Beyond Slip 47: What's Next for Dean Mercet?

By Dow Bonds

Every story has an ending. But sometimes, the characters refuse to leave when the last page is turned.

When I began writing Slip 47, I wasn't necessarily thinking about a series. I was interested in telling a story about a Savannah criminal defense attorney who finds himself drawn into circumstances that extend far beyond the familiar boundaries of a courtroom. Dean Mercet was a character I came to know gradually, through his decisions, his relationships, his instincts, and occasionally his mistakes.

By the time I finished the novel, I realized there was considerably more to his story.

And I wasn't quite ready to say goodbye to him.

A Familiar Character. Unfamiliar Territory.

I've begun developing two additional novels featuring Dean Mercet.

Both will take Dean into new circumstances, introduce new characters, and explore questions that are very different from those at the heart of Slip 47.

What they will share is something I find particularly interesting about writing legal thrillers: the distance between what the law can establish and what people know to be true.

After more than three decades practicing law, I've learned that the most interesting stories don't always begin with a crime. Sometimes they begin with a perfectly ordinary decision, an unexpected conversation, or a question that nobody seems particularly interested in answering.

And sometimes the people who appear to have the least to hide are the ones most determined to keep certain doors closed.

New Places. Old Questions.

The next two books will take readers beyond the world introduced in Slip 47, although Savannah and the South will remain important to Dean's story.

I've always believed that a setting should be more than a backdrop. A place has its own history, its own character, and its own way of shaping the people who live there.

The South is particularly rich in that respect. Its traditions, loyalties, family connections, and complicated history offer an almost endless supply of material for a novelist.

There are places where the past seems very close to the surface.

And others where it has been deliberately pushed out of sight.

Dean will encounter both.

The Man Behind the Cases

One of the things I hope to explore as the series develops is Dean himself.

In Slip 47, readers meet an attorney accustomed to navigating difficult cases and complicated people. But professional experience doesn't necessarily prepare someone for every situation, particularly when the questions become personal.

Dean is intelligent, experienced, and occasionally stubborn. He has strong convictions, but he isn't immune to doubt. Like most of us, he sometimes discovers that the right thing to do is considerably more difficult than recognizing what that right thing might be.

As the series continues, familiar characters will return, relationships will develop, and Dean will confront circumstances that challenge some of his assumptions about the world around him.

I want readers to come to know these characters as people, not simply as participants in a mystery.

Two More Stories Are Taking Shape

At present, I'm working through the outlines and early development of two new Dean Mercet novels.

They are separate stories, each with its own setting, characters, and central mystery. Readers won't need to solve one book to understand another, although those who follow the series will recognize familiar faces and see how earlier experiences have shaped Dean's life.

I'm deliberately keeping the details to myself for now.

Part of the pleasure of reading a thriller is encountering something unexpected, and I'd rather preserve that experience than explain too much before the books are written.

I will say that both stories concern matters that interest me deeply: the influence of the past, the exercise of power, the meaning of loyalty, and the difficult choices people make when their interests collide with their principles.

Those themes have a way of producing interesting characters.

And interesting trouble.

The Story Continues

Writing Slip 47 has been an experience unlike anything else in my professional life. After years of telling other people's stories in courtrooms, I've discovered how much I enjoy creating characters and circumstances entirely from imagination.

The freedom is considerable.

So is the responsibility to make the story worth reading.

I don't yet have publication dates or final titles to announce for the next two books. There is still a great deal of writing, rewriting, and revising ahead.

But Dean Mercet's story is far from finished.

In fact, I suspect he's only beginning to discover how much trouble he can find.

And I intend to follow him wherever it leads.

Dow Bonds

Author of Slip 47: A Dean Mercet Thriller

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Some stories end when the case is closed. Others are just beginning.