Most people who follow my social media pages know that I often mention brainstorming story ideas with my lovely wife and fellow writer, Eva Blue. She’s responsible for quite a few of my favorite scenes that have made it into the books, and I couldn’t do it without her. What readers may not know, though, is how often those conversations turn into long back-and-forth debates.
Before my first book in the Thomas Austin series was released, I had already written the second one, The Shadows of Pike Place. One morning, my wife and I were discussing both books. She had just finished reading The Bones at Point No Point and, like many early readers, was shocked by the horrific crime at the center of it. That’s when we had one of our many fruitful disagreements.
She argued that I should flip the order of the books and release The Shadows of Pike Place first. While it’s still very much a murder mystery, that book has a more traditional crime feel—less gruesome, more procedural. The Bones at Point No Point doesn’t hold back. The crime at its core is disturbing, even for seasoned thriller readers. Her thinking was that easing readers into the series with a slightly less brutal case might be the smarter approach.
I wasn’t so sure. And like any good spouse, I immediately turned to Google to prove her wrong.
I spent an embarrassing amount of time researching the most gruesome episodes of Law & Order, looking for evidence that TV had already prepared audiences for the level of horror in The Bones at Point No Point. I eventually found three episodes with crimes that were approximately as bad, which, to me, was definitive proof that my book wasn’t too much. (She remained unconvinced.)
In the end, I stuck with my original plan and released The Bones at Point No Point first. Was that the right decision? I still don’t know. I’ve heard both sides from readers. Some have told me The Bones at Point No Point is what pulled them into the series and made them want to keep going. A few have said it almost turned them off entirely—until they read The Shadows of Pike Place and preferred the tone of that one. I understand both points of view, but I’m happy with how things turned out, and the series has found its readers.
This wasn’t just about the first book, though. Before I even started writing, I had mapped out the first five stories in the series. After coming up with the idea for The Bones at Point No Point, I knew I wanted The Shadows of Pike Place to be a more traditional mystery with a less horrific crime. Then I wanted to shake things up in the third entry with a cold case investigation, which became The Fallen at Fallweather Bluff. For The Horror at Murden Cove, I returned to the serial killer genre but combined it with one of my favorite setups: the locked-room (or, in this case, locked-island) mystery. And for The Terror in the Emerald City, I leaned fully into the thriller genre with a terrorist attack plot set at Seattle’s famous Lumen Field.
Each book had a distinct feel, and structuring the series this way allowed me to keep things fresh while still building Austin’s world.
That first decision, choosing which story to begin with, was just one of many back-and-forths that helped shape the series. I’m happy with how that choice turned out, but I know it’s usually smarter to listen to my wife. Someday I’ll write a blog post about the many other arguments she’s won, much to her delight I’m sure.
You can find my Thomas Austin and FBI S.W.O.R.D. series on Amazon, with signed copies of all my books available on my website. My latest standalone novel, The Crime Beat, is available also in ebook, paperback, and Kindle Unlimited on Amazon.
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One Response
Releasing The Bones at Point No Point first was a very good decision. That is definitely what drew me to your books! They all have been good but that’s still one of my favorites!