Thank you all those who downloaded/voted/ commented/sent e mails regarding this story. And my grateful thanks to Old rotorhead who once again did an exemplary job editing my rambling prose. He also had a lot of input into the Mighty 8th chapter.
The genesis of 15 Days was a catchy title for the first chapter, a pithy ending sentence for the last chapter, and the words of a 1940's popular song. I was quite pleased with what I produced from those rather meagre ingredients, although not all my readers were. There have been a shoal of comments, and a deluge of e mails concerning the story so rather than address each correspondent separately I thought it best to give my responses to the comments/e mails via this blog.
There were many comments regarding Ajay's character, or rather his lack of same. I didn't have any particular thoughts regarding the MC's character when starting writing, letting his actions reveal his inner self. I thought him sympathetic to others, thoughtful and caring towards his colleagues and tenacious in his job. Compared to the MCs of my other series Ajay was a paragon.
Des Desmond from Over the Hills and Faraway trained as a sniper, and had no compunction in shooting a young Bosnian Serb in the back. Jack Greenaway from Poacher's Progress was a psychopath, a berserker, who bayonetted dismounted and unarmed cuirassiers in the throat at Waterloo, and set fire to a man he had pinned to the floor. I can't imagine Ajay doing anything like that.
I did give a hint of Ajay's inner turmoil, that he thought himself unwanted by his mother. I left it to the readers to make of that what they may and how it might affect his character. Overall I rated him as a good sort but many readers thought him weak, shallow, pathetic and a poor excuse for a policeman. Where I had thought Ajay the dogs bollocks (excellent, first class) others thought him a load of bollocks (rubbish, crap). The words within the brackets are translations of the idiomatic English used.
This brings me to another perceived shortcoming of the story. I write in British English, in fact in English English. When using idiomatic English phrases or words I try to make the meaning clear in the context they are used but it seems I failed. Many readers from across the pond found some of the words/ phrases incomprehensible, and I apologise that my writing talent did not stretch to full explanations within the text.
I suppose I could have inserted a glossary of terms used but I have never yet come across an American written story with a glossary of idiomatic American English terminology.
The final black mark awarded me was that the story rambled, or as the correspondent put it, 'the story is all over the place'.
Guilty as charged. I write about what interests me but don't expect my interests to be the same as everyone else and know I will lose a certain number of readers when I go off-piste, so to speak. I was not disappointed this time although I was surprised that one doughty fellow stuck it out until Chapter 26 before slinging his hook (leaving).
One of the perks of being a complete amateur is I can write what I like without feeling the backlash in my pocket, only in my self- esteem, and a lowering of one 's vanity is probably good for the soul.
Finally, there was one commentator who I think might have been reading a different story to the one I wrote. Either that or my writing was so obtuse he got the completely wrong idea of the set up between Ajay, Molly, Maddy, and Deborah, Molly's daughter.
Obtuse is as obtuse does.
Best regards
Jack G