The Lure of the Sequel

I wrote Where Fools Dare to Tread on a lark. It started as a way to breakout of a hole I’d dug writing another book-still on the backburner-that I didn’t quite feel I could pull off. But I had too good a time writing Where Fools Dare to Tread and when that was finished, promptly thought, “Well, where does he, Monk Buttman, go now?”

Having already run him around LA and northern California, the thought occurred that maybe it was time for him, reluctantly, to face his past, which brought him back to California after his marriage to Astral-Lilith to everyone not named Monk-fell apart. And because his time in Virginia presented him with the demands of family and faith, I decided that would be a good direction in which to go. Lots of fertile ground when God and family are invoked.

Throw in an unhappy daughter with whom he has a fraught relationship and a new girlfriend curious about what he’d been doing all those years ago, and I was off and running.

A few suspicious deaths along the way didn’t hurt either, so to speak.

Now it may be said that sequels and series are a cheap way to go, after all the characters are already know, sort of, and that construction is finished, so off we go on another adventure. Perhaps, but most characters can’t be fleshed out in one book unless they tend to be vessels for social criticism or mere vehicles for stories about people doing foolish things and getting bumped off.

I liked the idea of adding more depth to the main character, our Monk Buttman, through his past and present colliding and a fuller picture of his life emerging. His image of himself inevitably will clash with how others, notably family and friends, remember his trials and tribulations.

And it gets him out of his comfort zone, which he is not happy about.

I will be posting vignettes for the new book over the next few months.

A Twinkle in the Eyes of God, A Monk Buttman Mystery will be released 1/9/20 by Black Rose Writing. It can be pre-ordered here.

©2019 David WIlliam Pearce