The following post contains spoilers for Lord Have Mercy Part Four: Big Son, which you can grab here:
You can also snag the complete novel, all four installments compiled, for Kindle and paperback:
Lord Have Mercy: The Complete Novel
Given my love of horror - of the Classic, Gothic variety, and the more contemporary - and given the violent-by-necessity nature of Dartmoor, I've always tried to lever a bit of the horrific and the fantastic into the way I write certain scenes for that series. The whiff of the supernatural, though Dartmoor's horrors are solidly human.
For funsies, I searched the word "haunted" to see how many times I used it in Big Son. The answer is four:
“Colin,” Alex prodded, ungently, and Dandridge sent him a cool it look.
Colin dropped his hands, and his expression was haunted. He looked like he’d run here on foot, wan and sweating and spacy.
***
Remy was still in his corner, though was no longer pretending to play with garbage. He sat cross-legged on the dirty floor, hands folded together in his lap, watching the comings and goings of the men. Someone had hooked up a generator and got the power going, so there were lights, now, harsh and flickering fluorescent tubes that beat back the dark, as night finally sank its teeth into the tail end of the evening. In the unforgiving glare of the overheads, Remy looked more like a haunted doll than ever: those bottomless black eyes, smudged beneath with sleepless bruises, cheeks narrow and hollow, expression impassive. He could have been thinking about Hot Wheels, or contemplating some Damien, Omen-style murder for all that Fallon could tell. Either seemed likely.
***
Wannabe.
A word that had haunted him from decades, that had chased him straight to Quantico, and into the hallowed training halls of the place where he’d finally found a sense of belonging. A place that had welcomed and wanted him; a place where he was put to good use.
Lloyd backed off the throttle, and the boat slowed to an easy glide across the open water.
Fallon’s attention was fixed on the island, and the floating white specters that glowed amidst the mossy branches.
Ghosts, was his first, foolish thought. New Orleans was supposed to be haunted, wasn’t it? And here the ghosts were: not mere raps on hotel doors, or cold patches in a cemetery. These were good old-fashioned sheet-draped Hollywood spirits, floating and wavering, flapping…
Birds. They were birds. Hundreds and hundreds of white egrets roosting for the night.
How many times could his heart leap and stall and slow tonight? It was doing more work than a gymnast on a balance beam.
Just finished the series. I absolutely loved it. You have a tremendous imagination. Thank you for sharing with all of your readers. You have such a gift!
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