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The making of Queen's Park
My novels are collages of ideas, images, and memories that coalesce into a story. The idea for Queen's Park originated during a trip to Oahu in 1972 when I was eighteen. (Go ahead, do the math, I'm ancient!) I went on a tour of a US military cemetery where bodies were buried at twelve and six feet, in the same hole, to save real estate. That’s when I started wondering what one would do with a dead body, which fuelled the idea for Queen’s Park. In the novel, the question of where to hide a body (namely the uncle’s) is one that needs answering in order to solve the case.
The second (seemingly disconnected) image presented itself when my kids took karate. The instructor explained what would happen to a person's airway if a sharp blow hit the base of the throat, which is how Ernie in Queen’s Park acts in self-defense to kill his uncle.
A third ingredient to the Queen’s Park recipe came from watching my parents and Shar's (Sharon is my wife) parents grow older. I saw how their experiences from World War II and the Depression had formed their personalities, which made me think about how these experiences would influence a person’s actions later in life. As a result of similar experiences, Ernesto and Nanny in Queen’s Park have come to believe that the defense of loved ones is their primary motivation in life.
Add in some of the experiences my students survived to talk about, and you have the basic elements of Queen's Park.
» Book 1 in the Detective Lane Series. |
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Queen's Park Reviews:
Iris Li, BeatRoute Magazine:
“Ryan goes beyond superficially introducing so-called eccentric and freak characters in the name of entertainment value. Rather, his characters are treated with care and given empathetic motivations.”
Marc Horton, Edmonton Journal:
“Queen’s Park, the compact and engaging first novel by the 50-year-old Ryan, breaks other conventions as well.”
R. Parklane, Amazon.com
“Much more than a mystery, this is also a story with a heart as it touches on sexual abuse and homophobia.”
Bob Lind, Amazon.com
“The book is very well written, with engaging, realistic and diverse characters.”
Drewey Wayne Gunn, author of Gay Male Sleuth in Print and in Film, Amazon.com
“This very rich and very readable novel tells its story in short scenes, cinemagraphic style.” |
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