Writing – Writing about someone else’s series character

As regular readers will know, I write genre thriller fiction – espionage, crime, horror, fantasy, and western. My first published western book Death at Bethesda Falls was published in 2007 and is now out of print. Five others followed for the same publisher. I also edited a couple of western anthologies. One of these, A Fistful of Legends, (2009) featured the tale ‘Cash Laramie and the Masked Devil’ by Edward A. Grainger. This was the first outing of the character Cash Laramie. Since then, he has gone from strength to strength in over a dozen books, all of them classed as noir westerns. In 2012, I was asked by Cash’s creator to write an adventure in the series; a number of talented authors had already done so.

I readily agreed and wrote Bullets for a Ballot, and greatly enjoyed the experience. It was the fifth in the series.

Since then I have written a second adventure, Coffin for Cash, which became the twelfth in the series.

At present, I’m writing a third adventure, whose title will follow the alliterative format already established…

Here is the blurb for Coffin for Cash:

Cash Laramie has been in plenty of tight spots, but this – being buried alive – may be his last! 

It all started innocently enough, as a favour for his boss, accompanying a rich woman in her search for her brother. The trail leads to The Bells, a strange hotel run by a brother and sister team, which just happens to be adjacent to the funeral parlour and cemetery...

His friend Miles is nearby, intent on escorting a suspected murderer to Cheyenne for trial. Yet Miles discovers that his charge might be not guilty, after all, and lingers to ask questions. And those inquiries mean upsetting some people, which leads to an ambush, and a final reckoning at the outlandish casino complex constructed by a wealthy bigoted German baron.

Throw into the mix the attractive Berenice, a schizophrenic bank manager, irate miners, Chinese workers, a boisterous slot machine salesman, and a devious lawyer and you have another explosive adventure for the Outlaw Marshal.

I’ll return to this book again, to outline the strong influences affecting its story and characters.

Coffin for Cash available as a paperback and an e-book from Amazon sites here