Blog Tour – Page 2 – Grab This Book

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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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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February 6

The Vault Blog Tour – Karen Long Q&A

Karen Long was born and raised in the English midlands, educated at Bangor University and taught English and Drama for fifteen years. During her teaching years she studied biology and neurology with the Open University and this interest in medicine, forensics and forensic psychology is reflected in her writing. She is an enthusiastic traveller and has spent time in Toronto, which became the backdrop and inspiration for (debut novel) The Safe Word.

She is a keen amateur naturalist with a deep and abiding love for the crow family. She has dedicated time, love and several fingers in an effort to rehabilitate crows, magpies, rooks and ravens.

Karen is happy to correspond with readers and can be contacted through her website KarenLongWriter.com, where she posts regular blogs.

Karen has very kindly agreed to round off her blog tour for The Vault by taking part in a small Q&A session. Having read the above author biography there were a couple of things mentioned that piqued my curiosity. I would not normally open a post with a biography, however, some of my questions will make a bit more sense if you are armed with the same facts that I had!

With this in mind my opening gambit was to ask if Karen could bring us up to speed:

Eleanor Raven is introduced in The Safe Word. While I was able to read and enjoy The Vault without having read The Safe Word, there are clearly elements of the first story still impacting upon Eleanor at the start of The Vault. Can you briefly set the scene?

The Safe Word is set six months earlier. When murder victims begin to appear in the city, presented as macabre artistic installations, it’s Eleanor Raven’s job to get inside the killer’s head and understand his motivations and message. This journey takes her into the dark heart of Toronto’s BDSM scene; a world she is no stranger to. It’s her need for dangerous sexual encounters that lead her to the killer’s studio, where she is to become his final masterpiece. Surviving this encounter has left her with physical and mental scars, which are affecting her relationships, self-control and ultimately her ability to do her job.

I enjoyed the squad-room scenes in The Vault and there seems a good team dynamic between Eleanor and her colleagues (though relations are strained in one area). Do you consider Eleanor to be a rebellious element within the squad or is she misunderstood, perhaps due to her intellect and her ability to think ‘outside the box’?

Eleanor is less a rebel and more of a maverick. She’s not out to overthrow, rather her thoughts and actions keep her on the periphery of the establishment. Her colleagues see her as being uniquely able to see the hidden connections and truths behind events but like Cassandra, she lacks the social skills that would allow her to convince those she needs to. Everyone is very supportive and respectful of her insight and methods but she is her own worst enemy, on so many levels. I think all truly good fictional detectives are pariahs of some flavour.

Raven is pitting her wits against an adversary she dubs The Collector and through the book we follow the progress of her investigation. The reader gets to know who The Collector is and we follow his story as he tries to juggle his crimes with his day-to-day routine. Which did you have most fun writing – the investigation or the criminal activities? And which was easier to write?

Constructing a criminal mind and letting their actions weave a story plot is fabulous fun. The psychopaths I write about in my novels have very clear ideas on love, integrity and, in particular, family. What they lack, but don’t recognise or acknowledge, is the ability to empathise with any other living being, other than themselves. For me that is a truly terrifying concept and just playing around with those sort of thought process, can make you feel very uncomfortable. But writing characters that lack moral structure can only entertain on a very superficial level. What I really enjoy is how the behaviour of one individual shapes the mind of another. Eleanor constantly battles the damage wrought on her psyche by the destruction created by the killers she hunts. It is that investigation which is the most satisfying to write. Creating and analysing the uniqueness of a character’s mind that ultimately sheds light on one’s own.

As I carefully try to avoid plot spoilers…there are detailed discussions on the decomposition of a corpse and ways that this process could be slowed. Do you enlist specialist advice when writing about technical processes or do you fall back on personal research?

I saw Gunther von Hagan’s ‘Bodyworlds’ exhibition twice and was bowled over by the beauty and complexity of the human form. Part of the pleasure was reading as much as I could on how it was achieved. I have always been fascinated by decomposition and autopsy and had been following the work at Dundee University being championed by a collective of crime writers, particularly Val McDermid, on developing a new form of post-mortem preservation that keeps the body soft and retains natural colours. I had long conversations with Practitioners and although I have seen postmortems I was not granted permission to witness an embalming. So, I would say that all the science I write about is researched as thoroughly as I can, however I’m not writing a scientific paper and do have to blur the edges and take artistic licence sometimes.

