A Poisoned Chalice: The new Sister Agnes story

Sister Agnes, for those that don’t know her, is a nun; contemporary, in an open order, based in South London.  She is a detective. And, in the archetypal mode of the amateur detective, she finds herself on the outside of things, privy to people’s secrets. In the words of a lovely police officer who has helped me on and off with my research, ‘There’s always someone who knows more than we do.’

In the time of Sherlock Holmes, it was easier for an amateur sleuth to know more than the police.  But now, with CCTV, mobile phone tracking, and highly developed forensic science, the expertise of the amateur detective is distilled into that one central point: being the repository of other people’s secrets.  And, as Sister Agnes works in a hostel for homeless young people, that is exactly what she is.

The new novel starts with a young woman appearing on the hostel doorstep asking if they’ve seen her husband, a young man on the wrong side of the law who has now gone missing. This one simple event widens out into a much bigger mystery, concerning a medieval silver cup known as the Judas chalice, a priceless, possibly stolen, artefact belonging to one of the old catholic families. It is extremely rare due to its depiction of the betrayal of Jesus by Judas Iscariot, the thirteenth apostle – so rare, in fact, that someone is prepared to kill for it.

I’ve always liked the classic detective structure – an all-knowing central character through which the story is told, with a Marple or a Maigret or a Marlowe at the heart of it. It allows a three-way relationship between author, reader and detective, all sharing the fun of engaging with the story together. The challenge is to make sure the reveal comes as a surprise while at the same time allowing the reader to walk hand in hand with the detective in solving the mystery.

But I also try, in my work, to bear witness to the harm that humans do.  People look at Golden Age crime fiction and make the mistake of seeing it as lightweight, as a historical romp in the company of Sayers, Allingham, Christie et al.  But as far she was concerned, Agatha Christie was writing The Modern Novel. And, having lived through a world war, she needed to talk about human pain, human damage, in a very particular way.   For some time, I have circled the idea that as a nun, Sister Agnes will at some point have to tackle the harm of which the church itself is capable, where its huge and powerful influence collides with its dangerous obsession with sex, shame and sin.

Sister Agnes, like many fictional detectives, is a person of contradictions. She has religious faith and yet is constantly beset by doubt; she accepts the unsolvable mystery of a God, and yet the mystery of a killing on her doorstep is there to be solved with careful attention to evidence, to science, to reason.

This new novel, A Poisoned Chalice, is the first of two brand new Sister Agnes novels

A Poisoned Chalice is the eighth in the new series published by Joffe, (with seven of the earlier novels republished under new names).  It has been a delight to be back with her, and also with her two best friends, Athena and Father Julius, who accompany her through the story in their own particular ways, Athena with shopping, clothes, cake and fizzy wine – and Julius with his own particular and difficult challenge.

The problem of evil may be preached from a pulpit, but what happens if that evil is within the church, rather than something external to be fought by the might of the faithful? And how does someone of faith continue within a structure that is so warped, so potentially malign?

Sister Agnes, walking the streets of South London, will find herself wrestling with all these questions.

 A Poisoned Chalice by Alison Joseph (Joffe Books) Out Now

Meet Sister Agnes. She’s not your typical nun. She loves killer shoes, sipping prosecco — and solving mysteries . . . A holy grail . . . or a poisoned chalice?
Agnes has never met Jay Sorrell. But she knows his type. Tall, dark and dangerously magnetic. A Catholic boy turned petty criminal, he’s not one to play by the rules. Now he’s vanished, leaving his wife to hunt for him at Agnes’s homeless shelter. But the search ends in tragedy. Late one night, Agnes wakes to the sound of sirens — and the acrid smell of smoke. St Bruno’s church is burning. Agnes races to the scene, in time to see a body being pulled from the smoking ruins. This is no random John Doe. It’s Jay. Whoever lit the fatal match must have known . . . Down in the ruined crypt, a safe gapes open. Was this the hiding place of the fabled Judas chalice? A priceless heirloom that’s been missing for decades. Some would kill to lay hands on this prize. And if Jay happened to be standing in the way of that . . . ? Agnes won’t stop until she uncovers the truth about Jay’s death and the missing treasure. But once she’s sipped from this deadly cup, there’s no going back . . 

You can find more about Alison Joseph and her books on her website. You can also follow her on X @AlisonJoseph1

Photograph of Alison Joseph ©Hugo Glendinning

Depending on the kindness of history by Steven Veerapen

Sometimes history can be kind to novelists. Occasionally, characters suggest themselves and, even more rarely, the historical record presents us with themes and ideas we’re already hoping to explore. History was very kind to me as I set about writing a Tudor-era murder mystery. Not only was Henry VIII’s suspicion-filled, blood-soaked royal court tailor made for intrigue, dark deeds and skulking figures, but the record of his reign threw up exactly the type of character who might work as a detective. 

In studying the 1511 Westminster Tournament Roll, which captured in a series of images the celebratory jousts held to welcome Henry’s short-lived son, the “New Year’s Prince” into the world, I encountered a figure who has recently come under serious scholarly scrutiny. John Blanke - a tiny figure depicted twice, blowing his trumpet from the vellum margins of the narrative images - has the distinction of being one of the first (if not the first) black people in England whose name was recorded. Thus, he has recently sparked interest as scholars have scrambled to discover how he came to be depicted as a member (albeit a minor one) of Henry’s court, and how he came to be in England at all. The consensus is that he probably arrived with the retinue of Henry’s first wife, Katherine of Aragon (who hailed from a united Spain which had conquered the “Moors” and begun transporting slaves from North Africa).

John’s story, however, wasn’t mine to tell. Again, though, history was kind; not only did John marry but he probably married an Englishwoman (we know, for example, that he was given gifts from the Tudors on the occasion of his wedding and that he had the clout to ask for higher wages - and there is no record of any black women in England during his time in service). As he disappears from the record in the late 1510s, I was left with - if you’ll excuse the pun - a blank.

