• Written between July 2023 and November 2023 (first draft), released December 2024.
• Length: About 80k words
• Music listened to while writing: Mostly Animal Alpha, and Jean-Michel Jarre.

“Andrew Barrett writes a cracking story full of drama, twists and turns and pathos.”

The Dark Arches (was Great King Rat) 

I approached writing the second book with pride at having completed A Random Kill and having managed to get a pretty decent story out of thin air. All I had to do now was repeat the process. 

Except there wasn’t a process.  

You know when you make a sandwich for the first time ever, and you’re scrabbling around wondering how to do it, what to put in it, how to slice it, what pickles to add, that kind of thing? By the time you’re in your mid-forties you’ve made more sandwiches than you can count, and it all comes so easily to you. That’s because you know the process. 

But I don’t have a process for writing books. 

“Have to mention Eric, one of the scariest villains I’ve come across.”

Each new book is me learning to make sandwiches all over again for the first time. I know there’s bread in there somewhere and I know to begin making my sandwich in the kitchen because that’s where the knives are kept. Other than that, this is all new to me. This is a metaphor (of sorts) to describe the way I write my books. There’s no plot process, no tools that prompt me to insert a bit of humour here or a dash of gruesomeness there. 

The sandwich either tastes divine or it tastes like dog food. And I don’t know which it is until someone tastes it and tells me. 

A Random Kill featured some pretty gruesome scenes (I hope you liked them!), so I had to come up with something new and just as gripping for the second book in the series. It also had to have relevance – I hate gratuitous violence or gratuitous gruesomeness that is only there to act as a filler or to tick a box on an author’s check sheet. It has to have relevance and meaning to the story otherwise it’s pointless.  

I hope you enjoy the set pieces I’ve introduced into The Dark Arches. They are integral to what follows and come from what has happened. And in that sense, it’s true to life because you’ll find nothing happens without consequences and everything that is here now is as a result of a ripple, a consequence all of its own. 

“I don’t even need to read the blurbs on Andy’s books anymore to know I’m in for a cracking read.”

Incidentally, the would-be title, Great King Rat, was an option because of the pets Regan has, and the way she defends herself against one of the very bad men who are chasing her. Also, if you know anything about me, you’ll know I was and still am a huge fan of Queen. Great King Rat was the third track on their first album, imaginatively entitled ‘Queen‘.