Writers often get asked where they get their ideas from and one of the answers I would usually give is stories in the news.There are acres of ideas to be found in the news, even without looking very hard.
This one came from a story many years ago in which a young man was found dead in his flat, supposedly entirely alone. But there were several other mysterious elements – which I won’t go into as the case is quite recent – which suggested that there was another person involved and a police murder investigation was launched. I deliberately didn’t look back at the media coverage and just worked from the bare bones that I could remember. I wanted to make the story my own, albeit influenced by real life.
My plotting mind went into overdrive. There were some questions that immediately leapt to mind. Who was this man? How had he died? I jettisoned the suicide angle immediately and made it appear that he’d died of natural causes. But that wouldn’t make for a good murder mystery, so the next question was why someone kill him and how had they done it?
The man in the news story worked in a classified job, which makes his life more shadowy and raises questions about who he was and what he was working on. This gave me the bare bones of a character and a scenario and then came the time to start building the rest of the story.
Dan wasn’t originally in this book. I hadn’t planned to make him a series character when I wrote this book, so once I’d made the decision to give him another case to solve, it took a lot of hard work to re-plot the book. However, Dan is a strong character and was more than happy to muscle his way in. The book worked so much better with him in the driving seat. You’ll also no doubt be pleased to hear that Emma and Ed also return to provide Dan with support and, hopefully, stop him running off at a tangent.
Honesty is the best policy, so we’re always told, but in A Deadly Truth telling the truth is as dangerous as telling a lie.
When a scientist is found dead in his living room, it appears to be natural causes, but local news reporter Dan Sullivan suspects a cover-up. After all, he saw the man abducted two days ago.
As Dan investigates, a second body is found in suspicious circumstances and his former university tutor, Dr Harry Evans, is the prime suspect. He asks Dan to help clear his name, but is he really telling Dan the truth?
Join Dan in a twisty tale of deceit, as he battles to find out the truth – even though he might be putting a friend’s life at stake.
Availability – The ebook book is available on Amazon, Kobo, Smashwords, Apple, Nook and a few other places as well https://books2read.com/u/mY76gP
The paperback will follow soon in all good retailers and the audio book will be out in due course.
Biography
LM Milford is a crime fiction author who writes the Allensbury mysteries, covering the exploits of local newspaper reporter Dan Sullivan.
A former newspaper journalist, Lynne’s experience has influenced her work, although her stories were never as exciting as Dan’s.
Lynne was born and brought up in the north-east of England, but now lives in Kent with her husband and far too many books. She loves cooking, baking and holidays in Spain. She’s partial to a good red wine and plates of cheese.
You can find Lynne in the following places:
www.lmmilford.com
www.twitter.com/lmmilford
www.facebook.com/lmmilford
www.instagram.com/lmmilford
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