When I started my thriller novel, The Simeon Scroll, I had no idea about The Armageddon Trilogy. I didn’t even have any thoughts about Joe Fagan as a serial character. In fact, the Simeon Scroll had a rather checkered start. When I sent the first draft to my editor, he was less than complimentary.

‘Why would anyone want to write another Dan Brown book?’

Sam Llewellyn, my editor (and best-selling author), can be brutally honest. But the most painful part is he is usually right (Sam would say always 🙂 ). Which was frustrating for me as I had not set out to do that.

One of the things that I realized as I studied his detailed comments, the story that was in my head, was not the one on the page (which to this day is something I am constantly working on). I went through a major redevelopment and rewrite, and discovered what I really wanted the story to be. I resubmitted it to Sam, my editor. His response made me smile (in fact, it made me jump up and down).

‘This is more like it. It starts out like a Dan Brown, but it rapidly becomes Robert Ludlum.’

By the time I had finished the Simeon Scroll, The Armageddon Trilogy was in my head, and so was the idea of the Joe Fagan series. Which also prompted me to write the prequel, The Journey.

Interestingly, it was on this journey, I discovered the two personas, Joe Fagan and Father Joseph Fagan. Rather than just backstory, this became the theme of what this character was all about, and is a struggle that Fagan has to deal with throughout all his books.

So the Simeon Scroll and the complete Armageddon Trilogy came to life. I’m not trying to be like any other writer in my books, but I do write the kind of books I would like to read. As I say on the homepage of my website.

I love stories.

You know, the kind that hooks you in from the first page and carries you on into another world. A world full of threats and intrigue.

A world full of secrets.

Yes that’s me. If you like that kind of story check out The Armageddon Trilogy. You can get the prequel, The Journey for FREE (click on the link to get it), but as I point out in quite a few places, if you don’t like spoilers, I recommend you read The Simeon Scroll first (it’s only 99c on Amazon), then read The Journey, which fills in all the pieces, then move on to The Final Pontiff, and from there to the final book in the trilogy, The Day of Wrath.

If your a binge reader, you can get the whole Armageddon Trilogy, plus the prequel, in a boxset at a discounted price (which is still a good deal even if you bought The Simeon Scroll).

Of course I became bitten by Joe Fagan’s character and though the Armageddon Trilogy came to an end, Joe Fagan continued and can now be seen in The Jade Mountain Queen. I’m planning a new story for Joe Fagan later this year but in between I’m working on a new story with a new character. I’m calling it January’s Child. It’s still a thriller but this one is more of a spy story. If you join my Readers’ Group you’ll get updates on my progress.

I said that my blog had been neglected for a long time but I won’t get into the reasons why.
However I do feel bad about this particular short blog because I wrote it and never posted it,
and it was about someone I admired as a writer, a lot.
Still now having read it 2+ years later I still mean every word.

So here goes ´So Long Tom´ (originally written Mon, January 13, 2014)

Recently we said farewell to another great story teller. Gone to that great camp fire in the sky where all the great writers of the past sit around drinking cocoa ( or maybe the odd scotch) and tell their tales.
Like many, I first discovered Tom Clancy through ‘The Hunt for Red October’. I remember being totally blown away by it. For many it was the technical detail, the incredible inside knowledge that hooked them in. But personally, I believe that if you strip all that away at the heart of it was a great story with great characters.
Even though his books were great fat tomes, I was consumed by them. I personally always thought his books were usually a hundred pages or so too long. Tom could ramble on for 30 or 40 pages at a time, on some technical detail. But that’s just my opinion, I’m sure many readers loved that aspect of his books. But me, I was always champing at the bit to get back to the story.
I loved ‘Patriot Games’ and ‘Clear and Present Danger’ both of which made excellent movies, but I also loved ‘The Cardinal of the Kremlin’. I could go on.
Tom went on to great stardom, great wealth, Video Games?? (who knows where life will take us). But he was another of the great storytellers who made me want to tell stories, to weave that magic which had enthralled me since I was a kid, sitting around the fire with my brothers and sisters, listening to my Dad tell his stories of the Second World War. I was the one sitting with his mouth open, seeing the story unfold like a movie in my head. Not a lot’s changed. It’s just taken a little longer to get them into print, but I never gave up. I know I never will.
So long Tom, and thanks for all the great stories.

Why is it that seemingly the worst things happen at the worst times? What’s that classic quotation? Oh yes – ‘Shit happens’. But often in the midst of a bad experience, at a time when you’re feeling jumped on, kicked in the teeth, on your knees with only one thought in your mind – Why me? – something else happens, something good. In fact sometimes the bad thing had to happen before the good thing could.

