Spoiler Alert!

Hi,

If you've read the 'Author Notes' at the end of any of my books, then you will know there are numerous 'Easter eggs' hidden within the books, placed there in part for my own amusement but also in the hope they might be noticed and appreciated by the odd sharp-eyed reader. (Unfortunately, if you have either the paperback or an early Kindle version of book one or two, then you may have missed the 'Author Notes' in those books.)

Now that book three, The Dead Do Lie, has been released, it seems the right time to yield to popular demand (well, I'm sure at least one person asked for this) and to go back through the books and explain those Easter eggs. This veritable literary feast begins below with book one, This Is My Dad. He's Dead. If you noticed any of these, consider yourself congratulated.

Character Names
I probably spent a disproportionate amount of time thinking up character names, certainly in books two and three but perhaps less so in book one. For me, it's not just been about finding a name that suits the character but, where possible, finding one that has a meaning behind it. That said, I can't recall any particular reasoning behind the names of Ben and his family, but Marvin was named after Marvin Dorfler in one of my favourite movies, Midnight Run – a great character played brilliantly by John Ashton. As for Marlborough and Islington, their names relate to the board game Monopoly, but more on that later. Two other comedy movies, Beverly Hills Cop and Hot Fuzz, contributed the names of the PCs who deliver the news of Ben's death to Frankie: PCs Rosewood and Butterman.

Since I love a good horror movie, and given the reason for Father Avery Lancaster's visit to Ben's house, it was only right that he was somehow linked to The Exorcist, specifically the older priest, Father Lankester Merrin – therefore, my priest became Father Lancaster from the parish of Merrin. ('Avery' was chosen simply because of the similarity between 'Avery Lancaster' and 'Avro Lancaster', the World War II bomber.)

Then we have Marv's eventual girlfriend, Kate: given she died dressed as Anne Boleyn, 'Bullen' seemed an appropriate surname, since 'Boleyn' is apparently sometimes found spelt 'Bullen' (among other variants).

Old Mrs Gimpton’s cat, President Garfield, leads on to a number of other Easter eggs. Late in the book, Mrs Gimpton has a heart attack when she thinks she sees her neighbour, Charlie Duckwater, shoot President Garfield. The real President Garfield was assassinated by Charles Guiteau, who shot him with a revolver. If what I've read on the web is correct, then 'guit' is the Gascon word for 'duck'; with 'eau' as the French word for water, we then have Charles Guiteau becoming Charlie Duckwater. Even I'm wincing at that one, and it gets worse. Guiteau was a 'Stalwart Republican', and old Mrs Gimpton is stated as having always described Charlie as her 'stalwart friend'. Don't give up now, it's nearly over. The real President Garfield married Lucretia Rudolph, which gives us Mrs Gimpton's first name – Lucretia – and the reason why she is described as having a red nose when Ben and Marv see her in the pub (Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer). I can only apologise – I must have been having a really bad day. Finally, we have references to two other US presidents when Charlie is cleaning the inside of his Ford with his hoover while President Garfield pounces around.

Film and Television References
Aside from character names, the book hides various other references to the worlds of film and television. Not long after Ben and Marv's deaths, when Marv is messing around in the road, his reaction to a car passing through him ("It just moved through me. My God, I felt it! I can smell it, it’s the car. It’s the car! Smell my clothes.") is a parody of the scene in Poltergeist where the soul of Carole Anne (played by the talented but sadly very short-lived Heather O'Rourke) moves through her mother. Ben alludes to this with his response, "What? No, get lost, you over-acting ham."

Moving from scary movies to scary television programmes, when Marlborough's true identity is confirmed near the end of the book, he grumbles, "If it wasn’t for that pesky priest …" in the vein of the classic grouse from your typical Scooby Doo villain, "And I would have gotten away with it if it wasn't for those meddling kids."

What must be the most obvious movie reference comes very early in the book, particularly as Marv even explicitly describes it as a 'movie reference'. This is where Ben and Marv are about to set off in Ben's car, and Marv comments, "It’s 106 miles to Chic Cargo, we’ve got a full tank of gas, half a pack of cigarettes, it’s dark and … ah shit, I’ve forgotten my sunglasses." This is, of course, a play on a quote from the Blues Brothers movie. Ben's initial response suggests the reference went over his head, but he disproves this by finishing off Marv's homage with a pointed finger and "Hit it."

Finally, we have a couple of references to The Matrix, when Ben and Marv first meet Marlborough. At the sight of Marlborough, with his Neo-like dress style – sunglasses and open black trench coat – Marv whispers, "I bet he knows kung fu." This is a reference to Neo's (Keanu Reeves's) first statement after having martial arts training directly implanted into his brain: "I know kung fu." Marv then comments, "If he offers you a red or blue pill, take the blue one." In The Matrix, Neo is offered the choice between a red pill and a blue pill. Accepting the red pill would mean learning the unsettling truth about reality, so it should be no surprise that Marv advises taking the blue one, i.e. opting for blissful ignorance.

Song Titles
Although I've hidden numerous song titles in the later books, there are only three hidden in book one (if I recall correctly), located in a discussion between Marv and Kate when they're walking from Windsor Castle to Middle Nipple. We start with a clue to their existence, when Kate states, "No, I suppose it doesn’t, not if the status quo remains." The next few paragraphs conceal the titles of three Status Quo songs: What You're Proposing, Whatever You Want, and Down Down.

Miscellaneous
I couldn't complete book one without a reference to Gary Larson's wonderful comic strip The Far Side. There's a hint to its existence when the pale man (Marlborough) is described as looking across to cows on 'the far side' of a field. Marlborough pretends to ignore the cows but then, after passing them, spins round rapidly, trying to take them by surprise but finding them doing nothing remotely un-cow-like. This is a homage to one of my favourite strips, where a cow is on the lookout for humans so that it can warn its cow friends when to stop standing around chatting on their hind legs and go back to acting like cows. If you've never seen it, a quick Google of 'the far side cows car' should take you to it!

I imagine no-one would ever pick up on this next Easter egg, namely the reference number for the form that the Windsor Castle ghosts are supposed to have submitted in order to request haunting permits: THI419. This is derived from IHT419, which is a UK inheritance tax form, 'Debts owed by the deceased'.

Monopoly
And so we come to the Monopoly references, nineteen of which are scattered throughout the book, some more obvious than others. The easy ones are: Monopoly(!), The Angel Islington, Leicester Square, Trafalgar Square, and Electric Company. Somewhat less easy are: Go To Jail, Take a Chance, Park Lane (referenced as 'South Park Lane'), Mayfair (referenced as 'the village May Fair'), Strand [of hair], Just Visiting, King's Cross, Pall Mall (referenced as 'your pal Mal'), Marlborough Street (referenced as 'Marlborough's treat'), Old Kent Road (referenced as 'good old Kent rode in'), and a reference to 'four houses and a hotel'.

Monopoly was first published by Parker Brothers, hence the reference to 'Parker's brothers' in the Windsor-based epilogue. The mascot of the board game, Mr Monopoly, is sometimes known as Milburn Pennybags, hence the name of Islington's supervisor, Milburn. The nineteenth reference is a bit of a stretch, but the word 'Go' does appear somewhere in the book!

Well, I hope this has been of vague interest to at least someone. Posts about the Easter eggs of books two and three to follow!

Cheers

D.C.Barclay