Circles in the Spiral

by Shane Joseph

Fake News!!! Will Smallwood, a writer suffering from the dreaded "block" and from troubling childhood dreams, is sucked into a living nightmare when he becomes the fall guy for a gang spreading misinformation to hijack the upcoming Canadian Federal Election.

Fleeing from the law, Will is forced to confront his personal demons: his suppressed and abused orphan-hood, his stalled career as a historical fiction writer, the death of his first love and the chronic liar, Jacqueline, and their child he carelessly gave up for adoption. Does he have a second chance to get things right when he attends a yoga retreat and meets promiscuous painter Divine Secrets (Dee), all-knowing Guru Swaminanda, the alcoholic Davises, and sinister Professor Darlington? Is the cross-dressing porn actor with the Twitter handle @abandonedchild97, who is following him with a camera, Will's long-lost son?

From an idyllic lakefront retreat to a breathtaking series of dashes between Ottawa and Toronto pursued by mobsters and police, and with a trail of dead bodies in his wake, Will assembles the pieces of the puzzle while coming to the realization that his dysfunctional past and complicated present are connected, that the Guru's words about the circular nature of life are coming true, that people and events are entering his life for a reason, and that to open his mind and heart without cloaking them in fiction or fake news is his only way towards redemption.

Genres: Psychological Thriller

202 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 2020

About the author

Shane Joseph is a graduate of the Humber School for Writers in Toronto, Canada. He began writing as a teenager living in Sri Lanka and has never stopped. Redemption in Paradise, his first novel, was published in 2004 and his first short story collection, Fringe Dwellers, in 2008. His novel, After the Flood, a dystopian epic set in the aftermath of global warming, was released in November 2009, and won the Canadian Christian Writers award for best Futuristic/Fantasy novel in 2010. His story collection, Paradise Revisited, was shortlisted for the ReLit Award. His latest novel, Victoria Unveiled, was released in the fall of 2024. His short stories and articles have appeared in several Canadian anthologies and in literary journals around the world. His blog at www.shanejoseph.com is widely syndicated.

His career stints include: stage and radio actor, pop musician, encyclopaedia salesman, lathe machine operator, airline executive, travel agency manager, vice president of a global financial services company, software services salesperson, publishing editor, project manager and management consultant.

Self-taught, with four degrees under his belt obtained through distance education, Shane is an avid traveller and has visited one country for every year of his life and lived in four of them. He fondly recalls incidents during his travels as real lessons he could never have learned in school: husky riding in Finland with no training, trekking the Inca Trail in Peru through an unending rainstorm, hitch-hiking in Australia without a map, escaping a wild elephant in Zambia, and being stranded without money in Denmark, are some of his memories.

After immigrating (twice), raising a family, building a career, and experiencing life's many highs and lows, Shane has carved out a niche in Cobourg, Ontario with his wife Sarah, where he continues to work, write, and strum his guitar.

Shane Joseph, believes in the gift of second chances. He feels that he has lived many lives in just a single lifetime, always starting from scratch with only the lessons from the past to draw upon. His novels and stories reflect the redemptive power of acceptance and forgiveness.

Reviews

[Bharath · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book covers a topic which gained prominence after the last US elections – foreign interference in the election process. The story is set around an upcoming general election in Canada.

Will Smallwood is a writer who has had a period of struggle with his career and also his relationships. As things seem to be looking up, he goes on a retreat organized by Guru Swaminanda. There he runs into a set of people who coincidentally come to play key roles in the weeks to follow. There is Dee who he becomes romantically involved with, and the cunning Prof Darlington who he gets engaged with professionally. Will gets involved in a Canadian government engagement amid suspicions of foreign interference in the upcoming elections. He also starts receiving messages from a twitter handle which seems to be from his son from his previous relationship who was given up for adoption.

I found the story to be interesting and fast paced. The first half is a fairly light read, and the story gets more serious as it progresses. The characterization of the guru (and to some extent also Will’s son) was very silly & bland though and detracts from an otherwise decent story.

Thanks to the author for a free electronic copy for review.

My rating: 3.5 / 5.

