David W. Robinson's Blog: Always Writing, page 29

Freebies?

I’ve always said that my old mate, Trevor Belshaw, technically gifted though he is, can’t teach me anything.

All right. So I was wrong.

For last week or so, the first book in his Magic Molly children’s series Magic Molly: The Mirror Maze has been free to download. Written under the penname, Trevor Forest, it sits at #1 in one chart, #3 in another, but more importantly, it’s done exactly what it was designed to do and drawn attention to Trevor’s other works: i.e. the rest of the Magic Molly books, and the inestimable Peggy Larkin’s War. I had the privilege of seeing an early draft of Peggy when Trevor asked for a beta-reader. There weren’t many holes to pick when I saw it and I know it underwent further revisions before he published it.

My dear friend and editor, Maureen Vincent-Northam is another who has used free promotions to get the message out. Her book for young children, Black Dog’s Treasure underwent a free promotion not long after its release, which had the effect of letting people know it was there.

With all this in mind, I have decided that Flatcap should break the rule of a lifetime and give away one of his books over the weekend. The man himself was horrified. Normally, even getting an opinion costs in the shape of brown ale or a couple of pork pies, but giving away a whole book? He almost switched to Cornish Pasties.

We’re going ahead, nonetheless. For the next forty eight hours or thereabouts, Flatcap – Grumpy Old Blogger is buckshee on Amazon.

Get it while it’s hot and free. You know it makes sense.

Here Comes Number Eleven

Two weeks next Tuesday (not one week as I suggested in an earlier post) the eleventh STAC Mystery will be released on an unsuspecting public.

I penned The Filey Connection, the very first mystery, as far back as 2008, but as usual, I did nothing with it for a couple of years. It’s par for the course for me. I can dream something up, put it on the back burner, and then stumble on it when I’m having a clear out years later.

Joe, Sheila and Brenda first appeared in self-published titles, and then early in 2012, Crooked Cat took them on. Progress was sluggish at first, but by the turn of 2012/13, they had found a following, and last year exceeded all expectations.

This year has been sluggish so far. A combination of factors, I’d guess, but one of the biggest elements is probably the speed at which I’m no longer turning them out. It’s not that I have a shortage of plots and plans. I have plenty to go at. I’m purposely slowing down production, and that should be evident from Death in Distribution. Without giving anything away, the circumstances compel Joe to be more methodical.

Amongst the 200+ comments on the books, is the recurring theme that they are “a great read while you’re travelling” and “good if you like to read at bedtime.” This is no accident. At 50,000-60,000 word, they are designed as quick read entertainment. There is none of the deep and dark, psychological investigations to be found in, say, Frances di Plino’s excellent Bad Moon Rising or Catriona King’s superb Limited Justice (both Crooked Cat titles) or my own Felix Croft/Millie Matthews tales, The Handshaker and The Deep Secret. In the finest tradition of cosy crime, the STAC Mysteries are old-fashioned murders. There are no buckets of blood and no serious violence (although there is a bit of a pub brawl in the new title) and no rampant sex. Instead, Joe and his two lady friends rely on observation and a little logic, and they close the bedroom door.

Death in Distribution also sees the start of an on-going investigation for Joe. I’m saying no more than that, but it will continue alongside the main story in the next title, and will not be resolved until STAC #13.

***

Death in Distribution, STAC Mystery #11 is published by Crooked Cat Books on April 1st. There is the usual launch party on Facebook and everyone is welcome.

Is It Possible To Be One Million Percent Better?

Mathematically, nothing can ever be more than one hundred percent, but metaphorically, I can please myself, so the answer to the question is yes, you can feel one million percent better, and this morning, I do.

Regular readers (all five of you) will recall that I went into hospital on March 4th for minor surgery and they couldn’t do it. Someone had told me I could eat and drink normally the night before and I should have fasted.

By way of an apology, they rearranged the job for yesterday. So Her Indoors and I tootled along there, and this time they got on with it. By half past eleven yesterday morning, one fibro-epithelial polyp was removed from the roof of my mouth and on its way to the laboratory for biopsy. According to the docs, it didn’t look sinister, but they do need to make sure, and we get the results in about four weeks, when I go to outpatients.

I was home for half past one in the afternoon and there began the worst few hours of my life. I found it difficult to swallow, I couldn’t open my trap wide enough to get a spoon or fork in, and I ended up nibbling at food. It took twenty minutes to get through my evening meal, where it usually takes about three (well it doesn’t take anyone long to get through egg and chips, does it?) I couldn’t stand hot drinks, I couldn’t stand cold drinks. Painkillers were as much use a chocolate teapot, except that I could have eaten the chocolate teapot because chocolate was one of the few things I could eat.