I was also left with an idea. If John Blanke married an Englishwoman, it is possible - even likely - that the aim was to produce children (marriages in the period being generally more for the purposes of procreation than love or companionship). Any resulting child, born of two races, had a story I knew I could tell. Suddenly, given my own heritage (my mum being from Pollok and my dad from Mauritius!), I had a character I knew I could write - and one with ties, via his father, to the court of Henry VIII.

Devising and plotting any murder mystery relies on the construction of a detective figure, whether an amateur or a professional: we all know Holmes, Miss Marple, Hercule Poirot, and Lord Peter Wimsey. If writing a mystery set in the sixteenth century, one is virtually forced to go down the amateur route; there was no police force in Tudor England and there were no professional detectives.

What there was, however, was a great deal of law (even if it seems there was often very little justice). Henry VIII’s England, indeed, had officers at every level: urban aldermen; city watchmen (often respectable homeowners who farmed out the actual work to inferiors); local justices of the peace; constables; march wardens; churchwardens (who worked in and with ecclesiastical courts, whose jurisdiction covered spiritual crimes, such as adultery); and coroners (who were appointed rather than trained, and who held juried inquests into unexplained deaths). Yet the actual grind of investigative work was essentially up for grabs; a killer was, in all likelihood, going to get away with his or her crimes if those questioned at the inquest stage either fingered the wrong person or had no idea how a victim came to die. In order to be caught, a murderer very often had to be caught in the act or to have left a clear trail of evidence.

Into this confused world I launched Anthony Blanke, son of John, who follows in his father’s footsteps in working for the great (if not the good) in the 1520s – these the boon days of Henrician England, when Reformation was only distantly on the horizon. Once again, history – particularly that Westminster Tournament Roll – was good to me. On looking at it again, it struck me that a marginal figure (as Anthony Blanke would have to be, in various ways) was best placed to observe the comings and goings at his master, Cardinal Wolsey’s court. What better figure than a trumpeter, paid to be heard and not seen, and to lurk in alcoves and doorways, to spot shady dealings and piece together clues? I hope those who read “Of Blood Descended” find him and his world as much fun as I did.

 Of Judgment Fallen by Steven Veerapen (Birlinn General) Out Now

Spring, 1523. Henry VIII readies England for war with France. The King’s chief minister, Cardinal Wolsey, prepares to open Parliament at Blackfriars. The eyes of the country turn towards London. But all is not well in Wolsey’s household. A visiting critic of the Cardinal is found brutally slain whilst awaiting an audience at Richmond Palace. He will not be the last to die. Anthony Blanke, trumpeter and groom, is once again called upon to unmask a murderer. Joining forces with Sir Thomas More, he is forced to confront the unpopularity of his master’s rule. As the bodies of the Cardinal’s enemies mount up around him, Anthony finds himself under suspicion. Journeying through the opulence of More’s home, the magnificence of Wolsey’s York Place, and the dank dungeons of London’s gaols, he must discover whether the murderer of the Cardinal’s critics is friend or foe. With time running out before Parliament sits, Anthony must clear his name and catch the killer before the King’s justice falls blindly upon him.

More information about Steven Veerapen and his books can be found on his website. You can also follow him on X @stevenveerapen.

Bloomsbury Series on Crime Fiction

 BLOOMSBURY ACADEMIC

Crime Fiction 

SERIES EDITORS: 

Andrew Pepper, Queen’s University Belfast, UK 

Stewart King, Monash University, Australia 

Caroline Reitz, John Jay College/ CUNY, USA 

This series will produce exciting, new understandings of crime fiction and crime fiction criticism in their national and international contexts and as both a historical and contemporary phenomenon. Offering studies of crime fiction in its broadest terms (including print fiction, graphic novels, TV serials, film, podcasts and more), the series aims to reflect what is a vibrant and burgeoning field of study, global in its scope, transmedial in its understanding of genre, and interdisciplinary in its method. 

It will encourage works that consider under-examined national traditions of crime fiction from around the world and puts these traditions in conversation with those ‘established’ accounts of crime fiction as genres which have emerged from the likes of Britain, France, and the United States. Works published in the series will also think critically about crime’s respective traditions and explore the legacies and continuing effects of colonialism, racism, patriarchy, capitalism etc. and to interrogate crime fiction’s complex entanglements with the politics of race, gender, class, sexuality and religion in the contemporary. 

• To develop the field’s understanding of crime fiction texts and traditions in national contexts that remain underexplored in Anglophone criticism 
• To explore crime fiction within a wider regional and/or continental area 
• To address crime fiction as world literature (and related issues of translation and translatability). 
• To pursue connections between crime fiction texts that focus on themes such climate change and environmental politics; gendered violence; racial and economic injustice; sexual politics and identities; globalisation; extinction threats and global health issues. 
• To think about the ways that crime fiction as genre and crime fiction criticism engages with historical forms of oppression and their contemporary legacies 
• To offer exciting, innovative, theoretically informed ways of examining canonical crime fiction texts and authors, placing them in new national and international contexts. 
• To develop an understanding of the breadth and diversity of crime fiction in transmedial and interdisciplinary contexts 
• To think about the relationship between crime fiction and other genres (true crime, horror, speculative and science fiction etc.). 

Call for proposals 

To discuss an idea for a book in the series, please contact the Senior Commissioning Editor: 

Lucy Strong, Senior Commissioning Editor, Literary Studies & Creative Writing 

lucy.strong@bloomsbury.com 

Alison Bruce Interview

Ayo: - Your last book was a standalone I believe, so I wanted to know what made you want to write a standalone and now go back to writing a series.

