Jeri Westerson's "The Demon's Parchment," the movie

Now showing at My Book, The Movie: The Demon's Parchment by Jeri Westerson.

The entry begins:

The first time I put the words “Crispin Guest” to paper was sometime in 2002. He was to be my first foray into medieval mystery where before I had written, apparently, unsellable historical novels. He was to be a true detective — not an amateur sleuth of the monk or nun variety that seemed to populate medieval mysteries. He was to be my cross-pollination of genres between hard-boiled detective fiction and the medieval mystery. I was inventing “Medieval Noir” and my detective was going to be extremely important to the series.

When I write novels, I do see them as movies because I grew up on movies, especially old, swashbuckling types. But there are plenty of modern adventure movies that catch my attention, too. So when I started thinking about who Crispin Guest was — an ex-knight down on his luck with the skills and wits to re-invent himself into the “Tracker”, a very physical medieval PI — I needed a face, a personality to reflect the anguish of his past, the toughness of his bearing, and the inherent nobility to which he was raised. And when I saw the movie X-Men, with a swaggering Hugh Jackman as the tortured Wolverine, I knew I’d found my man. And then some years later...[read on]

Learn more about the author and her work at Jeri Westerson's website, her "Getting Medieval" blog, and the Crispin Guest Medieval Noir blog.

The Page 69 Test: Veil of Lies.

The Page 69 Test: Serpent in the Thorns.

The Page 69 Test: The Demon's Parchment.

Writers Read: Jeri Westerson.

My Book, The Movie: The Demon's Parchment.

--Marshal Zeringue