My newest release

Click to visit my BWL Author Page for details and purchase information

Hello everyone. It has been a while since I was last here. My only excuse being busy being a writer (lol).

I am currently working on two stories; the first, a suspense novel set during the Cold War, taking place in Canada in 1959. It follows RCMP Inspector Jesse Thompson from the force’s Intelligence Section as he investigates possible Soviet espionage attempts to acquire information on the latest Anti-Submarine Warfare Systems being developed by the Canadian navy in Halifax.

As you see, I am sticking with my interest in history and my home town. Remember, I mentioned in a past blog that history, including your personal one, is a fertile field for story ideas that cross all genres.

I am also working on the next Matt Murphy novel set in the 1970s in Toronto, Ontario. All this is on top of many hours of background research – my favourite part of writing. Fortunately, I am old enough to have lived through a goodly part of that history but I still discover and learn new things which often culminate in new story ideas.

If you are curious about these backgrounds may I invite you to take a look at one of the Matt Murphy PI stories excerpts on the Author page listed on the BWL website. I think you will like Matt, as I know some of you liked John Robichaud (Robie). Matt is younger and living in a different city and at a different time. But, like Robie, he is dealing with a universal truth: crime is still crime; the ‘meat and potatoes’ of mystery writers.

As a PI, he is not hamstrung by the rules and conventions of the regular law enforcement agencies and as a result, his cases take him into various areas of a major city’s underbelly as you see in the first book. He is drawn into the world of aspiring and professional dancers with their high spirited sense of self and sexuality, or as some might rather call...sensuality. He also experiences just how fragile and sensitive their egos can be threatened and how vicious they can become. He soon discovers the degree which their competitiveness will push them to achieve ‘the role’ in a production.

To illustrate the point, here is a brief excerpt.

‘The woman sat at the dressing table, looking down at the pair of worn

pointe shoes and a small soft wooden box in her hand. She knew what

she was about to do could possibly destroy the girl’s future as a dancer,

but she didn’t care.

Opening the box, she extracted three shortened sewing needles and eased

them into the stiff toes of the shoes one at a time. When finished, she

slipped a finger into the shoe, making sure enough of the pins protruded.

Satisfied with her work, she returned the shoes to the locker then slipped

silently away.’

I think you will also find the backdrop of Toronto during the years of the counterrevolution as personified by Rochdale College and Yorkville – The Village was then.

If you read the story, I hope you enjoy it and, remember; history is calling.

‘Til next time.

Paul