Stranger Child - Rachel Abbott - Guest Post

I'm very pleased to welcome author Rachel Abbott to the blog today! 

Rachel is the author of four novels, her new book is called Stranger Child, and she is here to tell us about the kind of research that goes into her writing. 

I've read and reviewed two of Rachel's novels so far, Only the Innocent and The Back Road, and enjoyed them both very much (click the titles to read my reviews).

A thrilling line of research

by Rachel Abbott

One of the aspects of writing that I have always thoroughly enjoyed is the research. My husband has said frequently that a police raid must be imminent as I scour the Internet to discover methods of killing people, and learn about money laundering, drug distribution and people trafficking. Fortunately I can prove – through my books – that it really has all been in the line of research.

I don’t know how writers managed before the Internet came along. I know there is much you can do in libraries, but when you are researching a thriller it’s hard to know where in any respectable library you might find out how to manufacture liquid nicotine, and where best to inject it to cause death.

When I sit down with an idea for a book, I usually start with a ‘what if?’ question. ‘What if a woman had no choice but to murder a man?’; ‘What if a man is so obsessed with his wife that he has to…’ (I’m not going to finish that sentence – it gives the game away in one of my books.)

From that initial question, I start to develop the plot. What has happened to these people to bring them to where they are now? As the ideas develop, I start to build character profiles and a timeline of events.

Even these first steps, which I believe are crucial to forming a picture in readers’ minds, require research. When I develop a character profile, I have an idea of what a character might look like. But that’s not enough. I want an actual picture so I don’t lose sight of them. I scour web images, looking for anybody – a star, a model or just somebody’s mum – that fits the bill. That image is pasted into the character profile, and I find other items to add to their portfolio – where they live, what clothes they wear, what they like to drink, and so on.

The timeline creates its own research list. In Stranger Child, Tom – the main detective in all my books – is reminiscing about his youth with older brother, Jack. I check the timeline to confirm when they were both born. What music would they have been listening to in their teens? I trawl through the charts for that year, and decide which brother would have liked which tracks.

All of this is valuable research, but for Stranger Child I had to go one step further – although I actually bottled it when it came to one part of the investigation. But I’ll come to that shortly.

In Stranger Child one character has to go into a safe deposit vault buried deep under the streets of Manchester in the middle of the night – with no light other than a head torch. For me, this would be a terrifying experience, but to make it as realistic as possible I needed to know how it might feel. So I phoned up a company (they wish to remain anonymous) and asked if I could have a tour.

Of course, I went during the day when the lights were on and it was full of people. But I stood in the centre of the room and tried to imagine I was there on my own, and it was pitch black. As it’s underground, there would be no ambient light, and the sounds from outside would be muffled.

There’s a viewing room where people take their boxes to add or remove items, and I imagined how it would feel to know that somebody might be hiding in there, waiting for me. I had to make others feel how I knew I would have felt, with an authenticity that couldn’t have been achieved without a site visit.

And now for the bit where I have to admit to being a wimp! Stranger Child references the Dark Web. For those who may not know much about the Dark Web it’s part of the Deep Web (an area of the internet that cannot be found through search engines). There are several reasons why websites and other content might legitimately not want to be accessed via search engines, but the Dark Web is the part of the Deep Web associated with the buying and selling of anything from guns and drugs to credit card details. Some use the terms Deep and Dark interchangeably, but my research suggests that there is a subtle difference. Neither, though, is readily accessible.

This was a vital part of my story, so I researched how to penetrate the Dark Web. It must be possible, or there would be no market for the illegal goods sold there! And I managed it. I actually know how to get into the Dark Web. But the truth is, I didn’t have the guts to try it.

Given the amount of attention being given to cyber crime by Europol and other agencies, for the first time since I started writing I was actually afraid of completing my research by visiting any of the sites. What if I stumbled across some seriously illegal activities? What if, entirely by mistake, I bought a gun, or found I had inadvertently bought a stack of bitcoin?

So unlike my quest for creating the realism of the vault, I relied on the fact that I knew a lot about the dark web without, thankfully, ever having visited it. And I assumed most of my readers would know no more than me.

