In a Former life

Posted on 12/10/2024 by Jack Marsh

I think it was in 2013 that a film crew came to this island and tried to make a film version of a book I had written, or was writing. It’s a long story – the one behind the film, not the book – but this company had asked me to come up with a horror story that could be cheaply and easily filmed. So, I did, and we agreed it would be set here because the location is atmospheric, and I could write the script around locations I knew to be easily accessible. I had the book already on the go, ‘The Judas Inheritance’ (under my original name), and so, putting together a scripted version was straightforward. For me, but not for ‘them.’ By the time they started filming, we had raised the necessary but very limited budget, we (being Neil and I) had arranged an army of keen volunteers to assist with everything from giving free accommodation to making meals, I had become the location manager, and they were using script draft number 12 which, thanks to everyone knowing better than the writer, bore little resemblance to the original story.

They also ignored my advice about where to film, so they spent much time and effort moving equipment to tricky locations, resulting in a lack of filming time, and then the producer had a breakdown, fell out with the director who did nothing but complain and demand more money even though he knew what he’d let himself in for, and… I could go on. It was a farce created by a group of ‘professionals’ who had no idea, and took no notice of people who lived here who’d given up time, jobs, money and effort. It was not a pleasant experience and worst of all, the investors saw no return and none of the things they had been promised. Still…

‘The Judas Inheritance’ is the title of the book. The film was eventually titled something else and although it won some awards at minor film festivals, I think that was more out of sympathy than anything else. It’s a horror story written in the first and third person, and constructed very much along film storytelling lines. The blurb reads thus:

An ancient curse? Desperation in the economic crisis? What is causing the suicides of so many adults and children on this small Greek island? When Chris Trelawney arrives on the island to take away his late father’s belongings, he finds that he has been left little more than a mystery. Was his father mad at the time of his death, or did he actually believe that he had awakened a powerful evil? An ancient evil that now stalks the islanders, growing stronger by the day. A curse that will cause the death of everyone around Chris unless he allows himself to believe that such things exist. But when he discovers the truth, Chris realises that death is the easy option.

Standard stuff and written long before I invented Jackson Marsh, but still, a good read, I believe. (There are some production photos that Neil took at the bottom of this page.)

I mention it because I have books in a promo that’s promoting thrillers, psychological thrillers and suspense reads, and I wanted to point you in its direction. There are some great covers to browse, with lots of night scenes, creepy castles and dripping knives, and some great titles too. ‘The Judas Inheritance’ isn’t among them because that’s under my Collins name and I can only afford to promote one pen name at the moment, but if you want to take a look at ‘Judas’ just click here.

If you’d like to support other authors and get some ideas for spooky Halloween reading, then click this banner:

The Judas Curse being filmed as ‘The 13th.’ Photos © by Neil Gosling

My godson Harry and his dad on set (H is now 17!)

WIP Update: Delamere Six

Posted on 09/10/2024 by Jack Marsh

Here’s an update on where I am with my current work in progress, Delamere Six. That might well end up being its title as nothing has yet sprung to mind. I am nearly at the halfway mark, well, nearly at 50,000 words and coming up to a nice twist, but things are going slowly. This is because of my arm injury, or ‘tennis elbow’ as the doctor called it. It’s a repetitive strain injury caused by typing and holding my tablet to play ‘Sherlock.’ So, I am trying to do less of both, and am doing more with my left hand, like lifting things and opening bottles. It’s amazing how weak the left hand/arm is compared to the right, but being right-handed, I guess that’s how it is.

Trouble is, it means I am doing less wringing too. Where I would normally aim for three to four thousand words a day, I am now only able to do two. That’s on top of the blogs, this one and my day-to-day life on a Greek island one, Symi Dream. This is why you might find my blog posts shorter than usual. At least until after I’ve had another treatment on the elbow thing, which should be in the next week or two.

