My first ever independent blog review and interview

 Drink with a dead man reviewed on Carol McKay's Lockdown book blog https://carolmckay.blogspot.com/2021/03/sandra-davies-drink-with-dead-man.html

'Drink with a dead man' - now available

 

Book 4 in the Love triangles with murder series featuring DI Luke Darbyshere 

Eight years ago Kit Talamantes faked his own death. When he receives notification of a wedding which cannot be allowed to proceed he has no choice but to return to England to correct mistakes made in his previous life. But who has summoned him? And why?

Similarly unexpectedly Edinburgh crime reporter Baz Rose hears of a proposed, and potentially problematic, reunion for four ex-uni friends who fled apart on graduation.

DI Luke Darbyshere receives a tip-off more interesting for its provenance than its content. In pursuing that he finds himself in professional conflict with the woman who, having given him six months to convince her they should marry, is struggling to solve a murder.

And Drew Bishop is determined on revenge.

ebook available https://www.blurb.co.uk/ebooks/p4a4655bbcf101d007e50

https://www.blurb.co.uk/b/10624440-drink-with-a-dead-man

Mercy for a Friday child

 ... is beginning to grow. 

Among the conversations which I've known Luke and Baz and Fran must have, as a result of what happened in 'Snap',  a new murder story is beginning to emerge, and make connections to what has gone on in the past. 

Very early days yet, but finding the perfect title  - which then gave impetus and focus to a rag-bag of semi thought-out scenes - and designing the cover has further helped it find a shape.

Love triangles with murder - now available as ebooks

I've FINALLY got my act together and made available as ebooks my Love triangles with murder series:

Step so grave  - 440 pp - is the first: https://www.blurb.co.uk/ebooks/704104-step-so-grave

Second - 373 pp - is Longest shadows reach: https://www.blurb.co.uk/ebooks/704317-longest-shadows-reach

Third, Commission and omission - 405 pp: https://www.blurb.co.uk/eboo…/704107-commission-and-omission

At £3.99 each, that works out at a penny per page.

Longest shadows reach

‘Step so grave’ indicated a wealth of history between Luke Darbyshere and Baz Rose. They’d been born within a week of each other; lived half mile apart, in a Hertfordshire village small enough to allow no escape.  Each came successfully  through adolescence courtesy of Susannah Elphinstone (Baz two years before Luke).

Before puberty was reached, however, Susannah, to some extent, made an already horrific situation worse, the results of which came back with a vengeance 24 years later.

‘Longest shadows reach’ reveals how nurture and nature influenced what came next.

Back to front - strange and alien progress

Two characters - Luke and Baz - from what I thought was a completed trilogy, insisted their story had not yet been fully told. Told me things that happened in a tale written three years ago had something to do with them. Connections enough to hang another novel on.
They gave me a title - Drink with a dead man - to which I assigned an ISBN in early June. Sent me, care of Baz, a cryptic email, indicating the existence of new characters A and D. Allowed me to read a novel which suggested a way of incorporating A. Since then I've got to know A, a bit. D, despite my holding him up to several mirrors, is still distorted.

I've half-designed a cover and bought a dedicated notebook (not done that before) and have a rag bag into which I  throw patchwork ideas as and when they arrive (even though I know some will never be put to use). I wake each morning, mentally select and tack together, a nine-patch square. But when I rise, ready to make permanent, they fade or clash or fail to fit, too disparate in weight, too contrasting in behaviour, too out of character and hence too unbelievable. I unpick and put them back.

The other thing - the most alien of all - is that no-one's talking. Usually, I listen in to conversations, hearing them loud and clear, Clear enough to jot them down verbatim. But this time there's a lot of muttering, eyes sliding sideways, alert for eavesdroppers. I need to change my disguise. Improve my stalking tactics. Bug their phones.

But the good thing is, I've been here before. Have learnt that eventually all will come good.
And I've learnt to savour even the frustration of this beginning stage.

Phew - a plot emerges ...

It started life as 'Susannah Elphinstone' a name which came to me out of the blue.  She and Luke Darbyshere became reacquainted and Baz and Madigan got involved too.
I always hoped it would be a psychological thriller.
And this morning, some fourteen months after I began writing it, I woke at 2.45 this morning with the knowledge of who did it, why, and some good ideas also about how I was going to be able to conceal the knowledge from the reader - is it any wonder I leapt out of bed to scribble it all down?

Initially, I'd written 15000 words before I knew who'd been murdered, and a further 40000 since,  getting to know some of  the newer characters: Stuart and Adam Randall, John and Michael Rendlesham and  Col Washington, along with Baz's Mum and Dad.  But I really did not know who was responsible for the second murder until today.

When the going gets tough ...

