No Man's Land

"*A plot ripped straight from today's front-page headlines. A Muslim extremist group based in Indonesia has plans to launch devastating attacks on Sydney on New Year's Eve - and only one man can stop them: special operative Russell Carter, an Australian version of Lee Child's Jack Reacher - a man of few words but much action... enigmatic and lethal. "A thriller that has all the elements for success; a surfing, martial-arts proficient and taciturn hero and a beautiful sidekick with whom he still has unresolved issues... "Fishman sets a fierce pace over almost 400 pages with the action seldom slowing." *Melbourne's Sunday Age (Australia's New York Times.) Amazon Australia # 2 Bestseller International, Mystery & Crime Carter has turned his back on everything he ever believed in. A year ago he walked away from the order and its leader, Thomas Wing, a man he once regarded as a father. Since then he's been living the good life, surfing at Lennox Head and trying to forget his past. On Christmas Day Thomas is kidnapped from a remote bush property near the Queensland border, and Carter is sucked straight back into the violent world he left behind. Now an Indonesian terrorist cell is trying to kill him - and every other member of the order. With Carter and the order out of the way, the terrorists hope to carry off a daring attack on Sydney Harbour on New Year's Eve - just days away - when huge crowds gather on the water and foreshore to celebrate. Carter is forced to team up with Thomas's daughter, Erina - the only woman he has ever loved, and who he abandoned without saying goodbye. Together they must travel into the wilds of Indonesia and back again in a desperate bid to save Thomas - and the lives of thousands of others. Reviews*"All of this makes Carter an unexpected hero type - flawed, questioning, brave with enough of the all action hero type to be very believable. "The relationship between Carter and Erina has the same sorts of contrasts. And it doesn't hurt that there's nothing decorative female about Erina - she's a strong, capable woman in her own right... "Added to the believability of the unexpected, the realistic portray of the two central characters, and a strong plot, there's a hefty dose of good, dry very Australian humour." *Karen Chisholm - Australia & NZ Crime Fiction Reviews *"Fishman makes all his characters believable, individual, and empathic. good or bad, you feel for them... "Several of the action sequences are portrayed in such granular detail that often time dilates ... As it draws to its conclusion the conflict explodes like a display of fireworks."* Nick Lathouris - Co-writer Mad Max IV - Fury Road "This is the rare international thriller with an engaging romantic subplot that features full-bodied human beings. Be ready to be thrilled and charmed. A thriller lovers delight." James N. Frey - Author of nine acclaimed thrillers and the best selling How to Write a Damn Good Thriller "Fishman is the real deal. He knows how to sustain a cracking pace from start to finish, so much so that I found myself saying after each chapter, 'just one more'... "Carter is a terrific protagonist, as dangerous as Jack Reacher but with a spiritual dimension."* Alexander Gilly, author of Devil's HarbourReview"A thriller that has all the elements for success; a surfing, martial-arts proficient and taciturn hero and a beautiful sidekick with whom he still has unresolved issues ... "A Muslim extremist group based in Indonesia has plans to launch devastating attacks on Sydney on New Year's Eve - and only one man can stop them: special operative Russell Carter, an Australian version of Lee Child's Jack Reacher - a man of few words but much action. ... Fishman sets a fierce pace over almost 400 pages ...  "This is the first in a series of thrillers featuring the enigmatic and lethal Carter."*The Sunday Age, 14 Dec 2014 "All of this makes Carter an unexpected hero type - flawed, questioning, brave with enough of the all action hero type to be believable he's quite realistic, very believable. The relationship between Carter and Erina has the same sorts of contrasts - the attraction, their past, their willingness to put everything to one side in the pursuit of the ultimate aim, makes them again, believable. And it doesn't hurt that there's nothing decorative female about Erina - she's a strong, capable woman in her own right...   "Added to the believability of the unexpected, the realistic portray of the two central characters, and a strong plot, there's a hefty dose of good, dry very Australian humour."