Drug Groomer by W.C. Gordon

FORENSIC FILES

Elvis Costello fills the cool air inside my department-issued, grey Toyota Camry. The A/C is on high and struggling against the South Florida summer heat. Elvis belts out what was once considered an angst-ridden song but is now Classic Rock. Soft rock at that. This will be my last few moments of comfort before I battle the outside heat, followed by the stifling, still warm air of the indoors. The indoors without an A/C running. And the smell. Bodies decompose far quicker in high humidity and high temperatures. It’s Tuesday. Yesterday was a holiday and the groomers were closed. It was last open on Friday. Her son is allowed to live in the back area when the shop isn’t open. So that puts the time of death sometime after 4 o’clock on Friday and now. I look at my watch—a Citizen Eco-Drive that my wife got me for my 40th. It’s 9:30 am. I need coffee. 

I pull up to the front of the shop. Scruffy to Fluffy. Very clever. I take quick stock of the scene: Five police cruisers. That’s a bit excessive for what they’ve already determined is an overdose. That being said, I know that two of the officers on scene are salty old vets just trying to hump this call for as long as possible to avoid being dispatched to another call. I see a very distraught woman at the front of the business being consoled by another, far less distraught, woman. I’ll assume that is the mother of the newly deceased. Thank goodness. Nothing worse than having to do a death notification. That’s the hardest part of the job. Figuring out how someone died is typically easy. Notifying their next-of-kin that their dearly beloved whoever has shed their mortal coil is usually an emotional endeavor. Usually but not always. When the family has located the decedent, that relieves me of the burden of the notification. 

Bobby, one of the old salts, walks over to my car. I roll the window down and ask who the primary officer is. He says it's Valinucci. Fantastic. A great cop who’s got more time backing his patrol car up to a curb than I do in a uniform. I ask Bobby to send him out to me. Within a few minutes, Valinucci is walking out to my car with a big smile on his face. He knows the drill and gets into the passenger’s seat. 

“How’s my all-time favorite detective doing?” he says with a smile. 

“Who knows? He’s probably at Lighthouse Diner enjoying a big breakfast with an even bigger mistress!” With that, Nooch lets out a laugh and we catch up on some small talk. Always invite the officer to have a seat in your car. Little things like getting the basics of an initial investigation inside the comfort of an air-conditioned vehicle do not go unnoticed by a patrolman. 

“How’s the mom?” I ask. 

“Heartbroken, but she gets it. She knows his issues. Enabled him. The usual. Thirty-six years old and living in the back of her grooming shop doing dope after hours.” 

I make my way to the side entrance of the shop and sign the crime scene log. I can already smell it. That being said, the stench is not as bad as I prepared myself for. Not quite as heavy and cold as I anticipated. At least not yet. I walk past the grooming tables and bathing stations that are set up. I admire the organization of the brushes, combs, and shears that are neatly placed on a pegboard. The shelf has all manner of shampoos and conditioners. Eye and ear cleaning kits. I see a separate area for leashes and harnesses that brings to memory a human trafficking case. 

As I approach the restroom, I can see through the threshold of the door what I recognize as a Vans checkboard slip-on shoe. I didn’t know grown men still wore those. I had a pair when I used to skateboard. I was thirteen then. 

The decedent is in what is commonly referred to as the “praying position.” That’s when the body is found in a kneeling position, bent over, with the head between the knees. Lividity is noted as set and appears consistent with body positioning. His face is mushed into the floor and appears to be beginning to become one with the terrazzo. There is a considerable, but not excessive, amount of fluid around the head. Most perceive it to be vomit but it's actually a foam. An opioid overdose causes the heart and lungs to slow which causes fluid to gather in the lungs. That fluid mixes with carbon dioxide and exits the mouth in a foam-like form. When someone dies on their back, a foam cone erupts from their mouth. You never quite enjoy a snow cone after seeing it. 