... or even just because I want to ... And it isn't even procrastination really, just a minor diversion, but this is the (current) version of the cover for the book to follow 'Not wanted on voyage'.   Only a third of it written so far, but I'm wanting to get on with it, which is why I've been head down trying to finish final drafts of both NWOV and 'Making good', the fourth (and possibly, last) in the Bridie and Sean series.

Not wanted on voyage - in process of proofing.

Received my to-be-proofed copies last week, in good time to take one to a neighbour and the other to my daughter in Germany for their opinions on the story itself - does it work? make sense? entertain?   What words did I get wrong because the correct one could not, at the time, be retrieved from within my head? (I have already replaced 'status' with 'credibility' and changed 'ears' to 'instinct' and 'rejuvenation' to 'restoration').   Also  swapped sisters for brothers for continuity's sake in the next novel!
I've now been through it twice and made dozens of corrections (mostly minor, but the quantity is embarrassing) and re-written a couple of bits.   Yesterday I uploaded the 'one-piece cover' for the corrected edition.   Fingers now crossed to get it done for early July.   AND to work out how to make it available as an e-book.

Unsuccessful salving of a conscience

Baz had been attending a hanging, otherwise he’d’ve been there.

And afterwards, in my more hysterically dishonest moments, I even wondered if Luke had arranged for the assassination.  But that was a step too far in self-justification.   And if it hadn’t been for the fact that Luke knew the restaurant owner and had got reservations – because Baz asked if he knew whether or not it deserved its reputation – we’d not have been going there anyway.   I’m certainly not petty enough to say it was because Baz was missing for my birthday celebration – I know very well how these things happen:  the nearest available reporter had to go and Baz being on the spot there was no choice.   He wouldn’t have wanted it any other way either, even said to me (later, before he found out) that he’d been relieved that the Arts correspondent had been at his grandmother’s funeral.  (Which, he also said, made it five grandmothers he’d buried, in two years)

But.   He hadn’t been there.   I had, and so had Luke.   And because it was my birthday Luke was being kinder than usual, less vituperative, more entertaining, and he opened up a bit more than usual.   When the conversation got around to books he mentioned the Wigtown Book Festival that he’d been to at the weekend, which led to him telling me about Wigtown’s Bladnoch whisky.   And I couldn’t blame the whisky either because by the time he’d suggested we go to his flat just round the corner from the restaurant (I hadn’t known that, but presumably Baz had) so I could sample it, I was already guilty.

This also appears on Thinking Ten, where it is my response to the Monday, On Location prompt of 'A restaurant'.   As before, I am using these prompts to spark scenes for potential short stories or character development for forthcoming novels.

Rose Madigan - Baz's description

 He had heard a great deal about her before ever they met.   As soon as she arrived in the city, some three years or so ago now, there had been would-be scurrilous and often bitchy gossip – from blokes – most of whom had tried it on with her and failed to impress, or had actively earned her allegedly considerable wrath, usually for incompetence or for patronising her.   Much of it stemming from jealousy of her reputation, which they refused to admit could be due to talent and hard work.   Having met her, go to know her, he thought ‘feisty,’ as used by the less prejudiced, more literate, was one of the better words to describe her, but one which was insufficient to fully encompass what he admired in her, which was her hard-working professionalism and her tenacity.   And her dislike of playing the feminist card, particularly the two-face, only-when-it-suited version.   What he had not heard was any hint of any other man – or men – in her life;  he doubted she was celibate and guessed she’d raised discretion to a hitherto unheard-of level in the newspaper world.

Waiting at the bar, for the pint of Dark Island she had asked for – he had not known in advance what to order and, having arrived earlier, was already halfway down his pint of the same, impressed that her choice coincided – he watched her reflection in the mirror behind the bar, unseen by her because she was studying a notebook she had pulled from her scruffy leather shoulder bag.   As  with every entrance she made, although he did not think it was intentional, just came naturally, she had come through the double entrance doors of the tartan-carpeted bar with all the energy of a mini-tornado, her thick tawny-coloured hair looking wind-clumped as usual,  salt-rinsed even, as though she had crossed a particularly stormy stretch of ocean to reach here:  incongruous in the centre of the city.  

Her eyes this evening were grey and peaceable, almost matching the jacket she wore, over a plain white cotton top, but he knew that they were capable of flashing a vivid green when angry or especially heated about something.   And when in the throes of sexual  passion no doubt. (He smiled at himself here)   And smiled again, knowing this to be a comparison he would never – probably – tell her of, but at such times – the anger, not the passion – she reminded him of a Tasmanian devil he had once seen in Ballarat zoo, solid-packed with muscle and bad-temper.   She certainly wasn’t skinny, was well fit, in the old-fashioned, conventional sense and he knew that as well as sailing occasionally she climbed and ran regularly.   Rumour had it she boxed too but he hadn’t ever asked about that.  