I have asked this question in the past of other crime authors but everyone has a different opinion: Why do you think that we all seem to enjoy reading about serial killers?

It is one of the defining aspects of the conscious mind that we seek to understand the mind of another. Have you not said to a loved one, “What are you thinking?”, “Penny for them?” or you see the personality and empathy in a pet? We look for the similarities and fear the differences. A great white shark is more terrifying than an orca, both are apex predators, roughly the same weight but we feel less threatened by the orca (count the ratio of shark to orca documentaries on the Discovery channel). It looks back at us with an intelligence and complexity of purpose that we believe we can understand. It’s more like than unlike us. The unconscious mind is terrifying; simple motor responses that can’t be tempered or reversed by logic, emotion or negotiation leave us vulnerable and afraid. Those atavistic fears, tamped down by collective intelligence and analysis need an airing if we are to survive. What better way to practise than from the safety of your own living room, protected by hearth, locks and a telephone. When we confront the serial killer in the safety of our imaginations, we look into the shark’s mind. It is a lesson in survival that dares us to look into a mind devoid of reason.

You are a resident of Shropshire, yet your novels are set in Toronto. May we assume that you have enjoyed spending some time in Canada?

I did spend some but not enough, time in Toronto. I loved it! It’s liberal, eclectic and full of contradictions and because I was on a film set at the time I had the opportunity to visit some of the less touristy area. All of the specific ‘event’ locations in my novels have been visited and investigated, including the seedy nightclubs! I live on the periphery of a very small rural village, lacking either a shop or pub, I don’t think we have enough residents here to inspire a ‘Miss Marple’

Does a Canadian setting allow greater flexibility for story lines and plot devices than you would have with an English based character?

Absolutely! I have a tendency to get bogged down by the details both logistical and scientific. It’s very liberating to take a flavour of a place and then mould it to accommodate your storyline. I would spend most of my writing hours driving around, seeing if a scene were possible, if I set my novels here. My productivity is poor to abysmal at best, so I’m grateful to be using my memories and Google maps to get it written.

We have Eleanor Raven and your author biography makes frequent references to crows: how do crows and ravens come to play such a significant part of your life?

I am obsessed with corvids. They are smart, deliciously mean and bad tempered. I think my first encounter was as a child listening to ‘Arabel’s Raven’ read by Bernard Cribbins on Jackanory. So, when I had an opportunity to save one, I jumped at it and on it. Mortimer filled my house with cunning plots, malicious intent and bird shit and I loved it. Since then I’ve kept ravens, rooks, magpies and crows. For me they are ‘other’, I can understand their motivations to an extent but have no comprehension of what it’s like to ‘be’ them. Perhaps that’s how I see Eleanor, an otherness, like a person but ultimately a construct of my own imagination.

Are you currently working on the next outing for Eleanor Raven or have you plans to change focus?

I’m working on book three called, ‘The Cold Room’ and hope to have a five book series before trying something different.

When do you find time for writing? Are you a night owl or do you need to put aside time through the day?

Unfortunately, due to a love of reading and wine consumption I am very much a daytime writer. My youngest daughter is at school during the day, which means I can think, write and not have to jump to the dulcet sound of ‘Mom!’ every ten minutes.

If we were to sneak a peek at your bookshelves what could we expect to see?

Forensics, science, novels (mainly crime fiction and classics no sci fi), text books and I love photography collections.

To prove this Karen has also sent me pictures of her bookcases (they are distressingly clutter free).

My most sincere thanks to Karen Long for her time and assistance making this leg of her Blog Tour possible. I would also like to extend my thanks to @crimebookclub for the behind the scenes magic.

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February 6

The Vault – Karen Long

VAULT: A large room or chamber used for storage of valuables, especially an underground one…

In the unrelenting heat of the Toronto summer, a fire at a land-fill site uncovers the remains of a local prostitute. But the post-mortem reveals disturbing details –the body has been preserved and is not who or what it seems.

