Lisa Cutts talks about writing and bringing the job home!

Today's guest blog is by Lisa Cutts a serving police officer based in Kent.  In 2012 Lisa won the Myriad Editions Writers Retreat Competition.  Her debut novel Never Forget gives the reader an unique insight and perspective into the heart of the investigation from the point of view of the Police Major Incident Room.

When I began writing, crime fiction seemed the natural choice. I’ve been a police officer with Kent Police for seventeen years and the majority of that time has been spent within CID. I have worked in the Major Crime Department for six years, dealing with some of the more serious investigations within the county. My debut novel, Never Forget, is a police procedural and is inspired, although not based upon, some of the enquiries I have been involved in.

The novel follows Detective Constable Nina Foster through her first murder investigation. As a keen officer, rising through the ranks, she wants to work hard and be accepted: to stay on the most exciting investigation she’s ever likely to be involved in. Most officers working on a murder will only stay for a few days until they are sent back to their usual job. However, those who stay on the investigation, like Nina, are there for the long haul. In Never Forget, the number of victims, as well as suspects, increases. Before long, she gets involved in enquiries, becoming not only a crucial part of the Major Incident Room (MIR), but personally involved. As information amasses within the MIR, it leads towards the murderer’s identity and arrest, but at an unexpected price to Nina. I knew that I had to make her integral but to avoid compromising her role in the team. In reality, any officer becoming a liability would be immediately removed so I had to get the balance right: to maintain authenticity whilst keeping the reader interested.

My aim, besides writing the best police procedural I could, was to show the real side to policing: basing facts on powers of search, entry, detaining a prisoner and custody time limits, but showing that officers are usually decent people with their own problems, lives and sense of humour. We take what we do very seriously but even on the bleakest, darkest of days, we manage to make each other laugh. It’s not through lack of respect for those whose lives have been blighted by crime; it’s because we need to cope. Moreover, the politics of it all can be very frustrating. Never Forget, I hope, shows that the professionalism cannot exist without the camaraderie – they’re far too intertwined.

My initial idea for the novel was to begin with a briefing. It’s impossible to investigate anything, whether it is a shoplifting offence or a murder, without having the information to hand. The best way of doing that with a large, number of investigators is to put them in a room and give them details of what they’re dealing with. I drew on how a murder investigation naturally flows, factoring in some of the unexpected developments. I chose the police procedural structure, as I wanted to explain some of the frustrations and low points of being a police officer, as well as sharing the highs of a successful conviction. I wanted police officers to read it and think, “That’s accurate” and I wanted members of the public to read it and think, “I didn’t know they were up against all this as well as solving murders.”

One of the things I felt I should take care of when I started to write was to check with Kent Police’s Legal Department. As a forty-something-year-old female Detective Constable investigating murders for a living, writing about a forty-something-year-old female Detective Constable investigating fictional murders for a living, I foresaw a potential problem. While I wanted to show the authentic side of a murder investigation, Never Forget is fiction: the characters and the situations I’ve put them in, are not based on actual jobs I’ve worked on. I was careful not to reference victims or witnesses from the forty or so murders 

I’ve worked on, and that included not basing characters on colleagues.

Writing a crime novel has been a great experience and has given me an immense sense of achievement, especially as I’ve managed to fit this in around my job. However, there were a couple of problems I had to overcome. Like so many writers, especially those juggling work and families, finding time was an issue. The unpredictability of my job meant that I had to work around real-life murder investigations in order to be able to write about fictional ones. If I had a free evening or a day off, I set aside as much of it as I could to write but I had no idea what the next working day would bring and when I could expect to get home. Police officers can be called back to work at any time and are often told to stay on duty without warning. I did try to write as much as possible in November for NaNoWriMo – an annual, worldwide challenge for writers to produce 50 000 words in a month. Needless to say, with my job, I didn’t manage it but I had a great time trying.

Once I found time to write, settling down to do it wasn’t as much of a challenge as the edits. They were much tougher as by then I was working to my publisher’s schedule too. There was no procrastinating in case I was on duty when a murder was committed and didn’t get off duty for another eighteen hours, followed by cancellation of my days off.

