Today I am delighted to be joined by David Jackson.
After establishing a successful series of novels featuring New York detective Callum Doyle, David’s new book A Tapping At My Door introduces a new lead character – Nathan Cody.
Character Assassination: Meet Nathan Cody
Who is Nathan Cody?
Nathan Cody is a Detective Sergeant with the Major Incident Team in Liverpool. Prior to that, he was an undercover cop – a job he loved until things went drastically wrong. What keeps him going is a good heart and a powerful obsession for justice.
Cody arrives carrying a heavy burden of past trauma, is he defined by his vulnerability?
It doesn’t define him, but his traumatic past is certainly a potent and damaging influence on his life. His arc throughout the series will concern his attempts to rid himself of that menacing shadow.
Cody is hopefully going to return but have you also left scope to write Cody stories pre-dating events in A Tapping At My Door?
Cody will definitely return soon: I have nearly finished writing the second novel in the series. As we shall see, Cody’s past will continue to haunt him, and so guide his future actions, but there is also ample opportunity to write stories set in his recent history, particularly when he was an undercover cop.
Was it tough to turn your back on Callum Doyle and start with a clean slate? Have you tried to ensure the two characters do not share similar traits?
I haven’t quite turned my back on Doyle. Bonnier have taken on the rights to those books too, and so the hope is that the two series will continue in parallel. I would say that the two characters are different in many ways. The one thing they do share, for good or for bad, is the sense of humour of their creator!
Will Cody ever meet Callum Doyle?
I was asked about such a Cody/Doyle ‘mashup’ at my book launch. It’s an intriguing thought, and one that I wouldn’t rule out. I think I could have great fun with that.
A TAPPING AT MY DOOR
A woman at home in Liverpool is disturbed by a persistent tapping at her back door. She’s disturbed to discover the culprit is a raven, and tries to shoo it away. Which is when the killer strikes.
DS Nathan Cody, still bearing the scars of an undercover mission that went horrifyingly wrong, is put on the case. But the police have no leads, except the body of the bird – and the victim’s missing eyes.
As flashbacks from his past begin to intrude, Cody realises he is battling not just a murderer, but his own inner demons too. And then the killer strikes again, and Cody realises the threat isn’t to the people of Liverpool after all – it’s to the police.
Following the success and acclaim of the Callum Doyle novels, A Tapping at My Door is the first instalment of David Jackson’s new Nathan Cody series.
Season Two of my Serial Heroes feature is drawing to a close. Before I hand over to David McCaffrey I would like to do a quick recap and thank each of my guests that have joined me this week.
Steven Dunne for his serial killer post with special mentions for Thomas Harris and Hannibal Lecter.
Caroline Mitchell brought Stephen King’s Bill Hodges – one of my favourite authors but a trilogy I have still to read!
Alan Jones told me he did not read about recurring characters then revealed he was a huge fan of the James Bond stories.
Michael Wood shared his love of one of my personal favourites – Dalziel and Pascoe.
David Young has introduced me to the books of William Ryan and the feedback I had on this post has shown me I have been missing a real treat.
This week (as with Season 1) has been a real treat for me to share. To everyone that has contributed – THANK YOU!
And now one remains. A character that embodies the term Serial Hero. David McCaffrey this is where you take over…
1989.
The most significant date in my life (Kelly is now reading this and thinking ‘the day we got married, birth of your kids…those ringing a bell?’)
But that was the year Batman made it to the big screen. Actually, let me correct that. Batman – The Movie starring Adam West, Burt Ward and the most eclectic and colourful sets of villains ever to grace the cinema screen (well, until Batman and Robin but we don’t talk about that!) hit the screen in 1966.
But the first, modern day, no nonsense, balls out iteration of the Dark Knight detective landed courtesy of Tim Burton in 1989.
Everyone knew it was coming. The trailer had ran before screenings of Wing Commander starring Freddie Prinze Jr, with cinema goers leaving once the trailer ended. No dialogue, just scenes from the film set to Danny Elfman’s amazing and emotive score. And then we had the poster. Again, no fanfare, just the logo there in its entire bat shaped glory. It didn’t need a title beneath or above it – everyone knew what it meant and what it signified.
I had always been a Batman fan, ever since I was a small boy. But with that movie, my whole world exploded I ways I could have never have foreseen. I was introduced on the back of the film to a universe I never even knew existed – comics, graphic novels, annuals, statues, figurines. Everything a fan could ever want and so much more.
But why Batman? What drove the fascination that has grown exponentially year after year in my life to the point that my work colleagues now come back from holidays abroad with Batman comics in a foreign language without any promoting from me to look out from them? They just do it because they know I love it.
We all know the history; Bob Kane and Bill finger created the character as a juxtaposition to Superman introduced the year prior and following a viewing of Leonardo De Vinci’s artwork of a flying machine that came with the quote “Your bird shall have no other wings than that of a bat.”
But what is about that particular character that I love so much that I used to wear t-shirts beneath my school uniform in the hope that having his strength and determination close to me would stop me being beaten up virtually every day and made to eat cigarette butts at the back of the bus (it didn’t but needs must!).
Well, the answer is simple but multifactorial. Let me explain.
Firstly, Batman is not a superhero. That is the most important aspect to remember. He has no superpowers, isn’t invincible and cannot leap tall buildings in a single bound. He is a man. Just a man. Yet that is why he is the most significant and powerful individual in the DC universe (and Marvel…yes, I’m saying it. DC is the best!!!) .
He was a boy who suffered a tragedy and, using his granted considerable money and family renown, travelled the world, gleaning experience from the most powerful and influential teachers, alchemists and fighters in the world to becoming THE world’s great detective. His drive and strength of will to not only avenge his parents murder but to also condition his body and mind to such perfection that he could ultimately be someone who could stop the same tragedy befalling another family made him the ultimate example of willpower and how far an individual can push himself for a belief. This is the man, the human being who became so proficient and skilled that he could take down Superman. Hell, he once took down most of the Justice League! This one man. This one, gifted, intelligent man took down gods. I stand corrected…he is a superhero. More so because he has no super powers. And it is that fact alone that makes him the most compelling of heroes in the whole pantheon of comic books. There would be no Shadow, no Daredevil if not for Batman. He set the stage and drove the aesthetic forward so that he would forever be emulated and copied, but never equalled.
Secondly, Batman is a character that we can all identify with. Superman, Wolverine, Wonder Woman, Iron Man, Captain America, Green Lantern…all awesome characters but can you actually identify with any of them? I imagine not.
But why are we able to identify with him? Perhaps it’s because there is a part of him in each and every one of us. We all have two sides to us, that dark half and a light side. The one we turn towards might depend on the circumstances. Maybe we turn to the darker side when we need to be stronger or fight for something worth fighting for and we turn to the light one for comfort. I turned towards Batman to escape traumatic experiences in my childhood; to escape the psychological abuse my father gave me.
Bruce Wayne turned to his to fight crime and help the people of his city – Gotham City. His life needed that tragedy to bring Batman to life and maybe that’s how it is for us all. Maybe we can only identify with our darker sides because we have suffered. I think that is one of the reasons he is so easy to associate with. We can see his pain and believe it drove him to becoming a better, albeit more violent version of himself. We may not (and hopefully not!) become violent but I do believe we can become stronger and reinvent ourselves as we need to. That’s what Bruce Wayne did. He is us and visa versa.
Thirdly, I think we identify with Batman because we want to be him. I mean, come on, who wouldn’t? I certainly do! “Where does he get those wonderful toys?” Those were the words spoken by his nemesis, The Joker at The Flugelheim Museum.
The Batmobile…cool in any iteration. The grappling hooks…awesome. Batarangs…check, awesome. The suit…check, coolest outfit ever! The voice…well, you could do that without the above, but all the above does make it a million times better!!!
But seriously, I love the character because he makes a difference without those superpowers I mentioned earlier. A normal guy who is rich, yes, but one who dedicated his life to helping others, in this case by fighting crime.
