The Vanishing Track arrived back from the printer this week. I haven’t seen a copy yet, but I sure am excited. Conceptually The Vanishing Track has been nine years in the making, and in practical terms, in development for more than six. Before I release the Kraken on the unsuspecting public, however, I thought we might take one last look at The Darkening Archipelago, the previous Cole Blackwater Mystery.

To do so, I’ve recorded a special audio excerpt from the book for your listening pleasure. Please have a listen, and if you like what you hear, consider buying the book and giving it a read in advance of the Vanishing Track’s official launch date of March 6th.

The segment that I’ve chosen for this sixteen minute recording is the Epilogue of the book. Strange you might say to give away the ending of a mystery. True. But the epilogue is probably my favourite part of the book, and others have told me that they like it too. And here’s why: its prose. In part it concludes the mystery, but in doing so it weaves a tapestry of language and story. Or so say I. And you can listen to it without giving away the whodunit. Promise.

I always thought that I would be an essayist, not a crime writer. I dreamed of being Edward Abbey, not Tony Hillerman. So when given a long leash (too long, some would say) to pen a bit of purple prose (too purple some would say) I took it. I found a way to do the same with the Vanishing Track, but that’s another story.

The piece in question was written, uncharacteristically, in the middle composing the first draft. Uncharacteristic because I usually write books from beginning to end.  But I was inspired. I was penning a scene were Archie Ravenwing, looking back a number of months from the start of the book, is sitting on the sea wall in Victoria after a disappointing day at the Legislature, having been brushed off by Ministerial staff. He’s thinking about his beloved salmon and their perilous journey to the vast open ocean. It dawned on me then that Archie could take that journey too. He’s dead, after all. Killed in the opening chapter, his body dumped overboard from his boat the Inlet Dancer, he too could find his way to the waters beyond the tip of Vancouver Island. I wrote the epilogue in a great frenzied spasm of keyboard pounding right then and there, and I love it.

And here it is for your enjoyment. (Click to open in a new window: Epilogue, The Darkening Archipelago )Let me know what you think. And stay tuned for the release of The Vanishing Track in the next few weeks.

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