Dear Reader

Just recently someone asked me: ‘Where do you get your ideas from?’ It’s one of those questions I can’t answer. What I can say about Falls the Shadow is that a character – Zara Dewane – gave rise to the book. She first appeared in my last novel, Hammerman, A Walking Shadow where she had a really minor part; in fact, she didn’t get more than half a page. For some odd reason she demanded more.

And she got it.

Somewhat unusually, I wrote Falls the Shadow and then went straight into book two, Firing Line, which means that in writing terms Falls the Shadow actually dates back to 2021/2022. My first attempts at writing this novel started in October 2020 but it was only in May 2021 that I wrote in a notebook in black ink a version of the line that would eventually start the novel: ‘They drove to the killing in Wynston’s reconned Mercedes Benz. A green 1974 model with the bread-loaf headlights.’ The words got repositioned somewhat but that was the way in and from there on it was just a matter of staying with Zara to the end.

My two previous crime series – the Mace Bishop series and the Fish & Vicki series – are about private security and private investigators. This time I decided to use a cop who copped the cops.

It’s a major departure into new territory.

There were a clutch of other important elements about Zara you should know. The first concerns a band called 4 Non Blondes: I came across them by accident and they gave me the soundtrack to her personality. The second was her favourite expression adapted from a YouTube clip of a mother watching her daughter cycle into a rugby post, and the third is Zara’s love of being at sea in a kayak.

The ocean has been a major presence in my crime fiction: Mace Bishop was an open-water swimmer; Fish Pescado was a surfer. But then when the setting is Cape Town, you can’t do without the sea. Oh, and, of course, there is the wine: malbec is Zara’s favourite. Mine too. I do hope you enjoy reading the first in the Zara series.

Mike Nicol

P.S. For background on the book, my Substack, Mike’s Open Pages, has more on ‘le making of…’ You’ll find my stack here: mikenicol.substack.comhttp://mikenicol.substack.com

'Falls the Shadow' is published by Pan Macmillan South Africa