Is he a psychopath? Hmmm, hard one to answer. I think The Joker says it best in The Killing Joke, the seminal Alan Moore/Brian Bolland graphic novel that brought us the first glimpse of whom The Joker perhaps once was. “It only takes one bad day to turn an ordinary man insane.” Batman is that flip side of the coin, with The Joker on the other half. Two sides, Ying and Yang, one unable to exist without the other.
I love Batman because I wish we had him, here, in our world. Gotham City has him to watch over them, but our world is far more complex and insidious. We are not as lucky as they are and we can often only dream of a guardian figure of compassion that watches over us and keeps us safe in our beds, who knows the ways of the dark night and holds fast to his beliefs that he is and can make a difference.
Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, was something I had waited over 30 years to see. My hero battling Superman and knocking him down a peg or two. Yes, the film was heavily criticised, yes, all the Marvel fans are saying their films do comic book characters better (for the record I love the Marvel films, however DC has nailed the television arena in a way Marvel haven’t quite. Though Daredevil is excellent!) but to see my childhood saviour on the big screen with Big Blue was everything I had every dreamt of and more…and I saw it four times. SO I can confirm, it was!
The Killing Joke will finally be released as an animated movie, unrated and in its complete version, with Mark Hamill, Kevin Conroy and the entire original cast doing their original character voices…cannot wait!
The point I am making is that Batman is not only my favourite character for everything I have already mentioned, but because there is so much left to come. Christian Bale was awesome, Ben Affleck, perfect, Michael Keaton will always be my Batman, but the whole appeal of the character is that he can be told in a million different ways (Commissioner Gordon has been him in the comics in the New 52 series) .
But before I go on for another four pages, I shall leave you with this that perfectly sums up why I love Batman so much and will continue to for the remainder of my life most likely. Yes, he saved me in my childhood, yes I get excited about anything Batman related, but this is pretty much it…
‘All cities are Gotham City, warrens of malice where the entireties of the lost are an inconvenience, where shrieks of children are ignored and where innocent lives are slain on a whim. Yet we live here, in our Gotham City, we raise our children, we laugh, we celebrate, we brave the terrors and sometimes, at our best, we deny them with acts of kindness, decency and love. It would be nice if we had heroes to help us. I have often walked through Gotham City and every time I wished someone strong, cunning and compassionate was walking with me. Gotham City has that hero and every night he walks his big city beat.’ Tales of The Dark Knight by Mark Cotta Vaz
David’s novel Hellbound scored 5/5 when I reviewed it. The twist on the serial killer story that Hellbound took actually led me to create a whole series of features which have since become a key part of my author Q&A’s and guest features. It is a book I whole heartedly recommend and you can order a copy here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Hellbound-Tally-Man-David-McCaffrey-ebook/dp/B00PK958I0?ie=UTF8&ref_=asap_bc
You can find David on Twitter @daveymac1975
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Welcome to Day 5 of Serial Heroes. To quickly recap what has gone already there have been contributions from Steven Dunne, Caroline Mitchell, Alan Jones and Michael Wood and they brought Hannibal Lecter, Stephen King, Ian Fleming’s James Bond and the wonderful Andy Dalziell. You can click on the names of my guests to catch up with their featured posts.
Today I am thrilled to be able to welcome David Young to Grab This Book. David’s novel Stasi Child stands out amongst the books I have read this year as its 1970’s East Berlin setting was refreshingly different and I loved the additional political elements which his lead character, Karen Müller, had to face.
I asked David if he had a favourite crime series he would like to discuss…
When I started work on Stasi Child on the first-ever City University Crime Thriller MA late in 2012 I got some fantastic help from tutors on the course – all of whom were published authors. Initially it was Claire McGowan who encouraged the germ of the idea, and Roger (RN) Morris who inadvertently led me to a possible structure – via an introduction to Peter May’s excellent Lewis trilogy (the flip-flopping of two narratives in The Lewis Man is something I ‘borrowed’ for Stasi Child). Then Laura Wilson worked with me on the nuts and bolts over the course of about a year.
But the tutor I missed out on, who ironically was closest in genre to what I was planning, was William Ryan. He started teaching first years just as I started my second year!
One of my fellow students (Debut Dagger winner Jody Sabral) was nevertheless assigned Bill as her personal tutor, started singing his praises, and was the first to give me the heads up about his wonderful Captain Korolev series – of which there have been three novels so far. I soon realised that here – in another country, in another time period – was a series with a very similar concept to mine: police detective trying to fight for the truth in a totalitarian communist state, while all the time being at the very least constrained by a secret police apparatus for which the truth was often best kept hidden.
The Korolev series (The Holy Thief, The Bloody Meadow and The Twelfth Department) starts as Stalin’s Great Terror of the mid- to late- thirties is about to fully get into gear. It’s a period I know something about (my undergraduate final thesis was a study of British attitudes to the Stalinist purges) so that piqued my interest even more. And it’s a frightening backdrop, where paranoia and state snooping rules.
First up is The Holy Thief (2010), and what a tremendous start to the series it is, garnering multiple award shortlistings (including one for the Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year, for which Stasi Child has been longlisted).
Captain Alexei Dmitriyevich Korolev, who works for the criminal investigation division of the Moscow Militia is called in to investigate the body of a young woman found mutilated in a deconsecrated church.
When it turns out the woman was an American citizen, the Soviet secret police – the NKVD – become involved. With enemies of the state being carted off to labour camps in Siberia every few minutes, or worse, Korolev is caught between fighting for the truth, and not falling foul of the Chekists.
Although on the surface loyal to the party, Korolev keeps a Bible under the floorboards – something which, if found, could be his own ticket to a frozen death camp.
Throughout these three exciting novels – for the most part traditional mysteries set against a background of intrigue, but with occasional thriller elements thrown into the mix – fear, suspicion and crackling tension keep the pages turning. Korolev, with his stubborn individualism, is someone you really root for.
Book 2, The Bloody Meadow (published in the US as The Darkening Field) continues the theme, but this time Korolev is despatched to Ukraine to investigate the apparent suicide of a model citizen during the shooting of a film. Once again, the NKVD has its tentacles firmly gripping every part of the story.
For me, it is the weaker novel of the three – but I still thoroughly enjoyed it, which says a lot for the overall quality of the series.
The pick of the bunch, in my view, is the third tale, The Twelfth Department. Here Korolev is about to enjoy a well-earned break, and a visit to Moscow from the young son of his broken marriage, Yuri. But when a top scientist is murdered, Korolev’s holiday plans are in ruins, and he’s thrown into another investigation in which he even begins to suspect the loyalty of his own son – and vice versa.
It’s perhaps the most terrifying of the three, and the ante is upped further when Yuri goes missing. Now, instead of the truth being Korolev’s prime goal, it’s the safety of his own progeny – and that leads to potential compromises of his integrity.
But from Twitter conversations, Ryan has revealed he is also working on a fourth Korolev tale – and that’s something I very much look forward to, as to end the series after just three would be almost as heinous a crime as ones the good Captain investigates in Stalin’s evil empire.
I can exclusively reveal it’s set on a polar icebreaker: left in the ice pack over winter for propaganda purposes. But when some of the crew are murdered, Korolev – who’s in political trouble after uncovering an NKVD mass grave – is flown in to deal with the situation. It soon emerges that the danger doesn’t come just from within the ship – but also from out on the ice.
Day 4 of Serial Heroes. So far we have had Serial Killers and Hannibal from Steven Dunne. Caroline Mitchell brought Stephen King to the party – and that can only be a good thing! Yesterday Alan Jones shared Ian Fleming’s licence to thrill and gave us James Bond.
Today I am delighted to be joined by Michael Wood who has picked a much loved duo from one of the finest crime writers I have read:
I am not just a crime fiction writer, I’m a crime fiction reader. In fact, I devour the genre, and have done since I was a young teenager. I love series crime fiction and one of my all-time favourites is the Dalziel and Pascoe series by the late Reginald Hill.
