P.J. Murphy's Writer Site

For New Year I published an extract of my novel, Yesterday’s Shadow, and immediately distanced myself from it by pointing out that I wrote it over 15 years ago. What have I been doing since then?

Mainly writing Dead Letters.

I’ve been doing other things, too, like meeting my wife, moving to Geneva, changing job, getting married, learning French, raising two kids and writing and publishing Troubleshot.

Now I put it like that, it seems I’ve been quite busy.

All along, Dead Letters has haunted me, like the ghosts in its pages. As you may imagine, from the length of time it has taken me, it was a tough one to finish. But last summer, whilst isolating with Covid, I finally did so.

Dead Letters is the story of two old friends trying to track down their writer friend who has vanished. Their only clue about what’s happened is a manuscript of a novel he’s penned in secret, which is delivered one year after his disappearance. This novel is called Dead Letters, and it follows two children sent to deliver ghosts from their torment by a shadowy Postmaster. The friends realise that there are parallels between the novel and real life, and that there’s a trail they can follow which will lead them, hopefully, to the missing writer.

The current status is that I am just finishing editing the novel, following the same method I used for Troubleshot (see my earlier blog post about cleaning out the muck). It will be a more thorough process than last time, and I’m also hoping to get some pre-reader reviews ready ahead of publication (volunteers welcome!). I’m aiming to publish it around Easter.

What’s the relevance of all this to this post’s title? Well, Dead Letters is the closest I’ve come to the sort of novel I want to write. It’s been hard-going, and Troubleshot was kind of a diversion when I got stuck. But I’m there (nearly!).

Does Dead Letters have its flaws? Yes. Is it funny? Erm, I think so. Is it good enough to put the Murphy name to? Hopefully! Have I had enough of writing it and just want it out there? Hell, yes!

You can expect to hear more about it in the coming months. Next stop (hopefully), I’ll be sharing the cover art.