business her shipping firm and use threats and violence to attempt to convince her. Sadly of the Kau Hong they are unaware as to her less legitimate business interests and we embark on a journey to resolve this situation. This is increased when Katla has her friends threatened and it becomes personal.

Peccadillo is the second novel in the Katla series and brought in gangs hit men and evolved the main characters in Katlas life as well as introducing a few new ones. With the main characters have being firstly introduced in Reprobate it is an opportunity in this book to learn more about them and whilst perhaps considered a secondary character I have truly grown to like Bram, Katlas blind boyfriend. He acts as a boyfriend, strategic planner and moral compass whilst not necessarily liking what Katla does he realises he can't change her so instead he supports her as much as he can.

In this story we see Katla tested to her very limits with her friends being targeted along with her business and she finds an unlikely ally who shares a similar goal.

Martyn V Halm continues to write engaging stories which are well researched and are real page turners Katla is a strong character and I will enjoy reading future stories as the author releases them.

[Tumpale · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the second novel in the Katla series. It didn't move as quickly as 'Reprobate', but I think that's because this was more of a character study. In this book, we got to learn more about who Katla is as a person and how she reacts to the growing family around her: Bram, her 'lover' who also goes through his own changes; Zeph, Bram's Rastafarian ganja-growing best friend; and Anouk, Bram's previous girlfriend. Can Katla manage her life with Bram and his parallel evolution? Can she begin to form normal friendships with Zeph and Anouk? Can Katla still retain her position as the premier assassin in Amsterdam? Although, slower than the 'Reprobate', 'Pecadillo' stands on its own and should not be missed in the series. I can't wait for the third novel to come out!

[Jurjendamstegmail.com · Rating 5 out of 5]

een super spannend vervolg in de amsterdam assassin serie van martyn v. halm. een snelle opeenvolging van actie inzicht info en nogmaals actie. verrassende wendingen en intrigerende personages pakken je beet en nemen je mee in dit meeslepende avontuur dat je aan het denken zet. ik kan niet wachten op een volgend deel!

[Martyn Halm]

I cannot review or rate my own work, so I'll use this space for something readers might be interested in... Reprints of blog interviews.

The Interview below was featured on the Book Goodies website, link: http://bookgoodies.com/tag/martyn-v-h...

What inspires you to write?

Basically, I write the stories I wanted to read but couldn’t find.

I always enjoyed stories about assassins, but my opinion on assassins differed from the books I read. Since most fictional assassins are antagonists, they are often warped individuals, with freaky childhoods. However, I have come across mercenaries (basically the same field), who are pretty regular people. Sure their view of the world differs from ordinary citizens, but they’re not ‘warped’. This made me want to write about an assassin who has no deep-seated frustration or abused childhood, but who just realised that killing was what she was good at and who had the appropriate world view and lack of conscience to pull it off.

Tell us about your writing process.

I’ve been writing and editing my own work for over twenty years now, but that doesn’t mean I’m not open to new ideas. When I first started writing, I wrote on paper using a typewriter, retyping whole sections to edit out the errors. Needless to say, my current work process differs from the process I had when I started out.

I have a MacBook with Scrivener. I start with scenes that I export to SimpleNote. With the SimpleNote app on my iPad, I can open these files and write them wherever I am. SimpleNote has no advanced features, so you cannot format or change font or even use bold, italic or underline, which allows for distraction free writing. Instead of ‘saving’ my work, I email the notes to myself as backup. When I get back home, I connect the iPad to WiFi and it will upload the updated scenes to their website. Then I open Scrivener on my MacBook and import the updated scenes by synchronizing with SimpleNote.

When I finished my rough draft, I use Scrivener to edit and arrange the scenes, divide them into chapters, and compile an e-book. That e-book is then uploaded to iBooks on my iPad, where I can read it back and highlight/notate anything that I want to edit later. This part is a modern version of the old advice to print out your manuscript and go through it with a red pencil. The main advantage is that you’re not carrying 500 loose A4 pages, but what is also important is that the old method required leafing through the printed manuscript to find the highlights, while the e-reader on my iPad will just make a list of edits.

Once corrected, I make an updated version of the e-book and send it to my beta-readers, who will provide me with feedback. Using the feedback I will correct the manuscript and make an Advanced Reader Copy or ARC, that I sent to reviewers so they can form an opinion and write a review to be published when the book is launched.

I don’t use ‘outlines’. I know more or less the arc of the story and will write scenes, often out of chronological order, sometimes the key scenes first and the intermittent scenes afterward. The scenes will be arranged in the ‘book order’ when I finished the rough draft. Most of the time, after I ordered the scenes and read the entire first draft it becomes apparent if I need more scenes in-between. I have files on characters to remain consistent about stuff like injuries or if they have a tattoo on their left or right shoulder, but not much on characteristics. That’s all in my head.

For Fiction Writers: Do you listen (or talk to) to your characters?

I listen to my characters talk to each other. They don’t talk to me, I’m not important.

What advice would you give other writers?

If you’re starting out, don’t try to write ‘a book’. Write drafts. A draft is not meant to be read by outsiders, so you can put into the draft whatever you want. If you feel like a long description, go ahead. Five pages of dialogue? Just put it in. Don’t listen to your ‘inner editor’, don’t listen to outsiders who will tell you what rules you have to follow. Forget all that, you have permission to write eight hundred pages of total crap.

When you have enough material for a book, then you put on your editor cap. Make a copy of the original draft and edit the hell out of it. Turn the five pages of rambling dialogue into 1-2 pages of killer interaction. Cut all the unnecessary crutch words like ‘very’ and all ambiguity like ‘kind of’ and ‘sort of’. Hunt down and kill all of your adverbs. Make everything consistent, so that characters keep the same name and particulars throughout the book/series. When you’re finished with that, then it’s time to show your work to outsiders and ask their opinion.

How did you decide how to publish your books?

I tried to get a publisher, but US and UK publishers were hesitant to work with me because I lived abroad. I got a lot of positive responses on my manuscript, but nothing definite. I got a few offers, but the terms and conditions were not favorable to me. Another consideration was guarantees of print. I write a series and if I would end up with the wrong publisher, I could get in a situation where the first book in the series would have a different publisher than the other books. They could stop printing the books without reverting the rights to me, and I’d end up with an incomplete series nobody would want to read.

Self-publishing allows me to keep all the rights, make sure I’m distributed worldwide, follow my own publication schedule instead of publishing just one book per year, and keep my prices low because I don’t have the overhead of a large publishing company.

Although I started self-publishing in August 2012, in just a little over a year there have been incredible changes in the publishing industry and the image of self-publishing, which was equated with vanity publishing, is now a more legitimate possibility for authors. As evidenced by the flux of former trade-published midlist authors self-publishing their backlists.

If you’re a new author, self-publishing your work allows you to try out if you have what it takes to build a following. And you will need a following or social media presence to get trade publishers interested in your work. Just quality writing isn’t enough anymore, you have to prove you can draw mass appeal.

What do you think about the future of book publishing?

I personally think that ‘content’ publishing, like mass market paperbacks novels, will shift to e-publishing. Print will remain for books that appeal to collectors of hardcover novels, coffee table and art books. There was an item in Publishers Weekly about publishers no longer offering print to everyone. Seems like publishers will test out new authors on the e-book market and Print-On-Demand first before they’ll invest in print runs. That said, going with trade publishers seems to be bringing fewer and fewer advantages to the table.