We were first introduced to Andrew Dalziel and Peter Pascoe in A Clubbable Woman (1970). A fresh-faced university graduate and a toughened, no-nonsense detective were thrown together to investigate the murder of a rugby player’s wife in the heart of Yorkshire. By today’s standards, the ‘opposites attract’ double act may seem cliche but in the 1970s it was a stark contrast staple of crime writing. And it worked.
Why did it work here? Because the man behind the words was Reginald Hill. He wasn’t just a storyteller, a creator of mysteries and plots, he was a wordsmith and a pioneer of the genre. His novels were literary and rich and every word felt like it was carefully chosen. There was no filler, no voyeuristic sensationalism, just pure drama written with heart and genuine likeable characters. Every book was multi-layered: a dark story, a labyrinthine plot with a host of supporting characters – some stuck around for more than one novel, others just a guest appearance, but all of them were well-rounded and deep. The victims, you cared for; the villains, you loathed. Reginald Hill made his novels seem simple as the plot and words flowed almost effortlessly, but you knew they were well researched, well thought out and lovingly written.
So creative and seminal was Reginald Hill that he wrote a short story in which Dalziel and Pascoe investigated the first murder committed on the moon (One Small Step, 1990). In the hands of a lesser crime writer this would have seemed far-fetched and pathetic. In Hill’s dangerously capable hands it was a subtle and engaging story.
To support Dalziel and Pascoe, Hill created DS Edgar Wield, a dour-faced detective who was often in the middle of the titular characters’ many clashes and Peter’s wife, Ellie Pascoe, who had to support her husband and listen to his many rants about his irascible boss. However, unlike many supporting characters in series novels, Edgar and Ellie were very well written, and, on occasion, proved central to the plot.
In his career, Reginald Hill wrote 45 novels, 23 of them featured Dalziel and Pascoe. In 1990 he won the Crime Writer’s Association Gold Dagger Award for Bones and Silence. My favourite of the series is On Beulah Height from 1998 – a dark and unsettling story, tensely and expertly written. It is in my top ten crime fiction novels of all time and I have lost count of the many times I have read this particular book. In fact, I’ve had to buy it more than once to replace a well-thumbed copy.
Reginald Hill died in January 2012. His last Dalziel and Pascoe novel, Midnight Fugue, was published in 2009. It wasn’t the final novel. We didn’t get to say goodbye to the gruff detective and his sensitive sidekick (Dalziel wouldn’t have liked a soppy send-off anyway) but, like all the others, it was a deftly written and a thoroughly enjoyable thriller.
Hill’s legacy will live on in his great writing. I shall continue to read the Dalziel and Pascoe series for many years to come. Without them to influence me, I wouldn’t be a crime writer. I will never be as good as Reginald, but his work will always be an inspiration.
Day Three of Serial Heroes and after Steven Dunne and Caroline Mitchell both discussed authors that have had success in print and on the silver screen I find that my latest guest is keeping that trend running.
When I first asked Alan Jones if he would like to contribute to my Serial Heroes feature his first response was that he didn’t really follow any series of books or characters . However, I don’t think 60 seconds had passed before he suggested a name – possibly one of the most famous names from literature – and from that point I don’t think I gave him the option to back out. Thanks Alan, it’s over to you to explain:
The series of books I love most may be a surprise to many. If I tell you that they are action stories based loosely around crime and the cold war, and involve a lot of shooting, car chases and beautiful women with a cool and sophisticated protagonist, you’ve probably narrowed the list down a bit.
But if I told you that at one point in the series, the main character suffers the death of a loved one in violent circumstances and has mental health issues because of it, culminating in a breakdown and a period in his life when he goes completely off the rails and works for the other side of the ‘law’, would that make you think again. Maybe something Scandinavian or old school American Noir?
The books have all been made into films; tremendously successful but each one in the series getting further and further away from the books, which would make those unlikely.
To confuse you further, the author of this series also wrote a very successful children’s book, published after his death, that also led to a major blockbuster when it hit the big screen.
The lead character is an English gentleman and manners play a big part in all the books of the series.
The series?
When Ian Fleming penned ‘Casino Royale.’, the first of the series of sixteen books that introduced James Bond to the world, he could have no idea that he would spawn on of the longest running and most successful screen franchises ever, with each film outdoing the one before in terms of gadgets, stunts and humour.
And yet, the books themselves are a great read, giving an insight into how the establishment in the post war period saw themselves. Bond, an Englishman in the books, is ever so well mannered, even when he is killing his villains. The books are partly a throwback to the days of the British Empire but underneath it all, they are short detective stories set in exotic locations, usually with world peace and prosperity at stake.
They’re deeper than you would think, and Bond even gets married in one of them. And he has that nervous breakdown, starts working for the Russians and even goes back to nature, living as a fisherman for a year on a Japanese Island.
There is an element of gadgetry, fast cars and gorgeous ladies, but the storylines are grounded enough to make you believe they could almost have happened, and read incredibly well. Bond on paper, in contrast to his screen persona, is darker. He still has that cruel, ruthless streak, he’s decadent, with a lack of ethics, he’s sadistic and he’s a snob. But Ian Fleming injects a little bit of glamour and a hint of humanity into him, and the reader ends up rooting for this flawed but fascinating and exciting character.
My personal favourites are On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, where Bond is at his most human, and the next one after that, ‘You Only Live Twice, which tells of Bond’s descent to probably his lowest point in the whole series.
But they’re all good. Short, succinct, exciting and clever. And if you can find copies with covers from the fifties and sixties, they look bloody great in your bookcase!
And that children’s book?
It surprised me to find out, years after I’d read both it and The James Bond series, that Ian Fleming had also written ‘Chitty Chitty Bang Bang’!
In a feature I have named Serial Heroes have been asking authors to join me to talk about the books they love to read. I have been looking to learn which books my favourite authors turn to, the characters they love to follow or the series of books that they revisit time and time again.
Yesterday Steven Dunne kicked off this week of guest features and discussed serial killers (one of my favourite topics) and gave special mention to Thomas Harris and Hannibal.
Today I am joined by Caroline Mitchell who has picked out books by the undisputed King of fiction writing:
It may sound like an unusual thing for a crime writer to say, but crime thrillers aren’t my favourite books in the world. Why? Because as a serving police officer, working, writing and reading crime is a bit of a busman’s holiday – so I turn to an author who takes me far away from my everyday life into a world of escapism. I adore Stephen King. He is the master of his craft, and when I reach the end of his novels, I’m quite dazed for a day or two, feeling as if a very good friend has walked out of my life.
I was thrilled to discover one of my favourite books, ‘Mr Mercedes’ is proposed to be a trilogy, and after finishing the second in the series, ‘Finders Keepers,’ I cannot wait for the third.
I was immediately captivated by this series, which is as near as you can come to a crime thriller, without any of the usual supernatural / horror I’ve come to expect from King. But it’s so much more than your normal crime thriller. From his idiosyncrasies to convincing dialogue, King’s characterisations are the best I’ve ever read.
In Mr Mercedes, retired cop Bill Hodges has lost all purpose in life, and contemplates ending his life, until he receives a letter from someone purporting to be the driver of a Mercedes, which has taken the lives of eight people as it ploughed through them as they queued at a job fair. It is a crime that was never solved, and Hodges takes it upon himself (with a little help from his friends) to catch the killer, who taunts him in a cat and mouse game.
We are introduced to villain Brady Hartsfield from the start; a psychotic young man with a very troubled past. King offers us glimpses into his life, and the strange relationship he has with his alcoholic mother. Hodges must race to catch Hartsfield, but in true King style, it is an adrenalin fuelled race to stop the killer determined to take more innocent lives before he is finished.
The next book in the series features Bill Hodges investigating another case, with Holly Gibney and Jerome Robinson, characters we became invested in while reading book one. It was great spending time with them again, although we are focused on an entirely different crime, it is every bit as dangerous, featuring Morris Bellamy, a man fresh from prison, with nothing to lose. It’s a great novel, which I couldn’t put down.
