Almost every story I write anymore, outside of the Fantasy Novel, seems to fit into River City.  The Meat-Cutter's Wife involves the death that is referenced in If Only and Some Degree of Murder.  Gently Used features Connor O'Sullivan and has several other patrol guys in bit parts.  Good Shepherd, due to be published in November, is all River City.  Even What Comes Around could easily be related, as there was nothing to have kept it from happening in River City (a la Burning My Masterpiece--just a call or an event that police respond to).

 

My hockey novel won't feature the River City police officers like the other River City novels do, but I'm going to have it take place in River City, complete with the minor league team that plays there (The River City Flyers, as featured in Waist Deep).  Also, one of the recreational league teams that Graham Wilson (the main character) and his team will face during the season will be a police/fire team, with a couple of River City PD cops on it.

 

The main character of A Village of Strangers is named Peter Conway, at least for now.  He's never been mentioned before in any of the other River City novels or outlines.  It may be that I'll use him as a minor character in Beneath A Weeping Sky and/or And Every Man Has To Die, so that the readers will at least know him passingly by the time we get to 2003 and his story begins.  His time on the job during this novel won't be too deeply explored, but there'll be a few chapters.

 

Plenty of inter-connectivity for the fans I hope develop for these stories.