New author Ian Hamilton considers himself lucky — to have a very thorough family doctor.
In a very roundabout way, it was the good doctor and a pesky aortic aneurysm that catapulted the Burlington resident's new career in novel writing.
The physician ordered an ultrasound during a routine physical in spring 2009. That led to the discovery of the aneurysm.
Surgery successfully repaired the weakness before it could rupture and put Hamilton's life at risk. (Often there are no symptoms or advance warning.)
"I always knew I was going to write again," said Hamilton who was a reporter in Regina and Calgary in the late 1960s and early '70s.
After the surgery to remove the aneurysm, Hamilton closed his consulting business and set to work on writing his first crime/thriller novel, The Water Rat of Wanchai, which will be launched tomorrow (Thursday) at a private affair.
Book 2 in the series, called The Disciple of Las Vegas, publishes in July.
"I had the first paragraph and last paragraph in my head from Day One and the protagonist's name, Ava Lee," said Hamilton.
It took just under one month to write his book about a forensic accountant who travels the world to hunt down the guilty using any means necessary. Three more Ava Lee books followed within eight months.
"Dialogue kept running through my head, I felt a bit crazy but the characters kept developing and the stories kept going," he added.
It seems that every job Hamilton has held over the past two decades — in fisheries and oceans, consumer and corporate affairs, the diplomatic corps and importing and the extensive travelling he has done for each of those roles — is fodder for his Ava Lee novel series, of which there are now five books and a sixth in the works.
Hamilton's story of how he got this far so fast reads like a fairytale itself.
There was no peddling his manuscript from one publisher to the next and no rejection letters, as most authors face.
He made cold calls to three agents asking if they would represent him. Westwood Creative Artists took him on and by December the House of Anansi, which has never published mystery novels before, announced Hamilton's Ava Lee books would be their first in the company's new Spiderline.
Anansi purchased four of his books without even seeing the last two. Already publishers in Holland, the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Germany, France and Spain have bought the rights for his books and negotiations are under way with Japan, the United States and Italy.
It's success unheard of for an unknown author.
Hamilton has been told these action thrillers are ripe for the big screen, but that remains to be seen.
The stories continue to flow from his imagination to the page and so Hamilton keeps his daily routine of heading to his basement office writing from 5 a.m. to 2 p.m. and handing his pages to his family of ‘editors': wife Lorraine and four children, Jill, Ian, Stephanie and Alexis. He also has seven grandchildren.
Even with his impressive literary success of late, it is for his family that he says he has been "blessed."
