Murder, drug-dealing, and adultery behind a famous restaurant

Alberto Laurenzo let out an anguished cry, and reached for his chest. The two plates of food he carried fell from his hands and clattered on the floor. His face looked red and distorted. Nearby, a middle-aged man – enjoying a discreet meal with his long-time lover – looked on, horrified. Alberto lurched towards them and fell, and swept the glasses, cutlery, and dinner plates off their table to the ground with him. He hit the floor with a thump and lay slumped, facedown on the carpet and motionless.

The woman from the table closest to where Alberto had fallen yelled out to her dumbstruck partner to help. She had risen to her feet, and reached down to the poor man’s inert body, facedown amongst the remains of the two dishes he’d been carrying. Amidst the nauseating amalgam of the food smeared into the thick pile of the carpet and splattered all over Alberto were various-sized shards of broken glass and white china. The woman looked down upon an eerie and grisly sight.

At once people stood up. Some rushed to offer assistance; others ghoulishly pushed and shoved their way towards the circle that surrounded the fallen restaurateur. At first the waiters tried to carry on as normal, but soon realised it was a waste of time. A sense of pandemonium had taken hold of the restaurant.

‘Excuse me,’ Ralph Launcier said with an authoritative tone as he pushed through the onlookers. He stopped abruptly. He raised both his hands, placed one on each cheek, and let out an audible gasp.

‘I’ll take over, Mr Thompson,’ he said, as he stepped forward to where the middle-aged-man tried to raise Alberto’s lifeless body from the sticky mess beneath and around him. Within a few seconds, Ralph had pulled Alberto up to a sitting position.

‘Could I ask you to move further away,’ Ralph said with a touch of annoyance to the circle of people who had gathered to watch.

Most looked embarrassed. ‘Of course,’ ‘yes,’ and ‘I’m sorry,’ they all mumbled as they shuffled away. Some took the hint, and started to walk slowly back to their tables, others stood in cliques about a metre away and pretended not to look as they gossiped and speculated about Alberto. The consensus was that he had died.

A man and a woman, with bright and expectant expressions, entered the restaurant at the front door. They stopped at the spot where normally Alberto or Ralph would greet them. They glanced around, and then back at each other. Both looked bewildered and confused. One of the diners sidled up to them and passed on his view, in hushed tones, of what had taken place. Shocked horror appeared on the couple’s faces. They said a few words quietly to each other and left. A few customers, who had seen them leave, took it as their own cue to depart. Some people followed. Most stood around in small groups as though they expected some sort of announcement. Faintly, in the distance, an ambulance siren could be heard.

To read more: go to The Wrong Menu page at the top.

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Love your characters

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Ever been trapped at a party by someone who bores the arse off you?

Ever been left in a room with the last person you’d ever want to hang out with?

Been on a train, or plane, and had to listen to someone spout on about something you not in the slightest interested in, just because you have to sit next to them?

Well, what if you felt that way about any of the characters in your book?

After finishing an eighteen-month rewrite of six books from my backlist, I got to have a look at all the guys I’d written about.

As you might have read in my previous blogs, some are pretty evil, but I found most of them interesting and with more than one dimension. So much so that I had a virtual party, on a blog, a week or two back, with a bunch of them. It was such a blast that I did it again, and may turn it into a short story.

I’ve written seven books, and I wouldn’t say that all the characters are great and well-drawn. Some are flat, boring and need spicing up; whereas several have charisma, dynamism, and something about them, and could reappear or be copied under a different name.

I put strong characterisation amongst the top three essentials in a book – the other two being dialogue and plot. By revisiting my past characters, I confirmed my belief that they should be interesting, jump off the page types, and maybe people you don’t want to meet in real life. Books are a form of escapism, and readers want some real grit in the people they going to spend a few days or a week or two with.

I touched on this a bit earlier. There is no reason why a few good characters from your previous books can’t reappear in new ones – and I don’t mean a series or collection – I mean a new, freestanding book. They might need updating, improving in dimension, dressing more coolly, and livening up their dialogue, but that’s to do. Of course, if you’ve killed them, like I have with quite a few, that’s more difficult!

