Nearly all about `tec to be revealed in library talk
AUTHOR
Paul Charles will be giving a talk on his fictional sleuth Inspector
Starrett of the Garda at Lisburn City Library on Thursday October 1 (7.00pm)
- but at no stage of the proceedings will be reveal the Christian name of
his detective. You see the moniker of this cop is being kept under wraps in
the meantime. At least until Charles, originally from Magherafelt and now
based in Camden Town , divulges all in his next yarn.
In the meantime Paul is coming to Lisburn to tell everything else about this 'tec Starrett who figures in the novel Family Life which has just been published by Brandon Press and has been receiving rave reviews across the Atlantic in New York. Charles is best known as an impresario and agent on the international music scene. He took up writing whodunnits as a hobby and now after nearly a dozen novels finds that he is in serious demand as a writer. Family Life is his second Starrett tale and is set in Ramelton, Donegal ,where this good cop interrupts a family gathering of the Sweeney clan to inform the brothers that the one who is missing has turned up dead in suspicious circumstances in a warehouse.
Starrett knows that everyone of the remaining Sweeneys has something to hide as he sets out to find the murderer.
But what about that Christian name? "I'm producing a Starrett trilogy," explains Paul."The first one of the three was The Dust of Death which came out last year and in the. final story which I am about to write it will become apparent why Starrett has been reluctant to talk about the name his mum gave him."
Incidentally, that third book in the trilogy will be called Hello Darkness My Old Friend which is a line from a song by Paul Simon whom Charles knows well.
Charles has already created another top cop - teetotal Inspector Christy Kennedy, a native of Portrush, based in Camden Town. Kennedy is the 'tec searching for clues in The Beautiful Sound of Silence, another Charles detective story which after a successful run in hardback has now appeared on the shelves in a paperback version.
Charles will be reading extracts from Family Life in Lisburn that Thursday evening and answering questions about both his cops from the audience. "It won't be dull," he promises. "I love getting in front of a roomful of people with plenty to say and telling them all about Kennedy and Starrett who have become quite real to me."
Ulster Star
04/09/2009
