Today’s guest blog is by Irish author Jane Casey who has so far written 4 books
in her Maeve Kerrigan series.
‘Why don’t
you create a series character?’ my editor suggested. ‘Readers don’t remember authors or book titles but they do remember
characters.’
My first book was a very dark stand-alone
thriller about child murders, THE MISSING.
My second was going to be another stand-alone, until my editor stepped in and
binned the synopsis. As it turned out, and not for the last time, she was
right. Readers do remember
characters. More importantly, they become involved with them, in a way I had
not really appreciated before I invented DC Maeve Kerrigan. Young, ambitious,
tall and ironic, she is the London-born child of Irish parents and a good
detective shooting to become a great one. I wanted her to be sceptical but not a cynic, a
junior detective rather than a chief inspector. She is a still small voice of
calm in the hubbub of a murder investigation and her focus is currently on
earning respect rather than rebelling against authority.
I’d read and loved my share of crime novels
featuring middle-aged male detectives who drank hard and fought harder. There’s
an art to creating and maintaining those characters and I didn’t set out to
invent a series character who was the antithesis of all that they represent.
However, Maeve is more of an outsider than most of the maverick policemen who
crop up so often in crime fiction. She’s a young woman in what remains a man’s
world, even now, with a cultural background that marks her out for ridicule.
Frequently underestimated, she’s struggling to acquire an air of authority that
means she’ll be taken seriously. Many of her colleagues would prefer her to be
just a pretty face. She’s subject to hundreds of tiny humiliations that make
her a stronger person, but she’s vulnerable in a way that most series
detectives aren’t. I admire her and feel protective of her – and I put her
through hell.
My latest book, Maeve’s fourth outing, is called
THE STRANGER YOU KNOW. Maeve is
increasingly concerned about the erratic DI Josh Derwent, her colleague,
suspect in a series of unpleasant murders and not for the first time… It’s a
book that developed from the uneasy relationship between Maeve and Derwent, a
man with a toxic sense of self-worth and a strong line in foul-mouthed banter.
It’s possible to start reading the series with STRANGER, but I couldn’t have written it as a first book. It’s
driven by the characters and their developing understanding of each other, as
it deepens over time. Derwent doesn’t even appear in THE BURNING, the first Maeve Kerrigan book. He definitely makes an
impact in the next one, THE RECKONING,
where I intended to leave him. There is a certain pleasure in writing someone
so politically incorrect, so thoroughly misogynist and hostile to anyone and
everyone he encounters, but that was not why I came back to him in THE LAST GIRL. It was because he
balances out Maeve’s slight tendency to be a goody-two-shoes, and challenges
her, and makes things happen. He is nobody’s idea of a hero – I would never
have made him the focus of the series – but the new book is all about him, one
way or another. I think it does him justice, though I am not saying whether
justice is finally done.
One of the things I have learned while writing
this series is that the characters have a life in
the readers’ minds beyond my
own version of them. Some people are convinced that Maeve and her policeman
boyfriend, Rob, are destined to live happily ever after. Others think she is
certain to wind up with Derwent (the idea would appall her). I find it funny that her romantic life is the hook for
so many readers, when Maeve herself would claim to be focused on work above all
things, but then she is emotionally illiterate at times. Some readers have very
clear ideas about how the characters look, and who should play them on TV, and
they never seem to match up with what I have in my mind’s eye. There are
storylines that run across several books, and people have strong views on how
they should be resolved. I have thought about all of these things but I have
learned to leave myself room to change my mind. Plan too far ahead and it feels
as if you are putting your characters over a series of demanding jumps before
they can get to the end of their own literary gymkhana. Let them go their own
way and surprise the reader, and yourself.
Maeve changes with each book, growing in some
respects, struggling in others. It is a privilege and a pleasure to get to
revisit her for half of the year, a joy that only series authors really get to
experience. I feel as if I am in her company while I write, in part because the
stories are first-person narratives so I see the world around her through her
eyes. For all writers, the moment their characters begin to feel real is the
moment they know they have done their job. I know I invented Maeve, but for all
that, I believe in her.
As for where she will go in the future, I cannot
say too much. What I can say is that happily
ever after is an ending, and Maeve is nowhere near the end of her story.
The Stranger You Know by Jane Casey is out now in hardback, Ebury
Press, £12.99 and her eBook short story about Maeve’s first case Left For Dead was released on 25th
July.
More information can be found about Jane Casey
and her books on her website and
you can also follow her on Twitter @JaneCaseyAuthor
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