Project and content management for Contemporary Authors volumes
WORK TITLE: Driven
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE:
WEBSITE:
CITY: Oxford, England
STATE:
COUNTRY: United Kingdom
NATIONALITY: British
http://arcadiabooks.co.uk/author/toby-vintcent * http://www.thegaitpost.com/driven-toby-vintcent/
RESEARCHER NOTES:
LC control no.: n 2016068320
LCCN Permalink: https://lccn.loc.gov/n2016068320
HEADING: Vintcent, Toby
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100 1_ |a Vintcent, Toby
670 __ |a Driven, 2015: |b t.p. (Toby Vintcent) about the author (lives in Oxfordshire [England])
PERSONAL
Married; children: one.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Writer. Previously worked for Merrill Lynch and as director of International Affairs at the British Equestrian Federation.
MIILITARY:Served in the 16th/5th The Queen’s Royal Lancers.
AVOCATIONS:Formula One automobile racing and equestrianism.
WRITINGS
SIDELIGHTS
Toby Vintcent is a writer and former officer for the British Army. He served in the 16th/5th The Queen’s Royal Lancers during the Cold War as part of NATO’s Rapid Development Force. Following his career as a soldier, Vintcent worked for Merrill Lynch.
Vintcent is an avid fan of equestrianism, having served as the Director of International Affairs at the British Equestrian Federation. He was a member of a Junior British Event Team in 1979, and served as the Deputy Team Manager and Press Spokesman of the British Equestrian Team at the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games. Vintcent is also passionate about Formula One automobile racing. He lives in Oxfordshire with his wife and son.
Driven
Driven narrates the story of Remy Sabatino, a member of Britain’s Ptarmigan Formula One auto racing team, in her conquest to become the first female racer to win the Constructors’ Championship on the Grand Prix circuit. Ptarmigan is recovering from a near financial disaster and is making Formula One history by introducing a woman as their number one driver. Sabatino’s desire to achieve this accomplishment is not all that motivates her or her team. If she succeeds, there is the alluring prospect of a potential deal between Ptarmigan and a wealthy Chinese business mogul.
As Sabatino trains for the event, problems begin to arise, starting with her helmet communication device failing to work during a practice run. When it becomes clear that someone was tampering with her helmet, Matt Straker, the team’s security expert and a former Royal Marine Colonel, becomes suspicious. Straker suspects rival team Massarella, who have been vocal in their opposition to Ptarmigan choosing a woman to lead the team. After another incident results in the near fatal crash of Ptarmigan’s number two driver, the investigation begins.
Linda Wilson, on the Crime Review website, wrote that Vintcent “skillfully mixes fact and fiction, and the description of the fictional London Grand Prix is every bit as gripping as the white-knuckle rides around familiar circuits such as Monaco and Spa-Francorchamps.”
Crash
Vintcent’s second book continues the story of Remy Sabatino and the Ptarmigan Formula One auto racing team. In Crash, Sabatino is preparing to head to Russia for the Moscow Grand Prix. She is welcomed at the airport by the Moscow mayor, Oksana Pavlova, amidst a crowd of cheering fans. Pavlova hopes to use the glamour of the sport for political advantage, and Sabatino is seemingly the perfect poster girl to help his cause.
This hope is quickly dashed when Sabatino is involved in a horrific crash. Attempting a risky pass on the circuit, she loses control of her car, resulting in an accident that kills 27 spectators and seriously injures Sabatino. The crash site is declared a crime scene, and the team is facing the charge of corporate manslaughter. Sabatino is arrested and the team principal is put in jail.
Former Royal Marine Colonel and key character in Vintcent’s Driven, Matt Straker, is brought back in by Ptarmigan team owner Dominic Quartano to investigate the accident and develop a defense. With Sabatino in the hospital, Straker becomes the lead character of the story. Straker is met with constant opposition from the Russians, who refuse to allow access to the crime scene to Straker or anyone from the Ptarmigan team. Straker must rely on the remote recordings from the car that were taken during the race and from Sabatino’s memory to create a defense and free Sabatino and the Ptarmigan team from criminal charges.
A contributor to Publishers Weekly wrote: “Vintcent spends too much time on the maneuvering of Russian authorities … but he once again brings to life the world of Formula One racing in vivid detail.”
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Publishers Weekly, October 10, 2016, review of Driven, p. 60; March 6, 2017, review of Crash, p. 42.
