A Nanaimo writer has written his first book, loosely based on some incidents that happened to him and his family while on vacation in Mexico.
Author Gary Trew, who uses the pseudonym Denny Darke for The man with the pink sombrerosaid that although the story was written on real-life locations and has parallels to real life, it was still a work of strong black humor and crime fiction.
Trew described the book, which came out earlier this year in January, as the adventure of a Canadian family whose dream vacation “goes haywire” when they have to share a condo with a group of “noisy and ruthless” cartel members.
“And then Jimmy (the protagonist) has to borrow money and everything goes wrong,” said the author, adding that the idea occurred to him when he lost his wallet on vacation.
The name of the story comes from one of the characters – a stuttering and merciless assassin with a pink sombrero.
Other parallels to the author’s holiday include his friends as characters, family traditions, the celebration of Noche de Rábanos – the Night of the Radishes – and the mention of a “famous river full of crocodiles, where, according to rumors, corpses were disposed of”.
The author attributes his love of humor to the fact that he somehow survived his career in the British police and the Child Protection Service of the Department for Children and Family Development.
“Helping children is and always has been my passion,” he said, adding that his own experiences as a child inspired him to work with at-risk children.
The author is also working on his memoirs entitled The Hate Gameunder his own name, based on his experiences as a teenager with the topics of abuse, illness, the death of a parent and bullying – when “black humor and his love of books kept him from ending his life.”
Trew hopes his memoirs will be published later this summer.
The man with the pink sombrero can be purchased online at www.amazon.ca or www.barnesandnoble.com.
