AUTHOR Shaun Baines has turned his back on gangsters!

Shaun has published his fifth book this month, but in a change of direction has swapped ‘gangster noir’ for a mystery.

The 43-year-old admits he only became an author ‘by accident’.

“I used to be a gardener – I do still garden and I am very interested in it,” he said.

“But being a gardener, there wasn’t a lot of work to do in the winter. I thought, to keep myself out of mischief I will write a book, not thinking too much about it beyond that.

“I wrote Woodcutter, got an agent, got a publishing deal – I really didn’t mean it to happen, it just happened by accident!”

Shaun says that his choice of genre for his first four books was influenced by films he watched when he was younger.

“My dad favoured films like The Godfather, so I saw it at a really inappropriate age! It just stayed with me – it felt like a natural fit, but what I later came to realise was that it wasn’t the gangsters I enjoyed writing, but the twists and turns within the plot itself, which is something I can transfer to this genre.”

When Shaun wrote his first book, Woodcutter, it took him 18 months to complete, which he says is quite quick for a debut book.

Now publishing his fifth book, he finds that he can complete one in three to four months, followed by a couple of months of making changes after consulting with a publishing editor.

“With time and practice you just get quicker and quicker and you learn what not to do,” said Shaun.

His new book is a mystery, set in a made-up village in Northumberland.

“I wrote ‘gangster noir’ published through Sharpe Books. It was going great, and I loved it. My first book, Woodcutter, was nominated for a People’s Book Prize,” said Shaun.

Woodcutter is a gritty thriller featuring the gangster Daniel Dayton as he returns to his home town of Newcastle Upon Tyne to exact revenge on his criminal family. Two more Dayton books followed and the reviews were glowing.

His other books were called Pallbearer, Yardbreaker and Dark Fringe.

“They were well received but last year I started thinking ‘does the world need more gangsters shooting and killing each other?’

“I wanted to do something a bit more upbeat. What has happened since has convinced me that I should be steering away from that sort of thing, and start writing about things that intrigue people, rather than keeping them awake at night!

“I felt I was contributing to the negativity.”

Despite having worked with a publisher for his gangster novels, Shaun has self published his new book.

“I felt that that is the way the industry is going. Amazon is the largest self publisher – they would let you self publish a shopping list if you wanted to!

“You can do it very easily, the difficulty is there are something like nine million books on Amazon, so it is getting them noticed. It is about learning how to market.

Black Rock Manor follows the story of Holly Fleet, an insecure, but resilient journalist.

“It is about a journalist who returns to her home village of Little Belton in Northumberland.

“She is asked to find a missing pensioner. She finds the disappearance is connected to a corporation who want to take over the village,” said Shaun.

“She teams up with a gamekeeper. It is a mystery, but with a bit of romance and a bit of comedy as well.”

Shaun grew up in South Shields, in the north east, so the places in the new book are based on areas in that region.

“We used to go to places in Northumberland on holiday when I was a kid. Amble is where I learned to swim in the sea,” he said.

The novel was released on April 16, and is available on Amazon and Kindle Unlimited, as well as being available to buy in print.

“I have dropped the price, and I am going to keep the price drop as long as the lockdown continues,” said Shaun.

He also has a short story available for free on his website.

Due to the lockdown, Shaun has almost finished the follow-up to Black Rock Manor.

“I have to force myself to sit down and write at the moment. Before I would rush to it. I find watching the news makes me a little anxious and I find it hard to concentrate. I never really left the house before, now that I can’t go out, I want to!” he said.

Despite that, his follow up to Black Rock Manor is progressing well, and could be out in a couple of months.

“I imagine a lot of writers are in the same place. At the moment writers have time to write and readers have time to read!” he said.

He added: “When the Covid-19 pandemic hit, my wife, Gillian, lost her job, my family were under lockdown and my friends’ businesses closed. Everyone was feeling the effects of the disease.

“It seemed apt to release my book during these troubling times.

"Many of us are anxious and our focus is on weightier things, but I’m hoping Black Rock Manor will be a welcome distraction from the strain we are currently under.”

His website can be found at shaunbaines.org