Today I'm delighted to welcome Hull crime writer Nick Quantrill, whose second novel, the eagerly anticipated The Late Greats, is published on Monday. Nick was one of the first Q&A guests back in November of last year and I reviewed his debut novel Broken Dreams last summer. Both Broken Dreams and The Late Greats feature Hull PI Joe Geraghty, a complex and driven character, and in this guest post Nick explains how Joe came into being.
Stories within stories and the Joe Geraghty novels
The Late Greats and my debut novel, Broken Dreams are both tagged as ‘Joe Geraghty novels’, and rightly so. But when I started writing about Joe, I was largely flying by the seat of my pants. The broad outline was clear in my mind — he was to be a man in his early forties, very much of the city of Hull, and at heart, a decent man despite having suffered some kind of trauma earlier in his life. It came together quickly — Joe was to be a former Hull KR player to embed him in the city and he’d lost his wife in a house fire a few years previously. Now he was a Private Investigator. Beyond that, I had little on the page.
Joe needed somewhere to work, and more importantly, some colleagues. Joe was to work for ‘Don Ridley & Son’, a private investigation bureau run by Don and his daughter, Sarah. Don quickly became an ex-policeman, working towards retirement, and Joe was possibly the son he’d never had. Sarah was to be about the same age as Joe, a single mother, but much more capable than even her father realised.
I hadn’t really thought about Joe’s world any deeper than that, but as I was writing Broken Dreams, it started to click into place and I realised it could propel forward future novels. With The Late Greats, I started to think more seriously about it. Don’s background was as a CID officer. He’d worked in a regimented fashion for several decades, so that was to filter down to the partnership with Joe. When Joe’s approached to work for reformed Hull Britpop band, New Holland, Don’s not in favour. It’s not the kind of work he believes they should be doing. But to Joe it’s a paying job, and that’s not to be turned away. New Holland’s management has commissioned one journalist to document the process, but what Joe doesn’t anticipate is the possibility of a relationship, leading Sarah to accuse him of losing focus. Without too much considered thought, I was creating the conflict I needed to drive The Late Greats.
And the unmapped characters of Don and Sarah will drive future work on, too. I didn’t have to look too hard for a hook for the third Geraghty novel I’m working on. The Crooked Beat takes Don’s life as a policeman as a starting point. Was he always a principled man? Can there ever be a happy ending with Sarah? I suspect the more I explore the imaginary Hull I’ve created, the more I’ll discover stories within stories.
The Late Greats and my debut novel, Broken Dreams are both tagged as ‘Joe Geraghty novels’, and rightly so. But when I started writing about Joe, I was largely flying by the seat of my pants. The broad outline was clear in my mind — he was to be a man in his early forties, very much of the city of Hull, and at heart, a decent man despite having suffered some kind of trauma earlier in his life. It came together quickly — Joe was to be a former Hull KR player to embed him in the city and he’d lost his wife in a house fire a few years previously. Now he was a Private Investigator. Beyond that, I had little on the page.
Joe needed somewhere to work, and more importantly, some colleagues. Joe was to work for ‘Don Ridley & Son’, a private investigation bureau run by Don and his daughter, Sarah. Don quickly became an ex-policeman, working towards retirement, and Joe was possibly the son he’d never had. Sarah was to be about the same age as Joe, a single mother, but much more capable than even her father realised.
I hadn’t really thought about Joe’s world any deeper than that, but as I was writing Broken Dreams, it started to click into place and I realised it could propel forward future novels. With The Late Greats, I started to think more seriously about it. Don’s background was as a CID officer. He’d worked in a regimented fashion for several decades, so that was to filter down to the partnership with Joe. When Joe’s approached to work for reformed Hull Britpop band, New Holland, Don’s not in favour. It’s not the kind of work he believes they should be doing. But to Joe it’s a paying job, and that’s not to be turned away. New Holland’s management has commissioned one journalist to document the process, but what Joe doesn’t anticipate is the possibility of a relationship, leading Sarah to accuse him of losing focus. Without too much considered thought, I was creating the conflict I needed to drive The Late Greats.
And the unmapped characters of Don and Sarah will drive future work on, too. I didn’t have to look too hard for a hook for the third Geraghty novel I’m working on. The Crooked Beat takes Don’s life as a policeman as a starting point. Was he always a principled man? Can there ever be a happy ending with Sarah? I suspect the more I explore the imaginary Hull I’ve created, the more I’ll discover stories within stories.
The Late Greats is available from Amazon in the UK and the US, and you can keep up to date with Nick's news at his website. And there's good news from Caffeine Nights Publishing for fans not only of Nick Quantrill, but also Ian Ayris and Nick Triplow, whose books will be free for Kindle for a period of time from Monday. Don't miss out!
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