Queen's Park: A Detective Lane Mystery

Find out how it all began! Queen's Park is the first installment of the Detective Lane Mystery Series. After that, check out the second book in the series: The Lucky Elephant Restaurant (winner of the 2007 Lambda Literary Award for Gay Mystery).

Coming soon! A Hummingbird Dance, the third installment of the Detective Lane Mystery Series (Fall 2008).

For more information on Garry Ryan and the Detective Lane Series, visit www.garryryan.ca.

978-1-896300-84-9 ISBN 13

Fall 2004

Paperback 224 pages

Mystery

(See below for author commentary!) 

Ordinarily Detective Lane has a knack for discovering the whereabouts of missing persons. But the city’s latest victim has disappeared without a trace. After brutally attacking his young nephew, ex-mayor Bob Swatsky has gone missing along with 13 million dollars of tax-payers’ money. Is he on the lam with the cash, or is it something far more sinister? A zany cast of characters, a love doll, and a chain smoking grandma with an oxygen tank, lead Detective Lane on an exhilarating romp through the streets of Calgary. A man hunt is on, and alone, Lane must uncover the truth before someone ends up visiting Queen’s Park. . . . permanently. The first book in the Detective Lane mystery series is an intriguing look at the prejudices gay cops face on the police force, and at the dangers of keeping secrets.

BEHIND THE BOOK
GARRY RYAN’S Detective Lane Mystery Series
Queen’s Park and The Lucky Elephant Restaurant
Coming soon: A Hummingbird Dance (Fall 2008)

The making of Queen’s Park

My novels are collages of ideas, images, and memories that coalesce into a story. The idea for Queen's Park originated during a trip to Oahu in 1972 when I was eighteen. (Go ahead, do the math, I'm ancient!) I went on a tour of a US military cemetery where bodies were buried at twelve and six feet, in the same hole, to save real estate. That’s when I started wondering what one would do with a dead body, which fuelled the idea for Queen’s Park. In the novel, the question of where to hide a body (namely the uncle’s) is one that needs answering in order to solve the case.

The second (seemingly disconnected) image presented itself when my kids took karate. The instructor explained what would happen to a person's airway if a sharp blow hit the base of the throat, which is how Ernie in Queen’s Park acts in self-defense to kill his uncle.

A third ingredient to the Queen’s Park recipe came from watching my parents and Shar's (Sharon is my wife) parents grow older. I saw how their experiences from World War II and the Depression had formed their personalities, which made me think about how these experiences would influence a person’s actions later in life. As a result of similar experiences, Ernesto and Nanny in Queen’s Park have come to believe that the defense of loved ones is their primary motivation in life.

Add in some of the experiences my students survived to talk about, and you have the basic elements of Queen's Park.

More to come: A Hummingbird Dance (Fall 2008)

A Hummingbird Dance begins with a disappearance connected to an unsolved murder.  When Detectives Lane and Harper investigate the death of a sixteen-year-old First Nations man, they begin to unravel a series of killings. They must also deal with complex family issues while risking their lives to uncover the truth behind the killings.

When I envision a hummingbird dance, I am reminded of the weeks of observation required to come to the conclusion that hummingbirds are very human. They become extremely aggressive in defense of their flowers or feeders. This knowledge was gathered during two weeks of photographing hummingbirds in San Diego. Hummingbird behaviour allowed me to better understand human behaviour and our violent desire to hold onto what we think we own.

Now add to this mix the idea that a talented artist can make you believe a marionette is a real person. Only by bringing a marionette to life can the reader understand what was lost when Alex was murdered. Alex’s friend brings him to life on her stage, and I believe that her art and her voice makes this tragedy more authentic for the reader.

Detective Lane himself

During the writing of the novels, the main character, Lane, has become one delightful surprise. He's a real person to me now, an old friend. He and his family live next door in my imagination. In many ways, he and I grew up together.

Garry Ryan on why he writes

All of these seemingly disconnected facts and imaginings have become essential to the creation of the Detective Lane Series. I can't really explain the process or the instinctive compulsion to write them down. The closest I can come to describing my urge to create is by saying, “Writing is oxygen.”