In Declan's Own Words

it's about time

Dru Ann Love is a tireless supporter of the mystery genre and uses her blog, Dru’s Book Musings (free to read), to talk about new books and the characters who star in them. Last year she gave me a spot in the section of her newsletter called A Day in My Life, and I wrote an article about Declan Shaw’s worst day ever. A day in the first book of the series, Love You Till Tuesday. You can read the post here.

I was invited for a return appearance and I enjoyed speaking in Declan’s voice again, something he does in dialogue, but never in narrative, unlike hardboiled detectives in classical novels. You know what I mean; it goes like this:

When I went in with the drinks she had a gun in her hand. It was a small automatic with a pearl grip. It jumped up at me and her eyes were full of horror.
I stopped, with a glass in each hand, and said: “Maybe this hot wind has got you crazy too. I’m a private detective. I’ll prove it if you let me.”

(from Raymond Chandler’s Red Wind)

It sounds familiar, doesn’t it? The movie voiceover. A baritone. Deadpan, cool. Not hurried, never hurried. And the worse the situation, the slower the delivery.

I could hear Declan say this. The lines aren’t time-stamped. He might not say them like Marlowe though. “I’m a private detective”. Simple enough. Keep it soft and flat. A statement of fact. She has a gun, better not make her nervous. “I’ll prove it if you let me.” Now, that’s more subtle. He’s holding two glasses, which signals a pleasant social interaction, maybe a hint of something more to come. Marlowe would keep it deadpan, which automatically gives the exchange an ironic twist. Can I put a word sideways before you plug me, babe? I imagine Declan doing something slightly different. A whiff of self-deprecation followed by a hint of doubt. What’s proof worth and why would she care? You can do a lot with a few simple words … and writing is acting.

This was a fun exercise but I’m not going to that level of analysis each time I hit the keyboard! Here’s what I wrote in A Day in My Life for the new book, Catch Me on a Blue Day. Tell me in the comments how Declan’s voice sounds, I’m curious ….

I should have gone to Connecticut in the spring. Carlton Marsh, my old college professor, needed help with research for his new book, an exposé on the Salvadoran Civil War that he covered as a frontline reporter in the 1980s. Carlton’s adventurous roaming days were long gone, and he couldn’t run around like he used to. I was supposed to do the running for him.

Unfortunately, in April, I was barely mobile. My left leg held together with pins and screws, courtesy of a goon who threw me off a staircase; I landed hard. By summer, things had improved, and I resumed limited field work. Surveillance, interviews, low-impact routine stuff. I was getting bored. Carlton kept in touch and suggested a change of scenery. He still had work for me, and we agreed that I would come up after Labor Day. He was cagey about the job, just saying that it involved Salvadoran refugees.

I landed in Newark around noon, picked up the rental car, and inched in traffic for four hours, about the same time I spent in the air. Of course, when I arrived in Old Mapleton, a quaint seaside Connecticut town, my injured leg felt as if the screws in there had turned to rust. The doc warned me: you have to keep moving. I already knew I could look forward to a miserable night. I hoped Carlton Marsh’s bar was well-appointed. To be able to sleep, I would have to knock myself out. The little white pills in my bag were for emergency only. For months, I’d been trying to wean myself off these bastards. It wasn’t easy. I had a few setbacks.

The cop car parked in front of Carlton’s villa didn’t ring alarm bells, but the attitude of the officer who intercepted me on the way to the front door did. Things got tense, and he hauled me off to the police station, stopping short of putting me in handcuffs. I soon learned where the suspicion came from. Carlton Marsh had killed himself the night before.

I couldn’t believe it. I talked to Carlton on the phone that evening and he gave no indication that he was in distress. Quite the opposite. He was eager to get me going on the research.

I told everything I knew to Old Mapleton’s police chief Burt Halston. The man struck me as solid. He was reluctant to share his findings with me, at first, but he needed somebody he could bounce ideas off. His staff didn’t have the right mindset. Halston, it turned out, also had doubts about the suicide. He took me to the villa and walked me through the scene. We talked it out. The gun, the ammo, fingerprints, or lack thereof … yes, something was off kilter.

I definitely wasn’t flying back to Houston.

Thanks to Halston, I found a place to stay for a few days. The trip, the news upon arrival, I was wiped. I fell into bed. That’s when my leg started acting up, worse than it ever had.

I’m not proud of what happened after that. And it was only the beginning.

That last line is an understatement … Catch Me on a Blue Day is available in a bunch of formats, both eBook and Paperback. It’s all listed on the publisher’s website.

Happy reading!