The Macavity Award nominations are for (for works published in 2024)
The Macavity Award is named after Macavity: The Mystery Cat, in T.S. Eliot's Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats!
The Macavity Awards are nominated and voted on by members of Mystery Readers International, subscribers to Mystery Readers Journal, and friends of MRI.
Best Mystery Novel
Hall of Mirrors by John Copenhaver (Pegasus Crime)
Served Cold by James L’Etoile (Level Best Books)
The God of the Woods by Liz Moore (Riverhead)
California Bear by Duane Swierczynski (Mulholland)
The In Crowd by Charlotte Vassell (Doubleday)
All the Colors of the Dark by Chris Whitaker (Crown)
Best First Mystery
Outraged by Brian Copeland (Dutton)
A Reluctant Spy by David Goodman (Headline)
Ghosts of Waikiki by Jennifer K. Morita (Crooked Lane)
You Know What You Did by K.T. Nguyen (Dutton)
The Expat by Hansen Shi (Pegasus Crime)
Holy City by Henry Wise (Atlantic Monthly Press)
Best Mystery Short Story
“Home Game” by Craig Faustus Buck (in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, July/August 2024)
“The Postman Always Flirts Twice” by Barb Goffman (in Agatha and Derringer Get Cozy)
“Curse of the Super Taster” by Leslie Karst (in Black Cat Weekly, Feb 23, 2024)
“Two for One” by Art Taylor (in Murder, Neat)
“Satan’s Spit” by Gabriel Valjan (in Tales of Music, Murder, and Mayhem)
“Reynisfjara” by Kristopher Zgorski (in Mystery Most International)
Best Historical Mystery
The Wharton Plot by Mariah Fredericks (Minotaur)
An Art Lover’s Guide to Paris and Murder by Dianne Freeman (Kensington)
Fog City by Claire Johnson (Level Best Books)
The Murder of Mr. Ma by John Shen Yen Nee and S.J. Rozan (Soho Crime)
The Bootlegger’s Daughter by Nadine Nettmann (Lake Union)
A Grave Robbery by Deanna Raybourn (Berkley)
Best Nonfiction/Critical
Writing the Cozy Mystery: Authors’ Perspectives on Their Craft edited by Phyllis M. Betz (McFarland)
Some of My Best Friends Are Murderers: Critiquing the Columbo Killers by Chris Chan (Level Best Books)
Witch of New York: The Trials of Polly Bodine and the Cursed Birth of Tabloid Justice by Alex Hortis (Pegasus Crime)
The Infernal Machine: A True Story of Dynamite, Terror, and the Rise of the Modern Detective by Steven Johnson (Crown)
On Edge: Gender and Genre in the Work of Shirley Jackson, Patricia Highsmith, and Leigh Brackett by Ashley Lawson (Ohio State University Press)
Abingdon’s Boardinghouse Murder by Greg Lilly (History Press)
My new thriller, The School Gates, centres on the murder of single mum, Lola Martinez, whose body is found on the riverbank the morning after a primary school parent Christmas social. Suspicion soon falls on Lola’s mum friends, but it’s also clear that someone from Lola’s past may have wanted her dead and that a friend Lola confides in online might have the answers. The story is told through the eyes of the investigating police officer as he interviews the various suspects in the present day, and from Lola’s perspective in a series of flashbacks starting from when her son joined the school up until her death.
It is, of course, a classic domestic suspense thriller being set against the very relatable backdrop of a local primary school where the tricky interpersonal relationships between a diverse range of morally grey characters are explored in a tense, claustrophobic atmosphere, each of them hiding dark secrets which are gradually unveiled as the action progresses. However, with my main protagonist, Lola, murdered in Chapter One, and half the ensuing story told through the eyes of the investigating officer, DI Banner, The School Gates is also a whodunnit, making it a particularly stimulating, fascinating novel to write. And hopefully, to read!
This isn’t the first time I’ve ventured into the intriguing, ever popular world of ‘whodunnits’ as far as my psychological thrillers are concerned. My third foray into the genre, The Final Party, centres around three couples who spend a week together in Italy to celebrate a fortieth birthday party. In the Prologue, the reader learns that one of the party is dead, and they are then taken on a complex, twisty journey back in time to discover who the victim is and how they met their unfortunate demise. The School Gates, however, is more of a classic whodunnit, in that we know Lola is the victim from the outset, and we follow Banner’s chain of enquiries as he interviews various suspects in Lola’s immediate parent circle, each of whom have a credible motive to have wanted her dead.