Alison: - The last book was The Moment Before Impact and I wrote that expecting that to be the first in a new series. That was my plan. I absolutely loved the main character in it, the two main characters and I saw them as being the start of a new series. But both my agent and my publisher said no, we think it is a standalone by the way in which the story is told. It is still unfinished business, so that is something I would like to come back to later. But then I was left in a position where the publisher said that they would really like a new series, something related to the police rather than an amateur sleuth. So, I came at it from the point of view of thinking that well I did not want to do another version of the Goodhew books because that is its own thing and again, I do not feel that I am completely finished with that. So, I thought that as a starting point – do you remember Nancy Kominsky? She used to paint things and she would do a few daubs on the page and you didn't think that it is not going to turn into anything but she would gradually fill bits in and it was a bit like that so I thought that my starting sketch was to think that if I was going to go from somewhere which was the opposite to Goodhew I would be thinking of someone who doesn't love Cambridge the way in which he (Goodhew) loves Cambridge which implies somebody who has been forced to move to Cambridge for one reason or another. They do not naturally operate at the Cambridge pace or with the Cambridge mindset. So, it has a fish out of water element to some extent. Gary was new when he first joined in Cambridge Blue and that was his first murder investigation. So, I thought that I wanted it to be somebody a bit more experienced who had a bit of history in the police. I was coming from all these opposites really, a bit like a pendulum I was probably too far away at that point and so I rounded off some of those rough edges and I settled on this character Ronnie Blake, and she is new to Cambridge, she has family in Cambridge, she has reasons to stay without necessarily the enthusiasm to stay. 

Ayo: - When we were chatting earlier you were saying that there was a bit about the University It does have lots of university elements in them. What made you decide to incorporate those? I know that when everyone thinks of Cambridge they think of the university, but I would have thought that you would or might have wanted to avoid that.

Alison: - I do tend to avoid it because I write about Cambridge the way that I see Cambridge. I do work for not the University, but the other University in Cambridge and I tend to avoid that. I like to approach Cambridge from what I see and what are my experience in Cambridge is which I believe are just as valid as the University angle. It is the day-to-day Cambridge that I see. But I also have this storyline where Ronnie's sister had been living in Cambridge for a period and it was natural, and it worked very well that she had come as a student

Ayo: - One of things, I mean over the years I know that you have a BSc in Science degree with honours in Crime and Investigation, how much did that help in writing this series because when you started the Goodhew series you did not have that. Things have clearly changed over the years. Did this help?

Alison: - I took my degree really because I wanted to write, I did not always want to be going to other people. I wanted to have a better base knowledge myself. So, when I first wrote the very first Goodhew book which came out third – The Calling now The Cambridge Calling I had the murder victims in quite exposed places where the bodies had been for quite a long time. So, I got away with there not being much forensic evidence. But what I did do always from the beginning was to seek out the right people from which to ask advice. There is no way that I had the same level of expertise than any of those. But I hope that I ask more informed and more plausible questions, and I can narrow down what’s viable and what is not more quickly. What I have found from doing my degree is that some people do really make things up, and I know it is fiction but it is interesting where the line is between fact and fiction and sometimes you can read a book where you think that ten minutes of research would have helped and that is really frustrating. When I wrote the last book there was a lot in there about seatbelt injuries and I had the idea originally whether it was plausible for the person to have been put in the driver’s seat after the crash. I quickly found out that there are so many reasons why not. Seatbelt injuries, the impact, the seatbelt locking, the airbags and so forth. And then part way through writing it I read somebody else's book and the big reveal at the end was that the people had switched places after she was unconscious. I felt for all those reasons, no. And I think that the research is massively important because everybody knows that you are reading fiction but, at the same time you have got to make them believe that it is viable. But if you stretch that too far then it doesn't make sense. I do try and do groundwork.

Ayo:- Groundwork is important and as an author one of the things I wanted to find out from you as a general point is on the one hand you have people that state that they really just want to be entertained and on the other hand both you and I know that if you are writing a crime novel then a lot of social policy will come in to it. So, how do you juggle that—as in wanting to entertain and wanting to make people realise what is actually going on. 

Alison: - Okay, I compare it to a drum. You know when you have got a drum, those little screw things which must be tightened up, you must think about what all of those are for you. Obviously setting, character, plot, things like the timeline, facts. You must look for where the saggy bits are and tighten them up. But sometimes you must ditch an idea because it is a great dramatic idea, but it doesn't hold water. Obviously, it won't work and if you have seen that this is the case then you need to deal with it. I have had lovely ideas that have gone in the bin. If you are not 100 % certain that you can tighten that drum, then throw it away.

The link to the full interview on the Shots website can be found here.

Because she Looked Away by Alison Bruce (Little Brown) Out Now.

After the sudden death of her sister, devastated detective DS Ronnie Blake relocates to Cambridge to help her brother Alex raise their sister's young son, Noah. She reports for her first day but instead finds herself being questioned by a special investigations unit, nicknamed the DEAD Team. With a small group of six, led by DI Fenton, the once-successful DEAD team has a single outstanding case, Operation Byron, and the failure to resolve it threatens the unit's existence. Their most promising lead is an anonymous note linking three seemingly unconnected people: a convicted fraudster, a dead academic... and Ronnie's sister Jodie. When Ronnie is denied information about Operation Byron, she follows a lead slipped to her by Malachi, the youngest member of the team, and makes a discovery which links Operation Byron to a disturbing unsolved murder. She is rapidly drawn into an intricate web of deceit, buried secrets and tragedy and the discovery that her connection to Cambridge is far darker than she could ever have guessed.

More information about Alison Bruce and her books can be found on her website. She can also be found on X @Alison_Bruce. On Instagram @alisonbruce and on Facebook.

 

Vengeance is Whose? by Paul Finch

Conventional wisdom holds that to seek revenge is one of the most self-destructive impulses in human nature. Possibly this is the reason why so many of us frequently feel a need for revenge and yet never act on it. It seems that a good proportion of society has an in-built brake with which to prevent violence. Others meanwhile resist it through plain common sense.

Because to exact vengeance – real vengeance – is a huge step to take.

Even something relatively innocuous, like retaliating to a foul on the football field, can be transformational. Not least because it may exacerbate the situation, turning a one-off slight into an ongoing feud, but mostly because it casts you, the victim, as another aggressor, denying you the moral high ground.

‘He did it to me first,’ is a flabby explanation if the other guy is lying unconscious, or worse.

And yet the urge to take revenge can be potent, especially when justice appears to be absent. And it doesn’t just have to be revenge for yourself. How do any of us feel when we hear about disgraced politicians being hounded out of office and yet continuing to lead gold-plated lifestyles, or about organised crime bosses who remain untouchable by the courts, or even petty criminals, whose offences are not victimless, being left alone by an overworked, understaffed police force? If justice has seemingly quit the field, what else is there?

