The Clearwater Companion

Andrej Borysko Yakiv Kolisnychenko

Starting with the prequel, Andrej is the first character we meet in the Clearwater series, and ending with The Larkspur Legacy, he is the last to leave the stage. You could say that the entire series of 18 books charts his life because he appears in or is mentioned in every book. Although he rented when he had to, Andrej is one of the few straight characters in the series, and I have to admit, he is one of my favourites.

He started out as a lad from the East End called Andrew or Andy, and was to be Silas Hawkins’ sidekick, but as soon as he appeared in the first chapter of Deviant Desire, I knew he had to be more interesting than an Oliver Twist to Silas’ Artful Dodger. As there were so many immigrants in London at that time, particularly the East End, I decided to make him German, then Russian… then thought, no, something nobler and with more history, so Ukrainian. I wanted a big, strapping, everybody-loves-him straight man to be Silas’ unlikely best friend, and thus, Andrej was born.

I gave him such a long and complicated name because I wanted to make a comedy moment out of it (when Thomas or Tripp has to announce him to Archer), but also, so I could show how much Silas thinks of him because he can pronounce it perfectly.

One of the books I am particularly proud of is ‘Fallen Splendour’, in which Fecker features prominently. In one scene, he is telling Archer of the tragedy of his family back in Ukraine, and it’s a levelling moment for Archer and an important one for Fecks. I had a few tears as I wrote it, and I had different tears at the end of the book too, and all because of this hulking but very fit, loveable, plain-talking straight man.

Clearwater Companion Notes

Here are my initial notes about Andrej, one of the mainstay characters of the Clearwater Mysteries. Some of these facts changed over time, particularly Fecks’ year of birth, because he doesn’t know it. He only knows the family celebrated it around Easter time.

Born in March 1867 (?)

He thinks he is about 19, as does Silas, but he is actually 21 in 1888, and doesn’t know his exact birthday. He thinks it is around Easter as he remembers celebrations near his birthday and thought they were for him.

He was born inland from Odesa, towards Kyiv, in the Mykolaiv region https://mfa.gov.ua/en/about-ukraine/info/regions/19-mykolaiv

Mykolayiv Region

The boundless fields of Pobuzhzhya and Ingul River region, green vineyards and wonderful flowering gardens under the bottomless blue sky is Mykolayiv land.

Agriculture is the leading industry of the regional economy. Mykolayiv Region makes significant payments in strengthening the country, producing almost seven per cent of cereals and sunflowers, and three per cent of gross milk production.

Family

Parents                       
Father Borysko 1840 to 1878 (Turkish War)

Mother 1842 to 1869 (childbirth)

Poor farmers with five children:

Danylo            1859 possibly still alive
Vladsylav        1861 to 1879
Alina                1864 to 1876
Andrej          1866 (?)
Daria               1869 possibly still alive

Banyak & Fecks

I wrote the prequel to the Clearwater series after publishing One of a Pair, and some of the events that occur have a bearing on book nine, Negative Exposure. You can read the prequel at any time; it’s not a mystery, but it’s a book about friendship, and it’s structured in four parts. Andrej | Silas | Andrej & Silas | Banyak & Fecks. The story leads up to a couple of days before the start of Deviant Desire, and it has moments of comedy, love, eroticism, drama and sadness.

Banyak & Fecks – link to Amazon page

Here’s a drawing I commissioned. It was meant to show Silas and Andrej aged about 16/17 and it’s meant to be a photo. I wasn’t totally impressed by the work, so I never used it, and I think this is the first time I’ve shown it.

Here’s a short extract from chapter one. Andrej has decided to make his own way in the world and is escaping his war-torn village.

His movements controlled, his fear tempered by resolve, he slithered away as silently as he had come. Once deep among the shadowy ferns, he stood, a sapling in a forest of fools, and left them to their fate. Gradually, the camp faded into darkness, and the hillside gave way to the fields beyond which the ruins of his village smouldered in the approaching dawn.
The land was a vast basin of streams and farmland, bordered to the south by the Black Sea, to the east, the broad river Dnieper, and to the north, plains that stretched further than anyone could walk. It was a barren place in winter when the snow buried the crops, and the Balai froze. In summer, when the sun beat relentlessly on his back, it was a place of hard work, scything and baling. Autumn brought misty days for ploughing, and softer earth from which to pull the harvest, and the spring, a promise of regrowth and rain when the butts filled, and he picked flowers for his stepmother.
   His ancestors had worked the land for more generations than his father could make him understand. Their bones rested in the ossuary, while those more recently lost lay with his grandparents beside the church. Once white, it was now scarred with burn-black, half its dome destroyed, its walls pitted by firing squads. Nearby, Jewish and Christian bodies lay together in a mass grave of sadness and anonymity that also held his father, but he wouldn’t look there.
   The first pink rays of the sun tinted his grandmother’s grave her favourite colour, and remembering her voice and wise words, he smiled. Babusya was always with him along with his grandfather’s knife, and straightening himself with pride as they had taught him to do, he spoke to the gravestone.
   ‘I am Andrej Borysko Yakiv Kolisnychenko,’ he stated. ‘And no-one can rob me of my name.’