On top of this, if I’d had a busy or stressful day dealing with victims, witnesses or suspects, my plans of going home to work on my book sometimes went out of the window. Naturally, I wasn’t always in the right frame of mind, so I would postpone writing until I felt able to separate my two jobs: some things are too disturbing to write down outside the confines of a nick.

The department I work in is within the Serious Crime Directorate and deals mostly with murders, rapes and kidnaps, although I have been involved in various investigations from counter-terrorism to rioting. It’s varied and interesting but involves an unbelievable amount of paperwork, so I’m used to writing and typing. Crime writing is a very different skill; it’s difficult but unlike police work, I’m never going to be called to court and asked questions under oath with a judge and jury looking on. This helped me put things into perspective but meant I had some sleepless nights over the accuracy of procedures in Never Forget. My worst-case scenario was that serving or retired police officers (such as my husband and dad) would read it and think I’ve made a huge error or omission. In addition, my Detective Chief Inspector might read it. How embarrassing would it be if he spotted a mistake?

Colleagues have been very supportive and interested in the entire process, from my first draft to seeing the book in print. A large number have said that they are looking forward to reading Never Forget when it was published on July 11th. I’ve been genuinely touched by their enthusiasm: I’ve assured them that they aren’t in it, so I’m convinced that their interest is about wanting to support me, rather than concern I’ve written about them.

It was certainly a challenge to get Never Forget completed but worth the hard work and lack of a social life. For the last eighteen months, my life has consisted of police work, writing crime fiction and sleeping. I wouldn’t have changed a thing, (apart for perhaps more sleep) and I’m already half way through the first draft of my next novel.

Never Forget’ by Lisa Cutts, published by Myriad, £7.99.

More information about Lisa can be found on her website and you can also follow her on Twitter @LisaCuttsAuthor.  You can follow her musings on her blog.  Never Forget also has a Facebook page.

Criminal Splatterings : Elmore Leonard and Patricia Cornwell!

©Vince Bucci / Getty Images / May 24, 2007

According to the LA Times and the Detroit News acclaimed author Elmore Leonard is recovering from a stroke that happened over a week ago.  He is currently recuperating at an undisclosed Detroit Hospital.  Leonard has written 45 books so far and the hit series Justified is based on his novella Fire in the Hole that inspired him to write the novel Raylan. In 2011, Justified received A Peabody Award. A number of his books have also been turned into movies including Get Shorty, Out of Sight and Jackie Brown, which was based on his novel Rum Punch. 3:10 to Yuma has also been made into films twice. Initially in 1957 and more recently in 2007. The 2007 version featured Christian Bale and Russell Crowe. The Switch, which is the predecessor to Rum Punch, has recently been filmed as Life of Crime.

In 1992, Elmore Leonard was honoured with an Edgar Grand Master Award from the Mystery Writers of America and in 2006; he was awarded the CWA Cartier Diamond Dagger Award in its 21^st year marking a lifetime's achievement in crime writing.  He has also received the F. Scott Fitzgerald Literary Award for outstanding achievement in American literature (2008) and most recently in 2012 A National Book Award Medal for Distinguished Contribution. In 1984 his novel La Brava also won an Edgar for Best Novel.

More information can be found on the BBC, Huffington Post and The Guardian.

Crime writer Patricia Cornwell has moved to HarperCollins for her next two books in a deal that sees her publishing combined under the roof of one global publisher for the first time. Cornwell has been published by Little, Brown in the UK, and Penguin in the US.

HarperCollins will publish Cornwell around the world in the English language including the UK, US, Australia/New Zealand, Canada, and India. The first book will be published in autumn 2014, and will feature her lead character medical examiner Kay Scarpetta.

The deal was negotiated by David Highfill, vice-president and executive editor at Harper US imprint William Morrow with Esther Newberg of ICM Partners. Brian Murray, president and chief executive of HarperCollins Publishers Worldwide, added: "We are thrilled to partner with Patricia Cornwell to publish her books globally in all English language markets. Patricia has a long history of entertaining readers around the world and we look forward to expanding her audience even further."

