Guest Post: For the Love of the Detective Novel: Love You Till Tuesday by M.E. Proctor

 

Please welcome M. E. Proctor back to the blog today…

For the Love of the Detective Novel: Love You Till Tuesday 

                         by M.E. Proctor

 

 

How often have you heard that the detective story was dead? Or exhausted. Or drained of its last drop of blood. People (critics, reviewers, literary agents …) have been saying that for the past thirty years, at least. Meanwhile readers, unaware they were hugging a desiccated corpse, showered affection on the likes of Bosch, Robicheaux, Scarpetta, and Kenzie & Gennaro, among many others. I’m a fan of the genre. Let me loose in a bookshop and I’ll go straight to the crime section. I just finished a Robert B. Parker book, and yesterday I bought a Louise Penny. I’m incorrigible.

 

When I decided to write a crime novel, ten years ago, I didn’t give the possible lack of commercial appeal of a classic detective story a second thought. It’s what I wanted to write, no matter all the gloom cast by doomsayers. The journey has been long but not unusually so. Books take a long time to get published if you go the traditional route. It’s a good thing I’m stubborn. It’s also a good thing I enjoy spending so much time with my main character. After six manuscripts in various stages of completion, we’ve become quite close. 

 

Let me tell you about him.

 

Declan Francis Philip Shaw.

He usually drops the two middle names but they’re on his private investigator license. Declan is no amateur sleuth.

 

Like many lovers of the genre I grew up reading Agatha Christie, but I was never fond of Miss Marple. Even as a kid, I found the notion of a middle-aged lady in a quaint village stumbling on crimes, not once but with disturbing regularity, way too hard to believe. I hadn’t yet written the first chapter of what would become the first Declan story, but I was already thinking more of a series than a stand-alone novel. That meant the man had to be a professional, with an office and his name in the phone book. Well, sort of … translated into contemporary terms it means a website, a server with a firewall, and social media accounts. If Marlowe and Spade set up shop today they would have a hard time finding a pay phone.

 

I lived in Houston, Texas and giving Declan an office in town made a lot of sense. The city is known for its cycles of boom and bust, diversity, and buzzing sprawling growth. Oil and NASA. Good old boys and young ambition. Floods, hurricanes, and a summer heat that slaps you silly. In other words, a fertile terrain for a talented snoop.

 

What kind of snoop? Young, for starters. He isn’t a retired cop gone private to supplement his pension. Declan is in his early thirties and doesn’t investigate from behind a desk. He’s at his best in the field, which requires some stamina. Rereading Chandler recently comforted me in my decision; Marlowe is referred to as “a young man” (I love Bogey in The Big Sleep, but it’s a different vibe). I also gave Declan a happy childhood in Texas and troubled teenage years in New Orleans—what he calls the perfect training for a private dick—followed by a hard-earned college degree, history and pre-law. He might have become a lawyer but fate had other plans.

 

Then I went against the grain. Declan never carries a gun. He has very good reasons for disliking guns. On the other hand, he keeps a hunting knife in his cowboy boots, because it would be insane to go into hairy situations without a weapon. He’s fond of telling people that clients and cases that would require him to own a gun don’t interest him. He specializes in finding misplaced people and objects—stolen art, missing persons, and the occasional cold case. He declares that he doesn’t “do murder”. It’s a practical choice more than a lofty principle. Cops are on the front line in homicide cases and they don’t look kindly on private investigators poaching on their turf.

 

In Love You Till Tuesday, the first book in the Declan Shaw mystery series now out from Shotgun Honey, the no murder rule will be challenged with severe consequences.

 

As the book blurb says…

The death of April Easton makes no sense. She was a jazz singer working the clubs. Maybe the recording contract she just signed would have been her breakthrough. It certainly wasn’t a motive for murder. Steve Robledo, Houston PD, is on the scene. He’s known for working fast and closing cases. This one has all the markings of a head scratcher. And when witnesses and security cameras confirm Declan Shaw, a local PI with police connections, spent the night with the woman, it just makes everything more complicated.

Not that Declan has anything to do with the murder. He likes music and he liked April. He certainly didn’t kill her.

A collaboration, uneasy at first, is in the works. Declan can’t get April out of his head. Her memory is fading and he wants to hang on to it. What better way than to find more about her? Steve is running out of time, a few more days and he’ll have to turn his attention to other cases. They strike a mutually beneficial alliance.

For the powerful men behind April’s death, that alliance means trouble. Declan is stubborn and resourceful. He worries them a lot more than the police. There’s no telling what he could dig up. The stakes are high: a trial with the death penalty in play, cartel ties, money. Ultimately, it’s always about money.

Declan has to be stopped, incapacitated. He’s put under surveillance, a trap is set to ensnare him, a campaign is launched to discredit him—The P.I. and the Dead Jazz Singer. It’s a mistake. Declan will bite back.

Many will get hurt.

Amazon Associate Purchase Link: https://amzn.to/3YDebjm

 

 

M. E. Proctor ©2024 

M.E. Proctor’s short story collection Family and Other Ailments is available in all the usual places. She’s currently working on a contemporary PI series. The first book, Love You Till Tuesday, was recently published by Shotgun Honey. Her short fiction has appeared in Vautrin, Bristol Noir, Mystery Tribune, Reckon Review, Black Cat Weekly, and Thriller Magazine among others. She’s a Derringer nominee. Website: www.shawmystery.com