Announcing . . . Crime for Christmas
I’m excited to share that I’m one of 12 Canadian crime writers contributing to Crime for Christmas, an anthology of Christmas-themed crime stories, which will be published by ReBound Press in the autumn.
Huge thanks go to Peggy Blair — the uber-energetic Editor, Publisher, and Founder of ReBound Press — for leading the project and bringing me on board. Peggy has assembled a terrific group of authors, and I’m genuinely looking forward to reading everyone else’s work when the collection comes together.
All of which means I have to write a short story by June.
And in the past week, I’ve learned (or re-learned) one important thing about writing short stories: it’s hard.
I consider myself a fairly economical writer, but the level of economy and subtlety required in a short story really keeps you on your toes. In a crime novel, you have the luxury of time — time to let characters breathe, time to build atmosphere, time to let the plot unfold. In a short story, you need to draw readers in almost instantly. You need compelling characters, but you also need a crime very near the outset.
Add in the Christmas theme and the constraints tighten further. Peggy has asked contributors to avoid anything too dark, so I’m steering clear of murder. That doesn’t mean the story can’t be tense or gripping — but it does mean finding stakes that feel urgent without going grim.
It ain’t easy.
So I’m preparing as thoroughly as I can. I’ve been reading all the short fiction by my favorite crime writer, Michael Connelly. The range is impressive — from good to genuinely great — and it’s fascinating to see how a master opens a story, establishes character, and introduces conflict with such efficiency. (I’ll do a separate blog post on Connelly’s short fiction in a few weeks.)
I’m also halfway through Don Winslow’s latest book, The Final Score. This collection of six novellas is absolutely fantastic. Each story is completely different from the others, and the book is a powerful reminder of why Winslow is so hard to pigeonhole into any single sub-genre. There’s a lot to learn there about pacing, structure, and voice.
On top of that, I’m learning the craft directly from a pro. This weekend, I’ll be attending an online seminar on writing short stories delivered by one of the masters of the form, Elaine McCluskey. It will definitely be educational — and, knowing Elaine, it will be damned entertaining.
I’ve already started working on my story, which features Jake Spracklin and Emily Fairfield, the protagonists from my most recent novel, Presidio Biotech. Emily, a British citizen living in San Francisco, decides it might be nice to get out of the U.S. for Christmas, so she and Jake travel to Squamish, British Columbia, to visit her friend Mary.
Things go sideways when Mary’s landlords discover that their jewelry has been stolen. Mary’s teenage son quickly becomes the prime suspect. Even if the boy is cleared, Mary faces eviction, and her ex-husband would almost certainly push for custody. Jake is left to investigate — and to decide whether the boy’s pleas of innocence ring true.
Working on this story means I’ve temporarily paused work on my next novel. I’m about 50,000 words in and have realized it needs more — well — propulsion. Readers have been telling me that Presidio Biotech, my last novel, is the best I’ve written, and feedback like that sets a high bar. One Amazon reader, Janet, summed it up nicely: “I’ve read several of Moreira’s detective thrillers, and Presidio Biotech may be my favorite yet. It’s another unputdownable read. His writing is smart and impressively well-researched, and the storyline is downright ingenious.…”
I want to make sure the next book delivers that same page-turning momentum. That means moving some chapters around and making sure the action grabs readers early. With a bit of luck — and a lot of rewriting — I’ll publish it later this year.
First, though, I’ve got a Christmas crime to solve.
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Hi. I’m Peter Moreira and my latest novel is the technothriller Presidio Biotech. I’m also the author of The Haight Mystery Series — retro mystery novels set in San Francisco in the late 1960s. Go to my home page to join my mailing list and receive a free prequel novella.
