Book review: The Bull at the Gate

The Bull At The Gate by Linda Acaster
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

University graduate, Nick Blaketon, takes a job at the University of York. It’s all part of his survival strategy to get over the traumatic death of his girlfriend, Alice. His parents see it as a positive move, but not everyone is as easily fooled. The very fact he has chosen York indicates that far from making a proactive step to move on with his life, he has very different plans.
In the same place but centuries earlier, retired Roman legionary Vibius Fulcinius, now Keeper of the Temple of Luna, metes out a gruesome punishment to an initiate who misjudges temple etiquette.
In modern York, Nick finds a silver plaque that holds a key to the secret he seeks, but he’s too naïve to recognise that its condition marks it either as stolen or as a deliberate counterfeit. He can’t explain to his co-workers where it came from. He barely understands it himself. When a colleague goes missing, Nick’s odd behaviour is under the microscope. The police ferret out the strange details of Alice’s death, and suddenly Nick is in very deep water, which has a certain irony, as it was a shrine to a water goddess that Alice was seeking when she died.
While Vibius fights to protect the sanctity of the Temple of Luna, Nick and his workmates brush shoulders with ancient rites of passage. Lines blur through the layers of history that make up modern York, where Roman temples built with stone plundered from ancient shrines are still out in plain sight to the 21st century eye. The annual Jorvik Festival plays backdrop to mounting tension as the plotlines weave towards their conclusion. It’s a fast-moving paranormal thriller that will raise the hairs at the back of your neck as it becomes clear that there is no going back for Nick. In taking his first tentative step on this journey, he slammed the door behind him. The only question is whether he can summon the strength to solve the puzzle in time to influence the outcome and prevent another tragedy.
Following Nick through modern York, and Vibius through Roman York gives a real sense of this historic town, with the weight of history bearing down from all sides.
The Bull at the Gate is the second of Linda Acaster’s occult suspense trilogy featuring Nick Blaketon.


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This is not a tree

It looks like a tree. It has green leaves and a wooden trunk and it stands tall. We've watched it grow over several years. It seems to thrive though it’s a bit of a puzzle where all that greenery gets its nutrients. And it’s definitely not a tree, though that isn't obvious from the photo.

It’s an abandoned telegraph pole covered in ivy.

Secret weather report from the north east

Sunday 2nd February 2014 and a sunny walk on the beach. I need to date it or I might not believe it was really that sunny, but it was. Not exactly shirt sleeves weather and no one was in swimming but it was a lovely sunny, dry day.

Listening to the national news is like tuning in to the wrong country – all those storms and floods. Mind you, when we were under water after last year’s storm surge, the national news was much the same in terms of coming from a far off land – a passing mention of sea levels worse than the great flood of 1953 and a list of places south of Watford that escaped the storm.

Anyway, the latest secret weather report from the north east is sunshine.

The sequel to Valentine’s 2013

Last year G, missing the point about hearts, flowers and St Valentine, had a heart attack on Valentine’s Day necessitating a journey through the NHS recorded here.  

It is not quite a year ago, but anyway it was time for the annual check-up. He has been declared fully fit and discharged from the system.

 To celebrate, we had fish for lunch.

And later joined the folks at Fantastic Books Publishing to celebrate the successful launch of their audio division.

Today I was a leg and my name was Rose

And no better start to the working day than to relax on a very comfortable hospital bed. Somehow you usually don’t notice the comfort, but that’s because usually being in a hospital bed means being in a hospital with all the implications that brings. But I was just a leg.

I shared the ward with an alarmed looking plastic dummy.

Probably he didn't approve of mixed wards. And to be fair he had more to be alarmed about than I did. I was just a leg to be bandaged. It was a bit odd to be called Rose, and even odder to have to refer to a crib sheet when asked a question such as, ‘How are you?’ but it was very comfortable and I could easily have nodded off.

But even clinical skills exams have to come to an end, and especially those overseen by two efficient examiners who won my approval straight away by offering breakfast and hot drinks.

If it weren't for having to catch up on the work that didn't get done, I’d happily start every day with a couple of hours dozing on a hospital bed.