As a writer myself, I sometimes shake my head in awe at King’s work, as he draws me into his stories. He captures humanity like an art form, leaving me completely engrossed. Stephen King has something for everyone, and there’s no better place to start than hopping on board with Mr Mercedes.
On the 30th anniversary of the Chernobyl Disaster I get to welcome two guests to Grab This Book who are laying strong claim to owning the hashtag #UkrainianNoir.
J.M. Hewitt’s novel Exclusion Zone is based in Chernobyl and introduces us to Detective Alex Harvey. Joining her today is Alex Shaw, author of the Aiden Snow SAS thrillers and former resident of the Ukraine.
This is the 4th ‘Conversation’ I have had the privilege to share. It is always my hope that these ‘chats’ will allow a full conversation to flow and avoid the inflexibility of a Q&A (where I ask questions but cannot respond to the replies). Not a problem here – before I could even ask my first question the conversation was well underway and kept going…
JMH: I didn’t know Alex Shaw until he read my article in the CWA’s ‘Red Herrings’ magazine and kindly messaged me via my Facebook page to say we share the same publisher and that his novels are based in Ukraine (as is my crime fiction debut, Exclusion Zone.) So with these things in common we’ve had some nice chats. Alex has branded us Ukrainian Noir, which I can see on a festival panel banner one day!
Although my next book is based in Scheveningen, Holland, so perhaps we’ll just have to call ourselves Euro Noir as we move onwards!
I guess the most obvious question to begin with is why Ukraine? Well, more specifically my novel is based in Chernobyl, abandoned land of wilderness which has been reclaimed by nature since the 1986 nuclear disaster. A place that is in Europe that cannot be lived in is endlessly fascinating to me.
And Alex, what about your Ukrainian connection?
AS: I went to Kyiv in 1996, at the time I knew nothing about the place at all, the funny thing was the contemporary literary world didn’t either. As I didn’t have a TV I read a lot and started to get annoyed that all spy fiction was ignoring Europe’s largest country. Moscow was always mentioned but Kyiv? One ‘SAS’ author mentioned the place but got a lot of aspects factually incorrect. That made me think, in my pompous youth, that I could do better. I wasn’t an expert on the SAS but I’d become an expert on Ukraine, so I started to write. With a lot of time wasted, twelve years later I finished ‘Hetman’ which was later commercially re-published by Endeavour Press as ‘Cold Blood’.
I feel a strong connection to Ukraine as I met my wife there (on my first day in Kyiv, we got married seven years later). I’m English but I feel like a seaside stick of rock, it may say ‘Worthing’ on the outside but if you cut me in half you’ll see ‘Ukraine’ printed within.
JMH: I love your ‘stick of rock’ analogy! I can identify with this, somewhat. My family (on my mother’s side) were born and raised in the district of Ternopol, Poland. With the outbreak of world war II, my grandfather went to fight in the Polish Airforce. While he was away, the borders were redrawn, Ternopol now belonged to Ukraine and his entire family were forcibly resettled 1000km away in Zielona Gora.
After the war, during which he was interned in an Italian P.O.W camp, he found himself in England and joined the British Airforce. He searched for the rest of his life for his lost family, but it would be fifty years until myself and my mother finally found them. He had long since passed away, in fact, I never even met my Grandfather, but the history was engrained so deeply within me.
In 2004, when we found our missing family members, it opened up a whole new chapter and those missing fifty years were filled in on both sides. My parents visited Poland for the first time in the winter of 2004 and presented my grandfather’s long lost sisters with the medals he had been awarded during his service.
I was speaking with one of my cousin’s in Poland the other week and I was telling him about my novel, Exclusion Zone. He had so much information for me, again, living only just over 1000km away. Interestingly, had the family been allowed to stay in Ternopol, they would have been closer by half!
My cousin had a childhood cancer, and he confided that they are certain it stemmed from the Chernobyl nuclear disaster.
I believe my Polish heritage kick-started my love of writing about locations and I adore my Polish family. They are very different to the majority of us Brits; far more politically motivated, very much ‘in the know’ about historical events, especially that of the Iron Curtain era and they are so very proud of where they come from. I can see myself writing a memoir style fiction about my grandfather’s adventures in the future.
How about you, Alex? Do you think you will continue setting your work in Ukraine, or will Aidan Snow relocate?
AS: Wow, that’s quite an incredible story. It’s always interesting to hear of other authors’ links with Eastern Europe. I’ll most definitely re-visit Ukraine as a backdrop. When I started to write the second Aidan Snow novel ‘Cold Black’ I was trying to think how I could use Ukraine in it again. Luckily an idea came to me which made Ukraine an integral part of the narrative, book three ‘Cold East’ was much easier to set in Ukraine. Will Aidan Snow be in Ukraine again? Yes.
I’m not sure as yet where the next Aidan Snow novel will be set but I am writing another crime thriller set in Kyiv. It follows the joint investigation carried out by the Finnish police and the Ukrainian SBU as such one of my favourite characters – Director Dudka takes centre stage along with his department. Now that will be hopefully the next bit of #UkrainianNoir
Will you return to Ukraine as a setting again or will each novel be set in a new location?
JMH: Kyiv is certainly a place I’d love to visit, it looks absolutely gorgeous! I do think that I will return to Ukraine at some point in my novels, I’ve got a funny feeling that Alex Harvey and Elian Gould (my protagonists) have unfinished business there.
My next novel, of which I am 50,000 words in, is set in the Dutch seaside resort of Scheveningen. It is a place that I’ve been and that I love. As I like to feature actual events in my books I can tell you it was hard to find any dastardly deeds that occurred there. But I found one, just the one particularly gruesome murder which had shades of Jeffrey Dahmer about it, so that one should make for an interesting read.
So, Alex, your novels feature quite heavily the S.A.S along with police procedure, do you have personal experience with those authorities?
AS: I write about things that interest me and since being a small boy and seeing them storm the Iranian Embassy I’ve been a fan of the SAS. I don’t have any personal experience of the SAS or in fact UK police & security procedure but I do have a few contacts in the Ukrainian services and friend who is ex-MI6. I too like to use real events in my writing, or at least as a backdrop to my stories as it gives them more depth, more plausibility. I’m constantly getting ideas or part-ideas from news stories.
Did you start to write your new novel whilst you were on location Holland or did the idea of setting it there come to you later?
JMH: I totally identify with getting ideas from news stories and real life occurrences. Seeing them storm the Iranian Embassy must have been a real sight to see. Was it that event that led you to a ‘life of crime’? Speaking of which, have you read the Martin McGartland novels? He wasn’t in the S.A.S, I think it was MI5, but I read those for research when I wrote a novel about the Northern Ireland Troubles and they made for some pretty terrifying reading!
I guess we’re about the same age, so the I.R.A and the subsequent events was the war of my generation. I’m also interested in the Cuban Crisis and the Vietnam War. All are in living history and there are many movies and books that reflect many different sides to the stories. I read The Theseus Paradox by David Videcette recently and it was interesting to get an inside view of our most recent war, especially with regards to the weaponry and warfare used. I did get the idea of using Scheveningen as a location. My partner lived and worked there years ago, and it’s always held a special place in his heart. He took me there and I could immediately see why he loved it so. The Hague and the beachside area, the people, the bookstores, the museums, everything is quite captivating. As I mentioned before, it’s so beautiful I worried that I wouldn’t be able to find a dark side to it to base my crime novel, but… if you look hard enough you will find! So I guess we owe our respective partner’s something in relation to the settings of our books. Although you were already in Ukraine, do you think your wife showed you parts that you might not have experienced had you not met her? What does she think of your novels – and do you use her as a reference guide?