I went to be at half past ten and I felt like hell. I took painkillers as I went to bed, and they were just as useless as the earlier ones. By four this morning, I’d had enough of sleep, wake, pain, sleep, wake, pain, so I swallowed two more paracetemol, and got out of bed.

It’s now about six fifteen and what a difference those two hours have made. Suddenly I can swallow without discomfort. Suddenly, I can drink a cup of tea without cringing. The stitches are niggling a bit, but they’re supposed to dissolve in a few days and if that’s the worst I have to put up with, I shall be a happy man.

I’m very tired, but with the reduction in pain and discomfort, I’m looking forward to catching up on my sleep later today.

The only downside to all this is the kettle as gone. One of the pieces in Flatcap – Grumpy Old Blogger discusses the number of kettles we wear out. Well, we can add another one to the tally. It cost me a fiver about two years ago and has given stalwart service. RIP kettle. I’ll be in Tesco’s later this morning for a replacement.

A Magic Molly & Flatcap Monday Morning

I was up early but not up and about thanks to intolerable pain in my left hip. Dunno where it comes from but it is pure agony. I cannot bear any weight on it, and trust me, I have a lot of weight to bear.

It’s eased now and I’m gradually getting back to normal, or as near normal as a crock like me can get.

Still, the sun is shining on a glorious spring morning, and that lifts my spirits a little. Overnight events help, too. First off, my old mate Trevor Belshaw came up with good news early doors. His Magic Molly series, written under the pen name, Trevor Forest and designed for young children has hit the Amazon category charts.

The books are available in paperback and for the Kindle, and they really are delightfully entertaining. If you have young children and you like to read to them, or you have young children who can read, then nip over to Amazon and grab Magic Molly Book One, The Mirror Maze for FREE in the UK, but they’re addictive. Buy one and you will want them all.

Trevor is not the only one with good news. My own books, The STAC Mysteries are holding up well in the UK Cosy Crime chart. The Filey Connection, the very first in the series, is still in there and it’s just about two years old.

And finally, Flatcap on Sex is still in the humour chart, and given the subject matter, it’s in the perfect position: 69

 

Whodunit? No Coincidences, Please.

 

I don’t watch a lot of TV, and when I do it’s usually whodunits. Midsomer Murders, Whitechapel, Jonathan Creek et al, are all high on the list of compulsory viewing in our house. With Death in Distribution, the eleventh STAC Mystery due out in just over two weeks, it would be strange if they were not.

 

The one thing I try to avoid in my work is coincidence. It doesn’t sit well with a discerning audience. There’s a good deal of suspension of disbelief in accepting that the police would not only allow Joe to investigate, but actively co-operate with him, but it’s no stranger than a little old lady from St Mary Mead or a member of the landed gentry poking their oar into the odd murder or two.

And yet, once the reader buys into that, everything that follows must make sense, and we don’t want any coincidences, do we? Instead, we need a chain of logical deduction based on the available clues, many of which are tiny and discreet, but all of which are there for the reader to second guess whodunit.

Bearing all this in mind, the missus and I have been watching the excellent Belgian drama Salamander on BBC Four for the last five weeks. She’s even put up with the subtitles.

Caution: potential spoilers.

As a political thriller, it is superb, and quite believable. If you follow the real life news, it’s easy to imagine a sinister clique of like-minded business people manipulating government to influence policy.

As a whodunit, whoever, I’m afraid it falls short. We already know whodunit, but then, we already knew whodunit in every episode of Columbo. The fun came from watching our intrepid sleuth dog his man and arrive at the logical conclusion.

Gerardi’s efforts in Salamander, while courageous and determined, are not up to spec. The sole reason he is finally on the track of the bad guys is because he bumped into the widowed daughter of one of them at a club, and he met her again when taking his daughter to the same school as her daughter attended. To further rack up coincidences, the two girls become friends, which lands Gerardi an invitation to the mother’s home where he spots a photograph he recognises.

Fair enough, one of his bosses sent him to the club, but it was stretching credulity a little when that same boss sent his daughter to that school for her safety. Or did the boss suspect something of the mother? If so, he could have told us.

I’m sure these things happen in real life, but this kind of deux ex machina in fiction warrants a smack on the botty.

Now, having said all this, I fully appreciate that Salamander is not billed as whodunit, or even a cops vs the bad guys show. It is a political thriller. And there are many possible reasons why it may have been constructed in this manner. They could have been short of time. There are already twelve episodes running to about nine hours. How many more scenes would we have needed to establish a chain of investigative logic? Perhaps the writer(s) couldn’t fathom a means of getting him to the solution, but I don’t think so. Watching it with the writer’s critical eye, I could think of several avenues of investigation which would have put Gerardi on the right track. Or perhaps they simply wanted to suppress the detective work to concentrate on the political machinations and subversion.

Whatever, I shall be tuning in next Saturday for the denouement, and the curious thing is, so will my missus, even though she hates subtitled movies.