Whodunnits remain a much beloved variety of crime fiction for a whole host of reasons. For readers, they offer the tantalising challenge of trying to solve a puzzle by making deductions from a series of clues the author will drop into the narrative, only to be thrown off track by a surprising twist or clever red herring which brings them back to square one. Whodunnit fans love nothing better than being taken on a rollercoaster ride of twists and turns before having the wind knocked out of their sails by a final revelation that leaves them open-mouthed. That being so, it takes great skill to craft a story in such a way as to ensure that happens, with the reader left satisfied rather than short-changed.
Trying to discern the killer from a varied range of credible suspects (as my detective tries to do in The School Gates) is a simple concept all things considered, but the crime writer will make it more compelling, suspenseful and difficult for the reader to solve through strong character development, the exploration of complex motives, and intricate backstory, all of which will hopefully keep them guessing and turning the pages and, even better, will mess with our minds!
Domestic suspense is, of course, a type of ‘psychological thriller’, and in recent years classic whodunnits have adopted more of a ‘psychological’ spin due to the former’s popularity since the release of Gone Girl. The focus isn’t just on the puzzle, clues and final reveal, i.e., the who, anymore, but each character’s inner monologue and what’s driving their actions, i.e. the why. They are still mysteries, of course, but they now tend to explore the psychology of the various suspects more deeply, thereby, in my view, enriching the story. Being a psychological thriller author, I really enjoyed exploring this combination in The School Gates, the school setting providing for a hotbed of simmering tension, poisonous mind games and deep discontent and in turn, ramping up the suspense in the reader’s mind. Likewise, rather than making him a gritty tough-talking detective, I purposely gave my investigating officer a much softer side, giving the reader an insight into his own inner struggles, attempting to show how the case affects him deeply having a young son himself, along with the stress and frustration he feels while investigating Lola’s murder and coming up against dead ends.
In short, whodunnits are no longer confined to locked-room puzzles and smart deductions leading to the capture of a killer. They are now much darker and more complex, delving more deeply into the protagonists’ psychologies with reference to wider societal and social issues. This is turn makes them more relatable, with none of us being infallible human beings, but prone to the darker traits of human nature and susceptible to taking a self-destructive path.
In The School Gates, while the reader follows Banner’s chain of enquiries which eventually lead him to unearthing Lola’s killer in the style of the classic “whodunnit”, we’re also offered an in-depth insight into events leading up to her death through Lola’s eyes; not just her own mindset and motivations, but that of other parents, thereby ramping up the suspense and uncertainty in readers’ minds, a device which hopefully keeps them guessing until the end!
The School Gates by A A Chaudhuri (Canelo Publishing) Out Now
First comes gossip … then comes revenge. When single mum Lola Martinez’s son, Luca, starts school, she feels that she’ll never fit in with the yummy mummies in the playground. Confident, married to wealthy men, with ample free time, they are everything she isn’t. However, Lola is invited into the inner circle, surrounded by seemingly friendly people, even if Lola’s silence about her child’s father puzzles them. Despite herself, Lola quickly becomes involved in playground politics, making as many enemies as friends. But then Lola is brutally murdered, her death rocking the close-knit community. As the police investigate the case, they discover that Lola was hiding many secrets – as are the mums in her new social circle. But who had the most reason to kill her? And who else might unwittingly hold the answers to what happened that night?
More information about the author can be found on her website. She can also be found on X @AAChaudhuri, Facebook, Instagram @a.a.chaudhuri, Tiktok @alexchaudhuri0923 and Blue Sky - @aachaudhuri.bsky.social
Lee Child, the author behind the
global phenomenon, Jack Reacher, headlines the inaugural Whitby Lit Fest.
Child’s books have been
translated in multiple languages, had two Hollywood adaptations starring Tom
Cruise, and a hit Amazon Prime series featuring Alan Ritchson, with millions of
copies sold worldwide.
The blockbuster author will be in
conversation with the TV personality, Rob Rinder.
Lee will be discussing the new
Reacher book – Exit Strategy - co-written with his brother, Andrew
Child. The 30th title in the Jack Reacher series is published on 4
November.
Child will also discuss his first
ever autobiographical collection, The Stories Behind the Stories, which
is published this September.
Rinder is a Sunday Times No.1
bestselling author, with a series of novels inspired by his experiences as a
barrister: The Trial, The Suspect and The Protest.
Over 40 authors are expected to
descend on the coastal town for the inaugural festival, which runs from
Thursday 6 to Sunday 9 November.
Alongside bestselling authors,
Whitby Lit Fest will champion writers, past and present, who have been inspired
by Whitby, and celebrate the coast’s literary heritage.
Whitby is home to one of the
world’s most enduring literary legacies: Dracula.
The name Dracula and some of the
novel’s most dramatic scenes were inspired by Bram Stoker’s holiday in Whitby
in 1890.
