Dying for the Past - Roots of the Sequel - Part II

By Tj O’Connor, author of Dying to Know, Dying for the Past, and Dying to Tell 

It’s here. Hold the presses. Ready the fireworks. Make ready the launch … Dying for the Past hits the shelves tomorrow! Detective Oliver “Tuck” Tucker is back in Book II of his Gumshoe Ghost series, and he’s ready to solve another case. This one, as explained in Part I of this two-part blog “Dying for the Past—The Roots of this Sequel” centers around the murder of a wealthy and mysterious philanthropist with connections to a 1930s mobster’s journal containing the secrets of Washington D.C.’s powerbrokers, gangsters, and spies.    

Everyone wants the book. And they’ll do anything—especially kill—to get it.

In Part I of this blog, I explained that Tuck is up against Vincent Calaprese, the spirit of a 1930’s gangster, the Russian Mob, and several conniving suspects. Someone killed Stephanos Grecco—a wealthy philanthropist—in front of a hundred charity gala guests dancing the night away. The story surrounds the search for Vincent’s journal—the book—in which he kept tabs on spy rings, mob bosses, and corrupt Washington D.C. elite. Vincent used his journal to persuade the FBI from shutting down his operations and keep his mob competition at arm’s length. Over the years, the book became a shield against the growing Russian mob and corrupt government officials. To mess with Vincent’s family meant risking the book telling its stories.

This subplot is based on true events.  

During the run-up to WWII, some mob leaders helped our government thwart, and in some cases, directly combat our enemies. Known mob kingpins are believed to have kept track of Axis spies operating in the country and reporting activities to the authorities, in particular, with ports and rail yards where sabotage was a threat. During those years (and perhaps still today), the mob had special access to ports, rail, and coastal cities —they had their own networks controlling the docks and cargo throughout the country; they also had enormous power over the labor unions working those areas. I suppose that while they were mobsters and racketeers, they were still Americans and, in a world war where nationalism was the battle cry, even the bad guys waved the flag.

One story has it that Meyer Lansky, along with a key mob boss and pal, Salvatore C. Luciano, a.k.a. Lucky Luciano, played key roles in keeping union dockworkers from striking during the war and aiding in the successful invasion of Sicily by American forces. Further, Lansky helped our government recruit fellow mobsters, Bugsey Siegel and Lepke Buchalter. The three gangsters were reportedly merciless at intimidating potential German-American Nazi sympathizers to keep them from gaining any foothold in the country. These men also played other roles while working for the government. Lucky Luciano also reportedly played a vital role in aiding the U.S. invasion of Sicily. Luciano was a notorious Italian boss with power in both the U.S. and in Sicily. According to historical accounts, Luciano traded his freedom from prison for his assistance in helping secure intelligence and cooperation from Sicilian mob assets.

There’s a long list of other mob aficionados who aided our government in fighting the Axis powers here and abroad. Few of them our government owned up to after the war. One story even suggests Luciano parachuted into Sicily behind enemy lines to make contact with mobsters—a significant power in Sicily—and organize them to aid the Allied invasion.

With history like this, how could I resist? So, while creating Vincent Calaprese and his delectable girlfriend, Sassy, I penned Vincent as a hot-cold, good-mobster, bad-mobster kinda guy. His connection to pre-WWII espionage and corruption is the backstory of Dying for the Past—and what better vehicle to connect the past with the present than a dangerous journal that named names and could blaze a trail to modern day espionage and corruption in 2015? And of course, the book and its stories were worth killing for.

The next ingredient in my story is Tuck’s family background and what secrets his unknown past might reveal. For those of you who have read Dying to Know, you know that Tuck was an orphan raised in foster care. He never knew anyone or anything about his family. In Dying to Know, we learn that Doc, his cantankerous spirit guide, is family. In Dying for the Past, we’ll begin to learn that being a ghost is hereditary and Tuck’s roots may well include mobsters, spies, cops and robbers, and a host of wayward spirits—pun intended. Ultimately, as Tuck’s stories continue, all the books will be connected through Tuck’s family past. There is a method to my madness and an intricate web of spirited lineage that will tie the cases—and the characters—all together. It suffices to say that Tuck’s murder was not an accident—and neither was Doc’s or the rest of Tuck’s family. In fact, they were all dying to get together. Wow, is that another book title?

