THE TRIALS AND TRIBULATIONS OF A WOULD BE AUTHOR.
Rob Roughley lives and works in the North West of England,the land of the meat pie and those famous mints.
He wrote his first blockbuster aged ten, The Creaking Door (127 words) spent an unparalleled nine weeks pinned to the wall of Mr Philpots classroom.
Buoyed by this success and encouraged by the dubious Mr Philpot he quickly produced the follow up, The Oiled Door (87 words) which went on to the school curriculum as required reading.
However, feeling the strain of success, he decided to take a sabbatical from the rigours of writing. Inevitably he fell in with the wrong crowd and quickly succumbed to the fruity addiction that is Hubba Bubba (contains talc. please use responsibly and avoid placing any discarded gum on soft furnishing) and the Etch a sketch (no batteries required)
This led to the wilderness years,where he entered the choppy waters of puberty, learned the ancient art of rolling his own cigarettes and discovered girls.
Meeting the woman of his dreams, he became engaged, marriage followed and two wonderful children joined the team.
Followed by debt,the death of his parents,numerous dead end jobs and finally bankruptcy.
He is the author of four plays with the recurring themes of marriage, death, and bankruptcy.His work has been described, not least by himself as morbid and ultimately pointless.
Spurned by the theatre profession for being too avant gard, he returned to his first love and quickly produced two novels that fall within the crime/thriller genre.
This is his first tentative steps at having his own website and bits will be added as and when he discovers what all the buttons are for.
If you like your crime fiction to be loaded with square jawed heroes,fast car chases, vulnerable woman and expensive wine,then these are not the books for you.
However,if you like to trawl the seedier side of life populated with wastrels
and deviants, your killers to be twisted rather than sophisticate then read on.
You will find below a synopsis for each novel, that hopefully offer an insight into the type of story you can expect.
At the end, should you wish to get in touch you will find a contact page (only praise please as I am easily offended)
If anyone should like to read either of the books then I will be more than happy to send a copy (email.)
Firstly,The Needle House (148.000) words. Completed toward the end of 2012 and the first in what will hopefully be a series featuring DS Lasser.
The Needle House- Synopsis
The West Pennine moors, endless miles of unspoilt, windswept beauty. A haven for the weekend walker, and nature lover. A playground, for those with disposable income.
Though when the mutilated remains of a fourteen-year-old boy are discovered, it becomes apparent someone is using the desolate landscape as a killing field.
When seventeen-year- old Jenna Fotheringay writes to author Patrick Fossey, she hardly imagines he will take an interest in her research. Unlike many of the girls in the nearby town, she is in no hurry to lose her virginity and gain a cocaine habit. Rather, she spends her days at the local library, searching old microfiche films, and devouring all she can about the Radfield family. Weekends are spent with her grandfather scouring the local countryside. Searching for clues, which will shed light on the powerful landowners who once owned great swathes of the countryside, including the farm, she now calls home.
When Fossey agrees to pay her a visit, Jenna is in some kind of heaven. Although when she takes Fossey to the old gamekeeper’s cottages, neither of them is prepared for the horror that lies within.
Ronnie Fotheringay is a farmer to the core, dark earth beneath his fingernails, money in the bank and bailer twine holding up his trousers. A man raised on the land who adores his only granddaughter. He sowed the seeds, which instilled in her a love of the past. Now in his
twilight years he lives for the times they share, the long walks and imparting of knowledge which Jenna, absorbs with relish.
At first, he is delighted when Fossey takes an interest in her research. Yet as fear begins to grip the local community, he begins to wonder if it was a mistake, as the writer starts to delve into a history Ronnie would sooner lay buried.
Like the town, DS Lasser feels jaded, frayed around the edges, and losing interest in a job he no longer sees as relevant. Families live hand to mouth, fathers spending years on the dole, mothers eking out an existence, supplemented by the occasional win on the bingo, and their offspring running wild.
A town on the skids, no jobs no money, and no hope.
So, when Billy Jones fails to return home it is hardly earth shattering news. A family of thieves, and piss artists, the father and eldest son are doing time and young Billy is rapidly following suit.
Michael is the only black sheep of the family; he attends college and gets good grades. In fact, his tutor claims he has a natural gift for computers. Michael sees a chance for a life beyond the squalor, petty crime, and wood-chip wallpaper. His days of roaming the streets and mixing with the wrong crowd are behind him. However, it is hard to move on when the police have you marked as a thieving scum-bag.