ONLINE
Crime Review, http://crimereview.co.uk/ (July 4, 2015), Linda Wilson, review of Driven; (August 6, 2016), Linda Wilson, review of Crash.*
Toby Vintcent
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Toby Vintcent is a British writer and former soldier. He served in the British Army during the Cold War, and went on to work at Merrill Lynch. His debut novel DRIVEN is a thriller about the Formula One circuit. He lives in Oxford. Vintcent's first novel, DRIVEN, was critically acclaimed in the F1 and mainstream press and was shortlisted for the Cross British Sports Book Awards in 2015. [1][2][3] His second novel, CRASH, is due for release in early July 2016.
Toby Vintcent served as an officer in the British Army with the 16th/5th The Queen’s Royal Lancers during the Cold War as part of NATO’s Rapid Development Force, followed by a successful career at Merrill Lynch. He has been Director of International Affairs at the British Equestrian Federation. His lifelong passion for Formula One resulted in his first book, Driven. He lives in Oxfordshire, the heart of F1 country, with his wife and son.
THE GAITPOST
Driven by Toby Vintcent: A different kind of horsepower
NEWS: MAY 1ST 2015
Huge congratulations to Toby for being shortlisted for the NEW WRITER OF THE YEAR in the British Sports Book Awards 2015.
DRIVEN - Toby Vintcent - October 2014
October 2014
We are so thrilled for Toby Vintcent for securing a publisher for his long awaited novel, Driven, a High-Speed Thriller Set in the World of Formula One, about which Murray Walker said: “I couldn’t put it down.” Toby’s inspirations, though, came from a very different form of horsepower – from racing and Eventing!
Wylie Junior Three day Event 1979
Wylie Junior Three day Event 1979
For those of you who don’t already know Toby, he was a member of a Junior British Event Team in 1979; Chef d’Equipe of the British Pony Three Day Event Team from 1991-1997; was Deputy Team Manager and Press Spokesman of the British Equestrian Team at the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games; and was Director of International Affairs of the British Equestrian Federation (BEF) responsible for elite performance of Team GBR for five years in the run-up to London 2012.
Anne-Marie at the European Championships, Burghley 1997
Anne-Marie at the European Championships, Burghley 1997
Toby is married to Anne-Marie Taylor, who is a Fellow of the BHS and an International Ground Jurist, having judged at both the Pony European Championships in Millstreet and the Badminton Horse Trials this year. Anne-Marie’s brother is Nigel Taylor, based at Aston-le-Walls.
We caught up with Toby ahead of Driven’s official launch on 30th October and asked him about the long journey from his passion for Formula One to the finished tome.
TV: My experience of publishing suggests that you really need to be persistent! When I started out, I was rejected by seventy literary agents. I finally secured representation with my current agent on the back of an earlier novel. She tried to get it placed, but it was rejected twenty-plus times, and remains unpublished.
The F1 book, Driven, was a sort of sequel to that, except when I sent it in to my agent, she really wasn’t keen – saying there was no market for a sports-based story.
I waited a couple of years, and, determined not to let the story die, I resubmitted it to my agent. Pretty much the same initial reaction followed, until she happened to give it to her son – who raved about it! It was then “taken on” and submitted to about ten mainstream publishers, without success: None of them seemed brave enough to go for a book about a subject on which no-one had published before – this despite the strong case I made that 400 million people watch each Grand Prix, and there being no well-known fiction set in or about F1.
Finally, Moreton Street Books, a small entrepreneurial house, were brave enough to see the opportunity and have given it a go.
Because my publishing journey has been so tortuous, suffering so many rejections, receiving such glowing feedback in Driven’s first ever review – from someone as eminent as Murray Walker – was quite unbelievable. That review, alone, made my gruelling publishing ordeal worthwhile!
TGP: Where did you get your inspirations from?
TV: I guess from two main sources – my love of thrillers and my life-long passion for Formula One. F1 is so exciting, and I have never understood why no-one has ever managed to write a story set in motor racing for mainstream thriller readers before.
My love of thrillers started with Dick Francis, so very much stories involving horses. My great uncle was his literary agent. After their success with The Sport of Queens, Francis’s autobiography, my uncle suggested that Dick Francis try his hand at fiction – and we all know the rest! I thought, why couldn’t I try and have a go at what they did – but in Formula One!
