GETTING LOST ON DARTMOOR IN A VAUXHALL VIVA - INSPIRATION FOR A FAST-PACED DISTURBING KIDNAP THRILLER
People often ask me what inspired me to set Captor Captive on Dartmoor, England. Put your feet up for a few minutes, grab a hot chocolate, and I'll give you a few insights!
We've all been there... lost, on Dartmoor, in the rain...No? Well, some of us are unlucky, my family, for instance.
Dad enjoyed getting the car out for an intrepid journey into the unknown, usually with Mom and us kids in tow. You know the sort of thing: two nauseous kids, a frazzled mother, and an old Vauxhall Viva that would eventually only travel backwards until Dad scrapped it. The car radiator needed regular top-ups on short trips, and an ECG on longer journeys!
Coaxing the Viva to head off in any direction was my Dad's forte, being a mechanic, with his oily rag, and a set of assorted spanners.
"I can fix it," was his go-to phrase, even when we all headed home one evening with the exhaust between us kids on the rear seat (it was the 1970's - stuff happened, and we just got on with it) with our hands over our ears, and our eyes shut tight.
Devonshire was our annual holiday destination, and Dad thought it would be amazing if he drove us all onto Dartmoor one evening, as the weather was beautiful at sea-level. Hmm, moors are strange creatures - brooding, mysterious, and ... downright scary in a storm! The clouds gathered, the mist morphed into dense fog, then cleared when the rain battered everything in sight. Daylight plunged into night when we weren't looking. No twilight that night!
Dad cheerfully announced, "Oh, I thought this was the road to Buckfastleigh," but carried on driving anyway. The road narrowed, then grass appeared down the middle...and Dad kept on driving. "It's got to come out somewhere," he said.
The rainwater splashed up through the rusty foot well onto Mom's sandals, water dribbled through the top edge of the windscreen, with the wipers skating over the waterfall hurtling down the glass. By this time Mom's feet had found a safe haven over the picnic bag, while she mopped the rainwater from the dashboard with a copy of Woman's Weekly, with an expression of horror and disdain on her face (moms are the only people who can wear two expressions at once - have a look next time you're in a supermarket when a kid's having a melt-down and you'll see what I mean...)
It was when the thunder and lightening commenced, in tandem with torrential rain, that us kids realised that maybe Dad's idea of a nice drive in the countryside wasn't cutting it with us anymore. Maybe it was his other favourite phrase, "A bit of rain won't hurt you," that pushed us over the edge, and anyway, little bladders wont hold much, and Dad's groan was audible above the demister when two miserable voices piped up in unison, "Mom, I need a wee."
As Dad slowed the car, after Mom's whack to his thigh, a man, clad in a raincoat, hood, and holding an axe, stepped out of the gateway at the side of the road. We're not sure who screamed the loudest, but we think it was Mom, as she almost leaped out of her seat and onto Dad's lap.
Dad put his foot down, and we never saw the man again, and to this day, we have no idea who he was. Dad, the optimist, reckons he was just a woodcutter caught in the storm like us, but, to a thriller author in the making, he was the savage, brutal villain, Jon Braddon, in my kidnap thriller novel Captor Captive
I would love to hear from you, please leave a comment, or get in touch via my website https://ljkaneauthor.wordpress.com
All the best,
L.J. Kane
L.J. Kane is the British author of Captor Captive, the disturbing psychological suspense thriller (published as Snatch Girl in April 2017). Captor Captive is not for the faint hearted!
We've all been there... lost, on Dartmoor, in the rain...No? Well, some of us are unlucky, my family, for instance.
Dad enjoyed getting the car out for an intrepid journey into the unknown, usually with Mom and us kids in tow. You know the sort of thing: two nauseous kids, a frazzled mother, and an old Vauxhall Viva that would eventually only travel backwards until Dad scrapped it. The car radiator needed regular top-ups on short trips, and an ECG on longer journeys!
Coaxing the Viva to head off in any direction was my Dad's forte, being a mechanic, with his oily rag, and a set of assorted spanners.
"I can fix it," was his go-to phrase, even when we all headed home one evening with the exhaust between us kids on the rear seat (it was the 1970's - stuff happened, and we just got on with it) with our hands over our ears, and our eyes shut tight.
Devonshire was our annual holiday destination, and Dad thought it would be amazing if he drove us all onto Dartmoor one evening, as the weather was beautiful at sea-level. Hmm, moors are strange creatures - brooding, mysterious, and ... downright scary in a storm! The clouds gathered, the mist morphed into dense fog, then cleared when the rain battered everything in sight. Daylight plunged into night when we weren't looking. No twilight that night!
Dad cheerfully announced, "Oh, I thought this was the road to Buckfastleigh," but carried on driving anyway. The road narrowed, then grass appeared down the middle...and Dad kept on driving. "It's got to come out somewhere," he said.
The rainwater splashed up through the rusty foot well onto Mom's sandals, water dribbled through the top edge of the windscreen, with the wipers skating over the waterfall hurtling down the glass. By this time Mom's feet had found a safe haven over the picnic bag, while she mopped the rainwater from the dashboard with a copy of Woman's Weekly, with an expression of horror and disdain on her face (moms are the only people who can wear two expressions at once - have a look next time you're in a supermarket when a kid's having a melt-down and you'll see what I mean...)
It was when the thunder and lightening commenced, in tandem with torrential rain, that us kids realised that maybe Dad's idea of a nice drive in the countryside wasn't cutting it with us anymore. Maybe it was his other favourite phrase, "A bit of rain won't hurt you," that pushed us over the edge, and anyway, little bladders wont hold much, and Dad's groan was audible above the demister when two miserable voices piped up in unison, "Mom, I need a wee."
As Dad slowed the car, after Mom's whack to his thigh, a man, clad in a raincoat, hood, and holding an axe, stepped out of the gateway at the side of the road. We're not sure who screamed the loudest, but we think it was Mom, as she almost leaped out of her seat and onto Dad's lap.
Dad put his foot down, and we never saw the man again, and to this day, we have no idea who he was. Dad, the optimist, reckons he was just a woodcutter caught in the storm like us, but, to a thriller author in the making, he was the savage, brutal villain, Jon Braddon, in my kidnap thriller novel Captor Captive
I would love to hear from you, please leave a comment, or get in touch via my website https://ljkaneauthor.wordpress.com
All the best,
L.J. Kane
L.J. Kane is the British author of Captor Captive, the disturbing psychological suspense thriller (published as Snatch Girl in April 2017). Captor Captive is not for the faint hearted!
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