Friday Reads – The DI Sterling Series by Lorraine Mace

It’s time for another Friday Reads post and this week I’m talking to crime fiction author Lorraine Mace about her unflinching, edge-of-your-seat crime series featuring DI Sterling. There are five books in the series, see the covers below.

Say Your Prayers: https://amzn.to/45YfsCu

Rock a Bye Baby: https://amzn.to/46g8g4n

Pins and Needles: https://amzn.to/48o8eto

An Eye for an Eye: https://amzn.to/3ZlaUUo

Love Me Tender: https://amzn.to/3ZlUiMi

Lorraine has recently had her debut psychological thriller, The Guest, published. You can read her post about it here:

And buy the book here: The Guest: https://amzn.to/3PmA943

Lorraine has penned a very entertaining piece about writing the D.I. Sterling.

A Good Man in a Bad Place

The central character in my crime series, D.I. Paolo Sterling, is a good man fighting some very disturbed criminals. Paolo, like most police officers (both real and invented), also has to deal with personal problems, which all too often are pushed to one side so that he can concentrate on finding whoever is committing evil acts in the town of Bradchester.

With all the passion inherited from his Italian mother, and a strict moral compass passed down through his Scottish father, his love life lurches from one disaster to another. In between failed affairs, Paolo has an on/off relationship with the true love of his life, his ex-wife Lydia. Their daughter, Katy, adds to his worries as she grows from child to young woman.

His cases cover a serial killer in Say Your Prayers, people traffickers in Rock-a-Bye Baby, revenge murders in Pins and Needles, vigilantism in An Eye for an Eye and one man’s warped idea of romance in Love Me Tender. In every book I get deep inside the heads of those twisted individuals who turn to the dark side. I become them as I write.

So, it’s no wonder that when my partner, Chris, finished reading Say Your Prayers, the first in the D.I. Sterling series, he told me he was appalled. What he disliked (too mild a word, but it will have to do) was the fact that I had identified so completely with the serial killer. He (the partner, not the killer) was profoundly disturbed by the sections written from the killer’s point of view and couldn’t quite come to terms with the thought of this monster being created by someone he shared a home with.

Murderers, rapists, torturers, and others, even more unpleasant, are all in my subconscious, waiting their turn to come to life on the page. All writers have people living in their heads, clamouring to be heard, but far too many of mine are not people I would want to meet in real life. It’s a kind of madness, I suppose. A creative multiple personality.

I put Paolo to one side for a short break to write two psychological thrillers. The first of which, The Guest, was published in April. The second will be out early next year. I enjoyed taking a break from crime noir to delve into a different kind of twisted mentality, but the darkness is calling to me once again, so it will be back to Bradchester and Paolo for my next book.

Chris was horrified when I told him I was returning to my D.I. Sterling series. He feared I was planning his murder and using my research to work on the perfect crime. I reassured him that as long as I was writing he had nothing to worry about. Just because part of my mind is focussed on evil deeds doesn’t mean I actually want to carry them out – well, I don’t, as long as he doesn’t upset me too much.

Lol, Lorraine, I can just imagine poor Chris sleeping with one eye open!

Meet Lorraine

Bio:

Born and raised in South East London, Lorraine lived and worked in South Africa, on the Island of Gozo and in France before settling on the Costa del Sol in Spain. She lives with her partner in a traditional Spanish village inland from the coast and enjoys sampling the regional dishes and ever-changing tapas in the local bars. Her knowledge of Spanish is expanding. To stop her waistline from doing the same, she runs five times a week.

Author Contact Links

Website: www.lorrainemace.com

Twitter: https://twitter.com/lomace

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mace_lorraine/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/LorraineMaceAuthor

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/1336955.Lorraine_Mace

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