Alex Shaw
AS: I’ve read Martin McGartland’s books and he’s a Facebook friend of mine, what he went through as an MI5 mole in the IRA was horrific. He part inspired me to write my short story Hetman Hard Kill which shows Aidan Snow in his SAS days before SIS (MI6). I do like a good story about someone on the run. In terms of writing about conflict I’ve got a lot of material to cover with Russia’s illegal annexation of Crimea and invasion of Eastern Ukraine, but I do like a good old fashioned action film.
‘Cold Black’ has some real life events in it, for example it referenced an al-Qaeda attack on an expat complex in Saudi Arabia, and I then wrote about further fictional attacks. I’d been to Saudi on several occasions with British Government Trade Missions when I worked in export sales for Siemens. The last time I was there I was looking in a shop window and remember feeling a sudden sense of unease. A week later a terrorist bomb ripped the place apart.
When I went to Ukraine I think I had a more ‘authentic’ experience than most expats. Because I was the youngest foreigner in the country at the time (i.e. I wasn’t a middle-aged man in a suit working for a multi-national company) I spent much more time with real Ukrainian people. I was often the only foreigner on the metro, in the market or at the Gastronom (general grocery store) but that’s not to say that I didn’t go to expat hang outs. Galia (my wife) and I used to explore a lot and I learned an awful lot about Kyiv, without her and her family – who accepted me instantly as one of them – I don’t think I would have loved my time in Ukraine as much as I did. I can honestly say that it is my favourite city. My wife does read my work but after it’s been published, I do ask her questions if I can’t find the specific information on the internet. Her cousin, who is my Ukrainian brother, is a former special anti-narcotics police officer, and also corrects me if any of my procedural facts are incorrect.
Do you feel any different as an author now that you are commercially published? What do you enjoy most about writing?
JMH: Hold on, you’re a friend of Martin McGartland on Facebook? I’m just having a fan moment here!
I read Hetman: Hard Kill in March of this year and really enjoyed it. It took me back to my days of research, and that’s an area I’ve not visited for many years so it was good to revisit it. And it definitely gave me an appetite for reading more Aidan Snow escapades.
I got shivers with your story about the terrorist bomb one week after you’d been there. With regards to writing, it is very much an addiction and I love every single part of it. The research is my favourite, I have slightly geeky tendencies and I want to know everything about what I’m writing, to ensure it is correct. In ‘Reckoning Point’, my work in progress, I performed my first autopsy and I gave myself a little online tutorial to make sure I was writing it as it would happen in real life.
JM Hewitt
And writing – especially a crime fiction novel – is like a puzzle. For the reader it’s a ‘who dunnit’ but this is the same for the author in a sense. It might be just me but I don’t sit down at chapter one knowing exactly what’s going to happen, and when that last piece of the jigsaw falls into place (invariably just as I’m about to drop off to sleep at night) it’s a thrilling moment!
Being commercially published has been such a different experience for me. When my novels were published by a small independent press in 2010 and 2013, I didn’t have many contacts or friends within the industry. I actually reference this in the acknowledgments of ‘Exclusion Zone’, I call it The Snowball Effect. In the last few years I’ve been so lucky to attend a lot of literary events and make a fair few genuine friends. So between the fact that I’m now commercially published coupled with the support I’ve had really has made a difference. And it seems that it was just the beginning, more people are being added all the time, like you and Grab This Book’s Gordon!
And I always loved writing and I always wanted to be a published author, but as I mentioned earlier, right now, it’s almost like a drug. I’ve got so many ideas and plans for future work that I can barely keep up. I had my first tentative venture into the horror genre recently, and found out just this week that my entry was among the fifty chosen short stories that will be published in the Twisted 50 anthology. I’m constantly thinking about my Detective Alex Harvey series, which was going to be a trilogy but I now see it going further than that, and a completed but as yet unpublished Holocaust novel is out on submission. Last but not least, my family memoir that I want to fictionalise, with a working title of ‘From Land to Air’.
Do you work the same, Alex? How far ahead are you planning, and what are you working on right now?
AS: I’ve got several ideas in various stages of development. In addition to my Aidan Snow series I wrote a vampire book a few years ago and every other week I get another email asking me when the next one is out. I’ve also got an idea for a historical thriller based in Ukraine using my character Dudka when he was a young KGB officer but that’s a long way off.
In my immediate future I’ve got to write my Finnish/Ukrainian crime thriller and then the next Aidan Snow. And, I almost forgot I’ve got the launch of Cold Black in German happening next month. The funny thing is that I actually sell more in Germany than any other market, the German edition of Cold East has been in the top 5 in its category now since December and hovers between 250 – 1000 overall on amazon.de. It’s funny, you never know who or where your work will be the most liked.
So tell me about this book launch of yours, I hear the mayor is going to be there?
JMH: My launch! Well, yes, the Mayor of Felixstowe is coming along, which is very exciting. It is my first ever book launch and it is being held in a wonderful independent bookstore in my home town of Felixstowe, called Stillwater Books. Stillwater are the ‘onsite’ book shop for the Felixstowe Book Festival which is held every June, and when I approached Will he was so enthusiastic about holding a little party for Exclusion Zone.
As you know, Exclusion Zone is based in Chernobyl, following two timelines; directly after the nuclear incident in 1986 and present day. It was always a kind of fantasy to hold my book launch on the 30th anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster, and guess what – it is going to be!
So yes, the Mayor will be there, along with my good friend and fellow local author, Ruth Dugdall. Her presence will make the whole evening a lot less nerve racking, because she has such a great aura about her, especially in social situations.
I’ll be signing copies of Exclusion Zone and giving an interview to our local newspaper. Wish me luck! A vampire book! I am going to have to check that out, I went through a stage in my early twenties of becoming totally addicted to Anne Rice and her Vampire Chronicles. In fact I re-read them all again last year. Normally I read about 85% crime fiction, but I do like to re-visit old friends such as The Vampire Chronicles, or Stephen King’s The Dark Tower series. Right now I’m reading the third instalment of Marnie Riches The Girl Who… series. Marnie and her protagonist were a great source of inspiration for Exclusion Zone, I’m not sure what it was really, but those books really resonated with me. Marnie has just signed a deal for four more crime fiction novels, which is great news.
What are you reading right now, Alex? And do you expand into reading other genres?
AS: I met hordes of great crime writers at CrimeFest last year, including Lee Child and Maj Sjöwal – whom I had the privilege to share a table with at the Gala Awards Dinner along with Barry Forshaw, and since then have started to read more Crime Thrillers, I usually read espionage and action thrillers for me this is a change of genre. I’ve just finished reading ‘Ordeal’, the latest William Wisting crime thriller from Jorn Lier Horst, whom I also met and I’ve just pre-ordered the next Anna Fekete thriller by Kati Hiekkapelto. This last year has been the year when I have really felt part of a crime/thriller writing community and this will continue with my appearance at Newcastle Noir.
Chornobyl has always fascinated me too. Ukraine was lucky that the wind was blowing to the north when reactor number 4 exploded. I arrived in Kyiv in 96, so ten years after the event. I met one person who’d been a liquidator, cleaning up after the event and got to see her protective gas mask and coat which she kept in her house (I rented the ground floor). I don’t know how close she was to the actual reactor. Then I met a cameraman who’d been filming a parade in Pripyat when it was announced, a week after the event, that there had been an accident. Years later when I worked for Siemens I went to the town of ‘Slavutech’ which was built to house the evacuees from the exclusion zone. It had areas that were built to represent different parts of the Soviet Union i.e. Uzbekistan, Georgia etc. And each section was built by labourers from the corresponding part of the USSR. They built a new hospital but it was never used as one so they turned into a hotel. I was the first foreigner they’d had stay there. The Exclusion Zone features a little in ‘Cold Black’.
Good luck with the book launch. I’ve not had one as yet but if all goes well with a something I am working on at the moment I will by this time next year. I may even had a launch in Kyiv.
