Death Before Coffee by Desmond P. Ryan - Book Tour
Book Blurb
By 2:27 on a Thursday afternoon, the one-legged man from Room 8 at 147 Loxitor Avenue had been beaten to death with a lead pipe. Twenty-eight minutes later, Detective Mike O’Shea is testifying in a stuffy courtroom, unaware that, within an hour, he will be standing in an alleyway littered with beer cans and condoms while his new partner uses a ballpoint pen to flick bugs off of a battered corpse.
When a rogue undercover copper leaves Mike balancing what is legal with what is right, an unlikely rapport develops between Mike and the lead homicide investigator, a cop’s cop in stilettos.
At the end of his seventy-two-hour shift, three men are dead, and Mike O’Shea is floating in and out of consciousness in an emergency room hallway, two women by his side.
In the second of the Mike O’Shea Series, Death Before Coffee weaves a homicide investigation through the life of an inner-city police detective intent on balancing his responsibilities as a son, brother, and newly single father with his sworn oath of duty and the promise he made himself to find the man who murdered a former partner.
Author Q&A
1. What is the first book that made you cry?
I honestly don’t know. I’m wracking my brains, and nothing comes to mind (which isn’t to say that books haven’t made me cry…like Little Prince…!), but I can’t recall the very first book.
I’m a very quick writer, so, if I put my mind to it (aka have a serious deadline), I can write a book in about four months from idea to a draft that I’m okay with anyone looking at.
Names are really important, so I actually take some time to consider what characters should be called. I try to find names that are easy to say/read and easy to write (because I’ll have to write it many times, particularly if it’s a main-ish character…I kind of dropped the ball on Mike’s mother, Mary-Margaret, but otherwise I try. In my defence, I never intended her to be that major a character when she first appeared, tbh). I shy away from over-used names and I’m careful to pick a name for a character that would fit in at the time the character would have been named if she or he were a real person. Of course, I also try to be culture sensitive. Now that I think about it, this naming of characters is a lot more involved than I thought it was!
Meerkat. I find how they always have someone standing guard over the pack fascinating, and how they just sort of seem to know when to spell each other off really incredibly.
Forrest Gump, Big Fish, Pink Floyd: The Wall, Monty Python’s The Life of Brian, A Christmas Carol (1951 Alastar Sim version)
I’d be seriously worried. And lonely. I don’t think I’d do well as the last person on earth.
7. What fictional character would you want to be friends with in real life? I would want to be Dr. Watson’s friend. I think he likely has a whole lot more to tell about those mysteries he solved with Sherlock Holmes and I think he’s likely a much funnier character than he’s allowed to be in the books. 8. Do you have any advice for aspiring writers? Keep writing. Trust in yourself. If you like what you’re writing, there are likely other people who will, too, so just keep going.
9. What book do you wish you had written? Anything by Paolo Choelo. I absolutely love the simplicity of his words, the depth of his stories, and the way I always feel like I’m being hugged when I read his books.
10. Tell us 10 fun facts about yourself! I eat the same thing for breakfast every day.
I’m not really a whisky drinker.
I am a lousy skater despite years of lessons.
I play the piano.
I love Paris.
I’m not a car guy.
I would much rather go to the opera than to a sporting event.
I wear size 42 (euro) shoes.
I’ve carried a gun for my entire policing career but am not a fan of them.
I’m a cat guy.
11. If you could live in any time period, what would it be and why? I think it’s easy to romanticize any period in time, mostly because we have the luxury of knowing that it’s all going to work out (more or less). Living now is where I’d choose to be for exactly that reason: based on history, I know it’s going to work out, even if I don’t know, day-to-day) that it’s going to all work out at all. It’s easy to get bogged down in the negativity that’s around us (just as it has been throughout history), but we have to trust that we will find a way and things will work out. One day, these will be someone’s ‘good old days’. I’m here now, so I’m going to make the best of it.
12. What is your favorite genre to read? I love autobiographies/memoires. I enjoy hearing people tell their own stories and show how they became…them. I try to look for a common thread amongst people who live lives worth reading about and some tips and tricks to help me in my own life.
Whether as a beat cop or a plainclothes detective, Desmond dealt with good people who did bad things and bad people who followed their instincts. Now a retired detective, he writes crime fiction. Des is presently working on the Mike O’Shea Series and the Mary-Margaret Series, both published by Level Best Books.
Desmond lives in the Toronto neighbourhood known as Cabbagetown, where he can be seen wandering about, considering his next plot point or on his way to the pub.
Instagram : https://www.instagram.com/desmondpryan/
Twitter : https://twitter.com/RealDesmondRyan
2 Comments
thank you so much for hosting this Q&A today x
ReplyDeleteYou're welcome!
DeletePlease try not to spam posts with the same comments over and over again. Authors like seeing thoughtful comments about their books, not the same old, "I like the cover" or "sounds good" comments. While that is nice, putting some real thought and effort in is appreciated. Thank you.