Guest Blog: The delightful husband and wife killer team RC Bridgestock on going back and moving forwards!

This is a an article with something in it for everyone. Dylan fans will be engrossed, aspiring authors will be inspired and crime writers will see what a bit of luck, a dash of chemistry and a shed load of talent can produce. Thanks so much to Carol and Bob for this guest blog piece. The Crime Warp is humbled by your sincerity and chuffed to bits that you took the time for us. So, over to ..... drum roll ... The very lovely Bridgestocks ...

Serendipity caused our paths to cross, but Bob and I both knew we would be blessed to be represented by literary agent David H. Headley.

We felt instantly on the same wave-length.... He’s from Yorkshire; he calls a spade a spade; and it became clear in the short time we were together that he held the same values as we do. He is honest, hard-working and good fun to be around.

As well as having a range of experience from book-selling and collecting books, David is a passionate book lover – he’s MD at the world famous, much admired, Goldsboro Books of Cecil Court, London, for goodness sake! He is well connected, commercially aware, and he and his team are super skilled in helping authors develop their ideas – just take a look at the fabulous authors D.H.H. Literary Agency represents for a start!

So, in 2014, with a leap of faith in what we had achieved, we approached David, in the hope that he would consider representing us as clients.

The headlines that followed on the agency’s site were more than any author could ever hope to see.

‘D.H.H. Literary Agency now represents crime writers Robert and Carol Bridgestock.’

DI Jack Dylan Prequel Available here

David Headley says, ‘When Carol and Bob approached me looking for representation, I immediately knew I wanted to represent them. They are a very talented writing team with an extraordinary passion for writing and have huge untapped potential.’

We felt proud, we felt lucky, we still pinch ourselves…  David not only believes in us, but he’s our business manager, mentor, cheerleader, friend and confidant. 

People often ask us how they will know when they have found the right agent? Well, it’s like finding the right partner – it’s chemistry.

It was David’s idea that we write a prequel to the DI Jack Dylan series. He even suggested the name, Poetic Justice. And it was with our best interests at heart, as well as our big-picture career growth in mind, that he suggested, once our rights were reverted back to us from other Dylan titles in the series, that we revise those editions.

DI Jack Dylan Bk 1 Available here

Since self-publishing Deadly Focus, our first book, in 2008, the following titles organically evolved. But inevitably we have changed as writers in the last ten years. Maybe, David said, before the release of the ninth book in the DI Jack Dylan series, it made sense to refresh the first three titles and having just written the prequel made this much easier.

We found revisiting the books as exciting and as interesting as writing them in the first place. It wasn’t easy; it required handling a lot of old and new material that needed to be merged without changing the feel of the books. We were keen to keep the sometimes very raw memories of recent cases, and the feelings they evoked in Bob, the newly retired SIO, that we’d used to write the books with heart and soul. It was fulfilling to see good books get even better. There were things, on re-reading the titles, that became immediately apparent needed attention – such as pesky

DI Jack Dylan Bk3 Available here

typos and incorrect grammar, and we were thrilled to be given the chance to improve them.

When we had finished the revisions, we were pleased to discover we were prouder of the books than when we completed the first manuscripts. They now contained all the pieces we felt they’d been missing.

How did we revise the books?

1.     As we had so recently finished writing the prequel to the nine-book series, we created a detailed list of new content that we thought should be added to the previous book in the series, the areas that needed updating or expanding. Then we created a brief synopsis of each item on that list.

2.     Our starting point was the edition of the word file of the first editions and we saved each chapter in a file, along with comments and suggested content.

3.     Separately we reread each chapter in turn, and when we had finished making notes we compared them.

4.     Rebecca, our publisher, sent us her edit. Her professional eye saw things that we had missed. It is a joy to work with her. She’s attentive, she is honest in her feedback – she’s amazing!

5.     Diligently we worked through her notes and returned the manuscript forthwith.

6.     The manuscripts came back to us, not once but several times, to check. The keenness to ‘get it right’ by all was palpable.

DI Jack Dylan bBk 3 Available here

The Dome Press contracted us to publish the fully re-edited versions of the first three books in the series pre-release of the prequel Poetic Justice on the 28th February 2019, which has happened through their hard work, and diligence. Deadly Focus, Consequences, and White Lilies are now out in e-book and paperback. Not only has The Dome Press given the books brand new beautiful, trendy, tactile covers created by the talented Jem Butcher, but we have also been given the chance to fully revise and re-edit the content, and the rest, as they say, is courtesy of one hell of a team. #TeamDylan