DI Eleanor Raven is back on duty six months after barely surviving being kidnapped and tortured by a depraved serial killer. Work is her sanctuary but she’s carrying deep scars – mental as well as physical. Where do you go when the place you feel safest is also the place where you are most at risk?
As Eleanor battles her own demons, it looks as though a killer in the city is making a gruesome human collection. And Eleanor’s fight to save the last victim of the Collector becomes a battle to save herself.

My thanks to Karen and @crimebookclub for my review copy

If you seek out crime novels which are described as ‘dark and disturbing’ then you are in for a treat with Karen Long’s The Vault. Even for a seasoned crime reader, such as myself, there are some decidedly uncomfortable elements to this story which make it stand out as a memorable read.

The Vault features a second outing for DI Eleanor Raven following her debut in Long’s previous novel The Safe Word. Raven is returning to work after a prolonged leave of absence – she had been recuperating from an horrific attack (as depicted in The Safe Word). Her return to duties are seemingly arriving earlier than she may be ready for and there are signs that Raven is not yet fit to resume her role.

Having not read The Safe Word before starting The Vault I wondered if I may have missed key plot points which may explain Raven’s ‘awkward’ return to duties, however, everything I needed to know was addressed in full so I did not feel disadvantaged by skipping book 1. Karen Long does a great job of teasing out the underlying issues surrounding Raven’s fragile state and we are left in no doubt that Eleanor Raven is a wonderfully complex character.

The Vault opens in the less than glamorous setting of a Toronto landfill site. A fire has ravaged an area of the city dump and firefighters uncover skeletal human remains, however, the remains they found are positioned in a very unnatural pose and there can be no question that this is the body of someone who dead before the fire started. Raven is called to the scene to investigate.

Soon we are crossing paths with prostitutes, undertakers, morticians and an extremely disturbed killer that Raven dubs the Collector. The driving motivation behind the Collector is….not nice (and redacted due to spoilers). However, what I very much enjoyed was that the story follows the Collector as well as the investigating team. As a reader we get to see both sides of the story and get an insight into how the criminal conducts himself when he is trying to get on with everyday life and, more alarmingly, how he may identify a potential victim.

I am sure that The Vault will be one that sticks with me for some time. The crimes are morbidly memorable, the central character is damaged and has a dangerous penchant for deviant sexual encounters and I found the book kept me hooked – which is all I want from my crime novels.

My benchmark for shocking crime has always been the works of Michael Slade. Slade has described many nasty and unpleasant deaths yet within his stories the murders are usually sudden and shocking. Karen Long may just have laid down a new standard: a whole novel that made me uncomfortable as I read. (By odd coincidence both Michael Slade and Karen long base their stories in Canada – I may revise my list of potential holiday destinations).

I found The Vault compelling reading. The central characters are well defined and (as I discovered in my Q&A with the author) they will return and be developed further. I liked that Long will take characters and concepts into unfamiliar places picking up on areas which may be considered taboo for some.

Although I missed Eleanor Raven’s debut in The Safe Word I will be rectifying this oversight in the very near future. I want to read more from this author and, specifically, I want to read another Eleanor Raven book. The Vault was sufficiently entertaining, memorable and creepy that I have to award it a review score of 5/5 – I didn’t want it to end.

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January 8

Hellbound – David McCaffrey

His crimes – unforgivable. His death – inevitable. His suffering – just beginning.

Obadiah Stark aka The Tally Man, is executed at ADX Absolom, his death sentence watched by the world’s media, victim relatives and one investigative reporter, Joe O Connell. Penning an account of Stark’s personal history and subsequent crimes in the hope of determining what elements make the sociopathic mind tick, Joe discovers clues and inconsistencies which cause him to investigate Stark’s execution.

While this is happening in the real world, Obadiah Stark awakens to an afterlife where he has a wife and daughter bound to his childhood hometown. Following his natural predatory instinct, Obadiah proceeds to torment the town, committing multiple murders before being gunned down by the police.

He awakens to find that everything has reset, with no one recalling his murderous spree a reality which offers no escape. As the scenes repeat, he is forced to submit to emotions he has never experienced before…and with it, a poisonous dose of morality.

Thank you to the Crime Book Club for giving me the chance to host this leg of the Hellbound Blog Tour and to David McCaffrey for providing a copy of Hellbound for review.