However, they could come to one of my virtual parties. Send me their names and CV, and I’ll see what I can do!

Here’s to the guys that excite us, and take giant leaps off our pages into our readers’ imaginations.

After the party, Harry called me

(image: Adriana Velez)

It was 5:00 am. I had a pounding headache from the night’s excesses and was clearing up the crushed peanuts, squashed olives and crumpled crisp packs from the floor; and picking up the empty bottles, littered all over the place when Harry Fingle called. Harry was the guy in Playing Harry who was roughed up by the CIA and MI6. Mind you, he’d dumped his girlfriend of seven years after her loyal support during the trumped-up case against him. Maybe he got his just reward?

Harry said he was put out that I hadn’t invited him to my ‘characters’ party last week. He’d heard about it from Jimmy Ali, a petty drug-dealer also from Playing Harry. Apparently, Jimmy had gone to have breakfast with Harry after the bash and told him all about it. The last I remember of Jimmy, at the party, was of him trying to cut some deal with Grigoriy Nabutov, while appearing pretty stoned. Grigoriy was one of Harry’s failed assassins, but not someone to mess with. I know who would have got the better deal between Grigoriy and Jimmy!

Anyway, I said to Harry that I’d thought the unsavoury bunch of criminals and gangsters that populate my books were not folks he would have wanted to mix with. ‘Do me a favour,’ he’d said. ‘They’re bloody evil, but hellish interesting. Make sure you ask me next time.’

So, here I am, at 1:15 am a week later, watching a whole lot of goodies and baddies drinking my booze and smashing up my apartment. Oh, to hell with it; it’s a once-in-a-lifetime event.

Oh my God. I’ve just seen Barry Carter – the guy who faked his death in Electronic Crime in Muted Key – in deep conversation with Bruce Thompson, the gay vicar in the same book, who Barry enlisted to help him with his elaborate scam. I don’t think they’d ever met in the flesh. Barry contacted him through the Internet. I must go and listen in. They’ve much to talk about. Poor Bruce topped himself, and Barry met a watery death at the hand of his lover, Louise. She turned up at my last party, but couldn’t make it tonight.

‘I don’t think you two have met before,’ I say as I walk up to them.

Barry smiles at me. ‘Yes we have, we met down there, where the bad guys go,’ he replies, and points to the floor.’ ‘Nice to meet you.’

I look at them both. Bruce gives me an odd smile and says, ‘No hard feelings, Nick.’ He turns and glances at Barry. ‘At least he paid me the money.’ Weird-os, I think, and I move off quickly.

I haven’t seen much of Harry all evening. He came early, said hello, and made for a group where Jo Symes – the feisty detective in Electronic Crime in Muted Key, and who plays a small part in Death in The Fishing Net – was talking to a couple of the other detectives from my books.

Just as I’m looking for Harry, he bumps into me from behind. ‘How you’re doing,’ he says, with a couple of drinks in his hand. He offers one to me. I take it, and he continues, ‘You screwed me good and proper in Playing Harry. I was stitched-up like a kipper by those CIA and MI6 guys.’

‘Sorry, Harry. But it wouldn’t been a story if you’d won out after all you did to Amie.’

‘Am I going to have to live with that all my life? Can’t you give me a break,’ Harry asked, took a big slurp from his drink, and looked at me.

‘Well, funny you should ask. I’m just dreaming up another story for you. You might have a better time.’

Harry looks at me with a serious expression. He screws up his eyes. He puts his free hand up to his mouth. ‘With Amie?’ he asks.

‘Oh, not sure about that, Harry. She’s married now.’ He shrugged his shoulders and walked away.

Next I go and see Sam Crichton, the guy Jerome thought he’d killed in Killing Sam Forever. Sam’s talking in a corner with a group who have their backs to me. As I approach, he turns around in his wheelchair and looks up.

‘Nick, so good to meet you after all this time,’ he says and stretches out his hand.

My God, I think. That was the line he used when he met up with Jerome again, after Jerome thought he’d killed him.

