In Chapter 8 of my book Blurbs & Book Descriptions (2025), I take apart some of the blurbs I’ve written for my novels in various genres. Here I’ve included a few more, explaining what I wrote and why – and saying what I’d do differently if I was doing a similar blurb today.
Murder by Magic – Traditional Mystery
This book is the second in my The Great Vicari Mystery series. These books are traditional whodunits. It’s a better book than the first one, I think. The tagline on the front of the book is A 1930s Murder Mystery, the same was the first book. On the back of the book, it says The Curtain Rises on Murder! Here’s the first paragraph of the blurb – the hook:
Police are mystified when a magician is killed on stage, shot inside a locked box, and ask The Great Vicari to investigate.
A mysterious death is what readers of this genre are looking for. The fact that the victim was inside a locked box hints that this story is a variation on the ‘lock room’ mystery trope. The reference to ‘on stage’ reveals that the story is set in the world of the theatre. Here’s paragraph two:
Ben Vickery returns to the theatre for the first time since fleeing after one of his own illusions went horribly wrong. Here he encounters faces from his own past, and has an opportunity to lay a ghost to rest – but is he ready to go back on stage?
Another mystery. The tragedy involving one of Vickery’s stage illusions was referred to in the first in the series and the reader learns more about it in this story. The fact that Vickery may not yet be over the awful experience is intended to create sympathy for the main character. It also raises a question and adds an element of risk – What if he’s not ready?
As their enquiry progresses, the magician-sleuth and his assistant Malloy learn that no-one has a motive for the murder – except the one man who could not possibly have committed it. Unless he used magic. Can they discover how the trick was performed – and who was the mastermind behind it – before the curtain rises on another corpse?
Most whodunits have a handful of suspects, all of whom seem to have a motive for murder. I ring the changes here by suggesting there are no suspects – except for a person who cannot be guilty. Hopefully this fresh take and the questions it evokes will appeal to mystery genre readers.
I include a short ‘sales paragraph’ because this is the second in a series:
Murder By Magic is the sequel to The Sword in the Stone-Dead. Look out for the third in the series The Missing Magician.
That’s as close as I tend to come to a ‘Call to Action.’ In Spring 2025 I put a new cover on the book in the hope of attracting the attention of a few more readers.
The Missing Magician – Mystery Thriller
This is the third in my Great Vicari Mystery series. This one isn’t a whodunit as such, so I changed the front cover tagline to A 1930s Mystery Thriller. I wrote the book after I’d researched my non-fiction book Suspense Thriller (2018) and wanted to have a go at writing something similar to John Buchan’s The Thirty-Nine Steps. The back cover tagline is The Magician Vanishes! Here’s the opening ‘hook’:
Benjamin Vickery, alias The Great Vicari, attends a meeting with a shadowy secret service official – and then disappears. His assistant Malloy and housekeeper Betty become increasingly concerned about his safety and set out to find him. But where should they look?
When you write a series, it can be a challenge to keep things interesting for the reader – and for you as the writer. I didn’t want to do another country house whodunit. One of the inspirations for my series was John Le Carré’s George Smiley series – the first two books feature a retired spy in the role of amateur detective. Smiley is better known for his role searching for a ‘mole’ in Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy. I thought it might be fun having my retired magician become involved – at least peripherally – with espionage.
The hook above includes a several open loops or implied questions. Why is the magician meeting someone from Britain’s secret service? Why does he disappear? And – as the direct question at the end asks – Where has he gone?
The character of the housekeeper, Betty, was my version of Mrs. Hudson from the Sherlock Holmes stories. She was only meant to have a walk-on part, but she caught my imagination – and hopefully that of the reader too. She’s referred to in the first book when one character asks Vickery if he’s got rid of his awful servant yet. Then in the second we see that she’s relatively young to be a housekeeper – and incredibly rude. She takes a dislike to Malloy, referring to him as ‘common.’ I hoped readers of the first two books would enjoy seeing Betty and Malloy having to work together to find their missing employer.
Here’s the second paragraph of the blurb:
His Majesty’s government won’t admit that the ex-magician was working for them, so the intrepid duo must investigate without their help. When Malloy is attacked by foreign spies, he knows he must be getting close to something – but what conspiracy are they hatching in the heart of the English countryside?
Since this is a mystery thriller, I introduce a couple of genre tropes here – ‘foreign spies’ and a suspected ‘conspiracy.’ I contrast this with the setting, the cozy English countryside. This suggests that it is this peaceful world that is in danger. I go on to state the stakes directly in the final paragraph:
With the security of a country at stake, The Great Vicari’s talents are needed. But what should Malloy do when he uncovers evidence that Vickery may be working for the other side?
Here I end with a bit of a shock or cliffhanger, suggesting that my series hero might be a traitor. Can it be true? I leave this question in the reader’s mind, hoping they will take the required action and hit the ‘buy’ button. This question of Vickery’s loyalty is a twist that occurs relatively later in the story, so this is an example where my blurb text includes elements beyond Act I – the setup – of the story.