I reach down and take hold of a finger. I have done this bare-handed in the past but with the lethality of fentanyl, or the even deadlier carfentanyl, I am sure to glove up first. The finger feels cold but in reality, is only room temperature. Rigor mortis is long gone and the skin is retracting. The medical examiner will call this ‘secondary flaccidity.’ So far, in this heat, I’m thinking he probably OD’d sometime Saturday. I give the body a quick scan and… What. The. Hell?! There’s a very familiar sticky thing attached to this guy’s lower right leg. Right above the shoe normally worn by a teenager. It’s a telemetry lead used to run an EKG. 

“Did rescue come in here?” I ask, to nobody in particular. 

“Yeah, they ran a lead on the guy.” Shouts the officer maintaining the crime scene log. 

“You’re telling me they couldn’t figure out this guy was done?”

“I guess not.” 

“I’m surprised they didn’t shove Narcan up his nose.” This last comment didn’t solicit a response from the officer. Probably a good thing, as I think the mother of the deceased could probably hear me shouting. I don’t know who I’m more annoyed by; the evidence destruction team marching in here with their dirty bunker gear to run an EKG strip on an obvious corpse or the officers for allowing it. Whatever; it's not exactly the crime of the century. 

I tip the decedent over to find what I’m looking for. And there it is, a syringe; however, I also cause the guy to expel some long pent-up gases. Now the stench has fully engulfed the room. I have what I need and make my way out of the business with haste. 

A quick call to the medical examiner goes as expected: “Thirty-six-year-old white male… Moderate decomposition… No signs of trauma or deformity… History of drug use… Narcotics paraphernalia in the area… Needle… Yeah, needle, like a syringe… Yep… Yep… Ok… Great, thanks.”

My A/C is on full blast but the windows are down. I need the cold air on my face but also allow the dead guy’s scent to escape as it is lingering on my shirt. I debate about having the mom sit in the car. I decide against it. When I’m done, I can walk away from her but getting her out of my car could be a chore. 

I walk over to the grieving mom and the conversation goes as expected: “My deepest condolences… Looks to be an accidental narcotic-related overdose… It’s such a terrible disease… Yes, ma’am, I will be doing everything in my power to bring the evil person who sold your son these drugs to justice… Yes, they can be charged with homicide… I will be in touch with you when the toxicology results come from the medical examiner’s office… Take care, ma’am.”

I then walk over to Bobby and tell him that the ME is not coming out. They’re going to send the body snatchers to scoop up the dead guy. I tell him to call me if they find anything out of the norm when they move the body. 

Back to my car for more glorious A/C and to hear Elvis sing about watching detectives. Now for the most important decision of the morning: where to get a good cup of coffee. 

W.C. Gordon is a cop, veteran, and author of the novel The Detective Next Door. His writing is influenced by his personal experiences in the military and in law enforcement, which he then mixes with bourbon and dark humor. He lives at his home in South Florida with his wife and dog.

Murder, Mystery, and Mayhem at Killer Nashville International Writers' Conference

Murder, Mystery & Mayhem at Killer Nashville
by Joseph W. Borden

You’ve just arrived in Nashville after a long and arduous flight. The night is dark, maybe it’s storming. Your feet are sore, eyes tired. You’re just about at your wits end. You hail a cab. “To Killer Nashville,” you yell, “and step on it!” After dragging, pushing, pulling all your luggage inside and checking in, you finally get to your hotel room. But when you open the door, you see furniture overturned, drawers opened, their contents strewn across the floor. But, worst of all, there’s a dead body occupying your bed!

This is scene you might’ve witnessed at Killer Nashville 2019—albeit something would have to go very wrong at check-in for you to wind up in the room that hosts the mock crime scene each year.

Nashville has long been known for its ties to country music, but what about its connection to murder, mystery, and mayhem? Since 2006, each August, Nashville has been home to The Killer Nashville International Writers’ Conference. The conference, a bastion of the dastardly, hosts about 350 mystery, thriller, and suspense writers each year. These miscreants and ne'er-do-wells are blackguards of the darkest kind—each of them well versed in the languages of espionage, foul play, and general malfeasance. The 2019 conference featured Guests of Honor Alexandra Ivy, David Morrell, and Joyce Carol Oates, all of whom are renowned storytellers and purveyors of the perilous.

