Well, the
news from my neck of the woods is the early spring. Birds all back two or three weeks early. Phoebes, tree swallows, the flicker at the suet feeder outside my writing study window. The flicker is a first in all the years I’ve had the feeder out there.
Those of us who have lived in central Maine for long know that we’ll pay for this good fortune on the weather front. This year we’ll be mowing in April; next year we’ll have a blizzard. Or two. We know that eventually Mother Nature comes back and smacks you upside the head. As they say in these parts.
Speaking of smacks in the head, I’m well along in Brandon Blake No. 2, working title PORT CITY UNDERGROUND. There are notes spread all over the table: plot points, lists of cops, background sketches for various characters, some villainous, some good, most somewhere in between, photos of Bay Witch, Brandon’s boat (see pic above). This is an interesting project in several ways; like the last Brandon Blake, PORT CITY SHAKEDOWN, there are parallel plots and the challenge is moving from one to the other in a way that doesn’t break the pace of the book, or seem jarring to the reader. Also, the suspense has to build on two fronts as Brandon peels back layers of deceit.
I’m enjoying my time with Brandon, getting to know him better. He is hard beyond his years, and in some ways is an anachronism; in a world of shifting principles, blurred morals, and convenient ethics, my boy Blake is black and white. There is right and there is wrong. Right is its own reward; wrong should be punished. It’s a viewpoint that gets Brandon in trouble in this one. A good test of his conviction. (Will he bend? Maybe. Will be break? Never.)
Hope to finish the first draft this summer, writing in between appearances for DAMAGED GOODS. Just read a Robert B. Parker novel, SPLIT IMAGE, where Parker has Jesse Stone and Sunny Randall hook up. Seriously considering introducing McMorrow and Blake one of these days. One is older and wiser, the other is bold and brash. I’ll just stand back and watch.
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’d pay to read that; I’m a big fan of authors’ characters cross-connecting; when done well its a real treat for fans. (No pressure, I guess.
Looking forward to Underground quite a bit.
Thanks, Patrick. I’ll keep mulling it. Brandon and Mia, meet Jack and Roxanne. Brandon comes across a child in trouble. Referred to Roxanne. Meets Jack. Jack can do things a cop can’t, at least not legally. Mia joins the enterprise …