Joe O’Connell is a journalist writing a book about a serial killer – Obadiah Stark. Hellbound opens with Joe attending Stark’s execution. We are left in no doubt that Stark is a cold and unrepentant killer and that nobody will mourn his passing. The execution proceeds (no last minute reprieves) and Stark is gone.

Joe intends for his book to cover Stark’s crimes and he hopes that the families of Stark’s victims will help with his research. He stands a good chance of gaining their support as Joe has made a commitment not to sensationalise the murders committed by Obadiah Stark. It becomes clear that there is a symmetry here with Hellbound; David McCaffrey also chooses not to depict Stark’s crimes (over 20 murders) into a gore-fest tale aimed to shock the reader, instead he adopts a much more clever approach…I shall explain.

The narrative of Hellbound can broadly be broken down into three distinct sections. One section takes the form of clinical notes or reports upon Stark’s movements and interactions (including the killings) which are described in precise and factual detail. I found this unusual approach to be a really effective way of establishing the dispassionate and brutal nature of the killer.

The second narrative stream follows Joe. His quest to get to the heart of the Obadiah Stark story brings him into contact with the family members of Stark’s victims, prison employees and even another writer that wants to assist Joe with his work. Yet the deeper he digs the more he becomes convinced that the execution did not progress quite as it should have.

Now we get to the third of the key narrative streams – that of Obadiah Stark himself. Stark remembers his life, his crimes and even his execution…yet how is this possible if he died?

Stark has awoken in a town he remembers from his childhood yet he is now married, has a child and seems not to have spent the last years of his life in a remote island prison. Confused and angry Stark commits some very public murders and is gunned down by the police. The next day he awakes and finds that everything has been reset as if nothing ever happened. I must confess at this stage of reading that I had no idea what was going on and the words ‘Groundhog Day’ were zooming around my head.

From this point on David McCaffrey takes the readers on a fascinating journey. First the investigation: O’Connell is pursuing a story as he is sure the prison are hiding something following Stark’s execution. Alongside is the unexplained mystery: Stark seems to be living in a dreamlike world where he is self-aware yet nobody knows he is one of the most infamous killers the world has seen.

I was compelled to keep reading as I simply had to find out what was happening! Fortunately this was no chore: the story progresses at a nice pace (crucially there was never any feeling of plot padding) and there plenty of twists to hold my attention.

Throughout the story you find that the morality of the Death Penalty will arise but the reader has to form their own opinion as to whether it is appropriate punishment for Stark. I can see a reading group having a ball with that one! I believe some readers may start to feel sorry for Stark, others most certainly will not – huge plaudits to Mr McCaffrey for tackling such an emotive issue and pitching it perfectly.

By the end of Hellbound I was willing the story to go on. I hope that I am right in my guess that David McCaffrey has not finished will all the characters he introduced in Hellbound – there was a very real feeling that <REDACTED> was being set up for a sequel.

Hellbound is a book that deserves to be read – a clever thriller, well written and extremely enjoyable.

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January 8

Hellbound Blog Tour – David McCaffrey Q&A

As part of the Hellbound Blog Tour I am delighted to be able to welcome David McCaffrey to Grab This Book.

David very kindly agreed to answer a few of my questions surrounding his debut novel, Hellbound, and has also given me an insight into his own reading preferences.

As I had the opportunity, I also tried to squeeze a little extra information from him regarding what may come next for the Hellbound cast – there is good news on that front as you will see…

So with my profound thanks to David I opened with an ‘easy’ one:

Why do you think we (as readers) enjoy serial killer stories given the reality is such a horrific concept?

I think we’re fascinated with the concept of absolute evil and how someone can become so devoid of empathy and remorse. There could be many reasons for this fascination…it is because we feel sorry for the events that lead them to become that way? Is it because we sometimes see aspects of ourselves in their character? It’s acknowledged that you cannot have good without evil, light without darkness. And because of this, as readers, we find ourselves eager to see what horrific acts characters can get up to and what will be done to defeat them.

After all, are they not the more interesting? We seek to find those moments where we can feel affinity with the shadier side of human nature because, as a contradiction, it also makes us feel safe. We know that evil is simply an excuse for unacceptable behaviour and that, if the surface of it is scratched, like a poorly rendered wall it will crumble away.

