"This story would not let go."
That's what D.P. Lyle has to say about his new novel Stress Fracture that introduces Dub Walker, an expert in forensic investigation and criminal behavior. And while Dub may be new to us, he has been with Lyle for nearly fifteen years.
As with first novels, the book, according to its author "has undergone 23 major rewrites, changed settings three times, changed titles four, and went from 138,000 words of bloat to a much crisper 85,000 word story." And its most challenging aspect was "getting it right."
"The only thing that didn't change through all of its major surgeries was the villain and the through line. It's basically the same story as it started only better told."
Stress Fracture is a departure from Lyle's previous novels Devil's Playground and Double Blind in two significant ways. Most notable perhaps is the protagonist went from female (Samantha Cody) to male in the person of Dub Walker. Sam, a professional boxer and police officer, lacks a medical background. Since Lyle is a physician, reviewers made note of that fact. Dub has a medical background but his creator was very careful in making sure he was not a physician.
"I wanted him to have the freedom that not having a license would give. If you possess a professional license there are things you cannot do as well as things you must do to protect. I didn't want Dub hampered with those restrictions. I wanted him to be able to bend the rules if need be."
Dub will need to bend those rules in his debut where he faces a serial killer who defies profiling and outmaneuvers Dub at every turn. Like Lyle, Dub believes in fair play and honesty. Both also have a strong dislike for bad guys getting away.
The launch party for Stress Fracture was held in Huntsville, Alabama - Lyle's hometown and the setting for the novel. "It was natural to have the launch party there," Lyle said. "It will also be a fund raiser for the library I spent so much time in as a kid."
When asked what he would like readers to know about Stress Fracture, Lyle replied, "that it will keep you awake at night and make you lock your doors and probably buy a gun. But isn't that what most thriller writers want?"
What readers want is more thrillers and Lyle is poised to satisfy that requirement, too. The second Dub Walker novel, Hot Lights, Cold Steel, is finished and scheduled for publication in 2011. The third, in draft stage, is tentatively titled Run to Ground, and ideas for the fourth are percolating along.
Readers of The Big Thrill may recognize D.P. Lyle as the author of several non-fiction works dealing with forensics (Forensics for Dummies, Forensic Science for Writers, Forensics and Fiction, and Howdunit: Forensics, a Guide for Writers). He makes it clear he is not a forensic expert. He learned forensics for two reasons: to make his own books better and to answer questions for other writers for their stories. The latter is why he built his website (www.dplylemd.com) and blog.
"I truly enjoy answering questions for writers and I'm constantly amazed at how clever their questions are," Lyle said.
Learning forensics was "fairly easy" since he was a chemistry major with a biology minor in college and "then there is the medical school thing where you study all the -ologies - pathology, toxicology, histology, etc. So the science and the language were familiar. According to Lyle, "forensic science and medicine revolve around the same scientific truths. It's simply a matter of looking at them from a different point of view."
With all this writing, with more on the way, it may be surprising that Lyle maintains an active medical practice specializing in cardiology. He writes when he can and notes he has plenty of free time to do that. At those times you can find him in his soundproof music studio, surrounded by his vintage guitar collection, with the music blaring. "I can't stand quiet. I can't concentrate when it's quiet," he states, "not sure why, but that's the way it is."
He spends "anywhere from two to eight hours a day working on something related to writing if not actually writing." With success in both nonfiction and fiction writing, Lyle says, "I like the discipline of researching and verifying the information when you are putting together a nonfiction work but I also love the freedom and creativity that goes with creating fiction. I work on fiction when I'm awake, alert, and refreshed and will work on nonfiction when I'm tired."
Either way, readers and writers have something to look forward to.
Terry DiDomenico has spent most of her professional career editing and writing for university publications with a little freelancing on the side. She lives with her husband and two cats on four acres in south central Pennsylvania. She is working on her first novel - a thriller of course.