‘You know Julie?’ he asks, and I look to see his beautiful wife who had an affair with Jerome that led to Sam and her splitting up. She smiled in the way she did in the book.

‘Nice to meet, Nick, she says, and then leans towards my ear. ‘I hear Jerome was at your party last week. How’s he doing?’ she whispers.

Time to go again, I think, and head off to find myself another drink.

Playing Harry, the first epic story of Harry Fingle, where he beat off two assassins, only to be stopped by MI6 and the CIA, is available as an ebook and in paperback. amazon.com, amazon.co.uk, smashwords, iPad UK, iPad US

Electronic Crime in Muted Key is available as an ebook. amazon.co.uk, amazon.com, smashwords. iPad UK, iPad US

Killing Sam Forever, Death in The Fishing Net, The Wrong Menu and The Bloodied Black Heart are coming shortly.

More details: http://nickwastnage.com

I went to such a blast last night

I invited some characters from my books to a party. It turned into quite a riot.

At a few minutes past eleven, when most people had drank too much, I looked around the room and saw Jerome Millar, who, in Killing Sam Forever, tried to kill his best friend, chatting up Amie Lau, dumped by Harry Fingle in Playing Harry, in a far corner.

I thought the best thing to do was to break them up, and I grabbed hold of Max – sadly killed in Murder He Forgot, but making a cameo appearance for the night – and introduced him to them both. ‘Break them up,’ I muttered in his ear. ‘He’s evil.’

I had to leave them to it. I’d seen Ralph Launcier, the drug-dealing restaurateur in The Wrong Menu, moving in on Kate Fisher, a double-dealing seductress in Playing Harry, who almost brought about Harry’s demise. That’d be good, I thought. They can both stitch each other up. I went over to see if I could help make the match.

At midnight, after I’d refilled my drink a few times to help cope with the tension of the evening, I sidled towards Jimmy Ali, also in Playing Harry, and who I hadn’t seen since I’d finished writing the book. He was stoned out of his mind and doing one of his petty drug deals, so I waved and moved on.

I caught sight of Louise, heroine of Electronic Crime in Muted Key, talking and joking with Sara, killed by Barry Carter in the same book, but happily able to make the evening. I rocked up and asked what they were laughing about. ‘I just told Sara how I killed Carter and screwed him for all his dough,’ she said. ‘I’ve asked Sara to come and stay with Dimitris and me in Greece,’ she added, and looked at me. ‘Sadly she can’t make it,’ I said. ‘She’s a ghost, you know, and disappears soon.’ I looked at Sara. ‘Glad you could come tonight, though. You had such a rough time with that bastard.’

At one in the morning I cornered Leonard, the villainous, murderer who killed poor Max in Murder He Forgot. He was talking to Grigoriy Nabutov, another evil man, who also attempted to kill Harry Fingle. ‘Well, well, well. What sinister plot are you guys cooking up,’ I said to them. ‘I guess it involves a few murders, a bit of extortion, drugs and some hookers. Your deals always do.’ They both looked at me with pained expressions. ‘What makes you think that?’ Leonard asked. I returned his stare and said, ‘Cos I made you that way.’

I tell you it was a riot. Much was drank, many were stoned and all the good guys stood in a circle and waved and clapped at the villains – now departed – as they vanished into thin air at 2:00 am.

It was such fun. I’m going to do it again soon. So many couldn’t make it.

And they all thought he was such a nice guy

The Wrong Menu

Ralph Launcier is a successful celebrity-chef and restaurateur. He’s also a drug dealer and murderer.

Cameron, his brother-in-law and the money-man behind Ralph’s restaurant, mistakenly picks up the menu Ralph uses to cover his drug dealing, and starts asking questions. When Cameron goes on to question the truth about the way Ralph acquired the restaurant from Ralph’s late boss – the founder and original owner – Ralph senses trouble, and plots Cameron’s demise.

Ralph tells his sister, Cameron’s wife, to report back on Cameron’s activities, and he orders his wife to sleep with Cameron for information. The plan backfires. Ralph is killed. Cameron ends up in jail.