The picturesque harbour, abbey
ruins, windswept churchyard, and the salty tales he heard from Whitby seafarers
all became ingredients in the novel.
Festival Patron, Kate Fenton -
the author and former BBC Radio 4 producer - said: “Whitby is a book lover’s
playground. I’ve been known to march protesting family members up the 199 steps
at midnight to sit, as Bram Stoker’s silly Lucy does, on a lonely bench in the
gale-blasted churchyard, daring a bat to sweep down.
“Strolling along West Cliff, I
like to imagine I might bump into Jackson Brodie because I’ve noticed brilliant
Kate Atkinson is fond of sending her detective to our town – and I kid myself
I’m personally acquainted with the characters in Ben Myers’ The Offing,
set just down the coast in Robin Hood’s Bay. I could go on. The place’s clearly
an enduring inspiration for writers, and it’s marvellous so many will be
gathering here in November, along with us inky-fingered bookworms, young and
old. I can hardly wait.”
The anniversary of Bram Stoker’s
birthday is on November 8, and the festival has plans to mark the occasion,
alongside its links to another literary legend: Charles Dickens, who stayed at
the White Horse and Griffin whilst visiting Whitby.
Lois Kirtlan, Committee Chair of
the Whitby Lit Fest, said: “We’re thrilled to welcome a literary giant, like
Lee Child, to launch a landmark event for readers and writers alike.”
A major theme of the first
festival will celebrate Whitby’s dramatic coastline and landscapes, with
authors focussing on nature, travel, and the outdoors, as well as a wider look
at wellbeing.
Lois said: “The landscape, sea,
and dramatic skies offer the perfect setting to discuss the big questions books
throw up about life. It’s a chance for readers to go on a literary adventure,
to discover new authors alongside established and acclaimed writers, with the
remarkable backdrop of Whitby in November, with its quieter coastal paths and
dramatic sunsets. Throw in our famous fish and chips, and we think it’s every
bookworm’s paradise.”
Other themes include crime
fiction, gothic horror, and working-class writing.
The festival will also feature a
poetry strand to celebrate established and emerging local poets. A bespoke
children’s strand is centred on a writing competition for local schoolchildren
delivered in partnership with the National Literacy Trust, to ignite a love of
writing and reading in young audiences.
The full programme and ticket
sales will be announced later in the year.
The event is an initiative by the
Whitby community, with a steering committee of local businesses The Whitby
Bookshop and Hetty & Betty, alongside North Yorkshire Council Libraries,
Visit North Yorkshire, and English Heritage, who look after Whitby Abbey, with
support from Cause UK Public Relations and Hello Technology.
Lois added: “This is a festival
rooted in place and community. We want to create something that’s not only
world-class in literary programming, but also deeply connected to the people
and stories of Whitby. It’s about celebrating creativity and heritage, and
bringing people together through the joy of books.”
Whitby Lit Fest is being
established as a charity. Ticket prices will be affordable and accessible. The
committee welcomes sponsorship and volunteer support. If interested, and to
receive other festival updates please contact the festival team via the website: www.whitbylitfest.org.uk
I’m forever struck by an old YouTube video I once saw in which some clever editor had taken the much-beloved Mary Poppins and created a new, truly 21st Century trailer. The result was strange, uncanny. Gone was the whimsical and heart-warming movie we all know and love – umbrellas in flight, an emotionally buttoned-up father driven back into the loving arms of his family, furious spit-spotting down bannisters in the wrapper of a feel-good sing-a-long for all ages – and in its place, dark and twisted, was what would previously have seemed impossible: a horror film. Mary’s gentle lullabies were now the songs of a demonic spirit, luring little children to their windows, and her fanciful magic now the torturous gifts of a punitive, child-hating entity who arrives on the wind one day and steals all joy from the world.
What this brilliant bit of editing demonstrates is just how fragile the boundaries of genre are. Ancillary tropes that we take for granted as emblematic of specific genres are slippery and open to manipulation and reinvention. Put simply: one slight turn of the dial can transform a technicolour dream into a Ken Russell-esque nightmare.
Two genres that have always seemed to me natural bedfellows under the right conditions are thrillers and romances – for a hungry, lustful relationship can so easily turn toxic, and what thriller is complete without the promise (or threat) of a romantic connection made (or broken)?
We're all familiar with the wedding as a backdrop to a rom-com - the final act; the joyful destination after a long, troubled-journey; an event to wash out the old and welcome the new; the fresh start; the happily-ever-after. It is the pinnacle of the rising tension, a restoration of equilibrium, the moment of arrival. Indeed, Hollywood's idea of the wedding has become so ingrained in us that, for the past half-decade, life has grown to imitate art. Weddings have become more lavish affairs, more choreographed, more pressured. And so, fiction has birthed reality.
