Not sure what’s the root cause of it, but the “S” key on my laptop has been wonky of late, to say the least. Right now it seems to be working fine but when you’re working away on a “particularly gripping” segment, having to go back and add “s” every time it doesn’t appear where it should becomes extremely frustrating, not to mention by the time you get the missing letters added, your train of thought as been derailed. Sometimes, it’s so bad that even when you go back and read from the beginning of the passage you never get back on track. Your vision of the perfect scene is up in a poof of smoke… or a wonky “s”.
Well, we were a bit later getting started today but all in all, successful for the three of us. I managed 817 words on my manuscript, even though I was contending with an “s” key that wasn’t responding. Still isn’t cooperating as well as I would like it to but it is behaving better. Think the keyboard on the laptop needs a D&C.
Well, I’ve not done any work on my manuscript but I have been schmoozing to newspaper editors to get them to publish my review of Night Watcher.
I’ve spent most of this evening since I got settled after the grocery store run sorting and organizing my e-mails on my laptop. Egads! I didn’t realize what kind of a state it was in.
But now I have folders and subfolders and everyone is organized (well not quite yet but the eyeballs were starting to cross) and filters created so everyone drops in where they should.
Hopefully, that will make life easier for me going forward.
Julie Chalmers leaves her home in Edinburgh, Scotland after a visit from the police telling her that her estranged husband was found dead in Dundee. Knowing that he left for another woman, she pulls up roots, reverts to her maiden name, Forbes, and moves to the city where he died planning on exacting her revenge on the “other woman”.
Little does Julie know that the Night Watcher has already arrived in Dundee and his Chosen One is the “other woman.”
Nicole’s reputation as a man-eater is well known within the store where she’s slept her way to the top and is currently having an affair with Ken, one of the senior managers.
Julie rents the flat above the one her husband had in the building where he died and puts her plans of revenge on Nicole into action.
Over the years, Nicole has amassed a number of enemies – Harry, the security guard at the store who she belittles at every opportunity, Ken – her lover who she dumps when it becomes clear he’s not about to leave his wife, Scott – her husband who has his own bit on the side who reminds him of Nicole when she was young, before she lost her innocence.
When Nicole thinks she’s being stalked and gifts mysteriously arrive for her – dead birds and animals – and just as mysteriously disappear, her husband doesn’t take her seriously. He tries to convince her that it’s her imagination. But does he have an ulterior motive?
After Scott has left for Paris on business, Nicole finds his passport and knows he can’t travel abroad without it.
When the police are called in, the head detective on the case doesn’t take Nicole’s accounts of her recent happenings seriously. Only when she ends up dead does he realize he’s made a grave error.
Things get even more complicated when he falls for Julie and they embark on a relationship only to discover that Julie – the estranged wife of the apparent suicide in the building she’s moved into – becomes the next Chosen One.
Even when you think you have it all figured out, Chris throws in one final twist to throw you off. Her descriptive narrative draws you in making the sights, sounds and smells come to life. The dialogue is natural and makes the characters seem like normal folk you would meet on the street or in your local.
For anyone who enjoys crime fiction, I highly recommend this as an addition to your must read list.
I’m back writing now after a few days of having my face stuck in someone else’s book rather than my own. It was actually quite refreshing.
Now, I’ve not gone back to my own manuscript but I did write a review on Night Watcher and have uploaded it to amazon.com. In addition, I’ve sent it on to Brian Henry to include on his Quick Brown Fox blog.
I loved every word of it. It kept me guessing until the end when she revealed ‘whodunnit’, and even then, there’s an unsuspected twist. It’s a fantastic read and I highly recommend it to anyone who likes crime fiction.
Now available at Amazon.com for their Kindle reader (or Kindle apps for other devices – ipod, iphone, BlackBerry, ipad etc) – Night Watcher by Chris Longmuir. I downloaded it last night (Kindle app for the ipad – which works great).