[Bradley · Rating 4 out of 5]

As implied by the title, things start out slow and easygoing -- a retreat for the body and the soul -- but this is where things begin to spiral out of control. :)

The changes are imperceptible at first. A free-spirited romance. A few reveals.

*grin*

This is what happens when writers throw off their yokes and write what they want to write, letting the crazy out. Each new reveal, each new piece of the puzzle throws a monkey wrench into the bigger work until the circles become an ever-widening gyre and all hell breaks loose.

A staid and solid life this may have appeared to be, but just as we think we've gotten a handle on the last bombshell, another one comes along. And another. And another.

No spoilers. The personal reveals are as interesting as the political ones and everything comes together in a perfect storm of crazy. All our choices come back to haunt or aid us. Getting tangled in people makes our lives more interesting. :)

Quite an enjoyable read, amusing and dark.

[Shane · Rating 5 out of 5]

Author’s Note

I wrote this novel during a period of convalescence from a sudden cardiac arrest that overcame me on September 11th 2018 – my 9/11. Writing the novel helped in my recovery, for I was able to reclaim some artistic freedom during a time when writers were losing out to a groundswell of political correctness. We were being squeezed into foxholes where the only permissible character we could write about without sanction was ourselves.

Therefore, this book spans a range of character, race, gender, political, social, and philosophical spectra without inhibition, helped no doubt by a bagful of pharmaceutical drugs and the loss of self-censoring filters—a writer’s Nirvana. I also advanced dates of certain events, like the 2019 Canadian Federal Government Election, from the Fall to the Spring to provide for fictive flow. Everything else came from my imagination.

I wish to thank the anonymous firefighters, paramedics, doctors and nurses who saved my life during the writing of this book. If you hadn’t given me a second chance at life, I wouldn’t have completed this novel about second chances.

I also wish to thank my advance readers of this manuscript and my editor Jennifer Bogart for her diligent work and encouraging feedback. This was not an easy book to write, and your support relieved the burden on me.

Shane Joseph—2020

[Michael Croucher · Rating 4 out of 5]

An intriguing plot and a cast of colorful characters highlight this entertaining and very graphic novel.

Will Smallwood, a struggling novelist, seeking relief from a stubborn bout of writers block and some healing introspection into his troubled life, enrolls in a spiritual retreat in Northern Ontario. Headed by an oversexed Guru, Swaminanda, and attended by misfits, cult-like followers, and more than one sexual-pervert, the retreat gives Will much more than he bargained for.

He hooks up with Dee, a promiscuous artist with sexual and emotional baggage rivaling his own, and a conniving and corrupt Professor Darlington who eventually steers him into a whirlwind of misinformation, election hijacking, and murder. He is pursued by police and mobsters alike as he struggles to understand the many screw-ups in his life. There is also a mysterious Twitter handle that nags at him. Is there a connection between @abandonedchild97 and his long-lost son.

Even though in places, the sexual aspects in this story are a bit excessive, Circles in The Spiral is a really good read that will leave most readers satisfied and anxious for more.

[Linda Grimaldi · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you are looking for a novel in which the author has taken great pains to develop nuanced characters, to provide a meticulously planned plot line, or to furnish your imagination with a vivid sense of place, look further. This book ain't it.

If, on the other hand, you want a rollicking, if not always completely coherent, story featuring a genital-obsessed protagonist who encounters stereotypical characters as he stumbles his way through the novel, well, you have found gold.

The author, whom I have the pleasure to know personally, is looking to challenge the current zeitgeist. Political correctness, particularly as regards sex, is out the window. His characters say and do outrageous things. Once you accept that, the book is kind of fun to read and has the virtue of not overstaying its welcome.

[Liz Torlée · Rating 5 out of 5]

From beginning to end, this is a roller coaster of emotions. The political interference angle is timely and engaging but what really captivates is the story of Will Smallwood, his troubled childhood, his difficult and often wrong decisions as an adult and how everything comes round in circles to meet and challenge him again and again. Despite his flawed character, you can't help rooting for him, cheering when things go well, groaning and rolling your eyes when he strays off course. On almost every page there is something new or surprising or even shocking. Only at the very end can you take a deep breath and reflect on what a fascinating tale this was!