‘Vengeance is mine!’ A quote attributed to God himself in Deuteronomy.

We all hope it’s true, whether we’re religiously minded or not, but we see scant evidence of it on Earth. And so, what other course is there apart from taking the law into our own hands?

This is the ethical dilemma at the heart of my new novel, ROGUE, which sees a low-ranking police detective – DS Mark Heckenburg, who some readers will already be familiar with – embark on an off-the-grid mission to avenge a whole bunch of former colleagues, 26 in total, who were mown down in a gun attack on a police party.

I won’t say any more about the synopsis, except to add that while Heck has played fast and loose with the rules before, often using trickery and coercion in his dealings with the underworld, he has never taken that final step into out-and-out criminality. But then, never before has he been cut as deeply as this.

But in truth, in a civilised society, is there any excuse for revenge? We all love an antihero. Someone who gets straight to it and deals with the matter hands-on. But would a real-life vigilante really be so reassuring? What if he decides he doesn’t like us either? What if we ourselves were to short-cut our way past the law, and then suddenly find that we have need of it too?  

Of course, I’m not the first thriller writer to analyse this complex issue. Many great crime novelists have gone there ahead of me, tackling the question of ‘revenge or justice’ from a range of different angles.

MAN ON FIRE by AJ Quinnell, aka Phil Nicholson (1980)

A former Foreign Legionnaire turned drunken bodyguard is devastated when his charge, the sparky young daughter of an Italian businessman, is kidnapped, raped and murdered. His only recourse is to wipe out the Mafia clan responsible. Atonement through violence is the message here, though it comes at a huge cost.

THE EXECUTIONERS by John D MacDonald (1957)

The army lawyer responsible for jailing a GI rapist is tormented in later years when the criminal is released and commences to harass and terrify his family. Vengeance as viewed from the victim’s perspective, normal life massively disrupted by the obsessive, malign behaviour of someone who just can’t forgive or forget.  

THE HUNTER by Richard Stark, aka Donald Westlake (1962)

A professional robber is double-crossed during a major heist and left for dead. Later learning that his share of the haul was used by a former associate to buy entry to a crime syndicate, he goes to war with the syndicate itself. Solid actioner, this one, featuring lots of immoral people violently intermingling in a grubby, immoral world. Even so, it’s a thrill a minute.

DEATH WISH by Brian Garfield (1972)

When muggers brutalise the family of a liberal-minded businessman, he buys a gun and embarks on a mission to annihilate the city’s criminal elements, becoming a cult figure as he does. A study in human darkness, the vengeance-seeker hitting random targets he’s got no personal beef with and enjoying the support of his whole community. Let’s not pretend it couldn’t happen.

A TIME TO KILL by John Grisham (1989)

When a black child is raped by white supremacists, her enraged father guns the two hoodlums down even though they’re in police custody, his legal team soon fighting an uphill battle to keep him from the gas chamber. Probably the most adult take of all, the parent’s understandable reaction squared off against the price society pays if everyone assumes the role of judge, jury and executioner, the race factor only deepening the question of discriminative justice.

ROGUE is published by Brentwood Press in both ebook and paperback on October 24.

They shot everyone. His friends, his colleagues, the woman he loved. But they made one critical mistake. They didn’t shoot him. Detective Sergeant Mark ‘Heck’ Heckenburg has a reputation for bending the rules, but when a ruthless gun attack on a North London pub leaves 26 of his closest workmates dead, he throws the rulebook away. Devastated beyond recovery, he goes rogue. But Heck himself is a suspect. Suspended from duty and watched day and night, it isn’t just a matter of eluding the surveillance net in London. When he makes his move, he becomes a fugitive, an outlaw now infamous across the whole of the UK. And yet that’s the least of his problems. Because as Heck tracks the killers north through the wintry badlands of industrial England, and from there into the mountainous wilds of Scotland, they too have made plans, and some deadly and deranged individuals are lying in wait …

More information about Paul Finch and his work can be found on his blog. You can follow him on X @paulfinchauthor and on Facebook

The Gray, dilemma-choked World in The Peacock and the Sparrow by I S Berry

When most people think of spies, they think of glamor, sex appeal, clear-cut good and bad guys. The reality is quite different. I served as a CIA case officer (fancy term for “spy”) for six years, including one year in wartime Baghdad, and found the profession to be murky, gruelling, at times debilitating. Many of the people—sources and case officers alike—were cut from a morally uneven cloth. Failures often outnumbered successes, and both were sometimes hard to define. We wrestled with questions—whether an informant was telling the truth, what kind of risks to take, whether ends justified means, what constituted “right”—and were frequently left without answers. These often-unpleasant truths form the basis of my debut novel, The Peacock and the Sparrow. One experience in particular informed my novel.

In autumn of 2004, I arrived as a first-tour case officer to Baghdad—at that time, the most dangerous place on earth. Over 800 American soldiers, and countless Iraqis, allies, and innocents of all nationalities, had been killed. Every hour, mortars and rockets pelted the Green Zone, military convoys were attacked, locals were terrorized. We had limited defences—body armour, weapons, the fleeting shelter of bunkers—which mostly just served to underscore the danger. My mission was to recruit sources who could identify and dismantle the network of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQIZ). But we were making little progress, and morale was low.

Amid what felt like a hopeless war, I discovered that one of my sources was distantly connected to an alleged AQIZ terrorist, “Qasim.” A top military target, Qasim was suspected of participating in the 2003 “Canal Hotel” bombing of the UN headquarters in Baghdad. Lo and behold, against all odds, my informant helped track Qasim down. Finally, I felt I’d achieved a small victory.

But when we questioned Qasim, he denied the allegations. Of course, we expected this: detainees often kept mum, knowing we couldn’t typically hold them more than 72 hours without sufficient evidence. At the end of the interview, no confession on the table, the military nevertheless cuffed Qasim, ushered him into a helicopter, flew him to a detention facility. Surely, we all thought, he’d eventually confess, or the necessary evidence would materialize. In some form, the truth would take shape.

