Crimson Cloak Publishing Author-Brian O’Hare

Hi all. Hope you’re enjoying the Crimson Cloak Publishing author interviews!

With the release of his great page turner, The Doom Murders, today we meet the author Brian O’Hare

1. Do you write books as a career, or are you currently still juggling your author time with a full or part time job?
No, I only started writing books after I retired from full-time employment as Assistant Director of the Southern Regional College in Northern Ireland. So, no juggling, no career. Oh, that’s not quite true. Some juggling. I have to fit in three days of golf per week around any writing I do.

2. Have you always wanted to be an author, or did some time or event in your life set you on the path?
I have never actually intended to be a writer. When I was writing articles and reports relating to my profession that were being professionally published, it never occurred to me that I could be deemed a writer. Even when, early in my retirement, I was commissioned by the Department of Education and The University of Ulster to write book length reports, I still didn’t think that I was being a writer. I thought of myself as a researcher. I suppose when I wrote an account of my liver transplant – A Spiritual Odyssey – Spiritual Odyssey and found a publisher in Dublin, I thought, “Well, I’ve written a book. Maybe I’m a writer.”
My writing, if it can be described as that, has followed a strangely circuitous path. From writing articles for academic journals, I progressed to writing book length academic reports. From there, after a serious illness, I wrote to two religious books, one an autobiographic memoir, (A Spiritual Odyssey, see above) the other, The Miracle Ship – The Miracle Ship … a strange and incredible biography of a most extraordinary man, a miracle worker. Retired by now, and fancying a move to writing fiction, I was prompted by the widely-reported shenanigans of corrupt clergy in Ireland to write a contemporary fiction novel, Fallen Men. Fallen Men
And then, because my favourite genre for reading over the past several years has been crime thrillers, I thought I’d have a go at writing one of my own, et voila, there appeared The Doom Murders.

And now, there’s something happening in my writing life. I have found a publisher who is willing to publish all my stuff. Crimson Cloak Publishers is owned by a lovely lady called Carly McCracken. Carly liked The Doom Murders with its introspective but perspicacious Detective Chief Inspector Sheehan. She suggested a series. A series? Yeah, a series, and my immediate reaction was, ‘No way that’s possible. I’ve only written one detective book in my life. Where would I start?’

But guess what? I have completed Book Two of the Inspector Sheehan series: The 11:05 Murders. I thought initially I might have enough of a plot for about 50000 words but the final tally was 104500 words. Go figure! I am not sure when Carly will be able to get it out but I am hoping it won’t be much longer than about six or seven months from now. Not a soul has read it, not my wife, not any family members, not even the beta readers who were reading and commenting upon The Doom Murders during the process of my writing it. This time I wanted to hug the new story to myself. Don’t ask me why. Was it because The Doom Murders won a couple of awards and garnered 38 very positive reviews on Amazon.com and I’m afraid to let anyone see the sequel in case it doesn’t measure up? Maybe. Or as it because the plot this time is much more complex and I just wanted to be able to drift back and forward making multiple changes without having to reference them to anyone? That would probably be true. Or did I just want the thing to be whole and complete before anyone came to it? Whatever the reason, I am now totally without feedback. Other writers will recognise that that’s a scary place. Do I want feedback? Of course I do…but I’ll deal simply with Veronica Castle, Crimson’s Cloak’s indefatigable editor, and go by what she says. Fingers dutifully crossed…but that doesn’t mean that I’m not panickin’!

3. Do you always write in the same genre, or do you sometimes like a change of theme? If you haven’t already, is there another genre you would like to write?
As you would have gleaned from the answer to the last question, I have been jumping all over the place in terms of genres. But now that Crimson Cloak have specifically requested that I write a series of mysteries featuring Inspector Sheehan, I would say that I am pretty much settled on the crime fiction genre.

