Blog Tour: David Jackson - A Tapping at my Door

‘Recalls Harlan Coben - though for my money Jackson is the better writer.’
The Guardian

A TAPPING AT MY DOOR
DAVID JACKSON

Published by Zaffre, 7^th April 2016 2016, hardback, 18.99
eBook published 7^th April 2016, £8.99

From the bestselling author of Cry Baby, A Tapping at My Door is the first of a brilliant and gripping police procedural series set in Liverpool.

Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore—
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of someone gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door...
-- The Raven, Edgar Allen Poe

Home alone one evening, Terri Latham is disturbed by a persistent tapping at her back door. She's relieved to discover the culprit is a raven, and tries to shoo it away. What she doesn't know is that it is the prelude to a terrifying attack - Terri’s body is found in her garden the next day with her eyes gone and a dead raven and placed across her face.

DS Nathan Cody, just back to work after an undercover mission that went horrifyingly wrong, is put on the case to determine the significance of the raven left at the crime scene. As flashbacks from his past begin to intrude, Cody realises he is battling not just a murderer, but his own inner demons too.

And then the killer strikes again, and it becomes all too apparent that the threat isn't to the people of Liverpool after all - it's only to the police. As more police officers are killed, Cody finds himself in a race against time to catch the killer.

Following the success and acclaim of the Callum Doyle novels, A Tapping at My Door is the first instalment of David Jackson's new Nathan Cody series.

Who is Nathan Cody? David Jackson explains:

 When I was writing my first series of crime thrillers set in New York, my boss at the time seemed convinced that the handsome, macho, brave protagonist was based solidly on him. I think he may have been joking, but I was never quite sure.

My new series of novels, set in Liverpool, features a very different lead character by the name of Nathan Cody. Once an undercover cop, Cody now works for the Major Incident Team, dealing mainly with high-profile homicides.

What do we know about Cody? Well, I deliberately avoid saying much about him in terms of physical description, other than he looks about ten years younger than he actually is, and so is not always taken seriously as a copper. He’s an extremely troubled man, having experienced a highly traumatic event during his last undercover operation. When we meet him in ‘A Tapping at my Door’ he is at a crisis point in his life. He suffers from hallucinations, lucid nightmares, and sudden loss of temper. His condition led to a break-up with his fiancée, and now he is on the verge of losing his job – the one thing he is desperate to cling on to. To make matters worse, his father hates the fact that he joined the police, and has practically disowned him, taking the rest of Cody’s family with him.

Despite all this, Cody is kind, generous and devoted to finding justice for victims. He has also managed to hang on to a sense of humour. He lives alone in a top-floor flat on Liverpool’s Rodney Street (the Harley Street of the North). For company he has his mountain of books. He also whiles away his time playing guitar and working out in his home gym.

So that, in a nutshell, is Nathan Cody. And if you’re wondering whether he is based on anyone I know in real life, the answer is yes.

Nathan Cody is me.

But he’s also not-me.

Let me explain. Whenever an author creates a character with any depth – one with opinions and feelings and memories – it becomes necessary to get inside the head of that character. In practice, though, we writers can only get inside our own heads, and we have to make use of what we find there. If, for example, I make Cody say something funny, I am drawing on my own sense of humour. If I make him frightened, I am exploring my own fears, and what it’s like to experience them.

In fact, in creating any major character – hero or villain, man or woman – I am using myself as a baseline. Sometimes the character will possess an exaggeration of my own attributes; other times it may be the polar opposite of how I feel. But it always starts with me. Cody is more traumatised than I am, but I know how it feels to be anxious or afraid, and I can build on that for Cody. Similarly, Cody is undoubtedly braver than I am, but again this can only be based on my own notions of what bravery is, and how it feels to confront one’s demons.

There is a passage in the Bible where an apparently insane man, when asked who he is, replies, ‘I am Legion, for we are many.’ I’m thinking of pinning that phrase above my writing desk.

David Jackson is the author of a series of crime thrillers featuring New York Detective Callum Doyle. His debut novel, Pariah, was Highly Commended in the Crime Writers' Association Debut Dagger Awards. His fourth book, Cry Baby, went straight into the top 10 of the Amazon Kindle bestsellers, and was listed as one of the Amazon Best Books of 2014- it has sold, to date, over 130,000 copies. Translation rights of his books have been sold to various territories. He lives on the Wirral peninsula with his wife and two daughters.

@Author_Dave       http://davidjacksonbooks.com/