In the UK Patricia Cornwell will be published on the HarperFiction imprint. Julia Wisdom, crime & thriller publisher HarperCollins UK described it as "a major coup for HarperFiction’s growing crime and thriller list". It is also the first major acquisitions announcement made since new HarperCollins UK chief executive Charlie Redmayne took over. Redmayne said: "In my first week in the role of c.e.o., it is a great honour to be involved in publishing the undisputed queen of crime fiction, Patricia Cornwell.”

Cornwell is the author of 21 Scarpetta novels, five non-Scarpettas, two cookbooks, a biography and Portrait of a Killer. She has been worth £56.3m to UK booksellers since Nielsen BookScan records began in 1998, and her last two books have sold 398,000 copies in the UK, taking £2.7m at bookshop tills. Dust, the 21st Scarpetta book, will be published by Little, Brown in the UK in November.

David Shelley, publisher at Little, Brown Book Group in the UK, said: "For all of us at Little, Brown, it has been a pleasure and a privilege to publish Patricia Cornwell for the last 23 years—from her truly groundbreaking debut novel Postmortem onwards. We are very much looking forward to the publication this autumn of Dust, the 21st Scarpetta novel, and we wish Patricia and the Kay Scarpetta series all the best for the future."

Cornwell added: "I am extraordinarily excited about the opportunities ahead, and really looking forward to working with the innovative and talented team at William Morrow and HarperCollins."

Fox 2000 Pictures President Elizabeth Gabler, who is developing a film based on Cornwell’s novels, added: "We are tremendously excited about bringing Kay Scarpetta to life in the feature film adaptation of Patricia Cornwell's fantastic books.  Scarpetta is one of those rare, larger than life characters—brilliant, intuitive, tough and sexy—and it is one of our greatest priorities to begin production on the film as soon as possible."   

The Cambridge Spies – 400 Years Back!

Today’s guest blog is by John Pilkington who writes historical novels for both adults and young readers. Marbeck & the King in Waiting is the second book in the series featuring Martin Marbeck, government spy, a man whose swordsmanship, cool courage, acting skills and ability to survive against the odds will be put to the test repeatedly in a turbulent era.

We think of the Cambridge Spies as a 20^th century, Cold War phenomenon – Philby, Burgess, MacLean and the rest: malcontents persuaded by foreign powers to spy against their country. In similar fashion, bright young people were sometimes recruited at university by our own Intelligence Services. But it may surprise readers to know that the first Cambridge Spies were hired by the Secretary of State, Sir Francis Walsingham - in the 1580s.

Of course spies have always existed - the Romans had them. But in Britain the first truly effective - and state-funded - system was set up in Queen Elizabeth 1st’s reign, and continued under James 1st. Walsingham and his successor, Sir Robert Cecil, were shrewd, pragmatic men, ruthless in their methods and  bent on preserving the nation’s interests at all costs. At its peak the espionage service had over fifty agents and informers scattered across Europe as far away as the Levant. Then as now it was a dangerous, murky world of false identities, ciphers and codes, deception and betrayal.

The spies or ‘intelligencers’ were a mixed group. Some, particularly those from the universities, were educated men with a taste for excitement. The most famous was the Cambridge scholar and playwright Christopher Marlowe, recruited in 1587. (In fact Marlowe was absent from his studies so often that the university were going to refuse him his degree, until the Privy Council wrote to tell them he had been serving the state in secret and should not be penalised). Other spies were misfits or adventurers, while some were undoubtedly ‘the dregs of society’, who would inform on anyone for a price. Such men might be placed in prisons to befriend fellow inmates – particularly Catholics – and worm information out of them. Others posed as anything from merchants to private tutors. A few, like Marlowe, were linked to the theatre: acting skills have always been useful for espionage. Some of them, perhaps, would have enjoyed the sort of role-playing and double-dealing they might be obliged to undertake.

This is the world of my Crown Intelligencer, another ex-Cambridge man: Martin Marbeck. Marbeck operates in a twilight world of danger, mistrust and suspicion. His world, more often than not, is one of dark city streets, government chambers and prisons, the grand houses of the wealthy and powerful. He moves fast and among all classes, but forms few attachments; the only one who commands complete loyalty from him is his spymaster, the clever little hunchback Sir Robert Cecil.