Research for Stranger Child was fascinating, but with each book, I seem to have to delve deeper into dark worlds. So if you hear I’ve been arrested, it was all in the interests of authentic research.

About 'Stranger Child'

One Dark Secret. One act of revenge. 

When Emma Joseph met her husband David, he was a man shattered by grief. His first wife had been killed outright when her car veered off the road. Just as tragically, their six-year-old daughter mysteriously vanished from the scene of the accident. 

Now, six years later, Emma believes the painful years are behind them. She and David have built a new life together and have a beautiful baby son, Ollie. 

Then a stranger walks into their lives, and their world tilts on its axis. 

Emma’s life no longer feels secure. Does she know what really happened all those years ago? And why does she feel so frightened for herself and for her baby? 

When a desperate Emma reaches out to her old friend DCI Tom Douglas for help, she puts all their lives in jeopardy. Before long, a web of deceit is revealed that shocks both Emma and Tom to the core. 

They say you should never trust a stranger. Maybe they’re right. 

About Rachel

Rachel Abbott was born just outside Manchester, England. She spent most of her working life as the Managing Director of an interactive media company, developing software and websites for the education market. The sale of that business enabled her to take early retirement and fulfil one of her lifelong ambitions - to buy and restore a property in Italy. 

But even in Italy the winters can be cold and wet, and so Rachel decided to fill those dismal days by fulfilling another ambition - writing a psychological thriller! ONLY THE INNOCENT, her first novel, was more successful than she could ever have imagined, and it enabled her to change her life yet again, and become a full time writer. Her third novel, SLEEP TIGHT, was released on 24th February 2014 and was her third number one. Stranger Child, Rachel's latest book, was released on 24th February 2015.

Links

Web :         rachel-abbott.com

Blog:          rachelabbottwriter.com 

Twitter:     @Rachel__Abbott

Facebook: RachelAbbott1Writer

The Back Road - Rachel Abbott

I was impressed by Rachel Abbott's addictive debut novel, Only the Innocent - you can read my review here - I found it a genuine page-turner, hard to put down, and I wrote at the time that I was excited to see what she would create next. Having heard that she had completed her second novel, The Back Road, I was therefore very keen to get between the pages and discover the secrets contained within.

The Back Road introduces us to half-sisters Ellie Saunders and Leo Harris. Ellie is living with her family in what was the sisters’ childhood home, now fully converted from the place it once was. We learn that there were dark times in the sisters’ pasts, and returning to the village of Little Melham is a major step for life coach Leo considering the deep unhappiness she recalls from her time there when she was younger; the girls share starkly conflicting feelings as to the role their father played in their lives.

Then the author introduces us to a wider cast of characters who come together for a dinner party at Ellie’s home. Prior to this though, there is an intriguing opening to the novel and we learn of a desperate flight be a fourteen-year-old local girl Abbie and know that someone is in pursuit. She is knocked down and left for dead in a hit and run incident, which happens on the significant back road in the town. Ellie is a nurse and was called to tend to the girl when she arrived in hospital.

The scene is very nicely set-up for us to observe and get to know the dinner guests as they interact with each other, and various aspects of their behaviour and personalities began to arouse my suspicions. Several of their stories don’t necessarily seem to ring true and I started to question who amongst them I could trust; what secrets are hidden behind the beautiful façade of this home and village?

‘The mood around the table was strange. To Leo it seemed as if everyone was acting a part that was different from any version of themselves she had ever seen. As an observer of this intriguing phenomenon she had the best seat in the house…’

There is a welcome return for the character of Tom Douglas who featured in Only the Innocent as a police detective. This time he appears in a civilian capacity as one of the neighbours who attends the dinner party. We catch up with him having moved to be nearer to his daughter, and it’s interesting to see him in this different role. 

Rachel Abbott has created a clever scenario and written an intriguing crime story here, incorporating twists as the tale progresses, and created some highly suspicious characters; she does a good job of making them open to question by the reader, with the secrets and rumours that abound. She is skilled at showing insight into the motives and psychology behind her chracters’ behaviour, and had me thinking about each of them as I read; what were their motives, their secrets, their relationships, who was concealing what here, I wondered, as I tried to decipher whodunit from amongst the lies, looking for the hints and gradual revelations. A clever psychological crime and mystery novel. 

