Ripped Into (Stuart Finlay 1) by Jack Chandler-review & interview

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ABOUT THE BOOK: Release Date May 1, 2025

As a private investigator, Fin has built a successful career by reuniting families with their lost runaways. His latest case is sixteen-year-old Sarah, who vanished the night her home burned to the ground, leaving him with nothing to go on but a photograph and newspaper article.

Everyone Fin approaches – from classmates to the police – is unwilling to talk about the missing girl, and independent witnesses with no incentive to lie are corroborating stories that can’t possibly be true.

Who the hell is this girl?

As Fin fights to discover the truth, he finds himself sucked into an unforgiving world of violence and sexual obsession. The price of saving both Sarah and himself may end up being the exposure of his own painful past and the secrets he has fought long and hard to suppress.

••••••

REVIEW: RIPPED INTO is the first instalment in Jack Chandler’s contemporary, adult STUART FINLAY suspense, thriller series focusing on twenty-nine year old, private investigator Stuart Finlay.

NOTE: Due to the nature of the story line premise, there may be triggers for more sensitive readers.

Told from several omniscient third person perspectives including Stuart Finlay, RIPPED INTO follows former British soldier turned PI Stuart Finlay as he is tasked with finding a missing sixteen year old girl. Approximately one year earlier, following a deadly fire at her home, sixteen year old Sarah Matthews disappeared without a trace, and in the ensuing time, law enforcement stalled in their search for the truth. Fast forward to present day wherein PI Stuart ‘Fin’ Finlay has been contracted to locate the missing young woman, a young woman who does not want to be found but all is not as it appears to be, and our hero finds himself with a target on his back, and the people he loves on the run or in hiding in the face of threats against everyone involved.

The world building focuses on the hunt for s missing girl, and the search for the truth. There is more to the story of the missing girl than Fin could have ever imagined, including several people willing to kill to get their hands on a young woman who is nowhere to be found but Fin has acquired some information and power over the people who want him dead, power that will keep him alive, if only for a short time.Stuart Finlay is not the perfect hero but he is a man determined to protect the people he loves

The colorful and energetic secondary and supporting characters including Fin’s girlfriend of two years Gail, and pub owner, Fin’s friend George. The requisite evil has many faces.

RIPPED INTO is a story of secrets and lies, betrayal and vengeance, power and control, obsession and madness, and dysfunctional family value. The premise is dramatic, dark, edgy and suspenseful; the characters are desperate, determined, dangerous and lost. The overall conflict has yet to be resolved-the story continues in book two 13 CHANCES.

Copy supplied for review

Reviewed by Sandy

TRC: Hi Jack and welcome to The Reading Café. Congratulations on the release of RIPPED INTO.

Jack Chandler: Thank you 😉

TRC: We would like to start with some background information. Would you please tell us something about yourself?

Social Media: Website / Amazon Author Page/ Goodreads/ Facebook/ Bookbub/

Jack Chandler: I was born in Wales and travelled both with my family and later alone. As a child, we had three years in Hong Kong, where my parents’ relationship broke down. We then had to return to England. In 1995, after working in a bank (which I found utterly soul destroying), I left for Australia to find myself again. It took six weeks, but it worked. When I came back, my father was in Hong Kong, where he lived out the rest of his days. My mum had gone to Puerto Rico, as her third year in her university course as a mature student. And my brother had moved to Japan. My boyfriend, now husband, had gone to Germany for an 18-month contract. I followed him and we’re still there now (these contracts have a habit of getting extended). We are now married with two fantastic boys (I might be slightly biased there) who are now beginning to find their way in the world. I have never been happier than I am at this time in my life.

TRC: Who or what influenced your career in writing?

Jack Chandler: I always found reading to be a bit of a chore – turns out I was just reading the wrong stuff. I discovered Harlan Coben and his writing style is so relaxed and easy to read – extremely accessible. Not pages and pages of blocks of description and yet you always know where you are and who you’re with. He writes very concisely. Pure genius.

I then discovered Jericho Writers an organisation designed to help authors learn the craft and industry, to find agents and publishers, and to work out which path is right for them. I learned more from them in the first year than I did the ten years previously searching the web. I’ve just come back from their Festival of Writing event and I always leave there with my brain racing with all I’ve learned, but also with an enthusiasm and need to write (and sleep!), as well as a bunch of new writing buddies. Solid advice from them and hearing about other authors experiences with trad publishers, helped me finally decide on self-publishing as my path.

