Scenes from Bastard Verdict, part two, Kelvingrove Park

Posted on October 2, 2023 by James McCrone

I needed to create a whole life for Imogen in Bastard Verdict, and it’s interesting how choices about a character can lead you to other revelations. And there’s no substitute for traveling the paths your characters will walk.

I took two writing courses from the Sci-Fi writer Joanna Russ. She would drill through short story drafts, asking students, “What did the sky look like?” “Where is the sun?” “What are the smells in the air?” She didn’t mean that you had to give a moment-to-moment disquisition on the weather, but that you, the writer, had to know–and SEE–it in order to render a successful scene, regardless of which details you chose to use.

While scouting locations for Bastard Verdict, I was staying in Glasgow’s West End, which was fantastic. And I could see Imogen wanting to be there. I certainly did! And I hoped some of that enthusiasm came through on the page.

She was a visiting scholar at University of Glasgow, and I decided that she should take a one-year lease on a flat on Bentinck Street in Glasgow’s West End. And that she could walk to work at the university (Adam Smith bldg) through beautiful and inspiring Kelvingrove Park–a fifteen to twenty minute walk. It seemed perfect.

A Glaswegian friend said that sounded nice, “but she doesn’t walk through there at night, right?” (I hadn’t thought about that, frankly.)

So, I started out one morning from Bentinck Street and I walked the route in early morning, and again in that night, coming down from campus.

_{Park entrance from Kelvingrove Street}

That morning, I entered the park from Kelvingrove Street and ambled through, navigating by keeping the university’s high tower in view. I stopped twice to write down impressions, to make quick, written sketches of what I was seeing, what the air was like, who was about. Coming back through at night, I did not tarry anywhere. I didn’t feel threatened in any way, but I did see that maybe walking through the park late at night would be a mistake. Still, early morning and early evening was lovely.

Looking at the university’s skyline through the trees, I was reminded of Oxford’s “dreaming spires,” which I grew to love when we lived there on two separate occasions.

But there was a difference in the Glasgow University skyline.

So, as Imogen walks through the park with Ian Ross in fading daylight, I wrote:

<<Imogen stopped and turned round to face the main building’s neo-Gothic tower, looming over the park’s trees.

“It’s almost too dark now,” she said to him, “but I love seeing the university from here. I’ve only seen pictures of Oxford University’s ‘dreaming spires,’ but I think I like these better. There’s no dreaming here, but slow-burn energy, dark jets of coal fire poking out over the trees.”

“But not after dark,” said Ross. “Here, I mean.”>>

I liked the image of “jets of coal fire,” because that’s what I saw myself, and it reminded me of my boyhood in Edinburgh. Our tenement didn’t have central heating, only coal fireplaces in the main rooms. As a boy of ten years old, I was endlessly fascinated with the small bursts of coal fire poking through the embers.

As much as I liked it, though, I vacillated over whether to keep the passage in. Though the book’s written in third-person, it’s Imogen’s consciousness, we’re “looking over her shoulder,” and I wondered where (or whether) she’d seen a coal fire. She’s originally from the small town of Ripley, Ohio, right across the Ohio River from Kentucky. (She and Ewan, from Alyth, bond over their small-town experiences.)

Ripley, OH, is a bit west of “coal country.” The bituminous coal seams hew closer to the border with West Virginia. But it’s pretty close.

So I took a leap. I hope it works for readers.

Kelvingrove Park will end up playing yet another role later in the story…

Up next, spare ground and settings for murder.

# # #

Bastard Verdict is available now in paperback, and eReader!

YOU DON’T NEED TO WIN, JUST DON’T LOSE
In politics, people cheat to win, or because they’re afraid to lose. The difference can be deadly.

Imogen will risk what’s left of her standing, her career–and maybe her life–to get at the truth.

James McCrone is the author of the Imogen Trager political suspense-thrillers Faithless Elector, Dark Network , and Emergency Powers–noir tales about a stolen presidency, a conspiracy, and a nation on edge. Bastard Verdict, his fourth novel, is about a conspiracy surrounding a second Scottish Independence referendum. To get the details right for the new thriller, he drew on his boyhood in Scotland and scouted locations for scenes in the book while attending Bloody Scotland.

All books are available on BookShop.org, IndyBound.org, Barnes & Noble, your local bookshop, and Amazon. eBooks are available in multiple formats including Apple, Kobo, Nook and Kindle.