We first encountered Marbeck in 1600, as a century dawned in which England was at war on two fronts (with Spain, and in Ireland). The spies of that era may have lacked our everyday resources like smart-phones and the Web, news only travelling as fast as a horse (or sailing ship) could carry it. But every man carried a weapon, and state officials could apply for a Torture Warrant to extract information; there was no need to resort to Extraordinary Rendition. Such practices, far from being limitations, create possibilities for an author of historical mysteries. 

More information about John Pilkington and his books can be found on his website.

New Historical Literary Festival in Harrogate

 

Harrogate International Festivals has announced a new History Festival this October with an epic line-up of authors. The major innovative event expands the arts organisation’s offer and enhances its profile as one of the North of England’s leading arts festivals.

Rose Tremain, Fay Weldon and Lindsey Davies star in a series of events exploring the crooks and crevices of historical writing.

The Harrogate History Festival takes place from the 25 to the 27 October In association with the Historical Writers' Association at the Old Swan Hotel.

Manda Scott, Chair of the Historical Writers Association said:"Following in the footsteps of the outstandingly successful Theakstons Old Peculier Harrogate Crime Festival, the first ever Harrogate History Festival promises to bring together  a spectacular combination of the very best historical writing today: from the Roman Empire to the twentieth century; fiction and non-fiction; thrillers, romances, literary works and television, we'll bring together writers and readers, researchers and fans in an atmosphere of shared passion and fascination.  Come along and taste the history!"

Sharon Canavar, CEO of Harrogate International Festivals, said: “This is a significant innovation for Harrogate International Festivals portfolio. It’s a very exciting new Festival this winter, which underlines our commitment to deliver world-class and year-round arts and events for audiences.

“The Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival is now the biggest event of its kind in Europe attracting international audiences and acclaim. For many readers, fans and writers from all over the world, Harrogate is synonymous with the Crime Writing Festival. It’s really put the town on the literary calendar. This is a reputation we plan to build on.”

Panels include the inside story behind the search for Richard III’s remains, exploring battlefields of past glories and gore, and giants of the genre dissecting Ancient Rome. 

Sharon said: “Genre writing is a powerful niche and proven area of expertise for the Festival team after a decade of success with the Crime Writing Festival. It’s clear history is in the throes of a cultural renaissance dominating our bookshelves and TV screens, so we’re very excited to add this timely string to our bow of literary events.”

Award-winning novelists Fay Weldon CBE and Rose Tremain will be the Guest Stars of the Festival. Writing for 50 years, Weldon has written more than 30 novels and a number of plays for TV, radio and the stage. Tremain’s bestselling novels have won the Orange Prize and Whitbread Novel of the Year Award, amongst others.

Sharon added: “Harrogate is a beautiful location and of course steeped in its own history, so we hope it will show off our town and attracts visitors and tourists, as well as giving local audiences a chance to experience big name authors on their doorstep. It’s a fantastic opportunity to explore and grapple with leading literary minds on some of the most gripping conflicts, personalities and epic tales in human history.”

Visit http://harrogateinternationalfestivals.com/history/ for a full programme or call the Box Office on 01423 562303. First tickets will be on sale in August.

Author photocredit of Rose Tremain: David Kirkham

Sam Reaves' Homicide 69

Shots ezine are delighted to feature a guest blog from the Chicago based thriller writer Sam Reaves, who many of you know as Dominic Martell.

Books emerge when they’re ready, and they don’t always turn out to be the book you think they’re going to be. A case in point is my Homicide 69, which was published by Carroll and Graf in 2007 and which I’ve just released as an e-book.

The seed was planted in 1999, as my eye fell on the This Day in History feature in my local paper and I kept seeing reminders of things that had happened thirty years before: the moon landing, Woodstock, the Manson murders. I began to recall that crazy, far-away summer of 1969, which I had lived through as a wide-eyed teenager.  A lot of sensational things happened that summer—the Stones’ Brian Jones drowned, as did a young woman in Ted Kennedy’s car; Northern Ireland blew up and an obscure colonel with an unpronounceable name pulled off a coup in Libya. In the U.S. the cities were still smoldering from the race riots of the previous year. Looming over everything, the Vietnam war was at its height, as were the protests against it. American society was stressed and traumatized. 

