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James Hannah Q&A (The A-Z of You and Me)

Today I am delighted to welcome James Hannah to the blog as we discuss his powerful novel The A-Z of You and Me.

We so-often hear that writers are advised to ‘Write about what you know.’ Have you drawn upon personal experiences for The A-Z of You and Me?

Indirectly. The point of working with a pre-existing structure – or rather, two of them, the alphabet and the body – was to render personal experiences largely redundant. I simply had a set of questions to answer:

Why would anyone be playing this A to Z game?

Answer: My character wants to occupy his mind with stories.

Why?

Answer: Because he’s anxious.

Why?

Answer: Because he’s dying.

Why?

It was from these and subsequent questions that the story began to tell itself, without having to rely on any personal input from me.

However, I did find that the personal experiences began to accompany and attend to the main plot as I went along. The Amber and Sheila subplots in particular started to encroach on the main plot and see it on its way, and came from experiences I was going through as I was writing the book. But these experiences were by necessity reduced to their essential emotional drivers, which hopefully then makes them universal and relatable: they really could be happening to anyone – as indeed they probably will, to everyone, in some form.

How long did it take to bring The A-Z of You and Me from your original idea to now (the week of publication)?

My first notes were on 20 March 2008, so that’s very nearly seven years. But I’ve done a lot of other things too.

Can you share with us how it feels to see your first novel unleashed into the world?

I suppose I was hoping for positive responses and anxious about negative ones – but I’ve been surprised and moved by the depth of feeling and emotional openness with which some people have responded. Which is stupid of me really, because that’s what I set out to achieve. I feel a great deal of responsibility for working with subjects that have the potential to reactivate some difficult memories for readers.

I am trying to avoid plot spoilers, however, it is fair to say that this is not always a happy carefree story. How hard was it to find a balance against Ivo’s bleak situation and yet retain the “Comedy of Errors” element which lightens the story?

A great many people (a majority of people I know) tend to leaven extreme situations with humour. Humour is rarely far away from even the bleakest situation, because often humour is the very expression by one person to another of how very sad a given situation is. And it’s togetherness that almost inevitably creates opportunities for cheerfulness, even in the most utterly hopeless of circumstances.

Every town’s hospice has its name circulated in doomy whispers: “You don’t want to end up in St Andrew’s or St Leonard’s or St Catherine’s . . .” But when you get there, they can be places of great relief, togetherness and no little humour.

So it was, if not simple, then at least a straightforward task to give this book as much lightness and ease as I could. I used the working title of the book (‘The Body Comedy’) as an aide memoire to keep it funny wherever possible. Of course the end result is not quite comedy (as far as I can tell), but it creates poignancy and relief.

Much of the story is told through flashbacks as Ivo recalls significant events in this life. He does not sugar coat his past and the picture we get is of a man who believes that he has made mistakes. Did you try to make Ivo a flawed character or do you see him as a relatively typical guy who perhaps did not always made the best of the opportunities that arose?

Quite a few people have found Ivo to be immature for a 40 year old, which I find interesting. I see Ivos everywhere, in any friendship group. People in their late teens and twenties do stupid things and don’t look after themselves. There are entire industries founded on this constant. And it’s so common to see older men and women than Ivo sporting the styles they identified with in their teens and twenties.

As far as Ivo is concerned, when you use first-person narrative you see all of your character’s thoughts, good and bad, and so for me a fully-rounded, truthful character is always going to be flawed.

As for Ivo not making the best of the opportunities that arise, that is true, but I would also point out that he has no effective support and no role models.

I keep returning to the adage that you can choose your friends but not your family: I don’t think this is true at all. It can require deep personal resources to actively choose friends – it is far easier to remain inert with the default group of people. Ivo’s greatest challenge is to successfully make that leap of aspiration to Mia’s way of life.

I felt the three characters that brought out the best side of Ivo were Mia, Sheila and Amber – each countering the seemingly negative influence of Ivo’s group of friends. What did you want to be the single most important thing that each of these three women bring to Ivo?

I agree that these three bring out the best in Ivo, but I must admit, I didn’t set out for them to bring any qualities to him; it was when I brought them all together in improvisation that he seemed to drink up their presence, like they were nourishing him with something he desperately needed.

All three women demonstrate active characteristics – whereas Ivo is sunk by a passivity brought about by uncertainty, anxiety and plain circumstance. Ivo has a saving grace in his kindness and gentle perceptiveness; he wants to come out of himself, but he just doesn’t know how. I think Mia in particular sees that and seeks to nurture it. I have a sense that Mia thinks she can save Ivo from himself and his friends.

Was the body A-Z element always to be included or did that arrive during the writing process? Specifically I am keen to know if you started with a list of body parts and built the story around these or if you adapted a draft to include them?

This novel started out as a high-concept attempt to write a Gray’s Anatomy – an anatomical dictionary – in which the body described turned out to have a coherent narrative. So the alphabetical body parts were there from the beginning.

I wanted to let the body parts dictate where the story was going to go, and thereby create a narrative that was hard-wired into every reader’s experience. Everybody, for example, has sat too heavily on their coccyx and wanted to die; everybody has split their earlobe by wrenching off a tight-necked jumper . . . haven’t they? So The A to Z of You and Me started out as my attempt to write everybody’s story. Eventually though, Ivo’s story began to take over, and I let it do so.

I didn’t actually have a list of body parts to begin with, but in certain areas of the alphabet, there are only so many places you can go, so I started there. It’s very easy to break the unspoken bond of trust with the reader; if I had a chapter called ‘xiphoid process’ people wouldn’t see the artifice in what I’m doing, and lose interest.

Which authors do you find inspiring?

It changes. Roddy Doyle. Kurt Vonnegut. Derek Jarman. Bill Watterson. JK Rowling. Samuel Beckett. Stewart Lee. Maya Angelou. Eimear McBride. Dennis Potter. Roald Dahl. Douglas Adams. But some years authors I’ve really admired don’t move me at all. Susan Barker’s ‘The Incarnations’ is the best book I’ve read in recent times.

When writing do you have to set yourself daily word count targets or do you block out time specifically to work on a project?

I’ve really only finished this one novel, and it employed such a spectacularly uneconomical method, and took me such a very long time, I couldn’t present my writing method as anything other than ill-advised. I wrote in the only time I had, which was the last twenty minutes before going to bed, and now that’s the only time I can write in. It’s a problem.

