Median Gray by Bill Mesce, Jr.

 

Today, author Bill Mesce is here to talk to us about writing and to introduce us to his police thriller Median Gray. Read his thoughts and an excerpt and then follow the tour for even more. Be sure to leave your questions and comments along the way. Best of luck entering the giveaway!

New York City, Summer 1963

Rookie beat cop Jack Meara is bleeding out on the dirty floor of a tenement hallway - next to the body of another cop. The eyes of the shooter burned into his memory. Meara watches and waits to see the shooter brought to justice, but, instead, "Tony Boy" Maiella climbs up the Mob ranks, slipping off indictments as easily as his designer overcoat. But on the eve of his retirement, Meara decides on one last kamikaze-like try to even the scales of justice.

New York City, 1983

Rookie detective Ronnie Valerio finds himself unknowingly pulled into the wake of Meara's quest. A go-go palace bartender is being stalked, a body turns up in a neighborhood dumpster, machine guns blaze in the night, a New York bookie turns up dead in the Jersey Pinelands and the only thing they all have in common is, in one way or another, they all tie back to Jack Meara.

How far does a cop go to even a score? How far does a brother cop go to shield him? Is justice worth any price when the line between right and wrong blurs?

Read an excerpt:

Then another explosion of metal on metal, a spray of red taillight glass as the El Dorado buried its tail in the New Yorker blocking the foot of the driveway.

Meara, on the ground against the stairs, getting his pistol up, pointed at the broad-shouldered silhouette behind the wheel, sending off a shot. The soft-nosed bullet grazed the heavy, raked windshield and winged off. Shattering glass somewhere. A fresh scream.

Meara pulled himself to his feet. The pain in his side kept him from straightening, from drawing a full breath. He felt sweat on his face, wiped at it with the back of his hand, came away with blood, not sweat, all those flying shards from the Caddy bursting through the garage door…

The El Dorado had shoved the New Yorker out into the street where both cars sat log-jammed. Joey Rocks – even through the smoked glass of the Caddy’s windshield, Meara could see where that big, no-necked pile of fat and muscle had gotten its name – was still trying to shake off the shock of the collision.

Meara held his breath so as not to provoke the pain in his side, raised his pistol again, took careful aim, and put two bullets through the dark glass.

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Thoughts by Bill Mesce, Jr:

I remember sitting with my first editor over twenty years ago and I forget how it came up, but I said to her, “I’m not big on plot.”

She smiled and nodded. “I know.” It was that apparent.

I wrote three novels for her, all marketed as legal thrillers, but I don’t think there was a one of them where any half-intelligent reader didn’t know who did what to whom pretty early on. In fact, in that very first novel, you know exactly who the killer is before the first chapter is over.

Don’t get me wrong: I like a good mystery and have always been awed by the ability of mystery writers to build their puzzles, lay out their clues, throw in plot twists. I don’t know how they do it. My head doesn’t work that way.

My interest has always been why people do what they do, and that’s why I spend so much time with my characters.

Alfred Hitchcock, that Master of Suspense, had an axiom of sorts: that the more complicated the plot, the less time you have for character. It’s why he frequently cast such huge stars as Cary Grant and James Stewart; so the audience could immediately identify with them.

But on the page, you don’t have that kind of instant recognition. Every character is an unknown entity to the reader. I’m willing to trade the kind of dynamic forward-moving energy you get from a driving who-dunnit type of plot for taking the time to let my readers get to know my characters and, hopefully, identify with them.

Because I do have time to spend with my characters, I can let the reader see them in non-plot-connected activities. In the case of Median Gray’s main character – a young police officer named Ronnie Valerio – it’s watching him deal with typical young-man-in-the-big-city stuff: annoying neighbors, the routine insanity on the streets that was so much a mark of New York at that time (the novel is set in New York City in 1983), even dealing with that bitter cold that seems distinct to the city (I’ve spent a lot of time in New England where it’s colder, but still not as bone-deep painful as New York cold). And there’s how Ronnie deals with other people: other cops, his boss, people on the street.

My main tool for building a character is to model them on an already existing person. Sometimes it’s a person I know; a friend, someone from one of my jobs, a relative, etc. Sometimes it’s someone in the news. On occasion, it’s even been another character from a TV show or a movie! Those novels I wrote for my editor? The main character in all three was modeled after the character of “Lou Grant” as played by Ed Asner on The Mary Tyler Moore Show.

I don’t know, maybe it’s lazy to work this way, but I don’t know how other writers create a character from the ground up without them coming off like a creation rather than a person. When I build my characters this way, it gives me a reference point: how they’ll move, how they’ll act/react in any given situation, how they talk and how they deal with different kinds of people. I know their strengths, but perhaps more importantly – and I think the thing that readers find particularly identifiable – I know their weaknesses. I know this because I’ve already seen the model in action. I don’t have to create anything, just follow my characters and record their words and actions.

I suppose what I most want is for my readers to feel the reality of a place and recognize my characters as the kind of people it wouldn’t be unusual for them to know. It’s all real to me; I want it to be equally real to them.

Bill Mesce, Jr. Is an award-winning author and playwright as well as a screenwriter. He is an adjunct instructor at several colleges in his native New Jersey.

Social Media Links:
Facebook: facebook.com/bill.mesce.7/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/MesceJr
LInked In: linkedin.com/in/b-mesce-jr-750a6015/

Bill Mesce, Jr. will be awarding a $25 Amazon or Barnes and Noble GC to a randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter during the tour.

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