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Picking up hot on the heels of last week’s post, here’s a compendium of (almost) all the other places that appear in my latest satirical novel, Six Steps for Salvation, available here on Amazon.

The Salève

Here are some shots of the Salève, which I rather shamefully diss for a cheap laugh in the novel. I don’t get up there often enough, but I love it when I do: the great walks, wonderful views and the cool cave you go through on the way up.

Fun fact: they completely refurbished the top cable car station while I was writing Six Steps, so I ended up having to rewrite a good portion of the chapter. Perhaps that explains my bitterness.

“The quarry chipping away at its side diminished its grandeur, making it appear like a glorified construction site. If God believed that humankind might be intimidated by this “mountain”, then He had underestimated its desire to extract wealth from dirt or put a telegraph tower and ice cream stand at the top.
To the locals, the Salève was known principally for obstructing their view of Mont Blanc. But it was Geneva’s mountain, and woe betide anyone who might disrespect it.” Six Steps to Salvation by P.J. Murphy, Chapter 5

The Chair

Nations is a part of town I visit rarely. Not working in the UN, I have little reason to. So, I made a special trip to take these photos. Applause please!

“This part of town was known as Nations. It was dominated by the villa where the League of Nations had met between the First and Second World Wars. These days, this housed the European headquarters of the United Nations. The site was known for the array of flags out front, the three-legged chair sculpture outside (a victim of landmines or a carpentry mishap, no one was certain), the peacocks that roamed free on the grounds and the extensive queues for security. At the front lay a concrete square where fountains of water spurted up periodically from the ground, providing a diverting water feature / a nice game for the kids / a deterrent for crowds gathering to protest.” Six Steps to Salvation by P.J. Murphy, Chapter 1

The Cycle Network

Here’s an old picture I took not long after moving to Geneva, whilst getting to grips with its cycle networks. Generally, it’s pretty good, with cycle lanes on most main routes and some useful cuts across town. But sometimes, it will drop you onto a busy junction with a pat on the back and “you’re on your own.” This photo epitomised this for me.

Of course, it made it into my novel, Six Steps to Salvation, set in Geneva. They do say that satire is all about making important social commentary! It comes up when Hobbs questions his characterisation as straight-laced:

“‘He’s so straight,’ they said, ‘that he once followed the bike lane into a lamppost.’
It wasn’t true. He had seen the lamppost at the last minute and swerved to miss it. He’d wrecked his bike, that was true, but he hadn’t collided with the obstacle straight on. That was an important clarification.
Anyway, a more relevant point was, “Who put a lamppost in the middle of a cycle lane?” It very much defeats the object of cycle lanes if you’re going to plonk lampposts right in them. Why was nobody asking that question?” Six Steps to Salvation by P.J. Murphy, Chapter 2

The Conference Centre

The Centre International de Conférences de Genève (CIGC) does not appear in the novel, but the Community Organisations Conference Centre (COCC) does. Who knows whether this was because I wanted to avoid a lawsuit or make a puerile joke about the acronym?

My take on the security queues was inspired by a visit to just about every airport ever!!

“The security crew worked diligently but without any sense of urgency. If ever a risk vector (the dehumanising name with which they referred to participants) exhibited any frustration, they took longer frisking them. In theory, this was because twitchiness was a sign of malevolent intentions; the truth was that they were no more willing to have someone ask them to hurry up than a farmer would be for a sheep to tell him his job.” Six Steps to Salvation by P.J. Murphy, Chapter 8

The Airport

Geneva Airport: the final stop in my tour of the spots that appear in my novel Six Steps to Salvation.

As airports go, it’s a good one. Within spitting distance of the town centre, it offers a lovely view of the Jura mountains. It’s small (only one runway) but flies to quite a few destinations in Europe and beyond. I do it a bit of a disservice in the novel, as our protagonist gets stuck in a queue for security that goes nowhere with an ex who hates him. This actually happened to me in a Paris airport (apart from the ex bit). The horrors of all the skiers travelling here for ski season are still apparent, but even that’s improved since they redid the security gates. The days when you have to queue for 2 hours to get your bags scanned are, thankfully, few and far between.

This concludes our Six Steps to Salvation Geneva tour. It won’t be the last. I’ll be posting over winter the sights and sounds of Saint Malo, where my next novel, Beach of Spies, will be based. Here’s hoping the memory of summer will keep us warm during the winter months! If you’d like to follow, you can find me over at Instagram.

Until then, have a good flight!