A brief return for my “A Series Business” feature but a very welcome return of Michael J Malone to Grab This Book.  Michael is republishing the first two books in his excellent Ray McBain series and I thought this would be a good time to look back at when that first story was written and consider how Ray (and Michael) took the stories forward.

Before I share our conversation it is important to know that the first book in the Ray McBain series is Blood Tears which (at time of writing) can be purchased AT NO COST here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Blood-Tears-McBain-ONeill-Novel-ebook/dp/B07F2R3R9H/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8

The first in a series of books with D.I. Ray McBain – a Glasgow detective who turns to his best friend, Kenny O’Neill when he goes on the run after he becomes the prime suspect in a grisly murder.

An old man is found murdered in his Glasgow flat. DI Ray McBain is called to the scene and is the first to notice that the man’s wounds mirror the Stigmata. The police quickly discover that the victim is a former janitor who worked in several care homes where he abused his charges. Is someone taking revenge thirty years after the fact?

McBain, as a child was a resident of Bethlehem House, a Catholic run care home where the murdered man worked and early on in the investigation, McBain decides to hide a crucial bit of evidence relating to his stay in the convent orphanage.

When his superiors find out, McBain becomes the prime suspect in the case and has to make a decision which will leave him on the run and alone, trying to solve the murders and, at the same time, the puzzle of his past – a past that is pushing into the present with a recurring suffocating dream of blood and feathers that descends on him every night.

And without further ado…Mr Malone on McBain.

I never begin with a question. Could I ask you to introduce yourself and ask you to ensure you take full advantage of this opportunity to plug your books?

My name is Michael J Malone. I’ve published 9 books (so far) and 2 collections of poetry (ditto). I live in Ayrshire. I’ve touched on issues over my career like mental health, homelessness, PTSD, male spousal abuse, child abuse in Catholic homes, the evils of colonialism – while along the way getting to exercise a few demons, kill a few people and have a few laughs. I write the McBain and O’Neill novels, set in Glasgow and I’ve also written a few standalones – The Guillotine Choice, A Suitable Lie, House of Spines – and September’s release is called After He Died.

As the purpose of A Series Business is to discuss the DI Ray McBain books could you now introduce us to Ray?

Ray was one of those gifts from the sub-conscious that arrive on the page as if fully formed. He rose in the police rank fairly quickly due to his work-ethic and intelligence. He’s also a product of his background – he was in one of those Catholic homes I mentioned in the previous question – and that has left him with (I hope) an interesting collection of baggage. He can be abrasive, doesn’t suffer fool gladly, and has an issue with food.

Had it always been your intention to build a series around a recurring character? 

No. I just had an ambition to finish a novel that I had started. An idea that came from a dream. And in that dream I wrote a full novel- but could only remember one central image from it when I woke up. A naked man in front of a mirror. He’s holding a scalpel in one hand and with the other he places a white featureless mask over his face. Then he takes the scalpel and makes an incision on the lower eyelid of one of his eyes, presses the mask close to allow a tear of blood to slide down the white cheek of the mask. That went on to be the opening scene of Blood Tears.

That the characters I wrote about in this book came back was a surprise to me.

Have you a character path mapped out and are you building up towards key events? Or is the future for Ray still unclear, even to you?

I have no clue how I’m going to finish the book when I start writing it, so I have no hope of even considering a long term character arc. So yes, his future is unclear. I’m in awe of writers who can do that and wish I was more like them.

Have you written anything thus far in the series which you now wish you could undo?

Good question – and no. What has happened has happened for a good reason, to undo that might mean the earlier work is in some way weaker. I think you have to write the current book in a bubble – make it the best book you can make it – leaving everything on the field of play as an athlete might say. Holding back so it suits later work? I can’t work like that.

Some authors are clearly skillful planners and can do that, but so far it’s beyond me.

Do you include “spoilers” from earlier stories in subsequent books?  If I were to be reading out of order could I possibly learn of a character death or a murderer’s identity which was a twist in an earlier story?

Each book in the series can be read on its own. But unfortunately there are moments which have serious consequences on Ray that can’t be avoided as a “spoiler” in the next book, or it wouldn’t make sense. The series reader would be scratching their head and asking WTF?  – particularly in the last couple of books in the series.

Do your characters age in real time, living through current events and tech developments or are they wrapped in a creative bubble which allows you to draw only on what you need for the latest book?

I’m one of those writers who struggle with timelines. There’s something about numbers that leave me as if partially blind. But my answer is kinda, and kinda. As I’ve hinted earlier Ray goes through some serious shit, and that has consequences – if not, what is the point – no one could deal with what he does and come out the other side unmarked. To answer your question then, he does age, he is affected by events, but he also lives in a bubble.

My approach when writing these books has always been that he is a man who just happens to be a policeman. So this means he has a life outside of the job – and that means – to me at least – the books are more than being about the puzzle of the whodunit. And I hope this makes him more interesting to the reader (I always prefer that kind of approach) and that brings with it those pesky consequences that have to be observed or the whole thing just doesn’t make sense.

You have written several stand alone titles, do you come up with an idea and decide if it is suitable to build it around Ray or does the publishing cycle dictate when a Ray story has to arrive?

The publisher dictates which is which. My standalones are published with Orenda Books. The McBain and O’Neill novels are published with Saraband. McBain and O’Neill are distinct enough in my mind that if an idea arrives it is intrinsically linked to those characters –whereas the standalones rise in my imagination completely separate from that.

Can a Ray McBain novel end in a cliff-hanger? 

(NB – I am avoiding spoilers but I know the answer to this)

It certainly can. Wink. *taps side of nose* I’ll say no more. Other than to say that one reader wrote to me after reading the book with the cliff-hanger to say that her response was the most visceral reaction she’d ever had to a book. Which is nice.

Colin Dexter famously killed off Inspector Morse. Agatha Christie wrote Poirot’s death and then released dozens more Poirot stories before Curtain was published.  Will there ever be a “final” Ray McBain story?

Jeez, I don’t know. There’s certainly more mileage in there, but I’m giving him (and me) a break at the moment while I concentrate on the standalones. The events of the last couple of his novels are such that he can’t go without a lapse of time to lick his physical and mental wounds. It would feel disingenuous to carry on without observing that. And to be honest, any ideas I’ve had recently are ones that wouldn’t suit him. It’s as if he’s gone quiet in my mind and he’s sitting in a corner, comfortable, resting, recuperating, waiting for the right idea to come along.

I do enjoy writing about his and Kenny O’Neill’s world, so I hope that he’s not too silent in my imagination for too much longer.

My thanks to Michael. That description of the “mask scene” in Blood Tears chills me!

All Michael’s books can be found and ordered through this handy wee link: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Michael-J-Malone/e/B009WV9V4Y/ref=sr_tc_2_0?qid=1533234860&sr=8-2-ent

The Blood Tears blog tour continues…