The union of two families bound by the ultimate expression of an enduring love mark weddings as quintessentially joyful, supposedly harmonious, occasions. But one upending of a familiar trope, and we're in very different territory. The bridal expectation can soon turn to dread, the coming together of the tribes can give rise to friction, long-buried secrets can bubble to the surface, and any last-minute doubts can cast a heavy pall across the entire occasion. Harried brides, nervous groomsmen, fractious families, and emotional guests. In many ways, the wedding is the perfect setting for a thriller.
It was no accident, then, that I chose a wedding as the focal point of my thriller, The Stranger at the Wedding. The book starts with a wedding, and it ends with one, though the two occasions are worlds apart and troubled for very different reasons. In our main event, we meet our mild-mannered, diffident protagonist, Annie, who is about to marry Mark, a surgeon, following a whirlwind romance. As they’re about to cement their love before a throng of well-wishers, Annie spots a face in the crowd she doesn’t recognise: a man, she suspects, who has come to raze to the ground all that she has built with Mark.
Who can say, hand on heart, that we have known every single person at our own weddings? Those we don’t recognise, we trust, were invited by our partners – work colleagues, distant relatives, rekindled friends, perhaps. Weddings have far too many moving parts for any one person to keep on top of every detail; I guess that’s why so many of us turn to wedding planners. Such occasions, fraught with both anxiety, excitement and doubt, allow the unexpected to rear its ugly head. Therein lies the potential for drama, both quiet- and explosive.
In The Stranger at the Wedding, though, it is not the uninvited guest who initially throws the event into crisis, but the groom himself, who turns to Annie, our not-so-blushing bride, and delivers the hammer blow at the end of the opening Act: we need to talk. But this comes as no great surprise to Annie; she had been expecting this. Both parties, it seems, have been concealing, and it is the public spectacle of the wedding itself that has forced them out of hiding.
A writer is a little like a conductor, deciding which bits of the orchestra to dial up, and which to dial down at any given moment. A wedding – this wedding – could have gone one of two ways. I chose to dial up the tension, the element of the unknown, the fear of losing someone close to you. In another world, I could have foregrounded the couples’ love, their complete and utter joy, their journey off into the sunset, and that – much like a re-cut Mary Poppins trailer – would have told a very different story.
The Stranger at The Wedding by A E Gauntlett. (Bloomsbury Publishing) Out Now Annie never believed in true love. Not until she met Mark. It’s a whirlwind romance and Annie has never felt surer about anything in her life. But as she stands at the altar, she spots an unknown face in the crowd. Who is the stranger at the wedding? What really happened to Mark’s first wife? And is Annie really the person she says she is? The stranger at the wedding: whose side are you on?
“Thom
Graves is a tenured English Professor in his mid-fifties. His wife Wendy also
works in academia, and was a published poet in her youth. She considers that
her husband drinks too much, has a wandering eye and worryingly has started
writing a novel – a murder mystery. Wendy can tolerate his drinking and even
his flings with younger women at the University – but what she cannot accept is
his writing.
At
a dinner party she ponders what her life would be like without him so she
decides to murder him.”
‘Kill Your Darlings’ is a difficult book to review without
revealing spoilers, as the narrative unspools in reverse. I pondered upon Søren
Kierkegaard’s assertion that “Life can
only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.”
“I
sat in silence when I put the book down, and have been pondering the narrative
as Kill your Darlings provokes deep thought – contemplation of fate intertwined
with free-will to form our lives and our deaths and that of others that we
interact with.”
So after putting down “Kill Your Darlings” I had a few
questions for the author, which Peter kindly answered and which we now present for
our readers -
Ali:
Welcome to Shots Magazine
Peter:
Hey, great to be here
AK: We
were floored by your latest novel KILL YOUR DARLINGS so could you let us know
where the kernel for this novel’s idea came from?
PS: It
came from two places. One was the desire to write a novel in reverse. So much
of crime fiction is about how the bad deeds of the past effect the present, so
I wanted to explore that by going backwards. The second spark for this novel
was really thinking about what would happen if the adulterous couple in Double
Indemnity or Body Heat, or really any story in which a married woman talks her
lover into killing her husband, got away with it. What would their lives look
like in thirty years?
AK: I
find your female characters so very intriguing and perhaps the adage that “the
female of the species is deadlier than the male” to be especially applicable in
your work, including in your latest – would you care to discuss?
PS: Maybe
it’s because historically men are more violent than women that killer female
characters are so interesting. They have to overcome their natures in order to
kill, unlike men, who are overcoming their natures in order to not kill. I’m
sure that’s reductive, but I think there is some truth in it. Anyway, I enjoy
writing deadly females probably for the same reason people like to read about
them.