A few months ago my wife, Gigi and I, and our 13 year old, golden retriever, Petra, packed up the car from our house in southern Spain and headed north, for the UK. I had important business in a week’s time and expected to be there for a few months, hence driving there rather than flying. We had been on the road for about ten hours and had just crossed the border into France. We were travelling on the motorway at 130 kph, an hour or so from a glass of good French wine, dinner, and glorious bed (what’s the old song – ‘Only 24 hours from Tulsa’). Suddenly the engine juddered and cut out. I glanced down at the dashboard. An ominous, orange figure of an engine glowed in the centre of the instrument panel. We were in the outside lane and I had my foot down, now I had no power and a highway full of thundering six and eight wheeler trucks, seemingly intent on the same destination as me. The hard shoulder was only a narrow strip with a metal crash barrier running alongside it. It seemed miles away. I manoeuvred my way gingerly across the intervening lanes, punctuated by the screech of the horns of irate truck drivers, and somehow managed to bring the car to a stop. But our problems were only just beginning.

It was dark and trucks were thundering by at a hell of a speed. I realised I hadn’t put on the hazard lights. I quickly switched them on and got Gigi to get out of the car and climb over the barrier and away from the roadside. Petra was on the back seat, looking at me, unsure what was going on but with that unfailing look of trust in her eyes that she always had. I hope I wasn’t going to let her down. It was too dangerous to get out on the driver’s side of the car, so I climbed over into the passenger seat and stepped out between the car and the metal barrier. My wife was shouting at me to climb over but I looked back at Petra, she sat there, panting expectantly, her big pink tongue hanging out. The trucks were still racing past. Our car is a big 4X4 but I was still scared stiff that at any moment one of them would wipe us off the face of the earth. I opened the back door and jammed myself in the space so she couldn’t get past. The noise of the motorway was now much louder in the car and Petra was starting to get nervous. I was terrified she would jump out and run into the road. I found her lead on the floor and looped the chain over her head. I wound the leather lead around my hand and wrapped my arms around her. She’s a golden retriever and not small but she trusted me and didn’t try to struggle. Another truck screamed past, closer than ever, making the car shake with the vibration. Petra was getting nervous now. I manhandled her out of the car as quickly as I could and handed her across the barrier to my wife. At least the two most important things in my life were safe. My wife was yelling at me to climb over. I closed up the car and scrambled over the barrier, expecting our car to be swept away at any moment. We stood there, the three of us in the darkness and the growing chill of the evening and wondered what next.

A set of lights appeared in the nearside lane and started to slow, then its hazard lights began flashing, and out of the gloom appeared a large motorway service truck, the kind with the big flashing arrow on the back, warning approaching traffic to move over. Rescue at last. Our saviour called a tow truck and an hour later it arrived and we were all soon jammed into the confined space of the truck’s cab, my wife in the back and me on the seat next to the driver with Petra on my lap. The driver didn’t speak any English and my French is not what it used to be but between it and some Spanish that he knew we were able to communicate. He was looking at Petra.
“Does it bite?”
“No,” I said.
The driver then commenced to lean over and tickle Petra under the chin. She loved it of course but I was looking out of the windscreen. We were blasting along at some crazy speed in this battered old tow truck, with our car on the back and the driver seemingly only interested in our dog. The gods must have smiled on us at last, because we made it to the garage in one piece. As we pulled in to the yard the biggest German shepherd dog I’ve ever seen started to run around the truck barking like crazy. It was my turn to ask if she bites.
“No, she’s all woof, woof, woof,” the driver said. I hoped so.

It turns out he was right and after the ritual sniffing of Petra’s rear end it disappeared into the depths of the yard. I spent an hour trying to contact the service agent of my car manufacturer (I won’t say the name of the manufacturer but the car has a 7 year warranty) with no luck, while Petra managed to coax biscuits out of the garage owner’s wife and get her belly tickled. In the end I gave up and asked the garage owner, who was also the tow truck driver, if there was a hotel near by. He said yes and got on the phone. The next thing he was dropping us in front of a small hotel in a tiny village, miles from anywhere. We thanked him and he drove off leaving us standing there with a few retrieved belongings from the car and seemingly nothing else in the world.

The hotel owner greeted us with a smile, his name was Sebastian and thankfully he spoke excellent English. His hotel, was called ‘Le Bon Geours’ and we were in a village called Saint Geours de Maremne, somewhere in the depths of the Languedoc. We were too late for dinner but Sebastian made us sandwiches and I got my glass of wine (well more than one actually). He showed us to our room, we were exhausted so we showered quickly and climbed into bed, Petra climbed on and lay at out feet. My last thought before I drifted off – “At least we were still alive, and tomorrow was another day.”

And so it was, and the day after that, and the one after that too. After a series of increasingly unhelpful phone calls to the manufacturer’s agent, we finally got the car to a dealer. But that was it, no information, always good news tomorrow, we’ll call you but they never did, it was left to me to chase them around. So we were stuck, waiting for our car to be repaired, in this undoubtedly beautiful village, with nothing to do but sit outside the hotel in the sunshine.

