Douglas Skelton and the strands linking his fiction
Four different series.
Plus one standalone (that wasn’t meant to be a standalone, but that’s another story).
That’s my writing output since I left the world of non-fiction behind me to concentrate on fiction.
Davie McCall – four book series set in Glasgow’s underworld.
Dominic Queste – Two books, plus a couple of short stories, about (sort of) private eye, movie buff and smart arse that were much lighter in tone.
The Janus Run – that standalone that wasn’t meant to be a standalone but did turn out to be a standalone. A New York conspiracy chase thriller that was my tribute to the action and thriller movies of the 1970s and 80s.
Rebecca Connolly – Slowing the pace with seven lyrical thrillers set (mostly) in the Highlands and Islands.
Jonas Flynt – Six historical thrillers featuring Jonas Flynt, thief, spy, gambler, killer and man of honour.
A few of you might already know all this, having been by my side throughout the anguish, disappointment, rage and occasional triumph that are the constant companions of authors in this crazy business we call publishing.
What you may not know is that, despite these books all being different approaches, set in different locations and even time periods, they are all linked.
Characters from the Davie McCall books appear in some of the Rebecca Connolly stories. Even Davie himself shows up briefly in The Blood is Still. Although unnamed, he is the guy with the dog in the Inverness bar who warns Rebecca about the man she is with, telling her he will bring her heartache.
That appearance should clear up any mystery concerning the ending of the fourth in the Davie McCall series, Open Wounds.
DCI Val Roach appeared in the second Queste novel Tag – You’re Dead. She then joined the ensemble of characters in The Blood Is Still and remained with the Rebecca Connolly series until the end.
But it was the first Dominic Queste novel, The Dead Don’t Boogie, that introduced a shadowy group that haunts every book since.
In that book the Excelsis Corporation is the big bad behind all sorts of mayhem. Although not named, another multi-national entity fulfils a similar function. In the Rebecca Connolly series that group sits in the background, manipulating events to their benefit. In Where Demons Hide we learn it was formed in Scotland by a former Knight Templar who escaped the slaughter of his order in France with his fortune intact.
In the first Jonas Flynt novel, An Honourable Thief, we are introduced to the Brotherhood, a secret society of powerful men that has existed from the day Jerusalem Mordicant, that Knight Templar, established it. They control politicians, crooks and businesses in order steer history to their benefit. It is that group who sit behind events in the Rebecca Connolly books and to Dominic Queste as Excelsis.
Four different series.
One standalone (that was never meant to be a standalone).
Douglas will be in Waterstones Kirkcaldy on Tuesday October 7 to talk about the fifth Jonas Flynt historical thriller SHIP OF THIEVES – and no doubt his other books.
We really can’t keep him to stay on topic, to be honest.
Join me in the Book Nook, Stewarton for the launch of the fifth Jonad Flynt adventure thriller, SHIP OF THIEVES.
This time, Jonas Flynt faces his greatest challenge yet—an electrifying encounter with the legendary pirate Blackbeard himself!
Dead thieves tell no tales…Jonas Flynt’s stepmother, Mercy, has been abducted from Edinburgh and carried back to the West Indies by her former owner. Gideon Flynt his father, has followed in hot pursuit, but Cassie, Jonas’s first love, knows he is not the man he once was and appeals to Flynt for help. Naturally, he agrees.
Against Colonel Nathaniel Charters’ wishes, he sails for the Caribbean, where he will unwittingly join forces with the most notorious pirate of all time, Blackbeard. But this time he may be out of his depth.
London, 1716. Revenge is a dish best served ice-cold…
The city is caught in the vice-like grip of a savage winter. Even the Thames has frozen over. But for Jonas Flynt – thief, gambler, killer – the chilling elements are the least of his worries…
Justice Geoffrey Dumont has been found dead at the base of St Paul’s cathedral, and a young male sex-worker, Sam Yates, has been taken into custody for the murder. Yates denies all charges, claiming he had received a message to meet the judge at the exact time of death.
The young man is a friend of courtesan Belle St Clair, and she asks Flynt to investigate. As Sam endures the horrors of Newgate prison, they must do everything in their power to uncover the truth and save an innocent life, before the bodies begin to pile up.
A memory came up on Facebook the other day that kind of brought me up short.