It took a while for the seed to germinate; at the time I was writing European-based thrillers under my pseudonym Dominic Martell and focusing on the vast criminal empires emerging from the end of the Cold War. By 2002 I was writing about my home city of Chicago again, having developed an interest in our rich history of corruption and organized crime. That year I published Dooley’s Back, a tight little crime story set in contemporary Chicago involving an ex-cop taking on the mob.

And then the light bulb went on, as I remembered those thirty-year anniversaries popping up in the paper.  Suddenly I saw that summer of 1969 as the perfect stage for a great Chicago story.  I’d learned a lot about the history of the Chicago Outfit, as we call the descendants of the Capone mob, and I knew that the late sixties had been a critical period for organized crime in Chicago as well as for the country at large, as its dominance was being threatened by internal strife and growing federal power.

And there was my story. I already had my character; in Dooley’s Back I’d alluded to the deceased father of the title character, Frank Dooley. I’d called Frank’s father Michael and made him a crusty old-school copper, but honest, not something you always assumed about a cop in Chicago. Now I had a chance to tell his story, and through it the story of a generation and a city that had passed away.  In my new story I focused on Mike Dooley in the prime of his life, a hard-working homicide detective in the summer of 1969 with a fifteen-year-old son Frank at home and an older son Kevin in the Marines in Vietnam.

I had Mike Dooley investigate the murder of a young woman killed in early June, 1969.  It appears to be a sex killing, but when Dooley learns that the victim was a mobster’s girlfriend he starts to suspect there’s more to it than meets the eye. When a dubious confession is approved with unseemly haste by the brass, Dooley knows the whole thing stinks, and he will spend the rest of the turbulent summer, with the world apparently coming apart at the seams, trying to get at the truth behind the killing.

In writing the book I had the best consultant I could have asked for, a retired Chicago police detective named John DiMaggio, who insured that the depictions of late-sixties police work were accurate. Many of the cases Dooley takes on in the course of the summer are modeled on real ones; I spent two months at the Northwestern University library going through the newspapers from the summer of 1969, making notes that allowed me to superimpose a calendar of real-world events on the timeline of the novel. In addition I benefited from long conversations with a legendary Chicago law enforcement veteran named Arthur Bilek, who as an implacable anti-mob crusader had lived through the intrigues which, lightly fictionalized, form the core of the plot.

What emerged was a much bigger novel than I’d intended, superficially a police procedural but essentially the story of the life and times of Michael Dooley and a portrait of Chicago at a critical point in its history. It’s been praised as “great art” and “a hidden gem” by reviewers; I’ll say only that I think it’s a good Chicago story, a nostalgic snapshot of the late sixties and an accurate look at the unsung heroism of the overworked big-city homicide dick. Whatever it is, it’s been given new life in e-book form and readers will have a chance to judge for themselves.

More information available here Sam Reaves and if you’ve yet to explore his work, may we suggest downloading Homicide 69, available here from the Shots Bookstore, and here’s the background -

It's the summer of 1969, and Chicago police detective Mike Dooley has his hands full. An ex-Playboy bunny has been brutally murdered, and once Dooley finds out she was a mobster's girlfriend, he figures this is no mere sex killing. A mope coughs up a confession, but Dooley doesn't like the way the case is being stitched up. He's already got enough to worry about with a son in Vietnam and the usual spate of hot-weather killings, but he'll keep digging until he knows the truth, and not just because it brings him together with the smouldering beauty who was the victim's best friend. Meanwhile the world is changing around him, with the moon landing, Woodstock, the Manson murders and other apocalyptic craziness in the background. This one will push Dooley's personal and professional ethics to the limit.

Sam Reaves has written seven Chicago-based crime novels. As Dominic Martell he has penned a European-based suspense trilogy.  Reaves has traveled widely in Europe and the Middle East but has lived in the Chicago area most of his life.  He has worked as a teacher and a translator.

