FOR WRITERS, HISTORICAL FICTION AT YOUR FINGER TIPS

By Robert Egby

For the writer, author and novelist the times have changed drastically. It used to be a lonely profession, but now there is Google leading a flotilla of informational resources. While some folk lambaste the monarch of the search engines, for the lonely writer it provides an instant loyal secretary at one’s side.

Back in the late 1960s I wrote three lengthy novels. It was not the writing that took the time, it was the research. Sure, I bought a complete set of Encyclopedia Britannica, a couple of dozen hefty volumes for $20 from the local Thrift Shop, and spent many an hour combing books and directories at the local library. Research was time consuming. This past spring, I took the first dusty manuscript out and retyped it into the digital age.

Entitled “Pentadaktylos,” the story is set on the Mediterranean island of Cyprus, partly in 1940 and mainly in 1958. The novel is historical fiction set against a real life background. In the original script I had the hero, a young British Army lieutenant, Gregory Sommerville buying a two-seater Austin. Well, did such a thing exist in 1940? I Googled it. Sure enough there was an Austin 7 PD Tourer, a convertible, black and green, in production since 1934. They are now collectors’ items and there was even a photograph to help me along the way.

Another part of the novel involves a Jaguar. Back in the first writing in 1968 I did not have much of a description. I recalled being in a sleek white convertible owned and driven by journalist Alex Eftyvoulou during the Cyprus Emergency. The novel called for two things: a terrorist jumping on the running board, and a British officer shooting the driver of the Jaguar through the rear window.

Google showed me the way to photos of an impressive white Jaguar Mark V Saloon of that era. It not only had a running board, it also came with a rear window.

The killers needed a black car. I recalled the French Citroen being around Nicosia in 1958, so I wrote one in. Google found me the Citroen Traction Avant which was in production up to 1957. They even found a detailed picture of one – in Saigon!

Years ago when I was a war correspondent at the Suez War, an American reporter who had been covering big game hunting in Africa extolled the virtues of a .300 caliber Holland and Holland Magnum. “Long range, powerful and deadly,” he said, so that became the weapon of choice for an assassin in the book. Google took me to the prestigious Holland and Holland website and links took me to weapon performance including details on the distinctive cartridge and even the velocity of the bullet. A great and unique weapon for a long distance assassin.

Although I recall the little Auster aircraft circling overhead during Security Forces operations, I wanted more information for my novel. Google took me to the website of the Air Combat Information Group (ACIG.org) which confirmed that Austers were indeed flying overhead in October 1958.

Although originally written 43 years ago, I still felt I had to rework some parts of the chapters, and take time off to do more confirming research. Once I landed on a Greek website. My Greek is pretty rusty so I copied the text to Bing Translator and in seconds it was printed in English. I never had a secretary who could do that!

All the characters in the novel are purely fictitious except for real public figures on the scene in Cyprus at that time. Much of the background is recorded history, and as the book is classified as an historical novel, I feel that cyber technology has made research and writing that much easier and the story much more credible.

In creating backgrounds or resumes for characters in historical fiction, search engines make life easy. For instance, the young Sommerville tells his Greek Cypriot sweetheart: “Dad? Dad was a major in the British Army. In September of thirty-seven, they sent him out as a military observer to report on the fighting between the Chinese and Japanese in and around Shanghai. He was last seen standing near a battery of Chinese howitzers during a Japanese raid. Some days later, journalists found his body and took it back to the International Settlement. I was nineteen.” Everything really happened, except the reference to his father. That was fiction.

The full title of the book is “Pentadaktylos: Love, Promises and Patriotism in the Last Days of Colonial Cyprus.” The plot? A British Army officer (Sommerville) returns to Cyprus to discover that his legacy from an old Greek Cypriot love affair in 1940 is a seventeen year old son! That’s not all. The boy has joined an EOKA Killer Group bent on assassinating a high ranking British official. Sommerville is torn between loyalty to the British Army and finding the son he has never met. But in order to save his son, he has to find the mother, and he embarks on a frustrating and desperate search in dangerous streets flanking the notorious Murder Mile.

Pentadaktylos? It means five fingers. It’s a distinctive, pudgy mountain in the Kyrenia Range and is now beloved by mountain climbers from many countries. But it has an old legend.

Oh, yes, the little green and black Austin Tourer mentioned above. It only had two seats. If it had possessed three, the girl’s mother would have chaperoned the two young lovers and the story would not have existed. In writing historic fiction it’s always good to have a research secretary at your fingertips.

P.S. “Pentadaktylos” will be available on both sides of the Atlantic later in August 2011.