Lee J. Russell

The first draft of “Evil Eye – A Lissa Blackwood Thriller” has been completed!

I’m really excited to announce that the first draft of “Evil Eye – A Lissa Blackwood Thriller”, the opening book in my new series of post-Brexit Conspiracy Thrillers, has been completed. Research for this book began towards the end of 2016, planning lasted until about May 2017, and this draft was completed today! I’m lovingContinue reading “The first draft of “Evil Eye – A Lissa Blackwood Thriller” has been completed!”

James Phelan – “The Spy” and “Dark Heart”…

This is my second review of James Phelan’s “Jed Walker” stories. Last time out I wrote about “The Hunted”, which was an Ok read. That story was reasonably well drawn but did feel a bit average (scoring 3 / 5 on the ‘Cloak & Dagger’ scale.). So how did the next two books I readContinue reading “James Phelan – “The Spy” and “Dark Heart”…”

ALICE: Where does the Solar System end and inter-stellar space begin?

One of the interesting questions in Astronomy is where does the Solar System end and inter-stellar space begin? There’s a nice result being shared by NASA from the ALICE instrument on the ‘New Horizons’ spacecraft that is helping with that question and confirming observations from the Voyager spacecraft. ‘New Horizons’ is the spacecraft that flewContinue reading “ALICE: Where does the Solar System end and inter-stellar space begin?”

If I could only keep 1 singer from the ’80s it would be…

Imagine that a weird time accident happened and all the singers from the ’80s never performed a single a note… except for one… who would you keep? Sometimes you could be forgiven for thinking that the entire decade only spawned 10-15 good songs, but the reality is that it was a really vibrant period forContinue reading “If I could only keep 1 singer from the ’80s it would be…”

Cold War memories…

I have very strong memories of the closing days of the Cold War which often resonate in my writing. The invention of the internet and social media means that today I can connect with people from all around the world who have an interest in Cold War history, and in many cases who also retainContinue reading “Cold War memories…”

From ‘Evil Eye – A Lissa Blackwood Thriller’: A walk across London in the footsteps of the Head of SIG, Colonel Peter Carson, DSO with Bar, MC…

Towards the start of my new Lissa Blackwood thriller called ‘Evil Eye’, her boss, Peter Carson, faces the challenge of knowing that on that day he will be the target of an assassination attempt. Now fifty eight years old, as a young man Carson had originally intended to train as a chemical engineer. However, inContinue reading “From ‘Evil Eye – A Lissa Blackwood Thriller’: A walk across London in the footsteps of the Head of SIG, Colonel Peter Carson, DSO with Bar, MC…”

Space 1999: the problem with Victor Bergman…

When I was a boy I really enjoyed watching the TV series ‘Space 1999’. I was fascinated by space exploration and the ‘realism’ of an Anderson creation featuring real people made a strong impression on me. At that time creating a moonbase seemed like an obvious next step towards mankind stepping out properly into spaceContinue reading “Space 1999: the problem with Victor Bergman…”

Crawling around inside Nuclear Bunkers…

I was stuck on how to make a section work in the closing scenes of ‘Evil Eye’ (my latest thriller novel) – it all revolves around moving unseen inside an active nuclear bunker – but these are intimate places and, looking at images online, I was getting very bogged down. The (now) cliched fiction solutionContinue reading “Crawling around inside Nuclear Bunkers…”

Just 5 more scenes to go and then the first draft of “Evil Eye” will be complete!

I’ve just added another 1300 words to ‘Evil Eye – A Lissa Blackwood Thriller’ this morning. There are now just 5 scenes left to write and the first draft will be complete! Those 1300 words surprised me – they come at a moment when Lissa Blackwood is trying to work out how to poison theContinue reading “Just 5 more scenes to go and then the first draft of “Evil Eye” will be complete!”

Disappointed with ‘Annihilation’ on Netflix…

So, I just finished watching the sci-fi movie ‘Annihilation’ on Netflix, and I have to say I was underwhelmed and disappointed. A March ’18 review on DigitalSpy ( http://www.digitalspy.com/movies/feature/a852095/netflix-annihilation-explained-ending-spoilers/ ) described it as “… one of the most intellectually challenging films of the year” – I don’t think so. Here’s a quick summary of theContinue reading “Disappointed with ‘Annihilation’ on Netflix…”