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Published in 2020 by Donut Train Press
Available in Calgary at Pages on Kensington, Owl's Nest, and Shelf Life, and in Orangeville, ON at Booklore.
RANCHMAN's READING, 2023
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Bloodlines is my homage to ‘The Silence of the Lambs’. I wanted to write a thriller in the more traditional style of a ‘who done it?’, relying on rudimentary forensics as opposed to the cyber-wizardry of the present day. Truth is, I’m a Luddite and would have to do way too much research into technical matters I’m not the least bit interested in. When I was thinking about the modus Operandi of the killer(s), I hit upon the notion of a travelling revivalist crusade plying the sawdust trail through the American heartland as a perfect vehicle for both providing cover and attracting victims. Who would suspect a troupe of charismatic faith healers of perpetrating this kind of brutal murder? There is also the delicious irony in the concept of pure evil cloaked in the vestments of right and good. This idea is captured in one of my favorite Latin quotes, in fact the only Latin quote I can remember, ‘cucllus non facit monachem’, the cowl does not make the monk. Or in more prosaic language, ‘You can’t judge a book by its cover.’
The theatre of war also provides cover for all manner of mischief behind the front lines, and I thought it would be interesting to embed a serial killer in a forward unit. Very early in the process, I wrote a scene and liked it enough to settle on a preferred timeframe, that being the fall of 1941. It provided me with two very distinct narrative opportunities. This setting also offered a rich vein of contextual elements: dapper fashion, great hats, colorful vernacular - my personal favorite being ‘togged to the bricks’ – and hard-boiled characters, both men and women.
Bloodlines features a gripping war between two characters in juxtaposition, Shadbolt, stoic, clear in intention, by the book, protector and seeker of justice in the end, and the villain, Octavius, a killer who defies traditional means of capture by breaking the cardinal rule of sticking to one victimology or modus Operandi. He is a chameleon capable of transforming, hiding in plain sight, and slipping through the hands of justice.
I’ve got to confess, there were no archetypes or inspiration for the main characters. They didn’t emerge fully formed. There were no descriptions or deep thoughts about motivations concocted beforehand. They evolved as the plot unfolded, acquiring ticks and nuances, along with backgrounds appropriate to support aspects of their behavior. The villain, Octavius came into focus much sooner than the hero, Shadbolt, who required a more circumspect development.
The theatre of war also provides cover for all manner of mischief behind the front lines, and I thought it would be interesting to embed a serial killer in a forward unit. Very early in the process, I wrote a scene and liked it enough to settle on a preferred timeframe, that being the fall of 1941. It provided me with two very distinct narrative opportunities. This setting also offered a rich vein of contextual elements: dapper fashion, great hats, colorful vernacular - my personal favorite being ‘togged to the bricks’ – and hard-boiled characters, both men and women.
Bloodlines features a gripping war between two characters in juxtaposition, Shadbolt, stoic, clear in intention, by the book, protector and seeker of justice in the end, and the villain, Octavius, a killer who defies traditional means of capture by breaking the cardinal rule of sticking to one victimology or modus Operandi. He is a chameleon capable of transforming, hiding in plain sight, and slipping through the hands of justice.
I’ve got to confess, there were no archetypes or inspiration for the main characters. They didn’t emerge fully formed. There were no descriptions or deep thoughts about motivations concocted beforehand. They evolved as the plot unfolded, acquiring ticks and nuances, along with backgrounds appropriate to support aspects of their behavior. The villain, Octavius came into focus much sooner than the hero, Shadbolt, who required a more circumspect development.
At his core, Octavius is consummate evil, but his outward appearance and persona are infinitely malleable. I haven’t really encountered this type of villain before perhaps with the exception of Alan Arkin’s character, Harry Roat in ‘Wait Until Dark’ and real-life imposters, Ferdinand Waldo Demara and Frank Abagnale Jr. If I was to think of an archetype for Shadbolt, it would be Atticus Fitch on steroids. In the end, the characters are flesh and blood and I suppose the task was to make them unique and notable and as powerful as possible on the page without resorting to the phantasmagorical or super-human aspects that tend to plague the thriller genre. The reader will be the arbiter of their impact and ultimate worth.
From time to time, I get asked about my writing process. Probably the most unique aspect is that I don’t work from an outline. I start with a single scene or vignette and build from there, each subsequent episode leading to the next. In that way the process is organic, a type of spontaneous prose, free-flowing literary bebop, a journey without maps. I have no preconceived notion of where it’s going or what will happen until it happens. One of the joys of this process is the self-entertainment value, the surprise, wonder and amazement when the unexpected rears it’s head and disparate plot elements coalesce, seamlessly resolving. I tend to write in the morning, long hand in a journal for one to two hours before transposing the output to a desktop, editing as I go. For my first book, I employed the discipline of a page a day. The next four were written primarily on weekends and holidays in bursts, depending on the flow of creative juices.