JMH: Those are some fine names to share a table with! I’ve just been looking at the programme for Newcastle Noir and I like the sound of your panel – Writing Elsewhere. I don’t know of any other ‘group’ that is as friendly and welcoming as the crime and thriller writing community. There seems to be an unwritten code of support and friendship, which is really wonderful.
I hope we catch up at an event this year or next, I can take notes on your Ukraine experiences, which sound endlessly fascinating.
So, I suppose we should wrap it up – although I could go on chatting forever, I’ve had enormous fun talking to you and hopefully I’ll get the chance to talk to both you and Gordon in person soon!
Thank you for your well wishes for the launch, and good luck with your projects, I’ll be looking forward to getting to know Aidan Shaw a bit better over the coming months.
And if you have a launch party in Kyiv, I’ll watch out for my invitation!
AS: Great chatting to you too. It’s funny, I find it easier to write than I do to talk about my work, all be in in a virtual chat!
I agree that the crime writing community are hugely supportive and I think that is one reason for my success thus far, that other authors have been selfless in reading and recommending my work.
Hopefully, we can meet up at some point but until then good luck, once more, with your launch – I’ll be there in spirit (especially if you have any Ukrainian Vodka)!!!
Exclusion Zone is J.M. Hewitt’s debut crime fiction novel. Set in the wilderness of Chernobyl the story follows two timelines, present day and immediately after the nuclear explosion in 1986. It is the first in the Detective Alex Harvey series. You can order it here: http://www.amazon.co.uk/J.-M.-Hewitt/e/B01BT1SJRY/ref=dp_byline_cont_book_1
This is the third Conversation guest post I have been able to share. I wish I could say that I had planned this wonderful symmetry, however, it is by sheer chance that my latest guests have both just released the third novel in their respective series.
Frequent visitors to Grab This Book will know that I am huge fan of The Girl Who series by Marnie Riches and also of Sarah Hilary’s Marnie Rome thrillers. I make no secret of the fact I enjoy the darker crime novels and Sarah and Marnie’s books have consistently scored my highest review scores as they write the books I love to read.
In my ongoing attempts to give my guests the best chance to discuss their books (away from an inflexible pre-prepared Q&A format) I was delighted when Sarah and Marnie agreed to join me to chat about their ‘kick ass’ heroines…and what-ever else that may crop up!
G: Marnie, we are starting our chat just a few days after the launch of The Girl Who Walked in the Shadows – the 3rd outing for George McKenzie. I have seen quite a few reviews suggesting that this is her darkest adventure thus far. The first two books were no gentle stroll in the park for George, so did you feel that you raised the stakes this time around?
MR: Thanks for this. My publisher had suggested I continue a theme of sexuality and traffic into this third book. I guess you don’t notice common themes emerging in your work until you’ve written more than one novel. So, it seemed appropriate to explore the subject matter of child-trafficking and paedophile rings in The Girl Who Walked in the Shadows. I felt I could do the topic justice. I still wanted the book to be a serial killer thriller, as I like to read that sort of thing myself, but I did have memories of the Madeleine McCann disappearance churning away in the back of my mind for years. It struck a chord with me as a parent – hence, a thriller with two mysteries at its heart emerged: Jack Frost with his lethal icicles, and the disappearance of the Deenen toddlers. So, yes. In a bid to avoid writing a samey, formulaic third installment in my series, I upped the ante and went darker and more complex. It seems to be going down well with readers.
What about you, Sarah? What demons did you face in coming up with a story-line for your third?
SH: Marnie, it’s interesting what you say about not noticing common themes until you’ve written a book or two. That really came home to me when I was writing book three. I knew I was affected by my family history – my mother was a child internee of the Japanese during WWII – but I hadn’t realised how strongly I felt about the twin themes of fear and captivity until I was writing Tastes Like Fear. It took a reader to point out that I often write about children who are trapped or taken, or both. Marnie’s backstory (love that you share a first name with my heroine, btw!) involves quite a lot of demon-facing, and at one level she’s trapped by her inability to let go of her past. So Tastes Like Fear works in terms of the standalone story, which is about lost teenagers thinking they’ve found a safe place, and the longer story that underpins the series.
Marnie, how far ahead do you plan in terms of George’s story? Do you know where she’s headed, or do you like to be surprised, book by book?
MR: Wow, Sarah. You have such an interesting family history. That must have been very difficult for your mother to get over, as childhood events have such an impact on adult life. In a similar vein to your Mum and Marnie Rome and George McKenzie, I endured traumatic events when I was younger (nothing like your mother’s experience, of course) where I was subject to being terrorized on a very rough council estate over a period of many years. My mother and I acted as magnets for the feral kids who roamed the estate in gangs. The petrol-bombing scene in The Girl Who Wouldn’t Die actually happened to me, so that phenomenon of the fight or flight impulse never being far beneath the surface had to be a major characteristic in George, else she wouldn’t have been mine. Over the series, George works hard to subvert these destructive impulses that are a hangover from her earlier years.
I know George will follow an arc but I don’t know until I start to write exactly what shape that will take. She is not me, but her development is influenced by my own personal development to an extent. So, as she ages, she may have more control over her extremes of emotional and may be more stoic about the treacherous behaviour of family members, for example. I have to know what the standalone story will be for the next book – I have had to submit proposed outlines for The Girl Who Broke the Rules and The Girl Who Walked in the Shadows, to get my publisher’s prior approval – but George’s long game is mine to play…
You and I both have a toughie of a female protagonist, paired with somewhat beta males in Marnie & Noah and George & Van den Bergen. What made you choose that dynamic?
SH: Marnie, I may have some dark family history but how dreadful for you to have lived through such trauma as a child. By contrast I was fortunate enough to have an extremely secure and happy childhood. Which is perhaps why I gravitated towards horror stories and crime fiction as a way of expanding my emotional arsenal, vicariously as it were. I’ve not experienced even a little of what my Marnie has, but perhaps I’m channelling some creative demons into her? Hard to say, but I am wedded to her darkness. While I would like her to find peace from time to time, I have no end game in sight that would involve a ‘happily ever after’ scenario. Some people, I think, are born into the world to carry weight on their shoulders (I do know a little about this, personally) and Marnie is one of that breed. The world needs heroes like Marnie and George.
Do you love writing Van den Bergen as much as I love writing Noah? I’m not sure what drew me to the dynamic, but I find it fascinating (and useful, in terms of plot and character) to see Marnie through Noah’s eyes. Their relationship has changed a lot since Someone Else’s Skin. Marnie trusts Noah now, and she even confides in him. Has the dynamic between Van den Bergen and George changed as you’ve been writing the three (soon to be four) books?
MR: Van den Bergen is one of those people who carries a burden. He suffers with anxiety disorder and the occasional slide into full-on depression. I enjoy writing him because he’s such a loveable, cantankerous bastard with such unimpeachable morals. I like exploring his masculinity – it’s fascinating to be able to inhabit a man’s body and a man’s take on the world through my writing.
George, on the other hand, is an optimist at heart, with an incredible capacity to love, tempered by her worldly-wise cynicism. She’s a heroine because she’s had a hard start and has had to become extremely tough and resilient to survive and flourish. She has inner steel and discipline, where her family life is chaotic to say the least.
George and Van den Bergen were always attracted to one another – they respected each others’ grit, determination and attention to detail from the word go, as well as there being bonkers sexual chemistry. Their relationship has become more antagonistic over time, simply because of Van den Bergen’s anxiety about his age – there’s a twenty-year age gap. He drops the shutters on passionate George, who trusts him with her heart so readily. She wants to beat him to a pulp for it.
My main characters both contain a healthy dose of me but are fundamentally different. George is Black and young. Noah is a gay man. Neither Black women nor gay men are particularly well represented in crime fiction. How much of you is in your characters and what made you want to write Noah as gay?