AK:
There is complexity in your work, but it’s deft [in so far as the narrative
appears effortlessly constructed to the reader]. So are you a plotter or do you
just follow the muse and hope everything will turn out fine?
PS: In
general, I’m a muse-follower, hoping for the best. However, in writing Kill
Your Darlings I had to, by necessity, do a little more classic plotting. I
needed to know what happened in the past, of course, in order to explore how
these characters were acting in the present. That said, I never did an outline
for this book, and there are some elements to the story that I discovered in
the course of writing.
AK: The
subtle details embedded in the narrative of KILL YOUR DARLINGS added nuance
making it [deliciously] thought provoking. The mention / references of a poem
by Edgar Allan Poe, Herge’s Tintin in Tibet, William Peter Blatty…..even the
title of Wendy’s debut poetry collection…….Did you plan these [and others] or did they appear naturally?
PS: A
lot of the references appear naturally, in the sense that when I am working on
a novel my mind is filled with favourite books and poems and movies that might
have some relevance to what I’m working on. But, of course, there’s some
manipulation. Once I knew that Jason, Thom and Wendy’s son, was a Tintin
reader, it made sense for the story for him to be carrying around Tintin in
Tibet, the book that Herge claimed originated from his middle-aged dreams
of dying.
AK:
Which of your previous novels did you enjoy writing the most and why?
PS:
Well, it wasn’t Kill Your Darlings, which got very tricky to write for a
period of time, so much so that I almost abandoned it. The book I loved writing
was The
Rules for Perfect Murders (Eight Perfect Murders in the States), mostly
because I could spend so much time exploring the plots and intricacies of some
of my favourite crime novels. As you’ve already mentioned I do love references,
and I didn’t need to hold back with this particular book.
AK: I
find your later novels to be particularly memorable especially, RULES
FOR PERFECT MURDERS , A
TALENT FOR MURDER and NINE
LIVES as I still think about them from time to time. Do you find the
writing process to have gotten easier than when you started over a decade ago
or has each novel gotten harder to shape?
PS:
All novels are hard to write, and it doesn’t get any easier. I do think that
now that I have written a dozen novels maybe I’m allowing a little more quirk
and personality into my stories than I did when I first started out. Maybe I
trust my instincts (for better or worse) more than when I was a younger writer.
AK: I
found your novella THE CHRISTMAS GUEST to be very dark, but told in an engaging
manner – will we ever see a collection of shorter work from you?
PS: I
think I have enough stories right now to be a collection, but I’m not sure they
are good enough. However, I’d like to come out with a short story collection
one day but maybe there would be only one. I find short stories really hard to
write, and I’ve yet to write one that I am a hundred percent pleased with. I
think I would be more likely to come out with a novella collection, since that
is a length I am very comfortable working
in.
PS: She
brought on James Gray to write the script and direct the film, if it gets made.
That’s pretty much all I know. I suspect that the next element will be finding
a male lead. They really keep the writers in the dark about this whole process,
or maybe they just keep me in the dark. Regardless, it’s an exciting
possibility, one I have very little to do with.
AK:
And what Books and Films have you enjoyed recently?
PS: I
liked Steven Soderbergh’s film Black Bag. It sold itself as a spy thriller but
it was much more of a kind of classic who-dunit, a chamber piece book-ended by
two dinner parties. I really loved Janice Hallett’s next book, Killer Question,
all about a murder wrapped into a weekly pub quiz. Very clever. And I also
loved William Boyd’s new book, Gabriel’s Moon, about a travel writer in the
1960s who gets recruited by the secret service.
AK:
And would you care to share what are you working on currently?
PS: I’ve
written another Christmas novella, and that will be coming out in the autumn of
2026. And now I’m getting ready to start a new novel that would come out in
2027.
AK:
Thank you for your time to speak with our British readers.
PS: My
pleasure, Ali.
Shots Magazine would like to thanks Sopha Cerullo and Angus
Cargill of Faber and Faber [London] for their help in facilitating this
interview with Peter Swanson.
If you’ve not read Peter Swanson, where’ve you been?
Bibliography
Henry
Kimball / Lily Kintner Novels
The Kind Worth Killing (2015)
The Kind Worth Saving (2023)
A Talent for Murder (2024)
Standalone
Novels
The Girl with a Clock for a Heart (2014)
Her Every Fear (2017)
All the Beautiful Lies (2018)
Before She Knew Him (2019)
Rules for Perfect Murders aka Eight Perfect Murders (2020)
My debut crime
thriller, BELIEVE, is out with Penguin
Michael Joseph on 19th June and I couldn’t be more excited. I
haven’t exactly followed a direct route to this moment, but I don’t regret the
meandering path I’ve taken as I’ve learnt something important from each venture
along the way.