It takes Cameron’s thirteen-year-old stepdaughter to set the record straight.

The Wrong Menu will be published as an ebook by the end of May.

One amongst seven

(image: nzepc.auckland.ac.nz)

Who can Harry trust?

Kate Fisher morns her son, stabbed in a drug-related teenage gang incident. The tragedy breaks up her marriage. When her sister and brother-in-law, Harry Fingle’s brother, are murdered, she teams up with Harry to find the killers. He discovers that she still works for Alex Goad, the man he suspects is behind the murders, and he doubts her true loyalty.

Alex Goad is the self-seeking, deceitful chief executive of one of the world’s leading pharmaceutical companies. He hires a computer hacker to hack into his competitor’s IT system and Harry Fingle’s emails, and thinks nothing of blackmailing Kate Fisher, an ex-employee, to sleep with Harry to gain vital information on his company’s major rival.

Richard Morecombe is a successful media mogul. Harry Fingle, who works for one of Richard’s newspapers as an investigative journalist, finds out that Richard pays to have sex with underage teenage boys. Harry wants to publish his findings. His editor stops him, and he’s arrested and charged for a crime he didn’t commit. It’s a set up, and he’s acquitted. He returns to his job, and is fired for no reason.

Ed James kills people for a living. He’s a professional hitman. Alex Goad hires him to murder Harry Fingle’s brother and sister-in-law, and then instructs him to kill Harry.

Jimmy Ali calls Harry Fingle as soon as he’s let out of prison. He’s done time for petty drug dealing. Harry used him once for information on the street drug scene. Harry hires Jimmy to help him track his brother and sister-in-law’s killer. Jimmy finds himself in the middle of a conspiracy, where two leading pharmaceutical companies, vying for world domination, target Harry while the CIA and MI6 look on.

Grigoriy Nabutov, one time head of the most feared mafia gang in Moscow, falls out with the Russian authorities and takes a job with Alex Goad’s rival company. His assignment is to watch Harry Fingle. When Harry starts to get in the way, Grigoriy’s masters order him to kill Harry.

Amie Lau is Harry Fingle’s loyal and loving ex, who won’t accept their relationship is over. He treats her badly, but she still loves him, and camps in his house when he’s not there. She helps him when he needs assistance, and risks her life for his cause.

Playing Harry, the first epic story of Harry Fingle, where he beat off two assassins, only to be stopped by MI6 and the CIA.

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Forget Harry, let's talk about Amie

Was Amie so wrong to go to Harry’s house after they’d split, and wait for him, on the day he’d been fired for no reason with a take-out and a bottle of wine?

Was she wrong to go back on another day and put up all the pictures of her that he’d put away, and rearrange his clothes?

Should she have gone again and played his CD’s, stood in his shower, laid in his bed, and left before he returned?

They’d been together for seven years. She’d thought they’d eventually marry. She never worried when; she just felt sure it would happen at some time. He’d told her he loved her, and she had done the same. They were the like oxygen; an essential to each other’s existence. They had common interests, laughed and joked a lot, liked the same food, and made love often and spontaneously. Their friends talked about them as ‘coming from the same mould, and a relationship made in heaven.’

Then Harry was charged and acquitted of a crime he didn’t commit: being in possession of indecent images of children. It was a set-up. People were out to get him. He got off, but it shattered him. After the case, instead of greeting Amie, who’d supported him throughout the long, arduous trial, with an embrace, he said he wanted to split, and told her to remove her stuff from their house as soon as possible. He gave no explanation: it was almost an order.

After a year, when his brother and sister were murdered and he set out to find the killer, he went to see Amie, unannounced, to ask for her help. She thought he wanted to get back together.

That’s when she started her uninvited visits to his house.

Was she so wrong?

Her unwillingness to let go nearly cost her life.

More about Amie Lau in Playing Harry, the first epic story of Harry Fingle, where he beat off two assassins, only to be stopped by MI6 and the CIA.

amazon.com, amazon.co.uk, smashwords, iPad UK, iPad US.

Also available as a paperback.