Catharsis and The STAC Mysteries

The STAC Mysteries continue to take up the greater part of my working hours, and for once I’m not moaning over it. Instead, it’s become a channel for my own troubles.

For example, last week, the missus and I returned from the holiday from hell. Everything that could go wrong went wrong, with one or two other unexpected disasters thrown in; things we thought couldn’t happen, but which did.

For the sixth STAC novel, working title My Deadly Valentine, Joe is going away for a week in Majorca, where we just went, and guess how much he’s going to suffer. He’ll lose his mobile phone, he’ll sit and watch thunderstorms turning night into day, he’ll find himself on the holiday complex designed for kids, and when he gets home, he’ll need a couple of teeth pulling.

But when he gets home, he’ll also find himself a suspect in a murder inquiry, and at least that didn’t happen to me.

It’s catharsis, y’see. Venting my frustrations on my characters. I did the same thing with The I-Spy Murders, spelling out my antipathy for reality TV by having one of the participants murdered, and in A Halloween Homicide, I expressed my irritation with politicians by making one look a complete berk before bumping him off. Given Joe’s outspoken grumpiness, and the strand of humour running through the STAC Mysteries, it gives me a different angle on the things that annoy me.

There’s is an inverse perspective to this. In The Filey Connection, I was able to spell out my love of Filey and Scarborough through the eyes of Joe, Sheila and Brenda, I used my hometown, Leeds, as a basis for A Murder for Christmas (transferring to Crooked Cat on October 31st) and in the forthcoming title, Murder at the Murder Mystery Weekend (release date 23rd November) Joe will be as awestruck by Lincoln Cathedral as I was.

There’s nothing new in it, either. Chris Deacon, hero of my novel Voices, had to suffer my deafness and broken ankle. Somewhere in the text, he also describes his boss as a glorified usher. I’ve worked for a few like that.

So be careful the next time you cut me up at the traffic lights. You could end up as Joe’s next investigation.

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