Crime File – it’s publication day for The List by Graham H Miller

Today is launch day for The List, a debut thriller by fellow Crooked Cat author Graham H Miller. I love the cover and it looks a fantastic read.

[image error]

DS Jonah Greene returns to work with something to prove after three months of stress-related sick leave. He is transferred to Coroner’s Office and his first body is a homeless man who froze to death overnight.

What should be a straightforward case takes an unexpected turn when DS Greene is handed a list of seven names, written by the dead man. He investigates the names on the list and slowly discovers a tale of greed and murder which stretches back to the mid-nineties. His career, his marriage and his life may be threatened, but he will not give up until he has found the truth and brought the guilty to justice.

Welcome to the coffee shop Graham. Congratulations on the book – I can’t wait to start reading. What was it that attracted you to crime writing?

In part it was purely pragmatic. I have a head full of ideas, spanning reincarnation stories, historical, paranormal and cross-genre. I also have a cryptic crossword kind of brain. So I thought I should focus on a genre that you can explain to a future publisher or agent really simply.

If I say to people “this is a crime novel” immediately they understand what I’m offering. I like the intellectual challenge of constructing the plot. You need a fine balance where the reader can’t guess the ending, but when they get there it seems obvious in hindsight. I wrote The List so that if it’s read a second time there’ll be lots of clues that can be picked up once you know the ending.

Do you have any writing plans for the future?

At the moment I’m being disciplined and working on Jonah Greene book 2. It’s all plotted out and is comfortably over 20,000 words so its going well.

In the future, well I had a “Harry Potter moment” where a character sprung fully formed into my head. Pretty soon she was joined by a mentor and I’m very tempted to write a novel with two main characters, the new detective and her mentor.

She also has a nemesis now as well as several gruesome murders to solve. This project is just a swirling pot of ideas without much structure at the moment. And all that is on the back burner until Jonah Greene is well established.

It sounds like you have plenty to keep you busy. Best of luck with the launch!

JOIN GRAHAM AT THE ONLINE LAUNCH PARTY ON FACEBOOK TODAY

https://www.facebook.com/events/246857489132376/?notif_t=plan_edited&notif_id=1500037393993021

You can buy the book here

Shirt Bio

I sent Graham a message recently asking if I could have a short bio but as usual my fat fingers got the better of me and I found I had asked for a ‘shirt bio’ instead. Being a very obliging person he sent me what I’d asked for.

Graham: There’s actually a story there – when I was 14 my brother brought home a copy of Ace of Spades by Motorhead. I became a lifelong fan and was shaken when Lemmy died at the end of 2015. A few months back I had to stock up on the t-shirts that I usually wear so I bought five different Motorhead shirts which I wear nearly every day.

Thanks Graham, perhaps I should ask all my visitors this question