I’ve been busy. Which is why the blog has been a little quiet.
But now I think I’m pretty much done with the next Silas Quinn novel. (Number five in the series. If you want to catch up with the earlier ones, this ebook omnibus of the first two books is a great place to start.)
My agent’s read it. “Best Quinn yet!” was his verdict.
My wife’s read it. She’s a great editor and had a few comments which I’ve been working on.
Both of them spotted snags, which I’ve straightened out. The usual thing. Characters changing names. Mis-spelled foreign words. Tiny detail things that it’s good to get right.
So, one more weekend of living with it and then I will probably send it off to my editor on Monday.
It’s a little different from previous Quinn novels. For one thing, war has actually broken out.
My whole idea when I started writing the Quinn books was that they would take place just before the outbreak of the First World War. The crimes that Quinn would investigate would somehow foreshadow the atrocities that would be committed on a global scale in the coming century.
To be honest, I initially resisted taking the series into the war; it was my agent who persuaded me to give it a go. I’m glad he did. I think something interesting has happened to Quinn’s character as a result of the war. It feels like he’s experienced some kind of release. As if the madness of the war has placed him on a more even keel.
There even seems to be some progress in his romantic life.
Naturally, as I bring one project to its conclusion, the same old question starts to form in my mind: What next?