[Ben · Rating 4 out of 5]

A review by Ben Antao

Shane Joseph’s new novel Circles in the Spiral explores a theme in Eastern philosophy — what goes around comes around — by situating his story in the West, namely, Ontario, Canada. The protagonist suffering from ‘a writer’s block’ is plunged into a fake news campaign to hijack the Canadian federal election. Narrated in the first person, the main character named Will Smallwood ‘relives’ his dysfunctional childhood, being an abandoned orphan, in an effort to find some degree of redemption in the end.

In crafting this incredible story, the author draws upon his writerly skills, most notably his penchant for incisive dialogue, to create character and carry a story with unexpected surprises in sustaining a fast-moving plot. His understanding of life and its mores in the underbelly of Toronto — the dysfunctional residents in the drug-addled citizenry — is so acutely rendered, sharply observed and realistically portrayed that it unnerved this reviewer.

The plot is set boiling in the cottage country west of Ottawa, in an ashram presided over by Guru Swaminanda who ministers to the psychologically sick to help them recover from their deep ailments. Here on this lake retreat the cast of characters is introduced — a promiscuous artist Divine Secrets (Dee), an academic Prof Darlington, a middle-aged out-of-love couple Davis and his wife Marge, the guru and Smallwood, a writer of historical fiction tormented by his lost love Jacqueline. The reason for the get-together is ostensibly to explore the concept of second chances.

Soon the reader is hooked on the story of Jacqueline, a bipolar Ryerson drama student whom Smallwood meets in a downtown Toronto bar. Jacqueline, a pill-popping emerging actor, gives such a riveting performance playing Medea that she is soon marked to play the key role in Strinberg’s play Miss Julie. She and Smallwood are involved in riotous sex, with the latter falling hopelessly in love. They have a baby named Roy who also plays a huge part towards the end when the story turns into a fast-moving thriller involving mobs and gangs in pursuit of Smallwood for his role in Darlington’s scheme to hijack the federal election.

This story involving the circular nature of life assumes a high human interest because of dialogue. The author in choosing the first-person POV depends on skilful dialogue to propel action and character. In this he succeeds immensely.

Here’s how he sets up the first meeting between Smallwood and Jacqueline in the bar.

I paused from my work to admire this new server: a tight white tee shirt with a few splotches of sweat in intimate places, curvy hips swirling under snug denims, and a shock of black hair that she tossed back effortlessly as she served the thirsty masses mewling around her.

“Molson Draft!” The new server dropped a frosty pint on my table without sloshing a drop. “I’ll take cash now as I am busy and some people leave without paying.”

As I reached for my wallet, she stared at my laptop, bending closer. I could smell shampoo and strong deodorant. “That sounds pretty fancy for a university thesis. People cutting off heads.”

“Don’t pry. It’s my masterpiece, my debut novel. When it sells, I won’t be hanging out in hovels like this.”

“Ha! Thy ambition knows no bounds, my lord!” She made such a theatrical bow, I couldn’t help but enquire.

“Ryerson, School of Drama,” she replied, cheerfully.

“Congratulations. When do you graduate?”

“This summer.”

“That makes two of us.”

“I guess, now that we’ve met, I am supposed to ask you out for a drink after work. But I must be standing in line with everyone else in this room.”

“I haven’t said ‘yes’ to anyone, yet.”


There is more such engaging talk if you care to read the novel closely, which I recommend you do. Circles in the Spiral is published by Blue Denim Press, of Cobourg, Ont.


Ben Antao is a journalist, novelist and short story writer living in Toronto.


Words 675
Aug 22, 2020

[Barb Nobel · Rating 4 out of 5]

My initial impression of this book was that there were too many different threads, and I wondered how they would all come together. But, come together they did, and it was worth the wait.

Here is a mystery/psychological thriller with a diverse cast of strange characters, good and evil. Our heroes and villains are sometimes normal, sometimes abnormal, and occasionally bizarre.

Throw in a dash of misery, literary references, Canadian politics, and sex; and a smattering of humour, wisdom, intrigue, and sex, and it adds up to a good read. And yes, the dash and the smattering of sex tallies a bit more, but who doesn’t enjoy reading about sex?