Killer Nashville boasts over 60 educational sessions throughout the weekend, ranging from subjects as innocent as “Reviews & How to Get Them” to more nefarious ones such as “Evolution of the Cyber Threat Actor.” Aside from writers, the event brings agents, editors, and other industry professionals from all corners of the globe—and everyone is there for a shared purpose: to learn, connect, master the art of murder…of fictional characters, of course.

The mock crime scene that is featured at Killer Nashville each year is one of the most popular aspects of the conference, as one might expect at an event filled with current/former law enforcement officials and admirers of the macabre. Staged by forensic professionals, the crime scene is an adaptation of real crime scenes they have encountered. Throughout the weekend, attendees work to solve the murder of Ralph David Reed. They attempt to piece together the mystery by using the clues left on scene and by watching pre-recorded witness & suspect interviews. Whomever gets the closest to solving the murder is awarded the Dupin Detective award. This year, Amanda Feyerbend took home this honor, the only one of 100+ participants to deduce every single fact about the “murder” correctly.

“The Killer Nashville Mock Crime Scene was such a great experience!” said Feyerbend. “As I walked around the room, I tried to put on my investigator’s hat and soak up everything I could about the intricate scene. I’d hoped to win the Dupin Detective Award, and when Former Assistant Director [of the TBI] Dan Royse said all those kind words and called my name, I was ecstatic. It’s such an honor. The whole conference was amazing, and I can't wait to come back next year.”

But it’s not all fun and murder games at the conference; there’s also glory to be earned at the Killer Nashville Awards Dinner. Villains and vagabonds alike come together to listen to speeches from Guests of Honor & scholarship winners, and to see who will go home with coveted Killer Nashville awards. Killer Nashville coordinates two large award competitions: the Silver Falchion Award & the Claymore Award.

The Silver Falchion Award honors the best books readily available to a North American audience in both fiction and nonfiction from the previous year. The competitions recognizes books in 10 different categories relating to mystery, thriller, suspense and all the fiendish iterations those genres can form. From those categories, only one can be honored as Book of the Year. The 2019 Book of the Year recipient was author Baron R. Birtcher for his title Fistful of Rain. Birtcher also won Best Action Adventure and Best Attending Author for the same title—one could say he’s a dangerous man, indeed.

Of his award, Birtcher said, “I'm still trying to wrap my head around the honor of having won the Silver Falchion for Book of the Year! I've been attending Killer Nashville for 10 years now, and it still stands as my favorite. Drawing incredibly talented writers from all over the world, the programs, panels, networking, and above all, the camaraderie among the attendees is unparalleled. There is a reason that Killer Nashville is considered to be one of the preeminent writer’s conferences on the planet.  "

The Killer Nashville Claymore Award is one that is particularly special to the conference, as it recognizes the best 50 first pages of an unpublished manuscript. Most of the writers who enter the Claymore Award competition have never been published before (mischief-makers in training, if you will). In 2019, for the first time in its decade-long history, the Claymore Award had a tie for first place. Originally, it was suggested that a tiebreaker would be had by way of knife fight but, eventually, the contest judges concluded that less bloodshed would be preferable, from a PR perspective.

"Winning the 2019 Claymore Award was an enormous gift of confidence for me,” said John Carenen, who won for his title Breathtaking in the Blue Ridge. “I was delighted to be one of the 20 finalists and stunned when my name was announced at the Awards Dinner. And to have David Morrell present the award added to what was a surreal moment. I don't think anything that follows in my writing career can top that event."

