DI Buchan 4 - A LONG DAY'S JOURNEY INTO DEATH - Out Today

Added at 10:42 on 27 July 2023

This year’s fifth publication from guerilla media conglomerate, Long Midnight Publishing, is the fourth book in the DI Buchan series, A LONG DAY’S JOURNEY INTO DEATH.

Here’s the tale of how this one came into existence.

It started with the title, rather than the plot. I had neither read nor seen A Long Day’s Journey Into Night – and still haven’t – for me to think of it as a title worth mimicking, but somehow it arrived in my head all the same. Having thought of it, I did what I presume most writers do, and looked to see if (or indeed how many times) it had been used previously. There was a thing or two on the Internet, but no novels. This seemed, and still seems, odd. A Long Day’s Journey Into Death sounds like a decent crime novel title. Perhaps hundreds of other writers thought of it already, they all decided it was terrible, and instead settled for something off the crime fiction bingo card like Fatal Death or Gripping Murder On Blood Beach.

I then picked the cover, which isn’t ultimately relatable to the plot, but is at least suggestive of a journey into the dark. The occasional reader may note that the cover has snow lining the road, while the book is set on a warm day in early May.

The marketing team at LMP wanted to put the book on Amazon before the third one was published, so I needed an outline of the plot that didn't yet exist. I put two items in the storyline. One was a missing film director, and the other a story involving a heist of antique books. The former was about keeping to the Buchan theme of crimes related to the arts; the latter suggested by a Vanity Fair article about antique book thievery. I threw in the hangover of Detective Constable Roth’s trauma from the third novel, and that was the basis of the story.

The title suggests a relentless day driven towards a conclusion, and that's how it's turned out. Consequently, this book has ended up much more of a pacy thriller than previous novels.

I’ve never really done gangs and crime families before, it not being something I’m very interested in. Not so bothered by those endless Scorsese movies with Bobby De Niro, but somehow that’s what happened here. There probably isn’t a natural part for De Niro in the narrative, but we can likely squeeze him in somewhere when the movie gets made.

So, here we are. Buchan 4. Out today in technicolour. Well, the cover has red and blue in it, so there’s that. Click here to share in the magic.

[While I have the title for the fifth novel – WE WERE NOT INNOCENT – I’m not rushing into this one, so haven’t picked the cover and scratched out a plot on the back of a box of Scooby Snacks, in time for today’s release.]

Comments

Jill Phillips - 13:47 on 22 August 2023

Read a ridiculous amount of crime fiction and was thrilled to come across the DI Buchan books...they are a cut well above what is usually available on Kindle Unlimited! Please keep him going!

D: Thanks very much, Jill. Some way to go for DI Buchan yet!