Following the release of ‘Christie’s Early Cases’ (see previous blog), I now had my main characters written and developing nicely to attempt a full novel. Most of the feedback I had received from the first book was very positive, but as often the case with short stories, the readers wanted more (e.g. a novel). I had an idea in the back of my mind that was beginning to take shape when I sat down to start the next book.
2020 is a year that most people will not forget and I am no exception. The start of the year was incredibly positive on a personal level, I had just started a new job in the Public Sector and couldn’t believe the difference having spent over 20 years working in the Financial industry. ‘Work/Life Balance’ was an actual thing rather than a tag line, something that came in very handy for an author. Six and a half weeks into the role, we were all hit with the uncertainty of the first lockdown. I was one of the fortunate ones that I could continue to work from home full time, something that I can still do four years later.
Not wanting to look a gift horse in the mouth, I used the time to work on the novel. With the amount of time spent at home, I was able to complete the full novel in under three months, an unheard of timescale in any other circumstances. The idea that I had, was that DI Joanne Christie would be called out to a murder that would have links to a historic, unresolved crime that her Detective Sergeant (Mike Lyle) was involved in at the time. I decided to set this one in West Lothian, on the outskirts of Edinburgh in the fictional village of ‘Whitebank’.
I tend not to overly plan my novels and I was a good half way through proceedings before I decided who was responsible and why. I was delighted how it turned out and proud that I created a novel with these characters I had been building over the preceding six years. The feedback was overwhelmingly positive, although some readers thought it was more a DS Lyle novel than a DI Christie.
I didn’t take this as a criticism, as the two main characters go very much hand in hand and I always try and get the whole team involved in solving the crime. One of the things I notice about a lot of crime fiction/drama is the main character tends to solve it all by themselves and the supporting cast don’t do much, except suggest the wrong suspect or motive. I tend to aim for a team result, albeit led by Christie.
I’m not sure I’ll ever get the opportunity to write a novel in such a short space of time again, but it’s good to know that I can return to these characters and develop them further as the series progresses, something I hope I have achieved in the third instalment that I will discuss more in next week’s, fourth and final ‘Book Blog’
Thanks again for reading, please do subscribe to this blog/newsletter type affair on the main page of the website. Your support is much appreciated and will encourage me to upload these things more often. As always, you can grab a copy of ‘Five Against One’ via the link in the books section of this website.
Ross Alexander Writer 