Meanwhile, this week I am promoting a series of books that are all available on KU (Kindle Unlimited). You can click on any of these, and if you fancy their blurbs, you can find them in KU and add them to your reading list. Deviant Desire is in there along with some other intriguing-sounding titles and blurbs. ‘The Case of the Four Fingers’ looks interesting with two detectives one hundred years apart working together. I don’t have KU but I might buy it in Kindle format and download it to the tablet that way. Here’s the banner, just click it to find some new mystery, thriller and suspense reading.

Passing Time in the Past

Posted on 05/10/2024 by Jack Marsh

One of the things I love about writing is the research that goes into it. how often have we heard people say, ‘Write about what you know?’ The other day, I heard someone admit that she couldn’t write a book about XYZ because she knew nothing about XYZ and had never experienced it. Well, I’ve never walked through a London sewer in 1893, but I managed to get a few pages down about the experience. How? By researching.

Researching Matters

Of course, you can write about what you don’t know. You just have to do one of two things:

Research it until you do know
Imagine it

The end result should be a mixture of the two, with the researched information truthfully reimagined.

As an example, this week, I sat down to write chapter 11 of ‘Snapshot’ (working title). In this sequence, two of my detectives meet Doctor Markland in a laboratory at the London Hospital, now the Royal London Hospital. (That was my first fact check/research. What was the hospital called in 1893?) The detectives were there to test some soil and other samples with the madcap but brilliant doctor, and I wanted things to be as authentic as possible. So, how would a chemist or pathologist test soil samples and flesh samples to discover if the soil could have decomposed a body rapidly, and how would they have done it in 1893?

And away we go…

Here’s an edited down sample from the chapter to whet your appetite:

‘Beneath the sink, you will find a small box with a Mackie’s label and a bottle of Hills and Underwood’s. Bring them forth…’

‘That be Mackie’s baking soda, be that.’

‘I know. Not to be confused with arsenic, as so often happens. There was a case last year when a man mistook one for the other with not very pleasant results.’

‘Oh? Would it make him sick, Sir?’

‘Made him dead, Mr Maddiver. This was in Lanark, so it wasn’t a great sensation, but the man was a baker which rather worried the town. I don’t suppose they bought bread from him after that.’

‘Not if he were dead, Doctor.’

‘A very good point…’

‘Your education continues,’ Markland said, waving Ned to his side, and showing him a white powder. ‘What we have here is a mixture of sodium, oxygen and hydrogen otherwise known as sodium hydroxide. Do not touch, and certainly do not do as an unfortunate boy of eleven did recently, and drink it. Poor lad. Mind you, he lived in Liverpool, so… Worse, was the man who, last October, fell into a boiling vat of the stuff.’

‘You be saying the man was two weeks dead when someone then poured caustic soda over his face?’

‘I be saying just that, me hearty,’ the doctor joked in a bad West Country accent.

Ned stared at him, for a second and said, ‘That’s not funny.’

And so on. The point is, I had no idea you could test for alkali and acid by using baking soda and vinegar, but then, unlike my brother, I am not a chemist. As for the chemical makeup of caustic soda and whether you could use it to disfigure a dead body so no-one could see the face… Apparently yes, you can.

Btw., the tragic cases Markland mentioned were cases from 1892 that I found in the national newspapers.

Other, less gruesome things I have been investigating this week include the Zoka Detective Camera Will Merrit could have bought for 12/6.

Then, there was the Nurenburg Pocket Timepiece that could be bought for 2^S 6^D. (Two shillings and sixpence, or half a crown, or 30 pennies, roughly £10.26 in today’s money according to a converter site.)

Just a few of the things I have been looking at as I prepare the first draft of Delamere Six. It’s all in the research!

This month’s Promo

As usual, I have a few promo pages to share with you this month, and today, I’m featuring Mayhem & Motives, Mystery, Thriller and Suspense reads available on Kindle, Unlimited, Kobo and other platforms depending on the book. There are loads of titles to browse including three of my own, and the novels are varied in time and place.