When my tour ended, I returned to D.C. I learned that a colleague at Langley had questioned Qasim at a different detention facility. Qasim still hadn’t confessed. For the first time, I started to doubt his guilt.

My doubt only grew over the years. I wondered whether, amid the mess and chaos of war and espionage, we’d gotten it wrong. The uncertainty plagued me.

In 2012, I returned to the Middle East—Bahrain. Manama, its capital, was a sight to behold, full of vivid, profound contrasts: palaces and luxury hotels alongside slums; heavily armed riot police battling street urchins. The Arab Spring had been simmering for nearly a year. It was a proxy war: Bahrain’s Shiite majority, which reputedly received support from Iran, was revolting against the Saudi-backed Sunni monarchy. The U.S., whose Fifth Fleet is based in Bahrain, was caught in the middle of the conflict, torn between defending against Iran and supporting an often-repressive government. This murky landscape, where there was no clear “right” side or easy answer, brought to mind the conundrums I’d faced as a spy. It was a perfect prism for a tale about espionage. I began writing.

My novel, The Peacock and the Sparrow, is based on these gray, dilemma-choked worlds. When my protagonist, an aging spy named Shane Collins, is caught in the crosswinds of the Arab Spring, he becomes embroiled in murder, consuming love, and an unpredictable revolution. He’s forced to choose sides. Ultimately, he’s haunted by his decisions—“the tangle of mistakes, promises, and defeats that grips a man’s heels.” Spying is a “profession of ghosts,” Collins finds, “the culmination of actions taken or not taken, ends swallowed by means.”

Since The Peacock and the Sparrow was first published in the U.S. in 2023, dozens of current and former intelligence officers have reached out to me. The dilemmas, knots, and question marks woven into the book resonate, they tell me. Wraiths of decisions, betrayals, mistakes, the toll of manipulation—these are the things that remain after coming in from the cold. I set out to write the most realistic spy novel I could, to convey a visceral sense of the profession, and I’m gratified that people have connected with my story, that it captures these quiet consequences of espionage.

This year, The Peacock and the Sparrow also received the Edgar, Barry, and International Thriller Writers awards for Best First Novel, which has been an unspeakable honour. Writing is my second profession, and second acts are always a gamble. But, as I’ve come to realize, I find writing about spying far more rewarding than doing it.

The Peacock and The Sparrow by I S |Berry (Bedford Square Publishers (Out Now)

Shane Collins, a world-weary CIA spy, is ready to come in from the cold. Stationed in Bahrain for his final tour, he's anxious to dispense with his mission — uncovering Iranian support for the insurgency. But then he meets Almaisa, an enigmatic artist, and his eyes are opened to a side of Bahrain most expats never experience, to questions he never thought to ask. When his trusted informant becomes embroiled in a murder, Collins finds himself drawn deep into the conflict, his romance and loyalties upended. In an instant, he's caught in the crosswinds of a revolution. He sets out to learn the truth behind the Arab Spring, win Almaisa's love, and uncover the murky border where Bahrain's secrets end and America's begin.

 I.S. Berry’s The Peacock and the Sparrow will be published in the UK for the first time on 24 October 2024 as £9.99 paperback original from No Exit Press, part of Bedford Square Publishers.

More information about I S berry can be found on her website.  You can also find her on Facebook. You can also follow her on X  and on Instagram @isberryauthor

 

 

Teresa Solana on Black Storms

“Black storms shake the sky/ Dark clouds blind our eyes…” are the opening lines of The Varsovian, a song of Polish origins the Spanish anarchist movement adopted as an anthem at the end of the nineteenth century. The novel’s title refers to the first line of this song that is entitled To the barricades in Catalan and Spanish.

At the start of the twentieth century, the Basque Country and Catalonia were the only territories in Spain that had experienced an industrial revolution that created a wealthy bourgeoise and an organized working-class. The development of the Catalan textile industry meant the workers’ movement became influential, and it was divided as it was in the rest of Europe: at a time when workers faced quasi-slave conditions in factories with long, exhausting days and wages that condemned them to extreme poverty; socialists, communists and anarchist couldn’t agree on how to achieve a better, more just society, and what should be the role of the state. 

The anarchists were prominent in workers’ struggles in Catalonia in the first decades of the twentieth century and during the Civil War (1936-1939). Many of them, like the grandfather of Norma Forester, the detective at the centre of the novel, were young idealists who rejected the Stalinist model that had triumphed in the Soviet Union and who, when war broke out, came to Spain from different parts of Europe to fight for the Republic in the International Brigades. Black Storms isn’t a historical novel, but it does focus on the open wounds of a war that ended with a dictatorship that lasted forty years and allowed a dictator to die in his bed without being tried for any of his crimes.

In July 1936, General Francisco Franco initiated a military coup with a view to overthrowing the Republican government that had been legally elected to power. The war, that Franco extended unnecessarily in order to physically exterminate the Republicans, as pointed out by historians like Paul Preston, lasted three very long years and opened the way to a dictatorship and one-party state. They were grim years, presided over by the khaki uniforms of the military and the black soutanes of priests, while the Europe that had defeated Hitler and Mussolini in the Second World War, fearful of the advance of communism, looked the other way and left the population of Spain to suffer the atrocities wrought by the fascists.

After the dictator’s death in 1975, the period known as the Transition began, based on an agreement to re-establish democracy reached by those who had been committed to the dictatorship and a good number of the parties and organisations that had fought against it. The Transition implied a peaceful transfer of power in exchange for letting the crimes of the Franco regime go unpunished; it pretended to heal a wound that has remained open ever since. In 2007, pressure from the Associations for the Victims of Francoism and the need to bring justice for all those who suffered persecution or violence during and after the civil war led to the passing of a law in Spain that is popularly known as the Law of Historical Memory, a law that at the same time helped to bring to light the crimes committed by Franco’s regime.