Mostly these reminders are good, sometimes not so good. This one made me realise that, while I often think I waste too much time, it turns out I really haven’t.
It’s been ten years since my first novel BLOOD CITY was published. Some of you know that I had books out there prior to that but they were all non-fiction. My very first book was published in 1992. Which is quite incredible because I’m only 32.
Yeah, I’m snorting at that myself.
Anyway, 2013 saw me finally make the leap into fiction and here’s what I’ve done since:
Three further Davie McCalls;
Two Dominic Questes;
One stand alone in THE JANUS RUN (which wasn’t supposed to be a stand alone but them’s the breaks, kid);
One fact book about Scotland;
Five Rebecca Connollys (the fifth coming in July);
One novella, co-written with Morgan Cry (aka Gordon Brown);
Two Jonas Flynts (the second coming in May);
Three comedy plays;
One comedy sketch show;
And a partridge in a pear tree.
Add to that I’ve produced various short stories, blogs, podcasts and articles, have fronted one documentary and appeared in others, have appeared at festivals and events, including numerous attempts to find that plot with the Four Blokes.
Also, by the end of the year I’ll have written another Rebecca and another Jonas.
So that means in ten years I will have written 16 books, along with everything else.
No wonder I’m tired!
We won’t talk about the ups and downs of life and love, pandemics and when I ran out of milk. We all have hurdles we have to overcome.
Ok, Douglas, so what’s the point of all this? Are you just showing off?
I’m glad you asked that (yes, I am showing off). There is a point. And it’s this:
Sometimes you’re making progress and you don’t realise it. Writing is a lonely occupation, we sit alone at a desk and make stuff up. Speaking personally, that often does not come easily. There are days when I can barely string two words together, let alone reach my 2k target. However, I persevere because it’s my job. This is what I do.
As Stephen King once wrote, sometimes you’re doing good work when it feels like all you’re managing is to shovel shit from a sitting position.
Sometimes, though, what you’re shovelling really is a load of manure. But hey, that’s what subsequent drafts are for.
A lot happened in those ten years and when you’re on the merry-go-round of life sometimes the world just slips by in a blur and even though you think you’re only going round in circles you are actually getting somewhere.
I am thankful that my books see the light of day. I am grateful I can make a living at this – I’m far from Mr King’s income bracket but I can pay the gas bill (so far).
Yes, sometimes life gets in the way. But there’s an old adage that writers write. One word follows another, one sentence follows another, one paragraph follows another. Soon you have a chapter, and then another and another and then you have a book.
Another adage – they don’t need to be good, they just need to be written. Good can come later.
Sixteen books in the years. Yes, there were – and are – times when I think I cannot write and there are no more words. In truth, I’m feeling that now. But it will pass. The words will come, they will become sentences, etc., etc.
How? To quote Shakespeare in Love, I don’t know. It’s a mystery.
Personally speaking, (and it’s my website so I’m allowed) 2022 was a year of incredible highs and devastating lows.
But that’s life, ain’t it? Ups and downs, peaks and troughs, swing and roundabouts. All that jazz. As John Lennon said, life is what happens while you’re making other plans.
As Dickens wrote, it was the best times; it was the worst of times.
So, what was it all about, 2022?
Well, I was on the telly – three times! Four, you could say, because one was a two-parter. I think I was on screen even more than ‘The Heroes of Telemark’ this year, and that’s quite a feat.
First there was a documentary I presented on the Crime + Investigation Channel. Although I’ve appeared on the box many times over the years, it was the first time I’d ever actually fronted a full show and it was an interesting experience. It was filmed in 2021 but didn’t go out until earlier this year, as part of a strand called Once Upon a True Crime, which saw some top crime writers (and me) outline a case that inspired their writing. The other authors were Denise Mina, Mark Billingham and Peter James.
Mine, of course, was about the Ice Cream Wars in 1983/84 Glasgow. I’ve never used them directly in my fiction but I did co-author the true crime account of the case and what I learned during that period has informed most of my stories.
Filming in Glasgow with a lovely car but, for me, hellish to drive.
I had to drive a Ford Capri of the period. No power steering. No ABS. After driving it round and round in order to get the take the director wanted I had shoulders like Big Arnie and I had to start hitting the brakes a half mile before I wanted to stop.
Mr Billingham and I even launched the series at a special event in The British Library in London.