Flatcap – Grumpy Old Blogger

As of today, there are now three volumes of Flatcap’s acid humour available on Amazon. Flatcap – Grumpy Old Blogger was released to roars of silence in the early hours of this morning.

I’m known for my whodunits, particularly the STAC Mysteries. I enjoy turning them out, pitting Joe’s wits against devious and not-so devious killers, and indeed, we’re only three weeks away from STAC Mystery #11, Death in Distribution.

I’m also known for my great, if cynical, sense of humour. My favourite targets are politicians of all persuasions and celebrities. If they are determined to rise above the motley, then they become legitimate targets, especially considering their absurd antics. But the humour is not limited to them. Most facets of life are ripe for the acid tipped arrow if you stop and think about them.

Flatcap is locked in an earlier epoch where Abba, brown ale and pork pies rule supreme, and yet he would not want to go back to those days because he would miss his word processor, his mobile phone and the internet, which is where he feeds his angst. The absurdities are there to be found every day in the newspapers and on the news websites if you look hard enough.

Here’s a tiny snippet from Flatcap – Grumpy Old Blogger to give you a flavour of what to expect.

***

Strong language is so commonplace these days, that it’s put paid to the highly skilled art of the elliptical insult. So just to remind you of how it should be done, here are a few examples.

All I’m saying is your wife is like a bowling ball. She gets picked up, fingered, rolled in the alley and she still comes back for more.

So tell me, did the chef use a chain saw or a cutting torch to slice up the gravy?

You’re not fat. It’s just when you turned over, I thought it was a total eclipse.

Stupid? You’d need training to make brainless.

***

In addition to short observations like that, there are anecdotes, one-liners, even a couple of pieces of short, sledgehammer fiction prompted by real events, all guaranteed to exercise your chuckle muscles.

I’m a firm believer in the adage, laughter is the best medicine. We all need a laugh now and then, and that is Flatcap’s entire raison d’etre.

For now, it’s only available on the Kindle and you can find it at:

Amazon UK

Amazon Worldwide

And any other server used by Amazon.

Gone But Still With Us

Today is one of those anniversaries you wish were not so. On March 5th 2006, my younger brother, Terry, died from a massive heart attack. He was 54: two years younger than me.

I’m not religious, I don’t believe in heaven or hell, but if I did, I’d say they’re opposite ends of the same yardstick and right here with the living. Where God is concerned, there’s no debate. If you believe, then there is a God.

And yet, momentous things seem to happen around the anniversary of his death. On the actual day he died, I fell off a truck and bust my knee. I still suffer with it today.

Four years ago, after a suspected heart attack, I had to have catheter scan, a worrying procedure when you don’t know what to expect. The scan took place on the anniversary of his death.

And yesterday, of course, I had a polyp removed from the back of my throat… except that I didn’t. Some weeks ago, the hospital sent me an appointment letter in which it said I could eat and drink normally, so I did. When I got there yesterday, I was told I should have fasted from midnight. After some debate they decided they couldn’t risk it, so it didn’t happen. They were red-faced and apologetic, and we’ve now been rescheduled for next Tuesday.

There’s one other event I can add to this period around the anniversary of my brother’s death. The Filey Connection, the very first and best selling STAC Mystery, was released on March 2nd, 2012.

Naturally, Crooked Cat will insist that it simply slotted into their publishing schedules, but it’s eerie nonetheless. Filey, Scarborough and Bridlington were my brother’s favourite seaside places.

 

Surgery

I have to go into hospital tomorrow. I have a fibro-epithelial polyp and they’re going to take it away. You may consider this grossly unfair to fibro-epi… etc. etc. but it was not invited, therefore it has to go.

I didn’t even know it was there. My dentist found it during a routine check-up last October. Why can’t these people mind their own business?

Anyway, I went along to our local hospital in December and they decided I should be sedated. Curiously enough my first wife said the same thing forty years ago when she learned she was pregnant for the fourth time in five years.

I’m not looking forward to tomorrow. I know from personal experience how things can go wrong. I went in for a gall bladder operation in 1989 and it took them three years to put the problems right. This, I’m sure, will go like a dream, but I’m told I will have a sore tongue for a day or two.

The missus is looking forward to a bit of peace and quiet.

It’s something and nothing but I shall be milking the sympathy vote for all it’s worth. I’ll also be back in harness before the end of the week minus fibro-epi-oojah, fully armed and ready to tackle all-comers.

In the meantime, be good and if you can’t be good, be careful. If you can’t be careful, try sedation.

Whatever you do, don’t forget that STAC Mystery #11 is released on April 1st. (Bet you thought I wouldn’t have the balls to throw in a plug.)

New Month, New Moon, New Title

It’s the first of March. The New Moon is at eight o’clock (GMT) this morning, and the new STAC Mystery is with Crooked Cat, scheduled for publication on April 1st.