4. As a writer, what is the best thing that has happened to you, and what is that most exciting thing that could happen to you?
I believe that I mentioned earlier that I write in retirement. In many ways, that is a time of life when excitement isn’t a major factor in life. Nonetheless, I find the whole process of writing exciting, the challenge of completing a book and trying to give it that little edge that will make my work palatable to any reader. I got the fist glimpse of the preliminary draft of the cover for The Doom Murders a couple of nights ago. I experienced more than a twinge of excitement from that. Perhaps the most exciting thing that happened in recent times was being taken on by Crimson Cloak and being asked to write a series around a character that I admit I find interesting (even if I still don’t know him all that well.) Oh, I almost forgot. Three of my books have won awards (I won’t go into detail about them here) and one, The Doom Murders, has won three awards. That was a wee bit exciting. Oh, another thing. (That’s what happens when you start approaching a certain age…you start forgetting things.) Carly McCracken of Crimson cloak has asked me to set up a little marketing campaign to coincide with the launch of The Doom Murders (probably within a month from now). Solve the Mystery; Win a Prize. This whole process is exciting and continues to be. I offer now a brief explanation of what it is.
I have sent Carly a scenario that sets up the scene, provides background information, introduces the characters/suspects, and, at the end of this introduction, a murder takes place. This information will be offered to the general public via FaceBook, twitter, and various blogs. Each day thereafter further clues will be provided through a series of interviews with each of the suspects conducted by Inspector Jim Sheehan, one interview per day for five days. At the end of the sixth day, readers will be asked to identify the murderer, explain what clues led them to this conclusion, and write in detail how they believe the murder was carried out. Answers will be sent to a specific email address rather than posted on FaceBook for others to see. The three best answers (along with a complete explanation of how Sheehan solved the crime) will be published a day or so after the competition ends, and winners will each receive a copy of the newly printed The Doom Murders.
I’m a writer now. The answer to the second part of the question is what you Americans call ‘a no brainer’. The most exciting thing that could happen to me is to see people buying my books in numbers. I have had a slight taste of that with one of my non-fiction books, The Miracle Ship. 3000 copies printed and sold in the year or so that it has been in print, and still selling steadily away. Not huge numbers, certainly, but round enough to be vaguely gratifying.

5. How do you view the promotion, book signings etc. Is it something you enjoy, or do you prefer the writing stage?
I have never actually done a book signing. I would be terrified that I’d be sitting there all day and no one would turn up. The stuff of nightmares. Marketing, promotion, and all that goes with it is a chore, often costly, and seldom produces the results that are hoped for. Entering competitions has turned but to be a better bargain than I thought. The books that I have entered have all won awards of some sort. Not Pulitzers by any means, but recognition of sorts. Tweeting (and I have paid for, or won, dozens and dozens of them each week for I don’t know how long now) seems to be much less effective in persuading people to buy books than the ‘professional tweeters’ would lead one to believe. Marketing is hard. I would just love only to write and leave the marketing to the publisher and have nothing to do with it. But that’s not how the game is played. And so we keep trying.

6. Could you tell us something about your published books, and let us know what they are about and where they are available?
I’ve probably jumped the gun a bit on this one in my answer to question two. There are two very detailed explanations that offer information about how I came to write Fallen Men and The Doom Murders. It would take too long to recount these stories here. If anyone is interested, they can read them at this link: Blog
Briefly, however, Fallen Men Fallen Men is the story of three priests, focusing on one in particular. He is a handsome young man whose life spirals out of control when long-submerged memories of childhood abuse begin to surface. He seeks solace in a friendship with a beautiful seventeen-year-old-choir girl but this leads to a doomed love affair that ends in disaster. Fallen Men is to be published by Crimson Cloak Publishing in paperback later in 2015. It can be read on kindle, however, right now.
In The Doom Murders The Doom Murders prominent figures in Belfast are being murdered. The bodies are left naked and posed in grotesquely distorted shapes. No clues are left at the forensically immaculate crime scenes except odd theatrical props and some random numbers and letters concealed at each scene by the killer. How are the victims linked? What is the connection between these killings, the bible, and a famous mediaeval painting of The Last Judgement? Chief Inspector Jim Sheehan is stretched to his limits in the quest to unmask and stop this killer. The Doom Murders is out now in paperback from Crimson Cloak for the run-up to Christmas, 2015.

Great answers, Brian! Thanks very much for taking the time to introduce us to your fantastic books. As the proud owner of a signed copy of The Doom Murders I am really enjoying reading it!   Lynne North.