Discover the origins of Tom Bale’s gripping thriller Sins of the Father! Set on the brutal but stunning Sussex coast, the perfect place for a murder don’t you think? 👀 Read more about it below and get your copy here today: https://mybook.to/SinsoftheFather
Sins of the Father was my first published book, accepted by a small press at a point when I was wondering if it was time to abandon my dream. I’d been sending off stories, scripts and novels from the age of fifteen, and after a quarter of a century it had begun to feel as though the breakthrough would never come.
The initial inspiration came from watching a TV documentary about a much loved comedy actor of the 1950/60s, whose family saw a very different side of him. That prompted the “What if?” question so beloved of writers: What if you grew up as the son of a celebrity whose darkest secrets came to haunt you long after your father’s death? For my main character – actor’s son Nick Randall – I didn’t want him to be a cop, but I did need him to be plausibly capable of investigating his father’s past. Mindful of the advice that you should write what you know, I decided to make him an insurance investigator. I’d been working in that industry myself, running a small claims office, and I’d gained some experience in accident investigation, attending inquests and analysing claims for evidence of fraud. Soon I had a sub-plot involving staged accidents which resembled the kind of schemes I’d come upon at work.
Lastly, the setting: for me there could be only one place. Born and bred in Sussex, I was actually living in Yorkshire when the idea came to me, and feeling particularly homesick for the coast. My colleagues in Leeds used to console me by saying it was “only an hour” in the car to Bridlington or Scarborough, but I’d been used to a 100 metre walk from my flat in Hove to the beach. I was soon to discover that location research is one of the most enjoyable aspects of a writing career, but not without its unsettling moments. For one key scene I had to know if a fall from the cliffs near Beachy Head would be fatal; since I’m not great with heights, I ended up crawling on my belly to the edge and holding a camera out, snapping away while trying not to look down. A fine example, I would say, of a novelist’s dedication to authenticity – and it seems all the more worthwhile now that, thanks to my publisher, Boldwood, Sins of the Father is getting a fabulous new lease of life. Just don’t ask me to go back and check on that cliff.