SH: I will confess to a little wish fulfilment when it comes to Marnie, but there is nothing of me in my characters. It’s pure imagination. I wish I had Marnie’s courage and her dry wit, and that I’d been a rebellious teenager, even just for a short while. But I was a very good girl; maybe I’m acting out a fantasy of a misspent youth …
When it comes to Noah, I’m not sure why I wanted to write him as gay, other than as you say, because of under-representation in the genre. I’ve written quite a lot of gay men, so I knew I could do it and I knew that I’d enjoy writing him. A half-Jamaican openly and happily gay man, who happens to also be a detective sergeant with the Met Police. The only conscious decision I made was that his race and sexuality wouldn’t define him. I didn’t want to write about a conflicted character who felt the lash of homophobia and racism every day, or struggled to find personal and professional happiness. Noah is extremely content in his own skin. He goes home to a happy, secure life. He’s armour-plated against the casual bullying in the workplace; nothing fazes him, or not for long. I love Noah.
Let’s talk about our supporting cast. Are there any characters in the standalone plots within each book which you’d like to see return in future books? Or any you’d consider for a spin-off series of their own?
MR: Similarly, it was a conscious choice for me to make George mixed race, as commercial crime fiction is a very white realm and I wanted to redress that balance somewhat in having a strong Black female lead – most importantly, a lead who isn’t a victim and whose strength does not lie in typically masculine characteristics.
As far as reprising the roles of secondary characters goes, both family members and key figures in the criminal underworld crop up repeatedly in the standalone stories. They are essential to the overarching themes that span the series – George’s relationship to her parents and an examination of the rotten heart of trafficking. But George and Van den Bergen are very much the stars. At this stage, I can’t envisage spin-offs. I would, however, like to see more of Silas Holm. In The Girl Who Broke the Rules, he is one of George’s study subjects – an amputee convicted serial murderer and award-winning anaesthetist. He’s intelligent, charming and warped as hell. I think we might see him putting in another appearance. I’ll think on it…
What about you? Do you think you’ll tire of writing about Marnie and Noah? Are there subsidiary characters who would make interesting main protagonists themselves? I’ve worked hard to keep all three of my books familiar and yet, distinctly different from one another – especially The Girl Who Walked in the Shadows. What about you? Are you concerned about your writing becoming formulaic over time, as is often the problem with longer running series?
Photo by Linda Nylind.
SH: Silas Holm is a great name as well. I can see a spin-off series for Silas.
One reader did suggest that Noah’s reprobate kid brother, Sol, should have his own series, but I dunno. Someone else would have to write it, I think. I’m too busy – and happy – writing Marnie and Noah. I’m quite intrigued by the idea of some early (pre-series) stories, maybe about Marnie’s wild youth, or Noah’s adventures growing up. Although I do think most of my interest lies in unwrapping them further as the series progresses. Marnie, especially, is still keeping secrets from me (Marnie is made of secrets). In Tastes Like Fear, Noah surprised me with a big secret from his youth, so maybe he has a few tricks up his sleeve, also. As long as they can keep evolving as characters then I don’t need to worry about becoming formulaic.
What long-running crime series do you most enjoy? I’ve just discovered Mick Herron’s stupendous spy thriller series that started with Slow Horses. And I’m a sucker for Jonathan Kellerman’s Alex Delaware series.
MR: I’ve enjoyed Jo Nesbo’s Harry Hole series best, I guess. He’s been going for many, many books and the stories still work well as standalones. By Phantom, however, I did think it was time to wrap things up for Harry and I’m surprised that Police was released. Despite that, it was an enjoyable read. I read a lot of kids’ fiction too, as I used to write that. I enjoyed many of Eoin Colfer’s Artemis Fowl books and also Christopher Paolini’s Inheritance Cycle. Stieg Larsson’s Millennium Trilogy was brill but I haven’t yet read Lagercrantz’s fourth offering, so my jury is out on that.
I think the joy of a great series is knowing when to stop. Personally, I think George has a good few more stories in her, but I will have to make swingeing changes to the cast list to keep it fresh overall. As long as readers want her, I will write her. Heroines like her come once in a writer’s lifetime – she’s certainly too good to shelve after a mere handful of books. She still has plenty to say!
SH: Long live George and Marnie! Great chat, thanks for hosting, Gordon, and a big thank you to our readers who keep us motivated to write more stories with our series characters.
I would like to extend a massive ‘Thank You’ to Sarah and Marnie for giving me the opportunity to eavesdrop on their conversation. As you can see my involvement was minimal but I don’t have the words to describe how much I enjoyed seeing their chat come together.
Last year I invited James Law and Susi Holliday to join me for a chat at Grab This Book. My plan had been to try and recreate the feel of a festival event or a book launch conversation in a single blog post. It was great fun to do, but my plan to bring together two strangers who would share the experience of being published for the first time slightly missed the mark when I ‘introduced’ two good friends.
I was keen to invite more guests to join me this year and, on finishing the astonishing In Her Wake by Amanda Jennings, I contacted Amanda to ask if she would be interested in chatting to a friend (with me listening in). Having clarified what I was hoping to achieve through the ‘chat’, Amanda suggested that Tammy Cohen may be willing to join in. I was beyond delighted when Tammy agreed.
This is what happened next:
GTB: Hi Tammy, Amanda thanks for joining me. Unlike the last time I had two guests here for a chat, I know in advance that you are good friends outwith the Social Media world. Should I be worried about what I may have let myself in for?
Amanda:Well, Tammy is a terrible influence on me, to be honest. We bonded on Twitter over a shared envy of the black-edged pages of a hardback edition of Gone Girl. God, I really want black-edged pages one day. When you get black-edged pages you know you’ve made it.
I can’t remember when we first met in real life, probably because Cohen fed me too much wine. I speak to her quite regularly on the phone because she is one of the few people who understands the self-doubt that plagues me as a writer. Also, she is generally having a worse day than me, so we have a jolly good moan, then a bit of a laugh, and maybe a chat about the film script we will one day write together, which we’ve been talking about – but not writing – for ages.
Tammy:I think saying I’m generally having a worse day than you is pretty fair actually, Amanda. I like to think of it as an extra service I offer my writer friends to convince them things aren’t going so badly for them after all.
Seriously though, having close writer friends like Amanda is one of the unforeseen upsides of being published. There are so many neuroses tied up in spending the best part of a year holed up in your own head that only someone else who does the same thing can really understand that particular blend of agony, tedium, self-loathing mixed with the (very) occasional bolt of elation it induces. And then when you couple that with the other seemingly irreconcilable aspects of being published – having to stand up in front of lots of people and waffle on in a (hopefully) coherent way and being expected to go out and promote your own book, you can understand how vital it is to be able to offload to someone who knows what you’re going on about.
The thing is, writing is such a privilege, and I don’t think any of us ever forget that, but it can also be very socially isolating, so having writer mates is such a relief. When we’re trying to distract ourselves from having to work, there is no subject too minor for Amanda and I to discuss at ridiculous length. So, Gordon, the short answer to your question is yes, you should be afraid. Very afraid.
GTB: I will consider myself suitably warned and am now drawing some small comfort from the fact I am in a different country from you both!
So, Amanda’s latest book has just released and Tammy you are rapidly approaching your next publication day.
Until now much of what you have been working on is shrouded in secrecy. Amanda, did unleashing In Her Wake bring new fears or was there an overwhelming feeling of relief that the edits and revisions were done?
Amanda:This book has been with me for such a long time, and has undergone quite a transformation through multiple rewrites and the gained experience of publishing two books between writing the first draft and publication, that by the time we neared publication I was actually quite pleased not to have to read it again.
But at the same time, there was great trepidation. At this stage the book is no longer mine. It’s under the control of my editor and publishing house, so even if I wanted to shout ‘no, I’m not ready, don’t publish it!’ I couldn’t. It’s a very surreal feeling to send that final, FINAL, version – edited, revised, and proofed – knowing it’s heading out into the big bad world.
I always feel like I should crack open the Champagne to celebrate, but really I just want to hide beneath the duvet for six months! This is the moment when the real self-doubt sets in, but it coincides with the time when you have to shout about it and convince people they will love reading it! This is why authors love book bloggers so much. To have early support, and people who want to share your book, helps so much in these early days.
