by Hy Conrad
But the idea stayed with me. How do you protect someone like this? How do you deal with those dangerous secrets, now held in an erratic, failing mind? And can you even trust those memories to be true? This became the centerpiece of a TV pilot that I wrote a few years later. Unfortunately, the premise of a sympathetic character, the title character no less, with progressive dementia proved to be too disturbing for a basic cable network.
Years after that, a publisher called and asked if I had any ideas for a new novel. The old index card came immediately to mind. It took me less than a day to rough out an outline. In hindsight, I probably should have taken longer. As before, it was a tough nut to crack and, despite the publisher’s initial enthusiasm, the book didn’t happen.
But I felt I was on the right track. An estranged daughter forced to deal with her ailing powerhouse of a dad. The two of them on opposing sides of a murder investigation. It felt like a great story. And great stories are everything. In my experience, writers on their deathbeds, at least some, don’t regret not having spent more time with their families. They regret not having finished all the stories they imagined but never got to bring to life.
In The Fixer’s Daughter, I also got to use a pretty terrific plot twist. Old-school mystery writers tend to collect plot twists the way some people collect door knobs. Occasionally we craft them on our own, from our own designs. Other times we discover them in some classic structure from the 1930s, steal them, polish them up and make them fit. I have no memory of how this twist, the man in the field, came into my collection, but it’s one of my favorites.
In the years following that index card and the various rejections, the saga of Buddy McFee and his daughter took shape, going through several iterations, each one happily separated from its predecessor by a TV gig or some other paid engagement. In an early, misguided attempt to make the story edgier, I wrote approximately a third of it from the viewpoint of a deranged killer, a predecessor to the Gavin Hollister character. I don’t know what made me do this. Perhaps it was a Stephen King fixation. The result was a diffused focus and a story that was much creepier than I had intended. Friends who were forced to read this version still hold it against me.
In a way, after all these years, finally publishing this book feels anticlimactic. Buddy, Callie, State, Gil and the others will no longer be my private property. They will no longer be the go-to response to the cocktail party question, “What are you working on now that your show got cancelled?” They are out in the world for everyone to love or hate, to believe or disbelieve, to want to see more of, or to quickly forget.
And because they’re out there, they exist. They have a life now that’s free of me. And that’s all a proud parent can hope for.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
HY CONRAD has made a career out murder, earning a Scribe Award for best novel and garnering three Edgar nominations from the Mystery Writers of America. Along the way, he has developed a horde of popular games and interactive films, hundreds of short stories and a dozen books of solvable mysteries, published in over a dozen languages. In the world of TV, he is best known for his eight seasons as a writer and co-executive producer for the ground-breaking series Monk. Other shows include White Collar and The Good Cop.
As a novelist, Hy has authored the final four books in the Monk series as well as the series, Amy’s Travel Mysteries.
When he looks up from his keyboard, Hy sees either the hills of Vermont or the palm trees of Key West, depending on the time of year. When he steps away from his keyboard, he sees Jeff Johnson, his partner of 41 years, now his husband, plus Nelson and Stella, the latest in a dynasty of mini-schnauzers dating back to the 1980s.
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