The Almost Perfect Plot
Author
Ed Halliday
Author Bio
Ed Halliday is not your usual writer of dark humour. It has often been remarked by agents and reviewers alike that his style of writing is unusual but in a refreshing and entertaining way. There is no rambling prose put there just for the sake of filling pages and therefore fulfilling the page count criteria of a publisher, every word is there for a purpose. This is why his stories make engaging writing that keeps you turning the pages. The reason his style is so different to most is simple. He has had no formal training whatsoever, no writers workshops, no degree in creative writing, not even an ’A’ level in English. Everything that goes onto the page is untainted by the restrictive rigours imposed by years of being told how to write, it is done by instinct and a desire to produce something that he himself would enjoy reading. Born in the industrial north of England in the late sixties, Ed spent the formative years of his childhood in France where he was educated in the French state system before finishing his education in an English boarding school. He has recently returned to France to live and to write, hence the frequent references in his books to the country of his childhood.
Description
The Almost Perfect Plot is a black humour thriller and quite accurately described by the title. The story revolves around the main character who happens to be called Thomas Hardy, (no, not that one, this one is a truly awful writer!), who has a very mundane life but this all changes and not always for the better! As he finds himself buried alive, pursued by the police as well as his ex-wife and a serial killer, he often wishes he was still a writer of instructions books for anything from flat pack furniture to car sun roofs. He has always had aspirations to write great literary works, but as he seeks material for the life changing plot to his debut novel, life starts to imitate fiction. It all starts when, having been kicked out of his house in the course of his divorce, he decides it is time to make a new start and fulfil the potential he has always believed he holds. Having moved abroad to the south of France, (a task which ended up being far more challenging than he had planned for!), in search of a change of lifestyle, he seeks inspiration in vain until a retired English policeman befriends him. Retired policeman Fred Williams persuades him to write crime fiction based on a real case that Fred himself had worked on but never solved. Tom abandons thoughts of prize winning literature and takes Fred up on his offer. However, struggling for realism in his story, Tom decides to act out the crime he is trying to write about so he can better get the feel of it, and in the process stumbles onto the scene of a real life killing. As the only witness to the crime, the serial killer has no choice but to try and get rid of our hapless hero, only by a series of twists and coincidences this proves to be harder than the killer could have imagined. The coincidences that save our hero also implicate Tom himself as the police try to catch the perpetrator, on top of which Tom has an ex-wife who is trying to hound him, and this was definitely not a good time to fall in love!
Book excerpt
Tom’s head was throbbing, each pulse sending a kaleidoscope of colour across the inside of his eyelids and creating a shooting pain through his eardrums. He just wasn’t sure if it was an injury that was causing the pulsating pain or excessive amounts of rosé wine that he had probably consumed, bearing in mind the last thing he could remember was being on his way to a barbeque at Fred’s house. He lay motionless for a short while hoping the thudding between his ears might subside sufficiently for him to move in the direction of the cabinet where the painkillers were hopefully to be found. After several minutes he could detect no perceptible change. There was nothing for it, he would have to try and move.
Slowly he forced his matted eyelashes to part but it seemed to make no difference to what he could see, in fact he could now see considerably less. The myriad of colours that had been playing like a psychedelic movie on the inside of his eyelids were replaced by total darkness, but it was more than just dark. It seemed that there was a total absence of light, the blackness was complete and enveloping, beyond just the darkness of the night. It was velvety and cloying. Now that he was awake he was also beginning to realise how stuffy the atmosphere was. There was a strong smell of damp earth and the things that crawled in it. As he moved his fingers he became aware that they were in fact scraping at a dirt like substance, which was slightly moist and stuck to his fingertips and wedged itself under his nails. Panicking slightly he sat up abruptly, but with his head only inches off the dirt floor it bounced back down after colliding with the rough wooden planks overhead, causing crumbs of damp earth to sprinkle onto his upturned face. He moved his arms furtively left and right, searching for the parameters of his confinement and soon realised he was in a space not much bigger than he was himself. His brain raced through the possibilities, trying desperately to come up with a plausible and not too scary explanation. The only thing that could account for his sensory deprivation and depreciating air supply was that he was in fact in a subterranean hole which had been covered over. The technical name for this, Tom was fairly certain, was that he had been buried alive.
With tears emerging from the corners of his eyes and running down his cheek bones towards his ears, and panic in his light deprived eyes, Tom kicked furiously with his feet and pushed upwards as hard as he could with his hands in the limited space. His heart pounded in his chest and the blood pulsated through his veins, but he could make no impact on the fabric of his underground cell. He paused, heavily breathing in great gulps of the thick rancid atmosphere that now seemed too viscous to breathe.
He had to slow down. He had to control himself or he would run out of air very quickly. He was already aware that he was feeling a little drowsy and light headed at the same time and it wasn’t due to anything intoxicating.
He knew he didn’t have much time left.