Can you tell us what comes next from James Hannah?

I’m a husband and father, so I’m going to spend a reasonable time just being a husband and father.

My most sincere thanks to James.

The A-Z of You and Me is published by Doubleday and is available from 12th March in Hardback and in digital format.

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March 11

The A-Z of You and Me – James Hannah

Ivo fell for her.

He fell for a girl he can’t get back.

Now he’s hoping for something.

While he waits he plays a game:

He chooses a body part and tells us its link to the past he threw away.

He tells us the story of how she found him, and how he lost her.

But he doesn’t have long.

And he still has one thing left to do …

The A-Z of You and Me is published by Doubleday. My thanks to Alison Barrow of Transworld Books for the opportunity to review this title.

Normally when I read a novel and a character is dying the focus of the book is to have the principle character track down a murderer. However, in James Hannah’s emotive novel The A-Z of You and Me it is the central character that is dying and the story follows his final days.

The central character is Ivo. When we first meet him he is in a hospice and is resigned to the fact he is here to see out the last days of his life. His carer (Sheila) has suggested that he try to identify a part of his body for each letter of the alphabet and asks Ivo can share a story or recollection about each. So beginning with ‘Adams Apple’ we embark on the narrative of Ivo’s life.

Through a series of flashbacks we share Ivo’s memories as he recollects significant events. We get to see how he recalls his interactions with his family and friends and how these friends reacted when Ivo met Mia who would become Ivo’s girlfriend. James Hannah has made Ivo a very real figure and we see how he makes mistakes, gets easily led astray by his friends and frequently how he seems to regret choices he made.

After each memory flashback we rejoin Ivo in the present day. His health deteriorates each time we return and (as we become more caught up within the story) it becomes hard to accept that this character we are travelling with and learning about, is going to die. He has Sheila for company in the hospice and she is a phenomenal character proving care, support and encouragement in Ivo’s dark times.

The strength of the story lies in the characters and how they behave. James Hannah has captured this brilliantly and it is impossible not to laugh through the fun times or despair when Ivo makes a decision that we know is the wrong one.

At one point I had to stop reading. I was on a train and I knew that something was about to happen in the story which I did not want to read – I particularly did not want to read it on a busy train! I waited till I was alone before pressing on and I was as traumatised as I had expected. Wonderful writing.

This may not be a story that everyone will ‘enjoy’ as the subject matter is tough reading. However, this IS as story that will stick with you. Especially the ending.

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March 10

Guest Post: David F Ross

Today I am pleased to welcome David F Ross.

As part of the Blog Tour to celebrate the paperback launch of his exceptional novel The Last Days of Disco, David has kindly shared some recollections of his early musical influences.

The Thin White Duke Street

The Last Days of Disco is very nostalgic and much of that comes from the music of that time in the early 80s. There’s nothing else quite like a piece of music to pin-point a significant memory. From first days at school, to loss of virginity (one of these days I’ll finally remember where I left it…) to the birth of my children; all of the vivid moments in my life – good and bad – have had an associated soundtrack. Like the majority of you reading this, I suspect, music has an importance to me that’s often found bordering on the irrational.

From the eight years before 1972 that I knew her, my only remaining recollections of my mum involve music. Although not through the beat groups of the early and mid-sixties, surprisingly. My dad was a country and western fan, particularly of Johnny Cash and Merle Haggard. Their subliminal influence has left me with a natural tendency towards songs with a darkly descriptive background story. Glen Campbell was also a favourite of both my parents, as were the crooners. Sinatra, Crosby, Como and Martin were all regularly played on the big mahogany Marconi radiogram that competed for their attention in the opposite corner of the living room from its main rival, the black and white television set. Their records were the backdrop to my early years in the small fourth floor, brownstone top corner tenement flat where we lived, near Hampden Park on Glasgow’s Southside.

My dad especially, acquired lots of diverse records from various sources. The LP and singles covers for many of them are as vivid to me now as they were then. Old Blue Eyes, smiling, hair receding, calm and confident from the sleeve of ‘My Way’. ‘Little Old Wine Drinker Me’ with its Reprise logo in black on a black and white portrait of Dean below the heading ‘File Under Easy Listening’. Johnny’s gravity defying, brylcreem supported quiff with an attitude all of its own, live from ‘Folsom Prison’. The big red lipstick kiss on the cover of Connie Francis’ most famous record. Don and Phil Everly’s pearly white teeth and matching checked Arthur Montford jackets concealing the then little known fact that they despised each other. The Zombies brilliant and beautiful ‘Odessey & Oracle’, which remains one of my all-time favourite LPs. These records were the foundation for my interest in music and for this legacy at least, I am thankful to my dad. I loved these songs and still do but I inherited them. They’re not mine and the recollections that they prompt now often seem to belong to someone else.

My grampa had taken the death of his youngest child particularly badly. Despite their frequent, but generally good-natured arguments, they were very close. He’d lost weight and had suffered a minor stroke in the immediate aftermath of the funeral and it had forced him to retire. He also had a genuine fondness for my dad. Both worked in the transport industry; my dad for British Rail and his father-in-law latterly for Glasgow Corporation as a bus conductor on a regular route along Duke Street. An agreement had been reached where my grieving dad and I were to stay with his in-laws, partly to give the old man something to focus on but more practically because there really was no other viable option. My other grandparents were older, infirm and lived in a relatively small second floor flat in Tollcross.

Pollok was, and undoubtedly still is, an impoverished working-class enclave south west of the Clyde. My gran frequently lamented that it was home, very briefly, to Moors Murderer Ian Brady, but she had it mixed up with the more upmarket Pollokshaws. The house in Pollok was a three-bed-roomed one. It sat opposite the bus stop at the bottom of the hill on Braidcraft Road. My grampa was a keen gardener and the reasonably sized rectangular garden at the back of the house was a testament to his hobby. I loved the house. There were loads of places to hide and, with the garden I had a ready made football pitch and a net in the form of a five-foot-square wire plant climber. The flat we’d previously lived in had a shared drying green but no grass. There was always loose rubbish congregating around the concrete ‘middens’, and as a result, a large and uninhibited rodent population flourished.

