Frequent questions

CL Hyde’s answers to his most commonly asked questions.

Which order should the TRUST series of books be read?

The main books presently in the series or in the pipeline are SECRETS and PERIL. These can be read without reading the prequel stories. However, I believe a reader will maximise their enjoyment if they read WATCHED before SECRETS. I would then suggest reading BECOME before progressing onto PERIL. Note that BECOME contains three prequel stories, one of which is WATCHED. WATCHED is free to download from clhyde.com. BECOME is also free to download but you will need a code that can be found in the back matter of SECRETS to be able to unlock the download.

What inspired the Trust series?

In the back matter of each of my books, I include a Letter to the Reader that often touches upon this topic. I will therefore provide a light treatment of this topic here.

We all breathe in influences over our lives so it can be quite a challenge to stand outside of oneself and provide a clinical answer. However, the influences I can be clear upon are from the institutional world where I worked for way too many years which inspired the Irish Yew Tree Trust that features in each of the books.

During my time in the corporate world, I was struck by two things that the concept of The Trust explores. Firstly, how legal structures and banking rules can be used to create entities that can and do control vast amounts of assets around the globe whilst legally concealing their true beneficiaries (listen to the following entertaining series of podcasts for an exploration of the issue:  https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0017t8j). Secondly, how organisations shape, often not for the better, those who work within them and those they benefit.

Organisations are collectives that must serve a purpose or die. Their purpose must be distinctive to warrant the organisation and this creates incentives which are not always healthy for broader society. Those who depend on an organisation for their livelihood often end up conducting themselves in a manner they would never do without such influence (see the following which is suggestive of an example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ABj7peI_R2M)

If we have wealthy organisations benefiting a few who are effectively hidden, the rest of us are dependent on the moral compass of the beneficiaries and must hope their capacity to harm others is not too great. This is the conundrum at the centre of The Trust which is gradually explored as the series unfolds.

I have always been interested in how history and how our personal pasts affect us in the present. Having characters that live an exceptionally long time is a device to explore the burden of longevity. So much of what we do is a product of working through values, norms and responsibilities we inherit from our forebears. Having a genetic justification for making my principal characters long-lived appealed, in part, because in many book series, the characters outlive their authors.

Like an onion ring, there are layers of influences I could go into that include the works of a diverse range of authors and film directors. To name a few, I am a fan of Bram Stoker (yes, it’s not a mistake that my lead character is called Bram), The Truman Show, and Blade Runner (again it is no mistake that my lead female character is called Rachael—I hope my American readers will forgive the British spelling). You can see by this, that I leave in my text a trail for those who enjoy an Easter egg hunt, and it gives me pleasure when a reader contacts me to confirm they’ve found one.

When did you start writing?

I’ve come to write long-form stories late in life. However, a common denominator in my working career has been creating stories for large corporations that will convince their boards to pursue strategies different to their competitors. As a result, I do not feel completely new to the task of convincing people of an alternate reality.

For a reason I have yet to fathom, I have a facility for sloshing buckets of information into a bath and building a structure out of it that people take a shine to. Because I could do this with numerical and non-numerical data, large troubled organisations employed me as a strategy director, marketing director, or sales director in various industries. The common factor across all those roles was that I created stories that made enough sense for others to adopt. As the years went by, sadly I got a buzz out of making the stories as adventurous as possible to see how far I could push credulity—which I now recognise was a warning that my soul was rebelling against my deal with mammon.

What is your writing process?

As an ex-corporate junky educated in the scientific method, I’d like to say that it’s highly planned and efficient, but it’s not. The good thing now is that I accept serendipity unapologetically. I’ve always been struck by how serendipity strikes when needed and its importance. I love the story of Stanley Kubrick when creating 2001 throwing a broom up in the air and asking Arthur C Clarke whether he thought it would be a good idea to have a scene transition where the hominid, Moonwatcher, throws the bone he is wielding to smash animal bones skywards and for it to transition into an orbiting space weapon (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AgNyCluIRhA note this is recounted after the fourteen-minute mark in the video).

My foundation for story creation is an Excel model I have created that merges five-story systems providing a structure into which I pop my idea for a yarn. This usually provides the foundation for about thirty chapters of a book. Writing then results in some chapters splitting as the beats become clearer. Typically, the result is a story of around forty chapters and three storylines, a dominant external one and two inner voice subsidiary storylines. I am an avid reviser and refiner. Working with my editor will usually elongate the story as she makes suggestions about how to ensure dialogue is contextualised.

How many books will there be in the Trust series?

There will be at least three and I have outlines for seven. Whether there are more, will very much depend on how I find the overarching story arc getting resolved as I write. The Trust series is, I suspect, a little unusual in the Mystery Suspense genre in having a mystery that traverses so many books. The overriding mystery that tantalises is whether The Trust is a force for good in the world and what will Bram become.

There will be other sub-stories within the Trust series which I plan to develop into novellas and short stories. The current three, WATCHED, SONGBIRD and DARKNESS will therefore be joined by more siblings.

Have you another series in mind or some standalone books?

As with most authors, the discipline I struggle with is stopping myself from pursuing a side project. Ideas tantalise and simmer gently in the back of my mind. My plan is to resist creating another series until The Trust series is firmly established.

When will Peril, the second main book in the series be ready?

I am working on the second draft and aim to launch PERIL in December 2022.

What are you reading?

Eight Detectives by Alex Pavesi. It’s beautifully written and what a cover! To appreciate it you need to see the paperback. It has two front covers. The foremost has physical holes that peak through to a crimson second. I have just completed the first chapter, but I am certainly hooked: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Eight+Detectives+by+Alex+Pavesi&i=digital-text&crid=3NIB3KC9NKNQY&sprefix=eight+detectives+by+alex+pavesi%2Cdigital-text%2C109&ref=nb_sb_noss_2.

Before that, I had cantered through Falling by T.J. Neman (https://www.amazon.com/s?k=TJ+Newman+Falling&i=stripbooks-intl-ship&crid=V6GV8A2RYYM1&sprefix=tj+newman+falling%2Cstripbooks-intl-ship%2C118&ref=nb_sb_noss_1) which is an aircraft highjack romp. I would classify it as a beach read and as my local bookseller at Durant’s described it, “a guilty pleasure”.

Before that, I’d read, We are Bellingcat by Elliot Higgins (https://www.amazon.com/s?k=We+are+Bellingcat+by+Elliot+Higgins&i=stripbooks-intl-ship&crid=2MNVKPIC9XT0S&sprefix=we+are+bellingcat+by+elliot+higgins%2Cstripbooks-intl-ship%2C113&ref=nb_sb_noss). I like to think of myself as a creative user of the internet to teach myself new skills but this book is an eye opener to an entirely new horizon of possibilities. The good news is that in a world of smartphones, the dark web, and powerful publicly available analytical tools those that commit the most heinous of crimes better watch out. They will find it increasingly difficult to hide from scrutiny and, hopefully, justice.