Joseph Simurdiak took home the Claymore for his historical fantasy A Red Autumn Wind. Of his experience, Simurdiak said, “Killer Nashville enthusiastically cultivate[s] new and rising voices. [M]any Claymore finalists go on to land book deals, and I felt like I'd crossed some kind of threshold. It [the night he won the Claymore] was truly one of the most amazing nights of my life, the realization of a childhood dream. But it was also a huge step in an even larger journey, one in which the following chapter is already underway.”

Although it may be a conference full of those who have one foot in the dirty underworld of society (strictly—well, mostly—in a fictional sense), the overall goal for Killer Nashville is to create a nurturing environment in which writers at all stages of their careers can come together to better their writing and make lasting connections with like minds. So come, all ye scoundrels, and see what all the buzz is about. It’s truly an experience to die for.

How to Prepare for Accidental Inspiration / Alex Dolan

As writers we know that inspiration can come from anywhere at anytime. It's important to be alert and soak in the details of the world around you. Often times we draw inspiration from our non-fictional surroundings to power us through creating our fictitious tale. In this week’s guest blog, author Alex Dolan shares the story of how he got inspiration for his upcoming novel, The Empress of Tempera, and how you can get inspiration for yourself.Happy reading!Clay StaffordFounder Killer NashvillePublisher / Editorial Director Killer Nashville Magazine

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How to Prepare for Accidental Inspiration

How to Prepare for Accidental Inspiration
By Alex Dolan

A few years ago I wandered into the Weinstein Gallery in San Francisco to kill time during lunch. I was staring at the work of an artist I’d never seen, and noting my interest, one of the staff shared his story.

The artist was a man named Rudolf Bauer, a German painter who rose to fame before World War II, and someone who was influential to some artists who have become household names, such as Kandinsky, Chagall and Klee. In fact, Bauer was so significant, his primary benefactor, Solomon Guggenheim, commissioned Frank Llloyd Wright to design a modern art museum on 5th Avenue in Manhattan to house his collection.

Yep, that Guggenheim Museum was built for this guy. So why haven’t you ever heard of Bauer?

He was a popular painter while Hitler was coming to power. As an artist, especially an artist whose primary benefactor was a Jewish American, he was a target. He was arrested for his “degenerate” art and spent several months in a Gestapo prison. With help from Guggenheim, Bauer found passage to the United States, and signed a contract that set him up with a house and Duesenberg convertible.

The problem was, Bauer didn’t read English, and signed a contract he didn’t fully understand. The contract also stated that Bauer couldn’t earn any income in the U.S. as a painter. All of the money he made through his works would go to the Guggenheim family.

Bauer sunk into depression and stopped painting, and the Guggenheims ended up boxing up the collection and storing it in the basement of the museum, where it festered in anonymity for decades. It was only when the museum changed curators and unboxed the archive that they rediscovered an artist who had been condemned to obscurity by one of the wealthiest families in America.

I thought the story was fascinating. I went back several times to get more details, and read as much as I could about Bauer. In the end, the story provided the seed that grew into my novel, The Empress of Tempera (Sept. 13, 2016 release).

I didn’t want to retell Bauer’s story (just in case anyone’s wondering if I just gave spoilers for my own book), but I was driven by the idea that a family with wealth and influence could expunge the memory of a prominent artist. It’s an old story — the rich versus the underprivileged. I played with the idea of what might happen if a painting from a forgotten artist was discovered, and that discovery stirred up a blood feud that had been dormant for decades. David and Goliath. Rocky and Apollo Creed. The underdog story. I added my own spin on it by inserting a protagonist who was a kleptomaniac, who becomes obsessed with the painting and needs to steal it for herself. Then, the mayhem was easy to release.

All of this came from a willingness to go somewhere new and talk to someone.

I believe that fiction and storytelling is a way of mirroring back what’s happening in our world. So it makes sense that the inspiration for your next great story can come from the real world. As part of my show, “Thrill Seekers,” I interview thriller writers who have been at this for a lot longer than I have, and I often hear how they found their initial creative inspiration in a headline, or when they were visiting a new place, or when they had a novel experience. All of these writers seem to have the universal trait of being curious to digest what’s happening in the world. Eventually, something they learned or someone they met worms its way into fiction.

