Falling Man, Feeling Man

I just heard from British crime writer Peter James about his recent visit to New York City, where he attended last month’s Edgar Awards presentation and took time out to do some research on his fourth Roy Grace police procedural. The third, Not Dead Enough, is due for release shortly in the UK and in 2008 in the States.

As James explains in his blog, the next Grace outing will be set in America and focus on the tragedies of September 11, 2001:

I’ve recently spent a few extraordinary days in New York with two police officers, Detective Inspectors Dennis Bootle and Pat Lanigan, researching for my new Roy Grace novel, which will be published next year, and which features a character who tries to benefit commercially from the attack on the World Trade Centre. Part of the novel is set back in time around the day of 9-11 and the immediately following days.

Pat and Dennis were among the very first officers one the scene at 9-11. They were in the NYPD in Brooklyn police station when the first plane struck the North Tower. Immediately they were despatched over the Brooklyn Bridge and arrived just as the second plane struck the South Tower. As they climbed out of the patrol car a burning jet engine bounced in Vesey Street, right in front of them. Then as they ran across the plaza, they heard a thud, described in Pat’s words as “like a sack of potatoes hitting the ground.” It was one of the first jumpers. At one point they were having to look up to dodge the falling bodies. Then, when the South Tower began to collapse they had to run for their lives. Dennis went down below the Atrium and Pat ran for the river. Pat described the “crunching, roaring, rumble” of the tower coming down as the scariest sound he had ever heard in his life, as if the world was ending.

James was deeply affected by talking with people who witnessed the disaster unfold:

There is a moving line at the beginning of one of the Nicci French novels: It reads: “Bad things happen on beautiful days.” It is a line I’ve never been able to get out of my head. When Peter Benchley wrote Jaws he managed to turn the beauty of the ocean into something sinister for many people. With 9-11, terrorists turned a clear blue sky into a thing of potential dread for far, far more people.

But it is not the horror of all that happened that is the most dominant thing I take away from that terrible day. It is the image of the rescue workers patting dogs. It is the inner strengths of Pat and Dennis (more on whom in my next blog) two of the most decent human beings I ever met. It is the knowledge of the triumphs of the human spirit and of friendship. Dr. Martin Luther King said it best of all: “Even if I knew that tomorrow the world would go to pieces, I would still plant my apple tree.”

Read more of James’ thoughts, and see some pictures from his recent cross-Atlantic excursion, here.