The story behind Soulseeker

I thought I would share some of the story behind my latest book, Soulseeker.

The premise for the book developed from watching Terry Pratchett’s television programme about assisted suicide. I began to wonder how someone would feel after they had helped a loved one to die. There must be a lot of mixed emotions as they help someone to end their pain; relief that the pain is over, grief that the person they love has gone and for some, the guilt that they had helped to end a life.

These thoughts then began to spin off in to another direction. What if the person being helped to die hasn’t agreed to it and their loved one was acting out of a misguided and selfish need? If you add a religious upbringing, the confused emotions could easily take control of the ‘assistant’ and lead to their own suicide or something else. From there the Soulseeker was born; a killer who had lost perspective on what is right and wrong.

In the book, the killer focuses on where the soul goes after death. The thought that his loved one may be condemned to hell due to his actions prays on him to the point that he decides he must find the answer to where the human soul goes by killing more people. He sees himself as a hero, relieving people of mental anguish as he searches for his solution. That’s why I combined the two words; like Superman or Spiderman, he believes he is doing the right thing.

The story of a serial killer was not one that I could see my private detective, Craig Campbell being able to resolve. (Although Craig does make an appearance.) The story needed to be told as a police procedural and I decided to take the police officer I had created as Craig’s friend and make her the focus of the book.

Alex Menzies has been promoted and joined the Major Incident Team. Her new boss is Detective Superintendent Tom Russell and together they will form the main characters in a new series of books.

The book presented me with a different canvas, one where impressionistic strokes of police procedure needed to be replaced with the fine detail of a realist painter. There was more research than for any of my previous novels and I loved the passion of the people who were kind enough to help me.

In Soulseeker, the lead characters and the rest of their team feel out of their depth, as Glasgow has not seen a serial killer in over forty years. The motivation of the killer is so alien that Russell and Menzies struggle to think like the killer. The police officer that helped me with aspects of the book, told me that the great detectives were the ones who could think like a killer. As the two leading detectives are both familiar with motives of greed, lust, revenge and hate, a killer with a motive that exists only in his head proves to be a real challenge.

You’ll need to read the book to find out how they meet that challenge.

Soulseeker is available on Kindle and is coming soon for iPad, Nook and in paperback.