Bestselling author Mark Billingham and I looking suitably sombre for the promotion of the Once Upon a True Crime series in the British Library
Later in the year I was one of the contributors to a BBC Scotland two-part investigation of the case. Reports tell me that the programme makers did a great job, but I still haven’t watched it because I really hate seeing myself.
Those two documentaries will be my last word on the tragic case.
This year I also made my second appearance on David Wilson’s Crime Files. Being interviewed by the professor is always daunting as I feel he is picking up on every bit of body language and psycho-analysing me. In fact, he probably is!
He’s a lovely guy and it was good of him to have me back.
We were talking about the Sandy Drummond case, an unsolved murder from Fife, which I find fascinating. I wrote about it in one of my true crime books many years ago, back when Caxton was still working his press.
When I walked into the studio I was greeted by the face and beard of an old friend – Stan Leech. Now a cameraman, he was part of the crew for the series. Amazingly, in a previous life, he played Sandy Drummond in a Crimewatch re-enactment. It’s a small world, right enough, but as someone once quipped, I wouldn’t like to paint it.
I had two books published – the fourth Rebecca Connolly thriller WHERE DEMONS HIDE (Polygon) and the first Jonas Flynt historical adventure AN HONOURABLE THIEF (Canelo).
Outing no 4 for Rebecca ConnollyThe eye-catching cover for the first Jonas Flynt historical thriller
It’s a thrill to have one book published, let alone two in a year, and I am grateful to the publishers and my agent, Jo Bell, for making it happen. Also to Denzil Meyrick for more or less forcing me to begin writing the Jonas Flynt tales. But that’s a story you should all know by now. And if you don’t, I tell it in the author’s note at the end of the book.
Yes, that’s an unashamed attempt at selling!
The two-book thing will be repeated in 2023, by the way, with another Rebecca, CHILDREN OF THE MIST, and another Jonas, A THIEF’S JUSTICE.
Another high spot of the year was when the third Rebecca Connolly A RATTLE OF BONES was longlisted for the McIlvanney Award.
The longlist for this year’s McIlvanney Prize. Needless to say I wasn’t shortlisted, otherwise that’s what you’d be seeing!
That’s the third time I’ve made that prestigious list. Let’s hope it won’t be the last!
I had a busy year at festivals, appearing in Paisley, Aye Write, Bute, Stewarton, Bloody Scotland in Stirling, Grantown, even a stint hosting a table at one of the dinners in Harrogate. Not sure I’ll be as fortunate in 2023.
Author pal Gordon Brown and I teamed up for a double act to promote out new titles at a few venues, including Stewarton and Glasgow. It turned out to be a sort of Two Blokes in Search of a Plot. Or, given my advancing years, in search of a pot.
One of the best nights of my life, in the Book Nook, Stewarton, with Gordon Brown, who appears to be yawning. And I’m not even talking!
They were all fun and thank you to the bookstores and venues who hosted us.
Book Week Scotland was another busy period and I’m grateful for the libraries in Dundee, Motherwell, Musselburgh and Saltcoats for inviting me. I was crossing central Scotland like a bank robber on the lam.
That leaves the lows.
Ah, the lows.
Charles Dickens again, or maybe it was just Kermit the Frog – life is full of meetings and partings. I experienced both.
There’s a Hollywood adage for romantic comedies that breaks them down into the three-act structure of boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl back. I’ve had the first two but the third is unlikely. Perhaps even impossible. But, as I said above, that’s life/other plans etc. I wish it wasn’t, but there we go.
Throwing myself with dramatic abandon into a slough of despond, I found myself once again grateful for my friends. They rallied round when my wife died three years ago and they did so again when this relationship died. I have some wonderful friends and if they read this – you know who you are, I won’t embarrass you – then I want them to know how much I appreciate them.
I also lost an old friend, who had been ill, on Christmas Day.
Stephen Wilkie was the most knowledgeable person regarding Scottish crime I have ever met. The consummate tabloid reporter, he was the guy I turned to whenever I needed to know something. If he didn’t know about it, it didn’t happen, simple as that. I often urged him to write a book but he never did.
I have many regrets in life. One of them is not being a better friend to him.
RIP, big guy. If there’s a news desk in the afterlife, I’ll lay odds you’re showing them how it’s done.