He’s a member of MWA, Int’l Assoc. of Crime Writers, and he’s the new president of the Delaware Valley Sisters in Crime chapter. He lives in Philadelphia. James has an MFA from the University of Washington in Seattle. His current, work-in-progress is a mystery-thriller set in Oregon’s wine country…A (pinot) Noir, called Witness Tree.

For a full list of appearances and readings, make sure to check out his Events/About page. And follow this blog!

His most recent short fiction is below. The first is available for online reading.

“Eight O’Clock Sharp” in Retreats from Oblivion: the Journal of NoirCon. (free online)
Set in Philadelphia’s 9th Street Market, Thomas is a man outside of time, forgotten, but trying to do the right thing while contending with avaricious forces.

“Ultimatum Games” in Rock and Hard Place magazine issue #7
A rare book heist, bad decisions. The narrator and his partner-in-crime clash over evolving bourgeois norms.

“Nostalgia” in Low Down Dirty Vote, vol. 3
An armed group tries to resurrect a past that never was as they struggle with change.

Scene settings from #BastardVerdict, part one

Posted on September 24, 2023 by James McCrone

I’ve had some lovely notes from readers about the new thriller Bastard Verdict, and one of the things that’s often called out is that they know well the locations I use. During my recent trip to Scotland for Bloody Scotland, I took the opportunity to revisit many of the settings–in Glasgow, Edinburgh and Alyth. I didn’t make it to Dundee on this trip, but I have photos from my original visit in 2019.

In the novel, Imogen Trager, an FBI agent with a PhD in political science, is taking leave from the Bureau as a visiting fellow at University of Glasgow. She’s nervous about this new role, and committed to keeping her nose clean while away. Her inability to do so in the past is one of the reasons her bosses at the Bureau are happy she’s taking this sabbatical.

The Adam Smith Building figures largely in the book. Imogen’s office is broken into there, and her ally Wee Frankie has his office just down the hall. And the story opens there as Imogen gives her inaugural lecture:

<<Anyone with the temerity to look upward into the rain that night on campus would have witnessed a kind of negotiated settlement between light and dark, as the wet Glasgow night held the pale glow from the Adam Smith building’s top floor close in a murky halo.

One man did look up, before sullenly returning to the meager shelter of a young birch tree outside the west entrance to the building. He mopped his face and dabbed his bald head with a handkerchief as he settled back against the tree trunk.

Inside those high windows, brightness reigned, the lecture theatre dazzlingly arid and contemporary. Though it was chilly for all that. Not that Imogen noticed. Within her slow-burn, imposter syndrome panic, she felt flushed, anxious as she began taking questions…>>

Imogen’s barely been in Scotland for a week, when one of her new colleagues, together with a Scottish government official, ask her to look into irregularities in the first Independence referendum.

<<“Maybe you might look at it?” he says. “Unofficially, of course. Because irrespective of what’s been said publicly, a number of us are pretty convinced it was stolen last time. And if this second referendum does go forward, we want to make sure it isn’t stolen again.”

She walks to the department dinner with the official, Ian Ross. Surely, Imogen counters, there must be any number of people qualified to investigate. “Why me?” she asks again.

“It’s delicate,” he said, looking behind them for a moment. “Anyone we might use officially would be embedded in or seconded from the Electoral Commission or the Met. Or both. And they would have to make reports. Once that starts, we couldn’t be certain whom they were telling or where their directives were coming from—a clusterfuck, if I might borrow a vivid American term—of epic proportions.”

Christ, she thought, it sounded a lot like the situation she was running from at the FBI, even if it was delivered in a dulcet Scottish accent…>>

Meanwhile, the bald man who stood vigil outside the Adam Smith building is following them.

That same night, in Dundee, Buff Lindsey, “shop steward” for a local crime syndicate, interrogates and murders a man who had been following him for three days. He learns nothing.

Next up, “dark jets of coalfire.”

# # #

Bastard Verdict is available now in paperback, and eReader!

YOU DON’T NEED TO WIN, JUST DON’T LOSE
In politics, people cheat to win, or because they’re afraid to lose. The difference can be deadly.

Imogen will risk what’s left of her standing, her career–and maybe her life–to get at the truth.

