The Dark Side Bob Cox

Retired Detective Inspector Bob Cox is a character forged from years of service on London’s toughest streets. He comes alive on the page through a blend of meticulous research, authentic police detail, and a raw humanity that makes his dilemmas impossible to ignore.

Haunted by the cases where the guilty walked free, Bob finds himself questioning the very system he once defended. When he teams up with an old friend, the gloves come off. Crossing into the shadows, he draws on his insider knowledge of police work procedures, surveillance, forensics to hunt down those who’ve slipped through the cracks.

At the heart of his story lies a moral conflict: the tension between the oath he once swore and the vigilante justice he now pursues. Bob Cox is a man readers will root for, wrestle with, and question in equal measure because the line between hero and vigilante has never been thinner.

This book was a pleasure and fun to write; it took me away from the Viper series which on hindsight wasn’t the best of ideas as I was just getting ready to write Viper 10. Having two genres on the go would have been difficult but a challenge, but when I write I must be totally focussed on that one book and that one only.

I have Viper 10 and Bob Cox 2 in my brain but I’m in a dilemma, which one to write first? I’ve had a sabbatical over the last few years due to health but I’m firing on all cylinders now, so I must decide and soon.

People often ask me do I read other authors and if so, who?

I haven’t read a book since 2001 when I starting to form my own manuscripts in my head and on scraps of paper. The stories were always there but extracting them in the form I wanted was the trouble. Then as they grew and my brain capacity was nearly full, I ended up buying notepads, then drawing flowcharts so I knew what I was doing and how the books and series would flow. I have my own style of writing and sitting down reading other authors books in my mind could influence your own flair and ideas. I write without any outside influences, ideas and technique. I draw my ideas in relation to the Bob Cox series from personal real-life experiences having served as a detective in the Police Service.

Back then having recently been retired through ill health because of injuries on duty and to put it bluntly, I was suffering, writing was the only thing I could manage in my condition, that didn’t require too much exertion on my body. It was a lifeline to be honest and a mental stimulant. To my complete and utter shock people, friends and family loved my style of writing and the Viper series took off after a lot of blood, sweat and tears!

The Bob Cox series has always been buzzing around in my head, and now aptly named The Dark Side I was able to sit down and just let it flow, being only a two- finger typist, maybe flow is the wrong word as my brain was certainly moving faster than my digits!

Day after day and towards the end of the book, night after night, I flogged my laptops keyboard. Finished, nope, no time to sit on your laurels it was just the start, then came the dreaded editing of draft1, then 2 and so on.

Reading your own manuscripts, I find hard as you go word blind and miss odd and silly mistakes. Fresh eyes are now needed, and I have been so blessed having made a very good friend from a fan of my Viper series. He looks forward to the raw unpolished manuscript, and gives me his honest, no holds barred opinion. Any mistakes he has spotted, did it flow, what he thought of the plots, twists and turns etc. His feedback is invaluable as family and close friends can and are biased.

Then it goes to the editor, this can be problematic to be truthful, as the English language of today goes against the grain! I was taught old school grammar, but it seems the new style of writing is totally different, and this is still a bone of contention.

I’m looking forward to writing the second book in the Bob Cox series and I hope my supporters of my work find it just as good if not better than the first book.

Here’s to “An over-caffeinated and sometimes over-inebriated masochist with the insane compulsion to bare their soul on paper, cry over their keyboard and bang their head against the literary wall waiting for someone to love their work.”