I think we’ll always find evil personable because at its core, we need to believe that there is more to it than simply basic desire to cause harm and that such characters are more complex than that. That good and evil are but two sides of the same coin. As Obadiah Stark tells Father Hicks prior to his execution “Evil is simply live spelt backwards.”

I am keen to avoid spoilers, however, within Hellbound a group called The Brethren feature on occasion. I loved the premise of The Brethren is there any chance they may feature in a subsequent title?

Absolutely!! I am currently working on a Hellbound novella titled ‘In Extremis’ which deals with the birth of The Brethren and how their journey began utilising a famous character from history (alluded to at the end of Hellbound!!). They initially see themselves as altruistic, but as history has often illustrated, our most famous despots and totalitarian literary creations often start believing they’re righteous in their quest. As to whether they are right or wrong, that’s for the reader to decide!

Joe O’Connell is the primary character within Hellbound (other than Stark). Do you see Joe’s Story as having reached a natural conclusion or would you consider bringing him back?

I have a beat sheet for a follow up to Hellbound, and Joe is integral to the plot but not the main character. You rightly point out that his story does reach a natural end point, but as to whether he still has a part to play, that would be telling!

Within the story O’Connell is writing a book which reflects the story of Stark without sensationalising his crimes. I felt that Hellbound also took this approach, murders are detailed but not in a tone which may convey ‘schlock horror’ was this an intentional symmetry?

It was. When writing it, I had two rules I made integral to his character. One, he couldn’t do anything sexually violent towards women (or men for that matter) and two, he couldn’t harm children in anyway. My justification for this was simple; as odious and evil a character as I made him, if he broke either of those two rules then the reader would never be able to sympathise with him, no matter the extent of his suffering. At the end I don’t expect the audience to like him, as I made him intensely dislikeable on purpose, but I made him dislikeable within the parameters of his own morality. By doing this, readers can hopefully sympathise with his plight and not feel guilty for feeling sorry for such an evil individual. Because ultimately, Obadiah’s journey throughout Hellbound does suck ever so slightly.

Stark’s crimes were split between Ireland and the US? Have you visited the areas depicted (or how did you come to select the regions you used)?

I have been to both countries (my Dad’s family are from Kerry)…I love Ireland and would live there one day if circumstances allow. The reason I chose Ireland for the supermax, ADX Absolom, was because The Blasket Islands are extremely desolate (Ryan’s Daughter was filmed there) and it seemed a haunting and lonely place to build a prison with only Artic Terns for company. I also wanted to play a little with convention and set it somewhere other than the United States. Having Obadiah emigrate there and ultimately return home seemed to lend the narrative a slightly cyclic feel in regards to his rationale for choosing to his victims.

On a more personal level, what do you enjoy reading? Who do you consider to be your favourite authors?

I’m pretty eclectic when it comes to reading! I enjoy thrillers, the occasional horror story, biographies, science fiction. I recently read I Am Pilgrim by Terry Hayes which is one of the best thrillers I have read in a long time. John Grisham, Steve Alten, George R. R. Martin, Stephen King are probably my all-time favourite authors, but I do enjoy Stephen Leather’s Jack Nightingale books and anything by Lee Child (then again, doesn’t most of the world!!). Two of the most exciting books I recently read were The Willow Tree by Bekki Pate and The Element Order by P.S Ferns, two fellow authors whom I know and who have crafted really stunning debut novels…worth checking out!

When do you find time to write?

Usually on a night when my children have gone to bed. I’ll spend an hour or so most days at the computer, but often I’ll have a random idea or thought about adding to a chapter and say to Kelly ‘I’m just going to write this up before I forget’ and disappear for a few hours!

What comes next for David McCaffrey?

I have the Hellbound prequel drafted and am in the process of editing, I have two beat sheets completed; one for a Hellbound sequel and one for an completely unrelated title about a deadly infection with the working title ‘Pathogenicity’ (working in Infection Control and the currently Ebola concerns, it now seems appropriate!!). I have a few other ideas floating about in drafts that I’m always toying with. At the moment I’m just so pleased people seem to be enjoying Hellbound! I always knew it was a hard sell, but that if people gave it a chance they’ll find it’s something a little different and not quite what they expect…which seems to be the case!!!

My thanks to David and to Crime Book Club (@crimebookclub).

