The Scene of the Crime (sort of...) Part 1

I am heading into the homestretch re: editing the third Sasha Jackson mystery, The Lies Have It.  Once again, the book is set in Toronto, and like the other books, many of the places mentioned in the novel are real.  I do, however, take some liberties (occasionally a lot of liberties) with locations.

The Pilot Tavern has been mentioned in both Blood and Groom and Dead Light District as one of Sasha's favourite hangouts, whether she's eating a Patty Melt to help cure a hangover, or drinking gin & tonics on the rooftop patio on a sunny day. 

The Pilot is a real place, obviously, and it is one of my favourite hangouts, which is why I've included it in my books.  I go where Sasha goes (or she goes where I go...?  Wait, Sasha Jackson is fictional...) 

The Pilot is located at 22 Cumberland Street (a stone's throw from Yonge & Bloor).  As mentioned in my books, The Pilot has three levels: The main floor is a tavern/restaurant with good food (love the Thai Noodles and the California Salad), great atmosphere and fantastic jazz matinees every Saturday.  It's also got some of the best bar staff in the city: Masoud and Derrick have both been there for years and I'm always glad to see them when I go in.  I name-checked both of them in Blood and Groom.

The third floor is a rooftop patio called The Flight Deck.  It's a huge patio - one of the biggest in downtown Toronto - with a great view, a full menu, and a nice selection of draught beers, but unfortunately NO SANGRIA!    Recently, I was on the roof with a friend and it was the perfect day for sangria, so we made our own.  We ordered a half litre of red wine, soda water with lots of fruit slices, a shot of Triple Sec and a couple of empty pint glasses.  We didn't spill too much and our low-rent sangria was actually pretty good!

The second floor of The Pilot is known as The Stealth Lounge, and it's used for private parties and special functions - everything from bridal showers to polticial fundrisers to office Christmas parties to poetry readings.  I had both of my book launches there, and the third one will be there as well.  In fact, the idea for the third book came from an event held there long ago, and The Stealth Lounge is a significant part of the plot in book three.

Also, I used to work at The Pilot, so you must check my next posting for the "story behind the story."  Stay tuned.

Book One is actually Book Three

The Lies Have It (which I refer to as the fetish book or the S & M book) is the third book in the Sasha Jackson mystery series. It’s due to come out in Fall 2011, and I can’t wait for it to be released! You see, even though this will be Sasha’s third mystery, it’s actually the first book, or at least it’s the one I started first. I began writing the fetish book in 2005!


I kept getting stuck on the plot of this book, so I left it on the back burner and had no real plans about writing overall. Then BANG! The idea for Blood and Groom came to me, and I wrote the whole thing in six months and six days.


After that, I tried to do more with the fetish book, but still kept getting stuck on the plot. I liked the overall idea – a murder related to an S & M fetish party – but couldn’t iron out several wrinkles in the plot. Everything I came up with relied too heavily on coincidences and was just too hard to swallow. So, once again I left the S & M book on the back burner.


Then I came up with the idea for Dead Light District, and that book took only five months to write, from start to finish. Its genesis was an essay I did for my MA, and the book practically wrote itself.


Finally, I figured out the plot for the S & M book, and came up with a title for it. The Lies Have It (as it’s now called... but I still think of it as the fetish book). So, book one is actually book three, and even though the other two books were quick to write (six and five months respectively) the third book took about six years! I hope to hell the fourth book will not take nearly as long :)