Chris Rice Cooper
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1. Chris Rice Cooper’s analysis of M.V. Ghiorghi’s
Blood Matter
“A Shock
to the Reader!”
2. M.V. Ghiorghi: How I Got The Idea to Write Blood Matter
3. Blood Matter:
Excerpts
1. Chris Rice Cooper’s analysis of M.V. Ghiorghi’s
Blood Matter
“A Shock
to the Reader!”
published Blood Matter by M.V. Ghiorghi
https://www.facebook
The Prologue of Blood Matter begins with
the execution of an unrepentant and violent death row inmate. It ends with a mentally unstable mother who
abandons her newborn baby on the railroad tracks.
Unknowingly,
these two events of the Prologue have lasting affects on FBI Agent Joe Vasquez. Vasquez is already haunted by many sorrows:
his father’s murder; the death of his beloved mother Isabella; the death of six-month-old
son Alberto from sudden infant death syndrome; and the painful divorce from
wife Lane.
These
demons of sorrow have left Vasquez feeling empty and full of void. He can no
longer sleep in the master bedroom he shared with his wife and he refuses to
remove anything from Alberto’s room including his baby blanket and crib. All he has left is his career in law enforcement
and the memories of his dead loved ones.
Then
his life takes a twisted turn when he encounters two serial killers: Doll-maker
and Viper. The mysterious Viper sadistically
tortures and kills men who are on death row or serving life terms for
murder. How does Viper manage to kill
these men? Is it someone from the prison
– perhaps another inmate? But then Viper
somehow manages to get out of prison into the outside world and in the process fatally
shoots Joe’s partner Steve. (image attributed to Frederik Ruysch)
Joe
is even more wounded and memories of his dead partner Steve and his dead loved
ones continue to haunt him with more intensity.
At first appearance it seems that Joe is out for revenge – to catch a
serial killer who killed his partner.
But it is more than that – Joe is a complicated figure who places all of
his energy into this case because literally he has nothing left. It is his only chance of redemption. Maybe if he solves this case his demons will
go away and his wounded spirit will begin to heal?
Joe
learns that forensic psychiatrist Dr. Gabrielle Lubovich at one time
interviewed Viper’s victims. Dr.
Lubovich is a charismatic, youthful, beautiful woman with a past of her
own. Soon he learns of her connections
with Congressman Damien Sheppard who was at one time a full time Professor of
Psychiatry at the Dallas Graduate Institute, the same institute Gabrielle
attended. Joe’s intuition is now telling him that Gabrielle has something to
hide and he finds himself attracted to her physical beauty and her mysterious
nature.
He
then learns information that leads him to believe that Gabrielle is on the
death list of both the Doll-maker and the Viper. He then realizes that there is still love in
his heart for someone else: he is in
love with Gabrielle.
Every
word in Blood Matter matters – excuse the pun. It matters to the point where the reader will
want to go back and reread certain sections, especially the Prologue, and only
then realize the connections. (Image attributed to Teodors Oders)
Blood Matter is a character driven crime novel full of
authentic colorful characters (some are not even mentioned in this piece due to
spoiler alerts). Yet Blood
Matter also has the characteristics of a crime noir novel: suspense, gun
battles, car chases, chases on a moving train, fights, sex, mystery, blackmail,
and plenty of eye-opening surprises.
It
is also a well-researched book and reveals realistic descriptive scenes on the FBI,
Law Enforcement, forensics, the happenings on death row, and the dark forces of
DNA.
2. M.V. Ghiorghi’s Explains Where She Got The
Idea for Blood Matter
M.V. Ghiorghi grew up in Russian
Caucasus. When the simmering war flared up in the turbulent region, the
author’s parents were persuaded to let their Georgian/Jewish mutt offspring
seek a future in the U.S. The author arrived with a one-way ticket, $400, and a
suitcase filled with manuscripts in Russian written during school breaks.
After
a few years, the author became proficient in and fell in love with the English
language. Blood Matter is this aspiring actor and filmmaker’s first
novel. Below she explains how the idea
of Blood
Matter first came to her and her experience of writing the novel.
