I am lucky enough to be part of another fab blog tour today. This one celebrate The Man in The Dark by Jonathan Whitelaw which comes out on Thursday. I have a guest post from Jonathan today and if you like the sound of that, you can click here to pre-order your copy of the book. Don't forget to check out the rest of the stops on the tour for more exclusive content and reviews!
Here's what it's all about...
The Devil's back - and he's STILL not had a holiday.
There's another mystery to solve - a woman kidnapped by terrorists and the world trying to find her. While he hates doing God's bidding, The Devil can't resist trying to put one over on Him. But nothing is EVER that simple.
While the Devil helps the London cops crack the case, there's trouble in the Underworld. And two of humanity's greatest backstabbers - Brutus and Cassius - are sharpening their knives with an eye on stealing his crown.
It's a race against time to find the girl, be the bad guy and maybe stop the apocalypse.
And here's Jonathan's words of wisdom on his inspiration...
One of the real head scratching questions I’ve been asked since HellCorp came out has been - where did you get your idea from? The simple answer is - I’m not quite sure.
Now I know that’s a cop-out. And it’s also strictly not true. So yes, I’m a big fibber. I’m terrible, I know!
The idea for the series really came from my frankly appalling jealousy of all the great crime writers out there doing so much great work. Denise Mina, Val McDermid, Mark Billingham, seriously, they’re just SO good at what they do. And the green-eyed monster bit me bad. As a writer, I always knew I could try and turn my hand to anything. It comes from my work as a digital journalist where you don’t know what story will come across your desk next. One minute it might be breaking news about a terrible fire or car crash, the next you’re interviewing a stand-up comedian about their show at the Edinburgh Fringe. Then the next hour it’s onto the complexities and backstabbing of politics. And after lunch you could be covering court cases.
Don’t get me wrong, I love it, I thrive on it and I’m very, very lucky to be able to do it almost every day. And that has normally translated to my fiction writing too. Except crime. I guess I was just too scared to start - which is always a killer for any project.
I gave myself a shake and realised this was an itch that needed scratching. So I started thinking about what my leading character would be like. Now we’ve seen, quite literally, every sort of cop-on-the-edge there is. If they aren’t alcoholics they’re sociopaths. If they aren’t renegades who play by their own rules then they’re single parents struggling with the work/life balance. On and on and on, we’ve been there before a hundred times.
I wanted my detective to be different. I wanted an anti-hero but they were all busy. So I thought, hold on, who’s the ultimate anti-hero? There really was only one candidate. The Prince of Darkness, Old 666, The Man in the Dark himself - The Devil.
And from there the book really took shape. With that central character of a smart-alecky, fiercely intelligent, opinionated and suave Satan, the pieces all came together nicely. The rest of the cast slotted into place and HellCorp was born.
Now we’re sitting with The Man in the Dark ready to go. The Devil is back but perhaps not as everyone is expecting. There’s set to be a few surprises even he wasn’t expecting. And throwing those curve-balls in his direction is what keeps me going. Brilliant stuff.
Author Info
Jonathan Whitelaw is an author, journalist and broadcaster. After working on the frontline of Scottish politics, he moved into journalism. Subjects he has covered have varied from breaking news, the arts, culture and sport to fashion, music and even radioactive waste with everything in between. He's also a regular reviewer and talking head on shows for the BBC and STV. ‘HellCorp’ is his second novel following his debut, ‘Morbid Relations’.
Twitter: https://twitter.com/
FB Author Page: https://www.facebook.com/
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Thanks so much to Jonathan for stopping by and sharing that with us today. Don't forget to check out the rest of the blogs on the tour!
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