Through Jericho, I discovered David Gaughran’s site who is incredibly knowledgeable on self-publishing, and so very generous with the information he just gives away for free.
And then of course, I discovered Mark Dawson’s courses with Learn Self-Publishing, which I’m still working my way through.

TRC: What challenges or difficulties did you encounter writing and publishing this story?

The main one was trying to get it out there. I sent it to all publishers that would accept submissions – this was back in the day when you had to post them. Got nowhere. Wrote some more. I went to the Frankfurt book fair and submited directly there. Got nothing. Wrote some more. Things changed – the big four started gobbling up the smaller publishing houses and now there were fewer places that would accept direct submissions. I emailed my submissions to agents and publishers. Got nowhere.

In the end, just wanting the book out there, I self-published in 2012 (under a different name). I had no idea what I was doing, and I didn’t do any publicity. Keywords and categories were lost on me. The book landed into a void but a few friends bought it. I hadn’t planned on a sequel, but then my readers asked for it (which was lovely and surprising).

The sequel was self-published in 2016 (under a different name). Throughout, I kept trying for publishers and agents. Needing to try something different and with a story knocking around in my head that was desperate to get out, my first romantasy was self-published in 2018.

I found Jericho Writers in 2019 and learned I was doing everything wrong! Two years in, my kids were getting older, I had more free time, and Jericho announced their flagship course UNWC (now Ultimate Novel Writing Program). I’d passed on the course the previous year, but this time I decided I was going to take this writing thing seriously. It was (for me) an expensive course, but the only one I’d found that would let me work on my own work-in-progress rather than doing exercises each week through short stories or poems or plays – things I wasn’t interested in. I took down all my books.

I then wrote a children’s story designed for German children wanting to learn English (published in 2021) – so it was very basic English and it sold to a traditional publisher in Germany. They were very fair with me, but at the end of the day, I sold the story, and it no longer felt like mine. Edits were made which I wasn’t given the opportunity to approve. The cover was chosen. The illustrator was chosen. The publishing house did nothing wrong, but the industry isn’t exactly set up to make the author the king in this. We are the bottom rung of the ladder, or at least, that’s how it felt. I’d only been working on “Bubbles: the Story of a little cat” for a year. I wasn’t hugely invested in it, but it still stung when I realised it’s no longer mine. I couldn’t lose that level of control over these characters I’ve been living with in my head for years. I love these characters. I didn’t want to be told, “sorry, this character has to go” or “we’re going to change the title to…” or “thank you for the input on the cover, but we’re going to go another way.”

I didn’t want to lose control. Sophie Flynn from Jericho told me that self-publishing isn’t a second choice. It’s a hell of a lot of work. If you’re going to do it, you have to want it. Harry Bingham, founder of Jericho, said in one of his webinars that he’d had to buy his rights back when he felt his book hadn’t been properly presented or marketed, and it had cost him 10,000 (pounds or dollars, I can’t remember now) to do so. It seemed insane to me to have to buy back my story.

Then an author friend of mine had a heart-breaking experience with a publishing house and that was it. Traditional publishing just isn’t for me. I wanted the control over the cover, the blurb, the manuscript, the characters, the ads, promotions, even the marketing (the part I dreaded). I did Jericho Writers Self-Edit course in 2022 with the goddess Debi Alper, who teaches the course. Then I started raiding David Gaughran’s site – his course ‘Starting from zero’ is free and so incredibly helpful. I set myself a deadline of May 1st this year, and started learning how to make my own website, how to set up a mailing list, and how to make it all work – I am so out of my comfort zone right now, I can’t begin to tell you.

TRC: Would you please tell us something about the premise of RIPPED INTO?

Jack Chandler: Gladly.

The pitch:
The job is risky but simple: Find the girl. Get her out. Bring her home. Easy.
But the girl won’t cooperate.
The killers who had her want her back.
And now they know where Fin lives…

The blurb:
As a private investigator, Fin has built a successful career by reuniting families with their lost runaways. Then a stranger appears at his door with a cash-filled envelope and a newspaper clipping. The man’s stepdaughter, sixteen-year-old Sarah Matthews, disappeared a year ago after emptying her mother’s bank account, and allegedly torching her family home.

Now her stepfather wants Fin to find her, but everyone Fin approaches – from classmates to the police – is unwilling to talk about the missing girl, and independent witnesses with no incentive to lie are corroborating stories that can’t possibly be true.

Who the hell is this girl?

As Fin fights to discover the truth, he finds himself sucked into an unforgiving world of violence and sexual obsession that becomes more deadly with each revelation.