What she would be like as a wife he could not imagine.   He certainly couldn’t see her as ever being  meek and subservient, and, thinking about it, realised that he didn’t even know the extent of her domestic skills, if any.

Baz Rose - Sunday morning confrontation of newly-ex.

Baz’s appearance, when he eventually answered the door ... unshaven, barefoot and wearing old jeans and a misshapen university sweatshirt, had further pointed up the differences between them.  

His stubble-shadowed unkemptness also exacerbated his undeniable ugliness ...   He was ugly, his features large and over-mobile, surrounded by folds and crevices of flesh which added to the expressiveness of his words but removed all likelihood of him ever being referred to as ‘chisel-featured’.   His near-black curls were abundant and unruly, always over-long, although presumably he did go to the barbers reasonably regularly, and his sideburns hinted at some gypsy past.   (The lack of red-spotted neckerchief created a small desire, at least in some female observers, to place, initially their fingertips in the hollow of his throat.)   His nose had been broken in his youth, ‘more than once’ and his mouth, also over-large, was asymmetric.  

His eyes were his best feature, dark, and shiny as well-oiled olives, habitual merriness indicated by the sunburst of pale lines at the outer corner of each eye, and his every remark was emphasised by surprisingly well-shaped black eyebrows. 

At first sight he could be taken for a taller-than-average gondolier with pugilistic proclivities.  At second sight, but again solely to female observers, he might still suggest gondolier, but the overwhelming impression was of a devastating sexiness, in a bad, guilt-inducing sort of way.  

Susannah Elphinstone lived there [Book Blurb Friday #49]

“Susannah Elphinstone lived there”
He nodded at the house across the valley.   It took less than fifteen seconds for the name to register then Rose Madigan’s grey eyes momentarily flashed with the green light of interest.
Thank God, her brother thought, ever since she had arrived, self-invited (but nevertheless welcome) he had seen she was in desperate need of something to relight the spark of curiosity which had been notably absent and which was undoubtedly linked to the current and unexplained absence of Baz Rose, the most recent and, he’d thought, most important man in her life.
“The notorious Susannah” she said, then her eyes took on another expression, which he could not read, but which made him wish he’d kept his mouth shut.
“That was one of Luke Darbyshere’s rare and inexplicable failures, wasn’t it?”

THIS SIXTH ROSE MADIGAN MYSTERY BRINGS HER CLOSER TO DANGER THAN EVER BEFORE

Week #49’s response to Lisa Ricard Claro’s Book Blurb Friday challenge and Kathy Matthew’s instantly inspirational photograph. Each week Lisa posts a photograph which represents a book cover.   Participants are challenged to “Write a book jacket blurb (150 words or less) so enticing that potential readers would feel compelled to buy the book”  http://www.writinginthebuff.net/p/book-blurb-friday.html

The morning after

Out on deck – cool and damp, from an early, pearly, morning mist, and the sea calm grey, a relief to breath fresh air after the stuffy interior – Madigan tried to identify the land to the west – some part of Caithness obviously, but they were too distant, and none of the inland mountains sufficiently visible to give a further clue.   Not that she was that sure of being able to identify them anyway.   Plenty of fishing boats headed outwards though – reds and bright blues catching the morning sun, so they must be opposite a port ...   But she was stood in shadow and getting cold, so walked round to the sunny, starboard side, reminding herself of what one of her primary school teachers had told her long ago, as a way of remembering: the  three longest words together, right, green, starboard, and three shortest words, left, red, port.

Her satisfaction at her solitude – she presumed all other couples, being genuine honeymooners (with one exception, and she couldn't be sure that their relationship was entirely professional!) were otherwise occupied – was slightly dissipated as she passed the door into the ‘Whispers’ lounge.   Huddled in a corner, sat on the deck and wrapped in a blanket, looking at first glance incongruously like a street beggar, was a thin girl, her woebegone-face staring out towards the horizon.   Madigan nodded to her as she passed, as reluctant to interrupt her early morning contemplations as she was to have hers interfered with.   But the blank stare was unblinking and Madigan took only another couple of steps before realisation hit her – that disregarding stare was death, not indifference.



[Another Thinking Ten prompt kick-started this, along with ‘Wedding night’ and ‘Calm, calm’;  all plot-planning snippet, some parts of which might eventually be used for NaNoWriMo2011]

'Wedding night'

It had been her choice to sleep on the pull-down settee in the cabin, and to be fair she was perfectly willing to do so - far easier than sharing a bed for all it was a large one – every cabin had been fitted out with ‘honeymoon cruise’ in mind.   Baz was snoring very gently, his back to her and although she was averting her eyes for the most part she was startled to see, in the pale light through the porthole, that the impression given by his naked back – she trusted he wore at least boxers below that sheet! - was of a powerful beauty: not a word usually associated with Baz Rose!   Smiling to herself, Madigan, as she was now calling herself:  not too difficult and a name she could get used to, reached into the wardrobe for her jeans and fleece and slipped into the bathroom to dress.   She smiled again at her reflection:  on-end hair could at a pinch look like a night of passion had been spent, but her faded, penguin-patterned winceyette pyjamas had been the least seductive she possessed.

