The Wrong Place to Die by P.B. Barry

The latest Sergeant Alan Murray mystery.

https://www.amazon.com/WRONG-PLACE-DIE-P-B-Barry/dp/B0CYSS6XZ8/ 

 

 

 

Nearly there with the new novel

 Well, I have finished my sixth or seventh draft of the new Sergeant Alan Murray novel and just need to read it one more time to check for errors and omissions and all that kind of stuff. I have to psych myself up to do this because I have been reading, re-reading and editing for weeks now, or so it seems. I feel I know every word by heart - and that is not good. Familiarity breeds typos, incorrect names and backgrounds of the main players, to mention but a few problems. So I need to knuckle down one more time.

As usual, I have enjoyed writing the story, getting the characters to develop before my eyes and sorting out the whys and wherefores of the plot. Nearly there. I have the cover sorted (I hope). Next comes the blurb, the outline of the story which hooks the reader and persuades them to open the book or download to Kindle. I always find this the most difficult. What to leave out, what to put in? Basically, someone commits a crime (murder usually) and Sergeant Alan Murray has to find out who the perpetrator is and bring them to justice. Inbetween the crime and the solving of the crime, comes what the French so elegantly call the denouement, the unravelling of all those bits and pieces of information which I have scattered into the pages of the story. 

I have some loyal readers who are waiting impatiently for the novel to be completed and available. Readers are what makes it all worthwhile. So here goes.

On the Street in Big Cities

I am currently reading Lifeless by Mark Billingham. It was first published in 2005 but it is as relevant today as it was then. It is about homeless people being murdered on the streets of London and a detective going underground to try and solve the crimes. Having lived in London, I know the places in the book. Not only that, but a few years ago I attended a writers' event in the West End and was intrigued to see how many people chose to sleep in the doorways of theatres (as the protagonist in the novel) or in sheltered doorways around Covent Garden. I suppose it makes sense to pick a quiet but well-lit spot.
You can substitute London for Paris or any big city. Last weekend I was in Frankfurt. The suburban train tunnel around the city centre was closed for much-needed repairs which meant I had to take quite a detour to get to where I wanted to go and I got to see a lot of the inner city. Frankfurt has its fair share of homeless. They frequent the main shopping area, Zeil, which some people say is the most expensive mile in Europe. Be that as it may, for writers like me, it was rich in interesting detail. I saw a man sprawled in the middle of the pedestrian zone, totally oblivious of the sun on his face (and it was getting to be pretty hot by 10 o'clock in the morning), he rolled over and woke up as I moved past him and I was surprised to find that he looked well dressed for someone on the street. Maybe he'd been out on a binge. I saw a young lad with two plump little dogs who looked altogether in better shape than he was, several professional beggars and the inevitable addicts hoping to get enough for their next fix, tired people, people who stared at us from expressionless eyes.  I found myself wondering what they thought of all the luxury in evidence in the big stores and expensive boutiques around them.

I arrived late and had to change trains at the main railway station - never a healthy place to be on your own late at night. The city is a different place at night when the office workers are safely at home in suburbia and the street dwellers take over. I saw people rummaging in refuse bins for thrown-away food, one old lady who discovered a cigarette butt and looked at it with obvious delight, another woman sitting on a bench and having an earnest conversation with an invisible person next to her. A man gave vent to his inner rage and shouted abuse at everyone who walked past him.

Where do they all come from the Beatles asked in their song All the Lonely People? It would have been good to sit down and talk to some of them and hear their stories. I couldn't help thinking that Mark Billingham had got it absolutely right in his novel Lifeless. In the acknowledgements he thanked some of those he had spoken to and certainly his descriptions are true to life. Not only does he tell a good story, he also shows compassion for the street people and is never the slightest bit judgemental in his writing. While negotiating the tram or the train late at night in Frankfurt, I was often reminded of his novel.

My novels are set in the Irish countryside. There are no street people. But there are lonely people, people with problems, people who kill. I try to bring these elements to my Sergeant Alan Murray mysteries.

Writing the Plot

One of the hardest parts of writing in my experience is plotting the novel. Of course I have the kernel of the story - what it's all about, so to speak.  But how to take the reader there, how to incorporate interesting byways that my reader will like to follow, that is the main problem.

I am currently mulling over the third novel in my Sergeant Alan Murray Mystery series which I write under my pen name P.B. Barry.  Murray was originally in a once-off story, Death in a Lonely Place. Everyone who read the book liked him so much that I got a lot of calls to write a sequel. 'I feel so safe with him', said one of my readers, which is surely one of the nicest compliments I have ever received because it demonstrated that she was totally immersed in the story. Another reader wanted to know if Murray would ever find out what happened to his wife Sheila who disappeared on Ardnabrone mountain many years before.

So I started mulling over what else could happen among the lonely Kerry mountains and came up with Ending in Death. The riddle of what happened to Sheila is not solved in this story but it has been buzzing around in my head like a bee trapped inside a window. So I am now working on the plot of what will most likely be the final in the Sergeant Alan Murray Mystery series. It is hard work, let me tell you. I love the actual writing, it is the discipline of getting the plot right that I find so difficult.
So I'm spending my time noting down names, places, back stories and sub-plots. Which reminds me, I must get back to work!