A British fast-paced action thriller with shocking plot twists and compelling characters. Don’t miss the heart-pounding first book in the Stuart Finlay thriller series. Perfect for fans of Harlan Coben, Robert Crais, and David Baldacci.

TRC: What kind of research/plotting did you do, and how long did you spend researching /plotting before beginning RIPPED INTO?

Jack Chandler: I actually started writing this in my teens with little or no plotting. Just scenes were coming into my head and a story developed. I can’t remember when I actually started, but I know aged 13 or 14, I went to the local police station and started asking questions to a very concerned officer who wanted to know I really wasn’t going to try any of this!

TRC: Is any of the premise based in reality or fact?

Jack Chandler: Elements for sure. There are parts of my life in there, snippets from people I’ve known. You can’t write in a vacuum. Most of it comes from you, and it can be intensely personal stuff, but if you don’t feel it, the reader won’t either.

TRC: How many books do you have planned for the series?

Jack Chandler: The sequel, 13 Chances, is due out before the end of August. I don’t have an exact date yet – I’ve just sent it off to my editor and it really depends on what she says when I get it back! The first drafts of books 3 and 4 are already written. I haven’t yet thought past that, but I think I’d also like to re-write my romantasy book and get that out there too…

TRC: Do you have a regular love interest planned for your hero?

Jack Chandler: Yes. My hero, Fin, is in love with his girlfriend Gail, and the books all follow their relationship with its highs and lows. He’s very good at reading people, but a bit crap at reading Gail – or maybe his mind is protecting him from what he sees! They have a lot to sort out between the two of them!

TRC: Believability is an important factor in writing story lines especially stories of mystery and suspense. How do you keep the story line believable? Where do you think some author’s fail?

Jack Chandler: You have to bring the reader with you. Everything I write about are things that have happened, will happen, and continue to happen. They’re all grounded in reality. And they have a natural progression. The motivations of characters are clear and stated. And every character has a motivation and method that clashes with every other character. It doesn’t all have to be hanging from a cable car with your fingers cramping. But if you have one character wanting something desperately – where success or failure seriously influences their life or the lives of those he loves – and the other character wanting if not needing the exact opposite with the outcome being equally as important to them, then you have a believable and desperate conflict and two characters with everything to lose. Be consistent with your character, and readers can relate. If you don’t do that, then readers are less willing to take the journey with you.

TRC: Do you believe the cover image plays a deciding factor for many readers in the process of selecting a book or new series to read?

Jack Chandler: Yes! And I really hope so! Mine was an unusual choice. I bucked the trend a little by not wanting it dark or gloomy and not going for the neon colours in the text that seem to be popular. Also, several people believe having your main character on the front cover now is a bit passe. I don’t care. This self-publishing lark is taking a lot of effort and if I’m going to give it my all, then I’m going to do it my way. I chose a cover I loved. It’s colourful, attractive, still with a hint of doom, and my main character is front and centre. Jem Butcher designed it for me, and I believe he’s done the perfect job.

TRC: When writing a storyline, do the characters direct the writing or do you direct the characters?

Jack Chandler: Both. I create the world, give them a space to play in. Then I make something happen. How the characters react to that is sometimes planned, but sometimes they go their own way. Two of the chapters in Ripped Into I typed with my hands in a cold sweat thinking ‘what are you doing? Get out of there!’ The character didn’t listen and the chapters, I think/hope read well. It is an absolute gift when the characters take over. It sounds insane to non-authors, I know, but I really am a very happy, well-adjusted person. Ask any other author you know, and they’ll tell you the same. The characters come alive and when they do, it is bliss.

TRC: The mark of a good writer is to pull the reader into the storyline so that they experience the emotions along with the characters. What do you believe a writer must do to make this happen? Where do you believe writer’s fail in this endeavour?

Jack Chandler: You need empathy. In the trade it’s called ‘save the cat’ after the very famous book with that title. Readers will get on board with a character they can understand. Even if that character is bad or mean or juicily horrible. Once you understand them, you know their motivations, you can see how they are the hero in their own story, and you can empathise. It doesn’t work if random things happen and there is no explanation or motivation for any of it – say, you have a serial killer without any exploration as to why they do what they do, then it becomes much harder to suspend disbelief and get lost in that world.

TRC: Do you listen to music while writing? If so, does the style of music influence the storyline direction? Characters?

Jack Chandler: Definitely not. Can’t focus on the two at once.

TRC: What do you believe is the biggest misconception people have about authors?