Tammy:Amanda is being modest about her ‘early support’. In reality there was so much fanfaring about In Her Wake from the blogging and writing communities around publication day that we had to decree that day #InHerWake Day for ever more. But she’s absolutely right about that weird, seemingly neverending pre-publication limbo between signing off the final page proofs and waiting for the first independent, unbiased reviews to come in. And of course during that wait you (for which read ‘I’) convince yourself that the book is absolutely the worst thing ever written, and everybody is going to hate it and make you into a laughing stock when it eventually does come out.
At the moment I’m two and a half weeks away from publication of When She Was Bad, and luckily I’ve had some great feedback from bloggers and early reviewers on NetGalley and Lovereading, so I’m slightly less convinced that people will be openly pointing and jeering in the streets. Only slightly mind.
I find the only way not to obsess about publication is to have started a new project, so my focus isn’t on the book that’s coming out but the book I’m writing next. Amanda, have you got any tricks up your sleeve to stop you refreshing your Amazon rankings every hour?
Amanda:Every hour? *looks sheepish* You mean every ten minutes is too often? I think shifting focus on to another project is by far the most sensible thing to do. The trouble is there’s always something akin to a mourning period for me, when my brain seems locked on that last book, unable to fully dive into the next. I’m in that peculiar limbo now, my new project is there, emerging through the mist so that I can just make out the characters and have a glimpse of the story, but not quite been grabbed yet. It will come. Perhaps I need to cut down the checking of Amazon rankings to only once per hour…
While we’re talking about early reviews, I’m lucky enough to say I’ve read an early copy of When She Was Bad and loved it. It’s brilliant to see it getting reviewed so well. The book gives us a delicious window into the world of office politics with all the dark humour and piercing observation that we’ve come to expect from you. I’d love to know what drew you to the idea of exploring the realms of ‘Office Noir’?
Tammy:Thank you Amanda, for that seamless invitation to talk about MY NEW BOOK! And for saying such kind things about it too. The Office Noir (or Paperclip Lit if you prefer) aspect of ‘When She Was Bad’ came about really because I couldn’t face the idea of writing another thriller with a domestic setting. Don’t get me wrong, I love reading about dysfunctional marriages and dark family secrets, but I felt I needed a break from writing about that. And if you want to get right away from the domestic, the workplace is the obvious setting.
Many of us spend more of our lives with our workmates than with our families, yet how much do we really know about them – what their background is, and what they’re capable of? In ‘When She Was Bad’, a group of people who’ve been working together more or less harmoniously for years find their relationships rapidly unravelling when a bullying boss is introduced into the department operating a divide-and-rule style of management . As the atmosphere becomes increasingly toxic, the one-time friends turn on each other, with catastrophic results.
While I was writing the book, I wondered at points if it was too far fetched, yet almost everyone who has read it has come back with some experience of their own of working in a toxic work environment, and said how much they could relate, so Office Noir has clearly hit a nerve!
Having said that, my next project has nothing to do with offices or workplaces. I’m not saying exactly what it is, in case it doesn’t come off, but it’s a completely new direction for me, which is very exciting!
GTB: Tammy, I love the idea of Office Noir, I can relate to the idea of a dysfunctional office environment as I have worked in my fair share of those down the years! It may surprise some readers to even think that writers would know what office life is like…have you not ALWAYS been authors? I know it was something of a shock to me when (around 10 years ago) I was told that the guy sitting behind me at ‘The Bank’ was an author – what was he doing in a bank if he wrote books?
Tammy:Gordon, I love the idea that we ought to be somehow born fully formed as authors, maybe with a little pencil stub behind our ears. Like most of us I did lots of jobs when I first started out, including teaching English in Spain and secretarial work (at which I was agonisngly rubbish). Finally I got into journalism and worked in magazines and newspapers for many years, during which time I worked in numerous offices. The thing about offices is, it doesn’t matter whether it’s the local council refuse collection office or a supposedly swanky magazine office – the politics is exactly the same. In fact the bullying boss in When She Was Bad was directly inspired by a boss I once had on a magazine. And no, I’m not naming any names!
Amanda:I’m certainly happy to have a career that involves my office being next door to my kitchen at home. Despite loving people and being very sociable, I adore working in solitary. I am such a chatterbox and love a bit of gossip and am far too distractible, so working in an office environment would wreak havoc on my output! I work in my slippers, with my dog at my feet and my cat on a chair next to me (or lying on the keyboard, depending on her state of mind and her need for attention) and my water-cooler moments are spent gazing out of the window. If I need interaction to distract me, I have Twitter, of course. That, and my address book full of writers to call…
Not wishing to distract Amanda or Tammy any further, this seems the perfect time to wrap up for now. I suspect I will get in trouble for not asking for more information on the Cohen/Jennings film script. If someone wants to pick that one up at a later date then I can only suggest that you ask your question at a point when they both pause for breath.
I would like to thank Amanda and Tammy for agreeing to join me and for letting me ‘listen’ to their chat. They cannot know how much enjoyment each stage of their conversation brought me and they very kindly left me with hardly any editing to do – perfect guests!
This is Day three of a week-long celebration of the world of Charlie Parker which has been brought to us by John Connolly. On 7th April 2016 the 14th Charlie Parker novel will be published by Hodder: A Time of Torment.
Readers are invited to take a journey with Liz of Liz Loves Books. On Monday Liz featured the Mythology of Charlie Parker.
Today I am delighted to share the third leg of the journey as Liz discusses The Travelling Man and beyond…
Creating the Villains
The Charlie Parker series has one particularly strong hook to it – the villains. The villains are incredibly well drawn, scary as all hell every single time with the occasional tendency to make you love them.
Going all the way back to the start you had The Travelling Man. A killer beyond imagination (except obviously that of the author I am not sure I would like to spend TOO much time inside his head) he took from Charlie that which made him who he was – his family – and turned him into what he would become. He still echoes through the narrative today, a known yet unknowable quantity that haunts the narrative occasionally, a glance back into a darkness that only grew darker over time.
You would not think that there could be worse waiting round the corner but each new novel brings new challenges to bear – and for the reader new nightmares to experience. The Killing Kind brought us Mr Pud and his spiders – whenever I reread this novel my skin does literally crawl, a true and real reason why these stories are so incredibly brilliant – you cannot help but be held in every horrific moment. When it comes to the crime element a good bad guy is everything – the well here is deep and you are forever looking into the abyss.
Black Angel which brought a beautiful historical flavour and finally threw us off a cliffs edge when it came to the mythology, also brought Brightman, an extreme yet highly intriguing figure and yes again scary as all hell! This novel had the added advantage of solidifying the relationship between Louis, Angel and Charlie – this was a very personal journey for all three of them and the villainous content for it had to be bang on and boy it absolutely was.
I cannot mention all, there are layers upon layers, the main villain of every piece inevitably draws other evil towards him (or her) and whilst I want to give a flavour to give all away would be unthinkable. But there is one more I simply must pay homage to – that would be The Collector.
The Collector is absolutely my favourite character outside of our main core group – for reasons that may not make sense to anyone but me, he has a place in my heart, so many levels you cannot get an actual handle on him but there he is. The relationship that develops between him and Charlie is yin and yang, up and down – the power he yields within the narrative is atmospheric and fascinating. In the latest stories the upper hand held is changing – and to finish this off I’d like to say out of all the darkest, scariest and most fearful characters imaginable it is possible that in fact Charlie and his daughter will end up being the most terrifying of all.
We shall see. This series is unpredictable, it is enticing and will endure – where it is going I cannot say. All I can say is I’m in it to the bitter, beautiful end.
Article written by Liz of Liz Loves Books
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Comments Off on A Time of Torment – John Connolly – The Travelling Man and beyond…Creating the Villains.
Today I am delighted to be joined by David Jackson.
