A MESSAGE FROM JANE ADAMS

·       Could you introduce Naomi Blake and her guide dog Napoleon?

·       How did you find writing from the point of view of someone who has lost their sight?

·       How much did you have to research to write the series?

It started with a phone call from my agent. I had been asked to write a series and we were casting around for an angle that was a bit unusual. The idea of having a blind detective, with a guide dog called Napoleon, was originally my agent’s. He was quite insistent about the name and that he should be a glossy black Labrador who liked bacon. At that point, I really wasn’t sure I could do it. Writing about someone with sight loss seemed daunting, so I began by creating a backstory for her, thinking about what might have happened before she lost her sight.

Tragedy had struck Naomi when she was twelve years old when her best friend, Helen, disappeared without trace. Naomi was haunted by the fact that she and Helen had quarrelled and not walked to school together that day. Would things have been different if they had?

At the start of the first book, Naomi Blake is in her thirties, she’s had a happy and fulfilling career as a police officer, and at the point where everything changed for her, she was a Detective Sergeant looking for promotion. Then, Naomi was involved in a major road accident, which resulted in her losing her sight. With the help of friends, including Naomi’s long-term partner, Alec Friedman — and now her guide dog, Napoleon — Naomi has picked up her life and is moving forward. Then the news comes that Helen’s body has been found and her world is about to be turned upside down again.

Naomi is tenacious, loyal, and compassionate. She’s very independent and has a fierce streak. Her need to investigate is still very much a part of her personality; she just has to find a different way of doing it. As a civilian, she finds that people will often confide in a way that they would not have done when she was a serving officer. Alec is still a police detective at the start of the series, and Naomi makes full use of him too, which means the stories can be told and the investigations carried out from more than one angle.

Naomi and Napoleon live in the small Victorian seaside town of Pinsent. It’s a fictional place based on the northern coastal towns in Lincolnshire and Yorkshire that dominated my childhood summers (and wet and windy winters) and which still hold a big place in my heart.

I was, initially, pretty daunted by the idea of writing a character with sight loss. I did a lot of background research, working with charities and organisations that deal with issues around this, but the most valuable input came from individuals who were really generous with their time. I have to say a big thank you to all the people who were so helpful. One major point that everyone made was that each person’s experience is different and there is no template for the way individuals deal with this. That, I think, gave me the confidence to create Naomi. Naomi is unique and her experiences are particular to her.

And Napoleon definitely likes bacon.