Soon everyone in the village knew who we were, and our tale. They would stop and say hello to Petra, and with my halting French we would communicate a little. Each day, Gigi and I would sit out at one of the tables in front of the hotel, Petra lying on the floor between us, me scribbling away at a new story I had been kicking about in my head, and Gigi sketching ideas for her next series of paintings in her pad. Across from where we sat, were the church and the Mairie (the town hall), the traditional pillars of every French town. The symbols seemed to connect directly with a major element of my story, as indeed did the people of Saint Geours de Maremne, something I realised later as my story began to blossom. Before long people were waving to us as they passed, the local patisserie greeted us every day with smiles and the most wonderful pastries. At the end of the day we would wander up to the little bar at the corner where the welcome was always extremely friendly. The food in the hotel was excellent and everyone, from the waiters to the owner just looked after us so well. In the midst of all the corporate ignorance and downright obstinacy, we had found an oasis, surrounded by ordinary people, people who stood for traditional values, who cared about the little things in life, politeness, and concern for your fellow man.

It took two weeks before the dealer announced that the car’s engine was totally kaput and it would have to be shipped back to Spain for repair. By then my business opportunity was history so it was back home to Spain for us. We said goodbye to Sebastian with a strange feeling of regret and promised that in the future, when we were making this journey, our stop off point would be his hotel.

Here we are months later, our car repaired but not our relationship with the manufacturer. The events in that tiny village are now just memories but for me one thing remains clear in my mind. It’s people that matter and people caring about people is the most important, basic value in life. Brush aside all the corporate greed and insensitivity, the headlong rush of life, and you find it’s still alive, living in everyday, ordinary people – If you look for it. As John Lennon so succinctly said – ‘All you need is love’.

As a writer, I see my stories as movies that play out in my head as I am writing them. And probably like many writers I can be more of a dreamer than a writer. I find myself imagining which Hollywood actors will play the parts. When I’m deep into my contemplation I can even see the closing credits of the movie, the whole audience on their feet applauding, whilst I stand there with tears flooding down my cheeks, and those same actors patting me on the back. That’s usually when I wake up to a blank page staring at me, and the ever-present realization that it’s easier to dream it than to make it a reality.

But for me, it goes even further. My dream is always of a famous director calling me up and asking to turn my book into a movie. In my jumbled head of dreams there was only ever one director making that call. It was always Tony Scott.

So like many others in August of last year, I got up early, switched on my computer and was met with a shock that shook me so emotionally it stayed with me for days and days after. How desperate must someone feel to make that ultimate step? Tony Scott, larger than life Tony Scott, rumoured to have got a speeding ticket for travelling the fastest ever, on Ocean Boulevard on a motor bike. Tony Scott, dream maker, and from everything I have ever read about him, one of the nicest guys you could ever meet.

But I’m not sitting here to discuss what drove this man to end his fantastically fulfilled life, even though I have pondered it for hours. No, whenever someone I’m close to, or someone who is special in my life, dies, I try to spend a little time celebrating their life and thinking about how they brought a little sunshine into my life.

I have spent a lot of time thinking about why Tony Scott could make the thriller genre work on film, when so many failed. I have spent hours watching rubbish renditions of a genre that I love, especially when taking a novel that I have liked and seen it moved to the screen with disastrous consequences. But Tony Scott had that something special.

He made many great movies but my favourites, which are close to the genre I love, are ‘Enemy of the State’ and ‘Spy Game’.

‘Enemy of the State’, is just one of those great movies. I have lost count how many times I have seen it, but every time I watch it, it grabs me, even though I know what is going to happen next, I am still riveted to the story. It’s a great story, but essentially it is about how a man has everything taken from him by the ‘State’, his family, even his identity, and how he fights back.

‘Spy Game’, I don’t think ever made it on the box office stakes but I loved it. I have watched it many times and I still love it every time I see it. It’s a story about the old-fashioned spy game, but it’s about the people, it’s about love, it’s about loyalty, and more important it’s about sacrifice.

But why do they work so well. As a writer I have a number of touch points I try to use when I am writing, to make my stories be what I want them to be. On the top of my list is ‘emotion, emotion, emotion’. If you don’t have emotion in your story, if your readers don’t care about your characters, you have nothing.

Tony Scott had emotion in spades, it came out in his characters, it hit you on the screen, and you cared. That’s why you connected. I have read many tributes to Tony Scott, and the common theme I read from all the actors who worked for him was simple. He cared about them and they cared about him. You saw it on the screen, you felt it on the screen, and that’s what made the difference. That’s why you felt you knew Tony Scott, because he connected with you.

So life moves on. Who will make my movie now? Thankfully Tony Scott influenced many movies makers, whether directly or just by them coming up in a world where he was such a major force. Interestingly I like what Ben Affleck is doing as a director at the moment. So who knows?

God bless you Tony, sleep tight. It was nice knowing you..