The
e-book version of the fourth Gideon Marshall Mystery is now in the hands of my
agent and should be available on all e-readers by mid-June. Although each of
these books is written to be a stand-alone mystery, with the second one (THE
STITCHER FILE) I started working in enough back story to accomplish that task.
I was determined to make this fourth one a trial, for a number of reasons.
First, I simply wanted to see if I could handle a trial in fiction. Second, an
arrest, at the end of THE EARTHQUAKE LADY, needed a trial to follow. And
finally, I wanted, and needed, to do one in third person, with the narrative
extended over a several month period, again as a training exercise. The first
three books are written in what I call “first person real time” in the sense
that aside from back story, all of the events take place within a few days, the
main character is Gideon Marshall, and he’s narrating the action from his own
POV. In a trial, because participants are not allowed access to all the
information and witnesses can’t observe courtroom action until they are called
to the stand, the third person narrative was necessary.
In
preparation for writing this one, I read Robert Traver’s ANATOMY OF A MURDER,
much of John Grisham’s A TIME TO KILL, and parts of Harper Lee’s TO KILL A
MOCKINGBIRD. These three books came up repeatedly when I asked social media
contacts about fiction that contained trial scenes. I had also read Grisham’s
SYCAMORE ROW and ROGUE LAWYER, both of which had trial scenes. I spent many days
in the Lincoln Hall of Justice watching district court judges and attorneys
functioning in their particular roles. Karen and I also visited Des Moines,
where this trial takes place, and spent time in the Polk County Courthouse
there, a really magnificent building. Finally, I studied several trial
transcripts, including that of Oklahoma City bombing perp Timothy McVeigh. The
big question to be answered was: what do these successful writers get by with
in terms of demands on a reader? In THE WEATHERFORD TRIAL I tried to be
somewhere in the ballpark, my estimate of the size of that park being based on
those previously published books.
In
general, my writing goal is to make a manuscript interesting no matter where
one starts. In working through my own edits, I repeatedly open up the stack of
paper at random places and ask whether the text is at least somewhat
interesting. I also do that with books in the library and in Barnes and Noble,
just to see what hard-cover published authors are getting by with. They get by
with a lot of crap. In TWT, the main character is the defense attorney,
Connecticut “Connie” Bergen, part of the legal team of Stevens Oil, Inc., a
global energy enterprise owned by Delmar Stevens, a multi-billionaire. The
focus of all these Gideon Marshall mysteries is intellectual property produced
by scientists, important because of Stevens’ belief that this work has enormous
value and can provide its owner with unimaginable power, assuming that owner
also has the tools to implement the ideas. Stevens has the tools and wants the
property.
Prior
to submission, TWT was given to five Beta readers. I got feedback from two of
these readers and incorporated their corrections and comments before submitting
the manuscript to my agent. I owe special thanks to the Polk County Iowa
Sheriff’s Office for quickly answering one of my questions about prisoner
transport.
Thanks
for reading these mysteries. In a subsequent post, I’ll explain how they came
about.
John
Janovy, Jr.
