The twisted mind of a Crime Thriller Writer
Andrew Segal
>Magazine with Video & Audio<
Welcome to our stories about stories We'd like to share with you an exciting journey of discovery into the crafting of a new novel, by a special author, Andrew Segal. He will be talking about his second novel, a murder mystery with an unconventional female detective and how he came to become a writer. Inside you will find fascinating behind the scenes stories about the evolution of this new book and the interesting people the author met along the way. PLUS you'll have the opportunity to listen to the latest interview with Andrew and an international podcaster Dr Shahnaz Ahmed, all the way from America. I am sure as a reader, you too will enjoy the process involved in the nurturing of a new book – you can do this by signing up to become what is known as a ‘Beta reader’. This is where we meet up to read a new book in its early draft form, so that you can pass your comments on to let the author know where you feel the story needs working on.
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The Author
Human behaviour is unpredictable and frequently disturbing. There are two recognisable aspects to human nature which interest me when writing. Put blandly, there’s good people and there’s the evil spell-casters. In writing horror stories I’ve chosen to concentrate on the unpredictable nature of people. That is, the thug, who turns out to have a heart of gold. Or the angel who evolves into the incarnation of evil. It’s the mystery about what motivates individuals and how it might be explained which forms the basis from which I can conjure up a personal interpretation, ultimately projecting my conclusions into my characters and story telling. In televised interviews with several convicted killers conducted by a government psychiatrist, every single man, given free reign, was reduced to tears, saying they had been abused when they were young. Not an excuse for murder, perhaps, but possibly a reason.
> Listen Here <
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I don’t have answers to the human dilemma, but I can ask questions. Sometimes the results are uncomfortable, but hopefully, always food for thought, not just for myself but for my readers too.
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Behind the scenes of The Lyme Regis Murders 1. What inspired the Lyme Regis story.
2. Why Lyme Regis.
After having written a number of children’s books in verse, I wanted to write a crime thriller. My first book ‘The Hamilton Conspiracy’ along with and a number of macabre short stories, called ‘Beads of Blood’, enticed me to try my hand at a whodunnit. Lyme Regis seemed the perfect venue. My wife and I had holidayed there several times and were familiar with the seaside town. The rocks and boulders on the beach offered endless opportunities and I speculated on their possible value in the narrative.
Lyme Regis is a lovely fishing town with a village type atmosphere, on the coast of England’s county of Dorset. Rich in ammonites and belemnites, known as ‘devil’s horn’, together with a variety of other collectible fossils. I read a story which intrigued me;
My other inspiration came from a realisation that the media and occasionally the police are subject to misconceptions or understandable presumptions about the type of individuals who might find themselves in the spotlight as suspects in this kind of murder. I wanted to briefly explore what happens when the wrong person is effectively victimised until the truth comes to light. You’ll need to read it to find out what I am talking about.
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Impoverished, hungry, ill-educated, Mary Anning, born to a family of religious dissenters, and who lived between 1799 and 1847, was a local child with a love of fossils. She was taught by her father how to find, clean and display fossils for sale. Despite her lack of education, she could read, and taught herself geology and anatomy. It was Mary Anning who’s tireless searches resulted in her finding in 1823, the most complete skeleton of Plesiosaurus. Proving controversial, she took on the renowned expert, Georges Cuvier, in a debate in the Geological Society in London. She won the argument and he apologised for having questioned the validity of her find. In time she became a world authority on palaeontology, with the area she worked in becoming known as the Jurassic coast. I chose Lyme Regis because its very peacefulness made it the last place on earth you’d expect to find a multiple murderer. Again, the sea-wall going out and around the bay, charming and attractive by day, might be said to have a slightly eerie quality at night. All grist to the author’s mill.
3. Did you meet people that inspired the story.
4. What did you feel like when you finished the book.
My character, Tammy Pierre, evolved during the writing of the book. To start off, my first wife was mixed heritage, from Trinidad, her father was an architect, mother Portuguese. That got the ball rolling. After that the character took over. Tammy’s mother is Parisian, Caucasian, from an ancient wealthy banking background. Tammy’s father, Trinidadian architect.