My grampa was very proud of his garden. He spent hours in his small greenhouse at the bottom of the garden where he grew tomatoes. The greenhouse sat just behind the impromptu football net and on a few occasions, a fierce thirty yard shot from Derek Parlane went past the imaginary Evan Williams, bursting the net, and unfortunately the greenhouse glass. Each time my excuse was the same. A big boy did it and ran away. He’d thrown a stone from Levernside Road and it broke the glass. My grampa indulged this fantasy every time despite the fact that to the glass from Levernside Road would require an aim and trajectory ranking alongside the Magic Bullet Theory.

‘Starman’ was the first record I bought with money that could be considered my own. There’s my plea for coolness. My grampa had paid me for cutting his beloved grass with an old manual blade lawnmower. I made a terrible, patchy job of it but he kept his side of the deal anyway. But perhaps more accurately, the first record I was given was by a band named the Strawbs. The a-side was titled ‘Part of the Union’ but I quickly grew to hate it as it jumped at the start of the chorus. Years later I heard the song again and I fully expected it to go:

‘You don’t get me; I’m part of the U…part of the U…part of the U…part of the U…’ for days until someone eventually lifted the needle. At the age of eight, I blamed the record for its inability to get to the end of its grooves. I’d no idea that a blunt stylus was the real culprit. The bastards could sing it fine on the radio. Why did they only get the stutters in my grampa’s house? I’ve tried to excise this blundering, stammering shambles from my personal history, but it’s still there, at the back, hand up, protesting like a belligerent old shop steward.

‘David Bowie can get tae fuck, boy. Ah wis yer f…f…f…f…f…first.’

The image of David Bowie on Top of The Pops in the summer of ’72 was revelatory. My grampa wasn’t impressed but I was astonished. Years later, people would debate whether Boy George was male or female, but watching him then, Bowie didn’t even seem to be from the same species as me. I knew instantly where my ‘wages’ were going. The Bowie record had a green and white plain sleeve with, to my initial but short-lived dejection, no picture. The famous orange RCA label glowed through the circular cut out. Despite its aesthetic shortcomings, I came to think of it as a thing of beauty. I got it on a trip into Glasgow from Woolworth’s on Argyle Street but a different store from the one that had been there until the chain became extinct in the worldwide fall-out from the American sub prime credit crisis. It cost 24 new pence. Jim Murdoch and Ally Baxter were with me when I got it. Both were a couple of years older than me. Jim’s dad had taken us all into the city. I remember the two of them laughing because I’d bought a record ‘by a fuckin’ poofy cunt’. When I got back home, the two others went out to the back garden and were dummy fighting with each other. But I sat in the living room, silently staring at the big wooden box as Bowie’s voice came out of the speakers. To my utter delight, it did so without any speech impediment.

I idolised my grampa. He told brilliant stories. Ones where even years later as a young adult, I firmly believed he was right despite the obvious scientific or logical arguments against some of his more ridiculous ones. Once, when I was about nine years old, I asked him how colour TV worked, he told me that it wasn’t actually new technology. His explanation was that since the end of the Second World War, life was in fact monochrome. His explanation for this was that the Government was so taken aback by the euphoric reaction to the war ending that it became concerned that the years of struggling and post war rationing that would follow would be too much to bear. The Government then gave everyone injections that removed the colour from their skin and hair. After a period of time, people became so accustomed to the lack of colour that building materials became monochromatic, colourless foods like semolina predominated and television shows like the Black and White Minstrels emerged to reflect society’s disinterest with anything from the spectrum. TV, he argued with the conviction of a Nobel Prize winning scientist, simply reflected a more disheartened Age. Then flower-power came along and the people demanded their colour back so that the flora and fauna could be fully appreciated again. I used to sit open-mouthed when he told stories like this. My head would nod at bits where my own experience could back up the theory.

‘Semolina, you say…? Jesus, he’s right…! There’s a ton of that at our school.’

Another yarn was that air flight didn’t actually happen. You got on a plane, and while on it, teams of trained experts changed the surroundings outside. The plane didn’t actually go anywhere. The more dramatic the change in scenery, the longer you had to sit on the plane. I assumed that he meant that if you wanted to go to Africa, you had to sit on the tarmac for around 15 hours until the ‘crew’ had rounded up enough black people, safari animals and weird looking trees. Since I hadn’t been on a plane at this point, I’d no reason to question the wisdom of this old sage. Forty years later and I’m writing this now on a long haul flight back home from Singapore and a part of me still needs convincing that I’m not actually on a simulator.

I lived with my grandparents for three years before another move and a new phase of life began in Ayrshire. On the night before we left their house for good, the old man told me he had something for me. I sat expectantly, waiting for him downstairs while he disappeared upstairs for what seemed like an hour. When he returned, it was with a face whitened by talcum powder and with a shaky red lipstick flash drawn down his face. In his hand was the Aladdin Sane LP.

‘Mibbe ah wis wrang aboot this yin, aw along. He’s actually awright, son’.

I remember laughing so much, I pee’d myself. I can’t look at the LP’s sleeve now (or actually Heath Ledger’s ‘Joker’ in the Dark Knight Rises, such was the botched make-up job…) without seeing old James Fleming’s smiling face.

David Bowie and my grampa; The Thin White Duke Street. Heroes.

The Last Days of Disco by David F Ross is published by Orenda Books and is available in paperback and digital format now. My review (score 5/5) can be found here: https://grabthisbook.net/?p=437

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March 5

Dark Country – Darren E Laws

Three related famous country and western singers are kidnapped over a period of 50 years. Only one body has ever been found.

Battling a debilitating illness, FBI agent Georgina O’Neil joins forces with newly licensed private investigator, Leroy La Portiere to find Susan Dark, the latest in the Dark family to go missing as she is on the verge of national stardom. But Georgina’s search for the truth is hampered by an illness which is affecting her judgement. Is there one perpetrator or is this a series of elaborate copycat crimes?

The hunt to find Susan leads them deep into a densely forested area as they follow a bloody trail and a deadly cat and mouse pursuit that will have fatal consequences for all.