I began my
adult life studying law at Oxford. It was a fascinating degree and I loved it.
It was all about ideas and thought experiments – what the law should be, the
impact of particular cases, the extent to which individual liberties were and
should be curtailed. It suited my argumentative nature and taught me
self-reliance. The course was entirely tutorial-based and essentially
self-taught. We’d get a reading list and an essay title and then have to
produce and be ready to defend a piece by the following week. Writing is similarly
a completely self-motivated business. You need that internal discipline and
drive, or you’ll never finish a book, and this really laid the foundations for
that. My degree also honed my ability to structure my writing, because each
week I had to formulate a robust argument that could withstand my tutor’s
attempts to tear it apart. Crime and thriller novels are so plot heavy, you
need that solid structure, to know exactly how all the strands tie together and
how changing one element will impact everything else.
On graduating,
I joined a big City law firm as that’s what everyone did and they’re the ones
who offer the most money. It might sound basic, but twenty-one-year-olds
generally are, and I was no exception. But I knew from the moment I beeped in
through those turnstiles that this wasn’t the career for me. There was no
discussion of ideas, no debate about what the law should be. It was just
business. Very much download and amend this standard form contract and stay
here all night if you need to. However, I met some fun people, and learnt work
efficiency – we had to account for and bill every 6 minute chunk of the day –
and this means that as a writer I can instantly click into writing mode. There’s
no gazing out the window, I’m focused, immersed, from the moment I sit at my
desk, even if it means I burn out three hours later! I also learnt how to write
an accurate lawyer character for BELIEVE – bonus!
I stuck it out
at the law firm until I qualified and then I left and did random, ridiculous
things for a year as a sort of late-onset teen rebellion. I designed t-shirts
that I sewed on my sofa – Jordan (now, Katie Price) actually wore one on the
front cover of OK! magazine to celebrate her engagement to Peter Andre – and
this taught me the art of the cold sell. That ability to swallow your pride and
go and stick your neck out and promote yourself. There are fewer scarier things
I’ve ever done than walk into high-end shops unannounced and ask if they’d like
to buy my t-shirts. This experience has stood me in good stead now that I’m
trying to promote my book. I’ve managed to eradicate my embarrassment reflex
and talking to booksellers doesn’t phase me at all.
In my absurd
year I also did some modelling. Which might sound glamorous and exciting, but
it really wasn’t. I did shows in London, Athens and Chicago but most of it was
hanging around, getting really, really bored and then being judged on my looks
alone and having them discussed and dissected as if I weren’t even present. It
taught me that whatever I did with my life, it had to involve using my brain.
And the time I now spend writing in my attic, in an old sweatshirt, conjuring
up worlds and characters, is a hundred times more exciting than prancing about
on a runway in a lace catsuit ever was.
When that year
came to an end, I decided I needed to grow up. I started doing private tutoring
and ended up setting up my own agency. I really enjoyed it. It’s such a privilege
to be able to work one-on-one with a student and see the exponential progress
they can make, that lightbulb moment when it all clicks together for them.
However, I also saw just how stressful lots of young people find our
examination-based education system and this gave me the idea for my first YA
book: The Territory. When my daughter was born, I decided to have a go
at writing it. I was taking 6 months’ maternity leave anyway, so while she
slept, I wrote. She was a rubbish sleeper, so it took a while, but I loved every
moment and was lucky enough to end up with an initial three-book deal.
Writing YA was
excellent preparation for writing thrillers. Teens have such limited attention
spans, so you have to hook them in quickly and then keep them there with
twists, short chapters, and relatable characters. Exactly the same applies to
adults.
With six YA
books under my belt, I decided I wanted to have a go at screenwriting. My
husband and I wrote a sci-fi thriller film together – T.I.M. – about a humanoid
A.I. robot that becomes obsessed with its female owner and will do anything it
can to take her husband’s place. This was such fun to write, and it was amazing
seeing it reach the number one spot on Netflix upon release and then stay in
the top ten for three weeks.
It made me
realise that I really wanted to write an adult thriller novel next. And the
idea for one was starting to dawn on me. I wrote it in a fevered six months and
the rest, as they say, is history.
If you get a
chance to pick up BELIEVE, I hope you enjoy it reading it at least a tenth of
the amount I enjoyed writing it. Thank you!
John
Connolly is a very busy man. He unfailingly publishes a new book every year,
alternating between his long-running Charlie
Parker PI series as well as novels that can only be described as
departures, or other creative endeavors
such as “He” which he published in 2017, or his collections of short fiction,
his collaborations and occasional pieces of journalism.