A few good twists keep the book lover guessing until we get to a satisfying ending.

Since I’m a proud Canadian, I give it extra points for its Canadian settings, history, and politics.

[Jim Fonseca · Rating 5 out of 5]

As I said in my review of the author’s book, Milltown: Wow, there is a lot of action and intertwined lives going on in this fast-moving book. I hope Shane has kept the movie rights because I could see this as an action-adventure thriller on the big screen.



I don't want to give away plot, so I will describe some of the main characters and some of their issues to give you a feel for the book.

The main character is down on his luck. He's a writer of historical novels and there was a time when his books were selling, his agent was calling, and he was on book tours across Canada. No more. He's looking for what his next shtick will be. So he has to compromise his true writing love for something that's going to make money or he will soon have another ex-wife in his background. Right now he’s stocking shelves in a grocery store.

His new woman friend, an artist, deals with the same issue of what sells. And a swami/guru, whose retreat the author attends, is all about the inner self, but he shows his true colors when he asks everyone to ‘like’ his retreat on Facebook as they leave.

The main character has a son, or maybe not, since paternity is uncertain. The son is looking ahead to an operation that will change his sexuality.

The author in our story has had a tough life, raised in foster homes and subjected to the big three kinds of abuse: physical, psychological, and sexual.

We learn retrospectively of the sad story of his first wife, the mother of the young man who may be his son. To give you an idea of the stresses in her life, let me try to describe her life in one sentence which I will put in a spoiler: She is a bipolar pill popper, a victim of incest as a child, who has attempted suicide several times, and has a gay male roommate suffering from AIDS. The things we don’t know about people before we marry them!



The author in the story moves on from grocery work to PR work for a Canadian government minister. He drafts press releases and blog posts for social media. In this part of the story we get a lesson on the use and abuse of social media: fake news, pirated Twitter handles, and secret recordings that could turn an election around. [Seriously? In Canada? If they want to stop these unwanted influences flooding in from the south, they should build a wall!]

The third part of the book becomes almost like a spy thriller. It looks like the Russians might be behind some of this fake news trying to throw an election. Our main character is on the run from … well, the police… long story.

And Shane toys with us a bit with names. The flat-faced Eastern European guy, a guy you never want to meet in an alley, is named Igor. We get a bit of graphic sex in the story too, so we are definitely looking at an R rating when the movie comes out. And then we remember our main character’s last name is Smallwood.

To give you a hint of the kind of action you are in for near the conclusion, we have two kidnappings, a body count of three, and two others headed to the hospital, one in critical condition.

A good story that kept my interest through the twists and turns all the way through. Highly recommended for action-adventure fans who like psychological depth in their characters.



I thank the author, Shane Joseph, for sending me a copy of the book for the purpose of a review. Shane has written seven novels and a collection of short stories, Crossing Limbo, which I have enjoyed reading.

Top photo of Oshawa, Ontario, where some of the action takes place, from oshawacity on twitter.com
Toronto from aircanada.com
The author from shanejoseph.com

[Jacob Hogeterp · Rating 4 out of 5]

What Terry Fallis did for Canadian politics with mild satire, Shane Joseph has done with a fast-paced thriller: snatched it form the humdrum of the daily news and laid its seamy underside exposed. There’s always a story behind the headlines, and sometimes it’s an intriguing one — even in Canada. Circles in the Spire, however, steers clear of the headline-grabbing mainstage players of the political machinations game, and dances with characters wallowing knee-deep in muck even the backroom regulars manage to sidestep. And what you get is a rollicking tale of mystery, adventure and intrigue superimposed on a heart-rending eye-opener on the pain inflicted by abandonment.

There are a few things that keep the novel from punching above the 4-star rating. The first is the imbalance between the genre’s need to keep the narrative racing along, and reader’s need to step back occasionally and reflect on the complex psychic wounds most of the main characters carry. Too often, establishing well rounded characters is trumped by the phrenetic pace of the action. Characters are in constant peril of devolving into caricatures as they dash through their scripted paces. This may well be a default deficit of action drama, but it nevertheless leaves the reader short-changed at times.
Then there’s the often stilted dialogue: scenes loaded with drama and suspense tripping over speed bumps of formal phrasing: “I am,” “you are,” slowing the pace where their contracted forms would have waved the action on. (No thanks. I am in a bit of a hurry). Is that grade-school grammar teacher still peering over the author’s shoulder, ruler poised to rap knuckles at every instance of common usage?

