Misplaced – A short story of murder and concealment

If you read any contemporary ‘How to publish a novel’ book, in the chapter about promotion and marketing it will extol the virtues of the ‘Reader Magnet’.   This is, as the name suggests, a device to attract a reader to your website with the promise of a freebie of some sort, in exchange for their contact details which can then be used to create a database for newsletters, etc.

I’m sure it works.

I was never a fan of the idea. I thought it was something and nothing. Short stories and essays go in anthologies, don’t they?

Sales of ‘Coat with Long Sleeves’ have dropped off in the absence of any publicity from my end.   I’m only half-way through the first draft of Book Two, so that’s likely to be a year or two before publication.   Suddenly, the idea of a short story as a reader magnet seemed appealing. It could be written in a similar style and be based in Crow’s Nymet to attract erstwhile buyers of the novel. If I kept it to 10,000 words, it would be an easy 45 minute read, in one sitting, with no big time commitment from the reader.

I liked the idea of setting it in an earlier time

I settled on 1980. A lot of things were happening around then that weren’t particularly edifying, if we’re honest, but I do believe it was something of a heyday for English villages and particularly for the English country pub (or perhaps it was the swansong, even then. Am I looking back through rose coloured glasses?).   For me, this was a time before career, mortgage and children when as a young man I was able to explore said pubs with relish and abandon.   I’m glad I did.   Many of them have now gone and most of those that are left aren’t really pubs anymore.

pies in the hot cupboard

It is into this backdrop that I wanted to place ‘The Druid’s Arms’, a pub with pies in the hot cupboard on the bar; dominoes, darts and skittles and punters playing them and a lounge bar with a carpet where you took the wife on a Saturday night in your best suit.

My protagonist is Blanche, an elderly lady sensing change and promise and her nemesis Vinny Mortacott, a young man of old farming stock with an unsettling secret.

I had great fun writing it  

All my best ideas came on early morning walks with the dog.   She got fed up with the intensity of it all.   I hope you like it.   You can download the PDF here …… If you live in North Devon, you may like to pick up a free paperback copy on the counter of the Grove Inn in Kings Nympton.   If you do, you’ll be pleased to see that the delights of the Druid’s Arms still echo down the deep lanes of this very special place.