John has
recently completed his Master’s Degree from University College Cork, Ireland.
He hosts his own Radio show ABC to XTC
with John ConnollySaturdays on RTE at
17:00 - 18:00 and he happily travels the world to promote his books and
entertaining his readers and fans.
He has just completed a tour to
promote THE CHILDREN OF EVE in the UK and Ireland [read the Shots review HERE].In fact, you can follow John on Instagram HERE where he reviews
all the hotel rooms he stays in while on tour. You are always guaranteed a
chuckle.
So just before taking a well-earned
break from the UK and Ireland leg of his promotional tour, John found time to
answer a few questions about his latest work, including links to his previous
work such as The
Black Angel which predates The Children of Eve by a quarter of a century;
how the Charlie Parker series is progressing, and early word about a new book
set against the backdrop to the Watergate Affair……
John Parker: I was intrigued by the
title of the novel, especially as you take it from the Salva Regina, a prayer
well-known to Catholics, lapsed or not.
“…poor banished children of Eve / to
thee do we send up our sighs/Mourning and weeping in this vale of
tears:” Can you comment on that?
John
Connolly: I was raised Catholic, and still
have some vestiges of faith, so that prayer has always stayed with me. The
novel never had any other title, but I suppose I liked the idea of those words
being directed towards an entity that was about as far removed from the Virgin
Mary as one could get…
John
Parker: Where did the idea of mother and
the children come from? I researched a bit and came across information about
Inca mythology and the Capacocha ritual where children were chosen for
sacrifice. Am I on the wrong track?
John
Connolly: It arose from a road trip I took
while in Argentina about fifteen years or so ago, when I stumbled across a
curious, macabre, and poignant piece of archaeological history and stored it
away for use someday, as writers will do. I’m reluctant to go into too much
detail, as one of the mysteries that Parker is trying to solve in the novel
concerns the nature of the children. It’s a difficult book to discuss without
giving too much away!
John
Parker: Charlie is now middle-aged and
seems to be noticing it more. There’s not a lot of running around these days.
Hardly surprising, I know. Tell us about how you see the evolution of the man.
John Connolly: He’s in his late
fifties, and his closest colleagues are older still. He’s in a certain amount
of physical pain, he prefers to avoid physical confrontations when he can, and
his reactions are not what they once were. In other words, he is, like many of
us, getting on a bit. But he’s also more at peace with himself than he once
was, and his rage has abated. He, like the books, is moving towards a
conclusion – or a revelation, perhaps.
John
Parker: Charlie’s late daughter plays an
important role and perhaps you are changing tack and heading towards the grand
finale of the saga? I say this because of the appearance of figures in that
“unreal lagoon” who are perturbed by her presence.
John Connolly: I’ve said for a long
time that I felt Parker’s story required a conclusion, and the novels are
moving in that direction. The difficulty for me is that I still love writing about
him, and have no shortage of ideas that I’d like to explore, so I’m trying to
balance one imperative against a desire to continue in that universe. The
Children of Eve offers a suggestion as to how that might be
accomplished, but then there are other books I’d also like to write, some in
other genres. I guess I’m dealing with the issue of what kind of career I
envisage for myself in a decade, or two decades, should I live that long.
John Parker: What a surprise to see
the return of Martin Reid from
2005’s The Black Angel. Can you talk about that? Has his return always been
part of your plans?
John
Connolly: I plan in general terms – I know
where the series is going – but I’m always open to whatever ideas or characters
pop up along the way. I was writing that section and Martin emerged from the
woods, bless him. I think my unconscious must have been quietly preparing the
way for him.
John
Parker: What’s in the future for Charlie
Parker? And for John Connolly?
John
Connolly: Next year’s book is my first
mystery to move away entirely from the Parker universe. It’s called The
Castle and is set against the backdrop of the Senate Watergate
hearings in 1973. After that, I’ll return to Parker for 2027’s novel, which I’m
working on at the moment, and then I have a hankering to return to historical
fiction for one book.
John
Parker: Here’s a question I always ask
you; what are you currently reading?
John
Connolly: I’m working my way through
Bernard Cornwell’s Sharpe novels, along with Ian Leslie’s John &
Paul: A Love Story in Songs and Lucy Mangan’s Bookish: How Reading Shapes Our Lives. I tend to alternate between
fiction and non-fiction.
John
Parker: And as you are a music lover with
your own radio show and a big fan of the podcast
Word in your Ear, can you remember the first record you ever bought?
John
Connolly: The first album was ABBA’s
Arrival, and the first single was Wuthering Heights by Kate Bush. Both were
hugely expensive relative to my income. I think I put less thought into buying
my first car than I did that first single…
John
Parker: That’s great! Thanks for giving us
your time, John.