All books are available on BookShop.org, IndyBound.org, Barnes & Noble, your local bookshop, and Amazon. eBooks are available in multiple formats including Apple, Kobo, Nook and Kindle.

For a full list of appearances and readings, make sure to check out his Events/About page. And follow this blog!

His most recent short fiction is below. The first is available for online reading.

“Ultimatum Games” in Rock and Hard Place magazine issue #7
A rare book heist, bad decisions. The narrator and his partner-in-crime clash over evolving bourgeois norms.

“Nostalgia” in Low Down Dirty Vote, vol. 3
An armed group tries to resurrect a past that never was as they struggle with change.

Guest posting

Posted on July 2, 2023 by James McCrone

During the launch for Bastard Verdict, I was able to “guest” on some great blogs – Murder is Everywhere, The Book Diva’ Reads and The Mystery of Writing. I was excited to contribute, and I looked forward to adding to the discussion. In this case, about collaboration, seeking help with a book and about verisimilitude. I’m grateful for the opportunity. Because most of them deal with the theme of taking help where it’s needed and/or given, I thought I might link to them again.

You might check out these and other posts, and follow these blogs.

In “The Voices in My Head”, for Murder is Everywhere, I talked about how I’d lived in Scotland as a boy, and had longed to write a story set in Scotland. Doing so created a set of unique writing problems… MORE

For Elena Hartwell’s Mystery of Writing, I explored collaborative writing: “I think that if I’m honest with myself, I wouldn’t be a very good collaborator. I worry that sharing the vision would diminish the work…” Or would it? MORE

In “It Takes a Village,” on the Book Diva’s Reads blog, I began, “The writer needs a combination of arrogance and humility—arrogance to carry you over the bad spells of imposter syndrome and worse, and humility about the work itself, and your own limitations….” MORE

The crime writing community is very engaged and supportive.

# # #

James McCrone is the author of the Imogen Trager political suspense-thrillers Faithless Elector, Dark Network , and Emergency Powers–noir tales about a stolen presidency, a conspiracy, and a nation on edge. All books are available on BookShop.org, IndyBound.org, Barnes & Noble, your local bookshop, and Amazon. eBooks are available in multiple formats including Apple, Kobo, Nook and Kindle.

His current book, Bastard Verdict, debuted on May 18th. A noir political thriller set in Scotland, it’s available through the link above, or wherever you buy your books. His current, work-in-progress is a mystery-thriller set in Oregon’s wine country…A (pinot) Noir, called Witness Tree.

A Seattle native (mostly), James now lives in South Philadelphia with his wife and three children. He’s a member of the The Mystery Writers of America, Int’l Assoc. of Crime Writers, Int’l Thriller Writers, Philadelphia Dramatists Center and is the president of the Delaware Valley chapter of the Sisters in Crime network. James has an MFA from the University of Washington in Seattle.

For a full list of appearances and readings, make sure to check out his Events/About page. And follow this blog!

His most recent short fiction is below. The first is available for online reading.

“Ultimatum Games” in Rock and Hard Place magazine issue #7
A rare book heist, bad decisions. The narrator and his partner-in-crime clash over evolving bourgeois norms.

“Nostalgia” in Low Down Dirty Vote, vol. 3
An armed group tries to resurrect a past that never was as they struggle with change.

Secondary characters

Posted on June 29, 2023 by James McCrone

I used to daydream about writing for Law and Order back when it was still running*, not for its propulsive, plot-driven narratives, and certainly not its copaganda, but for the occasional, random, richly drawn secondary or even tertiary character(s); some random person who helps the plot along, but whom you probably won’t see again. True, there are a lot of stock interactions and tropes in Law and Order, like the one comedian John Mulaney has satirized as “guy who while being questioned by homicide detectives will not stop stocking crates…”, a kind of expository action-within-inaction reminiscent of the Sorkin walk, or any of HBO’s “sexposition” scenes.

But occasionally, and the reason I wanted to write for Dick Wolf, the episodes will also give time to brief encounters with memorable criminals. Yes, I want to know whodunnit, but the cream in my coffee, the a la mode on my pie, are the people, the characters. I’m not talking about dramatic flashbacks, but about artful, iceberg-like, less-is-more character moments. One that sticks with me was a brief interchange between Briscoe and a heroin addict being held for questioning.