Jack the Ripper, Tours, Books, Inspiration

Posted on 28/09/2024 by Jack Marsh

It’s not everyone’s favourite subject but let’s consider Jack the Ripper for a moment. I’m not going to go down the path of rhetoric so often written, i.e. ‘most famous unsolved murders’ and all that, I’m going to say this: Having had a longtime interest in the case like thousands of others, I used the tragedies as the basis for ‘Deviant Desire’, though I changed Whitechapel to Greychurch, and so on, and my ripper set about doing away with rent boys rather than women. That’s how the whole Clearwater Mysteries series started, and now, twenty-three books later, I am starting on the sixth book in the second follow-on series and the Clearwater world of Victorian London continues (though now, Whitechapel is Whitechapel).

The Victorian East End lives in fear of the Ripper and his mission to kill rent boys.

The Ripper casts a long shadow in the fearful streets of the Victorian East End as he preys on vulnerable rent boys. Among them is Silas Hawkins, a nineteen-year-old struggling to survive the harsh realities of life on the streets with his best friend, a Ukrainian refugee, Andrej.

Little does Silas know his fate is about to take a dramatic turn when he meets Archer, a captivating and affluent young viscount.

That’s still not the point of this Saturday morning ramble, the point is, to point you towards an experience. Should you be in, or find yourself in, London, with an interest in the Ripper history, you might like to take a guided walk through the streets that remain and learn all kinds of things about the past and the murders. I’m a follower of Russell Edwards, Ripperologist and author of the book ‘Naming Jack the Ripper: New Crime Scene Evidence, A Stunning Forensic Breakthrough, The Killer Revealed. I have the book on my shelves and it’s a fascinating read.

After 125 years of theorizing and speculation regarding the identity of Jack the Ripper, Russell Edwards is in the unique position of owning the first physical evidence relating to the crimes to have emerged since 1888. This evidence is from one of the crime scenes and has now been rigorously examined by some of the most highly-qualified forensic scientists in the country who have ascertained its true provenance. With the help of modern forensic techniques, Russell’s ground-breaking discoveries provide conclusive answers to many of the most challenging mysteries surrounding the case.

Mr Edwards takes tours which you can read all about and book on his site, the Jack the Ripper Tour, and he also has a Facebook page.

I reckon Mr Edward would be one of the few people to catch all the JtR references in ‘Deviant Desire’ because many of them are very subtle. So subtle that now, seven years after writing it, I’ve forgotten most of them. They are there, though, from an easy-to-spot double event to the changing of location names – Mitre Square becomes Bishop’s Square, for example. Mind you, an expert like Mr E will probably baulk at the way I threw the clues and story together and what I did with the sacred story. Ah well, I set out to write a work of fiction, and gay fiction at that – a gay love story actually, which turned into a mystery that led to the second book which tells us why my Ripper was never caught, and by book six of the series what finally happened to the evil man… But that’s another story.

Anyway, this was a post to point out this tour which, were I in England, I would take. I used to live two miles away at Dalston Junction and would often wander down that way on a Sunday for the markets. Maybe I will go if I ever find myself back in town. Meanwhile, a reminder that this is the last weekend when all these murder, mystery and thriller books will be on promo (until next month when Book Mojo are running another which I will join in with). So, for all you mystery and murder novel fans, give them a look and some love.

A Snapshot of Snapshot

Posted on 25/09/2024 by Jack Marsh

Here’s where I am with Delamere six, which currently has the working title of ‘Snapshot.’ I am approaching 30,000 words of draft one and, although I am enjoying the ride, I may have given myself a case that’s far too complicated for one book, or which may be all mystery and no emotion. So, yesterday afternoon, I sat down to list what should happen next in logical order and was surprised at the results.

This is me working out my action plot, the mystery, the clues, and within that, the ‘Why’ of the matter. The ‘Who’ came pretty easily – who is the villain, and who is the hero (the Delamere boys collectively for this one), then there’s the ‘What’ does the hero want? To crack the case, and the ‘How’, by proving the Who did the other What (the crime), and there we have a complicated but perfectly explainable action plot.