John Connolly: And great to talk
again, stay well John and all at Shots Magazine.
Shots
Magazine would like to thank Laura Sherlock, and from Hodder and Stoughton
Publishing Rebecca Mundy and Francesca Russell – for their help in organizing
this short chat with writers John Connolly and John Parker.
More
information about Laura’s work is available HERE
More
information on the work of John Connolly is available HERE and from Shots Magazine’s
Archives HERE
My protagonist in A Murder for Miss Hortense is retired nurse, keen gardener, renowned cook and fearless sleuth, Miss Hortense, a formidable woman from the Windrush generation. She emigrated from Jamaica in the 1960s and moved to the quiet fictional suburb of Bigglesweigh in Birmingham, where she was not immediately welcomed.
She takes great pride in her home and is also quite observant about other peoples’, though she doesn’t care what other people think about her. She’s gots skills . . . She can tell when a Jamaican patty doesn’t include all the right ingredients and is an expert at uncovering secrets.
My husband describes Miss Hortense as ‘like water’ – she gets everywhere. She is fearless and will knock down walls to get to the truth. But Miss Hortense also carries a wound. Something very traumatic happened to her thirty-five years ago and when an unidentified man is found dead, her long buried past comes rushing back to greet her. She knows that, in order to solve the crimes of the current day, she must go back and solve the crimes of the past.
At the heart of my novel is the Pardner. A Pardner, also called Box Hand or Sousou in the Caribbean community, is at its basic level a mutual saving scheme. A group of people come together and pool their resources, then the accumulated wealth is distributed on a regular basis amongst the contributing members.
In the UK, the Pardner was and still is used by the Windrush generation (‘Windrush generation’ to describe the women and men who came to the UK between 1948 and 1971 from the Caribbean to assist in rebuilding the country after the Second World War, and who went on to make the UK their home). At that time, one of the reasons the Pardner was so prolific was because many Afro-Caribbean communities were excluded from traditional forms of credit and finance and/or distrustful of it.
At the core of any Pardner there is a person who leads it, often a matriarchal figure, who provides discipline and keeps everyone in line; she is often called the Pardner Lady.
The idea of the Pardner fascinates me. It was used as a solution to a problem encountered by my grandparents and their generation because of a lack of access to traditional forms of finance. I thought, what other problems might a community like theirs have encountered? What other ideas might they come up with to overcome them? It felt logical to me to extend the remit of Miss Hortense and her Pardner Network to solving crime – and so the Pardner Network of Bigglesweigh was born, originally a group of eight men and women whose mission was to find justice for those who couldn’t find it for themselves.
The inspiration for A Murder for Miss Hortense partly came from my grandmothers, who were both phenomenal women and my paternal grandmother was even a Pardner Lady. As I’ve got older, I’ve become more in awe of them and their courageousness.
Golden Age crime mysteries were a big influence while writing A Murder for Miss Hortense, along with Barbara Neely’s Blanche White series, whose heroine is an African-American housekeeper turned sleuth and one of the first Black female fictional detectives who used the whodunit as a tool for racial and social commentary.
A Murder for Miss Hortense is set in the 1960s and 2000s. I wanted readers to understand the history of Miss Hortense and how and why the Pardner Network was created as part of the grounding for what happens in the current day. I’m a firm believer that the past is part of our present.
I hope you enjoy being with Miss Hortense and the Pardner Network as much as I have. I’m really excited for what’s to come.
A Murder for Miss Hortense by Mel Pennant (John Murray Press) Out Now
Death has come to her doorstep . . .Retired nurse, avid gardener, renowned cake maker and fearless sleuth Miss Hortense has lived in Bigglesweigh, a quiet Birmingham suburb, since she emigrated from Jamaica in 1960. She takes great pride in her home, starching her lace curtains bright white, and she can tell if she's been short-changed on turmeric before she's even taken her first bite of a beef patty. Thirty-five years of nursing have also left her afraid of nobody - be they a local drug dealer or a priest - and an expert in deciphering other people's secrets with just a glance. Miss Hortense uses her skills to investigate the investments of the Pardner network - a special community of Black investors, determined to help their people succeed. But when an unidentified man is found dead in one of the Pardner's homes, a Bible quote noted down beside his body, Miss Hortense's long-buried past comes rushing back to greet her, bringing memories of the worst moment of her life, one which her community has never let her forget. It is time for Miss Hortense to solve a mystery that will see her, and the community she loves, tested to their limits.
More information about Mel Pennant can be found on her website. You can also find her on X @MelPennant, on Instagram @mel_pennant and on Facebook.
