I had to set aside my re-read of Vengeance for my upcoming appearance at the Tucson Festival of Books so I could complete the final edit on Masks — the next Vasily Korsokovach Investigates novel due out in April. Oddly, I’ve never found it too difficult to shift between my main characters; when I first started out writing Sean and Vas, I worried horribly that I’d be unable to recapture their unique voices after any time away from writing them. I even went as far as to pen several books back-to-back in the early stages of each series just to prevent that from happening; as it turns out, I’ve never needed more than a few pages to get my sea legs back for either of these two detectives. I suppose part of the fun for me as a writer is knowing when a particular reaction feels authentic — when it does, it’s proof I’ve plugged completely into whatever zeitgeist is driving my character.
Silenced picks up within a few weeks of Masks, which makes it rather handy for me to be pouring over it just now. One of the threads that will see some additional development is the ongoing storyline of Vasily’s wedding, continuing a “b” storyline that began back in Requiem. While I’ve long known that Alex and Vas would ultimately tie the knot, the exact timing of their nuptials has been somewhat in flux; it became even murkier when Sean unexpectedly stepped into the mess in Vengeance, offering to help Alex plan a humdinger of a surprise ceremony at Disney World. I added more fuel to that fire in Masks — I can’t tell you exactly how, since it would spoil the whole thing — but that, in turn, pushed the date again. All I will say is that both Alex and Vas are keeping secrets from each other — secrets that get them into a spectacularly wonderful screwball mess worthy of an episode from I Love Lucy.
But back to the date for the wedding: despite the Windeport Universe being a fictional world, it does move forward in time, albeit at a somewhat irregular pace. For the most part, my novels tend to take place fairly close to each other, moving the calendar just a fraction with each new tale. In book time, I’m slightly more than two years out from the events that took place in Blindsided; Masks takes place at Halloween, just a bit beyond the first anniversary of Vasily’s second return to California. Silenced is just after Thanksgiving weekend, allowing me to possibly coast into a story that will take place in January that I’ve long wanted to tell, one where the entire gang will be back together to solve another case — just not in Maine. Or California, for that matter.
At least, that’s the plan.
The only wildcard at this point is whether I want to sneak a Sean story into that tiny window; while I haven’t completely ruled it out, I’ve already written into Silenced the reason why that might not be possible. As I’ve said many times in the past, though, these characters tend to have a mind of their own; it’s entirely possible he’ll surprise me and land a Christmas-themed murder just in time for the holidays.
Heaven help me if that’s the case.
One More Thing Before You Go
Just a quick reminder that my appearance at the Tucson Festival of Books is now in less than a week! If you are in Tucson Saturday, March 15, please stop by and see me at the Indie Author Pavilion (10-12:30ish), or attend the panel I’ll be on at 1pm. I’d love to see you there!
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