M.E. Proctor is the author of four dystopian science fiction novels, The Savage Crown Series, and a short story collection, Family and Other Ailments – Crime Stories Close to Home (Wordwooze Publishing). Love You Till Tuesday (Shotgun Honey, publisher) is her first crime novel and introduces Houston private investigator, Declan Shaw.

Born in Brussels and a long time Houston resident, Proctor now lives in Livingston, Texas.

Love You Till Tuesday: The murder of jazz singer April Easton makes no sense. Steve Robledo, the Houston cop in charge of the investigation, has nothing to work with. Local P.I. Declan Shaw, who spent the night with April, has little to contribute. The case seems doomed to remain unsolved. And it would be if Declan’s accidental connection with the murder didn’t have unintended consequences. Because people just can’t leave well enough alone.

Love You Till Tuesday is a detective story. How is the main character, Declan Shaw, different from all the sleuths out there?  I considered other options, such as reporter, lawyer, or cop, before deciding to make him a professional P.I. with a license. When I started, I didn’t have a plot or know what kind of crime would be committed. All I had was Declan, and he needed to be built up. A story took shape, and the most interesting way to tell it was to make him a detective. That story isn’t Tuesday, by the way; it’s an untitled manuscript that might never get published. It was necessary work because I discovered who Declan was in the process. I gave him all these classical references—Marlowe, Spade, Archer—a mid-century urban vision of the job with a contemporary sensibility. I also injected a Texas twist, but not what people picture when they put the words Texas and P.I. together, like the iconic character played by M. Emmet Walsh in the Coen brothers’ movie Blood Simple: the middle-aged, sleazy, corrupt ex-cop gone private, who drinks too much and wears rumpled suits and a cowboy hat. Declan is the polar opposite of that. In Love You Till Tuesday, he’s in his mid-thirties and has been a P.I. for a dozen years. What started as a side gig to make extra money before going to law school is now a career. He loves the independence and has gotten used to the insecurity—there will be lean times, it’s a price to pay for freedom. He’s also fallen for the romance of the trade, the streets at night, the coffee-fueled stake-outs, the kick of the chase. As he says, “I’m still hoping to see Jessica Rabbit walk into my office.” There’s a playfulness and self-awareness in him that is both endearing and troubling. He can and will get carried away. He will get hurt. It’s a hard world out there.

Why Texas? I’ve lived in Houston for twenty years. It’s a fascinating place, big and growing. I mean, you can literally see it growing, week by week. Houston hates permanence. Skyscrapers will be leveled to make room for taller ones. It’s so shifting that it can’t settle on a single nickname: Bayou City, Space City, H-Town. There’s a constant influx of people. Some say it’s the most diverse city in the country. It’s also boom and bust, oil crises, Enron, hurricanes, floods. Built on a swamp. It is a good place for people who want to remake themselves, hence a favorable terrain for crime fiction. Declan says he has a “portable root system” in that he’s very much a Houstonian, a relatively recent arrival after college like many who came to town for jobs.

Classic detectives have a code; what’s Declan’s? Philip Marlowe says, “I don’t do divorces,” Declan says, “I don’t do murder.” It’s a resolution that sounds like wishful thinking. Love You Till Tuesday starts with the murder of April Easton, a jazz singer. There’s a police investigation, and Declan is briefly a person of interest. He spent Saturday night with the woman, and she was killed that Sunday. Should he get involved? He barely knew her. A one-night stand that he hoped would become something else. He has that nagging thought: Maybe she was the one, the great love, but he’ll never know because she was taken, erased as if she never existed. There are all these questions, the What-Ifs, that drive the story.

In classic detective fiction, the main character is a detached observer. His personality is veiled. Do you follow that model? Declan is secretive, but I let things slip. Even if I don’t get into his back story in detail, there are hints. Like the reason why he never carries a gun. Or what happened during his teenage years in New Orleans, the things he takes great care to keep hidden. He has trouble with lasting romantic relationships, and there are reasons for that. If he’s so intent on digging into other people’s lives, it might be because he’s not prepared to explore his own. Characters that are solid slabs of certainty are not very interesting for the writer or the reader. The book has a complex plot and a complex character. I believe that’s the way it should be.

It looks like we’ll see more of Declan Shaw. Definitely, I like spending time with him, he’s an interesting guy. Fellow P.I. and on-off girlfriend, Daisy, calls him “complicated, funny, arrogant, charming, cynical.” She could have added a few more colliding adjectives to the list. An early reviewer said he was “damaged.” Considering everything I put him through, he’s not doing too bad.

Your book title has a Chandlerian flavor—Farewell My Lovely, The Long Goodbye—where does it come from? It’s a nod to one of my favorite artists. Love You Till Tuesday is an early David Bowie song (from 1967) that fits Declan’s state of mind. In the song, the guy meets the girl on Sunday, calls it a never-ending passion, and says he might love her till Tuesday or Wednesday, at a stretch. In the book, Declan has this line: “April was leaving on tour three days later. Not enough time to get fed up with me”, and his cop friend replies: “What makes you think she would have given you three days?” So it’s that same mood, with an implied heartbreak. The brief encounter has consequences because Declan clings to what might have happened with April—the What If—and it creates ripples. The men behind April’s murder worry about what Declan might find if he starts digging, and their whole plan spins out of control.

Buy Link:https://www.amazon.com/Love-You-Till-Tuesday-Proctor-ebook/dp/B0DB47YVG1

How do our readers contact you:
Website: https://www.shawmystery.com
Substack: https://meproctor.substack.com
Twitter: @MEProctor3, Facebook: Martine Elise Proctor

Groups:
Facebook:
Short Mystery Fiction Society: https://www.facebook.com/groups/608752359277585
Crime Fiction Writers: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1307945053456724
Criminally Good Reads: https://www.facebook.com/groups/5356552667708259
Exiles on Crime Street: https://www.facebook.com/groups/907459740894008
Thriller, Mystery and Suspense Writers: https://www.facebook.com/groups/290472645391267
Sisters In Crime: https://sistersincrime.tradewing.com/community
Sisters in Crime North Dallas Chapter: https://www.sistersincrimenorthdallas.com

LinkedIn:
Fiction Writers Group: https://www.linkedin.com/groups/12178764/
Writers and Illustrators Circle: https://www.linkedin.com/groups/3723330/
Detective Fiction Writer’s Group: https://www.linkedin.com/groups/4911106/

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