Author photo credit: Jessie Salter

2013 Ned Kelly nominations and Bloody Scotland 2013 Award Short List

 

The Australian Crime Writers Association have recently announced the shsortlists for the 2013 Ned Kelly Awards. They are as follows -

Best First Fiction –The Marmalade Files by Steve Lewis & Chris Uhlmann
The Midnight Promise by Zane Lovitt
The Robbers  by Paul Anderson
Murder With The Lot by Sue Williams
The Richmond Conspiracy by Andrew Grimes

Best Fiction
The Holiday Murders by Richard Gott
Web of Deceit by Katherine Howell

Blackwattle Creek by Geoffrey McGeachin 

I Hear The Sirens In The Street by Adrian McKinty
Silent Valley by Malla Nunn  

True Crime
The People Smuggler  by Robin de Crespigny  
Every Parent’s Nightmare by Belinda Hawkins
The Devil’s Cinema  by Steve Lillebuen  
Dead by Friday  by Derek Pedley  
Eugenia  by Mark Tedeschi QC  

The short list for the Deanston Crime Novel of the year has also been announced and will be given out Bloody Scotland.   The 2013 shortlisted titles are:

Dead Water by Anne Cleeves
Pilgrim Soul by Gordon Ferris
How a Gunman Says Goodbye by Malcolm Mackay

The Red Road by Denise Mina
The Vanishing Point by Val McDermid
Standing in Another Man’s Grave by Ian Rankin

The Deanston Scottish Crime Book of the Year award winner will be announced at a gala dinner during the Bloody Scotland Festival on Saturday 14th September, and presented with a trophy and a cheque for £1000.

Our Strange Relationship - Maeve Kerrigan and I

Today’s guest blog is by Irish author Jane Casey who has so far written 4 books in her Maeve Kerrigan series.

‘Why don’t you create a series character?’ my editor suggested. ‘Readers don’t remember authors or book titles but they do remember characters.’

My first book was a very dark stand-alone thriller about child murders, THE MISSING. My second was going to be another stand-alone, until my editor stepped in and binned the synopsis. As it turned out, and not for the last time, she was right. Readers do remember characters. More importantly, they become involved with them, in a way I had not really appreciated before I invented DC Maeve Kerrigan. Young, ambitious, tall and ironic, she is the London-born child of Irish parents and a good detective shooting to become a great one. I wanted her to be sceptical but not a cynic, a junior detective rather than a chief inspector. She is a still small voice of calm in the hubbub of a murder investigation and her focus is currently on earning respect rather than rebelling against authority.

I’d read and loved my share of crime novels featuring middle-aged male detectives who drank hard and fought harder. There’s an art to creating and maintaining those characters and I didn’t set out to invent a series character who was the antithesis of all that they represent. However, Maeve is more of an outsider than most of the maverick policemen who crop up so often in crime fiction. She’s a young woman in what remains a man’s world, even now, with a cultural background that marks her out for ridicule. Frequently underestimated, she’s struggling to acquire an air of authority that means she’ll be taken seriously. Many of her colleagues would prefer her to be just a pretty face. She’s subject to hundreds of tiny humiliations that make her a stronger person, but she’s vulnerable in a way that most series detectives aren’t. I admire her and feel protective of her – and I put her through hell.

My latest book, Maeve’s fourth outing, is called THE STRANGER YOU KNOW. Maeve is increasingly concerned about the erratic DI Josh Derwent, her colleague, suspect in a series of unpleasant murders and not for the first time… It’s a book that developed from the uneasy relationship between Maeve and Derwent, a man with a toxic sense of self-worth and a strong line in foul-mouthed banter. It’s possible to start reading the series with STRANGER, but I couldn’t have written it as a first book. It’s driven by the characters and their developing understanding of each other, as it deepens over time. Derwent doesn’t even appear in THE BURNING, the first Maeve Kerrigan book. He definitely makes an impact in the next one, THE RECKONING, where I intended to leave him. There is a certain pleasure in writing someone so politically incorrect, so thoroughly misogynist and hostile to anyone and everyone he encounters, but that was not why I came back to him in THE LAST GIRL. It was because he balances out Maeve’s slight tendency to be a goody-two-shoes, and challenges her, and makes things happen. He is nobody’s idea of a hero – I would never have made him the focus of the series – but the new book is all about him, one way or another. I think it does him justice, though I am not saying whether justice is finally done.

