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John Farrow

Goodreads Author

Born

in Seaforth, Huron County, Ontario, Canada

Genre

Fiction, Plays

Member Since

June 2015

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Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.

John Farrow is the pen name of Trevor Ferguson, a Canadian writer who has written seventeen novels and four plays and has been named Canada's best novelist in both Books in Canada and the Toronto Star. Under the name John Farrow, he has written ten crime novels featuring Émile Cinq-Mars which have been highly acclaimed and popular around the world. He was raised in Montreal and lives in Victoria, British Columbia.
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Popular Answered Questions

How do you get inspired to write?

John Farrow I trained myself to write and to write constantly. While it was painful when I was younger, once you get your mind to understand what you want it to d…moreI trained myself to write and to write constantly. While it was painful when I was younger, once you get your mind to understand what you want it to do, that discipline becomes its own guide, which is to say if I don't have a good writing day, I'm miserable. If I have a good day, I'm happy. So inspiration is not a factor, other than to say I enjoy the work immensely and that's inspiration enough. (Inspiration is overrated; perspiration, and enjoyment in the work, is the key.)(less)

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What mystery in your own life could be a plot for a book?

John Farrow Thank you for the interesting question. Mysteries are common to any life, but the cutting edge to the query lies in what might make for a worthy plot.…moreThank you for the interesting question. Mysteries are common to any life, but the cutting edge to the query lies in what might make for a worthy plot. I’ve added the word “worthy” to the question as I would not want to shortchange an audience. With that high-bar in mind, and keeping away from any life-experiences that may have wriggled their way into a book or two already —against my inclination to never let it happen — I can think of two such mysteries.
The first would be the mystery of what happened on a day in 1962, when I was barely thirteen, and chose to leave my home and family to cross the border from Canada into the United States. In winter. Twenty-four hours later I accepted to be deported from the USA back to Canada. The events during those twenty-four hours leading to that outcome remain the most extraordinary of my life, both mysterious and poignant, and well-deserving of a novel. The day confirmed in my adolescent head that I would embark on a subsequent adventure. Which I did shortly thereafter, leading to several more mysterious and novelistic episodes that formed me.
One adventure in particular comes to mind. In the Canadian northwest, homeless and hungry and only sixteen, I landed in a small and impoverished farming town where one set of citizens was determined to see the last of me, while an opposing set embarked on a campaign of good will on my behalf. The town’s internecine battles came to the fore, as did family histories, and personal stories from World War Two and homesteading in Alberta and Indigenous strife. All manner of dispute flowed through my weeks there, and how it was all resolved, with me and without me, made for a grand mystery and would be a haunting tale. Some tales go untold, even by the writers who lived them.
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Combine Editions
John Farrow’s books

Average rating: 3.68 · 2,364 ratings · 409 reviews · 33 distinct works • Similar authors

	The Storm Murders (The Storm Murders Trilogy, #1) 3.46 avg rating — 773 ratings — published 2015 — 4 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	City of Ice 3.65 avg rating — 434 ratings — published 1999 — 20 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Seven Days Dead (The Storm Murders Trilogy, #2) 3.79 avg rating — 327 ratings — published 2016 — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Ice Lake 3.50 avg rating — 289 ratings — published 2001 — 21 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Perish the Day 3.88 avg rating — 199 ratings — published 2017 — 3 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	River City 4.14 avg rating — 137 ratings — published 2011 — 7 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Ball Park (An Émile Cinq-Mars thriller, 7) 4.14 avg rating — 94 ratings — published 2019 — 8 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Roar Back 4.22 avg rating — 59 ratings — published 2020 — 8 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Lady Jail (An Émile Cinq-Mars thriller, 9) 3.98 avg rating — 50 ratings — published 2021 — 5 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	A Patient Death (Émile Cinq-Mars, #10) 3.50 avg rating — 8 ratings — published 2023	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

More books by John Farrow…

Series by John Farrow

Émile Cinq-Mars (10 books)
by

John Farrow (Goodreads Author)

3.67 avg rating — 2,369 ratings

The Storm Murders Trilogy (3 books)
by

John Farrow (Goodreads Author)

3.60 avg rating — 1,298 ratings

Quotes by John Farrow (?)

“In a city once ravaged by storms, where the destitute victimized by ferocious wind and rain and by the collapse of levees—which were inadequately engineered and no warning was given that they might not hold—and where the only crime attributed to those people was that they were too poor to flee and were consequently fired upon and two of them shot dead—not by looters, not by warring gangs, not by manic throngs of frightened or disoriented people like themselves, but by the very men charged to protect them—”
― John Farrow, The Storm Murders

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“What counts is not how scared you are or how brave you claim to be or even how calm you are. All that matters is what you do.”
― John Farrow

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