Thanks to Caffeine Nights for my review copy

This is the second book from Darren E. Laws to feature Georgina O’Neil (the first was Turtle Island). In these circumstances I always like to give consideration within my review over whether the reader is disadvantaged if they have not read the previous story, in this case I would suggest you are not. There are clearly events from Turtle Island which are picked up again within Dark Country, however, they are introduced and explained at appropriate points in the story and you are given sufficient background to allow continuity and progression.

Dark Country has a great hook – three generations of one family are kidnapped over a 50 year period. Each of the abductees had established a successful career as a Country & Western singer and the latest kidnap victim (Susan Dark) was actually working on an album which would have featured her voice alongside that of her mother and grandmother.

The lead character is FBI Agent Georgina O’Neil. She has a debilitating medical condition which has impacted upon her ability to return to full active service with the FBI. Events in Dark Country find Georgina working with her friend Leroy La Portiere (a newly appointed Private Investigator) who has been enlisted by Susan Dark’s record producer to track down the missing singer.

One slight irk I had with Georgina’s illness is that she seemed to be in possession of recuperative powers only previously exhibited by Marvel Comics hero Wolverine – bouncing back from some major surgery to undertake a grueling cross country chase. Laws DOES acknowledge that Georgina is not in full health and IS suffering but this element of the story was a little too far a stretch at times.

All good crime stories need a bad guy and we certainly have that in Dark Country. Risk of Spoilers prevent too much detail at this stage, however, there are some nasty types to be found here. Descriptions of murders creep towards a horror feel at times (which is right up my street but may offend the more sensitive reader).

Events in Dark Country build to a really explosive conclusion with a mass standoff between the key players in a remote location. This played out really well and had me hooked as the end of the book approached. Just when I thought I had seen the story play out there was a nice wee twist to confound me further.

Dark Country is good fun but I wonder if killing off Country & Western singers may upset some potential readers? This is a good one for the horror loving crime fan. Review score of 3.5/5 – see it through to the excellent endgame!

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March 4

Guest Interview – Helen Giltrow (The Distance)

Today I am delighted to welcome Helen Giltrow to the blog. Helen has kindly taken time to answer a few of my questions about The Distance, her debut thriller which released in paperback last week:

The Distance:

They don’t call her Karla any more. She’s Charlotte Alton: she doesn’t trade in secrets, she doesn’t erase dark pasts, and she doesn’t break hit-men into prison. Except that is exactly what she’s been asked to do. The job is impossible: get the assassin into an experimental new prison so that he can take out a target who isn’t officially there. It’s a suicide mission, and quite probably a set-up.

So why can’t she say no?

I have read many Colin Forbes and John Le Carré novels and I believe that spy stories are essentially about the pursuit and control of information. Would it be accurate to say that The Distance is a spy novel at heart?

I think that’s a good definition of a spy novel, and one that The Distance certainly fits. My main character is a woman called Charlotte Alton who steals and manipulates data, then sells it on to criminals. At the opening of the book she is approached by an old client, a hit-man, for help with a high-risk job inside a prison, for a nameless client. Suspecting some sort of trap, she must discover who his target really is and why they have to die.

The Distance didn’t start life as a spy novel. Originally I was planning to write something closer to an action-thriller / crime novel hybrid, with Charlotte Alton as a minor character. But she began to take over the plot, and as she did so, the spy-story elements came to the fore. I’m a fan of Le Carré, in particular the Smiley novels, so the chance to draw on that tradition in this book was too good to miss; readers who know those novels will certainly spot the references. But I think the earlier action-thriller incarnation is still visible, especially in the scenes told by the novel’s other narrator, the hit-man Simon Johanssen.

A significant proportion of The Distance is set inside a facility called The Program – can you outline exactly what The Program is?

The Program is an experimental, privately-run ‘secure community’, temporarily created in a run-down slice of east London suburb after an explosion in the prison population and a catastrophic series of riots that has put several jails out of action. Its ideological basis – that inmates are less likely to reoffend if they’re encouraged to take responsibility for their own lives while inside – underpins some real-world facilities for low-risk offenders. But applied here, on the cheap, and with violent and dangerous inmates, it’s going badly wrong. And that’s the environment Simon Johanssen has to enter, when he’s tasked with the killing of an inmate.

Your central character is Charlotte Alton, yet she also uses the name Karla. The two persona, by necessity, live very different lifestyles – did you have to think them as two different characters to ensure Karla (or Charlotte) acted in a particular way in certain situations?

Charlotte is one of those characters who turned up fully-formed on the page. I knew from the outset that she would speak and act in one way when she was wealthy, idle Charlotte Alton, and in another when she was the criminal information-broker Karla. In fact I think of both identities as disguises. This is a woman who spends a lot of time pretending to be someone she isn’t; there’s a whole layer of her personality and her emotions that she herself isn’t prepared to acknowledge, and that makes her fascinating to write about.

There is one character that appears to have no redeeming feature other than to be the clear villain of the book. Do you think that all stories need a character like Brice? Specifically a figure upon which the reader can hope to see some form of justice served?

Interesting question. Immediately it’s made me think of those crime novels is which justice isn’t done, and any resolution amounts to a messy compromise – because sometimes that’s the way life works …

I certainly felt there had to be a figure like Brice in this book. I was very conscious that I was asking the reader to invest in two characters who are criminals. Charlotte Alton facilitates crimes; Simon Johanssen carries them out. Both characters have a morality, but I felt I needed to bring in Brice – an out-and-out sadistic psychopath – to act as a sort of moral touchstone, and to cast those other characters’ moral values into relief. Brice is the distorted mirror image of Johanssen: while Johanssen kills ‘cleanly’ and is troubled by suffering, Brice prides himself on not killing; he just likes hurting people, a lot. In that way Brice serves to define Johanssen.

And while Brice is morally abhorrent, in some ways he’s an instrument of justice too. Johanssen himself has killed, and instinctively I felt he had to pay for that in the course of the story. When he enters the Program and comes up against Brice, he’s confronting – literally and metaphorically – his own past actions. For him it’s a sort of purgatory. The question is whether he can survive it.

How long did it take you to get The Distance from the original concept to a draft you were happy to let someone read?