I’ve been scribbling for about 50 years now, ever since I was a teenager. I’ve been writing seriously for about 30 years and knocking out novels for the last 20. But even after all this time, there’s no bigger thrill than seeing a new title hit the bookstands, even if they are virtual bookstands.

In keeping with all STAC Mysteries, STAC #11, Death in Distribution is a standalone title. You don’t need to read the other ten to make sense of it. It’s useful, since there’s a lot of character development in those earlier titles, but it’s not vital.

But STAC #11 is different in that the backstory paves the way for a plot that will only be resolved in book #13. The foundation of STAC #13 is established in Death in Distribution. It will be developed a little further in #12 and finally resolved (so we hope) in #13. Even so, it will not be necessary to read #11 and #12 to make sense of #13.

I’m saying no more than that… mainly because I’m too confused to say more.

So what is this backstory? You’ll have to read Death in Distribution to find out.

In the meantime, here’s another snippet from the book just to whet your appetite.

***

Detective Chief Inspector Burrows has warned Joe to keep away from his murder investigation, but Joe has been pressured by Ballantyne Distribution to investigate. During breakfast the following morning, Burrows, who has now been ordered to work with Joe, arrives to vent his anger.

“We don’t object to help,” Burrows said. “We object to amateur bloody Poirots shoving their oar in.”

“I am not an amateur bloody Poirot,” Joe retorted. “Do you know anything about me?”

“Enough to be able to count the number of police officers you’ve made fools of.”

“With the best will in the world, Chief Inspector, Joe has never made a fool of anyone,” Sheila pointed out. “The police hold him in high regard in many areas of the North and Midlands.”

“And he has never failed to bring them up to date on any of his investigations,” Brenda added.

While addressing the two women, Burrows pointed an accusing finger at Joe. “He shoved his nose into a murder on a North Sea Ferry despite the police’s insistence that he be arrested on suspicion of that same crime.”

“But you conveniently forget to mention that I was innocent.” Joe retorted. “And if Captain Hagen hadn’t allowed me to look into it, the real killers would have been half way to Middlesbrough while Talbot was trying to prove me guilty.”

Burrows carried on talking to Sheila as if Joe had not spoken. “And forgive me, but are you the same Sheila Riley who put a chief superintendent away?”

“I am,” Sheila said defiantly. “And I don’t apologise for it. He murdered one of his colleagues. And, Chief Inspector, if you do your homework properly, you’ll know that my late husband was a police officer. Inspector Peter Riley served for many years, and never once stepped out of line.”

“Could we keep our voices down, please?” Brenda gestured around. “Right now, we’re more popular than last night’s disco.”

Joe, too, looked around, and learned that they were, indeed the centre of attention. “It’s all right, people. I’m not under arrest.”

“Wait while they search your room, Joe,” Alec Staines called out. “You can’t keep hiding these body parts all over the country.”

***

Will Joe make a fool of Burrows? Which one will get to the answer first? You’ll have to read the book to find out.

So chalk it up on your calendar.  Death in Distribution released by Crooked Cat on April 1st.

Cover Reveal & Launch Date

 

You may have noticed I don’t blog as often as I used to. I’ve been busy turning out STAC Mystery #11, Death in Distribution.

It should have been out in time for Christmas 2013, but I ran into technical problems with it and it was mid-January before I sorted those out, at which point I began a rewrite. Christmas Crackers, which should have been a supplementary Christmas volume, was released at the end of November instead.

Aside from a little tweaking, and editing, Death in Distribution is written and scheduled for release on April 1st.

In case you can’t guess from the cover, or you’ve never heard of the fun capital of the North of England, it’s set in Blackpool. The action takes place during a STAC Easter outing, although it’s not particularly an Easter title in the same way that The Chocolate Egg Murders was.

It has a double dedication, too. Haulage and parcel distribution is an industry I know well, and the original idea came from a lady named Nicola Robinson. Nicola (no relation) is a former colleague, and I felt she was entitled to a mention.

The second dedication is to Paula Guy who won a Crooked Cat competition to be included as a character in the next STAC Mystery, and once again both I and the team at Crooked Cat felt she was entitled to a mention. You’ll find Paula in one of the early chapters and again on the final few pages.

I’m in the final stage of reading through the text, changing ‘form’ to ‘from’, ‘alter’ to ‘later’ (where appropriate, naturally) inserting the odd short section where it’s needed, and by the end of this week, it’ll be with editor Maureen Vincent-Northam, who will turn it round with her usual speed, efficiency and accuracy, and by the time I’m getting ready to face the surgeons (for a minor op) a week next Tuesday, it will be with Crooked Cat.

So make a note in your diary. Death in Distribution: April1st: get it ordered and don’t be an April fool