Murder outside the cathedral

Our guest blogger is Timothy Humphries, author of a chilling story in the anthology Can You Believe It...

For supporters of this blog we will provide Tim’s story free on Sunday morning. Queensland, Australia time.

You can buy Can You Believe It HERE

Take it, Timothy, Cheers, Bernie

The story Long Shadow came about in late March 2011 when I was attending the Manifest Creative Arts Festival at Avondale College, NSW. I'd been visiting the college for two weeks and spent a significant quantity of time researching a possible PHD thesis on Comparative Christian History and weighing up whether I would be able to afford to do such research in an official capacity at a later date.

Towards the end of the trip I decided to take a break from the intensive research and took a few walks around the campus to absorb the visual beauty of the area.

The simplicity and beauty of Church buildings and college facilities fascinated me to the point of wondering what a fictional murder mystery might look like if based in a visually attractive, traditionally conservative and academic setting.

The formation for the characters and plot came to me when I walked from the college grounds to the off campus shop to purchase a paper early one evening.

The sun had gone down and a full moon had come out. I became fascinated by the full moon and imagined the events of the story set against a full-moon rising. 

 Upon completing that walk I spent the next two days writing the first draft of the story and broadened it in several re-drafts.

It is my belief that the story has the potential to be expanded into a full length novel. Whether will be done, will depend on whether I have the time in the coming months.

Hope you enjoy The Long Shadow,

Tim.

You can buy Can You Believe It… HERE and read Tom’s story for free on Sunday.