Authorpreneur Dashboard – Nick Hirst
The Shape of Rain
Mystery, Thriller & Suspense
In 1967, after the Apollo 1 disaster, eight powerful men meet in a small Californian coastal town to ensure America’s planned moon landing will be a perceived success. Fast-forward thirty-five years to September 2002 and a celebrated investigative reporter is murdered at BBC headquarters in London moments before he was going to broadcast an explosive story about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. A coded message hidden in the lyrics of a thirty-year old song hides a shocking secret connecting the two events. An innocent chat at a baggage carousel at Prague airport catapults music journalist Jack Conrad into a race against time to decipher the secret of this song. He is immediately plunged into a murky world of counter-intelligence, international security, misinformation and extreme violence, surviving various attempts on his life through his own unpredictable behaviour. His urgent quest takes him from Europe to the Saudi Arabian desert and ends in Seattle with key witnesses meeting sudden, apparently accidental deaths. Conrad’s resilience and determination in the face of overwhelming adversity reveals a sinister global network and uncovers two previously unsuspected high-profile murders.
Book Bubbles from The Shape of Rain
People smuggling in Saudi Arabia
How do you get your main character into a closed country when it's essential to the plot? Part of the key is to have some inside knowledge or detailed research. In this excerpt from 'The Shape of Rain' the protagonist, Jack Conrad, needs to gain access to Saudi Arabia to continue his investigations into the suspected fake news reports about Saddam Hussein's alleged weapons of mass destruction in the build-up to the invasion of Iraq in 2003. No one gets into Saudi without extensive documentation. Lacking legitimate documents, he finds a dodgy ex-pat, Mungo Beddington, in neighbouring Bahrain who he persuades to smuggle into Saudi via the Bahrain Causeway. Now, while I have worked in Saudi Arabia, I have never been smuggled into the country, so I mixed my knowledge of the area with my imagination and extensive research into the Causeway itself. Friends of mine still working in Saudi told me how it allowed them the opportunity to pop across to Bahrain for the weekend and go drinking. Some even smuggled alcohol back into Saudi, a highly risky business, which is what gave me the idea for smuggling Conrad into the country. In this extract, Conrad meets with Beddington and is hidden in his car and driven across. It concludes when they are stopped at customs.
Leaks and Towers
Maybe it’s not the most sensible way to promote my book by making reference to someone else’s, but bear with me a moment. I have been reading ‘Dark Actors: The Life and Death of David Kelly’ by Robert Lewis. Briefly, it’s about the mysterious death of a British scientist in the English countryside in July 2003. A death that was later officially recorded as a suicide. The fact that Dr. David Kelly had been working as a UN weapons inspector in Iraq and had been all over the news in the days leading up to his death, accused of leaking to a BBC reporter that the reasons for prosecuting war against Iraq had been deliberately falsified. As a way of using fiction to explain fact, I created a David Kelly character for my book ‘The Shape of Rain’, which puts forward a possible conspiracy theory of how the war in Iraq was ‘sold’ by the western media to the public. Much of what I included in this ‘fictional’ work actually happened and is based on actual events. In a previous book bubble entitled ‘First Impressions’ I introduced the character of weapons inspector, Professor Alan Stebbings. In this extract, I describe how he ‘leaks’ the information that the reasons for legitimising a war against Iraq may be false.
Creating an authentic flying scene
I have always been crazy keen on flying in any form ever since I was a small boy growing up under the flightpath of Heathrow airport in west London. By age 15 I was a member of the Royal Air Force Cadets at my school in Wimbledon and was clocking up flying hours as I trained on RAF deHavilland Chipmunk single engine, two-seater training aircraft. More recently, I have tried out flying in microlight aircraft - tiny planes where the two occupants sit open to the elements. Highly exhilarating and thoroughly recommended. So when it came to writing 'The Shape of Rain' I was determined to include a flying sequence. This bubble describes the first flight the protagonist - Jack Conrad - takes with a new friend and ally - Dallas 'Mad Dog' Seger - he meets in Saudi Arabia. The purpose of this scene is twofold - first Conrad and Seger make a grisly discovery during the flight and second, it sets up a crucial escape scene near the end of the book. Finally, to ensure authenticity, I took a microlight flight with an experienced pilot and tried out some of the manoeuvres described here and in the other, later, scene. Have a good flight!
More than one way to kill a spy
I read today the good news that Russian ex-spy Sergei Skripal has been discharged from hospital after recovering from the alleged nerve gas attack on him and his daughter. To be honest, I really didn’t think that he would survive. After all other such apparent attacks in the UK had resulted in fatalities – think ex BBC World Service journalist Georgi Markov and Alexander Litvinenko. Such stories show that real life is often stranger than fiction. In ‘The Shape of Rain’ a conspiracy between government and certain parts of the media similarly results in mysterious deaths. Prominent figures learn more than is safe for them about the conspiracy and have to be silenced. Various methods are used. In this extract, a BBC News Producer – John Moffatt – finds himself in a perilous position after accepting the offer of an alcoholic drink in Saudi Arabia from the mysterious Rodney Stewart…
The death of an innocent always shocks
This is the opening part of chapter 11 in the book and we know that our protagonist, Jack Conrad, is aware that he has become embroiled in something he doesn't really understand or can control. However, is he going to do anything about it? He has been approached by a United Nations Weapons Inspector about the fake nature of the so-called inspections going on in Iraq and, in a separate story arc, we have learnt about a shadowy organisation working to subvert public opinion in the UK. This organisation have Conrad on their radar as a possible threat as he is in possession of knowledge that could undermine their plans. Drastic, possibly terminal action may be required... Meanwhile, Conrad is debating whether he even tries to get involved. What might give him that final push? Now check out the excerpt...!