 [Another fortuitous set of prompts from 'Thinking Ten]

"Calm, calm"

“Calm, calm” she said to herself, through metaphorically gritted teeth, “stay meek, not the time to remember that ‘marriage is a field of battle & not a bed of roses’ thing, not now”   And she followed him, eyes downcast, her hand in his, past the Captain’s table and out of the Paradise restaurant, conscious of the eyes of most of the other passengers on them – either condemning him for such an ill-mannered display of temper, or pitying her – pitying! – for having such an ugly, inconsiderate brute of a husband.   She was certainly having second thoughts – hadn’t realised he had such a propensity for argument, was so touchy and inclined to violent abuse ... but she was stuck with him now, at least for the duration.

Once in their cabin, safe from prying eyes, she snatched her hand out of his, stopped just inside the door, hands now on hips, eyes currently more green than grey and glared at him.   “Just what the fuck was all that in aid of?” 

He turned and faced her, laughing.   “I knew you’d be asking that.”


[Today's Thinking Ten prompt fitted nicely with an idea I had for a snippet of plot for 'Not wanted on Voyage']

Grieving? - too bloody right we were grieving!

He was the most extraordinary man I ever knew – Basil Rose – extraordinarily ugly, to the extent that it was almost sexy, in a bad, guilt-inducing sort of way.  He was the crime reporter for the local daily and I was ditto for the County-wide weekly.  On this occasion we’d met – in a professional capacity - down at the docks, each having received a tip-off about the newly-discovered body there.

Bad news sells better than good, we both knew that, so we were confident that our stories would appear on our respective front pages; we were now angling for the inside details, wanting the ear of the most knowledgeable detective now on the scene. As luck would have it there were two – one male and one female and for once there was no competition: my smart appearance – from the top of my well-pinned, tiny black-bowed chignon to the tip of my well polished patent leather shoes - appealed to DI Flanagan, inevitably known as Bud, while Baz’s scruffy sexiness won the day with DI Susie Rambler.

What neither of us could have foreseen was the theft a couple of hours later, of some drawing from the local art gallery – a pretty miserable little pencil drawing, if you ask me, of an old bloke by that van Gogh 'Sunflowers' chap – he called it ‘Grieving' but believe you me it was nothing like the grief we both felt when our stories were relegated to an inside page.

This was Baz Rose's first appearance on Thinking Ten on September 26th 2010, a canvas/capstone response, i.e. ALL the week's prompts plus the Saturday picture. 

http://www.thinkingten.com/profiles/blogs/grieving-too-bloody-right-we
The comments thereafter make the point that T10 is another excellent place to practice the craft of writing.  
N.B I'm pretty sure however that the narrator is NOT Rose Madigan ;-)

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Not wanted on voyage - Book blurb Friday #16

Rose Madigan needed a ‘husband’ for a couple of weeks and Baz Rose - spectacularly ugly, sometime-rival, occasionally fellow-journalist - was the only suitable candidate.

“It’s a ‘luxury honeymoon cruise’ with a higher-than-average number of grooms returning as widowers” she told him, as inducement.

An insurance scam, obviously, but the death rate rose only when the guest lecturer on Archaeology, the French chef in the Paradise restaurant and the Canadian croupier were simultaneously on board.   And when the liner called at Lerwick.

Additionally, on this trip, among the preponderance of mis-matches, high-powered grooms and pale-complexioned baby brides, was Eric McGarry, already the subject of a covert investigation for art smuggling, and making his third appearance as a groom.

Baz – who was also, curiously, the sexiest journalist Rose had ever known - had only one question:  “Will you then be known as Rose Rose?”

“No” she’d told him “Madigan Rose.”

[149 words]


Week #16’s response to Lisa Ricard Claro’s Book Blurb Friday challenge and the tantalising photograph provided this week by  Sioux Roslawski.
Each week Lisa posts a photograph which represents a book cover.   Participants are challenged to “Write a book jacket blurb (150 words or less) so enticing that potential readers would feel compelled to buy the book”  
As an exercise in stacking up potential plots it cannot be beaten – combine any six and it’s a certain NaNoWriMo (at least that’s what I’m telling myself!)
http://www.writinginthebuff.net/p/book-blurb-friday.html