Years
back, in Caucasus, my father had a childhood friend (Alex)
who dabbed in black magic when they were kids. More precisely, my dad was a
kid, and Alex was an older teenager in love with my aunt, and for this reason
befriended my father, her little brother, and let him tag along.
In his
magical training, Alex followed an old, prerevolutionary Russian book. The
training included tricks like digging up graves, killing black cats to dissect
them at a cemetery at night, in order to extract a certain bone, etc. Pretty
much, a training to foster a psychopath.
These
‘tests of the will’ prepared one to perform psychic following of test subjects
(one lay in bed at night and imagined coming up the stairs of the
test-subject’s house, entering the bedroom, and strangling him, for example),
causing them night terrors, tripping people while they walked by. All that
amounted to a sort of hypnosis from the distance. Later, as
an adult, Alex became a psychiatric professor in Leningrad- and made quite a
name for himself as a hypnotizer. He was unusual- he did not need the subject’s
permission to hypnotize them, which is considered ‘impossible.’ (Hypnotic Seance by Richard Bergin)
So
naturally, growing up, I was fascinated by my father’s stories about this man’s
ability.
Much
later, as a student, while in Moscow, I tried to write to him. His response
discouraged any further contact- probably because by then my sister managed to
visit Leningrad- and to spurn his son (a somewhat crazy young psychiatrist to
be), just as my aunt spurned Alex in their youth, and so Alex had a very
scant contact with my dad and our family. (Photo of author as a little girl with her father).
And so the
theme percolated and percolated- and different pieces were coming together for
years.
Meanwhile,
I came to the US after graduation from Moscow University, (on left) learned English, and
started to write my stories down- as screenplays (my English wasn’t ripe for
novels.)
Then, I
got divorced and went to a private graduate school in Oregon (because I
couldn’t find a job at the time to support myself and my son, and their PHD
research-assistantship paid 20,000 a year.) I ended up programming (which I
hated) for near 70 hours a week. I had to continue writing somehow to keep sane,
so I would write at my computer at school when I was supposed to study or be
developing mathematical models, and managed, being a student, a researcher, and
a mom to a young boy, to complete only 2 screenplay in those 2 years, one of
them ‘Blood Matter’ (I called ‘Evil Blood’ at the time.)
Naturally,
they booted me out of the program after 2 years with a non-thesis Master,
instead of a PHD after 4.
I tried to
pitch ‘Evil Blood at a Willamette
writers’ conference in Portland around that time, and even sent the script to a
few minor producers I met there- with no response whatsoever.
And then
the show Dexter came out- and I got
scared since there were so many similarities with my story, and didn’t show or
talk about the script with anyone for years.
About 5
years ago, as I felt more confident about my English, I decided to turn that
script into a novel. (By then, I was married again- to a very supportive man.)
The novel
writing is much more slow and deliberate than writing screenplays- and all the
inconsistences and plot holes, etc. that are not obvious in a script/film
format, become apparent. So I wrote the novel and then rewrote it about 4 or 5 times, which
taught me a lot about writing fiction.
My process
combines inspiration and ‘seeing scenes’ in my head, as well as a methodical,
tedious planning. Before I write the script, I would come up with
ideas,
disjoined scenes, characters, dialogs, etc., and just jot them down on a piece
of paper, and drop it in a bag or a (physical) file. And when the bag is pretty full, and the story
somewhat developed, I sort through all the notes, assign them to a time in the
story, and glue them onto corresponding pages of my planning notebook.
I think,
being trained as a scientist helps greatly in the planning and disciplining my
imagination.
The second novel I’m finishing now
also started as a script. I think, I’ll stick with this pattern. That beginning
screenplay is like a loose skeleton on which you grow flesh, but then you start
changing and improving parts, and by the time the book is finished, the story is
perfected, and can make an even better script.
I did a lot of research on serial
killers while writing BM- and had even a bit of a rift with my husband who was
disgusted with my new ‘hobby’, and at finding printed out articles about ‘all
that crap’ in the house. The research desensitized me a bit, which made the
writing ‘grosser parts’ of the novel easier.