Plotting the new novel

It’s vital that the back story works out. There’s nothing worse than disentangling a whodunit only to find a gaping plot hole in the back story that pulls the rug from under the whole book. Thus very important to act out that back story in detail and work out how it threads into the main plot. This is how I do it.

The main players gather.

And here comes a mystery couple to interact with one of them.

Agh! The murder...

And of course the detective with his spyglass.

Now for the clever stuff; the couple in the car...

The mysterious death...

The drive to the forest in the unlikely car.

And the guy on the bicycle at the Tube station is of course the red-herring.

So now it’s all straight in my head... off to Chapter One...

My Writing Process - Blog Tour #mywritingprocess

Today is Blog Tour Day where authors answer questions about their writing process. Fellow novelist, Linda Acaster posted hers last week. You can check out her writing process here.

A friend suggested that I use this blog to reveal the secret of how someone who is quite busy gets 100k words written and polished every year. Easy to say and sounds like a plan, but if I'm honest, I haven't a clue. All I know is that so far, the words keep stacking up.

What am I working on?

Having taken a sideways dive out of my Annie Raymond PI series, I ventured into the police procedural world. 

The agent who encouraged me gave his opinion a week ago. It wasn't a no. That's good. It wasn't an unequivocal yes. That's no surprise. But better than that, it wasn't the standard 'This is fine, can you just change the beginning, middle and end'. I only need to change the middle and the end, more or less. And no hurry. Any time in the next 5 minutes will be just fine. While I was awaiting the verdict, the series took root in my head so I started book 2. That's good, too, because it means I can dive back into book 1 edits with a real sense of distance from it. Watch this space.

I also have a contract to co-write a textbook. The last one was on commercial fiction techniques. This one is on academic writing techniques. Co-author, are you out there? We need to get moving!

On academic writing, I have all the research results for a follow up paper to one I wrote earlier in the year, and I have that to get on with, too.

How does my work differ from others of its genre?

I think just because it's me who writes it. I don't make any special effort to be different, but my experience is unique in the way that everyone's experience is unique and that must make a difference. 

Far from trying to be different or outlandish, I take a lot of trouble to keep things pinned to the real world. Outlandish things happen in my books but they're all grounded in fact or on a credible premise. Strange things happen in the real world. I rarely turn down a chance to research odd places and people. I draw the line at criminal activity, not least because I have no talent for it. I was once coerced into being a getaway driver for an activist group and ... oh dear... I've related that tale before. I won't go into it again here.

Why do I write what I do?

One answer is that the crime novels found a publisher. I tried children's, romance, fantasy, science-fiction as well as crime in all sorts of forms. Mostly it was crime and in the end, it was the PI whodunit series that took off. With luck, the police procedurals will too. There's a whole world of crime writing to explore once you get your foot in the door of the official investigation.

How does your writing process work? 

If I didn't have two day jobs and no fixed timetable, I'm sure I would want to work to a regular routine - X hours per day, up early every morning perhaps, or a late-night scribbler or maybe both. But I don't have that luxury. After years where my first appointment of the day can vary from early morning (up at 2 am to get to an airport, or 5 am to get the early train) to a more civilised 9 or 10 o'clock, and where the other end of the day is similarly diverse (5 pm and home with the rush hour, 1 am and home with the late-night revellers), if I'd stuck to being a writer who needed a routine, I wouldn't have written a word. But as it is, I write on trains, in waiting rooms, in hotels, at home and at any time of the day or night when I'm awake and have a gap.

When it comes to planning a new book, I've written a couple without having much of a plot to start with. The rewrites were painful enough that now I always try to plot my way through the major milestones before I start. But it's the characters as they develop around those major milestones who generate the twists and turns and many of the real gems. 

When a reader says, 'I didn't see that coming,' I often think, 'No, neither did I.'

I don't go for 'rules' of writing. Different things work for different people. I keep a summary of what helped me on the creative writing page of my website.

Thanks for visiting my blog. Please leave a comment.

NEXT WEEK

Sue Knight is a writer and poet who lived in the Middle East for 20 years. She was an invited contributor to the anthology, Ours. 

Ken Reah will see his debut novel published in late 2013 at the age of 84. I've had a sneak preview. Edge of Arcadia is worth the wait.

Beth Elliott is an established novelist who explores adventure and intrigue in the Regency period.