Matt Coyle | The Second Time Around

The second book in the Rick Cahill Crime Series, NIGHT TREMORS, came out this month. It’s as big a thrill as when YESTERDAY'S ECHO came out two years ago…Yeah, two years ago. As in, it took me two years to write the second book. I guess it’s not that surprising, considering it took me eleven years to write, rewrite, and rewrite some more before my first book was published. But I thought it would be easier the second time around.

I remember being at a writers conference, my first as a published author, right after YESTERDAY'S ECHO came out. A writer told me he really liked my book. You can imagine how excited I was to have one of my new “peers” compliment me. But then he told me, “Now you have to do it again.” Short lived euphoria.

It usually takes at least a year from the time you turn in a manuscript to your publisher until the book hits the shelves. So, to be in the one book a year groove, I should have already had my second written or at least been close to completion when YESTERDAY'S ECHO came out. Not even close.

I can procrastinate like a kid with two weeks to write a term paper, but even with all gears going I found writing the second book difficult. Looking back now, I understand my struggles.

My only two rules for writing crime fiction are: make it as authentic as possible and make it interesting. My protagonist, Rick Cahill, got caught up in a murder investigation in YESTERDAY'S ECHO when he tried to help a beautiful, but secretive TV reporter. He wasn’t a cop, although he’d once been one, and he wasn’t a private detective. He was just a guy who made some bad decisions while trying to do the right thing and became a murder suspect for the second time in his life. Hopefully, the story was interesting and as authentic as possible.

The book did well and even won some awards. However, I was writing a series and didn’t want to write Murder She Wrote where Rick keeps stumbling over dead bodies and must solve the crime because his nephew, or best friend, or favorite bartender is arrested for murder and he’s the only person who can find the truth. A nice TV show, but it didn’t fit my two rules of writing crime fiction.

So there had to be a reason for Rick to get involved in murder investigations that didn’t strain credulity. He couldn’t be a cop, because he’d already been one and it hadn’t ended well. Plus, Rick now lived by a code he’d adopted from his dead father that a cop never could: Sometimes you have to do what’s right even when the law says it’s wrong. So I made Rick a private investigator. That would adhere to crime writing law # 1: Make it as authentic as possible. It now makes sense for Rick to search for the truth in criminal matters because he gets paid to do it.

As a PI Rick has to have some remove to make the story believable. He can’t be at the center of the storm in every book. However, I write in first person. The story is only interesting to me, and I think readers, if Rick is emotionally invested in the problem he has to solve. So I had to find a case that Rick would give his all for without doing another episode of Murder She Wrote. When I found the true crime story of a teenager wrongly imprisoned for murdering his family I felt I had a story that would speak to Rick. He knew what it was like to be falsely accused of a horrible crime. The stain of being called a murderer. To be left with one last hope. He wanted to be that hope for someone else.

Once the story fell into place, the writing got easier and I started to believe I could produce another book the second time around. I just wish I’d found the story earlier.

GIVEAWAY

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About Matt Coyle

Matt Coyle grew up in the tract home section of La Jolla, California, battling his brother and sisters for the best spot on the couch in front of the TV. Although he was a sports addict as a kid, he realized that he would probably never be a pro—or even an amateur. A gift from his father, The Simple Act of Murderby Raymond Chandler, set the twelve year old on the path to becoming a writer.Matt graduated with a degree in English from the University of California in Santa Barbara then he detoured into the restaurant business, the golf business, and the sports collectible business. Now, thirty years after beginning the Great American Novel, Matt has finished a mystery instead.Yesterday’s Echo is the first in the series of Rick Cahill crime novels.

Matt is busily writing the next Rick Cahill crime novel in San Diego where he with his yellow Lab, Angus.

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About NIGHT TREMORS

Nightmares of the man he killed two years ago still chase Rick Cahill through his sleep. The memory of his murdered wife haunts him during waking hours. His private investigative work, secretly photographing adulterers, paid for his new house but stains his soul.

When an old nemesis asks for his help to free a man from prison, a man he thinks is wrongly convicted of murder, Rick grabs at the chance to turn his life around. His investigation takes him from the wealthy enclave of La Jolla to the dark underbelly of San Diego. His quest fractures his friendship with his mentor, endangers his steady job, and draws the ire of the Police Chief who had tried to put Rick behind bars forever. With the police on one side of the law and a vicious biker gang on the other, all trying to stop him from freeing the man in prison, Rick risks his life to uncover the truth that only the real killer knows — what happened one bloody night eight years earlier.