On January 21, 2025, my novel SHIPWRECKED SOULS was released with book launches in both Toronto and Ottawa. Launches are an enjoyable way to celebrate the culmination of several years’ hard work as well to let potential readers know about it. I send out invitations to my Facebook and email contacts as well as announcing the launches on my social media feeds. Only a fraction will likely attend the launch, but the announcements will reach many more.
SHIPWRECKED SOULS is the twelfth book in my gritty, realistic series featuring the impetuous, quixotic Ottawa Police Inspector Michael Green, which is among the longest-running series set in Canada. One of the biggest difficulties is keeping the series fresh and exciting. Police procedurals have a certain structure – at their core, “murder happens, police investigate, uncover suspects, solve case.” Ensuring that neither the writer nor the reader becomes bored or wonders if they’ve heard this story before is a major challenge. Another challenge is ensuring that the detective has an emotional investment in the case. In real life, detectives investigate a murder because it’s their job, but for the reader to really care about the case or the detective’s attempts to solve it, fictional detectives need a personal stake. This is true of all sleuths, whether amateur or professional, but it’s more difficult when the detective is just doing their job.
Over twelve books I’ve thrown every imaginable problem at Green to give him that extra passion. A connection to his father, a lost daughter, an attack on one of his detectives, the death of a witness, betrayal by his boss... The poor man ought to be a nervous wreck, and indeed another way to keep readers (and me) engaged and wanting more is to have the detective evolve. The impetuous, driven Michael Green of the earlier books is very different from the mellowed, slightly world-weary, less confident man of the last few books. His family and personal life have also evolved to keep the series fresh. When I was thinking up a premise for Book Twelve, I asked myself what more I could explore. What would really stir up the old passion in this world-weary man who’d seen just about every horror one human can inflict on another?
SHIPWRECKED SOULS is Green’s most personal case ever. It delves into his father’s experience as a Holocaust survivor and takes Green on an emotional journey into his own past, during which he makes a startling discovery. The roots of the story are in the past but the themes I explore are universal and echo just as loudly today. I hope readers will be swept along on the journey as Green and I were, so that those echoes linger long after they’ve closed the book.