a long walk…
Many years ago after watching a documentary about the famous Camino de Santiago pilgrimage, I had the idea to use this famous walk as the basis for a Hugo book. I think I’d only written two or three Hugo books by then, and began this new addition in earnest, but try as I might I just couldn’t get the premise to work. I had a rough idea of how the story would unfold, but I struggled with how to turn my idea into a murder mystery, particularly when considering the story was about a walk over several hundred kilometres. I kept trying, but finally, deadlines took over and I had to put it to one side and move on to other stories, but I never forgot it and would come back to it periodically and try again, all to no avail.
After some time, when I’d moved on to the new series of Coco books, I’d finished my list of planned grown-up Hugo books and all that was left was my original notes for the Camino story, so I sat down and made a determined effort to thrash out a story and get started on it. Once I’d worked out that to have a workable story I needed a base, I just begin there and stopped worrying about anything else. And then everything quickly fell into place. I could still use the Camino as a starting point and the main basis of the story, and I simply had to strand the cast of characters in a mysterious village, conveniently cut off from the outside world by a terrible storm!
Once I had reached this understanding, ’Chemin de Compestelle’ came quickly. By centering the majority of the action in one place, it allowed the story to unfold. A deadly revenge has been brewing for almost decades and comes to a head when a group of strangers who come together on the pilgrimage forty years earlier reunite. Weaving Hugo into the story proved a little more problematic, I mean, would he really leave Montgenoux to undertake a few hundred-kilometre walk? I couldn’t see it, but he would travel if he thought someone he loved was in peril…
One of my other major concerns with writing this story was to ensure I didn’t do it with a critical commentary. For reasons I don’t really understand because I’m not a religious man myself, the pilgrimage itself has always appealed to me, though it is something I never thought seriously of undertaking and now as my sixth decade is upon me, I fear it is not in my future. (Never say never, of course, as several of the characters in CdC are even older than me!)
These characters have all undertaken the journey for very different reasons and because of that, I hope you feel as if you take the journey with them. Even though I was a little restricted by the formula, I wanted to try and incorporate as much of their backstories as I could, it’s not always easy, especially when trying to keep the main focus of the story moving along.
As I finished this book, I was left with the same sensation I always feel (other than relief!) and that’s the hope I have done justice to the characters the story and in the case of CdC in particular, that I have done so in as respectful a way as possible. I honestly hope you enjoy this new Hugo adventure. Right now, I’m plotting his next two investigations so it looks as if there’s plenty more Hugo on the horizon.
Until then, I send you all my love and best wishes.
Gx