PUTTIN' ON THE STYLE
Although 'style' does relate to the way I, and others, write, this may be a slightly misleading title as it's more about accents.
Dick Strawbridge/Inspecteur Guillaume Bruissement
In my series of crime novels set in the 1950s my detective, DI Sonny Russell, has an opposite number based in Boulogne called Inspecteur Guillaume Bruissement. Throughout the books they becoem firm friends and Bruissment often helps with tricky international cases. Although not slavishly based on him, I have a picture in my mind of the tv personality, Dick Strawbridge, when I portray him. I guess there's a little of Poirot too and I like to mix French with English when I write his dialogue, as if he's thinking in both languages. This brings up its own set of challenges as he frequently drops his aitches and mixes his languages and parts of speech. But he is fun to write him and try to make him sound real.
One of the things I try to get right is the necessary accents when inserting French words. I do hope I succeed and I'm sure my readers will let me know if I get it wrong!