Why am I so connected to the past myself? I have no choice—my own family tree has some interesting stories, too.

As a young boy, my grandfather, Oscar, told a few tales of his life in the 30s and 40s. As a very young man, he took to life as a hobo and rode the rails around the east coast looking for adventure—and work—during the Great Depression. In WWII, he was one of the oldest draftees and his exploits included working for a Military Intelligence Officer in the Pacific Theatre. My great uncle, John, was a drummer for the likes of the Dorsey Brothers, Gene Kruppa, and Glenn Miller. While I don’t think anyone ever heard of him, my grandparents were his biggest fans and instilled a love of Big Band and Swing music in me. In Dying for the Past, that music plays a unique role in Vincent Calaprese’s chapters and help me keep his era alive throughout the story. And last, but perhaps most significant is my mentor for the past 24 years, Wally, who is one of the last remaining OSS operatives (Office of Strategic Service—the forerunner to the CIA) still alive today. After the war, Wally joined the CIA and became one of its senior executives through the cold war and into the 80s. He fought the Germans in Northern Africa and Europe, fought the communists in Greece, the Russians throughout the world, and all enemies in between (and I dare say a bunch of Washington bureaucrats, too) until his retirement. His exploits and his life story are a constant source of material for my books. It is no secret that Wally is thinly disguised as Doc—Tuck’s omnipotent, brassy spirit mentor—in all of Tuck’s stories.

As you can see, history is a big part of my life and is a constant theme throughout my books. In my upcoming Dying to Tell, Book III in Tuck’s series, the OSS and a WWII operation in the Middle East play a significant role in a series of murders. Dying to Tell releases in January 2016.

For you history and mystery aficionados, I hope you’ll give Dying for the Past and Dying to Know a read. When you do, drop me a line at tj@tjoconnor.com and let me know what you think.

For the New Year, stay safe and well!





TJ O’CONNOR IS THE AUTHOR OF DYING FOR THE PAST and DYING TO KNOW, available in books stores and e-books from Midnight Ink. His third paranormal mystery, DYING TO TELL, will be released January 2016. Tj is an international security consultant specializing in anti-terrorism, investigations, and threat analysis—life experiences that drive his novels. With his former life as a government agent and years as a consultant, he has lived and worked around the world in places like Greece, Turkey, Italy, Germany, the United Kingdom, and throughout the Americas—among others. He was raised in New York's Hudson Valley and lives with his wife and lab companions in Virginia where they raised five children. Dying for the Past and Dying To Know are the first of eight novels to be published.  Learn more about Tj’s world at www.tjoconnor.com and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/TjOConnor.Author

 

 

Dying for the Past - The Roots of this Sequel- Part I

By Tj O’Connor, author of Dying to Know & Dying for the Past

Countdown—39 days to the launch of Dying for the Past, my first sequel to Oliver “Tuck” Tucker’s debut in Dying to Know. Tuck is back in Book 2 and he’s on a new case with the help of his beautiful and brilliant professor-wife, Angel, and Detective Bear Braddock, his always faithful, always-protective ex-partner. Or maybe I’m describing Hercule, his black Lab companion. Both I think.

Tuck has just started settling down into his new life as a dead detective after wrapping up his own murder and ending the killing spree of a serial killer. Things have been going well for him—all things being considered that is.  

Tuck finds that being dead is often bittersweet. He explains a little in Chapter 1 of Dying for the Past…

 

“Sometimes, being dead is not so bad. Like poofing in and out of places on a whim without bothering with doors and stairs. And you never have to pee or get the flu again—big pluses. Then there are times, though, when dead is depressing and sad. It’s the things you miss—the taste of good wine, the adrenaline-rush of chasing a suspect, or the feeling when you’re in the middle of the dance floor with the most beautiful woman in the room. Those moments hurt.