Next is to weave in the emotional who, why, what and how throughline, and, in this case, there isn’t one. There’s no falling in love, friendship breakup or anything like that, yet there should be, otherwise, all we have is he did this then he did that. So, I need to consider what emotional issue my main hero, Jack, should deal with. It may be the temptation for more adventurous sex with Larkin Chase, because of something Jack sees while breaking into a mausoleum in Abney Park Cemetery late at night with Jimmy Wright in order to view a…

But that’s the story so I won’t give too much away.

Usually, when I get to around 30K words, I go back to the beginning to reread from chapter one. This reminds me where I am and how I got there, brings up anything that might need changing – because I often start with one idea and then change to another and there are subtleties to bring out or get rid of. That should take me today and tomorrow, and then, I can press on with the rest of chapter eight. I have passed the quarter mark, the end of act one, where everything is set out, and I am into the friends, adversaries, twists and obstacles section heading towards a twist/change around 50K words – but with no idea yet what that will be,

This is called being a ‘panster’ and flying by the seat of your pants and it’s how the last new novels have come about, so I’m not worried. What I am, is late for work, so I’ll leave you with a reminder that the current promos are running until the end of the month, and here’s the link to September’s LGBT Romance and Fiction promo with loads of new authors and titles for you to browse.

Hackney in the Past

Posted on 21/09/2024 by Jack Marsh

Today’s brief chat is about the London Borough of Hackney, Stoke Newington in particular, and in very specific particular, the Congregationalist Chapel on Church Street. This post is also about promoting a local service that has helped me find details about this chapel, and it’s all to do with the next Delamere book, currently called ‘Snapshot’ (working title only).

Here’s how one of my ideas soon becomes complicated.

I wanted to find a theme for the next book, and decided on photography. This led me to some interesting research which I’ll talk about another day. However, it also opened up the idea of a mystery story which then became the plot. The inciting event of the story happens, as usual, very near the beginning.

A client comes to the detective agency saying he has just had a great shock and found the body of his late father in a cemetery. So? Well, the body was in a place where the gravedigger was supposed to be digging a grave for an upcoming burial. So? The body they found has only recently been put there. So? It’s his father. Yes, but…? His father died 10 years ago and is interred in the family mausoleum 200 yards away. Ah.

And so it goes on. Just for accuracy, I went to my 1888 maps of London and checked how Abney Park cemetery in Hackney looked at the time, and decided that’s where the body would be found, because I know the park fairly well. (I used to live nearby.)

My map showed me a chapel directly opposite the southern gates, and I made that the headquarters of the vicar who was arranging the forthcoming burial.

Except when I looked further into this chapel, I discovered it was a Congregationalist one, not Church of England or anything I was familiar with. So, that entailed looking into that form of Christianity, so that my ‘vicar’ character spoke the correct terminology.

My vicar soon became a minister, who later became a pastor, as I got to grips with the language of that particular kind of church.

Congregationalism (also Congregationalist churches or Congregational churches) is a Reformed (Calvinist) tradition of Protestant Christianity in which churches practice congregational government. Each congregation independently and autonomously runs its own affairs. [Wiki]

Anyway, the religion isn’t what this story is about, but… For the sake of authenticity, I researched as much as I could about this chapel, only to discover it was bombed in WWII and is no longer there. Could I find its history online? Well, I found some, but not enough, and I became more fascinated. Then, through a variety of search strings, and having found out all kinds of information about the area, the cemetery and so on, I discovered there was a pamphlet.

This was written in 1912 and covered the history of the chapel back to the 17th century, and including the time in which I am setting my stories, 1893. A copy of this pamphlet is held by the Hackney Borough Council Archives Offices, in, unsurprisingly, Hackney, London, and I was welcome to visit during opening hours.

Obviously, I can’t do that because it’s about 4,000 Km, a boat, two flights and far too many Euros away, and I can’t afford that, not for simple background research, so I wrote to ask if they had a digital service. Not as such, but they do have a look-up service and could make me digital copies on request for a small fee. Having worked out the cost, I wrote saying yes please, because by now I was very fascinated, and they wrote back telling me they could do two pages per shot, thus halving the fee, and I said, thank you very much, where do I pay? Payment made, and within a couple of hours, there was my digital file download with the full pamphlet in PDF pages, and how fabulous was that service?

