New Adventures around the First Detective Grigoris Novel

Current Status, an anti-excerpt, and future article topics you’ll love

A new season hereby begins for fans of my Detective Grigoris novel 1, an excerpt of which I provided here in February, after finishing the first draft on 26 January 2024. After June’s rewrite, I began the next phase before publication.

So, if you’re a lover of detective fiction/international-intrigue thrillers, you’ll enjoy my upcoming series of behind-the-scenes essays on the influences and ideas behind Detective Grigoris. And if you have friends and colleagues interested in such works, send ‘em over. My novel also makes full use of my background in travel, history, philosophy and current-events analysis of the first quarter of this century, in telling the origin story of a Greek detective between 1999-2002.

What’s To Come

My goal is to maintain existing TLS quality coverage, and continue our journey of learning more about the places, histories, literary and other sources that influenced the writing process.

I want you to feel, in some way, the joy that I have felt in discovering or repurposing events, places and texts for a book project about which I knew little at the outset. Writing is solitary, so finding ways to share this experience require new approaches.

Despite the challenges, this three-year exploration has ended successfully, with a very solid foundation for the final five novels in the series. (They will be shorter than the first, which weighs in at 259,000 words, if future editors allow it to stand).

Some Actual Future Topics

In the months ahead, look out under this Section for special essays on the real literary and historic influences behind the Detective Grigoris project, my attempt to create something completely new in the genre of mystery/international intrigue.

Some article topics will include:

-Greek café culture, and how a former favorite café gets a literary ‘second life’ in the Detective Grigoris novel;

-The surprising influence of Voltaire’s literature and life-philosophy on the novel;

-Aspects of Edgar Allan Poe, one of the pioneers of detective fiction, as seen through analysis of scholarship on art history;

-Peripheral writing in storytelling and character-development: the epistolary form and newspaper columns, as I’ve re-imagined them;

-Orthodox Christian monasticism, settings, and the question of Hagiography as a primary form of detective-literature;

-The importance of music and musical allusions in Detective Grigoris, as explored through traditional Greek song;

…and more.

Ruins of ancient Miletus, Turkey (Photo: Christopher Deliso, 2012)

A Bit about Detective Grigoris Novel 1

In case you’re new here or have forgotten, here’s a bit about the novel to come, without spoilers, of course.

Detective Grigoris (novel 1 (of an expected 6) is the ‘origin story’ of a young Athenian, Grigoris, who chooses to become a detective after a number of wild experiences give him a taste for the world of mystery and action.

The ‘cases’ that Grigoris attempts to solve run the gamut from adventures on Bosporus isles and in regional war zones to the theft of art and holy relics; at the same time, the detective challenged by hidden and open enemies who do not appreciate his involvement in cases, including the hunt for Greek left-wing terrorists and a businessman’s mysterious death. The ever-unanswered question of why, of causality and relationships, absorbs the detective.

Despite the book’s length, it moves at a quick pace, with comedy, drama an psychological tension interspersed, the drama gradually mounting until a fulfilling ending that I doubt anyone could have seen coming—I certainly didn’t, until it wrote itself in my presence and under my apparent guidance.

A Final Note: Clues and an Anti-Excerpt

During the next period of seeking out publishing options for the novel, I will also continue with other TLS coverage. While there will be no spoilers or big plot discussions, I may drop the occasional clue in oblique forms. Two such clues lie obliquely in today’s post.

While the novel coverage is free to all subscribers, there won’t be more excerpts, except perhaps to paying subscribers. This is chiefly to protect myself and my own copyright for the longer-term publishing process.

Instead, all will get the next-best thing: anti-excerpts. That is, extracts of texts from the first version, but removed during the spring 2024 rewriting process.

Such sections were either extraneous, or removed because of structural changes (as with today’s anti-excerpt) that required a part of the story to be told in a different manner or context. I don’t think that most authors or their estates provide such behind-the-scenes glimpses. In the end when the Detective Grigoris novel is published, you can go back and compare, if you so desire, with what (and why) was excluded. I believe strongly that ‘all writing is re-writing,’ and such examples will help readers understand why, without requiring me to explain in a pedantic way.

Before starting out in September 2021, I had no idea what I would be getting into. But despite the long hours, I have no regrets, as I have now written one good book.

That Greek island living (Photo: Christopher Deliso, 2006)

I’ve learned a lot from this experience. I expect novels 2-6 to be written at a faster clip than the first one was, much of the time spent stumbling in the dark.

If you’d like to see me succeed in this quest, keep reading, sharing these pages, and mentioning ny Detective Grigoris project to people in the literary and related worlds who might be interested, whether readers, reviewers, lit agents or publishers. Thanks, it is appreciated.

FROM THE CUTTING-ROOM FLOOR: AN ANTI-EXCERPT FROM DETECTIVE GRIGORIS, CHAPTER 4

Here is an omitted excerpt, which would never otherwise be published, as it was deleted before the final version of the novel, when I restructured this specific section of Chapter 4. I realized that it required a different telling, in time, place and context, for maximal effect. So it often goes when writing a book that has a mind of its own.

……….

-ANTI-EXCERPTC4-

Grigoris only relaxed after the waiter had sauntered off, sitting back against the café’s big couch pillows and staring past the idle murmuring drinkers out to sea. It was another sultry June day  in Athens, the clock creeping towards noon, and he was the only one drinking a hot coffee—his usual Elliniko sketo, Greek coffee without sugar. Everyone else had abandoned the old traditions for the newer, clutching a foamy Nescafé Frappé, a slightly more novel solution to summer heat, in a country where even the café-providers thought in terms of centuries.

But the aspiring detective was a purist; and the heat did not affect him. However, just when he started to enjoy the pungent hot drink, in defiance of the rule of the season, he was forced to put it aside by the irritating noise of that new intruder in his life, the flip-phone that sounded above the café’s electrified Bossa Nova beats.

“Yes, of course I’m alright,” he replied, in irritable surprise. “What’s the matter with you?”

“Nothing—I mean—didn’t you see the news this morning?” the correspondent barked, in an almost frightened, breathless tone. “Where are you?”

“No, I didn’t—I’m at the marina, having coffee, writing notes. What happened?”

“Better we talk in person,” she answered mysteriously. “This evening at six. Same place as last”—

“Aha, that place in Kolona”—

“Shush~” she scolded. “Just come. “Hey, did you read my article after the elections?”

Annoyed by her bossiness and strange digression, Grigoris just assented. Still, his mind stubbornly remained reasonable; after all, the election had been two months ago, and nothing of consequence had occurred in Athens since then. What on earth did her article have to do with anything, he asked?

“Never mind,” she said. “I’ll explain later. Bye.”

The correspondent hung up, leaving Grigoris mystified. He had left the house at eight that morning, for a nice leisurely swim and walk at the nearby beach before it got too hot, and then found his way to the café at the marina. He remained blissfully unaware of anything that might have disturbed the world which, at that time, was composed of plush couches with chatting locals and the serene, unmoving expanse of the Saronic Gulf.

-END ANTI-EXCERPTC4-