A woman with shoulder-length auburn hair and sparkling green eyes stood in the middle of the mansion’s ballroom. Her long, silky gown was icing poured hot over sultry curves. All eyes fixed on her when she embraced a tall, distinguished-looking older man before a dance. He wore a tux—okay, yeah, he was striking with gray hair and a strong, muscular build, brilliant, rich, blah, blah, blah. Big deal. The two could have been on a wedding cake, but instead were the center of attention at Angel’s big band-themed charity gala, and leading a turn around the floor to Glenn Miller’s Moonlight Serenade.

 When they took their first step, I turned away …”

Then wham. Someone’s dead. Not just any someone, mind you, but a shifty rich guy with a carnation on his lapel and a beautiful, but angry young bride on his arm. The only things anyone knows about this mysterious philanthropist is that he has too much money, too beautiful a young wife, and one-too-many bullet holes in him.

“Mr. Carnation hailed a passing waiter for a refill of champagne. After downing the glass in a single gulp, he lifted Angel’s hand for a melodramatic kiss.

His glass shattered and spasms jerked his body all the way to the floor. His right arm thrust out and pointed at the crowd; his left still held the broken glass stem. His body twitched a few more times and stilled …

… I’d seen death before—and murder, too often. Not just my own, but dozens.

This one was unmistakable. It wasn’t the way Mr. Carnation collapsed in a jerky, melodramatic spiral to the hardwood. It also wasn’t the way his dull, lifeless face caught the dance ball light either. It was much simpler.

It was the blood pooling around his body and the bullet hole through his torso.

Someone murdered Mr. Carnation—shot him in front of two hundred witnesses. A killer jitterbugged in and gunned him down to Benny Goodman.”

In Dying for the Past, Tuck realizes pretty quickly that it’s all about just that—the past. For Tuck, his past started to haunt him (pardon the pun) after his murder. You see, being dead also comes with some perks—spirited perks, like touching crime scene objects that show him a few snippets of their meaning (though often veiled) and being able to move about without the delays of traffic or bad weather. He can pop in and out of places at a whim. He just has to know where he wants to be. No, he has no after-life intuition or clairvoyance—it always comes down to plain old detective work. Now, he has to figure out how to use his new-found talents and a couple unusual characters to solve the case.

“Across the room, standing alongside the dance floor, was an uninvited guest. He was a stout, striking man in a black pinstripe, double-breasted suit. He wore shiny, buffed wingtips and a gray felt fedora. The only thing missing was a big cigar hanging out of his mouth and a violin case. Then, he swept his hand across his jacket and revealed a heavy semi-automatic in a shoulder holster. Did someone invite Al Capone?

He looked at me and winked. Winked …

 … Voices hushed as eyes fell on the dead man.

Not me, though, I watched the crowd, looking for the killer and any telltale sign of the smoking gun.

But what I saw, or didn’t see, unnerved me more.

The gangster in the black pinstripes was gone … vanished—poof. He arrived just in time for a killing and left before the body hit the floor. No sign of his spats and black tie remained. He didn’t leave his fedora or heater behind either. He was as dead and gone as Mr. Carnation.

The question was, however, would he stay that way?”

In Dying for the Past, Tuck begins to learn some of his own family secrets. First, after witnessing the murder of Stephanous Grecco in front of his wife and a hundred people at the Vincent House—no one saw anything—Tuck finds himself searching for the killer and wondering what it all has to do with his own family tree. What does he find along the way?

·       Vincent Calaprese—the spirit of a 1939 mobster boss with his hooks into Tuck’s family tree.

·       Sassy—the eye-candy delight always on Vincent’s arm and always after Tuck’s eye.

·       Doc Gilley’s secret just within arm’s reach. Can Tuck get the truth out of him?

·       Someone stalking Angel, but what does it have to do with Steve and Bonnie Grecco—the new rich elite in Winchester? And what does André Cartier, Angel’s only family and mentor, have to do with all of it?

·       Why are the FBI, US Attorney’s Office, and a television ghost-hunter all converging on the Vincent House?

·       Also, why is Poor Nic Bartalotta—retired New York mob boss extraordinaire—connected to the Russian Mob and missing federal snitches?

