New Normal

I’ve talked a few times now about how dark the Sean Colbeth novel, Belie, is.  Much of that comes from the horrific nature of the crime that anchors the plot, that being the mass shooting of patrons at a local pizzeria in a small mill town.  It took me a long time to convince myself that I could write such a scene, let alone delve into the psychological morass of what might have led to it occurring in the first place.  More than once as I wrote that novel I felt like Sean and I had merged personalities, for each time I sent him back into that scene, I could sense our mutual reluctance to face it again.  I would never have believed something I wrote could have traumatic aftereffects, but it has literally taken me nearly a year (and two books without Sean as the primary protagonist) to feel mentally ready to work with him as a main character again.

And what a mess I get to work with!

When I saw him last, he’d joined Vasily in Orlando to help (in a minor way) on a case tying back to one in Rancho Linda; Silenced picks up just a few days after the ending of Belie, which meant Sean was still very much trying to pick up the pieces of both his professional career and his private life.  Vas senses something is off about his best friend, but the pressures of the case don’t allow him much time to deal with it – which is another way of saying that I, as the author, punted everything to the next Sean novel.  Now, as I begin to pull together the threads of what will become the ninth book in that series, I can kind of think I did myself a favor; as much as I love Vasily and his propensity for helping Sean, we really need to see how this all works out from Sean’s point of view.

There are other threads that I need to tug on in this book, too.  With Sean in Florida for a bit, I’ll have an official chance for him to finally get some sort of closure with his father – or, if I’m feeling particularly wild, maybe instead craft a wider tear in that relationship.  So much is open ended on that, even for me; looking back at how Sean was treated in Blindsided – namely, that his father threw him out of his apartment for the perception of being romantically involved with Vasily – there is stuff to mine there, hints about the kind of man Sean’s father is (or has become since the death of his wife).  It also gives me another wonderful opportunity to paint in more color for the background of my character, adding flavor to an already complicated individual who continues to find ways to surprise me.

Then there is Suzanne.  I won’t go into much at this point on her since there are significant events in Beliethat reshape the contours of her relationship with Sean that I don’t want to spoil; suffice it to say, Sean is flying solo when we see him in Orlando with Vasily, though not without a ton of baggage and a heart that is beginning to think love doesn’t exist for a person like him.  It does, of course, especially since I’m the sort of author that always gravitates toward a happy ending, but it might take a bit more turmoil before we get there.  Turmoil that might involve a new character that appears in Silenced, one that makes no secret of their romantic interest in our former Olympic Swimmer.

And what about his job?  Nearly from the beginning of the series, I’ve had this sense that though Sean is very good at what he does as an investigator, he chafes at being micromanaged.  Things went downhill with his position in Windeport when he was unable to read the political tea leaves properly – or willing to accommodate the Village Council in ways that felt patently unreasonable, unethical or immoral.  That meant there were plenty of warning bells going off when I allowed him to accept the position with the Maine State Police; the first case in Solitude went fairly well, but there he was on his own working a murder on an isolated island.  Belie forces him to work within the constrictions of the organization while under the very public scrutiny mass shootings generally receive.  He does his thing, of course, and it’s not much of a spoiler for me to say the case resolves satisfactorily – for everyone but Sean.

Which lands him in Florida.  On leave.  

Sounds like a tantalizing start, don’t you think?

My cupboard of story ideas is overflowing, but selecting just the right mix of ingredients for this next story has been rather hard.  I think I’ve got the proportions just right and am now prepping to begin writing in October.  Stay tuned!

Also in October: I’ve decided to release a snippet of my next Vasily Korsokovach book sometime during the month.  If you are a newsletter subscriber, be on the lookout for a special email containing the link; after you’ve read it, let me know what you think.