A long time. The first glimmerings of that early crime / action-thriller hybrid story came to me in 2001, and I wrote a version of the opening then. That got shortlisted for the CWA Debut Dagger, but family upheavals meant work on the book had to be put on hold for long periods. By early 2009 – when I finally hit calm water – Charlotte Alton had become the lead character and I’d amassed a pile of scenes and notes, though you couldn’t call it a first draft. That’s when the serious writing started. A draft went out to beta readers in summer 2011, and to agents late in the same year.

Can we expect to see a return for Charlotte Alton?

I’m working on a sequel right now.

Do you have to set yourself a routine for writing?

I find I have to. I aim to put in three one-hour blocks in the morning, with 10-15 minutes in between; and another two or three hours from 3.30 pm onwards. (I’m useless after lunch.) I’m quite a slow writer so I need to put in the hours at my desk or the work doesn’t get done.

When not writing how do you enjoy spending your downtime?

I like running, but a calf strain has put me out of action for several months, and I’m only just getting back into the gym. In about a month I’ll probably start running again. I miss it – it’s my drug.

I am always fascinated to discover what other people are reading. If I were to see your bookshelves what could I expect to find?

A lot of crime fiction, across a broad range of subgenres, and literary fiction too. What’s interesting to me are the gaps. For a long period I couldn’t afford to buy books, so many of the books that I love and that have influenced me, I borrowed from the library. I often find myself looking for copies of them, only to discover I don’t actually own them.

What comes next for Helen Giltrow?

After the sequel to The Distance? More writing, for sure. I’ve been doing it since I was a child so I can’t see myself giving up now.

Once again, my thanks to Helen.
The Distance was published in paperback by Orion on 26th February and is also available in digital format.

You can find Helen on Twitter: @HelenGiltrow

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March 3

Silent Scream – Angela Marsons

When a headmistress is found brutally strangled, the death marks the beginning of a spate of gruesome murders that shock the Black Country.

But as human remains are discovered at a former children’s home, disturbing secrets are also unearthed. D.I. Kim Stone fast realises she’s on the hunt for a twisted individual whose killing spree spans decades.

As the body count rises, Kim needs to stop the murderer before they strike again. But to catch the killer, can Kim confront the demons of her own past – before it’s too late?

My thanks to Bookouture for my review copy which I received through Netgalley.

It is easy to see why Silent Scream has received such a positive reaction and commanded so many great review scores, Angela Marsons has delivered a gripping crime thriller and introduces us to a fabulous lead character in DI Kim Stone.

Former employees of a Children’s Home are being murdered. The Home its-self stands on the site of a proposed archaeological dig and when the ground is finally broken the first ‘find’ it yields is the body of a young girl. However, this is not a discovery that provides any historic value as the girl’s body has been in the ground for less than 10 years. Could there be a connection between the young girl’s death and the recent spate of murders? It is up to DI Kim Stone to find out.

Stone provides great entertainment value – she has no social skills, a love of motorbikes and we learn that her personal history overlaps too closely with the Care Home deaths (a factor that is teased out well throughout the book). I felt the author did a great job with Stone’s dialogue as she comes across as focused, determined, impatient and just plain rude yet still is an engaging figure.

I have mentioned in previous reviews that I enjoy when crime novels feature a strong team that support the lead character. We have the makings of such a team here. Stone works closely with DS Bryant and their respective styles compliment each other well with their classic good cop/bad cop attitudes. There are two other team members, Dawson and Wood, who were largely kept in the background through Silent Scream – I expect they will feature more heavily in future outings.

Reading Silent Scream was a treat. Events tick along at a nice fast pace, the small group of suspects (and potential victims) are well defined and there are some clever plot twists that will make you re assess your early guesses at the identity of the killer.

I would have no qualms recommending Silent Scream to anyone that enjoys a good murder mystery and would score it 4/5.

You can follow Angela Marsons on Twitter: @WriteAngie

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February 26

Guest Interview – James Goss (Haterz)

Today I am delighted to welcome James Goss who has kindly taken time to answer a few of my questions about his new novel, Haterz.

James also has a long-standing association with the world of Doctor Who – as a lifelong fan of that particular show I sneaked in a few questions about everyone’s favourite Timelord.

Haterz is a dark comic tale which sees the central character killing off people who annoy him when he is online – I opened with the obvious question…

Would it be a fair for Haterz readers to assume that James Goss has become a little bit irritated by some elements of social media?

I’m a freelancer who works from home, so I’m obviously addicted to social media. It’s the ultimate work avoidance tool. If people aren’t uploading pictures of their breakfasts or a holiday sunset then I want to know what’s wrong with the world. That said, there are some elements of it that bring out the worst in people. For instance, a friend of mine is wonderful, charming, self-deprecating company in real life, but unbearable on Facebook. I would hide them, but I’m enjoying the ride. And that makes me a terrible person.

In Haterz when we meet Dave, he is just about to kill his best friend’s girlfriend because he finds her annoying on Facebook. Have you had to reassure your friends that they are not in any way featured in Haterz?

On the contrary, actually. In the couple of cases where I’ve used people I know, I’ve emailed them to ask how I would kill them. And they’ve been very creative.

Despite the fact he is killing people in nasty ways I found the character of Dave to be quite a likeable fellow. Do you think you will split the crowd on this one (with some readers condoning his actions and others willing him to succeed)? Or do intend for us all to empathize with Dave?

It’s terribly fashionable to issue death threats on Twitter. I just wondered who would be the kind of person who actually carried them out – and Dave’s not some ranting people-hating moron. He’s not a slick, smooth American psychopath – he’s a terribly British bumbler. Poor old Dave just wants everyone to be nice to each other. And is going to carry on killing until they are. I think, once you can get past that contradiction then he’s perfectly pleasant company. You could go out for a drink with him. So long as you don’t post too many pictures of your cocktail.

I am keen to avoid plot spoilers, however, I did enjoy some of the people and groups that Dave targeted his attentions towards. When you were planning out Haterz did you have a ‘hit-list’ of groups you specifically wanted to target?

Absolutely. All the groups, types and institutions were planned in advance. I toned a few of them down. Oddly, in the nearly two years between planning and publication, none of the groups have changed that much. Amazingly, woman-hating video gamers have got even nastier. Well done on that one, humanity.

As we all seem to be becoming increasingly fixated on social media do you think we have reached a point where more serious repercussions are needed to curb the worst instances of online behaviour?

