Thursday 9 March 2017
From The Shadows by Neil White
Series: Dan Grant #1
Release Date: 9th March 2017
Publisher: Zaffre
Publisher: Zaffre
Genres: Crime / thriller
FOR FANS OF MICHAEL CONNELLY, MJ ARLIDGE AND TIM WEAVER COMES THE FIRST IN A NEW SERIES FROM BESTSELLING AUTHOR NEIL WHITE.
He hides in the shadows, watching, waiting, until the time is right . . .
Mary Kendricks, a smart, pretty, twenty-four-year-old teacher, has been brutally murdered and Robert Carter is accused of killing her.
When defence lawyer, Dan Grant inherits Carter's case only weeks before the trial starts, everyone expects him just to babysit it, but Dan's not that kind of lawyer. He'll follow the evidence - wherever it takes him.
But as Dan and his investigator Jayne Brett look into the case, they discover that there is more to it than meets the eye. In order to do their jobs they need to push the limits of the system, even if it means putting themselves in danger.
Together they will get to the truth - whatever the cost . . .
ABOUT NEIL WHITE
Neil White was born and brought up around West Yorkshire. He left school at sixteen but returned to education in his twenties, when he studied for a law degree. He started writing in 1994, and is now a criminal lawyer by day, crime fiction writer by night.
He hides in the shadows, watching, waiting, until the time is right . . .
Mary Kendricks, a smart, pretty, twenty-four-year-old teacher, has been brutally murdered and Robert Carter is accused of killing her.
When defence lawyer, Dan Grant inherits Carter's case only weeks before the trial starts, everyone expects him just to babysit it, but Dan's not that kind of lawyer. He'll follow the evidence - wherever it takes him.
But as Dan and his investigator Jayne Brett look into the case, they discover that there is more to it than meets the eye. In order to do their jobs they need to push the limits of the system, even if it means putting themselves in danger.
Together they will get to the truth - whatever the cost . . .
GUEST POST
Writing
and life are not always compatible, but there isn’t much choice about it.
Writing and family life is an even harder mix.
I’ve
spent so much of my adult life wanting to be a writer, and I feel so lucky that
I have spent the last ten years being exactly that. It isn’t always easy
though, because it can be so time-consuming. I must stress, however, that what
follows should not be a sign as a moan. It is merely the price to be paid for
doing something I love, and that is still a privilege to do.
One
of the first things that strikes you when the publishing deal is first signed
is that your lifestyle doesn’t suddenly turn into an Ian Fleming thing, with
the mornings in front of a typewriter and the afternoons set aside for the pool
and Martinis. Life goes on. Jobs, family life. Most of the writers I know still
hold down day jobs, and in some ways they keep us all sane.
I’ve
been a criminal lawyer for over twenty years, and I still appear in the
courtroom regularly. Those days are like a respite, where I think of nothing
else but whatever case I have and forget about plot and book worries, because
writing a book can be all-consuming. There is always another scene to think
about, another angle you haven’t considered, one more roadblock that prevents
you getting from where you are to where you need to be.
When
I first started out as a published writer ten years ago, I was working
full-time, but it was all exciting and new and the time pressures were all part
of what I’d chased. In fact, it wasn’t much different to how it had been before
I signed the deal, when I spent most nights trying to polish a manuscript or
think of a new idea. All that had changed was that I’d swapped a dream for a
deadline.
My
children were much younger then, which made it easier in its own way, because I
wasn’t exactly giving up on a wild life. I lived the life of most parents of
young children: I fed them, bathed them, and put them to bed. Once over, the
smell of clean babies in my nostrils, the evening became my own. For me, that
meant writing.
Mostly,
it was at the dining room table, with BBC6 Music through my headphones. Sometimes
distracting, but it was the only way I could get into my zone, because the
dining room table was also in the same part of the house as the television. There
was no leather-topped desk in finest walnut but me on a table, the debris of an
evening meal around me, a radio channel used to blot out what else was going on
in the house.
At
one point, I made the under-stairs cupboard bigger and was able to squeeze a
small desk in there, and I turned into a six-foot two Harry Potter. I wrote at
least two books in that cupboard, but eventually, we decided we needed
somewhere to hang coats and store the vacuum cleaner more than I needed a
micro-study.
The
children got older though, which helped, as they wanted Playstations in their
bedrooms more than the use of the small room we’d set aside as a playroom. Out
went the crates of toys and brightly-coloured plastic and in went a desk. I had
acquired a study, although I shoved a big television and my own Playstation in
there too. No one said I had to work every hour.
The
biggest enemy is mental fatigue. For ten years, it has felt like a hamster
wheel of working and writing, with my laptop even taken on holidays, but I am
easier on myself now. If I am in court all day, I find it harder to write.
Court work is mentally taxing, and by the time I’m home I’ve no juice left in
the tank. I forget about those nights, it’s only two or three a week, and try
to make up for it on the other days.
One
thing I have learned is how to write in a more time-efficient way.
If
I know what my scene is about, I’ll start it. I’ll go for as long as I can and
then stop. Usually just a few hundred words, but it’s a start. I’ve learned not
to panic, that the scene will grow, so I’ll take a break, sometimes longer than
it ought to be, before I go back to it and add to it. I’ll do that three or
four times and then leave it overnight. Somehow, a clear morning mind is best
for editing and shaping. One more work-through and then I had it to the Word
document that is the “Book Whole”, so I can see how far I’ve got, and how far
there is to go.
One
of the hardest things I’ve had to learn is that the days not spent in my day
job are no longer days off. The weekend, even though it has got longer for me,
isn’t just about drinking wine and watching television. It’s the time when I
write, but the weekend always feels like when I should be relaxing.
That’s
the hard part for the families of writers. I’m the person in the house who
always has his face in front of a computer screen, always tapping away, and
it’s hard for anyone else to see it as work. That is exactly what it is, but it
was also once just a hobby, a dream, and only ever my dream. Every one else had
to shape themselves around my dream.
Writing
can be a selfish pursuit because of that, but that doesn’t mean I can stop
myself. Life goes on, and somehow writing is squeezed into it. They are uneasy
bedfellows.
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