·       Aove all, who will find The Book—Old Vincent’s gangster journal holding the secrets to a bundle in loot and the names and evidence on the who’s who of Washington D.C.’s World War II spies, mobsters, and corrupt-elite. You’d be surprised how many are still around these days.

The answers come from the past and the victims are Dying for the Past.

Stay tuned to this channel—same The Plot Thickens time, same Plot Thickens Channel. Next month, I’ll disclose some of the past behind Dying for the Past. Like …

·       What’s the backstory to Vincent Calaprese and his pre-World War II escapades?

·       What’s the story behind Tuck, Doc, and his wayward ancestors?

·       Why am I so connected to the past myself? What skeletons and secrets do I have hidden deep away?

If you can guess any of these answers, drop me a line here or email me at tj@tjoconnor.com

Be looking for Dying for the Past out on your bookshelves January 8, 2015!

Tj O’Connor lives in Virginia with his wife and three Labs. Dying to Know is the fourth of his eight novels and is currently available in bookstores and online. Dying for the Past, the first of two sequels, will be released in January 2015—available now for pre-orders. Tj is an international security consultant specializing in anti-terrorism and investigations. Learn about his world at www.tjoconnor.com and Facebook at www.facebook.com/TjOConnor.Author.

Dying for a Riddle

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Dying For A Sequel

Dying For A Sequel

By Tj O’Connor, author of Dying to Know & Dying for the Past

 

There is nothing more gratifying, and terrifying at the same time, than

publishing your first novel. Before getting that heart-stopping telephone call from your agent that, yes, some brilliant and forward-thinking publisher would be putting your work to print, you had but one litmus test for your story—publishing. After the call, the terror sets in—what if no one buys it? What if the critics hate it? Worse… what the hell will I do for an encore?

The answers to the first two questions—sales and critics—is fodder for a future blog. For now, the answer to “what the hell will you do for an encore” is easy…Write a sequel.

And therein lies the terror. Oh, so many terrors. What if I can’t capture the story and characters again? What if the first one fails and the second one is worse? Worse… what if the first one is great and the second one stinks? What if… And so goes the sleepless nights and reams of paper in search of the solution.

When Midnight Ink demonstrated their class and stature in the publishing world by signing me to write three novels in the Gumshoe Ghost series (note—this series title is not my doing…honest!), I had already penned two more murder, different mysteries—New Sins for Old Scores, which my agent is currently trying to place in the market (any of you publishing pros out there, here’s your chance… call my Kimberley Cameron!) and The Killing of Tyler Quinn, which is presently in rewrite. But Midnight Ink wanted two more Oliver Tucker stories—the Gumshoe Ghost himself—so I teed up Dying for the Past, which will be out January 8, 2015, and Dying to Tell, coming in 2016.

The first dilemma I had was how to transition from book one to book two, Dying for the Past. Let me set the stage for the difficulties I had. Book one—Dying to Know—is the story of Oliver “Tuck” Tucker, a detective murdered in the opening chapter who returns to help his wife, Angel, and former partner, Bear Braddock, solve his crime. Of course, there are a half-dozen other important characters, including Hercule, Tuck’s black Lab companion; Poor Nic, a loveable/hateable retired mobster; and several secondary characters of note, too. The story, as with all the sequels, intertwines a current murder with a historical subplot involving murder and intrigue. The two story lines weave and cross back and forth and conclude together. Always. Thus, there are two timelines surrounding the characters—the present concerning the murder, and the distant past surrounding the historical plot. Tuck can move between these timelines and does to solve the cases. It’s like playing three dimensional chess with dead bodies!

So, the dilemma was—do I treat Dying for the Past (book two) like a standalone story or write it as though it’s simply the next chapter of a longer story. In my case, I took an eclectic approach and wrote Dying for the Past as a standalone story, but let the storyline flirt with Dying to Know (book one) as though a continuing chapter in Tuck’s larger story. Thus, in Dying for the Past, I have an entirely new murder(s) and the historical subplot that includes 1939 gangsters, Russian spies, and the search for the book that has the key to modern day spies and traitors. I reintroduced my characters, periodically mentioned the plot and outcome of the Dying to Know—but sparingly—and created a new cast of fresh good guys and bad guys to support those returning characters from Dying to Know. And, much to my pleasure, it worked—having a dead guy solve crimes creates a lot of challenges!