When Lasser discovers Billy stole thirty quid from his mother he decides the kid is doubtless laying low. With money on the hip Billy will be stoned out of his head on, the cheapest drug he can get his grubby little hands on.
Although when Lasser is called up to the gamekeeper’s cottage, he concedes maybe this time, he could be wrong.
As clues are unearthed that lead directly to the Radfield family, Lasser becomes convinced they have found their man.
Ashley Radfield, last of the local aristocracy, a man who has led a life of privilege and undeserved respect. Now along with his aging father he lives in the rambling manor house. Paint peeling from the windows and weeds in the gutter, mothballed rooms, and a huge kitchen like the cutting room of an abattoir. For the Radfields the days of prosperity and huntsman’s balls are a distant memory.
However, when another body is revealed, Lasser’s convictions are thrown into turmoil. It is all too easy, the clues too convenient, someone is playing a vicious game, someone with a burning hatred for the Radfield family.
As the violence escalates, Jenna begins to feel like a prisoner in her own home. With the media camped at the bottom of the drive and her parents treating her like a ten year old, she can see her dream of working with Fossey begin to dissipate as the body count rises.
Over the course of one traumatic day, she discovers her family’s links with the Radfields are darker than she could ever have imagined. Jenna learns that blood is not always thicker than water and loving families cannot always be trusted.
Ronnie might be an old man, but forty years earlier, he was in the prime of life. A pillar of the community, chairman of the young farmers, respected. Despite harsh times, the Fotheringays were always one-step ahead, expanding, and buying land while their neighbours clung on to a life of poverty.
As Lasser probes the past, he comes to realise that the old farmer sowed more than his share of wild oats. Back in the late sixties, the community of workers who lived on the canal barges would migrate to the fields looking for work through the summer months. Gathering the sun ripened wheat, back breaking toil in the blistering heat for little more than a pittance.
Overseeing it all was young Ronnie, black hair blowing in the breeze, face burnished by the sun, surveying his domain. Riding high on the new Massey Ferguson, full of his own importance, the sap rising and no shortage of young women to quench his thirst.
As the long hot summer ends and the nights grow longer, Lasser finds himself in a race against time as he tries to unravel the dark secrets that bind the two families. Secrets stretching back over four decades, blackmail and murder reaching out to ensnare the innocent as well as the guilty.
While high on the windswept moors the killer is making plans that will see the two families pay for their sins.
As the good book says, you reap what you sow.
The Way That It Falls- The second in the DS Lasser series (125.000) words.
Completed February 2013
Christmas, the season of good will and easy pickings.
When Shaun Miller snatches twenty gold chains from the new jewellers in town, he thinks all his Christmases have come at once. Even the old woman he sent flying whilst making his escape, can’t dent his good mood. That is until he discovers she was the grandmother of local drug boss Callum Green.
DS Lasser is torn; he knows he must find Miller before Green does. Otherwise, the thief will be spending his Christmas tethered to a concrete block at the bottom of the canal.
Trouble is, as far as Lasser is concerned, Miller deserves to pay for what he did.
Though Green is no better, a thug and a bully in a thousand pound suit, who dispatches his representatives like a cancer, dishing out their little bags of misery, while he skims off the cream.
Green has no interest in the drug takers, so what if they steal and prostitute themselves just to get the next fix, it isn’t his concern. As long as the money keeps rolling in then he is a happy man. Though when his beloved grandmother dies, Green becomes obsessed with finding the man responsible. However, when you have a drugs empire to run, taking your eye of the ball can have devastating consequences.
Charles Munroe, a seemingly respectable businessman has had his eye on the prize for a while. When he sees, Green begin to unravel; he decides it’s time to make a move, time to call in Mr Plymouth. The fabric of the town is disintegrating as generations of disillusioned people look for an artificial high, and Munroe is just the man to supply them with what they need.
Lasser soon comes to realise someone is playing for high stakes. As violence erupts on the streets, he is forced to make a decision, to stand back and let the guilty destroy one another, or step in to save the innocent. However, innocence is subjective, and in a world of deceit it appears that, everyone has an agenda.
I hope you to hear from you.Please use the box below for any contacts.