One of the things I have learned while writing this series is that the characters have a life in

the readers’ minds beyond my own version of them. Some people are convinced that Maeve and her policeman boyfriend, Rob, are destined to live happily ever after. Others think she is certain to wind up with Derwent (the idea would appall her). I find it funny that her romantic life is the hook for so many readers, when Maeve herself would claim to be focused on work above all things, but then she is emotionally illiterate at times. Some readers have very clear ideas about how the characters look, and who should play them on TV, and they never seem to match up with what I have in my mind’s eye. There are storylines that run across several books, and people have strong views on how they should be resolved. I have thought about all of these things but I have learned to leave myself room to change my mind. Plan too far ahead and it feels as if you are putting your characters over a series of demanding jumps before they can get to the end of their own literary gymkhana. Let them go their own way and surprise the reader, and yourself.

Maeve changes with each book, growing in some respects, struggling in others. It is a privilege and a pleasure to get to revisit her for half of the year, a joy that only series authors really get to experience. I feel as if I am in her company while I write, in part because the stories are first-person narratives so I see the world around her through her eyes. For all writers, the moment their characters begin to feel real is the moment they know they have done their job. I know I invented Maeve, but for all that, I believe in her.

As for where she will go in the future, I cannot say too much. What I can say is that happily ever after is an ending, and Maeve is nowhere near the end of her story.

The Stranger You Know by Jane Casey is out now in hardback, Ebury Press, £12.99 and her eBook short story about Maeve’s first case Left For Dead was released on 25^th July.

More information can be found about Jane Casey and her books on her website and you can also follow her on Twitter @JaneCaseyAuthor

James Bond News! Jacket cover for Solo revealed.

 

According to the Bookseller and the BBC  the cover for the new James Bond novel by William Boyd has been revealed, featuring die-cut bullet holes which "hint at danger and espionage".

Solo, set in 1969, features Bond as a veteran agent, whose solo mission in Africa takes an unexpected turn.  The designer, Random House creative director Suzanne Dean, said she was inspired by Ian Fleming's 007 series.

Dean, whose previous designs include the covers of Ian McEwan's Atonement and Mark Haddon's The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, said the book's title was her starting point.

"In the book, Bond goes on an unauthorised solo mission, recklessly motivated by revenge. I had always been keen, since finding out the title, that there might be a way to use the two o's within Solo and link it to the zeros in 007.” "It needs to appeal to literary and commercial audiences, both fans of the original 14 Fleming books and film fans. It needs to reflect both the content of the novel and capture the reader's imagination."

The audiobook edition of the novel, published in September, will be narrated by actor Dominic West.

Whilst quite stylistic long time fans of the Bond books will no doubt remember the 1960’s Pan cover for Thunderball which had a number of bullet holes.

In other James Bond news, as part of the Literature Autumn Season, William Boyd will be at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, South Bank Centre on Thursday 26 September 2013 making an exclusive appearance to launch Solo.  Information about buying tickets can be found here.

Wall Street's Black Fridays!

 

 

Today’s guest blog is by Michael Sears who spent over two decades on Wall Street, rising to become a managing director at Paine Webber and Jeffries & Co., before leaving the business in 2005. He now lives in Sea Cliff, New York, where he is at work on a second book featuring Jason Stafford and his son. BLACK FRIDAYS was nominated for an Edgar Award for Best First Novel and A Thriller Award by the ITW. It is also nominated for a Barry Award and Shamus Award for Best First Novel.

The idea for BLACK FRIDAYS came to me via the front page of the Wall Street Journal in the fall of 2003.  Fifty traders and brokers in the foreign exchange market, including some from the world’s most prominent banks, had been arrested in a sweep, the culmination of an eighteen month undercover investigation by the FBI.  I recognized some of the names.

Twenty-one years earlier I had begun my career on the Street working for a foreign exchange brokerage firm in lower Manhattan.  It was an entertaining place to work.  Big trades were celebrated with long afternoons downstairs at the bar at Mikaku, birthdays for the big hitters often meant strippers, and I remember one hot summer week when some of the lads opened the windows and fired bottle rockets at the New York Federal Reserve Bank across the street. 

I wasn’t there long, but it was an eye-opening experience.  Soon after I planted myself in the comparatively tame bond market and stayed there until I left for good in late 2005.  I’d had a good run and it was time to move on and finally get on with what I had wanted to do for a very long time – write.