Made more fabulous because it’s only a small team, and all this was achieved within two days.

So, I am singing the praises of the Hackney Archives for anyone who might ever need them. This kind of service, to my mind, goes along with things like libraries and museums, places that collect and store, thus preserve, history.

And that’s how one idea for a story can lead to fascinating in-depth research, all of which makes the story more realistic and believable.

If you are interested in more mystery novels, don’t forget to browse this month’s Mayhem and Motives collection.

This promo is organised by Book Mojo and they have a Readers’ Central department which gives you loads of ideas for reading in all genres. There’s also a free newsletter to sign up to, and I am featured in today’s copy, apparently.

Links of interest

Hackney Archives Collections

Stoke Newington Then and Now (images and text)

History of Abney Park Cemetery

Make Believe

Posted on 18/09/2024 by Jack Marsh

Today’s work-in-progress update concerns a few things. Let’s start with the last release.

I am pleased to say ‘A Case of Make Believe’ is doing well, but so is the whole series. That’s thanks in part to the Mayhem & Motives book promotion which you can find by following this link:

In case you’ve not heard the news yet, the fifth book in the Delamere series is available in paperback, as well as Kindle and KU.

So, that’s that, and this is this: Book Six – as yet untitled but with a working title of ‘Snapshot.’ (Which sounds far too modern a title in my opinion.) For some reason, I have decided to make the story’s client a deacon/preacher/minister at the independent Congregationalist chapel which existed in Stoke Newington at the time. Why? Because the chapel was opposite Abney Park one of London’s seven park cemeteries and a place I used to visit. Why? Because I only lived down the road in Kingsland (in Larkin Chase’s house, actually), and it was a nice place to relax. One day, after a hard motorbike journey from working out in Essex, I came back that way and, as it was summer, stopped there to take a walk and unwind. I was wearing my bike leathers and carrying my ‘lid’ as I won’t go on even a moped without leathers and a crash helmet, and strolled among the trees and old monuments, mausoleums and shrubbery until I became aware that I was being followed by a few older men.

Turns out, the park was also a big cruising ground. Well, I didn’t know until later when I made some enquiries among my buddies at the pub in Balls Pond Road, who stared at me as if I should have known this fact from birth.

So, I may well put in such an incident as I write my way through the first draft of Number Six. At the same time, I am trying to research exactly what it meant to be a Congregationalist, so I can learn the appropriate terms (minister, preacher, deacon?), and learn how such an independent organisation would have been run.

If anyone has a resource, I’d love to hear about it.

Meanwhile, I will leave you with part of a review, the first for ‘Make Believe’ and this clip comes with a huge thanks to Anthony for taking the time to write it.

Jackson Marsh takes us on a frightening journey into a world of illusion and mayhem mesmerizing us with his skilful writing. Those of us familiar with his other works will be glad to welcome back some of his characters from previous series, and a couple of new ones.

You can read the full review here.

New Book Out, New One Started

Posted on 14/09/2024 by Jack Marsh

Hello, and welcome to a catch-up blog post. First today’s news…

A Case of Make Believe is back from the layout guys. I have been through it, and it looks great. Apart from the fantastic cover, there is an image of the new character which I’ve had drawn, and the only thing missing is the title of the next book in the series. That will be added when I have thought of it.

If all goes as it usually does, the book will be ready today or tomorrow, and I will post the link when I have it.

As soon as it’s ready, you will be able to find this dark and mysterious novel on the Delamere Files series page here.

Book Six in the series

This one has got off to a mysterious start and even I don’t know where it is leading. It will have something to do with photography, though. Already, we have an opening that is slightly farcical but makes sense, and it’s one of those stories that starts a little way in and then goes back to the beginning. So, after chapter one, I currently have ‘X days earlier’ and the story starts from there with Jack at his desk, rather bored with doing the CID’s cold cases, and hoping for something more exciting to come along.