Thanks to the author for kindly providing an early ebook copy of this novel to read and give an honest review.

You can follow the author on twitter @_RachelAbbott  and visit her website here.

Only the Innocent - Rachel Abbott

Only the Innocent tells the story of Lady Laura Fletcher and her husband Sir Hugo Fletcher, a philanthropist who, amongst his many interests, aids a charity helping Eastern European young women who have been brought to Britain under false pretences with hollow promises of modeling and a better life, only to find themselves exploited for prostitution. The charity effectively buys the women from those holding them and places them with families, in order to give them the opportunity to establish themselves legitimately in the UK. Laura is Hugo's second wife. She falls for him and finds herself swept up by his charms. Yet Laura finds to her sadness that married life with Hugo is not what it had promised to be, and she becomes resigned to feeling trapped by him, unable to break free; 'Laura blamed herself for lacking the strength and courage to recognise the web into which he was slowly ensnaring her.' The real man behind the scenes is not at all as he is perceived to be by the public. 

As the story opens, Sir Hugo has been found dead in his London home, in a compromising position, and the police know it's very likely that the killer was a woman. DCI Tom Douglas is in charge of trying to understand all the complex relationships that existed between Hugo and the women in his life, and he must uncover the closely guarded secrets if he is to solve the mystery.

This thriller keeps you gripped and reading right until the end, and as other reviewers have mentioned, it is about not only whodunit, but also has you frequently asking how and why they carried out the murder too. I found it a page-turner, I thought the book was strongest and most compelling in the sections where Laura's best friend since childhood, Imogen, is reading over Laura's letters to her, and the past is slowly revealed to us through them; I really liked how these letters were used in the narration, and for me the book was perhaps weakest on some aspects of police characterisation and procedure. When the whole truth is eventually uncovered, what is revealed to have been going on is incredibly sad and hard to stomach. 

It is a fascinating tale of the secrets that people keep, the pain and cruelty that can be hidden in private, the controlling man behind the benevolent public face, and the wife who suffers in order to preserve the innocent. The writer certainly has the knack of telling a tale and hooking in the reader; with just a little fine-tuning, it will be exciting to see what she produces next. 

At the time of writing this review, Only the Innocent is riding very high in the Amazon Kindle books paid store. Rachel Abbott has self-published this, her debut novel, as an e-book and is enjoying huge success with it.

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Thank you very much to the author for sending me an e-book copy of this novel to read and give an honest review.


Only the Innocent is available to buy now as an e-book. 


You can find out more about the novel and the author on her website. She also writes a blog and you can  follow her on twitter @Rachel_Abbott


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The End of Everything - Megan Abbott

Evie and Lizzie are thirteen-year-old best friends and next door neighbours with an incredibly close bond between them, doing virtually everything together, playing soccer, having sleepovers, and so on, knowing so much about each other and sharing so much. Lizzie lives with her mother and elder brother, but spends much time with Evie at her house discussing the activities of Evie's attractive elder sister Dusty, and Lizzie evidently likes to spend time around Evie's father Mr Verver. 

Then one day Evie suddenly disappears, and Lizzie becomes even closer to Evie's family, in particular her father Mr Verver. Lizzie's relationship with Dusty becomes more difficult and strained however whilst Evie is missing. Lizzie begins to question how well she does actually know Evie, and what exactly were the circumstances behind her disappearance. The reader is aware of the likely suspect who Evie is with, and the novel is not so much of a whodunit as a why and how they did it, and Evie's motivations. Some of the themes and occurrences, without giving any plot away, are mostly more hinted at and suggested than explicitly described, but they do deal with discovering sexuality and relationships. 

I was looking forward to reading this novel and I have to say that on finishing it I was a bit disappointed. Perhaps other readers will find it more fulfilling and rewarding than I did. I felt that as it went on it that rather than becoming more engrossed by the story, it actually became harder work to read and did not engage me, and somehow Lizzie's voice as a thirteen year old and the way she thought and spoke did not quite ring true for me. I feel the writer has a definite writing talent and way with words but I didn't find myself drawn into this novel.