Part of the allure of a good mystery is the characters. They have fears, strengths, weaknesses, and history to unravel. After exhausting myself trying to make Dying to Know a good mystery novel, I was again terrified about how I would keep my main characters fresh, interesting, and still a little mysterious to any reader who already read the first novel. The danger would be having nothing new for the reader to learn about them.

I found the solution by developing the second set of support characters for Dying for the Past. Each of the Gumshoe Ghost sequels will have new characters supporting the story—after all, it’s a murder mystery so not all of them will make it to “The End.” And these new characters allowed me to create new fears, strengths, weaknesses, and storylines for my main characters to evolve. Human nature is that way, right? How you act with one person is not always the same as with another. How you respond to one situation or crisis is not always the same as in another, particularly if new people are involved. I used these new characters to drive my main character’s new storylines and, in doing that, create new things for the reader to discover about them. In book one—Dying to Know— Tuck is learning how to be a dead detective. In book two—Dying for the Past—Tuck finds his family roots; and some are roses and some are deadly nightshade, let me tell you. Now, Angel and Bear are coming to grips with Tuck’s demise—after all, figuring out how to live and work with a dead guy isn’t easy. There are other key characters, too—like Poor Nic, the loveable/hateable retired mob boss—who has so many skeletons in his closet that Tuck can’t count them.

As Tuck’s sequels continue, Tuck will learn more and more about his family and with each one, have to investigate yet another historical crime along with a new one. Angel and Bear will find out that life with and without Tuck has a lot of twists and turns. The new characters in each sequel will bring along their own baggage, influences on the main characters, and body bags.

The biggest conflict I found in writing sequels was deciding which characters to keep around and which to send on vacation. In book one—Dying to Know—I received a lot of great comments about several characters—Poor Nic, the aforementioned love/hate mobster; André Cartier, Angel’s uncle; Detectives Cal Clemens and Mike Spence, the brilliant yet bumbling partners; and even Doc Gilley, Tuck’s spirit mentor. My problem was, in book two—Dying for the Past—I had a new crew of story characters to add and didn’t have room for everyone to return. The questions were: who would sit out the sequels? How do I explain where they went—not everyone can be sick or on vacation, right? Who would be most popular or have the biggest impact on the series? The answer lay in what I like to think was a brilliant strategy—I listened to my readers,  asked my agent and publicist, and read who the critics keyed on. Then, I ignored all that and kept those characters who moved me. You see, certain characters came alive to me—other than Tuck, Angel, and Bear, that is. They presented so many possibilities for future stories and subplots that I had to keep them around and use them to stir things up. In the end, if they stirred things up in book one, they returned to book two. If not, they got the flu, moved away, were out to lunch, on vacation… you get the idea.

After all is said, there were so many challenges to writing my sequels, I cannot recall them all. But it suffices to say, they kept me up many, many nights.

Dying for the Past is a better novel than Dying to Know, and I hope Dying to Tell is better than both. You see, I think I’m learning as I go and my characters are teaching me. Dying for the Past was challenging, too, as it made me search for what I wanted from Tuck, Angel, Bear, and even Poor Nic. With each sequel, I will try to challenge each of my characters to keep my readers—and me—guessing. After all, I write what my characters tell me—resistance to them is futile.

I’ve just wrapped Dying to Tell—book three—and after explaining my process for dealing with sequels, I have some rewriting to do!  I hope you enjoy Tuck’s cases in Dying to Know, Dying for the Past, and Dying to Tell… visit my site and drop me a line. I’d love to hear from you!

Tj O’Connor lives in Virginia with his wife and three Labs. Dying to Know is the fourth of his eight novels and is currently available in bookstores and online. Dying for the Past is his first of two sequels to Dying to Know and will be released January 8, 2015—available now for pre-orders! Tj is an international security consultant specializing in anti-terrorism and investigations. Learn about his world at www.tjoconnor.com and Facebook at www.facebook.com/TjOConnor.Author.

This post has been reprinted from http://midnightwriters.blogspot.com where I am a monthly contributor.