The story behind Art Marvik mystery Deadly Waves

The idea for DEADLY WAVES, the first in the Art Marvik mystery thriller series (4), came when I stepped inside a lift in a high-rise building in London, practically opposite Waterloo Station.  The Union Jack Club is a fabulous club for service personnel and veterans and my husband, being a former RAF Police Officer and fire fighter, is a member. I wondered what would happen if the lift got stuck and if I was in it with one other person, a man I didn’t know. I dislike lifts, and avoid them if I possibly can, and I thought of a woman in this lift alone, in a panic, and with a man she’d never met before. Then came the questions every author asks - the who, what, when, why, and how - I already had the where, although the novel doesn't open with this or centre on it.  So who was the man in the lift?  Who was the woman? Did she know him?  What would they speak about while waiting to be freed?  Why would she invite him back to her room after they’d been released?  And why would he kill her? The plot sprang from there. (Please note none of this happened.  It is pure fiction!)

DEADLY WAVES was the first in what I hoped would be a new series (it was, there are currently four and I am writing number five).  I therefore needed a new hero to solve this case rather than my flawed and rugged detective, DI Andy Horton. I wanted a character who was not bound by the official rules of the law but who was nevertheless on the right side of it. 

I like heroes so my new character definitely had to be that, and as I’m a sucker for adventure stories and mystery there was no doubt that this was what DEADLY WAVES had to be.  It also had to have the hallmarks of my brand – a troubled hero, the sea and lots of action. Already the stage was set, enter former Royal Marine Commando, Special Boat Services Officer Art Marvik newly out of the marines.

Why did I pick a serviceman?  Well, everyone knows the Royal Marines are tough, and those in the Special Boat Services are an elite force, highly trained, fearless, intelligent and supremely fit. He fitted the bill perfectly.  But like all heroes he also has flaws and a backstory, both of which influence his actions in the novel.

Whereas DI Andy Horton tries to unravel the mystery surrounding his mother’s disappearance when he was ten, Marvik has his parents’ deaths on a dive while undertaking one of their many marine expeditions. He'd always believed it to be an accident, but was it? In the subsequent novels in the series he comes to learn it was not.  He too, like Horton, was abandoned by his parents but whereas Horton was consigned to children’s homes and foster homes in inner city Portsmouth, Marvik was sent to an elite and expensive boarding school at the age of eleven.  He grew up feeling his parents loved their quest for exploring the ocean's depths more than they loved their son.

After their death, when Marvik was seventeen, he joined the marines at eighteen and put his parents, their life and their wealth, behind him. Langton, the psychiatrist who treated him after a head injury sustained in combat, said Marvik was running away from his emotions, maybe he was, but as far as he was concerned he would continue running, the past was the past, except he soon finds it has a nasty habit of catching up with you.  

Marvik's injuries inflicted while in combat have finally forced him to leave the marines. He thought he’d be able to adjust but his first job as a private maritime security operative goes very wrong when the luxury motor cruiser he was detailed to guard, gets attacked by pirates in the Indian Ocean, and Marvik finds himself with a bullet in his shoulder and the boat’s owner dead. He’d failed on his first mission in civilian life, and DEADLY WAVES opens with him reeling from it. 

Marvik is recovering in his remote cottage on the Isle of Wight uncertain of the future when a former marine colleague, Special Services Communications Officer, Shaun Strathen, renews Marvik’s acquaintance and asks for his help to locate a missing research scientist.  Strathen has also been injured in combat and invalided out of the marines. He’s set himself up as a specialist security consultant and, with a prosthetic leg, seems to have adjusted to life better than Marvik.  Failing to locate the missing research scientist, Marvik returns on his motor cruiser to his cottage to find he has a visitor, a former girlfriend and a navy nurse, Charlotte Churley, who insists she’s being followed. She also tells him that a dying serviceman has told her his father had been wrongly convicted of murder some years ago. Yes, you've guessed, the man in the broken down lift with the woman. Marvik is ready to dismiss this as a symptom of overwork until Charlotte goes missing. Then Marvik finds himself being used as bait to catch a killer before he can kill again.

Charlotte's news sets Marvik off on a journey to clear an innocent man of the murder of the woman in the lift. Along with this Marvik has a missing ex girlfriend and computer scientist to find. Are these linked?  Is someone intent on making sure the real murderer of that woman is never found?  I'll leave you to find out.

(Please note this was formerly published as Silent Running)

‘A tense, terrifying thrill ride that twists and turns with dizzying speed. A cracking good new series; action fans need Marvik on their radar.’ Booklist

‘The sort of book where you can't look away for a second, or you’ll be sunk, so to speak. Pauline Rowson is the queen of misdirection in this outing for former marine Art Marvik.’ Crime Review

‘Rowson strikes a nice balance between thriller and puzzler.’ Kirkus

 ‘The twists and turns made it quite intriguing and the characters seemed so real.’ Pam G.

‘Really impressed with it. The main character, Art Marvik, makes a very interesting change from the normal crime thriller.’ L.J. Leader

‘A fascinating new character . . . full of twists and turns.’ Amazon customer

‘What a story! The amount of research is incredible. Love Art, great new hero. More please.’ Amazon customer