The heroin addict has been detained for hours, and he needs his fix—badly—and he’d very much like to leave, now that he’s told the police everything he knows. Briscoe makes some wisecrack about how much money the addict is spending on heroin, and the addict launches into a brief, surprisingly cogent, economic disquisition on how well heroin has held its value in the marketplace. “Pot, cocaine,” he says disdainfully, “the price per gram has doubled over the past few years, but heroin’s still right where it always was. Gram-for-gram, ounce-for-ounce, heroin’s still your best value.” Not even Briscoe had a comeback for this sage advice.

Why do I love those exchanges? Because in a world of formulaic television, strange, vivid, serendipitous encounters are the stuff of life. I’ve written elsewhere about how I try to remain alive to possibilities, and I write down moments and exchanges I’ve been party to or eavesdropped upon. I hold onto them because even though they’re real and therefore could mean anything (or nothing), they feel like more than what they are—and maybe someday I’ll have a place to use them.

I’ve been pleased, in Bastard Verdict, that the character of Alan Wilson, a young, up-and-coming, petty criminal in an organized crime gang, has caught on. I needed someone with underworld ties to make the story work, but I needed him to be more than a conduit for the plot. To put flesh on his bones (so to speak), I created a backstory for him (one I know but don’t go into great detail about), and introducing him, I ripped off an exchange from my long-past drug days, and a deal I made in a pub bathroom.

I’d gone into the bathroom to wait for my dealer. When he came in, he was aghast that I was just standing there. “At least pretend you’re taking a piss,” he said to me all those years ago.

But how and why do some secondary characters strike a chord with readers where others don’t?

I’ve been pleased that some of my secondary characters have resonated with readers. Though I as I noted in the WHAT I LEARNED interview with the Indy Author/Matty Dalrymple, I had hoped the lawyer, Ewan Johnston would have garnered a bit more attention.

I remember an early reading of Faithless Elector in Oxford, where a young woman from the audience that day came up to me afterwards, wondering if I was going to give the cab driver more “stage time” in a future book. “I’m sure he’ll be back!” she said. I was glad the cabby had “landed” but sad that Mr. Fitzwilliam, the super in Professor Calder’s building had not. I wanted Fitzwilliam to resonate as the kind of good, everyday person whom we might all hope would (collectively) be the bulwark against the kind of conspiracy that’s unfolding. I even gave him a kind of heartwarming joke but no one mentioned him in reviews.

Special Agent in Charge Amanda Vega in Dark Network gets good reviews, but I’d also hoped that the courier, Jimmy May, would have engendered similar affection. While no one disparaged him, no one said, “will he be back?” He was, in Emergency Powers, as was Vega. In Emergency Powers, I brought back the cabby, but I had really hoped that Kirsten, the waitress at a tiny, Midwest airport would gain more traction than she did. Again, I wanted to juxtapose her ordinary, everyday-ness with the dire things going on in the conspiracy. Strangely, the bad guy, Frank Reed, even received some plaudits. I had one reader write to me to say how odd it was to be rooting for him.

I’m not sure why some secondary characters break through and others remain in the background, I’m pleased that the young criminal Alan Wilson, who becomes a kind of moral center in Bastard Verdict, seems to have become a favorite, with two reviewers expressing the hope that he’ll be back in a further installment.

I’ll see what I can do! 🙂

*Wait, L&O is back on the air?

# # #

James McCrone is the author of the Imogen Trager political suspense-thrillers Faithless Elector, Dark Network , and Emergency Powers–noir tales about a stolen presidency, a conspiracy, and a nation on edge. All books are available on BookShop.org, IndyBound.org, Barnes & Noble, your local bookshop, and Amazon. eBooks are available in multiple formats including Apple, Kobo, Nook and Kindle.

A Seattle native (mostly), James now lives in South Philadelphia with his wife and three children. He’s a member of the The Mystery Writers of America, Int’l Assoc. of Crime Writers, Int’l Thriller Writers, Philadelphia Dramatists Center and is the vice-president of the Delaware Valley chapter of the Sisters in Crime network. James has an MFA from the University of Washington in Seattle.

For a full list of appearances and readings, make sure to check out his Events/About page. And follow this blog!

His most recent short fiction is below. The first is available for online reading.

“Ultimatum Games” in Rock and Hard Place magazine issue #7
A rare book heist, bad decisions. The narrator and his partner-in-crime clash over evolving bourgeois norms.