Kind regards to all
Rob
Rob Roughley lives and works in the North West of England,the land of the meat pie and those famous mints.
He wrote his first blockbuster aged ten, The Creaking Door (127 words) spent an unparalleled nine weeks pinned to the wall of Mr Philpots classroom.
Buoyed by this success and encouraged by the dubious Mr Philpot he quickly produced the follow up, The Oiled Door (87 words) which went on to the school curriculum as required reading.
However, feeling the strain of success, he decided to take a sabbatical from the rigours of writing. Inevitably he fell in with the wrong crowd and quickly succumbed to the fruity addiction that is Hubba Bubba (contains talc. please use responsibly and avoid placing any discarded gum on soft furnishing) and the Etch a sketch (no batteries required)
This led to the wilderness years,where he entered the choppy waters of puberty, learned the ancient art of rolling his own cigarettes and discovered girls.
Meeting the woman of his dreams, he became engaged, marriage followed and two wonderful children joined the team.
Followed by debt,the death of his parents,numerous dead end jobs and finally bankruptcy.
He is the author of four plays with the recurring themes of marriage, death, and bankruptcy.His work has been described, not least by himself as morbid and ultimately pointless.
Spurned by the theatre profession for being too avant gard, he returned to his first love and quickly produced two novels that fall within the crime/thriller genre.
This is his first tentative steps at having his own website and bits will be added as and when he discovers what all the buttons are for.
If you like your crime fiction to be loaded with square jawed heroes,fast car chases, vulnerable woman and expensive wine,then these are not the books for you.
However,if you like to trawl the seedier side of life populated with wastrels
and deviants, your killers to be twisted rather than sophisticate then read on.
You will find below a synopsis for each novel, that hopefully offer an insight into the type of story you can expect.
At the end, should you wish to get in touch you will find a contact page (only praise please as I am easily offended)
If anyone should like to read either of the books then I will be more than happy to send a copy (email.)
Firstly,The Needle House (148.000) words. Completed toward the end of 2012 and the first in what will hopefully be a series featuring DS Lasser.
The Needle House- Synopsis
The West Pennine moors, endless miles of unspoilt, windswept beauty. A haven for the weekend walker, and nature lover. A playground, for those with disposable income.
Though when the mutilated remains of a fourteen-year-old boy are discovered, it becomes apparent someone is using the desolate landscape as a killing field.
When seventeen-year- old Jenna Fotheringay writes to author Patrick Fossey, she hardly imagines he will take an interest in her research. Unlike many of the girls in the nearby town, she is in no hurry to lose her virginity and gain a cocaine habit. Rather, she spends her days at the local library, searching old microfiche films, and devouring all she can about the Radfield family. Weekends are spent with her grandfather scouring the local countryside. Searching for clues, which will shed light on the powerful landowners who once owned great swathes of the countryside, including the farm, she now calls home.
When Fossey agrees to pay her a visit, Jenna is in some kind of heaven. Although when she takes Fossey to the old gamekeeper’s cottages, neither of them is prepared for the horror that lies within.
Ronnie Fotheringay is a farmer to the core, dark earth beneath his fingernails, money in the bank and bailer twine holding up his trousers. A man raised on the land who adores his only granddaughter. He sowed the seeds, which instilled in her a love of the past. Now in his
twilight years he lives for the times they share, the long walks and imparting of knowledge which Jenna, absorbs with relish.
At first, he is delighted when Fossey takes an interest in her research. Yet as fear begins to grip the local community, he begins to wonder if it was a mistake, as the writer starts to delve into a history Ronnie would sooner lay buried.
Like the town, DS Lasser feels jaded, frayed around the edges, and losing interest in a job he no longer sees as relevant. Families live hand to mouth, fathers spending years on the dole, mothers eking out an existence, supplemented by the occasional win on the bingo, and their offspring running wild.
A town on the skids, no jobs no money, and no hope.
So, when Billy Jones fails to return home it is hardly earth shattering news. A family of thieves, and piss artists, the father and eldest son are doing time and young Billy is rapidly following suit.
Michael is the only black sheep of the family; he attends college and gets good grades. In fact, his tutor claims he has a natural gift for computers. Michael sees a chance for a life beyond the squalor, petty crime, and wood-chip wallpaper. His days of roaming the streets and mixing with the wrong crowd are behind him. However, it is hard to move on when the police have you marked as a thieving scum-bag.