This is the context in which Black Storms unfolds, a novel that begins with the murder of a professor of contemporary history and specialist in the civil war. The investigation of the murder, led by a detective who happens to be the granddaughter of a man from Manchester who fought with the International Brigades and was executed in Barcelona at the end of the civil war, takes place in years when Spanish society was debating whether it would be better to forget the past and turn the page, or whether it was necessary to revisit that past, however painful that may be, in order to bring justice to the victims and call to account and name their executioners. It is a debate that remains open in a Spain, where many families are still looking for their dead in unnamed mass graves by roadsides and where streets and squares still carry the names of the fascists who murdered them. And it is a debate that is more necessary than ever in Europe at a time when the black clouds of fascism are returning to haunt the continent. “Black storms shake the sky/ Dark clouds blind our eyes…” are the opening lines of The Varsovian, a song of Polish origins the Spanish anarchist movement adopted as an anthem at the end of the nineteenth century. The novel’s title refers to the first line of this song that is entitled To the barricades in Catalan and Spanish.

At the start of the twentieth century, the Basque Country and Catalonia were the only territories in Spain that had experienced an industrial revolution that created a wealthy bourgeoise and an organized working-class. The development of the Catalan textile industry meant the workers’ movement became influential, and it was divided as it was in the rest of Europe: at a time when workers faced quasi-slave conditions in factories with long, exhausting days and wages that condemned them to extreme poverty; socialists, communists and anarchist couldn’t agree on how to achieve a better, more just society, and what should be the role of the state. 

The anarchists were prominent in workers’ struggles in Catalonia in the first decades of the twentieth century and during the Civil War (1936-1939). Many of them, like the grandfather of Norma Forester, the detective at the centre of the novel, were young idealists who rejected the Stalinist model that had triumphed in the Soviet Union and who, when war broke out, came to Spain from different parts of Europe to fight for the Republic in the International Brigades. Black Storms isn’t a historical novel, but it does focus on the open wounds of a war that ended with a dictatorship that lasted forty years and allowed a dictator to die in his bed without being tried for any of his crimes.

In July 1936, General Francisco Franco initiated a military coup with a view to overthrowing the Republican government that had been legally elected to power. The war, that Franco extended unnecessarily in order to physically exterminate the Republicans, as pointed out by historians like Paul Preston, lasted three very long years and opened the way to a dictatorship and one-party state. They were grim years, presided over by the khaki uniforms of the military and the black soutanes of priests, while the Europe that had defeated Hitler and Mussolini in the Second World War, fearful of the advance of communism, looked the other way and left the population of Spain to suffer the atrocities wrought by the fascists.

After the dictator’s death in 1975, the period known as the Transition began, based on an agreement to re-establish democracy reached by those who had been committed to the dictatorship and a good number of the parties and organisations that had fought against it. The Transition implied a peaceful transfer of power in exchange for letting the crimes of the Franco regime go unpunished; it pretended to heal a wound that has remained open ever since. In 2007, pressure from the Associations for the Victims of Francoism and the need to bring justice for all those who suffered persecution or violence during and after the civil war led to the passing of a law in Spain that is popularly known as the Law of Historical Memory, a law that at the same time helped to bring to light the crimes committed by Franco’s regime.

This is the context in which Black Storms unfolds, a novel that begins with the murder of a professor of contemporary history and specialist in the civil war. The investigation of the murder, led by a detective who happens to be the granddaughter of a man from Manchester who fought with the International Brigades and was executed in Barcelona at the end of the civil war, takes place in years when Spanish society was debating whether it would be better to forget the past and turn the page, or whether it was necessary to revisit that past, however painful that may be, in order to bring justice to the victims and call to account and name their executioners. It is a debate that remains open in a Spain, where many families are still looking for their dead in unnamed mass graves by roadsides and where streets and squares still carry the names of the fascists who murdered them. And it is a debate that is more necessary than ever in Europe at a time when the black clouds of fascism are returning to haunt the continent. “Black storms shake the sky/ Dark clouds blind our eyes…” are the opening lines of The Varsovian, a song of Polish origins the Spanish anarchist movement adopted as an anthem at the end of the nineteenth century. The novel’s title refers to the first line of this song that is entitled To the barricades in Catalan and Spanish.

At the start of the twentieth century, the Basque Country and Catalonia were the only territories in Spain that had experienced an industrial revolution that created a wealthy bourgeoise and an organized working-class. The development of the Catalan textile industry meant the workers’ movement became influential, and it was divided as it was in the rest of Europe: at a time when workers faced quasi-slave conditions in factories with long, exhausting days and wages that condemned them to extreme poverty; socialists, communists and anarchist couldn’t agree on how to achieve a better, more just society, and what should be the role of the state. 

The anarchists were prominent in workers’ struggles in Catalonia in the first decades of the twentieth century and during the Civil War (1936-1939). Many of them, like the grandfather of Norma Forester, the detective at the centre of the novel, were young idealists who rejected the Stalinist model that had triumphed in the Soviet Union and who, when war broke out, came to Spain from different parts of Europe to fight for the Republic in the International Brigades. Black Storms isn’t a historical novel, but it does focus on the open wounds of a war that ended with a dictatorship that lasted forty years and allowed a dictator to die in his bed without being tried for any of his crimes.

In July 1936, General Francisco Franco initiated a military coup with a view to overthrowing the Republican government that had been legally elected to power. The war, that Franco extended unnecessarily in order to physically exterminate the Republicans, as pointed out by historians like Paul Preston, lasted three very long years and opened the way to a dictatorship and one-party state. They were grim years, presided over by the khaki uniforms of the military and the black soutanes of priests, while the Europe that had defeated Hitler and Mussolini in the Second World War, fearful of the advance of communism, looked the other way and left the population of Spain to suffer the atrocities wrought by the fascists.

After the dictator’s death in 1975, the period known as the Transition began, based on an agreement to re-establish democracy reached by those who had been committed to the dictatorship and a good number of the parties and organisations that had fought against it. The Transition implied a peaceful transfer of power in exchange for letting the crimes of the Franco regime go unpunished; it pretended to heal a wound that has remained open ever since. In 2007, pressure from the Associations for the Victims of Francoism and the need to bring justice for all those who suffered persecution or violence during and after the civil war led to the passing of a law in Spain that is popularly known as the Law of Historical Memory, a law that at the same time helped to bring to light the crimes committed by Franco’s regime.

