Background Research for my Latest Novel
My latest book, ‘Social Murderer’, brings together three themes.
1. I realised how much the characters in a book intrude into my mind while I’m writing a book. The clash between fictional characters and events in the author’s real life is a theme that has been applied many times. The book that comes first to my mind on this topic is ‘The Dark Half’ by Stephen King – which is mentioned by one of the characters in ‘Social Murderer’. Other books have also explored the theme, a recent bestselling example being ‘The Woman Who Lied’ by Claire Douglas.
2. In ‘Social Murderer’, the killer selects his victims from the internet, and social media in particular. Again, not a unique theme – I’m not sure there are never any new ideas in fiction, just different ways of telling a story. I recently read a novel titled ‘I See You’ by Clare Mackintosh which had an interesting spin on this idea.
3. The third component of the book is puzzles, a topic that has interested me all my life. Some of the subject matter in ‘Social Murderer’ is based on my own experience, although I never achieved some of the more exotic uses for puzzle-setting that occur in the book.
The book is centred in the town of Mansfield, which I chose for two main reasons.
1. The book is quite dark in its theme, and if Mansfield brings any image to the reader’s mind, it’s probably a dark one.
2. The other reason is that my path through life has twice intersected with the town. I spent my early years of my life in Mansfield and my first memories are all located there – in a street whose name you’ll be able to guess if you read the book. I also worked closely for several years with a company that was based there.
For this book, I visited two locations: a certain stretch of the Kent coast (where my journey exactly matched that of the killer) and Pimlico which, regretfully, did not commend itself to me.
If you read my books, I would be interested in your comments. Feel free to get in touch – you can reach me via various social media.