When Lasser discovers Billy stole thirty quid from his mother he decides the kid is doubtless laying low. With money on the hip Billy will be stoned out of his head on, the cheapest drug he can get his grubby little hands on.
Although when Lasser is called up to the gamekeeper’s cottage, he concedes maybe this time, he could be wrong.
As clues are unearthed that lead directly to the Radfield family, Lasser becomes convinced they have found their man.
Ashley Radfield, last of the local aristocracy, a man who has led a life of privilege and undeserved respect. Now along with his aging father he lives in the rambling manor house. Paint peeling from the windows and weeds in the gutter, mothballed rooms, and a huge kitchen like the cutting room of an abattoir. For the Radfields the days of prosperity and huntsman’s balls are a distant memory.
However, when another body is revealed, Lasser’s convictions are thrown into turmoil. It is all too easy, the clues too convenient, someone is playing a vicious game, someone with a burning hatred for the Radfield family.
As the violence escalates, Jenna begins to feel like a prisoner in her own home. With the media camped at the bottom of the drive and her parents treating her like a ten year old, she can see her dream of working with Fossey begin to dissipate as the body count rises.
Over the course of one traumatic day, she discovers her family’s links with the Radfields are darker than she could ever have imagined. Jenna learns that blood is not always thicker than water and loving families cannot always be trusted.
Ronnie might be an old man, but forty years earlier, he was in the prime of life. A pillar of the community, chairman of the young farmers, respected. Despite harsh times, the Fotheringays were always one-step ahead, expanding, and buying land while their neighbours clung on to a life of poverty.
As Lasser probes the past, he comes to realise that the old farmer sowed more than his share of wild oats. Back in the late sixties, the community of workers who lived on the canal barges would migrate to the fields looking for work through the summer months. Gathering the sun ripened wheat, back breaking toil in the blistering heat for little more than a pittance.
Overseeing it all was young Ronnie, black hair blowing in the breeze, face burnished by the sun, surveying his domain. Riding high on the new Massey Ferguson, full of his own importance, the sap rising and no shortage of young women to quench his thirst.
As the long hot summer ends and the nights grow longer, Lasser finds himself in a race against time as he tries to unravel the dark secrets that bind the two families. Secrets stretching back over four decades, blackmail and murder reaching out to ensnare the innocent as well as the guilty.
While high on the windswept moors the killer is making plans that will see the two families pay for their sins.
As the good book says, you reap what you sow.
The Way That It Falls- The second in the DS Lasser series (125.000) words.
Completed February 2013
Christmas, the season of good will and easy pickings.
When Shaun Miller snatches twenty gold chains from the new jewellers in town, he thinks all his Christmases have come at once. Even the old woman he sent flying whilst making his escape, can’t dent his good mood. That is until he discovers she was the grandmother of local drug boss Callum Green.
DS Lasser is torn; he knows he must find Miller before Green does. Otherwise, the thief will be spending his Christmas tethered to a concrete block at the bottom of the canal.
Trouble is, as far as Lasser is concerned, Miller deserves to pay for what he did.
Though Green is no better, a thug and a bully in a thousand pound suit, who dispatches his representatives like a cancer, dishing out their little bags of misery, while he skims off the cream.
Green has no interest in the drug takers, so what if they steal and prostitute themselves just to get the next fix, it isn’t his concern. As long as the money keeps rolling in then he is a happy man. Though when his beloved grandmother dies, Green becomes obsessed with finding the man responsible. However, when you have a drugs empire to run, taking your eye of the ball can have devastating consequences.
Charles Munroe, a seemingly respectable businessman has had his eye on the prize for a while. When he sees, Green begin to unravel; he decides it’s time to make a move, time to call in Mr Plymouth. The fabric of the town is disintegrating as generations of disillusioned people look for an artificial high, and Munroe is just the man to supply them with what they need.
Lasser soon comes to realise someone is playing for high stakes. As violence erupts on the streets, he is forced to make a decision, to stand back and let the guilty destroy one another, or step in to save the innocent. However, innocence is subjective, and in a world of deceit it appears that, everyone has an agenda.
I hope you to hear from you.Please use the box below for any contacts.
Kind regards to all
Rob