Though BLACK FRIDAYS is the first thing I have had published, it was not the first I wrote.  I took classes, tried short fiction, began and almost finished a very different novel.  All that time, the story of those foreign exchange traders was rattling around in the back of my head. 

I am not a journalist.  I knew that I couldn’t write a non-fiction account and do it justice.  But an idea for a book about a man – a Wall Streeter – who gets out of prison and has to rebuild his life from the ground up was beginning to gel.  In one of those incidences of synchronicity that happen all too infrequently, I had the idea for combining a fictionalized account of a fraud similar to the one that I had read about with the story of the rehabilitation of the ex-convict. One moment I would never have considered melding the two, the next I could only wonder why it had taken me so long to see their perfection together.

The Kid was not merely an add-on.  I knew from the beginning that the man would have a son with a truly challenging disability.  A five year old on the Autism spectrum is as challenging as I thought my guy could handle.  The Kid teaches Jason how to love, something that most of us learn before we turn forty-five. 

 

I will admit that at some point, as the thriller aspects of the story began to absorb much of my attention, I came into my writers’ workshop one week and announced that I had decided to take out the whole Kid subplot because it was slowing things down too much.  Mayhem ensued.  I was informed by my peers that the Kid was what the book was about and that I was not allowed to cut one scene.

Autism is finally getting the attention it needs in the media, but there’s still miles to go.  One of the fascinating things about this disorder, for a novelist, is that, while it manifests in so many different ways, it is also quite identifiable.  The range of abilities in communication, creativity, and cognition are quite extraordinary.  These children have a need for love and emotional support just as strong as with the rest of us Neuro-Typicals -- they just express it very differently.  The surest way to strike pure terror into the heart of someone on the Spectrum, is to rush up to them booming a warm HELLO, look them square in the eye, and give them a big hug. 

BLACK FRIDAYS also expresses my love affair with New York.  I live in a charming village near the water and I love it here, but I miss the city all the time.  I was born there and though I left before I turned two, something of it must have stuck.  When I returned I lived on Manhattan’s Upper West Side for twenty years.  My children were both born there.  I know, I know.  It’s loud and dirty and expensive and everybody’s rude.  Only they’re not, really.  They’re just in a hurry.

And I raised many a glass at the old P&G, my protagonist’s favorite watering hole.

The book has been nominated for five awards so far, and that is certainly gratifying.  But the greatest thing is to have been welcomed so warmly into this community of mystery and thriller writers and readers.  It’s a great group.

I remember the exact moment that I had fully accepted this new career and become a true member of the tribe.  I was in the dermatologists office having two little spots removed from my forehead – the result of too much time on or near the water – and the doctor was explaining how he was going to freeze them with liquid nitrogen and they would fall right off.  He wore an insulated mitt and handled the canister as gently as if it was a grenade.  196 degrees below zero.  Centigrade.  The real degrees.  And he said, “You could kill someone with this stuff.”  And I heard myself respond, “Really?  How would that work?”

More information about Michael can be found on his website and you can also follow him on Twitter  @MSearsAuthor or on Facebook.

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Black Fridays -

Jason Stafford, once a well-respected – and well paid – trader, is released from prison after serving two years for fraud.  Virtually unemployable, he takes a job investigating what appears to be a small, isolated case of fraud at another firm.  He soon discovers that the case is much bigger, and the men behind the scam are even willing to kill to protect their interests.

He also finds himself a single parent to his five-year-old autistic son, ‘The Kid’, after reclaiming him from his unstable ex-wife.  With his life in jeopardy and his son threatened, Jason has to make some decisions about who he is and what he really wants.

The Essentials of Writing Crime Fiction - Guardian Masterclass

 

Solve the mystery of how to write gripping crime fiction with a two-day investigation into the genre led by top authors William Ryan and M R Hall along with Literary Agent and bookseller David Headley.

Topics covered will include –

What makes crime fiction tick?

The crime fiction market

Introduction to plotting

Technical aspects of crime writing

How to create an original central character and many more!

Dates: Saturday 19 and Sunday 20 October 2013.

Times: 10am – 5:00pm

Location: The Guardian, King’s Place, 90 York Way, London N1 9GU

Further information can be found here.