My A-Z theme this year is a guide to my trilogy of novels called ‘The State Trilogy’. Set in an unnamed island country known only as ‘The State’, in the imagined near future, the books follow the intertwining stories of a number of characters, principally a State police detective named Danny Samson and an assassin, Gabriella Marino, over a period of six years. It begins with the assassination of an elected official and spirals into revolution and civil war. Part political thriller, action story, war story and dystopian science fiction, the trilogy took three years to complete and the books are available to read now – you can find links to purchase them HERE

In The State Trilogy, ‘D’ stands for:

Danny Samson: Detective Danny Samson is the central character of The State Trilogy. His name is not an accident – he has to go through a number of trials through the course of the years covered by the story, and before we meet him he has already had to cope with tragedy in his own life. While detectives are of course some of the most famous and over-used characters in fiction, I wanted to make sure Danny was a well-rounded person, and unlike many other detectives in fiction, he is not exceptional at his job. He is no Sherlock or Poirot or even a Rebus. He is an everyday officer who has risen through the ranks without ever excelling. In the future world that the stories are set in, being a police officer is unlike the present day version. Most crimes are solved by science without any real detecting needing to be done. The murder rate and crime rate is very low. Few detectives have ever really had much experience of handling a full investigation. I also wanted Danny to reflect a real person in his physical appearance and ability. He is a bit overweight in his middle-age, he is balding. When it comes to using a gun or fighting or running, he is no expert and relies on his colleagues with military backgrounds to get him out of sticky situations. As he moves through the story and the times, he adapts and improves at these things, as needs must. He has lost a wife, his children and his friends. He is a lonely character seeking a purpose, and he finds it in his duty to expose and fight against the corrupt State.

Donald Parkinson: A Consul in the local Central City Parliament. An experienced and well-known Central Alliance Party politician whose assassination at the start of ‘A Justified State’ begins the story. The investigation of his death by Danny Samson reveals the dark secrets that lie at the corrupt heart of the State.

Diabetes: When I wrote the first novel in the trilogy, ‘A Justified State’, in 2017, I knew a little about diabetes – my mother-in-law and brother-in-law are both type-1 diabetics. It never occurred to me to include a type-1 diabetic character in any of my books. Not many novels feature characters with this auto-immune illness, and when they do, it’s usually type-2 diabetes (see the Inspector Morse novels by Colin Dexter). Then, just as I was starting to think about a follow-up to my first book, my own son developed type-1 diabetes at the age of four. Suddenly, our world revolved around it. After a week in hospital, we settled in to a new life of blood tests, finger pricks, insulin injections and carb counting. It’s hard not to be over-whelmed. It’s hard not to be anxious and worried. Like many writers, one outlet for my new world of anxiety was through writing. Book two, ‘State of Denial,’ follows Danny as he lives in the wilderness and befriends a woman with a diabetic son. Soon, it is up to Danny to save this boy by getting him back to the city and to hospital. As well as helping me deal with my own anxiety, it felt good to include a character that can help educate others about this awful incurable and unpreventable disease.

Next up – E is for: Eilidh, Elections, Editing, European Union and Elisabeth Sand.

All the entries in the A-Z of ‘The State Trilogy’ can be found HERE

The books are available from a wide selection of online retailers, including AMAZON