“A few passengers glanced at Jak’s tortured expression before he slinked low into seat 21, anxious for the train doors to close. They gathered speed out of Antibes and he wiped away perspiration, taking care to avoid the purple-red wound over his right eye. With a shaking hand he sipped water and shaded the outside glare to search a vignette of fleeting images—a crowded car park blurring into splotches of grass and graffiti, and the rustic bastions of Fort Carré towering proudly above the headland.
“What happened to my wife?” he wondered.
The train swayed parallel to the coast, its rhythmical ‘cli-clack’, ‘cli-clack’ keeping beat with his thumping heart. On the horizon, the sun’s rays gathered into a fiery orb that sank abruptly into the tranquil Mediterranean.
He watched spellbound.
Streaks of tangerine flamed across the bay, and the numbing fear that had stalked him all day subsided. He took a deep breath, closed his eyes and dozed—until a woman’s voice startled him.” (Extract from Chapter 1, 3 WISE MEN)

Why does 3 WISE MEN begin with Jak, the protagonist, on a train journey? It is somewhat ironic that this is how my writing began – on a train trip along the same coast (although mine was in the morning and Jak’s was later in the day). The concept for 3 WISE MEN began some two years earlier and I had planned to write the draft manuscript before visiting the south of France. However, I was not inspired to write until me train left Nice. So, what better way to start the novel than with a similar train trip – one that also gives a sense of going somewhere; a sense of intrigue as the story unfolds. Read more in 3 WISE MEN!