I know a secret! Today on Mystery Mondays, Garry Ryan, best-selling author of the Detective Lane Mysteries, is here to talk about keeping a novel relevant. But that’s not the secret.

Do you want to know the secret? Of course you do.

The next novel in the Detective Lane series will be published by NeWest Press this year! The title:  MATANZAS.

The blurb is below…Maybe if we’re lucky, Garry will give us more details on the release.

And now over to Garry.

Keeping a Novel Relevant by Garry Ryan 

How do you make a book relevant at release? A few years can pass after the process of writing, submitting and editing is completed. It can become a bit of a challenge to remain current.

As a result, I look for plausible predictions of what’s likely to happen. I also watch trends and think about outcomes.

Matanzas might work as an example here. It’s set in Cuba and Calgary. Before writing the novel there had been whisperings about Cuba and the US normalizing relations. After the book was written and accepted by the publisher, the US reopened its embassy in Havana. It was necessary to keep this likely scenario in mind while developing characters and plot so as not to make any obvious errors.

I’ve also been watching the changes happening in Latin America while working on novels exploring the relationship between Canada and Mexico. It’s really about seeing how the old, the new and our cultures interact during difficult times. Carrying a camera documents these changes, which comes in handy when writing scenes.

Predicting the future is a fool’s game, but considering a variety of outcomes and how they might legitimize or compromise a novel is worth considering.

Matanzas

His psyche still reeling from having to kill a criminal in the line of duty, Calgary’s Detective Lane flies to Cuba to celebrate the wedding of his beloved niece. While there, though, he finds himself drafted by the local police into investigating the murder of a Canadian tourist.

Upon his return to Calgary, links between this incident and the deaths of local elderly pensioners start to make themselves known, drawing Lane and his partner Nigel Li further into a web of conspiracy, politics and big money.

Garry Ryan’s award-winning, best-selling mystery series continues with all the intrigue, good humour and mochaccinos that fans have come to expect.

Who is Garry Ryan?

 

 

Since 2004 Garry Ryan has published nine novels with NeWest Press. The second, The Lucky Elephant Restaurant, won a 2007 Lambda Literary Award. In 2009, Ryan was awarded Calgary’s Freedom of Expression Award.