The narrator has, of course, every right to his own peculiarities of syntax, but when he has almost every character at one time or another utter “for” instead of “because” (Ogling and lusting assuages his ego better than words, for he never listens), he seems out of tune with the Canadian English most of those characters would be familiar with and likely to use. And then there’s the street kid who, in the course of a casual review of recent events, and, without a hint of irony, tosses out: “I think our meeting in the Hog’s Head washroom was propitious too.” How many of his fellow characters wouldn’t have to do a deep dive into their Merriam Webster for clarification?

Those minor points aside, the plot meets all the requisites of a Hollywood script: fast-paced beats in all the right places, unexpected twists at every turn, sex, lots of sex, and — just when you thought it was all neatly wrapped up and were wondering why Joseph would have us meander through another 10 pages — the corkscrew-twist finale that you should have seen coming, but never do. Ain’t that just why we keep coming back for more of such tales?

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

The dark underbelly of the world of politics. The power of social media when harnessed for disreputable purposes. The sometimes crippling weight of a dysfunctional childhood. Suppressed memories that lie waiting for the chance to ambush. And the redemptive power of second chances that come with their own price.

It may be difficult to imagine all of these themes packed into one novel. But Shane Joseph weaves them all into “Circles in the Spiral” – a no holds barred novel that is rooted in the 2019 Canadian Federal Election.

Will Smallwood, bogged down by the dreaded writers block, scrapes together the money for a few days at Guru Swaminanda’s retreat on an idyllic lake. He hopes the change of pace and the Guru’s life coaching sessions will free up his muse. At first, it seems to work with the bonus of opening the door to a new relationship with free-spirited painter Divine Secrets.

But Will soon realizes he has been pulled into the world of political intrigue which forces him to go on the run from Ottawa to Toronto. The Guru’s teachings of the circular nature of life prove to be true in ways he could never have imagined. Along the way, past mistakes and suppressed memories come back to haunt him.

“Circles in the Spiral” is a fast-paced, gritty and at times graphically explicit novel. Joseph explores gender, political, social and philosophical questions revealing that there are often more than two sides to the story – and that the road to redemption sometimes takes us places we would rather not go, but cannot avoid.

[Isobel Raven · Rating 4 out of 5]

Can you identify the “bad guy” in chapter one of Shane Joseph’s psychological thriller, Circles in the Spiral? You won’t know until the last few pages how right or wrong you were. You might even choose Joseph’s protagonist, Will Smallwood, a writer whose initial success has dwindled to less than a memory. Self-searching under the guidance of a twinkling-eyed guru sets him on a new course, but we readers aren’t confident that it will stabilize the downward spiral of his fortunes.
We learn Smallwood’s history of failed relationships. There is little to recommend him in this history, yet Joseph manages to keep us pulling for his (anti)hero. Hoping that somehow he will drag some kind of honour out of his dishonorable past.
A growing clarity in his recurrent nightmares enables Will to reconstruct and recognize the repressed suffering of his childhood. He is then able to come to grips with his flagrant abandonment of his own child. A chance meeting with the son he failed so badly gives Will an undeserved second chance.
Throughout the narrative, Will’s passion for Dee, the woman he met at the guru’s retreat, is returned without stint. Joseph describes their sexual congress as graphically as any reader could wish. It seems Will is good at something after all.
As the murky motives of various characters become clear, the novel roars headlong to a bloody climax, and we find out what kind of stuff Will is made of. Way better than you would have thought.
Joseph seeds his story with subtle humour, vivid settings, and unique characters. 194 pages of pure entertainment.

[Lorna · Rating 4 out of 5]

This story was different from anything else I have read but kept my interest throughout. Timely with politics and fake news included but so much past anguish for the main character and his "family." Very graphic in places which made it hard to read but very necessary to the story as a whole. I would give it 4 out of 5 stars.