After writing four novels in the Inspector Lucas Rocco series, set in France in the 1960s, it was a bit of a wrench to hear from my agent that the publishers didn’t want a No 5. The reviews had been good – some great – and they seemed to be doing well overall.
But clearly not well enough.
However, that’s the way of things in this game; if your books don’t get the expected sales, it’s goodbye Vienna (or au revoir, Picardie, in this case).
Instead of wallowing, which I don’t do very well, I decided to get on and write more books, which was also my way of saying ‘ya-boo’. As therapy it works rather well for me, soothing disappointment and a couple of other unwelcome emotions and offering potential in other directions. That’s the thing about writing: you can’t give up.
The first of these, ‘Close Quarters’, is due out in April (signed editions will be available in hardback through Goldsboro Books). The sequel to ‘The Watchman’,the opener in the Marc Portman spy series, which has done very well indeed, especially in the US, it seems to have caught readers’ imaginations. I hope this follow-up will do the same and take the series from strength to strength. It’s certainly great fun to write and the publishers for this series and the Harry Tate spy thrillers (Severn House) have been hugely enthusiastic about it.
The second one was a slight punt, because I wanted to go down a different track and feature a female lead character. It’s called ‘The Locker’ and is the start of a brand new series which has, thanks to my agent, David Headley, been picked up by an American publisher. It’s a thriller… but I’ll write more about that later.
In between these two books – and editing, and writing magazine articles and a lot of DIY (we moved house a year ago and I’ve got the scars to prove it) – I decided that I wasn’t going to allow Lucas Rocco to vanish in the mists and marshlands of Picardie and the Somme Valley, a victim of statistics. Besides, readers are still buying the books and I wanted to keep the name bobbing along out there rather than have him quietly forgotten.
The simplest way (bearing in mind that I invariably seem to be writing two books in any one year, so my writing time is in short supply) was to put together a short story and issue it via my agent on Kindle. That way I figured it might keep up the interest in Rocco and his cast of characters, as well as gaining new readers for the existing series.
The important things for me were to retain the atmosphere of the period, add a touch of real history on which to hang the story, while keeping the main players in useful employment on the pages without overloading the story with walk-ons. Most of all, though, I wanted to maintain the main characters as I’d grown to enjoy writing them – and as many readers had enjoyed reading their exploits. It’s very easy to lose track a little of what you’ve written about if you leave it too long between books; you can find voices sounding a little different, influenced by your other writing, and for details to have changed slightly – both things which keen-eyed readers will notice.
The result is called ‘Rocco and the Snow Angel’ (publ. Cecil Court Press), and came out at roughly 20,000 words. So, not so much a short story, more a small novella. It brings together Rocco, Claude LaMotte (the local garde champetre), Commissaire Massin, Rocco’s boss, his busy neighbour Mme Denis, and others, and takes Rocco on a hunt for a deadly killer from the past.
As usual for Rocco, nothing is without political ramifications or interference. But he has a job to do and will allow nothing to stand in his way.
He’s cool like that.
____
Picardie, n. France. A former village priest is found shot dead, execution-style, in a snow-covered field. The killing re-opens memories of a wartime scandal around the villages of Poissons-les-Marais and Fouillmont, when a young infatuation led to a spate of coldly efficient assassinations. But who’s responsible for this particular murder? And why so long after the event?
For Inspector Lucas Rocco, it means pushing aside the veil surrounding old Resistance activities and fighting dangerous political connections to track down a deadly, long-range killer with the ability to hide in open countryside.
‘Rocco and the Snow Angel’ – available on Kindle right here.
If you read it, I hope you enjoy it.
Adrian Magson
@AdrianMagson1
But clearly not well enough.
However, that’s the way of things in this game; if your books don’t get the expected sales, it’s goodbye Vienna (or au revoir, Picardie, in this case).
Instead of wallowing, which I don’t do very well, I decided to get on and write more books, which was also my way of saying ‘ya-boo’. As therapy it works rather well for me, soothing disappointment and a couple of other unwelcome emotions and offering potential in other directions. That’s the thing about writing: you can’t give up.
The first of these, ‘Close Quarters’, is due out in April (signed editions will be available in hardback through Goldsboro Books). The sequel to ‘The Watchman’,the opener in the Marc Portman spy series, which has done very well indeed, especially in the US, it seems to have caught readers’ imaginations. I hope this follow-up will do the same and take the series from strength to strength. It’s certainly great fun to write and the publishers for this series and the Harry Tate spy thrillers (Severn House) have been hugely enthusiastic about it.
The second one was a slight punt, because I wanted to go down a different track and feature a female lead character. It’s called ‘The Locker’ and is the start of a brand new series which has, thanks to my agent, David Headley, been picked up by an American publisher. It’s a thriller… but I’ll write more about that later.
In between these two books – and editing, and writing magazine articles and a lot of DIY (we moved house a year ago and I’ve got the scars to prove it) – I decided that I wasn’t going to allow Lucas Rocco to vanish in the mists and marshlands of Picardie and the Somme Valley, a victim of statistics. Besides, readers are still buying the books and I wanted to keep the name bobbing along out there rather than have him quietly forgotten.
The simplest way (bearing in mind that I invariably seem to be writing two books in any one year, so my writing time is in short supply) was to put together a short story and issue it via my agent on Kindle. That way I figured it might keep up the interest in Rocco and his cast of characters, as well as gaining new readers for the existing series.
The important things for me were to retain the atmosphere of the period, add a touch of real history on which to hang the story, while keeping the main players in useful employment on the pages without overloading the story with walk-ons. Most of all, though, I wanted to maintain the main characters as I’d grown to enjoy writing them – and as many readers had enjoyed reading their exploits. It’s very easy to lose track a little of what you’ve written about if you leave it too long between books; you can find voices sounding a little different, influenced by your other writing, and for details to have changed slightly – both things which keen-eyed readers will notice.
The result is called ‘Rocco and the Snow Angel’ (publ. Cecil Court Press), and came out at roughly 20,000 words. So, not so much a short story, more a small novella. It brings together Rocco, Claude LaMotte (the local garde champetre), Commissaire Massin, Rocco’s boss, his busy neighbour Mme Denis, and others, and takes Rocco on a hunt for a deadly killer from the past.
As usual for Rocco, nothing is without political ramifications or interference. But he has a job to do and will allow nothing to stand in his way.
He’s cool like that.
____
Picardie, n. France. A former village priest is found shot dead, execution-style, in a snow-covered field. The killing re-opens memories of a wartime scandal around the villages of Poissons-les-Marais and Fouillmont, when a young infatuation led to a spate of coldly efficient assassinations. But who’s responsible for this particular murder? And why so long after the event?
For Inspector Lucas Rocco, it means pushing aside the veil surrounding old Resistance activities and fighting dangerous political connections to track down a deadly, long-range killer with the ability to hide in open countryside.
‘Rocco and the Snow Angel’ – available on Kindle right here.
If you read it, I hope you enjoy it.
Adrian Magson
@AdrianMagson1
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