WELCOME TO SHARK CITY BAY

Shark City Bay is my second novel, and quite different from my warmly sentimental first book. This one is a crime thriller, and an affectionate throwback to the Seventies, a decade in which I was alive, though still just a kid. I tried to capture the gritty feel of early Seventies cinema, while also paying tribute to the movie that kicked off the Hollywood blockbuster and truly changed the game forever.

I began Shark City Bay four years ago, and the first 150 pages seemed to write themselves. I confidently expected my intricate, character-driven thriller to proceed through its initial draft swiftly and surely. And then I discovered a truth that ought to have been evident before I started. Thrillers are hard! One unhappy day, I discovered that I had painted my characters, and myself, into an impossible plot corner. I had created not just one, but three gigantic plot holes that could not be fixed by mere revision. I came to the heart-sinking conclusion that I was going to have to start over.

I put the whole thing aside for several years, letting the story and its attendant problems rattle in my subconscious until I could work out the necessary fixes.

Happily, when at last I took up the task of rewriting, I found that my cast of characters were still there, ready and eager to jump into the dangerous fray.

Posted here is the entire Prologue, which consists of five chapters. Most of the major players are introduced here, and my protagonists are placed in immediate peril. I trust this will whet your appetite for the rest of the story! Your reactions and responses are valued and appreciated.

THE JOURNEY SO FAR: A QUICK PEEK

It’s surely an easy guess that I’m a fan of the movie JAWS. The story of its famously troubled production is well documented, and at least as interesting to me as the finished film itself. I saw JAWS on its initial release, when I was just ten years old. It was that cathartic bolt of lightning experience that jump-started my interest in the craft of storytelling for cinema.

Back in 1975, Carl Gottlieb wrote one of the greatest ’making of’ books of all time, The Jaws Log. I devoured that text, and the many others that have followed in its acclaimed wake. Lots of people used to dream about sharks after Jaws. I used to dream that I was on the set of Jaws, watching the chaos unfold, fascinated with the process, however chaotic. I knew that somehow, someday, I wanted to use that as an ingredient in some kind of story!

Flash forward several decades. Cose Barnett stepped into my storytelling brain, a naive, good-natured rock and roll wannabe. Optimistic, trusting and open-hearted, I knew at first meeting that he was somebody I needed to ’throw to the sharks.’ Meaning, I wanted to place this well-meaning fellow into horrible danger and see if he had the resources to get out of it alive. As I was finishing my Christmas-themed first novel, I was eagerly waiting to test Cose against the most dangerous people I could invent for him. I knew I had a classic Hitchcockian ’everyman in peril’ story, but I needed an extra little hook to make it spark and crackle in my imagination.

The AHA! moment came one day as I wandered around Manhattan. I was pretty sure Cose was going to try making his way as a musician in this city. I found locations where I figured he would probably hang out or play gigs. I was excited about the prospect, and also giddy because the next day, I was going to make my first trip out to Martha’s Vineyard to see the locations where one of my favorite movies had been filmed. And then, there it was. What if Cose’s story happened in 1974? What if he was actually from Martha’s Vineyard, and what if he returned there to try and escape the troubles he had gotten into in the big city? What if trouble followed him to the island during its famous ’summer of the shark?’ That was the critical moment when I knew I had a book! I can’t begin to tell you what an exciting time I then had when I set foot in Edgartown a few days later! My creative mind went wild, and it was a blast!

I’ve been back to the Vineyard a few times since, both to get in some research, and to enjoy its many inherent charms and pleasures.

When I heard about Inkshares, I decided to look into this as a useful forum within which I could keep working the story toward completion, and as an intriguing platform for marketing and publishing the book. So, here is my first baby step into that process. I hope you will enjoy the initial chapters, and want to take part in seeing this through to its final form. Thank you for reading!

Shameless Plug!

In the text above, I’ve made mention of my first novel. It’s called The Secret Feast of Father Christmas, and it’s available at most online bookstores as an ebook or paperback. I self-published that story in 2012. The middle third of the book has a beguiling fantasy component, but it’s really a story dealing with personal loss, and the discovery of purpose in the arts of storytelling. It was partly inspired by my own five seasons as a Santa, and my background as a writer and content creator at Walt Disney Imagineering, and elsewhere in the theme park industry. Check it out if that sounds intriguing to you.