It’s all such a muddle, like humanity is trying to work out where we go next. We may look back on GamerGate as the first online world war – not between countries but between violently passionate interest groups. A glance at Twitter tells you the consensus is “We want freedom of speech. Just not for them, them, and you can shut up”. We live in a world that is almost inexplicable to people from a decade ago, when we were all charmed by “Eric Emotes An Emotion”. I don’t know how long it will be before we reach Peak Oversharing. Possibly when all those babies whose every bowel-movement has been reported on become old enough to have Facebook accounts, log on and go “oh dear god.”
We live in a world where what’s really frightening is not that the terrorists are on social media, but how they’re making the same stupid mistakes the rest of us do.

Having now laid out our worst online offences have you had to modify your own online behaviour?

I think we’re all guilty of some pretty awful offences. Too many cat pictures. Enigmatic tweeting about how marvellous your life is. The terrible thing about being an author online is that there’s this pressure to constantly bang on about stuff you’ve written. No-one was gladder than me to find out from a social media expert that constantly being “Brand You” is really off-putting. I find the whole thing deeply embarrassing. I couldn’t convincingly sell you a new pair of socks, let alone a book, so I’m deeply relieved that the publicity team behind Haterz are really good. Because, no matter how proud I am of something I’ve worked on, I can’t enthuse about it on social media without sounding like a vicar trying to sound cool.

Switching track slightly, I also wanted to ask about your ongoing involvement with the world of Doctor Who. I have been a fan of the show since childhood and I am delighted to see it flourishing. You seem to have been involved with the programme for several years in a number of different roles, what have been the stand-out moments for you?

I still can’t believe that Doctor Who is back and so loved. When I first ran the BBC’s website (during the end of the show’s wilderness years and the first two series of the triumphant relaunch), the disinterest the BBC felt towards Doctor Who was pretty bad. Ever year the site’s budget got cut and the online audience only grew larger. It was a strange time – trying to do so much with such tiny resources against such vast corporate indifference. I’ll never forget a meeting with my head of department where she sighed and said “Well, Doctor Who, there’s only about another 18 months in it.” Then Russell brought it back and the whole thing snowballed. It was truly amazing to be involved in that. But also rather unbelievable. Genuinely. But suddenly the BBC fell head over heels in love with Doctor Who again. And rightly so.

Oh yes. And getting to stand on the TARDIS set and realising that a large amount of it was from IKEA. Which instantly validated most of my home furnishing choices.

Last year you wrote the Doctor Who novel The Blood Cell (which I reviewed and enjoyed immensely). It was one of the first novels published which featured Peter Capaldi’s Doctor.I believe that you had to write the story before the first Capaldi episode, Deep Breath, was broadcast – how do you write for such an iconic character when you do not know how he will appear on screen?

Very carefully. We were lucky in that we had access to the early scripts and they were phenomenally clear about what a different character this Doctor was going to be. I cheated and wrote my book from the villain’s point-of-view, so if I had got it wrong, I could just claim the narrator was lying.

My extensive research (Wikipedia) reveals that you and I were born in the same year. I have been a Doctor Who fan for as long as I can remember I do recall seeing seeing K-9 yet my earliest clear memory of the show is of the Melkur from Keeper of Traken. Can you pin down your first Who memory?

Curiously enough, City Of Death. There didn’t seem to be anything else on when I was a child. I was so lucky. I don’t think I really got what the show was, though. I remember watching an episode that, amazingly, wasn’t City Of Death. Doctor Who climbed up a tower, fell off, and turned into the young vet from All Creatures Great And Small. I was very confused.

You have worked with Big Finish and produced a number of audio plays. Do you prefer the solitude and personal achievement of writing or is the collaboration and assembling the cast and crew to make an audio drama a bigger challenge?

I love getting off the sofa and meeting people. I’m very bad at it these days, but I try my best. It’s really lovely that Big Finish have let me do some really wonderful projects. They’re a really great company to work for. Some of the most surprising emails of my life have come from them. Would I like to write a musical? Would I like to write for Servalan? Can you produce an audio series with an actress you helplessly admire?

Some unexpected items included in the 100 objects.

One of your other projects was the non fiction Doctor Who book A History of the Universe in 100 Objects. I was constantly amused by the items you singled out for discussion but it all seemed to work perfectly – was there a method to the selection process or did you and (co-author) Steve Tribe just have fun picking unusual items?

We went to the pub. I hate it when people use that as an answer. It makes it sound so lazy. But my local does really nice coffee (for me) and very nice draught beer (for Steve), and then we sat down and we did that thing that Doctor Who fans love to do. We drew up a list.

Some things were written but didn’t make the final cut. There was a whole section on Dalek Plans, written by Penny, their long-suffering Project Manager. God, I loved that. Probably best it was left out, but occasionally, on nights out, Chris Allen, the current Doctor Who website editor, will perform bits of it aloud. It mostly comes down to Penny saying “And you haven’t left in a big red destruct button this time have you?” and the Dalek Supreme going “Er…”. I AM LAUGHING NOW. WHY ARE YOU NOT LAUGHING?

On a final note, are you able to share what you will be working on next?

I’m making the revisions to the novelisation of Douglas Adams’s City Of Death, which is a very odd, wonderful project to have done. Yes, in an ideal world Douglas himself would have written it. Or Gareth Roberts, but he got abducted to write A Top Secret Television Project, so it landed with me. I live in a world where, just this once, I’m third choice for something after Douglas Adams. That’s not a bad place to be.

Mind you, I’ve spent the last few months trying not to be run over by a bus (probably driven by whoever offed Danny Pink). Funnily enough, on the day before I finished the first draft, I nearly choked to death on a new potato. I was so horrifically aware of the irony I was giggling at the same time I was choking. Yes. I very nearly died laughing.

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February 26

Haterz – James Goss

A blackly comic crime novel about a one-man crusade to rid the internet of haters, flamers, trolls and vaguebookers… even if he has to kill to do it.

