This page gives a little background to my characters and a lead in to their books. I hope you find them interesting.
Joseph ‘Joe’ Fagan
A man on the run – from himself.
Father Joseph Fagan was not always a priest. Joe Fagan is a man from his past, someone he buried a long time ago.
He has one man to thank for his salvation, a man who has traveled his own difficult journey, a man he owes – the Supreme Pontiff – The Pope.
The Simeon Scroll establishes who this character is (The Journey fills in some of the background).
War-torn Somalia, 1992 – A young Navy SEAL rescues a priest and ten children from a burning Catholic mission overrun by rebels. The priest and the soldier establish a friendship, a bond. For Joe Fagan, it becomes a lifeline.
Twenty years later, their journeys have taken them on vastly different paths. Fagan always knew his friend was destined for great things. The missionary priest is now the Supreme Pontiff – The Pope. But Joe Fagan had traveled a different path. It was strange how far one man could rise and how far another could fall.
If it was not for his friend, Fagan would have fallen all the way into hell. But his friend had held out a hand, and a different man had emerged from the darkness.
But life never stays the same.
The Armageddon Trilogy (The Simeon Scroll, The Final Pontiff, and The Day of Wrath) takes him full circle, tears his life apart, but he survives and Joe Fagan is back. A man constantly moving, a man on the run, a man whose biggest enemy is himself. Along the way people need his help, Joe Fagan has to save them.
The Jade Mountain Queen continues Joe Fagan’s journey. He is pulled into helping a friend, and finds himself in the dark underbelly of a Hong Kong that is about to explode. He comes under the unforgiving eye of the Bamboo Tiger, a powerful Chinese Triad gang. Time is running out for him and the ones he cares about, and as things escalate Fagan finds himself walking a tightrope between shady Chinese politics and underworld power, and between folklore and myth. With each step the situation moves from bad to worse. But then that is the world that Joe Fagan knows.
And so Fagan moves on, trying to stay ahead, trying to stay out of trouble, but sometimes trouble just comes your way.
I have an idea for Joe Fagan No. 5 (Tentatively called The Tinkers Jig) in which Joe Fagan goes back to his Irish roots to investigate the death of a very old friend. I’m hoping one day I’ll get to it but at the moment my new character, Fletch, is taking up all my time – check him out.
Robert Walker
Robert Walker was to be my second series character, though so far I have only written one story for him – January’s Child. Events came along and Darius Spencer Fletcher – Fletch wandered into my life (see below). So January’s Child is currently a standalone book.
Walker is a former CIA Agent, now retired, living on a Greek Island with his thirteen year old daughter.
His old life serving his country was little about honor and much about subterfuge and lies. About removing obstacles, whatever that took. He was good at it. But Robert Walker thought he had left it all behind him. He had known tragedy and loss, but life now was settled. And they only thing that mattered in his life was Nikki.
But someone had not forgotten. Someone has waited a long time to settle an outstanding debt.
They took the thing most precious to him and Walker will do whatever it takes to get her back.
The first book, January’s Child, introduces Robert Walker and sucks him back into his old life.
I have the bare bones of another Robert Walker story but therein lies a problem. One of the problems of trying to write stories that tread the fine line between fact and fiction, tales about what might have happened, is that what is happening in the world can suddenly put you on the wrong side of the line between truth and fiction. Suddenly what you are writing about seems to be out there in the forefront of news, everyday. Unfortunately that is becoming an everyday occurrence.
So there I was with a new story full of Russian Oligarch’s and plots to expand Russian borders. And Walker’s father-in-law, Vasili, caught up in the middle of it. And at the end of the day when I finished writing and switched on the TV, there it was being played back to me on the nightly news. Some might think that is being on top of current events, but I happen to believe that I am writing for entertainment and giving the reader a thrilling dose of excitement and escapism. I don’t believe that readers of my kind of books want to be given stories about stuff that is happening out there every day, which is often depressing and even threatening. Escapism is about escape. And in my books, the good guys always win.
So Robert Walker (and Dance with the Devil) is on hold (but just for now, he will be back and maybe Dance with the Devil will look different).
Darrius Spencer Fletcher – ‘Fletch’
Fletch came along as a direct response to me pondering the problem I described above. I say came along, because he just wandered in one day out of that murky mist that writers are constantly staring into (you know the one where stories live).
I had this idea that maybe I would write a series in a slightly different genre. I was thinking murder/mystery. I had this somewhat outrageous idea for a story, though I had no idea what it was really about. Fletch seemed to come along almost fully formed. The details about him and his past life seemed to fall out onto the page.
Darrius Spencer Fletcher. Ph.D. Professor of Byzantine and Medieval Art. Fletch to his friends and enemies alike, one time soldier, sometimes art dealer, occasionally successful gambler, and former guest of Her Majesty (Maidstone Prison).
I swear this line just came out as I typed.
But the problem (if you could call it a problem) was, I find stories out there in the story ether, and as soon as I started writing the Fabled Falcon I knew this would not be a slowly plodding murder mystery (my books have aways been closer to Dan Brown and Robert Ludlum than Agatha Christie, and as it turns out, Dashiell Hammett) and my characters have always to be ready to run.
Still I am very pleased with the way that Fletch turned out and the first story, the Fabled Falcon, took me on an amazing journey. In the interests of making a series an actual series, my next book will be another Fletch mystery thriller. But I have a challenge in front of me, because as I typed the last line of the Fabled Falcon, I found myself typing –
Fletch will return in The Vladimir Curse.
Which was a challenge, because when I wrote that line I had no idea what it was about. Luckily I’ve corrected that. But what was I saying about current events getting into my stories! Sometimes you can’t help what the story gods tell you. The Vladimir Curse will be out soon.
But, and I’m adding this in later, the Vladimir curse is written, I’m really pleased with it. But the story gods spoke and as always I listen, develop, extend. And I have a really great story, with the threats and twists and reveals – and the Russian Mafia, the FSB, Russian Oligarchs, Russia, Ukraine. What can I say. What you resist, persists!!
I’m working on Book 3, the White Lady, and so far I’m staying away from the headlines – but we shall see what we shall see.
I’m quite pleased with the way the character of Fletch is developing. There are quite a few reveals of who the character is in the first and even the second books, revealing his complexity, what drives him, and what he’s hiding from. Art, on which he is an expert, is his passion and his sanctuary. He is on a mission to save it from the murky, greedy, and dangerous world that he often finds himself inhabiting. Of course, he knows how to look after himself. Sandhurst Military Academy taught him how to fight, but Maidstone Prison taught him how to stay alive. But as his friend Archie observes – Are you saving art, or is art saving you?
I hope you enjoy his stories.
Happy Reading