After 31 years with Sudbury Fire, David Wickenden just published his third novel. It’s a thriller that follows a Canadian vigilante in Paris, France. “In 2014, during the summer, I took vacation and did a lot of writing, and went back to work, and then a couple weeks later, another week of vacation and that decided it. I realized what I enjoyed doing more,” said Wickenden. He began with a novel titled In Defence of Innocence, which took roughly three and a half years to complete. Shortly after that, he published his second book, Homegrown. Now, he’s out with his latest novel, Deadly Harvest. “It picks up after my first book, In Defence of Innocence, which has a Canadian vigilante that has a crusade of trying to protect children… the vigilante is hunting down child abusers, so now the vigilante is in Paris and there’s an international trafficking ring that is the target,” explained Wickenden. Wickenden’s lead character is a woman, and he says people can expect a whole lot of action. “I put my characters through the ringer. Right from the first page, she’s kicking but… it’s a wild ride,” he says. Wickenden says the idea for the storyline came from hearing multiple stories about child abusers in Canada. “The children have to live with this for their entire lives. There’s so much mental health issues afterward and it lasts forever, and these predators aren’t held accountable for that,” he expressed. From start to finish, Wickenden says Deadly Harvest took only six months to complete, and he says he’s currently working on two more novels. He has no goal for how many he wants to write but says the sky is the limit. The launch party for Deadly Harvest will be Saturday, November 16 at 1 p.m. at Forty-Six North in Sudbury.