Is there someone online who really annoys you? Who is always bragging, posting too many pictures and just doesn’t get jokes? Look at your Twitter feed, don’t you get cross at the endless rage, bigotry and the pleading for celebrity retweets? Meet Dave. He decides that unfollowing someone just isn’t enough. He’s determined to make the internet a nicer place, and he won’t stop at murder in order to achieve it. When he kills his best friend’s girlfriend, he isn’t planning on changing the world. She was just really annoying on Facebook. But soon Dave realises he’s being manipulated. A conspiracy are using him to gain control of something dark forming at the heart of the world wide web…

My thanks to Solaris and Netgalley for my review copy

James Goss is a clever man. He has taken all the annoying things that we see each day on the internet and drawn them together into a single story that is not remotely annoying. How does a collection of irritations not annoy the reader? Mainly by following a likeable lead character who kills the annoying people who abuse Social Media. And (here is the clever bit) he makes it seem like it is a perfectly reasonable course of action to undertake. Genius!

In Haterz we follow Dave. He is in a pub one evening when he gets cornered by Danielle, she is his best friend’s girlfriend. We learn that Dave his not Danielle’s greatest fan and he finds her inane Facebook updates a source of constant irritation. In short, Dave finds Danielle so irritating (both in person and online) that he decides to kill her – and he does. In the very first Chapter!

Reaching home, safe in the knowledge that Danielle’s death will be considered a tragic accident, Dave is horrified to receive an email from an unknown sender which reads: “We know what you’ve done. Killer”.

From this point on Dave is no longer master of his own destiny. He will be contacted by email and made aware of individuals who are exhibiting unacceptable online behaviour. Dave then has to address these problematic individuals and make them change their way – or silence them permanently. How he tackles each of these problems is clever, entertaining (for readers) and should probably leave any friends of James Goss slightly concerned as to how he may perceive their online behaviour.

Through the story Dave takes on the likes of Twitter trolls, media columnists, banks and high interest loan companies. He believes his actions are for the greater good and sometimes it is hard to disagree. I doubt that any reader will make it through the book without recognising some form of online interaction that they have previously encountered and found to be highly objectionable or that they have themselves been guilty of (in which case…BE AFRAID).

I cannot give away too many details as to why I enjoyed Haterz so much as this would risk robbing you of the delight of finding the great plot twists for yourself – spoilers and all that. What I can share is that this is a sharply written novel with a clever premise. It captures perfectly the failings of Social Media and pokes fun at the worst offenders. Once I started reading I wanted to keep going – the pacing was perfect, the victims were plentiful and there were laughs to be had along the way.

There are characters in the book which you will mentally picture as real life people – either because you have a Facebook friend that exhibits similar traits to the poor Danielle or because you think that the columnist is basically <REDACTED> under a different name and you want to see if something nasty will happen.

Haterz is one of the rarer gems of crime fiction – a novel that delivers a good ‘murder’ story yet also keeps the humour front and foremost which helped to make it such good fun to read. Consider The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy – a science fiction story but so deeply interlaced with the humour of Douglas Adams that it is frequently considered a comedy book rather than sci-fi. Goss does the same in Haterz: there are some dark and graphic scenes yet the tone is softened with a joke or wry observation and the perception of the whole book changes. Anyone that uses the internet should read this book. If a review score helps you to decide then I hope that 5 out of 5 should be persuasive.

Haterz is published on March 12^th by Solaris Books.

James Goss is on Twitter: @gossjam

I have previously reviewed Doctor Who: The Blood Cell which was also written by James Goss. This book was one of the first published to feature Peter Capaldi’s 12^th Doctor. Search for The Blood Cell at www.grabthisbook.net

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February 26

Doctor Who : The History Collection

EIGHT CLASSIC ADVENTURES.
EIGHT UNFORGETTABLE MOMENTS IN TIME.

Being a Doctor Who fan in 2015 is amazing. The show we love is back in a primetime TV slot and the production values are beyond belief for those of us that grew up in the 70’s and 80’s. Also, the actors queuing up to appear alongside the dynamic leading man (all 4 of them since 2005) ensure high quality entertainment is guaranteed.

Beyond the TV show we have a huge range of toys, magazines, exhibitions, concerts and even kids pyjamas (last seen circa the Tom Baker era). But what we have always had are the Doctor Who Books…these are not a new phenomenon – they just required a little determination to track them down!

I am 40 years old. I read my first Doctor Who novel around 33 years ago – sorry I cannot be more exact but I didn’t realise at the time that it would be helpful to have recorded the date. The TV show was in full swing and loads of my pals watched it. I had seen Tom Baker become Peter Davison and I was OK with that (eventually).

I also discovered that my local library stocked a decent collection of Doctor Who stories – all published by Target Books. These novels usually came in at around the 120-150 pages and told the stories that had been broadcast by the BBC. Some of the stories I could remember watching with my parents but others told of a different Doctor – a ‘Dandy’, a ‘clown with a mop of hair’ or a stern, older man. All were captivating…except some of the Hartnell books – they took real dedication.

Target novels kept me reading Doctor Who all through high school. I read the stories over and over again. Then came a slow trickle of VHS video releases of some of the classic Doctor Who stories. Names I had read about suddenly had faces and voices. My books took on a whole new depth – I read my Target books again.

Then in 1989 the show I loved was taken off the air. I waited patiently for its return.

And waited.

I worked Saturdays and school holidays in the largest bookshop in the Scottish Highlands. By virtue of its remote location it was a large and well-stocked shop. One day I noticed a familiar logo on the spine of a book in the Science Fiction section. Doctor Who New Adventures…new stories featuring the Doctor and taking place after the TV show had ended. It was 1991 and this was the start of an amazing publication run of brand new Doctor Who original stories.

The New Adventures run continued until the 1996 TV movie and the debut of Paul McGann. Along the way the monthly new 7^th Doctor stories were joined by a range of Missing Adventures which told of Doctors 1-6. Sadly (for me) these books were sometimes tricky to find in Inverness and I had to resort to mail order – these were very much pre-internet days.

After the 1996 TV movie the new stories continued, Virgin had lost the licence and BBC Books took up the mantel with fantastic adventures wrapped in amazingly beautiful covers and supported by a high calibre of creative talent (most of whom I now follow on Twitter).

Take a massive jump forward to 2015 and a new generation of Doctor Who fans are enjoying the rich legacy that comes with a show that has over 50 years of back story. TV stations like Gold and The Horror Channel are beaming ‘classic’ episodes into our homes. Netflix have 7 years of ‘New’ Who to enjoy on demand. Yet the much loved books which spanned the long years between 1989 and 2005 have gone from bookshops and are now coveted by collectors.

