Finished First Draft Of EggHead

I finished the first draft of my second novel EggHead, a crime thriller set both  in Manchester and the North East coast and I am relatively happy with the first half of the story but not the second.  In EggHead, central character Wayne (17) is forced to rebuild his life in a remote village off the coastal after taking drastic measures to deal with a bullying situation.

The following takes place towards the end of the novel:

The car starts to slow its pace, weaving down a trail with bumps in the ground and turns, twisting and scraping against hedges and bushes while sleet and rain splatter outside and the night wind wails like a banshee caught up in a cycle of distress.  I remain perched on the floor in the back, body racked with discomfort, but I don’t see a thing.  I only sense the trail, a deserted path in the middle of nowhere, hidden by trees, a path leading to nowhere.  For a minute or two, the vehicle seems to hover.   The Ghost sits in silence, his gun fixed on me.  The blokes in the front light cigarettes and flick ash out of the windows, letting in freezing night air.   

The engine dies.  ‘Time to go,’ The Ghost says. 

Meanwhile, my debut novel – Secrets by Lawrence Estrey – is available on Amazon.    Reviews

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Crunch Point: A Writing Sample

I’ve reached a dramatic peak  in the current novel I’m working on.   In EggHead, a crime thriller, central character Wayne (14) has to leave home after he takes drastic measures in dealing with a bullying campaign against him.   Three years on, he struggles to build a life for himself in a remote village off the North Sea.  But the past begins to catch up with him again and Wayne has to escape once more…

I stagger up a ginnel with a railing in the centre, reaching a steep incline, and start to climb.  Up and up and up, past houses and chimneys and back fences, struggling on, panting for air, the night temperature dropping to below freezing.  Straight up in a direct line, the incline getting steeper and steeper, the shouts and dog barking still present but starting to fade into the distance.   The incline bends to the right.  The gradient begins to level.  Just about bearable, although the weather’s slowing me down.

The incline stops abruptly.  A road lies ahead, a still country lane with hedges and fields on the opposite side, fields covered in mist, fields rising up a steep hill bordering the V-shaped housing estate at the top of the village.  I’m on the main road that runs adjacent to Dead End Lane.

I take out my phone, nearly dropping it on the ground.  My fingers have turned clumsy, useless frozen clumps that refuse to obey my brain, and the SOS icon on the screen remains mockingly still, indicating that none of the recipients have received the message.  I turn left on the main road, moving further away from the crossroads and Dead End Lane, along an empty stretch of lane with no houses or cottages.  And then, I hear the fanfare all over again, a fanfare like a hunting party with bugles and hounds.  Van doors slamming shut, dogs whining and barking, men and women shouting in the night.  Over there.  He’s over there.

Meanwhile, my debut novel – Secrets by Lawrence Estrey – is available on Amazon.    Reviews

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Hot Weather Again: PhotoShots

The weather’s picked up again, so I took several photos yesterday.

Totteridge village, North London.

 

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Building The Tension: A Writing Sample

I’ve completed about two-thirds of my new novel EggHead, a psychological thriller featuring central character Wayne at the ages of fourteen and seventeen.  The fourteen-year-old resorts to extreme measures following a bullying campaign against him.  Three years on, Wayne, now seventeen, is living in a B & B (Dosser’s House) and struggling to come to terms with life in a remote village off the North Sea.   The following scene takes place in the early hours of the morning when Wayne finds himself in an unfamiliar basement flat without any recollection of going there. 

I have to get back to Dosser’s House or stand the risk of freezing to death outdoors. I stop to catch my breath and steady myself.  The houses on the crescent all look the same.  I continue on, past similar three-storey properties.  At times, I think I’m walking in the wrong direction, away from Dead End Lane, especially when the hum of the waves starts to fade into the distance, but then the street widens and joins a hill. 

A lamppost that’s lit.

I can just about make out Dead End Lane a few yards in front of me.  Home.  I cross and climb the three steps up to Dosser’s House, my head reeling from whisky and confusion.   

I stop.   

Someone’s watching me.  I know the sensation.  You sort of become aware of it and you turn round and find that someone really is staring at you.  But this time, the sensation’s particularly strong and focused.  It’s like someone’s watching with a specific reason in mind, monitoring my movements, studying them.   

I hear a soft murmur, a hum, an engine kicking into life.  

Cigarette smoke.  Someone smoking a cigarette out of a car window.  A bloke in a black leather jacket.  Black leather gloves.

A vehicle pulls out from nowhere, a dark blue car with no headlights. 

Meanwhile, Meanwhile, my debut novel – Secrets by Lawrence Estrey – is available on Amazon.    Reviews

 

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Diamond Jubilee Bank Holiday Weekend

Hi, I will be out of action over the next few days in terms of online posting and hope to take part in the local Jubilee celebrations for the Queen.

For news coverage on the Jubilee, click here.

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