The novel breezed out of me in a matter of weeks. I’d been away on jury duty, during which I hadn’t done any writing. (A matter of ethics, and time, and of course money—Carly pointed out that being a juror is the only occupation that pays worse than being a writer).
Suddenly freed from that commitment, I started Ocean Drive without a clear plan and let the story go where it wanted.
Ocean Drive is the story of two people. Cameron Shaw, a recently paroled young killer trying to go straight and being tempted into gang life, and Meghan Quick, a middle aged cop confronted with a murder by arson that ties into the gang Cam is infiltrating.
The two find themselves on a collision course, encountering smugglers, firebugs, gangsters of all kinds, rich people with terrible secrets, and a great deal of missing money.
After I wrote Ocean Drive, I focused on the Wakeland series, meaning to get back. Now that Ocean Drive will be published next spring, I got to spend this October revising the novel, with notes from my terrific editor at Harbour/D&M, Derek Fairbridge.
In the original draft, the town was called Crescent Beach, a loose stand-in for White Rock, BC.
White Rock has a population of less than 20,000, and a very nice promenade and beach. It’s the wealthy, isolated community near South Surrey, where I went to high school.
I was hesitant to set a book in White Rock. It’s not a glamorous place—“home of the newly wed and the almost dead,” as people call it. And while it has a surprisingly deep criminal history—one of the oldest Hells Angels chapters is in White Rock—it doesn’t seem like an attractive setting for a novel.
And look. Vancouver is a tough fucking sell. Many thriller writers won’t set a book in Canada at all, simply because it’s a turnoff. I will gladly fight that indifference for a city I think is interesting and cool like Vancouver. But White Rock?
But as I revised Ocean Drive, I realized the book was set there. I just had to admit it.
I also realized that Ocean Drive is a Pacific Northwest Fargo. Disturbing criminality under the surface of a seemingly idyllic, friendly town.
Fargo is my favorite Coen Brothers film. The acting, the weaving of cop and criminal stories, the odd moments of humor, the language, the use of violence…
Everything about the Minnesota setting that would seem to be a detriment to a crime novel becomes a virtue, an ironic counterpoint. The violence is all the more shocking and unexpected because it happens there. (I haven’t watched all of the television series beyond the very good first season).
Ocean Drive is a departure from me—it’s not a Vancouver book, it’s not a PI book, and it’s not first person. It’s a multi-character crime thriller set mostly in a small town. This last round of revisions made it clear what the book was.
What I’d done is take a place I feel very divided about and write a crime novel focused on those divisions.
I hope you like it.
Ocean Drive will be out next March, but you can (and should, and please and thanks) pre-order it now. (Amazon, Indigo, or Direct From Harbour)