The tour concludes tomorrow (Jan 10th) at tigerlilybooks76@blogspot.com

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November 7

Dreda Say Mitchell – Heroes To Die For

Heroes To Die For

What makes a great character or hero in a thriller? It goes without saying that if we knew the answer to that question we wouldn’t be writing or reading blogs – we’d be lying by our swimming pool with a banana daiquiri, feeling sorry for all those poor people out there. Of course, all those who write or read thrillers have their own ideas and we’ve got plenty of examples over the years to help answer the question. From Sam Spade and onto Jack Reacher, and on the big screen Sigourney Weaver’s Ripley character in ‘Alien’, heroes are all very different. But is it possible to find a common thread?

For those of us who write thrillers, this is more than a theoretical question, we have to get it right. You can develop the most ingenious plot based on the most original premise but if your characters don’t do it for the reader, it’s going back on the shelf. And there isn’t an easy answer to it; nothing’s more frustrating for a writer than seeing another author breaking all the supposed rules and then coming up trumps anyway (although that in itself should be a pointer). But if we can’t actually spot the ball, we can at least identify the ballpark.

One common feature is that we have to be on our hero’s side and they have to be basically sympathetic even, or especially, when they’re up to no good. It won’t work if we go into the final showdown and the reader’s thinking, “I hope the villain kills the hero, he’s got it coming…” In my new novel ‘Vendetta’, our hero Mac, breaks all the police officer’s rules and I hope the reader understand why. I want the reader whispering, “Yes, I get it; I’d do the same in his position…” Some thrillers take the reader by the arm and make them complicit in the murder and mayhem. There are of course gentle and self effacing investigators in the genre but I tend not to gravitate towards them as a reader.

And heroes can’t simply be heroic; they need their human and vulnerable side if readers are going to buy into them. Yes, of course, we want them to be able to flatten a half dozen bad guys waiting to attack them in a dark alley. But at the same time if they’ve got the perfect family, their pension all sorted out and no vices of any kind, it’s hard to get into them. Many readers are now getting a little fed up with the alcoholic cop ‘on the edge’ but there’s a very good reason why they became so popular in the first place. And there’s a very good reason why our characters tend to suffer a long, dark night of the soul. We want real people not cardboard cut-outs. In ‘Vendetta’, Mac has got his problems but hey who hasn’t? We want exaggerated versions of real life but we want real life in there too.

What goes for heroes is also true of villains. There are still a few evil masterminds who are planning to destroy the planet – in 24 hours of course – but they’re rare now. The charming serial killer, the morally ambiguous criminal, the murderer who did it for understandable reasons, tend to be the rule these days. Indeed the convergence of heroes and villains has become one of the features of 21^st century thriller writing.

But ultimately, what’s the test of the real deal when it comes to thriller characters? Well, if you’re sitting next to someone on the bus and they’re reading your book and they look up in horror because they’ve missed their stop, then you’ve got it right. And all the theorising about characters in the world isn’t going to change that.

VENDETTA by Dreda Say Mitchell is out now in paperback and eBook, published by Hodder, £6.99. For more information visit www.dredasaymitchell.com and follow Dreda on twitter @DredaMitchell

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November 5

Stephen Lloyd Jones Q&A for Written in the Blood

I am thrilled to be part of the Stephen Lloyd Jones WRITTEN IN THE BLOOD Blog Tour. On this leg of the tour Stephen has very kindly taken time to complete a Q&A.

Having loved Stephen’s first novel, THE STRING DIARIES, I was keen to find what lay in store in WRITTEN IN THE BLOOD. I also wanted to find out a little more about life beyond the books and find where the ideas may have come from.

Jakab was the menacing threat throughout The String Diaries, can readers expect a similar foe in Written in the Blood?

They certainly can. THE STRING DIARIES was the story of Hannah Wilde’s struggle to escape Jakab, psychopathic member of Hungary’s secretive hosszú életek. I think of that book as a microcosm – it touched on the hosszú életek mythos but focussed on the intensely personal fight between Hannah and Jakab.

WRITTEN IN THE BLOOD is set fifteen years after the climactic events of THE STRING DIARIES, and occurs over a far broader landscape. This time around, the main protagonist is Leah Wilde, Hannah’s daughter. Early in the novel, Leah falls prey to a danger more formidable than the hosszú életek. I don’t want to reveal too much about the new threat, but it’s not the only danger confronting Leah. Closer to home lurks an even greater menace. And if you thought Jakab was a conflicted character in THE STRING DIARIES, wait until you meet Izsak, his younger brother . . .