."Australia & New Zealand Crime Fiction Reviews "Fantastic read. Loved Russel Carter's dry humour and his "Bond like" ability to remain cool under pressure. All the characters really jumped off the page, the action was relentless and the philosophy of the book, both from the Australian and Indonesian perspectives, really had me engaged from beginning to end." *Fred Talib - Good ReadsFrom the AuthorWhat novels and stories inspired you when creating Russell Carter and writing No Man's Land? Even though I've been writing a long time, it took me many years to find my genre. I grew up reading adventure comics (they weren't graphic novels in those days) and watching a series on television called the Samurai. It featured ninjas, who could jump out of trees, throw star knives and do all sorts of extra-ordinary stuff. Years later I read Musashi, the samurai novel described as the Japanese Gone with the Wind. The story connected me with the spirit of the ninjas. But rather than write historical novels, I wanted to do something contemporary and relevant to what's going on today. I clearly remember reading my first Lee Child novel, Die Trying, and discovered the Jack Reacher character and feeling a fire light up in my creative belly. He was like a modern day wandering samurai or ronin - well trained, ruthless, followed his own code and did whatever was needed to do to get the job done. I also love reading the Michael Connolly novels featuring the detective Harry Bosch, and feel I've learnt a lot from him. Bosch is very much his own man, struggles in his relationship with women and will do whatever it takes to get his man, regardless of what anyone else thinks. His code when investigating a case is, "Everyone counts or nobody does."Both these characters followed their own moral code and made decisions based on their core values regardless of their personal consequences. When under great pressure, they stepped up and delivered. The kind of character I want to read and write about. Erina Wing, the love interest in No Man's Land is almost as tough as Carter? I love strong female characters and wanted to make the woman in Carter's life as tough as he is. She's the one woman he can't live with or without. She helps test him to the core and brings out the best in him. I was very pleased when one Karen Chisholm wrote a review in, Australia & NZ Crime Fiction Reviews and said, "The relationship between Carter and Erina has the same sorts of contrasts. And it doesn't hurt that there's nothing decorative female about Erina - she's a strong, capable woman in her own right." I look forward to developing their relationship further in subsequent Carter novels. One Amazon reviewer described you as "Lee Child with spirituality." How did this come about? While No Man's Land is primarily designed to be a highly entertaining page-turning thriller, I did want it to work on a number of levels. If you just have a series of events and little else, the story feels like one damned thing after another. So I needed to link Carter's external journey with his inner journey. When I figured out that at a deep level, the story was about a character who had lost his faith, the novel started to come together. I also wanted to explore the relationship between spirituality and religion, which is why I created the order, the organisation which Carter has belonged to since he was a teenager. It was founded on a set of spiritual/martial arts principles that gave Carter's life shape and direction. When he strays too far from those principles, like he does at the start of the novel, his life starts to unravel. What about Samudra and the Indonesian terrorists? The Islamic fundamentalists became the perfect main antagonists in the novel as they kill innocent people in the name of God. Making them highly motivated to take extreme and violent actions. This is an important ingredient in any high stakes thriller like No Man's Land. It also gives them a clear set of values that they believe in. Values which are totally different from Carter's. The contrast helps reveal the deeper themes the novel explores. I also wanted to explore the history of Islam, the many facets of Islam and how a relatively small number of Indonesia's two hundred and fifty million Muslims became radicalised. In fact one of the heroes of the story is a highly evolved Sufi and  another is a Stanford University educated Muslim woman who abhors fundamentalism. The Sufi gives the story much of its spiritual depth. Since No Man's Land came out, a plethora of home-grown terrorists have started appearing in Australia. The Sunday Age reviewer even wrote, "A plot ripped straight from today's front-page headlines." Did you anticipate this? Absolutely not. When I wrote the novel, I just played "what if" and tried to make everything believable. There is an old saying in writing: the difference between fiction and non-fiction is that in fiction everything has to make sense. The novel evolved out of how the characters interacted with the plot. Character and structure are two sides to the one coin. The way it unfolded in the news after the book came out is one of those strange occurrences where life imitates the thriller. The main thing for me though, is that the story feels real for the reader and they become totally immersed in the world of the story.