I am delighted to host Russell Day as he tells us about his latest novel, King of the Crows.
For the sake of clarity, I want to
point out King of the Crows is entirely a work of fiction. The 2020
pandemic I describe is nothing to do with our current situation. Crows was
sitting in my publisher’s inbox in late 2018, before covid-19 even existed.
#
2028, eight years since the HV-Tg
pandemic collapsed the world trade markets, brought governments to their knees,
killed millions and drove millions more insane. Finally, order is being clawed
back from the chaos and the histories are being written.
But you don’t want to believe
everything you read.
One of them is Colin Robertson, the
last ‘King of the Crows’, revered the world over, written about in books and
immortalised on film ... and sitting in a police interrogation room. Because
now the dust has settled, people are asking questions. Questions about why The
Crows were so intent on crossing a ruined city. Questions about where they were
heading and what they did when they got there.
And about why Robertson is the last man
standing.
When the disease came, he was a
survivor. When the Lockdown came, he was a King. When the stories were told, he
was a hero.
Now, the truth is coming.
#
The idea for Crows grew out of a short
story I wrote called Keeping Score on a Machete. Nominally, it was a
piece of zombie fiction, but really it was a story about a man dragging his own
petty concerns into the turmoil of an apocalypse.
In the short story, the protagonist
makes several references to a film that has been made about the zombie uprising
and his part in it. It is made clear that the film and reality have little in
common. I thought it might be interesting to expand on that theme; the real
events and the wrongly held perceptions of them.
I intended the story to alternate
between sections of screenplay and police interview transcripts, but this
limited the overview of events. So, I added another voice, then another, then another
… and so it went on.
In the end, turning a 3,000 word short
into a 580 page novel involved first and third person narrative, quotes from
history books, magazine articles, online posts about conspiracies, graffiti,
police records, personal letters and, of course, pages from the film script.
The different sources seldom agree and
none of them has the full picture. There is misinformation, delusion, agendas
and flat out lies. But - by the end - the reader will know the truth.
Thank you, Lorraine, for letting me
have this spot on your site, and also for your kind words about Keeping
Score on a Machete. They gave me the confidence to actually write King of the Crows.
Bio
Russell Day was born in 1966 and grew
up in Harlesden, NW10 – a geographic region searching for an alibi. From an
early age it was clear the only things he cared about were motorcycles, tattoos
and writing. At a later stage he added family life to his list of interests and
now lives with his wife and two children. He’s still in London, but has moved
south of the river for the milder climate.
Although he only writes crime fiction
Russ doesn’t consider his work restricted. ‘As long as there have been people
there has been crime, and as long as there are people there will
be crime.’ That attitude leaves a lot of scope for settings and characters. One
of his first short stories to be published, The Second Rat and the Automatic
Nun, was a double-cross story set in a future where the church had taken
over policing.
Russ often tells people he seldom
smiles due to nerve damage, sustained when his jaw was broken. In fact, this is
a total fabrication and his family will tell you he’s always been a miserable
bastard. Unsurprisingly; he doesn’t do social media.
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