A Peek Under the Cover

and a few things you won't find in the book ...

Last week, my publisher (Shotgun Honey), sent me the cover for Love You Till Tuesday, the first book in the Declan Shaw detective series. I’d been on tenterhooks since early July. Early this year, the release date was set for August 13.

Ron Earl Phillips, who designs the Shotgun Honey covers, had asked me what I would like and not like to see. As is often the case, I knew what I didn’t want. Not the dark silhouette of a man that seems to pop up on so many crime novel covers, and no guns, my detective doesn’t like them. What I wanted was harder to define. Something simple, sober, atmospheric. I described the main character’s quirks: he smokes cheroots and wears cowboy boots, but no hat (in Houston, where the book takes place, the hats come out for the Rodeo in February/March). I doubt my input helped.

This is what Ron came up with.

Maybe it was this piece of dialogue that did it, where Declan describes seeing the woman for the first time:

“I asked the bartender about the musical act and she pointed at a woman sitting at the end of the bar. They had a jazz trio that night and she was the singer and piano player. She looked interesting. A brunette in tight black leather, somewhere in her thirties, with that bright red pin-up style lipstick. I thought, okay, fun, maybe.”

An evening in a club, darkness, a glance … The lipstick is red. You can see that it is.

Declan Shaw makes his first public appearance in Love You Till Tuesday, but he’s lived in my head for ten years. That’s longer than some marriages. I know him pretty well by now.

This is the first line I wrote about him:

Declan Shaw didn’t own an umbrella. That’s how much he cared about the weather.

Then I saw Elmore Leonard’s ten rules of writing and the first one is: Don’t start with the weather. Guess I got that wrong …

In my files, the first book—I doubt it’ll ever be published, not in its current form anyway—is called Shaw. Not very original, the main character’s name is often used as a title: Jane Eyre, Oliver Twist, Robicheaux, Cross, Scarpetta …
True confession: I didn’t know what to call it.

Ten years later, I understand some of the mistakes I made in that first attempt. Opening with a flashback was one of them. I went back twenty years, to Declan’s arrival at his grandmother’s house in New Orleans, and he reminisces, I shouldn’t have done that.

He leaned against a magnolia planted in a neat circle cut out of the sidewalk in front of the family house. The flagstones were uneven all around; something must be working its way underneath, pushing up. The kind of unruly behavior that would have enraged Grandma. She had no patience with disorder. In plants, animals and humans. Declan was the living embodiment of disorder.

Not a bad paragraph. Mood and complex family circumstances. But as the lead protagonist’s entrance, it’s way too soft. It would make sense if the character had already been established with the readers, and they’d reached the point where they wanted to know more about him.

When a book starts with background, the writer is offloading information. A rookie mistake. I was learning who Declan Shaw was, one keystroke at a time, and I was eager to tell people what I found out. See how cool this is, how interesting. Forgetting that the readers had no reason to be as excited as I was. Declan didn’t pitch his tent in their heads.

The pages I wrote about childhood trauma, early friendships, reckless behavior were useful to build the character, but nobody needs or wants to see the scaffolding. In Love You Till Tuesday, I touch lightly on past events, on the sly, in support of the plot. After all this time, I know who I’m dealing with. I’m used to the baggage. I don’t feel the urge to make a big fuss about it. Declan doesn’t, why would I?

So, if background is a no-no, what’s the best way to begin? As is always the case, there’s no fast rule. In The Likeness, Tana French starts with a prologue that is the recollection of a dream. But it’s Tana French, what else can I say? I’ve read these few pages many times and they fascinate me. The writing is brilliant. On the opposite side of the spectrum, Mick Herron’s Slow Horses starts with an edge-of-your-seat scene in the London Underground, the takedown of a terrorist. No spoilers, but let’s say it’s not exactly what it appears to be. These two beginnings couldn’t be more different and both are incredibly effective.

After a boatload of short stories and a big pile of manuscripts in various stages of completion, I know where I like to begin.

Without preliminaries. 🎬 Action.

Love You Till Tuesday starts at the crime scene, with the homicide cops. That’s when the police case gets going. For Declan Shaw, caught in the investigation by accident, the murder isn’t the beginning. It’s the end of a story he thought had a future.

Theme, title, cover … Sometimes it all comes together.

The title … Love You Till Tuesday is a 1967 David Bowie song. A sweet, sad, and cheeky story of boy-meets-girl and maybe they’ll manage to make it work for a few days in a fleeting world.

The cover … Ron Earl Phillips captured the underlying romance of the classic detective novel. The streets at night, a shadow in the darkness of a club, the seduction and the music. Some Kind of Blue, as Miles Davis would say.

The book comes out August 13, but you can order it now …

Pre-orders are important for authors. They create much needed momentum. The eBook is up on Amazon - here. It will be delivered to your e-reader on August 13. The paperback can be ordered through the publisher’s website, at Shotgun Honey. Thank you.