It took a couple of years to write and was a learning process in itself. Tammy is a private eye, an investigator into financial fraud and malpractice and at the same time a security expert, proficient in the art of one on one security. Her martial art skills and experience in the Met police, where she rose quickly to the rank of Detective Inspector before leaving to start her own agency, have all been invaluable experience.
I wanted Tammy to be other than the usual macho male, but I also wanted her to be powerful, vulnerable, a person of integrity, but nonetheless flawed. She is six feet tall, smokes cigars and does lines of cocaine, much to the irritation of her life-partner, Ginny Jones. She’s an expert in Krav Maga, the Israeli system of martial arts. She has high levels of testosterone, the morals of an alley cat, cheats on Ginny with her Israeli boyfriend, Dov Jordan and drinks too much expensive vodka. She has vague hankerings after motherhood, but the testosterone levels and agonies of endometriosis all seem to conspire against. She frightens men who are unsure of themselves. They find her a threat, ugly masculine. Men who are comfortable in their own
The first editor I showed the book to complained that the financial fraud uncovered by Tammy’s partner, Ginny, could never have happened as banks, solicitors and others would have easily seen through the scam and stopped it. I didn’t argue, because I actually got the idea, (another of life’s real experiences to be used), from a business-man who had got away just that very scam. When I’d had over forty people read the book and make comments, I realised those who weren’t taken by it were vastly outnumbered by those who did, a friend in America, said she stayed up all night reading it as she couldn’t put it down.
skins realise she is beautiful.
The theme of The Lyme Regis suggested a follow up, which I am working on at the moment.
We won’t dwell on her volcanic temper, or her relationship with Dov when she justifies her rages, saying, ‘I am a woman.’
All very pleasing.
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5. My experience of being interviewed by a pod-caster. My interview with Doctor Shahnaz Ahmed, American podcaster, was the first time I'd had an interview of any sort in regard to my writing in general, or this book in particular. It was a fun episode, lasting about an hour where we chatted about, the venue, the theme, what it is that promotes or inspires people to write. She was interested, curious, responsive and able to make me think about the things that inspired me. She was intrigued when I told her I had written a short story called, I am a Contract Killer, particularly when I pointed out I had written it in the first person. Quote:
find that he WAS, or had been a contract killer. Plenty there for a story, which I wrote only recently. Only my killer is a feeling man. So much so, that one of my ‘readers, ’said the story made her cry.
> Podcast Trailer <
“ I like people. I love people. That’s why I kill them. Or have done up till now. You see, I couldn’t leave it to some amateur who might botch it, because that would be terrible. I don’t botch it. I get it right first time. Every time. That way nobody suffers - I suppose.” All writing is based on some personal experience, and mine was, in the case of this story, an interview I’d seen on TV over forty years ago, with a contract killer. He said he felt tranquil after a ‘kill.’ Wow! Then, I’d had a personal experience of picking up a harmless looking hiker, when I was lost, only to
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> Book Trailer <
International Podcaster Dr Shahnaz Ahmed… ANDREW:
The author, Andrew Segal, talks to St. Louis podcaster and creator of Living A Life Through Books, Dr Shahnaz Ahmed, about writing and her favourite authors. Shahnaz’s podcasts are about a life-changing journey of starting, sustaining, and learning from the habit of reading.
I see you have a great many hidden talents...tell us about your career and how you manage to intertwine your very busy life with being a podcaster.
it sounds oxymoronic. How does one schedule time for fun and their own interests, but in today’s world, I feel, if I don’t put what I want to do on my calendar, it doesn’t get done and my time gets filled with things I perhaps don’t want to do or worse yet, just gets wasted.
