Reader Buzz
on SWITCH

‘Wow! Loved it … desperately wanted more after racing through the first 130 pages. Fast, thrilling, gripping, scary…When can I read the rest?
— Gavin Hilzbrich

This book is so cinematic . . . due to the punchy dialogue and the succession of crisp, sharp images which drive the narrative forward. I want to read more!
— Sam Eades

This is absolutely brilliant! A very compelling read but I was upset when I got to the last page because I wanted more!
— Jeanette Slinger

I can't stand crime novels that have a long preamble before getting to the action and this one certainly doesn't disappoint in that way. From page one it's straight in there, bish bash bosh and continues on in that vein, so you are frantically turning the pages to find out what happens next.
— Sandra Hawe

The material I read was mad, frantic, super quick and entertaining.
— Martin Higgins

Gripping… Explosive… Page Turning…
And that’s only 140 pages in!!
— Darren Elliot

This was great - I really wanted to read on. Very much made me think of Simon Kernick and Relentless actually - same kind of ordinary guy suddenly finding his life turned upside down when he just comes home from work... Decidedly scary and asks some very dark questions: just how far would you go to save your family?
— Sue Cook

Extreme Vacations will pump up the paranoia

Story & Illustration
By Grant McKenzie

In Cambodia, they say it isn't the heat that kills you, it's the bullets. At the moment, I was too hot to argue.

The waiter appeared nervous as he served a large iced tea, slice of lime on the rim. Earlier he had been all smiles and courteous bows, knowing that pink skin and legs the colour of fresh chicken meat meant a new tourist had just rolled in with plenty of money to spend.

I stared from behind mirrored sunglasses, watching as his eyes darted from the cash in my hand to something across the street. After he left, I dropped my napkin to the floor and managed to take a quick peek over my shoulder.

There was a black van parked on the opposite side of the street. Nothing unusual in that, except the windows were fogged, which meant someone was breathing hard inside, and in this heat they would be getting crankier by the second.

I rubbed the lime - nature's disinfectant - on the edge of the glass and took a sip of iced tea.

I wasn't surprised when the shadow fell over me, but the curvaceousness of its silhouette peaked my curiosity. The woman leaned in close, perspiration making her olive skin glisten. Her scent had a flowery muskiness to it, which combined with her flowing ebony black hair, reminded me of a jungle legend I had read about a panther goddess.

Her voice was a husky whisper that began to raise my temperature even more, but her words were an ice-water bath.

"If you want to live, come with me now."

She offered her hand. As I took it the doors to the van across the street exploded open and five men, dressed from head to toe in black, rushed out.

The woman gasped, gripped my hand like a vice and began to run.

I had no choice but to keep pace, and the decision was made all the easier when I saw the table I had been sitting at disintegrate into a storm of splinters.

In the alley, the woman released my hand and leapt into an idling open-air Jeep. I joined her as she quickly accelerated, the deafening sound of gunfire spurring us on.

"You seek the temple, no?" the woman asked breathlessly.

I nodded. "There is an item there I must retrieve. It has been hidden for centuries."

The sound of a helicopter swooped in on us and I feared that whoever was out to stop me had tracked us down.

The woman squeezed my arm and smiled.

"The good guys," she said.

The helicopter rushed in and then kept pace with us as an inch-thick wire was lowered from its belly. On the end of the wire was a tiny round platform, not much larger than a bagel.

"You go now," the woman said. "I'll get the elephants ready. We leave at dawn."

"Thank you," I said lamely as I grabbed the wire and pulled myself up until I could stand on the round platform. "But I didn't get your name."

"Later," she said with a wink as the helicopter rose and I soared with it into the crystal blue sky.

Now how would you like to start your next vacation like that?

Rob Davies, an Alberta lad from Medicine Hat who now lives in Hong Kong, can make it happen. Rob is the founder of On-the-Edge Adventures, a company that specializes in creating extreme vacations that can turn you into James Bond or Lara Croft.

"For clients who give us the green light, we push their physical, mental and cultural limits to the edge in an adrenaline-pumping and off-the-rails 9 1/2-day adventure experience," says the Canadian entrepreneur in an email chat.

"We enable our clients to confront and re-examine the comfort of their cultural and personal values in the exotic backdrop of Southeast Asia. The resulting adventure is designed to be edgy, intimate and exciting."

Reminiscent of the 1997 film, The Game, On-the-Edge Adventures (www.on-the-edge-adventures-asia.com) employs over a dozen specialists - including experts in travel, military operations, props-and-sets, stunts, a storyboard consultant and even a mobile noodle cart hawker, all in an effort to engage clients in an intense adventure. The team of characters confronts, guides, explores, abandons, encourages, challenges and/or assists a client during their adventure - wherever it may lead.

Whether an adventure client is searching for a remote forest temple in Thailand disguised as a Buddhist monk, racing to Pol Pot's tombstone in Cambodia, or traveling by elephant only to be propelled into a night of bizarre clubbing in discos and border town casinos, the On-the-Edge team is likely in the background pulling the strings.

The adventures take place in Cambodia's northern mountainous border region, its capital of Phnom Penh, the Golden Triangle, Bangkok, and/or rural Laos and Hong Kong. Modes of travel include bamboo river rafts, limousines, 4x4 jeeps, rickshaws, helicopters and elephants. High levels of athleticism or a military background are not a pre-requisite for the adventure, although clients need to be in good physical condition.

These ultra-exclusive adventures are intended for the high-end traveler with an appetite for extreme excitement. The nine-day package costs $13,450 US for one person, $18,450 US for two, or $21,950 US for three. Three people per adventure is the company's maximum.

In our chat, Rob said he's done three adventures so far (one Englishman and two Americans) and "their feedback was so positive we knew there was a business," hence the formalization of the firm and website launch in April.

The only way I could think to possibly enhance this adventure is to take along your favourite columnist as a guest to document the whole thing. I'll dry clean my tux and wait by the phone ;-)

Short Stories

An author Q&A,
plus my short Out of Order
appeared in Spinetingler's Summer 08 issue.

My short White Volcano appeared in
Out Of The Gutter 2

My short Ragamuffin Girl appeared in Spinetingler's Summer 07 issue.

My short She Remembers The Future appeared in The Late Late Show's Summer 03 issue.