What triggered The Doom Murders? Among my various interests,
I like to read about art and have many books on artists from all over the
world. I was browsing through one of these books and spent some time
contemplating a painting of The Last Judgement by a fifteenth century artist,
Rogier van der Weyden. For some reason, a piece of advice to writers from
Stephen King came into my head. King said, “Always ask ‘why?’, or ‘what
if?' ". I was studying the distorted figures of the damned souls hurtling
down into the abyss and wondered: “What if a Chief Inspector was faced by a
series of gruesome murders and found the bodies posed in strange and grotesque
shapes identical to those on this Doom?” And came the next question, “Why
would anyone want to do that?”
From these two questions came the inspiration for a new
story and The Doom Murders was written. Dooms are mediaeval paintings of
The Last Judgement. The killer in this novel has been inspired in his
“work” by the painting of The Last Judgement by Rogier van der Weyden.
This “work” comes to the notice of Chief Inspector Jim
Sheehan when a number of high profile figures in Belfast are brutally murdered. The
bodies are left naked and oddly distorted. No clues are left at the
forensically immaculate crime scenes except seemingly pointless theatrical
props and some random numbers and letters. Sheehan is baffled. How are the victims
linked? What message is the murderer trying to send via the vaguely
religious symbolism of the killings? Faced with one of the most complex
cases of his career, the Chief Inspector turns to an eminent Professor of
Psychology at Queen’s University and a senior cleric who is a biblical expert.
With their help, he begins to piece together some understanding of the killer’s
psychopathy but can he learn enough to identify the killer and put an end the
murders?
The Doom Murdersis now available from Amazon Kindle
Books and will also be available in paperback from Crimson Cloak Publishers
late in 2015.
Interesting Developments: Two Awards! The Doom Murders was awarded the IDB Award for valuable
contribution to the Indie writing community in March 2014. The book was also chosen for the Official Selection Award for the 'Mystery' category of the 2014 New Apple Book Awards for Excellence in Independent writing.
Added Note:
In January last year, The Doom Murders climbed to #3 in the
Top 100 British Detectives rankings. It
would hardly have done so were it not a reasonably enjoyable book.
If youare reading this blog and have not yet ordered your
copy of The Doom Murders yet, why
don’t you give it a try? It costs only a
little over £1 and less that $2. Read some of the 36 reviews (average4.4 stars)
using this link:
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