This is the context in which Black Storms unfolds, a novel that begins with the murder of a professor of contemporary history and specialist in the civil war. The investigation of the murder, led by a detective who happens to be the granddaughter of a man from Manchester who fought with the International Brigades and was executed in Barcelona at the end of the civil war, takes place in years when Spanish society was debating whether it would be better to forget the past and turn the page, or whether it was necessary to revisit that past, however painful that may be, in order to bring justice to the victims and call to account and name their executioners. It is a debate that remains open in a Spain, where many families are still looking for their dead in unnamed mass graves by roadsides and where streets and squares still carry the names of the fascists who murdered them. And it is a debate that is more necessary than ever in Europe at a time when the black clouds of fascism are returning to haunt the continent. 

Black Storms by Teresa Solana (Corylus Books) Out 25th October 2024

A country that doesn't acknowledge its past is destined to repeat its mistakes. Why murder a sick old man nearing retirement? An investigation into the death of a professor at the University of Barcelona seems particularly baffling for Deputy Inspector Norma Forester of the Catalan police, as word from the top confirms she's the one to lead this case. The granddaughter of an English member of the International Brigades, Norma has a colourful family life, with a forensic doctor husband, a hippy mother, a squatter daughter and an aunt, a nun in an enclosed order, who operates as a hacker from her austere convent cell. This blended family sometimes helps and often hinders Norma's investigations. It seems the spectres of the past have not yet been laid to rest, and there are people who can neither forgive nor forget the cruelties of the Spanish Civil War and all that followed.

The Age of Curiosity by Leonora Nattrass

It was Christmas 2022, and I was between projects, whiling away the holiday by mulling over my favourite Georgian romantic poets, and wondering if some episode in their often eccentric lives might provide a spark for my next historical mystery.

Modern biographies are all very well, but the most fun and detailed accounts are often contained in older ones, usually heavier on narrative and lighter on analysis. Accordingly, I was sitting in the festive kitchen, idly reading Alexander Gilchrist’s 1880 Life of William Blake, when I first came across the extraordinary story of seventeen-year-old Blake’s involvement with Westminster Abbey. 

Blake, then apprenticed to an engraver in London, was sent to the abbey to make sketches of the tombs and monuments for a forthcoming book. “From 1773, the Gothic monuments were for years his daily companions,” Gilchrist says. “Shut up alone with these solemn memorials of far-off centuries, the spirit of the past became his familiar companion.” 

This seemed very romantic – and nicely humanised by the fact that he often got locked in when the vergers forgot about him. I could already easily imagine strange goings on between the hundreds of eerie carved figures which crowd the abbey. 

But then, reading on, the plot thickened. 

In 1774, members of the London Society of Antiquaries appeared at the abbey, with permission from the king to open the tomb of Edward I, “Longshanks”, of Braveheart fame. The tyrant who threw his son’s lover bodily out of a window, sent Mel Gibson to be disembowelled, and pinched the Stone of Scone. (Other accounts of his character are available.) 

Edward’s tomb was of special interest to the antiquaries, since his will had ordained that after his death (in 1307) his tomb should be regularly opened and his body embalmed so that it might accompany any future English army against the Scots. This task had apparently been faithfully performed throughout the medieval period but the custom had been forgotten during the English Civil War and Commonwealth. 

When Longshanks’ tomb was opened, the antiquaries were delighted to find the still-robed, well-preserved mummy holding replicas of Edward the Confessor’s coronation sceptres which Cromwell had melted down a century earlier.

“I cannot help hoping that Blake (unseen) assisted at the ceremony,” Gilchrist ended his account of this little episode. 

By now, I certainly hoped so too, and only a brief recce on Google revealed that Gilchrist had missed out the best bit: Blake hadn’t just been present; he’d actually been roped in to sketch the mummified body of the king for posterity! 

What could be more fabulous than Westminster Abbey, the Society of Antiquaries, medieval mummies, and William Blake all together? 

The Society of Antiquaries was the archaeological equivalent of the Royal Society for scientists. Its members were very eager to find physical evidence for old historical accounts, some of which read like outrageous fiction to us today. The earth had been created at twelve noon, on the 23 October 4004 BC for instance; and Britain’s origin story involved exiled warriors from Troy fighting giants and tossing them off the cliffs at Totnes. 

The driving force behind the Society’s request to open the tomb was the elderly Joseph Ayloffe, who went on to write the official account of the event, ably assisted by (among others) fellow antiquarian, Daines Barrington. 

Barrington was a member of the Royal Society as well as the Antiquaries and, with the characteristic chutzpah of the times, was a prolific author on a remarkable variety of topics: childhood prodigies (how created?); bird song (a language?); and the possibility of reaching the North Pole (James Cook was to be roped in). With such eclectic expertise, opening the tomb of an ancient king wasn’t going to faze him!

Nowadays such an undertaking would doubtless be hedged about with safeguards and sucked-teeth warnings, but they were an intrepid lot in those days. And even a hundred years later, the Dean of the Abbey cheerfully dug up dozens of tombs on the flimsiest of pretexts. Such irreverence in such a reverent place seemed even riper for murder and mayhem. 

I was lucky enough to see the Abbey accounts for 1774, with all the names of the gardeners, vergers and other abbey servants of that year neatly inscribed beside their wages. Their names make it to the novel, but my badly behaved clergymen are all fictional, along with the outrageous, murderous consequences of what Gilchrist calls that “highly interesting bit of antiquarian sacrilege.”