Robot Wrecker – Science Fiction
I included my synopsis for this book in Blurbs & Book Descriptions and thought I should include the blurb here so you can see how I distilled a 1,900 word synopsis into a XX word blurb. The tagline on the front cover is These are the Droids He’s Looking For… which is a cheeky reference to a line from Star Wars (the first film, that I refuse to call A New Hope). The back cover tagline is It’s Wreckin’ Time! which I borrowed from Marvel comics’ Ben Grimm ( from The Fantastic Four) whose favourite phrase is ‘It’s clobberin’ time!’ Here’s the opening paragraph of the blurb:
A robot can never harm a human being. Or so they would have you believe. But a robot is just like any other tool – or weapon – and will do whatever you want it to.
The first sentence is a reference to Isaac Asimov’s ‘Three Laws of Robotics.’ They were designed to protect humans from robots. In my ‘hook,’ I’m suggesting that robots can be used to hurt people. Hopefully that intriguing enough to get readers to keep reading to find out what sort of harm this might be.
Stevie Houston is a rebel who likes to joyride in giant walking robots and to trash ‘droids in creative and amusing ways. Until he meets repairman and inventor Raoul Zacharias. He has just developed an artificial muscle-fibre that will revolutionise the robotics industry. And the major robot manufacturers will go to any lengths to get their hands on it – including murder.
My hero is a bit of a punk – the kind of kid who steals cars and goes joyriding today. I wanted the reader to imagine him going on the run inside a giant robot suit – the kind of thing you see in anime movies. But then I contrast this by having him team up with an old man who fixes robots. The muscle fibre technology he’s invented is what Alfred Hitchcock called a MacGuffin – the thing that everyone is trying to get hold of in a thriller.
As he tries to protect the old man, Stevie must use every bit of technology he can fix or steal – from a boogie-woogie playing robot to a flying exo-suit borrowed from an injured police woman.
I’m planting more images in the reader’s head here – an old robot that plays the piano and another anime trope, the suit that allows you to fly.
But as the Robot Wrecker tears everything apart in its search for the invention, will anything be able to stop it?
I end with an open loop question that emphasises the danger that the main character’s face – a ‘robot wrecker’ on the rampage looking for the MacGuffin. This final sentence also loops back to the tagline – it’s wrecking time!
As I suggested above, this science fiction novel uses a thriller plot and so I tried to mix thriller tropes and images from science fiction movies to entice the reader into clicking that ‘buy’ button.
Fortune’s Fool – Fantasy
This is the second book in my Thurlambria series. The tagline is The Stage is Set for Chaos! and the title is a refence to Shakespeare – ‘O! I am fortune’s fool!’ is a line from Romeo and Juliet. The setting for this story is something like Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre but on a smaller scale. My plot and dialogue aren’t quite on the Bard’s scale either, sadly. Here’s the opening hook:
What should have been a simple act of thievery leaves Anton Leyander with two bloody corpses, and no spoils. Hiding out in a local theatre troupe, he soon learns that while there may not be much honour among thieves, there’s even less among actors.
I try to create sympathy for my main character, a thief, by making him the victim of misfortune. A thief who is almost caught with a corpse killed by someone else is an old mystery trope, but I thought it would be fun to bring it into a fantasy setting. And then I have him hiding among a group of actors – who may be more dangerous or traitorous than thieves. Having, hopefully, caught the reader’s attention, I must now keep their interest:
Anton’s rivalry with arrogant male lead Edric Edison rapidly escalates into violence, both on and off stage. Things deteriorate further when the two are forced to become partners against a common foe – the Captain of the Guard, whose black heart and devious scheming put any stage villain to shame.
I name two sources of conflict – an actor who becomes the hero’s rival in the theatre and a genuine story villain. And I have my two actors have to team up to defeat the villain – using the old ‘odd couple’ trope that features in many cop shows and movies. Rivals working together and eventually becoming friends is one of my favourite plots, I’ve used it several times. It’s a variation on the enemies-to-lovers sub-genre in romance.
With a cast that features jealous lovers, assassins, and an amorous hunchback – not to mention a lady-pirate with a ship filled with gunpowder – the question becomes: Will everyone die in the final act?
Rather than focus on events in the plot, I chose to refer to the cast of weird characters instead. I thought these would create images in the reader’s mind. The last open question loops back to the Shakespeare reference – lots of people die in his tragedies – and to the tagline. Oddly, I changed the tagline on Amazon to The Stage is Set for Destruction! I’m not sure why and I don’t know if this is stronger than the one on the book or not.
