I had one of those moments today, one that I presume most authors have from time to time: if suddenly gifted the magical ability to go back in time and rework any of my manuscripts prior to their publication, would I use it? I think — no, I know — the introspection was triggered by the recent anniversary for the release of Pariah, the first novel in the Vasily Korsokovach Investigates series. It’s hard to believe it’s been three years since it appeared on bookshelves, and nearly four since Vas figured out how to step out of Sean’s life and into a series of his own.
Quite a bit has changed for both of us since I wrote that initial scene between him and Sean; eight books later, I’m not sure the Vasily appearing in Masks is entirely the same character who stepped off a plane at John Wayne International hoping to put Windeport and his broken heart in the rearview mirror. Knowing that, I found myself looking over those early books in the Vasily Korsokovach series and wondering, not for the first time, what I might change about them if given the chance.
(Now, have no fear: I’ll stipulate from the outset that I have no plans to make any changes to anything. I’m of a mind with several notable Hollywood directors who take the view that once it’s on film — or in my case, in print — it’s final. Think of this as an informed thought experiment, one that might fill in some of the blanks about how I got from point a to b.)
Vasily’s first book, Pariah, was something of an experiment for me. Let me be completely candid: when I began that book, my intention was to write a one-off and have Vas return to Windeport after realizing he’d made a horrific mistake. Except as I got further and further into it, I began to find little reasons why that plot didn’t make any sense; reasons why Vas needed to, somehow, remain in California. The original ending for Pariah was quite different than the one that ultimately appeared; so was the second ending. And, oddly, the third; it wasn’t until the fourth and final version of the ending came to life on my screen that I realized Vasily had become something far beyond a person willing to play second fiddle to Sean Colbeth.
I absolutely adore Pariah, but looking at it now, I think it’s too short; there is so much about Vasily I now know, I could easily see multiple ways to expand him as a character in that first book. Vasily’s second book, Ditched, did quite a bit of that, but as I’ve said elsewhere, I ultimately decided I needed something of a bridge between the character we see in Pariah and the one that lands in California (again) at the end of Ditched. Peril was intended to be that book, and rounds out what I now think of as the first trilogy of Vasily’s solo career.
It’s pretty clear to me now that these first three books — Pariah, Peril and Ditched — serve more as the backstory for Vasily than anything else, the overarching explanation underpinning the actual adventures he’s now having in Southern California. I love them to pieces, but were I to do it over again, I strongly suspect I would have launched his career with Bygones instead. I don’t make this statement lightly, but it does resonate with me — especially since the man we see in that novel is, truly, the version of Vasily that has always been in my head. He’s fully formed and firing on all cylinders, living the life he should be living on his own terms and in his own inimitable way.
And he’s definitely not playing second fiddle to Sean.
So in that sense, I find myself now thinking of Bygones as the proper start to the Vasily Korsokovach Investigates series. There’s enough of his backstory sprinkled into the plot that you can jump in with the fourth book and not miss a beat, but I’ve also given readers the roadmap should they want to back up and see how Vasily got to Rancho Linda in the first place. Would that make those first three books a prequel trilogy, then? Maybe — and perhaps that’s how I should market them moving forward.
Anyway: enough ruminating! Time to buckle down and close out Belies — because there’s another Vasily novel waiting to be written right behind it.
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