Shooting on location
In a previous Book Bubble I spoke about how locations inspire. That was all about driving on California's iconic Highway No. 1. However, before I wrote that part of the book, I had already used the description of the British Embassy in Prague, Czech Republic, as a way of engendering a sense of place into the book as well as introducing a character whose 'screen' time is relatively short, but whose impact on the plot is highly significant. In fact John Moffatt, who features in this Bubble is not the only significant character who is first introduced in this chapter. The other one comes a little later. The British Embassy in Prague is truly a memorable sight and it really does resemble something out of a fairy-tale film set. Once I had visited it, I knew I had to use it in my novel and, in fact, this scene is an essential part of laying the plot. It's quite possible - if you're like me - that when you read the denouement at the end of the book, you'll be going back to re-read this chapter looking for...well that would be telling!
The Hidden Message
The book 'The Shape of Rain' revolves around the main protagonist - Jack Conrad - discovering a hidden message in a song called 'The Shape of Rain'. The song is a fictional thirty year old album track by the fictitious singer/ songwriter - Scott Swann - and this excerpt features the lyrics of the song. These contain the hidden message - can you spot it? For the song itself I adapted and rewrote one of my own songs. Just to fill in my own back story, I spent over thirty years playing in bands as well as writing songs for a number of theatre companies. The song adapted here is called 'Lest We Fall' and was originally written around 1972 (when 'The Shape of Rain' was supposed to have been written). This was updated in 1998 for the group I was playing in at the time Band of Strangers. I took the basis of this to write 'The Shape of Rain' and, even though only the lyrics feature in the book, I also wrote the music so that the metre and rhythm worked. So now, look again, can you find the message...hidden in plain sight?
Burned: Escape at the Crematorium
I was writing the book out of sequence, writing scenes as they came to me whilst looking forward to the process of putting it all together into a coherent story later. I was well into the flow of things when I came to write this scene. Quite simply, I was attending the cremation service of someone who had worked for my father for most of his life and who I had known for the whole of my life. The crematorium was in an attractive location out in the country - very much as described in the book - and funerals are such evocative events, lending themselves well to the drama of fiction. During the service, and being utterly consumed by my writing at the time, I began to wonder what you would do if you found yourself trapped in the chapel in a potentially life threatening situation - would be daring enough to follow the path the coffin takes...? My hero makes a bold and desperate decision...
Real street violence
The main protagonist, Jack Conrad, and his new friend, helper and soon-to-be lover are on their way home from a lengthy drunken meal in Soho, London when they are violently accosted. This scene is completely based on a similar incident when I was working for a media company in Soho. It was after our company Christmas meal at a local Italian restaurant. Three of my female colleagues were walking a few paces ahead of me when they were physically accosted and propositioned by a City type. Seeing this I ran up and told him to leave them alone. He threatened violence so, fuelled by the lunchtime wine, I dealt with him as Conrad does his third attacker and suggested he pursue his activities elsewhere. For the purposes of the book, I added in two more attackers in a blatant ploy to make Conrad all the more heroic. Also, I wanted to show the kind of violence he is capable of when he loses his temper. Later, when Charlotte asks him about what happened and how he thought he could take on three adversaries, Conrad credits his rugby playing days for being able to stand up to them and there is also an oblique reference to the Clint Eastwood film - 'The Outlaw Josey Wales.'
First Impressions
In chapter two I introduce the main protagonist, Jack Conrad, on a plane to Prague and I take the opportunity to describe him, give a bit of his back story and let the reader know why he is going to the Czech capital. It is a scene of him internalising, so I try to keep it as brief as possible in order to keep the action moving, but it is important to know something of his personality to understand his motivation later. Also, it is important to establish his credentials as an expert in contemporary music. There is also mention of the floods that so devastated large areas of the Czech Republic and other European countries in 2002 based upon my own first impressions of Prague when I visited the city for the first time in December 2002, three months after the events depicted in the book. As for Conrad's more general internalising, this too is based on my own experiences as a radio producer when I frequently travelled around the world to conduct interviews with various bands, artists, writers and performers. As for the tragedy hinted at in Conrad's early life...while it is referenced again the book, it will not be fully explained until the third part of the ‘Rain’ trilogy.
Real locations inspire
It was in October 2004 that my wife and I drove from Los Angeles to San Jose. We left LA on Highway 101 and made our way to the iconic Californian Pacific Coast Highway - or California State Route 1 to give the road its correct title. Quite apart from this being an unforgettable and spectacular driving experience, it had the effect of inspiring the prologue of 'The Shape of Rain'. At this point, while I had already started work on the first draft, the plot was changing in my mind all the time. What had started as a revenge thriller was slowly morphing into a tale of media conspiracy. Then, at some point on this memorable drive, I spotted a signpost to a town called Moonstone and it really sparked my imagination. This passage introduces the town, a key location for a key meeting that informs the whole of the rest of the plot. The hotel is imagined and, for the eagle-eyed, there is a deliberate mistake in there...but you would need to read the whole prologue to get it. If you do spot it, e-mail me and I promise, I will give you a copy of the book!