I also think it’s easier to find inspiration when you’re looking for it. So, I’m nosy. If someone’s telling me something interesting, I ask her for all the gruesome details. I’ll let him talk himself hoarse. Maybe this will become the start of something wonderful, and maybe I’ll just learn something interesting to share with another friend. Eventually, when I listen hard enough, I find something.

I recommend anyone who’s trying to come up with new story ideas to soak up as much of the world around you as possible. The more you read, watch, talk, and listen, the more likely the Isaac Newton apple will fall on your head.

Louis Pasteur said, “Chance favors only the prepared mind,” and I agree. Inspiration can find you at any moment. But it helps if you’re looking for it.

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Alex Dolan is the author of The Empress of Tempera and The Euthanist. He’s also a California-based musician and the host of Thrill Seekers, part of Authors on the Air Global Radio Network. Reach him here.

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(To be a part of the Killer Nashville Guest Blog, send a query to contact@killernashville.com. We’d love to hear from you.)

Thanks to Tom Wood, Arthur Jackson, and publisher/editorial director Clay Stafford for their assistance in putting together this week’s blog.

For more writer resources, visit us at www.KillerNashville.com, www.KillerNashvilleMagazine.com, and www.KillerNashvilleBookCon.com.

And be sure to check out our new book, Killer Nashville Noir: Cold-Blooded, an anthology of original short stories by New York Times bestselling authors and newbies alike.

*Killer Nashville is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program. If you purchase a book from the links on this page, Amazon will give Killer Nashville a small percentage of the total sale. Killer Nashville receives zero compensation (other than sometimes the book to review) from publishers who have been selected for the Book of the Day.

Murder as a Secondary Storyline in the Novel / Shana Thornton

Sometimes when we get done writing we sit back, look at the finished product, and wonder what's missing. We wonder what is keeping this story from being the suspenseful piece of work that we want it to be. Often times, that answer can be that a story is perhaps too linear. It can, of course, be comfortable to stay in our comfort zone and stick with an easy-to-write plot. What we sometimes must do instead is keep the reader turning pages with a secondary plot. In this week's guest blog, author Shana Thornton shares her experience with doing just that.Happy reading!Clay StaffordFounder Killer NashvillePublisher / Editorial Director Killer Nashville Magazine

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Murder as a Secondary Storyline in the Novel

Murder as a Secondary Storyline in the Novel
By Shana Thornton

Writers often say they have a finished novel, but it’s missing something to make it a more suspenseful story. Maybe there’s not enough action in the book to hold your attention as the writer, and your fears could materialize if a reader stops reading your book due to lack of tension to make them turn those pages. Consider adding a crime, specifically, a murder as a secondary storyline. The murder does not have to happen to your character or even someone they know, and it can still be a captivating, secondary plot line for your readers.

When murder is a secondary storyline in your novel, you enrich your story with an event that could motivate your character(s) to make different choices. As with real life, when a murder takes place nearby, people are naturally preoccupied by the investigation happening in their community or on the news. Your main character could easily become obsessed with a murder, and you reveal more about the character’s mind to the reader. Simply by showing fear in the character’s mind, you increase the tension of the story.

A murder as a secondary story line adds suspense to a book that may not have any or enough, and the murder keeps the reader on edge, wondering if the crime will become more important and in essence, take over the story. For example, in my first novel, Multiple Exposure, my main point for writing the book was to show how fear and war affect the family members of soldiers who are deployed. I wanted to focus on the heightened state of fear caused by 9/11 and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. I decided to show those themes through a narrator, Ellen Masters, whose husband is a Special Forces medic and photographer. He is deployed for the majority of the present-day action of the book. During that time, Ellen teaches classes at a university and three students are brutally murdered at a park near her home.

