Devil will hit the shelves at the end of the week. I got my first copy on Friday and it feels strange to finally hold it in my hands complete with glossy cover and new book smell! Seeing it sitting on the bookcase it somehow looks as if it’s not my book anymore – it gets to go out without me and have a life of it’s own now.
It’s been a very intense couple of months with first the trial then researching and writing the book. Now I have to start the next bit…selling it. On Thursday, the book will be officially launched then it’s due to hit the shops on Friday. All the digging and prodding and frantic typing are at an end.
It’s hard to believe that Sharon Collins and Essam Eid were only sentenced two weeks ago. It was an extraordinary end to an even more extraordinary story and I’m glad that I waited to give Devil in the Red Dress that final chapter but it has meant a flurry of activity since that day to get everything out on time.
But now the writing’s done and all that’s left is the marketing. I’ll be promoting Devil the traditional way but am also keen to explore the new opportunities offered by the Internet. The story of Collins and Eid is so much a story of our time and every part of this story has been firmly rooted on the Net.
The initial hook was the Hitmanforhire website, the email correspondence between Sharon and the fictional “Tony Luciano” that cooked up the plot, the ingredients for ricin were allegedly bought online for the recipe that had been sourced there and the conspirators finally met their downfall due a garda investigation that relied on technical evidence to solve the case.
Even my research for Devil was largely conducted online. I was able to research the American side of the story from my laptop and found out more than I could ever which to know about the toxic properties of castor beans in some of the less salubrious chatrooms out in cyberspace.
If ever there was a trial that was rooted in the world we live in today it was this one…it would be nice if Devil gets it’s own life online.
Well done on a wonderful read. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed it.