Fortunately we now have The History Collection. BBC Books have reissued 8 volumes of past doctor adventures to give fans the chance to catch up on some of the stories that they may have missed. Amongst the collection are Paul Cornell’s Human Nature (originally a 7^th Doctor story it became a 10^th Doctor/Martha story featuring The Family of Blood – and some creepy scarecrows). Another popular title was The English Way of Death by Gareth Roberts which has also recently been made into an audio drama featuring Tom Baker.

A very important aside – head to www.Bigfinish.com to discover their amazing range of Doctor Who audio plays. They have produced a staggering collection of dramas which feature the 4th to 8th Doctors; along with all their companions and more than a few of their familiar enemies too.

Back to the books.

If you enjoyed last year’s 12^th Doctor novels from BBC Books then you will be pleased to hear that both James Goss and Justin Richards have titles included in The History Collection.

I remember particularly enjoying The Shadow In The Glass (Richards) which was a 6^th Doctor story. Fans of Sherlock may enjoy The Roundheads (a 2^nd Doctor Story) which was written by the ridiculously talented Mark Gatiss. I would also single out The Witch Hunters by Steve Lyons as a great story, it is set in the village of Salem and features the original TARDIS crew of 1^st Doctor, Susan, Ian and Barbara.

These books offer readers the chance to join the TARDIS crew on new adventures. They also allow an opportunity for new fans of The Doctor an insight into how the past Doctor’s behaved. If you have never seen the Second Doctor and Jamie in action then you are in for a treat!

The History Collection should be a welcome addition to any Doctor Who fan’s bookshelves. There are some brilliant stories for everyone to enjoy and I hope that BBC Books may consider raiding the archives for future releases. If I am allowed to submit some suggestions I have a shortlist!

The History Collection in Full:

THE WITCH HUNTERS – STEVE LYONS.

An adventure set in the 17th century Salem Witch Trials featuring the First Doctor, played by William Hartnell.

THE ROUNDHEADS – MARK GATISS
The Second Doctor, Patrick Troughton, fights to keep history on course in the aftermath of the English Civil War.

AMORALITY TALE – DAVID BISHOP
Jon Pertwee plays the Third Doctor in 1950’s London, joined by his companion Sarah Jane Smith.

THE ENGLISH WAY OF DEATH – GARETH ROBERTS

A sweltering summer in London, Tom Baker features as the Fourth Doctor in this 1930’s adventure.

THE SHADOW IN THE GLASS – STEPHEN COLE AND JUSTIN RICHARDS
Colin Baker plays the Sixth Doctor in an adventure set partly in Second World War.

HUMAN NATURE – PAUL CORNELL
An adventure set in Britain on the eve of the First World War, featuring the Seventh Doctor as played by Sylvester McCoy.

This book was the basis for the Tenth Doctor television story Human Nature / The Family of Blood starring David Tennant.

THE STONE ROSE – JAC RAYNER
Roman adventure with David Tennant, the Tenth Doctor, and his companion Rose Tyler.

DEAD OF WINTER– JAMES GOSS
Matt Smith is the Eleventh Doctor in this 18th century Italian adventure.

(all titles are available in good bookshops and through your online store of choice).

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February 24

Guest: SJI Holliday – Why Did I write Black Wood?

Today I am pleased to welcome SJI Holliday who visits just 24 hours after the digital publication of her debut novel Black Wood.

I am delighted to be able to share this fascinating insight into why the novel was written:

Why did I write Black Wood?
By SJI Holliday

Back in 2006, the first thing I wrote – years after leaving school – was the start of a novel about a supernatural bridge where people went missing into some sort of time slip. It was based on a real bridge, with a strange plastic covering over the top of it to prevent suicides. It was wobbly and it echoed, and because of a weird hidden bend, you couldn’t see people walking towards you until they were quite close and they seemed to appear from nowhere. I started writing this (in a notebook I’d bought in a Japanese 99p store) on a long-distance train journey between China and Russia. I didn’t get very far. Reading it back, I realised it wasn’t going to work until I refreshed myself on the nuts and bolts of writing technique.

After that, I attended a night class in London, where I went back to basics and learned about story structure, character and point-of-view. I started writing very short stories – which I found out were known as flash fiction – and I gained a collective gasp from the class as I read out my neat little tale about a man who’d embalmed his wife.

My influences come from horror… Stephen King, Dean Koontz, Sean Hutson, James Herbert. Then from crime: Jonathan Kellerman, James Patterson, Mark Billingham, Peter James and Mo Hayder. So I found myself at a bit of a crossroads. I didn’t want to write a police procedural, as I found that my interest lay more with the victims of crime, and the horrors they face – plus, I am not too keen on research as I am a world-class procrastinator! I had loads of ideas and I started several novels, but none of them made it past the 10k words mark.

I was desperate to finish something. I asked other authors for advice, and it was always the same. Just finish something, anything – it does not have to be “The One”. I knew I needed a bigger draw, something to hook me in to help me keep going. So I turned my thoughts to my own past, my own experiences, and a memory from a long time ago. Something that stuck with me, but something that I was sure no one else really remembered – to the point that I started to think I’d made it up.

But I didn’t… two little girls did go into the woods, many years ago. And something bad did happen. I just embellished it a bit, as is my artistic right. So if you read it, you can let me know what you think… and see if you can work out the nuggets of truth amidst the dark things that my imagination conjured up.

Oh, and one day, I’ll go back and finish that story about the bridge.

Black Wood is available now through the Kindle store and will be published
in paperback by Black & White Publishing on 19th March 2015.

Bio:

SJI Holliday grew up in Haddington, East Lothian. She works as a Pharmaceutical Statistician, and as a life-long bookworm has always dreamt of becoming a novelist. She has several crime and horror short stories published in anthologies and was shortlisted for the inaugural CWA Margery Allingham Prize. After travelling the world, she has now settled in London with her husband. Her debut novel, Black Wood, was inspired by a disturbing incident from her childhood. You can find out more at www.sjiholliday.com.

Links:

www.sjiholliday.com

www.facebook.com/sjiholliday

www.twitter.com/sjiholliday

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Black-Wood-SJI-Holliday-ebook/dp/B00R0ITWRC/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8

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