I wrote a Blood
Matter the screenplay little by little (while working on other things as
well) over the course of a year. Then I didn’t touch it for a few years. Then
it took me about a year to turn it into a novel (that coincided with the
beginning of my second marriage), and about a year to do all the revisions. I wrote Blood
Matter in In various places- on my lap on a stealth, on my work/school
computers, in bed, in a bedroom I used as an office (my son took over that room
and desk since.) Right now, I write in a corner of my bedroom. Maybe, one day
I’ll have a proper study, all my own.
The most compelling portion of the book for me to write was
the first/intro chapter, and the last one, before the postscript. The first
chapter was longer initially- I made Sam’s execution botched at first, but of
course, that was self-indulgent. I couldn’t spend so much time with a character
who doesn’t reappear later in the book. Sam interested me a lot, which is why,
of course, I enjoyed developing the character of his offspring. (‘Blood Matter’
means also a ‘matter of blood’, as in genetics.) And the last chapter played
like a film in my head- it was challenging and exciting to write pure action
and give a reader the right ‘visual’ experience.
After I wrote Blood Matter,
I thought all I had to do was to find an agent. I managed to interest 2 people,
and one of them won me over. She seemed so passionate about the book. She was
also a new agent- which all the articles on finding literary agents say is a
good thing for a new writer. Unfortunately, after a couple of publishers
rejected the book, she suddenly lost all confidence in it and wanted me to
completely rewrite the novel. (she since stopped representing fiction
altogether.) At which point, I started to contact small indie publishers myself-
and found Divertir Publishing. They didn’t have much to offer in terms of
promotion, but Kenneth Tupper, the publisher, was also an excellent editor, and
pointed out a few things I, and all my beta readers missed. He helped to polish
and prepare the manuscript so professionally that I will never be embarrassed
for it in the future.
3.
Blood
Matter:
Excerpts
Joe stepped inside the room and quietly closed the door. He waited until
he heard only his own breathing. His eyes acclimated and made out the outlines
of the crib. For a few moments, he thought he could feel his boy’s presence.
Then a beam of light from a passing car broke through the sheer curtains.
In one devastating moment, it illuminated the smoothness of the baby blanket
inside. A cold hand in Joe’s chest woke up and squeezed. His son was gone for
eight months, his tiny body rotted in the bleak dirt hole next to the four year
old grave of Joe’s mother. Alberto would have been walking by now, talking a
little, calling his father something silly. Joe’s imagination rehearsed these
over and over, without mercy.
The room was a mausoleum to Joe’s fatherhood. He wouldn’t let Lana,
Alberto’s mother and Joe’s soon-to-be ex-wife, touch anything here. The baby
clothes still filled the drawers, the tricycle Alberto never grew up enough to
ride still stood in the corner, and his baby toys still overflowed the big
basket next to it. Soon after their son’s funeral, Lana wanted to donate all
his things to her church. Joe would not let her. The toys, the clothes, and the
crib remained. Lana, on the other hand, had moved out, and the arrangement sat
well with him.
--Chapter 4, Excerpt
He pressed her old dress to his face, inhaling the lingering smell of rose
oil she used in place of perfume, and then put it on the floor with the rest of
her clothes. He found her reading glasses, some of his school papers she had
saved, a tattered notebook of recipes in her Spanish handwriting, and a robe he
bought her for her birthday with his first paycheck when he was eighteen,
bundled around something…
Joe unwrapped it and took out, one by one, a framed photo of his parent’s
wedding…a stack of letters held with a rubber band addressed in Spanish to his
mother from his father and posted with Guatemalan stamps…his father’s old
family album…Joe paused, holding the last object—Rafa’s flannel pajama shirt,
complete with a bullet hole and rusty spots of long-dried blood.
Joe stared at his findings. While growing up, he believed that Isabel had
gotten rid of these objects. Their absence had sealed the silent pact between
them, never to mention the man that Joe had struggled his entire childhood not
to miss. Yet here they were, keepsakes of the dead, preserved lovingly for Joe
one day to chance upon.
--Chapter 4, Excerpt
Joe kneeled by his friend’s side but didn’t dare lift him. Unable to
think, he pressed his hand over Steve’s neck below the chin where the bullet
entered, as if he could arrest the spurting blood. It quickly soaked the front
of his shirt. Steve’s eyes bore into his. The big guy was trying to say
something.
