Bar Scene in Northern Comfort

As I’ve said before, bars are a constant in my adult fiction. Sometimes, as in Northern Comfort, my most recent release, or my Isabel Long Mystery Series, there is more than one. These watering holes always have a purpose in the plot.

For many small rural towns, say a thousand or so people, bars are gathering spots for the locals, and in my novels they are an opportunity to have characters react to one another, sometimes good, sometimes not so good. For Isabel Long, working Friday nights at the Rooster has had more than one benefit — good sources for her investigations and the relationship she developed with its owner, Jack. But for this post I am going to concentrate on the bars in Northern Comfort, which is not part of the series.

Personally, I’ve enjoyed the time I’ve spent in bars or brewery taprooms, conversing, listening to music, and maybe dancing with my husband. They are also a great place to people watch, a definite hobby of mine.

One of the books in the mystery series, Working the Beat, is dedicated to Steve and Diane Magargal, the former owners of Liston’s in Worthington, which Hank and I frequented when we lived in that Western Mass. hilltown. The Rooster is not Liston’s, but it certainly inspired it, that and when I tended bar for a long-closed restaurant in the same town.

Unlike the Rooster, the bars in Northern Comfort are more on the seedy side. There’s the Bull’s Eye Tavern in a small New Hampshire town where Junior Miller now lives. Ever the opportunist, Junior lives with the bartender although he suspects their relationship is nearing its end. He will stick it out in her trailer until spring. One night, he gets an important call at the Bull’s Eye concerning news that his young son, who he abandoned, was killed in a sledding accident. (The book takes place prior to cell phones.)

Then there’s the Pine Tree Tavern in Hayward, where Junior used to live and where the accident happened. The Pine Tree has a few significant scenes, like when Willi Miller goes there for the first time at the insistence of her bossy sister, Lorna, and Junior’s encounters with the man who was driving the truck that accidentally killed his son.

To increase the drama, I purposely made the clientale at both taverns to be on the rough and tumble side, and strictly for townies. Snowmobiles, pickups, and junks filled the parking lot.

Here’s the scene from the Bull’s Eye when Junior gets that call from Lorna.

“Hey, Lorna, that really you?” he said into the phone. “How the hell are you?”

“Yeah, yeah, it’s me all right. I finally tracked you down.”

He strained to hear Lorna’s voice over the noise. “Track me down. What for? Your sister put you up to this? This about money again?”

Lorna was silent. “No, it’s not about money. It’s about Cody. He was in an accident.” She paused. “Cody died, Junior. Yesterday.”

Junior held the phone tighter to his ear. “What’d you say? You gotta speak up. It’s so damn loud in this bar.”

“Your boy died in an accident yesterday.”

“What’d you say, Lorna? I still can’t hear you.”

Junior felt a heavy hand on his back. One of the guys from the lumberyard tried to get his attention. The man grinned beneath his beard.

He heard Lorna say, “Junior, you listening to me?”

Junior put his hand over the receiver. “Hey, buddy, not now. I’m on this call.” He was back on the phone. “Start over.”

Now, Lorna was practically yelling into the receiver. “Cody. Cody’s dead.”

His voice matched hers. “What do you mean Cody’s dead? What the hell happened?”

Sherrie and the guys around him stared. He didn’t care.

“He was on a sled,” Lorna said. “He got away from Willi and he slid down that hill behind her house and at the bottom he crashed into a truck.” Another pause. “The doctor said he died right away. He didn’t suffer.”

Junior gripped the phone. The news slammed him like that guy’s hand. He closed his eyes. “Lorna, tell me. Who was driving the truck?”

“Miles. Miles Potter.”

“That asshole didn’t do somethin’ to keep outta my boy’s way?”

“The cops say it wasn’t his fault.”

Junior tried to swallow. “Not his fault?”

“That’s what they said.”

“Sure.”

“You gonna come to his funeral? It’s Monday. The whole town’s gonna be there.”

“Funeral.”

Junior’s heart revved like the engine of his snowmobile. He listened to Lorna talk about the funeral plans. “You don’t have to worry about money ’cause the funeral home’s doin’ everything for free,” she said. “The pastor helped work that out. The old ladies at the church are taking care of the food for the reception afterward.”

He heard half the words Lorna said.

“How she doin’?”

“How do you think Willi’s doin’? She’s taking it really hard. I’m staying with her.”

Junior tried to remember the last time he saw Willi and their boy. Maybe it was around Christmas after the old man died. She made it clear she wanted nothing to do with him. Neither did the boy. It got real easy to forget he ever knew them.

“Okay.”

“You gonna come to the funeral or not?” Her voice had a sharp edge.

“When is it?”

“I told you Monday. In the afternoon.”