SHAHNAZ: I am a paediatric dentist by profession. I opened my practice about 11 years ago and although I only work there 3 days a week, they are long 12 hour days. I have to be high energy and cheery with the children all the time and, being an introvert, it can be draining at times. One day a week I also teach paediatric dentistry as a clinical faculty member at ATSU dental school here in St. Louis. I feel it very necessary to protect “my” time when I get home. For me, I like to unwind with silence and my own thoughts. I love to read books and process the information in them. Also, I read a lot of selfhelp/motivation books and they have helped me tremendously in helping me understand my time constraints in life and provided me with some tips on managing my personal and professional life. It’s a matter of scheduling time for myself. I know
I try to adhere to my schedule so I can keep track of who to interview, when to edit that interview and when to upload it. My weekends are spent with juggling all my podcasting and blogging tasks, not to mention laundry and housekeeping. Of course, I have to find time in between all this to totally decompress with a book! Ha-ha! ANDREW:
Do you remember your Eureka moment when you thought about starting a podcast? And who you would like to book first.
SHAHNAZ: Oh Goodness! It’s funny, because when I started my podcast, I didn’t even think that doing an interview was something that would happen.
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Shahnaz has interviewed Andrew Segal about his new book ‘The Lyme Regis Murders’ and his experiences in life. > Click on the icons below < to listen to her on Living A Life Through Books
I might have wished it secretly, but I just wanted to share my journey and I just started the podcast. Somewhere after the first couple of months, I thought, I would like to get my feet wet with getting used to interviewing. A good friend of my husband, Christopher Todd, visited from the Florida Keys and he’s such a sweetheart, and very well read, so I thought I would ask him if he wanted to be on my podcast and that’s how the interviewing and the conversations started. Of course, now I dream about getting JK Rowling on my podcast. Who are we kidding? In all seriousness, I just want to give authors a voice through my podcast and in turn give my listeners something to learn from, and something to motivate them to read or even write that next book.
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ANDREW:
Who influenced you the most with books?
SHAHNAZ: If you mean an author, I grew up with Enid Blyton. The Amelia Jane series and my favourite, The Famous Five. In Dubai, at school, I felt a sense of book peer pressure. I was with girls who read a lot, and I felt the need to keep up. So, I read the classics with them also and books just came naturally to me. It became a part of me, like nothing else really can. It’s funny. I cannot recall anyone in my family reading books. My older cousin read the Mills and Boon romances, but really once I discovered Enid Blyton, I fell right into the proverbial rabbit hole of reading.
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The Hamilton Conspiracy Undeterred by threats of kidnap and ransom, the crew of his luxury yacht murdered, businesses up in flames and bankruptcy beckoning, Jack is on the run, reduced to living incognito in a seedy Paddington hotel. Ignoring his wife’s pleas, he hatches an outrageous plan to recover his lost millions. Its failure will end his already shaky marriage and guarantees him a permanent stay behind bars.
> Listen here <
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But Jack Gregory has always been a winner. Failure doesn’t figure in his world. This time, however, winning will be no guarantee of success. This time, Jack is in a Catch 22 and doesn’t know where to turn. Like a bull in a china shop he rampages on to a conclusion where even victory will be laced with a bitter taste of defeat.
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Short Stories also by Andrew Segal WE all like a bit of horror to make us jump out of our skins. And in our quest for something bizarre or twisted, Andrew Segal offers us a thrilling yarn. To start the enthralling twists, Beads of Blood questions the fabric of society and leads you down a comfortable path that finishes with a jolt. Might the prospect of marriage and money persuade you into a life of serial murders? The dream of four-bed luxury now gone, the clock wound back by twenty years, with no more time to start again; he hauls exhausted limbs dejectedly up the single flight. "They want protection money. Every week! The Company will fold within six months at most. They've threatened both our girls and you.â&#x20AC;? Horror found from real life tales, brings an extra shiver.. because itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s painfully nearer to our truths. We knew that we had to share it with our readers. If you're looking forward to a night of sleeplessness, read the collection of short stories, available on our website.
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