“Shhh…,” Joe said. “Lay still. It’s gonna be alright.” Tears streamed down
his cheeks.
In Steve’s last willful effort, words came. “Pale eyes…like silver fish…”
Then the face of Joe’s friend slackened, his eyes staring past Joe and
absorbing the blue of the sky.
--Chapter
2, Excerpt
A slender young woman
with dark, intense eyes walked down the second floor corridor of the Dallas FBI
Headquarters. A gym hoodie and designer suit pants clung snug to her hard body.
Her Italian shoes were sensible but elegant, and a roomy, sturdy, overpriced
purse hung from her strong shoulder. While not much above average height, her
confident posture made her appear taller. On a scale of horses, Gabrielle
Lubovich was an Arabian.
--Chapter 8, Excerpt
As she climbed the
stairs, Gabrielle checked her phone and saw a new text message from Tom. Running
a little late sorry. She reached the top landing, unlocked her door, and
stepped inside the apartment. “Ranger!” she called as she turned on the hall
light.
“You still here, puppy?”
No usual, ecstatic
bark greeted her. Gabrielle froze, the phone still in her hand. Calmly, she
lifted the gadget to her ear, waited a bit, and said into the dead receiver,
“Hey Tom, thank you for picking up Ranger. I owe you one. See you tomorrow.”
Her voice was light, pneumatic. She pretended to hang up and whistled to the
tune of the Puccini’s Toreador while noisily dropping off her shoes. Her
feverish, shiny eyes didn’t as much as flick toward the watchful aperture of the living room entrance as she moved
past it and down the hall.
One step, two…nothing.
The bathroom door
swung open with a whine. The whistling stopped, and the echo of the shower
came. Then the door shut, dulling the sound.
--Chapter 23, Excerpt
The man hiding in the living room quietly stepped into the hall. He wore
his jogging suit and the ski mask, but the gun he held was different, a
Berretta in place of the Bone Collector he lost to Gabrielle. He crept to the
bathroom door. His hand, gloved in latex, touched the knob.
He imagined her naked
under the running water, unaware and helpless. He imagined her shock, her fear, her blood filling the tub. Not
as satisfying as bleeding a boy, but oh-so fitting. He remembered her narrow
body and the hard grip of her hand wrestling the gun from his own. Why, she might do just as nicely as a boy! His light eyes darted to
the alcove on his right, noting the short ladder and the outline of the flap
above, high enough to require an athletic male’s strength to pull up to from
the top rung.
He opened the door.
The small space was full of steam and the sound of running water. He aimed
his gun at the opaque curtain and ripped the fabric aside.
--Chapter
23, Excerpt
Gabrielle stood naked in front of him, her pale body streamlined and
seemingly glowing, her bottomless eyes drowning his.
Joe dropped the cup into the sink, stepped to her, and took her into his
arms. She pressed her face to his chest.
“Make me forget,” she whispered.
He picked her up and carried her to the bedroom.
--Chapter
24, Excerpt
After she received her Master’s Degree in Mass
Communi 
We’ve
all been to Taco Bell, McDonalds, Burger King, or even drank Coca Cola (owner
of Minute Maid) and as a result we all somehow have benefited from paying
poverty wages to farmworkers. Giagnoni
insists that it doesn’t matter the legal status of the farmworker; what matters
is the American dream – getting a fair wage for his or her work. 
Giagnoni reveals that as of 2011 farmworkers in Immokalee,
Florida handpick 90% of the tomatoes consumed in the entire United States. It is these Immokalee tomatoes that
restaurants such as Burger King, McDonalds, and Taco Bell prefer more than any
other tomato.
The Immokalee’s Guadalupe Center is a
saving presence in these farm workers’ lives.
It offers free clothing, free preschool, and is a free soup kitchen
serving hot soup every day for lunch – the only hot meal most of these farm
workers will consume in a 24-hour period.
The Guadalupe Center’s main mission is to free the farmworkers from
poverty through education. 
These farmworkers will get up as early as five
in the morning to catch the bus to go to the many fields (sometimes three hours
distance). 