Both The String Diaries and Written in the Blood feature strong female lead characters (Hannah and Leah). Is it hard to write for a central character of the opposite sex?

Thank you! I must admit, I don’t set out to write strong female characters, just strong characters. That’s something that happens long before the writing begins – the better I know a character before I commit them to paper, the easier the job of writing them becomes. If I caught myself considering gender too closely, I’d be worried. We’re all unique creations, after all. Gender is simply one facet.

Your website suggests you live in a house that is filled with too many books – what do you read and where do you seek guidance or inspiration?

The shelves are truly creaking around here. I tried a Kindle once, didn’t like it, so am doomed to mountains of books instead. I read a wide range of genres but I do have a few old favourites in terms of writers – Dean Koontz and Stephen King particularly. Other than that, I enjoy historical fiction, thrillers, fantasy. I tend to pick up and read whichever book is threatening to collapse the most precarious stack.

Inspiration comes in a never-ending drip-feed of thoughts and images. Out of that soup, sometimes a story will emerge.

Written in the Blood (as with The String Diaries) covers a lot of territory while the story unfolds. Do you travel to research your locations?

The new book contains a wider range of locations than my debut, but I think I’ve travelled to all but one of them. The fun part was investigating their history: during WRITTEN IN THE BLOOD, readers will visit contemporary California, London and the Italian Lakes, as well as nineteenth century Hungary, 1920s New York, and wartime Canada.

Finally, what comes next for Stephen Lloyd Jones?

I’m currently writing my third novel. It’s a standalone book, based on an idea I’ve had for a while. Headline are due to publish it in January 2015.

My thanks again to Stephen for taking time to answer my questions. WRITTEN IN THE BLOOD is published on 6 November by Headline.

Please also ensure you visit the other stops on the Blog Tour for exclusive content and extracts from WRITTEN IN THE BLOOD.

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November 2

Written In The Blood – Blog Tour – Something Wicked This Way Comes

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October 27

Blog Tour – Leigh Russell Escapes to Solitude

This is the last stop on Leigh Russell’s Race to Death Blog Tour. My review of Race to Death follows below, but before we get there time to let Leigh cool the pace a little.

While the virtual tour has been progressing, Leigh has also been touring in York, where Race to Death is set. After a very hectic few weeks Leigh is heading for a well earned break. Before she finally escaped, however, she agreed to answer my request to consider what she may take on a desert island escape.

Borrowing heavily from Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs, I asked Leigh what books she would take to a desert island escape, one piece of music and a luxury item – she kindly replied and has planned her escape…

Right now my life is so hectic, the idea of an “island get-away” seems very appealing. To give you an idea of how busy my life has become, just yesterday I returned home from a promotional tour of Yorkshire, today I’m in Brighton today at a meeting discuss establishing the International Thriller Writers in the UK, and then tomorrow I’m off to Barcelona to do some research. In November I’m travelling North again, through Birmingham to Buxton, for more book events, and then going South to Chichester before returning to York in December… I am rarely at home these days! So when I was asked to consider what I might take to a desert island, I was happy to accept the opportunity to dream about it…

If I could take just six books with me to my desert island retreat, the first would be the complete works of Shakespeare. If a complete works is not allowed, I would choose Hamlet and Macbeth as two of my six books, as I particularly love the language of those two plays. My third choice would be Milton’s Paradise Lost. The language is magnificent, and the poem is long enough to keep me engaged for weeks. My next choice would be Pride and Prejudice, for entertainment value and because, like my other choices, it is so beautifully written. My two final choices would be Edith Wharton’s The Age of Innocence, and Kazuo Ishiguru’s The Remains of the Day, which are both intensely sad novels, beautifully written.

The one CD I would take would be any Mozart as I find his music sublime. I don’t think I could ever tire of it. Lying on the beach on my island retreat, gazing at the ocean and listening to Mozart would be very relaxing. (When can I go, please?)

My one luxury item would be my ipad, and a source of electricity. That way I would never feel bored or lonely, because I would be busy writing books.

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