Huge SPOILERS ahead!!! You’ve been warned! We’re talking about big doings from A Circle of Shadows.

John Pratchett

Pratchett, to me, was one of the most fun aspects of writing Greystone. He started out as a nothing character. A one-off bit player, built around some comedy relief. Every appearance by him in Signs of Portents is played for comedic value.

It’s important to have characters like that. It’s a change of pace. Not everything has to be grim and gritty. There can be some light.

Well, with Pratchett’s frequent comedic riffs came some depth to the big lug. He’s a baseball fan, for one. Did you know that? I didn’t until the scene showed up in Signs out of the blue. I looked at that chapter and the other instances in that opening novel and realized there is something here.

This is someone to explore.

The growing role

Pratchett was a driver basically. Loren didn’t drive so someone had to take him places. That was Pratchett.

When it came time to explore Tales from Portents, to dig into the lore of the cast and the city, Pratchett came to the surface again. First it was in Resurrectionists. He’s the one at Loren’s side after the disgruntled detective’s fight with Standish. He’s the one defending the man when everyone else looks the other way.

That was an important moment for me. Not in the writing, but in figuring out the motivation behind it.

During Tales, we also learn he’s the nephew of Julian Harvey. I liked the connection between the two and it set up much of what followed.

The Medusa Coin afforded me the chance to bring Pratchett more to the forefront. He’s partnered with Myers and has some of the best bits of dialogue in the book. His joke with Frankie about the zeros and ones on the beach still cracks me up. (I have problems. I’m aware…)

It wasn’t until Pathways in the Dark that I realized who John Pratchett was to Loren. Why he was always around out of everyone on the force. Why he cared for, and fought for, Loren so much.

He killed Loren’s wife.

Truth time!

I didn’t map this out ahead of time. A friend used to ask all the time if I knew who killed Beth and I always played it off with a non-answer like “You’ll see” or “That would be telling.”

I had no fudging idea.

There were plenty of options. A monster of some kind. A deeper threat that tied eventually to the Circle of Shadows.

None felt right. None gave the event meaning or broke the characters down as much as a true tragedy.

Pratchett’s mistake, his error in judgment, spoke volumes compared to all other options on the table.

Why? I love Pratchett!

Me too. I do. I love him more now, because of everything he’s been through, because of the journey to get there, than I ever did in Signs. He was no one special, just a background face for Loren to connect with at a crime scene or in the office.

But once that event came into focus. Once it hit me what actually happened and how it tied to the Circle and so many other things, it made me appreciate this fun-loving goof so much more.

He might have fallen like so many others in the end but he truly defined the first half of the series for me. A man pushing through his inner-darkness, his great mistake, and bringing light back to the city of Portents.

Thanks for reading.