A thematic inspiration for the story came from the absence of women F1 drivers. My wife used to be a professional three day event competitor. And as The Gaitpost followers will know, Eventing is the only physical sport where men and women actually do compete on equal terms. Being married to Anne-Marie Taylor, I know how intensely competitive a woman in sport can be! Horses again. So I got to thinking: Why shouldn’t I make one of my main characters a woman driver? From that point on, ideas for the book just started flowing!
The result of all these influences and factors is Driven, which I am so excited to have seen through to a published story. I had no idea, really, whether I should be proud if it – until Murray Walker was kind enough to say:
“A great plot … a great read … I couldn’t put it down.”
More reviews:
F1 RACING MAGAZINE said: “Author Toby Vintcent takes inspiration from F1’s on-track action and off-track paddock politics in weaving together a page-turning conspiracy thriller. His attention to detail captures the spirit of current F1.”
BORIS JOHNSON said: “Driven – it howls along like Lewis Hamilton round the streets of Monaco!”
Pre-order your copy (or copies as it’s sure to be a Christmas pressie winner and you won’t want to share yours) now from Amazon here and follow Toby on Facebook by liking his page
Crash
Publishers Weekly.
264.10 (Mar. 6, 2017): p42.
COPYRIGHT 2017 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Full Text:
Crash
Toby Vintcent. Arcadia (Dufour, dist.), $18
trade paper (448p) ISBN 978-1-910050-79-8
British author Vintcent's slowly developing sequel to 2016's Driven takes the Ptarmigan Formula One Team's number one driver, Remy Sabatino,
to Russia for the Moscow Grand Prix. Sabatino feels like a real celebrity on her arrival at Vnokuvo International Airport, where Moscow mayor
Oksana Pavlova greets her amid cheering crowds. Things go less well for Sabatino during the race. When she attempts a bold pass, her car doesn't
respond and she loses control. The resulting horrific accident kills 27 spectators. Police colonel Arseny Pudovkin declares the crash site a crime
scene; the Ptarmigan team's head is arrested, as is Sabatino, who's seriously injured. Matt Straker, the former British Special Forces officer who
works for Ptarmigan's owner, goes to Russia, where he must try to create a viable defense against seemingly possible odds. Vintcent spends too
much time on the maneuvering of Russian authorities for their own advantage, but he once again brings to life the world of Formula One racing
in vivid detail. Agent: Maggie Hanbury, Hanbury Agency (U.K.). (May)
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
"Crash." Publishers Weekly, 6 Mar. 2017, p. 42+. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA484973639&it=r&asid=8dd393d6028e89c6edda9f6b748ed199. Accessed 22 June
2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A484973639
6/22/2017 General OneFile - Saved Articles
http://go.galegroup.com/ps/marklist.do?actionCmd=GET_MARK_LIST&userGroupName=schlager&inPS=true&prodId=ITOF&ts=1498182670164 2/2
Driven
Publishers Weekly.
263.41 (Oct. 10, 2016): p60.
COPYRIGHT 2016 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Full Text:
Driven
Toby Vintcent. Arcadia (Dufour, dist.), $18 trade paper (470p) ISBN 978-1-910050-71-2.
In Vintcent's revved-up debut, bad guys are prepared to use dirty tricks to prevent driver Remy Sabatino, a member of Britain's Ptarmigan
Formula One Team, from becoming the first woman to win the Constructors' Championship on the Grand Prix circuit. At stake is not only the
championship but also a proposed mega-deal between Ptarmigan and Chinese business mogul Dr. Chen of Mandarin Telecom. The first sign of
sabotage occurs when a device implanted in Sabatino's helmet jams her communications at the Monaco Grand Prix. When more serious incidents
follow at other Grand Prix venues, Matt Straker, the Ptarmigan team's security expert, zeroes in on the Massarella team and its boss, Eugene Van
Der Vaal, as likely suspects. Straker must figure out how to be proactive in dealing with the saboteurs, but the real stars of Vintcent's novel are the
incredible machines, the people behind them, and the steel-nerved drivers who race them. You don't have to be a racing fan to relish this exciting
thriller. Agent: Maggie Hanbury, Hanbury Agency (U.K.). (Dec.)
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
"Driven." Publishers Weekly, 10 Oct. 2016, p. 60. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA466616162&it=r&asid=0d9e6d31b7d5092bdf6e0e44c5d0b5af. Accessed 22 June
2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A466616162