In all these stories the protagonist and the antagonist eventually realise that they should be on the same side. Either the antagonist finds out that the hero is in the right, and switches to the hero’s side ( The Fugitive) the hero finds out that the antagonist is in the right, and switches to the antagonist’s side ( Oblivion) or the whole thing is just a big misunderstanding and a prelude to the heroes teaming up against the real villain (pretty much every comic book crossover ever). When both guys in a fight are sympathetic, then once the initial conflict’s over the writer usually has them work out their differences somehow. Now, hero antagonists aren’t anything new, but in most stories which use them, the “antagonist” part has a short shelf life. I thought I should change things up a bit, and it struck me that a good contrast to Taken would be to use something closer to a hero antagonist. In book #3, Taken, the main adversary had been a life-draining monster that fed off children, and when your villain’s that far down the morality scale it tends to make your protagonist’s ethical issues look pretty minor by comparison. One thing I’d decided early on was that this time I wanted to present Alex as a bit more morally ambiguous. Which was how I found myself turning over plans for Alex Verus #4.
At the time I didn’t know for sure that my publishers would want a fourth Alex Verus novel – due to the weirdness of publishing schedules I was planning the fourth book before the first one, Fated, had even been released, and publishers generally like to see sales figures before they commit to sequels – but if you can’t take a little uncertainty, you shouldn’t be in the writing business in the first place.
It was early 2012, and I was thinking over ideas for a fourth Alex Verus novel. William Faulkner wrote, “The past isn’t dead it isn’t even past.” This is a concept that comes into play with Chosen, the latest Alex Verus novel by Benedict Jacka.
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