Category: crime fiction

Shaper

I have to admit my first Cully Beach novel, ‘Shaper,’ barely fits the ‘crime’ genre in which I usually list it. At heart, it is more a mainstream relationship story, with the crime element largely peripheral through most of the narrative—anyone expecting fast-paced, focused adventure will certainly be disappointed.

To be sure, I have other books that will provide that. The Wilk adventure ‘The Dictator’s Children’ will give you plenty of action. In fact, most of my books will give you more than ‘Shaper,’ which may be the slowest-paced novel I’ve every written. It’s successors in the Cully Beach series, ‘Waves’ and ‘Smoke,’ do pick up the pace. That is in part thanks to the ground work I did in the first book, creating setting and characters.

Characters are really what ‘Shaper’ is about, and their interactions. Though romantic relationships appear in much of my fiction, perhaps none focus on them quite as closely as this novel. There are other, non-romantic relationships, as well, friendships, the somewhat paternal attitude of Shaper to all the surfer kids who hang around his shop. And there are the complex connections between him and his girlfriend’s teen daughter. Here’s a short excerpt that touches on it:

Charlie wandered in a couple hours later and settled herself on the floor next to the counter. Looking up at me, she said, “I talked to my sponsor. You know about him now, don’t you? Mom told me.” She giggled. “Did you and Jan really think he might be my boyfriend?”

“Jan didn’t. I wasn’t so sure.”

“Shaper!” She shook her head at me. “Anyway, part of AA is making amends so I want to say I’m sorry for deceiving you.” She pondered a moment. “I need to apologize to Mom, too. That’s gonna be harder.”

“You know she will understand.”

“Yeah, she always does. She should have beat me more as a child. Then maybe I wouldn’t be so messed up.”

“Belts are right over there. Feel free to take one home.”

“No need. I think maybe I’ll get a lump of coal and a switch for Christmas. It’s what I deserve.”

“Can the self-pity, Charlie. I know that’s not part of your recovery. And, you know, I think maybe Christmas is about getting better than we deserve”

“I sure hope so, Shaper.”

But the book is really about the title character himself, the upsetting of his comfortable existence, his reevaluation of his life. I’m hoping I’ve presented Shaper as the complex individual I intended—but I’ll have to leave that up to the readers to decide.

Bicycles

Ian Fleming may have gone on about the cars his James Bond drove and the handguns he carried, but he never got into bicycles. I have avoided that sort of oversight in my own fiction.

To be sure, anyone who knows me should not be surprised that bikes pop up in some of my stories (including some written under pen names). I have Jim Fry, the protagonist of the first Hocking Hills mystery “These Remembered Hills,” bringing an English Pashley three-speed home to Ohio when he leaves the service. Yes, like the one Father Brown rides in the television series. I didn’t have him ride it, though, as the hills and gravel roads are not ideal, and it simply didn’t fit into the story. If I could have found a reason, I most definitely would have let him pedal around some. I have pretty much decided he will stash it near the university—some twenty miles away—and use it when he begins taking classes in the sequel. I’ll definitely have an excuse then.

I have touched on bicycles in some of the Ted ‘Shaper’ Carrol stories, including the three surf-and-crime Cully Beach novels. I’ll admit some of the incidents and details I’ve slipped in come from my own experiences, especially those riding about as a kid in both Columbus Ohio and Naples Florida. And I did include that bicycle patrol the Cully Beach police department has going up and down the beachfront. Yes, it actually plays a role; it’s a convenient way to let Ted interact with the police.

Then there are the Wilk novels. I touch on the fact that Wilk’s family imported Belgian-made bikes into Danzig both before and after the First World War, to sell in Poland and the Baltic region. This not only sets him up for a career in engineering, but also helps give him a fairly privileged upper-middle class background. His interest in gadgetry and mechanical devices of all sorts (yes, including guns) is rooted in that upbringing. I expect to expound a little on Wilk’s connection to bicycles in the novel-in-progress, set in 1966 Saigon. Maybe not deeply, but I can’t help throwing in some details!

Finally, those pen name works. I don’t really hide the fact that I’ve written two Women in the Sun novels as Sienna Santerre. This is not the place to get into them, but I will mention that everyone is riding about on bikes in 1968 Naples, the setting of both. And I wouldn’t be at all surprised if they still are in any sequel.

Along with surfing—that shows up in my fiction too, where I can fit it in. I’ll have something to say about that some other time.

These Remembered Hills

This Saturday, January 7 2023, marks the official release of my latest novel, “These Remembered Hills.” Ostensibly, this is a mystery novel. Here’s the back cover/advertising blurb:

Yes, he loved these hills, these remembered hills of his youth.

Jim Fry had returned from his four years in the navy, returned to the family farm where his sister had died, broken at the foot of a cliff. An accident. So most believed.

Not her friend, artist Rick Myers. A few days later, Myers is also dead and no one mistakes this for an accident. Through farmland and forest, the cliffs and creeks of the Hocking Hills of southern Ohio, Jim pursues the truth—and the murderers.

The book is available in print everywhere books are sold. ISBN 978-1-937745-85-1. It is also available in print, EPUB, and PDF directly from Arachis Press:

print: https://www.lulu.com/shop/stephen-brooke/these-remembered-hills/paperback/product-g7zgz2.html

EDIT (some time later!): the EPUB and PDF editions are no longer for sale at the Arachis Press store. We have chosen to make them, and all my ebooks, free downloads at the Arachis Press site (arachispress.com).

I’ve been wanting to write a book about the area in southeastern Ohio where I’d done some of my growing up, the hills and hollows and caves, and this was the time for it. Maybe I’ll write a sequel but right now I’ll be getting back to the fantasy novel WIP. There should be another poetry collection release later this year too.

Gay

I watched the better part of the ‘Ghosts’ Christmas show last night (not that I’m a particular fan but I couldn’t find anything better on antenna television) and noted that the character Isaac, the ghost of a Revolutionary War soldier, dreamed that his wife called him a ‘big gay liar.’ Now, the word ‘gay’ had no connotations of homosexuality two hundred fifty years ago but that doesn’t really matter. It was a dream and it served the narrative.

The word seems to have become attached to homosexual culture sometime in the Fifties. This was part of my research for my latest novel, ‘These Remembered Hills,’ which will be coming out on January 7. I was not at all sure what gay men called each other, nor how ‘straight’ culture referred to them at the time the story is set, 1962. Apparently, the word gay was becoming the name of choice for homosexuals themselves during this period. Of course, ‘queer’ was around and, I’m fairly sure, is a somewhat older term. And, to be sure, most people, if they mentioned homosexuality at all, tended to use derogatory words such as ‘pansy.’

There was also research into how hate crimes against gays were viewed and referred to at that time. ‘Hate crime’ is a way more recent phrase. I could not really find anything definite on when ‘bashing’ came to refer to attacking gays, so I avoided using it. My relatively enlightened police detective who gets involved does speak of ‘homophobia.’ It might not have been in common use in the early Sixties but the implication is that he’s up on the literature.

Most of this is somewhat peripheral to the story’s plot. It is not an LGBTQ novel. One of the murder victims is gay and we get some views of his life from the outside. But I had to get it right, you know? Researching the details is important to crafting a believable narrative. There were a lot of details to research for ‘These Remembered Hills.’ Things change a lot in sixty years, including the Hocking Hills themselves—but the ridges and valleys, the creeks and caves are there still. It is we who change.