Bells of Westminster by Leonora Nattrass (Profile Books) Out Now 

London, 1774. The opening of a royal tomb will end in murder...Susan Bell spends her days within the confines of Westminster Abbey, one of many who live in the grounds of the ancient building. Her father, the kindly but foolish Dean of Westminster, is always busy keeping the many canons and vergers in check, when not being romantically pursued by forceful widows. Life at the abbey is uneventful, even after the unwelcome arrival of Susan's cousin Lindley and his unusual scientific demonstrations. That is until the Society of Antiquaries come armed with a letter from King George III. They wish to open the tomb of Edward I, each to investigate their own academic interests - whether it be rumours of the royal body's embalmment, an obsession with Arthurian legends or even a supposed Roman temple to Apollo beneath the abbey's undercroft. However, as the Society prepares to open the tomb, a ghostly figure is seen walking the abbey cloisters, wearing the crown and shroud of the dead king. There is further uproar when one of the Antiquaries is found viciously murdered, and the corpse of Edward I is stolen. With her father's position under threat from the scandal, Susan feels bound to investigate these strange occurrences. Could one of the Society members be harbouring a murderous secret? Or is one of the abbey's own a killer?

More information about Leonora Natrass can be found here.

She can also be found on X @LeonoraNattrass and on instagram @leonoranattrass.

The Picture of Deon Meyer

 

We hadn’t seen Deon Meyer in the UK for a few years, much of the interruption being the COVID-19 global pandemic – which was eerily echoed in his extraordinary novel FEVER released in the summer of 2017.

FEVER was met with huge acclaim – here’s the Shots Magazine review HERE – it also enjoyed a second burst of interest in 2020-2021 during the global pandemic years due to its apocalyptic themes that had migrated from fiction into fact.

I enjoyed spending an afternoon with him back in 2017 discussing our mutual interest in post-apocalyptic fiction both literary and film.

Deon highlighted his favourite Post-Apocalyptic works HERE and when we compared notes naturally Stephen King’s The Stand as well as Robert McCammon’s Swansong and Richard Matheson’s I am Legend came up.  We were also both readers of John Christopher [though he was actually Sam Youd and deployed an array of pennames over the years of which the John Christopher is the one he was most associated with]. From the pen of Christopher would come many science fiction novels that featured apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic fiction. It was his 1956 novel The Death of Grass that allowed him to write full-time [filmed as No Blade of Grass] which he wrote while working in South Africa.

We had both read work such as Neville Shute’s On the Beach, A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller, Jr., John Wyndham’s The Day of the Triffids, PD James’ Children of Men, and then we discussed the films that evoke that Mad Max world, as well as the myriad disaster movies of this sub-genre.

The article that came from that afternoon in 2017 is archived HERE

But back to 2024, post pandemic…..

Hodder and Stoughton had organised a small gathering of London Book Reviewers at the renowned Vivat Bacchus restaurant in the Farringdon district of London.  We were treated to fine South African wine and exotic delicacies, while we chatted to Deon and his charming wife Marianne and our host Naimh Anderson from Hodder and Stoughton publishing.

Joining the Shots Teams of Mike Stotter and Ayo Onatade were the ubiquitous [and knowledgeable] Barry Forshaw from the Financial Times [among others], Jon Coates, editorial from The Express and other journalists.

Of great interest was the extraordinary Netflix action thriller Heart of the Hunter written by Deon Meyer and Willem Grobler based on Deon’s novel of the same name.

Deon’s book HEART OF THE HUNTER was first published in Afrikaans in 2002 (as PROTEUS) and has since been translated into 14 different languages worldwide. It is published in South Africa in Afrikaans by Human & Rousseau and translated into English by K.L. Seegers: in the UK it is published by Hodder & Stoughton, and in the US and Canada by Grove Atlantic. It was selected as one of Chicago Tribune’s 10 best mysteries and thrillers of 2004, longlisted for the IMPAC Literary Award 2005 (now the Dublin Literary Award) and won the Deutsche Krimi Preis, International Category, 2006.

In the Netflix Original film adaptation, Zuko Khumalo is an unassuming family man with a deadly past – but his tranquil world is abruptly turned upside down when an old colleague calls on him to honour an oath he made and save the country from venal political interests. Though he resists being pulled back into his previous life, it becomes clear that events already pose a deadly threat to his domestic ambitions and the peaceful family life he holds so dear. HEART OF THE HUNTER is a tale of one man’s struggle for survival against a corrupt government, a group of bloodthirsty killers and, most of all, against his past.

Read More from Blake Freidman Agency HERE

Though the main talking point was Deon’s upcoming novel LEO which I just read –

It has been a little while since we’ve been riding shotgun with Detective Benny Griessel in South Africa but the wait is finally over with the release of this explosive and violent thriller.

While preparing for his upcoming wedding, Griessel with partner Vince Cupido get involved investigating the death of a female student cyclist on a desolate mountain pass, as well as the principal suspect Basie Small found dead with all the trappings of a professional assassination. Their superiors seem keen to dismiss Basie Small’s murder as a robbery gone tragically wrong. What Basie Small was ‘doing’ may lead Benny and Vince into dangerous intrigue and a conspiracy of sorts that lies at the heart of the country – or does it?

Read the full Shots Magazine review HERE

We present a few photos of the evening as well as Deon’s previous UK visits – I remarked to Deon Meyer that he must have a special painting in his attic, as he has not aged at all over the years we’ve known him – Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray comes to mind I said - which produced a roar of laughter. 

Shots Magazine would like to pass our thanks to Niamh Anderson of Hodder and Stoughton for managing a wonderful launch for Deon - and thanks to his wife Marianne for a wonderful chat.

Foot Note: In memory of Saul Reichlin (1943-2023) from Ali Karim

I would encourage our readers to seek out Deon’s audiobooks narrated by the late Saul Reichlin. His narration / readings are excellent, bringing Deon Meyers’ [and other authors] work to vibrant life.

I was fortunate to have been seated next to him during Crimefest 2009’s Gala Dinner – we had a memorable evening and he is without doubt one of the most interesting people I have met. To cap the evening in style, Saul Reichlin was presented with the best audiobook of the year as voted by Crimefest delegates for The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. We kept in contact for a number of years, and I so miss his laughter.

Saul Reichlin worked for six decades as an actor, writer, producer and director, but was most in demand for his rich, warm vocal tones, which he lent to many video games and audiobooks. He narrated more than 245 books including work by Deon Meyer.

He was a tremendous man of the arts, and great raconteur.

Read More HERE