This secondary plot line can also help with character development. The character experiences fear in my book. For Ellen, the murder becomes an obsession that leads to heightened anxiety. When she arrives home, she looks under the beds, in the closets, behind doors, waiting for a murderer to come after her. You could also show a character’s compassion, courage, and/or shock and disconnect to a murder.

You could also push the suspense beyond a focus on the main character(s), and develop the tension in the larger community. For my book, not only does the reader face the murder and fear through Ellen’s eyes, but she goes on to show the reactions of the community where she lives. She describes how the college students on campus react to the loss of the murdered students. This reveals more about the setting and the people who live in that setting. In the reader’s mind, the story can become expansive as you show the community, press coverage, and how groups deal with the aftermath of a murder in differing ways.

Two storylines can be intimidating, especially in the beginning of the writing process. To maintain both storylines, keep the main plot line simple and weave in enough to entertain your readers and keep them guessing about what may happen next. Eventually, the two storylines will become entwined, even if only in the character’s mind. You will create added depth and tension to your characters and the overall story.

One common mistake when pitching a book with a secondary storyline is that we writers often forget to highlight that plot line when describing the book. Recently, I was at a book event and continuously pitched my book as a war novel from the point of view of a soldier’s spouse. Later, as more readers stopped to talk, someone asked me if I had any murder mysteries, and that's when I realized that I had been giving a book spiel that didn’t include the murder suspense part of my novel. Work on a pitch for your book that incorporates both storylines into the description. Chances are that readers will be interested in one or the other. You’ll gain readers who enjoy the murder mystery/suspense side of your story, and they will turn those pages as quickly as they can read the words to find out what happens next.

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Shana Thornton is the author of two novels, Poke Sallet Queen & the Family Medicine Wheel (2015) and Multiple Exposure (2012), and co-author of the nonfiction creativity book, Seasons of Balance: On Creativity & Mindfulness (2016). Shana is a native middle-Tennessean. She earned an M.A. in English from Austin Peay State University. She was the Editor-in-Chief of Her Circle Ezine, an online women's magazine featuring authors, artists, and activists. She is the owner of Thorncraft Publishing, an independent publisher of literature written by women (thorncraftpublishing.com). Shana lives in Tennessee with her family.

To read Shana’s interviews with women authors and activists, visit Her Circle.

To read more of her nonfiction, visit her blog.

Follow her on Twitter @shanathornton

Instagram @shana_trailbalance

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(To be a part of the Killer Nashville Guest Blog, send a query to contact@killernashville.com. We’d love to hear from you.)

Thanks to Tom Wood, Arthur Jackson, and publisher/editorial director Clay Stafford for their assistance in putting together this week’s blog.

For more writer resources, visit us at www.KillerNashville.com, www.KillerNashvilleMagazine.com, and www.KillerNashvilleBookCon.com.

And be sure to check out our new book, Killer Nashville Noir: Cold-Blooded, an anthology of original short stories by New York Times bestselling authors and newbies alike.

*Killer Nashville is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program. If you purchase a book from the links on this page, Amazon will give Killer Nashville a small percentage of the total sale. Killer Nashville receives zero compensation (other than sometimes the book to review) from publishers who have been selected for the Book of the Day.

Live From Bangalore: A Book's Journey

It’s no secret that the world is shrinking; globalization, social media, and widespread availability of the internet has made the exchange of information between distant locales easier and faster than ever before. But what effect does this brave new world have on publishing.

Author and Bangalore-based businessman Vasudev Murthy recounts his own publishing experiences and how this global market has allowed his works to take minds, and journies, of their own.

A Book's Journey

By Vasudev Murthy

They say that every book finds its reader. In 2016, that could well mean someone in a tiny town in Brazil or in Seoul in Korea.

I live in Bangalore, a city in southern India. I write on a variety of subjects—Music, Crime, Humour, Management . . . I have a lot to say and I shall keep writing. I’ve been published by Rupa, Sage, Bloomsbury, HarperCollins, Poisoned Pen Press and a few more. I realize that I’ve been very fortunate.

