My writing energy is flagging. I sit at my desk, fingers poised over my keyboard, staring into the yard, waiting for a flash of inspiration. Working on draft number ??? of my second novel, The Fifth Man. The writing is starting to flow again and the plot jogs along well, but I’ve started using software called PLOTTR and what a shock that was to begin laying out the scenes and discovering there were some huge plot holes and missing action.

So, it’s back to the drawing board. My forays down the rabbit hole of potential cover art are a distraction but they also keep me focused on what the basic themes are about.

But here is the first chunk of Chapter one. It has only taken my (ahem, many years) to get it to the point where I’m happy with it.  It’s an introduction, then I segue into some backstory about a recent incident. The challenge is, of course, including enough to tantalize the reader and keep them turning pages, or revealing too much and prosing on.

 

The Fifth Man

My reinvented life fractured on a simmering June evening. It was much the same as every other sweet-smelling night I’d spent lounging on my deck by the lake. I had no premonition the two women I loved most—my mother Bernice and my best friend Maggie—would wield the weapons.  

*     *       *

       My name is Kenora Tedesco. I’ve been a licensed private investigator in the Province of Ontario for almost three years and I’ve grown to love my new life. Despite many highs and a few lows, I was getting the hang of being a P.I. But damn, sometimes, the job could wear me down to my last nerve. 

It had been one hell of a week. Every day had been stinking hot and humid, as only Toronto summer weather could be. None of my four assignments was any closer to being finished. My mentor/partner Bosco was at the wheel of our work vehicle, also known as the Shitmobile, a dull brown van that went largely unnoticed in the neighborhoods we frequented. He’d been nagging me to improve my undercover surveillance techniques, but I had no interest in spending my afternoon skulking in the hallways of Old City Hall courthouse on the lookout for a scofflaw called Fibber Kovalev.  If Bosco wanted him that badly, he could go.  At least he’d be able to swap stories with his cop buddies while they waited to be called to testify.

However, Bosco being Bosco, I knew I could never say that, so I stared at the passing landscape and kept my lips buttoned. I was prepared to cut him some slack because at age fifty-two, he was seriously sleep-deprived and gaga over his new wife and baby daughter. My cell phone burbled as we idled at a traffic light by the on-ramp to the highway. 

“Kenora, don’t answer that,” he snapped. 

Ingraham O’Neill (Bosco) Poon was a retired Metro Police Detective Superintendent with serious street cred. He’d spent half of his thirty-five years in the Intelligence Bureau and Joint Forces Counter-terrorism operations but even though he had a reputation as one of the best at secret-squirrel stuff, the man loathed mobile phones.

He chuckled when the phone went quiet and said, “Told ya. Nothing more important than someone selling duct cleaning.”

I rolled my eyes, turned my head away and gazed out the window. Bosco knew by now that was my ‘deep in thought’ position, so he kept further comments to himself.