Commission & omission

When Chloë Carrington, successful but predatory gallery owner of a North Yorkshire gallery, is found dead the morning after a Private View, first to come under suspicion is Annabel, the pregnant, soon-to-be-wife of wealthy ex-criminal Ed Hetherington.
Second is publicity-shy artist Ivo Kinnersley whose exhibition it is.

Despite a multitude of motives, and many witnesses, evidence to convict either proves elusive. The discovery of a new lead coincides with Ed’s fortieth birthday, interrupting a weekend of celebrations during which DI Luke Darbyshere learns that Ivo Kinnersley has not only already escaped one murder charge, but also shares a past and a secret with the woman with whom he wants to spend the rest of his life.

(Prediction Fiction participants might be pleased to know Pettinger plays a part in this.)

Book covers

I DO like designing book covers.  Much of the action in my most recent Luke Darbyshere murder mystery (a more accurate description than crime, I think) takes place around a gallery, wherein the owner has been murdered.  I planned to use an image of a printing plate, since that was the murder weapon, but the first attempt incorporated a ruined abbey sent against a Yorkshire Dales background.
Next day I decided that was too P D James ('Devices and Desires').

Retaining Yorkshire Dales, inverting plate, adding red bloodstains - YES!!  Looked great, I uploaded and received it and was well-pleased.
Except ... except it spoke, to me, at least, of Mediaeval jousting, and ladies, velvet-gowned and offering favours.


Another try; a browse through my 'resources' file.  One shouted out - an accidental stain, not even a print,  But suggestive of any number of things.  Uploaded, re-shaped, changed text and colour, and there it was!

Commission and Omission - update

I reported having reached 17K on September 2nd, Had topped 40K by the 24th October, and today I've just passed 60K.

Not, obviously, a word count comparable to NaNoWriMo, but many of these words are much nearer a final draft, the clues are better worked out, the red herrings far more subtle, and in the process I've developed a final arc for the whole of the trilogy.

90K is my target - one which seemed impossible when halfway there - but a fattening of the characters, a realisation that description of place is not, if well done and applicable, a waste of the reader's time and awareness that I still have ten scenes still to write, makes it a far less daunting task.
No cover as yet - I am without Photoshop, my current version having just disappeared one day, but one possible starting place might be a print done for my first ever piece of fiction, 'The One That Got Away'.

Progress

17K words into third of trilogy - working title evolved from 'Luke's story' to 'Commission and Omission' - and far better-organised thanks to SE course.

Bloody Scotland had a hand in it too - the short story written for that will be expanded and incorporated, plus I am getting huge amounts of inspiration from reading and re-reading Chris Brookmyre's Jasmine Sharp trilogy! 

Obviously I'm very much looking forward to the workshop I'm doing with him in Stirling on the nineteenth of this month.