The original thought process of writing this book was to write the history of the Cornwall police. Within a month of starting that, I stumbled upon the story of Constable Davey and as a result of that I learned that people had never heard of him. So he became the focal point, because I wanted to make a memory of him, said Thom Racine.

PHOTO CREDIT - ThomRacine.com

Cornwall - Jan. 25, 2012 - Constable Davey - A Future Lost is more of a family tale, rather than a biography. “It follows the murder, and what happened to his family, then it all comes back to Cornwall 120 years later.” Thom Racine, the author, explains. “Writing a book was always on my list of things to do. I didn’t have any idea it was going to be this, but certainly once it started, I knew this was going to be the first.”

Thom spoke about his book at a presentation at the St. Lawrence Power Development Visitor Centre on Friday. “It was a twenty month ride through the history of the city. Not just through the city, but everywhere through North America. That was kind of the neat part of it; I got to travel from my desktop, if you will.” He explains, ““It’s not something you can do over the course of a week or two. It takes a while, but to do it right, you’ve got to do the research.”

“I ordered 500 books and I’ve got 20 of them left, so I’m pretty sure it is.” Thom explains when asked about whether or not the book was worth writing. “It took twenty months from the beginning of the research in April of 2010 until we pushed print, and that was in mid November of 2011.”

“The original thought process of writing this book was to write the history of the Cornwall police. Within a month of starting that, I stumbled upon the story of Constable Davey and as a result of that I… well, you know, people had never heard of Constable Davey. I’d been here thirty years and never heard of him. Yeah, he’d been dead a long time but you’d think the murder of a police officer would be important, or you would hear about it.” Thom says, “So he became the focal point, because I wanted to make a memory of him and put his picture in the lobby of the police station. As a result of the research, and keeping that fire burning to find out more about him, I realized I had enough. That’s where the book came from.”

Thom Racine has a bit of advice for those attempting to write their own books. “Don’t quit. Keep focused and keep going. You’ll hit many walls. Not so much the writing walls, but the walls of ‘Is it worth it? Are people going to like it? Am I doing this just for myself?’ That type of stuff. But there’s one rule in life; when you start something, don’t quit it. Don’t stop doing it. Especially if it’s a worthy thing.”

For more information, or to purchase the book, check out Thom’s website at ThomRacine.com