“I gotta tell my boss. I’ll call Pop.” He glanced up at Sherrie. She was pouring beer into a pitcher for a waitress. “Lorna, I need to ask you somethin’.”

“What?”

“How old was Cody?”

“You dunno? Shit, Junior, he was seven.”

ABOUT THE IMAGE ABOVE: That’s the full cover for Northern Comfort, which will be available in paperback very soon.

On Writing

Meet Sulley Ridge of This Strange Hell

C.J. Sutton, an Australian author, is the next to appear in a new series I call Building Character. But instead of writing about a character from his new book, This Strange Hell, C.J. decided to answer the questions for a setting. Well, why not.

By the way, This Strange Hell has an official launch date of March 15. This is the link to pre-order: mybook.to/thisstrangehell

Here C.J. delves into the book’s key location—Sulley Ridge.

Who is your setting?

Sulley Ridge is a fictional town located in the harsh Victorian outback in Australia. The town stands as one of the most important characters in This Strange Hell due to its importance in the story. Surrounded by eucalyptus trees and with a backdrop of the mountain ranges, the scene looks like a setting for the perfect weekend drive. But at the heart of the town there’s anarchy and decay. Ruled by a violent gang and classified as a lawless town due to a lack of stationed authority, Sulley Ridge is slowly rotting despite its resilient citizens hoping for change. Schools have been shut down, the clinic is an abandoned shack and no children now live in the district. Will this ever change?

Sulley Ridge is first presented as a hideout for a character on the run. But he soon realises that this faraway land is searing with pain…

What does it look like?

Located on the outskirts of a mountain range, Sulley Ridge has one main street with a general store, hardware store, newsagency and a pub. Citizens live just outside this strip in old homes with vast land for farming and crops. Eucalyptus trees line the streets and border the town, and car parts are frequently seen on the side of the road. The town has abandoned shopfronts due to the mass exodus from years prior, and looks like the setting of an old western.

What is the backstory?

Sulley Ridge was once a quiet town no different to a dozen others in the outback. Children attended school, locals farmed, and passersby entered the pub for a drink and a gamble. This all changed when a gang showed up offering locals an opportunity for more coin. Once the betting escalated into fight clubs, prostitution and drugs, women left with their children and the local police were brutalised. Sulley Ridge became a lawless town, attracting the worst kind of men. One night, when the local officer caught the gang leader with a sixteen-year-old girl, he used force to make a point. The following morning the officer was found dead in his front yard, ripped in half after being strapped to two cars that drove in the opposite direction. Officers left after that, as did many women with their children. The town is haunted by its past.

What is its role in your novel?

The main character, known only as the man, flees to Sulley Ridge to escape public scrutiny after tragedy in Melbourne. With his face all over the news, Sulley Ridge becomes the ideal hiding place for a man wanting to disappear. Sulley Ridge is the last place anyone will look, and the locals care not for outside politics; their own issues are too complex. As we learn more about its history and the present state of civil war, Sulley Ridge becomes the key piece on the board.

Why should readers care?

Sulley Ridge is slowly decaying. There are no children or authority, no doctors or schools, just people who are too scared to leave. Could this happen to an outback town in reality? Definitely.

A brief excerpt:

The narrow road opened slightly, becoming two lanes that snaked through a street lined by one-storey outlets. A general corner store, newsagency, abandoned café and hardware store were shut, the typical red CLOSED sign dangling from the door knob. Leaves blew through the street like citizens basking in the lack of humanity, but soon voices could be heard up ahead. A carpark was nestled alongside The Ginger Bastard, a pub with wooden logs stacked out front in a pyramid. A teenage boy was seated atop the triangular structure, smoking a thick cigarette and carving letters into the wood. His head shot up when the man’s footsteps became signals of approach.

A brief synopsis:

A suited man runs from a burning tower in Melbourne as bodies rain down upon him.

Before the city’s millions can compose, he boards a train into the countryside. Hiding his identity and changing his appearance, the man finds his way to Sulley Ridge, a lawless town in the heart of the harsh Victorian outback.

The following day, a burned man wakes up in a hospital bed. Surging with rage, he speaks a name. Within an hour, the suited man’s face is across every screen in the country. It’s the greatest manhunt Australia has ever seen.

But as he tries to camouflage in Sulley Ridge, he soon realises the town has its own problems. Under the iron fist of a violent leader, the locals are trapped within slow and torturous decay…

As we learn more about the night of the burning tower, the connection between the suited man and the burned man threatens to leave a trail of destruction across the state.

Here is the story of a man on the run from his past, as the line between sanity and evil is danced upon.

Here is the tale of This Strange Hell.

Here’s how to find C.J. Sutton on social media:

http://www.cjsutton-author.com/

https://www.facebook.com/cjsutton.author

https://twitter.com/c_j_sutton

https://www.instagram.com/c.j.sutton/