…I’m having great fun introducing to yeez some of the characters from my Jack Calder crime thriller series… the other day, it was the trio of former SAS guys, Jack Calder, Jules Townsend and Malky McGuire… the main female in the books is without peer (or peeress, I s’pose, Mabel)… May-Ling Calder, the wife of Jack… however, as yeez might suspect, May-Ling does have a a peeress in real life, or rather, an amalgam of peeresses… this ol’ scribbler spent some WURK time in Hong Kong and the Far East, during which sojourn, (inevitably some may say), a marriage was announced… wedded I was to a local Chinese lady, (sadly since, that relationship foundered on a surfeit of Master Gallacher’s misguided pursuit of a career as a Master of the Financial Universe… mea culpa… but I digress)…
…the fair damsel from that former British colony was more than a match and equal partner for this mere Scottish male… mine was not the only opinion of her as a beautiful lady… intelligent, witty, possessed of immense practicality, and an accomplished, celebrated artist in Chinese water-colour… but the deepest quality I observed at closer quarters than anyone else was her mental strength… bottle these and serve in rationed measure, and yeez have as close as yeez will get to May-Ling Calder… another couple of sidekicks in my stories are the two Scots bred in the old school of Scottish policing… Alan Rennie and Donnie Mullen… Alan, currently Assistant Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police in London, and Donnie, formerly head of London’s famous Flying Squad heavy crime combatants, have stellar backgrounds in their respective careers in cleaning up crime in the capital…
…Mullen also adds success in extinguishing much of the Chinese triad gangs in Hong Kong, where he was at one time May-Ling‘s boss… each of these two senior cops is modelled after the man who was with me as my best man at my first marriage, in Scotland, about 100 years ago… highlander, Duncan Campbell… he was in the real Flying Squad when I knew him in London, and a tougher, harder example of a fighting man from North of the Border would be hard to find… all these part-ghosts and mem’ries of men and women I’ve been privileged to have in my life flit in and out of my stories, but I assure yeez I had no direct intention of crafting it that way… the subliminal writer’s mind just produces stuff like that… next up will be ‘why do certain places appear on my books?’… watch this space… see yeez later… LUV YEEZ!
THE VIOLIN MANS LEGACY
myBook.to/theviolinmanslegacy
VENGEANCE WEARS BLACK
myBook.to/vengeancewearsblack
SAVAGE PAYBACK
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KILLER CITY
myBook.to/calderkillercity
DEADLY IMPASSE
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Something else we share that man. I married Mai, a beautiful Montagnard girl when I was in Vietnam for the duration back in the sixties. she might have been tiny. But by god if I ever crossed her… 😉
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..indeed! 🙂
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Loving these glimpses into the inner workings! Thank you for posting them!
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…cheeeeeeeers …mwaaah 🙂
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Hi Seumas, Just loved reading all the above. Fascinating stuff! Being a very nosey/curious writer, I wondered whether you had ever married…I have a very good writer friend::Drummond Marvin who was once head of the Vice Squad at Scotland Yard. Perhaps he and I should get together and write a crime series before the zimmer frames arrive…xx…
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..yup, indeed, m’Lady, Joy… marital serial offender me… my mate Duncan Campbell was in the Flying Squad in the late seventies… hard S.O.B. …saw him clear a roomful of nutters once at a gig in London… 🙂 🙂
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I can imagine…Drummond had a fascinating life (was also an actor). Shot twice (once seriously); medal from the Queen… and he now lives in Spain and belongs to the same writing group: ‘Writers’ Ink,’ as wot I do. You would LOVE his writing style, and yet he’s never been published!! He’s written several plays, which I edited but no luck so far. He’s writing a book called “The 5lst State” at present (Trump family/UK and US drama set in the future!) And so, us writers all struggle on. But what fun!. xx
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Loved it, Seumas! And the illustration is kind of the way I imagined her.
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…:) 🙂 🙂
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I was convinced the main male character in my first book was solely from my imagination, until two friends independently identified him as a man we all knew. 😉
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…our brains work in mysterious ways, their wonders to perform 🙂
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Reblogged this on Musings on Life & Experience and commented:
More about Seumas’s characters.
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…thank you , m’Lady, Suzanne 🙂
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Characters we invent don’t come out of thin air, or other dark places (if you know what I mean). I would be hesitant to divulge the source of my own, lest they hunt me down and exact revenge. 🙂
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..yup, the ol’ ‘I could tell you, but then I’d have to kill you,’ syndrome, that man! cheeeeeers, Tim 🙂
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