Who Killed Big Dick? – Crime Thriller
I’m a fan of the novels of Car Hiaasen and the Lew archer series by Ross Macdonald. I wanted to write a book like theirs – but set in Mansfield. That’s a small town north of where I live that I once ironically referred to as Nottinghamshire’s answer to St. Mary Mead. It’s a fairly ordinary town and probably the least likely place for anyone to set a private eye novel. I had to come up with an investigator to suit the setting and so created Joe Lucke – he’s tall, blond, skinny, and down-at-heel. He also has major self-esteem issues. I’m not saying which bits of him were based on me – but I’m not tall, blond, or skinny.
The plot of the novel is typical private detective stuff. But my characters and locations are a bit skewed. The tagline on the back of the book is an homage to Mae West: Is That a Dagger in Your Pocket? Here’s the first paragraph:
Not everyone goes into Big Dick’s Floors ‘n’ Beds looking for a carpet or a mattress. Some of them go to see if the owner lives up to his name. His popularity suggests that he does. When Big Dick is stabbed in the groin, it seems obvious the murderer is a jealous husband. But down-at-heel detective Joe Lucke quickly discovers that Dick didn’t just steal other men’s wives.
I introduce a victim, a murder and other private eye tropes, but the tone suggests that I’m not taking things entirely seriously. I also hint at a motive for the killing.
With his own brother-in-law topping the list of suspects, Joe needs to get his hands on a missing shipping container that holds vital evidence. Before it’s found by local gangsters.
Here I have an ‘innocent accused’ trope – the detective must then ensure that an innocent person isn’t unjustly punished. The missing shipping container is a MacGuffin, though it’s a bit bigger than the Maltese Falcon. I also raise the stakes a bit by saying that gangsters are involved.
A femme fatale, abusive Indian waiters, an over-excited pit-bull, and an informant with a bondage fetish are just some of the obstacles that stand in the way of Joe discovering Who Killed Big Dick?
Again, I have used my cast of weird characters as a selling point but they also suggest the sort of progress that a gumshoe typically makes in an investigation. And I do that thing that I do, using the last line to refer back – in this case to the title of the novel. Below that paragraph I have a final line: Lew Archer never had days like these.
Road Rage – Science Fiction
This is the third book in my Outlaws of the Galaxy series, featuring another thief-hero. I grew up in the era of the VHS video player and I watched a lot of bad movies. Trucker movies were popular around that time too, the best of them being Convoy and Smokey and the Bandit. I decided I wanted to write a trucker story set in a sort of post-apocalyptic Mad Max world. I was also a fan of Ray Harryhausen’s films so wanted to include a giant ‘stop-motion’ crocodile or alligator. All of those things feature in the cover illustration – though I feel that this is the weakest cover in the series and I’ll probably replace it sometime soon. I need to make the alligator bigger.
My cover tagline is The Fast and the Ferocious which is obviously a reference to the Fast and Furious movies. And the back cover tagline is Fugitive in the Fast Lane, which has a bit of alliteration. Here’s the first paragraph of the blurb:
Desperate for cash, thief and confidence trickster Quin Randall does something drastic – he gets a job. He and his robot sidekick Floyd buy an eighteen-wheeler. Being truckers will be a lot less dangerous than being outlaws. Won’t it?
Thief, robot, big truck plus humour. And an open question. What could possibly go wrong? I want the reader to read on to find out.
They are hired to take a shipment cross country and things quickly get complicated. The cargo they’re carrying isn’t medical supplies. And their client may not actually own it. Then Quincy breaks the first rule of trucking – Never pick up hitch-hikers. His passenger is a certain red-head who’s a bigger crook than he is. Is it a coincidence that she happened to be there? Probably not.
The basic story situation is borrowed from Smokey and the Bandit, I don’t try to hide that. They’ve been tricked into hauling something illegal. And instead of picking up Sally Field, Quincy picks up a character from the previous book. There’s another open question – What is she doing there? She must be up to no good.
Pursued by the highway police, a gang of bikers, and a rival’s armed posse, Quincy will never meet the delivery deadline. Unless he does something crazy – like take a shortcut through the Badlands, an old battlefield said to be inhabited by mutants and monsters. Buckle up, it’s going to be a bumpy ride.
I wanted to show the reader that this was a mad chase movie, so I list the people who are chasing the eighteen-wheeler. And then I have my hero decide to take a shortcut through a forbidden zone that is filled with mutants and monsters. I’m upping the stakes and hoping the reader wants to tag along for the ride.
As always, I try to include things in the blurb that will plant images in the reader’s head – I want them to begin seeing the ‘movie’ that they’ll imagine as they read the novel. The aim is to make them want to see more. I also include tropes from road movies so they can get a feel for the kind of story it will be. I had a lot of fun writing this book – and the others in the series – and I hope I manage to express that enthusiasm in my blurbs. I don’t know if this peek into my blurb-writing process has been helpful. At the very least it should have inspired you by making you realise you can do better than my nonsense. Good luck and thanks for reading.
PAUL TOMLINSON 