Welcome to the very first blog tour post on Sandie's book shelves: Dead Lands by Lloyd Otis.
Book description:
Dead Lands is a thrilling crime story set in the 1970s. When a woman's body is found a special team is called in to investigate and prime suspect Alex Troy is arrested for the murder. Desperate to remain a free man, Troy protests his innocence, but refuses to use his alibi. Trying to protect the woman he loves becomes a dangerous game - questions are asked and suspicions deepen. When the prime suspect completes a daring escape from custody, DI Breck and DS Kearns begin the hunt. Breck wants out of the force while Kearns has her own agenda and seeks revenge. Breck has his suspicions and she wants to keep it from him, and a right-wing march provides an explosive backdrop to their hunt for Troy. Lloyd Otis brings a startling account of the past back to life over a burgeoning '70s landscape, and delivers a thrilling piece of crime fiction that will excite any fan of the genre.
From the author: "Dead Lands: creating a fictional place set amongst real
locations"
I conducted
a lot of research for Dead Lands and the decade of the 70s saw the introduction
to the three-day week. There was the punk scene, unemployment issues, and the
controversies over the ‘sus’ law. Prime Minister Wilson and Callaghan had a go
at running the country, and later Thatcher. Some of this is referenced in my
story Dead Lands but careful consideration had to go into something else. Creating a fictional place set amongst real
locations. I wanted an area within
the story that would give me a degree of narrative freedom if I desired it,
because I knew where the crux of the story would be located. So Cransham was
born, but that was only the beginning.
The
biggest problem faced when creating a fictional place amongst real locations
was how to fit it in. Geography can be tricky, how big should this location be
and can it actually slot in right next to real areas? In the end I slotted
Cransham next to Lewisham but why would I want this degree of freedom?
The
idea to create a fictional space would give me the scope to be totally adventurous
if I wanted. A fictional escape within the fiction. A place where I could
create the sort of culture and set the rules without disrupting the other
layers of the story and how they would interlace with each other. Cransham has
many sides to each of its cardinal points. East is different to the west, which
is different to the north, which is different to the south. And of course when
a crime is committed in your fictional place there isn’t too much that you need
to consider. It doesn’t matter how the victim meets their end, whether it’s with
a coat hanger or something weightier. Or whether it occurs five years ago, or
ten years ago, as opposed to a real place, where you’ll hope to avoid any such coincidences.
During
the pursuit of prime suspect Alexander Troy, the backdrop in Dead Lands is a
‘real-life’ march so it would be near impossible for me to introduce something
too far-fetched around the streets of South East London during 1977. But I’d
have more flexibility with doing that in the fictional setting of Cransham. By
creating Cransham, I could bend the rules within that particular moment in
history, and almost be as wild and reckless as
I wanted with the inhabitants and the environment that lived within it.
Once
the geography was in place, the next thing to do was to build it. Set the
climate and the culture, so that the readers would understand. They needed to
breathe the air so to speak.
If you
create a fictional place within a city environment, make sure there are
accessible transport routes going into it from the real settings. Consider how
this would work, and decide on how much of a part it will play in the story.
For me, having a lot of criminal activity take place in my fictional setting
allowed me to bounce the real-life locations off it. So much so, that it soon
doesn’t become apparent that Cransham is fictional at all. In fact someone once
asked me, ‘Is it a real place?’ and I replied, ‘No it isn’t, but it could be’.
Author Bio
Lloyd
was born in London and attained a BA (Hons) in Media and Communication. After
gaining several years of valuable experience within the finance and digital
sectors, he completed a course in journalism. Lloyd has interviewed a host of
bestselling authors, such as Mark Billingham, Hugh Howey, Kerry Hudson, and
Lawrence Block. Two of his short stories were selected for publication in the
‘Out of My Window’ anthology, and he currently works as an Editor.
Authors links:
Twitter: @LloydOtisWriter
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/LloydOtisWriter
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