Read the Book That Doesn't Exist
If you've read my Roland March novels, you're familiar with The Kingwood Killing. It's a 2003 true crime book by journalist Brad Templeton, covering March's most famous early case. The problem is, even though characters in Back on Murder and Pattern of Wounds refer to the book often, it doesn't really exist (any more than Templeton does), which means you can't read it.
Until now, that is. Here's the story: during the writing of Pattern of Wounds, in order to keep everything straight, I found that I needed to write The Kingwood Killing, too. Not in its entirety, thank goodness -- just thirty-odd pages' worth of excerpts, enough to tell the story. Now I have posted these excerpts online at the new www.jmarkbertrand.com.
Will reading this add to your appreciation of the books? Absolutely. There are some hidden nuggets in the excerpt that will fill in some blanks. Also, you'll get to read the transcript of a key moment in Donald Fauk's confession to March on September 11, 2001. This will add some layers to their conversation at the end of Pattern of Wounds. Enjoy: THE KINGWOOD KILLING.
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Do you write all your stories from one POV?
All of the March novels are written from his perspective.
I realized that this morning. Is there any specific reason you chose this route in lieu of multiple POV's?
Nothing to hide is the best of the three in my humble opinion.
3rd person from multiple perspectives is a standard in commercial fiction, but I wanted to do something fresh. By writing from March's point of view, I'm hoping to give the reader a closer experience of the investigative process -- you never know more than March does, he never knows more than you do (at least in theory).