It does, and it does so in the shape of a Congregationalist minister who has found a body in Abney Park Cemetery in Stoke Newington.

Yes, I know you’d expect to find a body in a cemetery, but not one in a shallow grave, and not one who died ten years earlier and yet looks like it died only a day ago. So, we’ve started off with a right old mystery which, by chapter four, thickens when the detectives (all four) visit the scene to find the body has deteriorated since that morning…

Don’t worry, I will find a way out of this. It will involve some kind of chemical reaction, like a photograph, and I think Doc Markland will have to be brought in.

Meanwhile, Jack has a new team of horses called Moonlight and Silver, though he still has Shadow, of course, and Mrs Norwood next door has her own stable hand and groom again.

Romance Promos

You might like to take a look at the titles in these two romance promos, if you haven’t already. There may be some new authors and titles for you to read there.

Nearly There

Posted on 11/09/2024 by Jack Marsh

Once again, I find myself typing ‘Nearly There’ as a title, because ‘A Case of Make Believe’ is nearly ready to be released. It’s currently with the guys at Other Worlds Ink who do the layout for me, and I hope to have it back for checking in a couple of days. Meanwhile, I’ve started the next one, and have drafted the first chapter and a half. As per usual, I have an idea for a scene and have started with that with no idea where I am going or how this one will end. Sometimes I know the whole story, other times, I know how it will end. In this case, I know it will have something to do with early photography and murder, but apart from that…

Here’s the current opening line:

Of all the things Will Merrit imagined he would do as an investigator, locking himself in a pitch-black bathroom with two other men was not one of them.

If you were wondering about the opening of ‘A Case of Maker Believe’, then here’s the opening line of that one (which follows the date, January 5th, 1893)

She stood beneath the stage petting a rat and wallowing in the gasps and groans from the audience above, while through the dust-shedding boards came the sound of her lover’s footsteps as the story neared its climax.

And, to tease you further, the final line of the story:

The box of gifts still to be distributed, he watched, smiling, and could think of nowhere else he would rather be than home.

So, all I need to do now on the Delamere Files Book Six is to find a story and write it into 100,000 words. Meanwhile, as soon as book five is published, you will be able to find it here:

Let’s Get Promoting!

Posted on 04/09/2024 by Jack Marsh

While we eagerly await the next Delamere novel (more news very soon), and while I work on audio clips of the Bobby interviews (see this page), let’s do our bit for other authors of MM romance, and mystery writers, and have a browse of three new promo lists. As you know, these cost nothing to click to, and the more clicks they get the more kudos the Jackson Marsh family receive, because we’re seen to be helping out other authors.

There’s quite a list this month. First, there are two new collections of MM and LGBTQ + romance stories set in various eras and settings. I have ‘Banyak & Fecks’ in this first promo, and it sits there alongside sapphic and gay novels, there are plenty of bear chests and handsome men on the covers and some intriguing titles.

https://books.bookfunnel.com/BFHOSTLGBTQIASL_SEPT/w2bc8kh8ct

Then, we have a whole set of new and older titles in the LGBTQIA + Romance collection, where I have my ‘The Mentor of Barrenmoor Ridge’ alongside many other similar novels, plus my ‘Mentor of Lonemarsh House,’ probably my most romantic offering.

https://books.bookfunnel.com/September_LGBTQIA_Romance_Sales_Promotion/e85zgpkdce

Thirdly, my usual monthly helping of Mayhem and Motives, to which we can add Murder, no doubt, as these are all thrillers, action and mystery novels, again set in various eras and written by many different and new authors. There are over 90 titles this month, so plenty of ideas for your TBR list.

https://books.bookfunnel.com/mysthrillsus-sep/m0f0l2wxck

Anything you can do to assist these promos is great; a quick click to check the covers is all it takes, and you never know, you might find a new author or two to read and support. Don’t get too engrossed, though, because ‘A Case of Make Believe’ is nearly ready for you and believe me, you’re going to want to read this one with the lights on.

Jackson Marsh Author

MM Romance and Mystery