But this is not about my fortune but the interesting experience of suddenly finding my books being read in far-away places. Much happens by serendipity as I shall show.

I wrote Sherlock Holmes in Japan in 2012-13. It was published by HarperCollins India and was then showcased by them at the Frankfurt Book Fair. Robert Rosenwald, the CEO of Poisoned Pen Press bumped into someone at the HarperCollins stall and decided to acquire the US rights. PPP renamed the book Sherlock Holmes, the Missing Years: Japan and did an additional round of editing and launched it in the US in March 2015 with a gorgeous cover.

Things became even more interesting. Shortly thereafter, HarperCollins sold the Portuguese language rights to Editora Vestigio in Brazil. It was translated with a great deal of finesse by Ana Oliviera and appears to have become very popular. The book’s production was quite wonderful and the cover design daring and different. What a pity I can’t read the language!

I developed a positive relationship with PPP (in distant Arizona) and worked with them on planning my next book. And soon, I signed a contract with PPP for Sherlock Holmes, the Missing Years: Timbuktu. The book was published in January 2016.

Meanwhile, a Korean publisher called Gamesman reached out to HarperCollins and acquired the Korean language rights. Their particular speciality is the sale of one e-chapter at a time; Korea has apparently adopted e-Books in a very big way. Along with that has come new business models which allows readers to decide on moving ahead chapter by chapter; that’s pressure on a writer to keep things interesting throughout or lose the reader!

A friend in Japan introduced a major publisher Kokusho-Kankokai to HarperCollins India which resulted in the sale of the Japanese language rights, something that I was hoping for at the back of my mind.

But what has all this taught me?

One: the world is truly shrinking. Deals are made faster than ever before and publishers are unafraid of placing their bets on a relatively unknown writer if the theme is compelling enough.

Two: the book you write has a life of its own. I can no longer control its destination and I have no way of knowing how true the translation is. It’s a risk worth taking. One never knows what may happen. For instance, a reader in Brazil made a video about it!

Three: your neighbour in Bangalore does not know who you are, except as the guy with the barking dogs, but people in tiny towns in Brazil and the US do and often write in. I find it slightly surreal. The books have made me an international citizen in a way.

Four: it’s very exhilarating working with publishers and editors overseas and seeing how they think. It’s enriching for the writing process. For example, Timbuktu needed a great deal of research. The publisher worked with me from concept to completion. That’s a wonderful example of how the writing process need not be solitary in this age, and can call upon well-wishers from across vast distances.

Five: speed and responsiveness is king. The quick exchange of information, photographs and graphics ensures that a book is out faster than ever before. That means both publishers and writers need to have a great sense of urgency. And communication needs to be crisp and clear.

Six: Marketing has changed. Book launches don’t happen for me because it’s not possible to travel vast distances. I have to support my publisher in whichever way they think best, which these days may include video interviews or blog submissions. I am fairly active on twitter and that does help.

Seven: you may write for a certain audience and include unusual cultural references; the reader is liberal and prepared to find out what you mean. However, there is an additional responsibility placed on us to be rigorous in our research or risk criticism. And what about the poor translator who must be so precise in conveying the syntax as well as the nuance?

This is the journey my book has taken. I hope you find it self-explanatory. Who knows how this picture will look after the Timbuktu book gathers steam?

Vasudev Murthy has authored books on a variety of subjects including music, crime, management and humor. His publishers include Sage, HarperCollins, Bloomsbury, Poisoned Pen Press, Editora Vestigio, Gamesman, LiFi, Kokusho-Kankokai and Rupa, and his book Sherlock Holmes in Japan (Harper Collins, India) has been translated into Portuguese, Korean and Japanese.

Vasudev lives in Bangalore, India where he runs a consulting firm. When he's not knee deep in researching or writing his next book, he can be found teaching, conducting animal welfare seminars, playing the violin, or twisting his aging body into improbable yoga asanas. He has been rescued by six dogs who highly recommend his books as an excellent source of dietary fiber.