Jack Chandler: That we’re in control of the story. And that writing a book is easy. Like most creative pastimes, it is hard and a tough industry. If you can step away from it, do. Those of us who write, do so because we have to. We can’t not write. I’m miserable if I don’t write. It’s like playtime for the brain. If you can take it or leave it, leave it. Save yourself. It’s too late for the rest of us!

TRC: What is something that few, if anyone, know about you?

Jack Chandler: I’m congenitally anosmic – that means I was born with no sense of smell. I seem to be the first in my family, but I’ve handed it down to my kids, so in our house we make up 75% of the population (not including the cat). Out in the world, 1% of the population is anosmic. Only 1% of that 1% are congenitally anosmic – that’s why you probably haven’t heard of it before.

TRC: I think we all learned something new today !

Jack Chandler: And also, my parents messy divorce was written as a backdrop to a thriller (thankfully no longer in print) written by a colleague of my father’s. He had ringside tickets to everything and it’s all out there in black and white in the novel. He did change our names. The divorce happened in 1980. The book came out in 1995, I think. My mum and I found out about it in 2013, but all her friends knew about it. I don’t know if my father ever knew. It is bizarre reading about parties and events played out on the pages of someone else’s novel. And to be fair, the story is quite incredible, if you didn’t know it was true, you might find it far-fetched.

TRC: On what are you currently working?

Jack Chandler: I’ve just sent off the sequel to Ripped Into (13 Chances) to my editor. She should get back to me within two-three weeks. I’m working on a German translation of Ripped Into, which I need to prepare the cover for and find out how to publish and link to the English versions.

Pre Order 13 CHANCES: Amazon.com / Amazon.ca / Amazon.uk / Amazon.au /

Release Date: September 1, 2025

I have a webinar, much like this interview, where I will be a guest speaker along with some other authors later this month.I’ve applied to a company that produces (non-AI) audiobooks and I’m waiting to hear back from them within the month, hopefully.

And I’ve just attended the Self-publishing Live conference and Jericho Writers Festival of Writing, both of which have left me a huge list of action points of things to do or improve. Once all that is done, I’ll finish the edits for 13 Chances and get that out in the world, and then get to work on book3 in the series. And at some point, I should probably get some housework done and try to rescue the garden…

TRC: Would you like to add anything else?

Jack Chandler: Just a huge thank you to you for this opportunity. I don’t have a big publishing house to help me through any of this, and it’s fantastic that you’re happy to interview me as a proud self-published author. Ripped Into became a Hot New Release within 5 days of publication and a #1 Amazon Bestseller within 13 days. I still can’t believe any of that is true! It’s support from people like you that have helped make this happen.

Also, I sell character names in my book to raise money for charity. These characters are what I call ‘Innocent Bystanders’ – they are people the hero interviews or who gives him clues. They are not baddies and not victims. The charity of my choice is TallShips.org who give children from difficult backgrounds a chance to prove to themselves what their worth is, so that no matter what they’re told or how they’re put down in their lives, they KNOW they are wonderful. TallShips.org does amazing work. If any of your readers are interested in having their name, or the name of an impossible-to-buy-for friend, in the book, please get in touch – there’s still time to be in 13 Chances, but there aren’t many spaces available

Here’s the APPLICATION LINK

Oh, and if you would like a free story, please head over to my website for a FREE book which gives you some background on my main character, Fin.

CLICK HERE for a FREE Jack Chandler story

LIGHTNING ROUND

Favorite Food – Salmon stirfry

Favorite Dessert – chocolate brownie or mousse

Favorite TV Show – Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip AND Firefly (sorry, couldn’t choose between them)

Last Movie You Saw – The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry

Dark or Milk Chocolate – Milk, no doubt

Secret Celebrity Crush – Chris Hemsworth (I mean, come on, that’s a given!)

Last Vacation Destination – Stubai Valley, Austria

Do you have any pets? – a wonderful 17-year-old cat who we’ve now had for almost 8 years. He was treated badly in his kittenhood and consequently has some peculiar quirks but is the most loving animal ever.

Last book you read – currently reading ‘Two Horses’ by Susan Ivarr – an excellent book aimed at those women who used to read horsey books as a teen and grew up to find there is nothing in the market for them. I’ve never been a particularly horsey person myself, but I’m getting swept up into the story including the horsey elements, and I have a secret crush on the luscious Calum!!!

TRC: Thank you Jack for taking the time to answer our questions. Congratulations on the release of RIPPED INTO. We wish you all the best.

Jack Chandler: Thank you so much!