Please welcome Geoffrey West to the blog for Mystery Book Tour Day 8 with his book Doppelganger.
Where is your home town?
Coulsdon, Surrey, in England.
How long have you been writing?
About 30 years now.
What is your favourite sub-genre of mystery?
‘Man in a mess’ thrillers, the type written by Dick Francis, Raymond Chandler and Robert Goddard. The type of mystery when a man (or woman) finds themselves in a terrible position through no fault of their own, and has to either help someone out of a mess, or extract themselves from a life-threatenimg difficulty. Ideally with danger, intrigue and mystery, lots of murders and a few people to hate and many to like. The hero or heroine, for me, has to be someone likeable, with integrity.
Where is Doppelganger set?
Around Canterbury in Kent, but part of the action takes place in Paris, France, also in London and Wales.
What is a Doppelganger?
Someone who is so alike another person in appearance that they look the same, so much so that they can be mistaken for each other. As close in appearance as an identical twin, but in fact no relation.
Who is Jack Lockwood?
He is a Behavioural Investigative Adviser, that is a psychologist who helps the police with cases, by trying to analyse the mind of a wanted criminal, with a view to catching him. Jack is also a writer, who writes about true crime, and in addition worked for some years as a builder.
Tell us some of the mystery element in the book
Jack falls in love with a woman he meets by chance, and has the feeling that he’s known her before. His fanciful notions of déjà vu, and being predestined to fall in love with her are rudely cut short when he realises that the reason he recognises her is because her face is that of a woman he recognises from a book, who was convicted for murder as a child, and has since been released under a new identity. This situation is further complicated by a serial killer on the loose around Canterbury. Is the girl he is in love with the serial killer, or can he believe her assurances that her likeness to the killer (when she was a child) is coincidental? The answer is far from simple, and there are quite a few surprises along the way.
Who is the gangster that Jack is trying to write about?
This is a vicious criminal who has dangerous contacts everywhere, and Jack knows that if he is to avoid being killed to stop him writing his book about his activities, he has to be very careful indeed, and can trust no one.
Tell us the plot line for the first in the Jack Lockwood series
ROCK’N’ROLL SUICIDE starts with Jack exploring a derelict stately home, which in the 1970s was used as a recording studio for various rock bands. He has gone to the manor house to try and discover facts surrounding the deaths of Maggi O’Kane and her band. He is writing a book about the early deaths of rock musicians (Jim Morrison Kurt Cobain et al) and the story of Maggi shooting her band, then herself has become enshrined in rock legend. But he discovers old photographs that possibly prove that someone else was in the manor when the band were all killed, and proceeds to try to discover the truth as to whether she is a murderer and commited suicide, or if her reputation has been trashed to suppress facts he finds that she discovered about the death of John Lennon in New York. As he makes more and more discoveries he faces increasing danger and threats to his life.
What are you working on at the moment?
The third Jack Lockwood novel, SHEER FEAR, which is completed, but needs odd bits and pieces and proofreading etc done to it. SHEER FEAR starts when Jack is partly responsible for the accidental death of his half brother, who was about to be arrested for the rape /murders of three women. Before he falls to his death, Jack’s brother tells him that he has been framed for these murders, because of a high level conspiracy to protect an important person from allegations of historic child abuse: it transpires that all the women victims made such allegations against Lord Kit Aylesbury, alleging that he interfered with them when they were children in the 1980s. As Jack tries to establish the facts, he finds he has made powerful enemies, and from that moment on, keeping alive gets harder and harder. However he knows that in order to survive and to avenge his brother’s death, he has no choice but to fight to find out the truth. His investigations take him to Copenhagen, Paris, Rome and Seattle, until he finally finds out the truth.
Where can readers find out more about you?
My website www.geoffreydavidwest.com. Give details of all my books, journalistic experience and editing services, plus my two blogs: http://jacklockwood.wordpress.com which hosts the Jack Lockwood Diaries, a number of short stories involving stories about Jack’s life, several of them supernatural. And my own blog: http://geoffreywestdotcom.wordpress.com/
Buying links:
ROCK’N’ROLL SUICIDE http://viewBook.at/B009XA5SQ4 (UK) and http://amzn.to/YT0rQN (US)
DOPPELGANGER http://viewBook.at/B00B6U64B2 (UK) and http://amzn.to/Zq6IU7 (US)
Doppelganger is FREE on kindle until November 11th
Sheer Fear by Geoffrey David West
Rosie Amber 