One of the pleasures of the crime-writing trade is conferring with your editor on literary matters. Foreshadowing. Balancing plot vs. subplot. How much recoil would that old .45 really have? And that Remington deer rifle–it’s a bolt-action, right? So that’s four cartridges and one in the chamber, right?
My editor at Down East Books is Michael Steere, a softspoken fellow with a good feel for language and structure. I knew that going in, having worked with him on an anthology, The Healing Touch, edited by Richard Russo. But when I began working with Michael on PORT CITY SHAKEDOWN, I quickly found that he knows more than grammar and usage. Michael knows guns.
This is a great thing for a crime novelist, for whom guns are an oft-used and even pivotal device for both plotting and character development. The wrong gun can seem as out of place for a character as the wrong hat or shoes. Would a wealthy pheasant hunter use an over-the-counter Mossberg shotgun or a high-end Beretta? Pump action over/under or side by side? Would a big-time criminal with European roots be more likely to pull out a Taurus or a Swiss-made Sig? Full-size or compact? When you shoot a hole in a wall with a 12 gauge with double ought buck from 15 feet, exactly how big is the hole? 
Sometimes I just go and find out. When we were working on a movie for my book POTSHOT (a project that unfortunately ended up on the shelf), there was discussion of just how far a .22 round will penetrate into the side of a car. So I went out in the woods with my son and a .22 rifle and we shot up a junk VW. Actually we wrote the word POTSHOT in bullet holes. I love being a writer.
But having an editor who knows guns (though not necessarily from shooting shotguns in the house) is a huge help to a crime writer and can prevent a humiliating gun gaffe, not to mention help define a character. In the case of the .45’s kick, Michael said the family heirloom pistol I had selected for a fight scene in DAMAGED GOODS wouldn’t have the kick I described because it was too old to use modern high-velocity ammo. I ended up dropping the kick part, which had caused an assailant to shoot at McMorrow and miss, and let Jack knock the gun away on his own. I also gave the assailant a smaller gun, a Swiss-made Sig P220 Carry, because it’s smaller, easier to conceal, and higher end, and this character has family money.
This was one of the last adjustments to the DAMAGED GOODS manuscript (McMorrow No. 9, out in Feb. 2010). We did talk about resolutions, how open-ended to leave a character’s fate, whether a town should remain fictional when it’s based on a real place. All important (and to be explored in future posts) but in these books, so is the right gun in the right hands.
In PORT CITY SHAKEDOWN, the first Brandon Blake novel, Brandon gets a full dose of bad guys. A brawl in a funeral home introduces him to Joel Fuller, a sociopathic hustler. Fuller is fresh out of jail and determined to take Brandon out—after Fuller and his sidekick Kelvin shake him down.
Rocky isn’t a tough guy. He’s a skinny little kid with crooked glasses, and he shouldn’t be homeless in Portland, Maine. When McMorrow and Roxanne pluck him from under the stomping feet of a gang of street kids, Rocky latches onto McMorrow–and drags him into a world of murder, both old and new. Why is McMorrow protecting Rocky? The cops want to know. Why is Rocky on the run? McMorrow wants to know. Why does death follow in Rocky’s wake? Jack and Roxanne need to find out before they’re added to the list. 
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I was just thinking as I read your blog….I have shot my side arm several times in the line of duty…{ s&w 38 4 in combat barrel)
I always saw the flash but never heard the actual shot….got to be the adrenaline
when the city upgraded to glocks I was down to my last few years and stayed with my own.