CrimeFest Day 1 Part 2

Well, the second panel that I attended yesterday was the heroes and antihero panel which featured Priscilla Masters, Rhys Bowen, Alan Carter, Rodney Bolt (Britta Bolt) and Antonia Hodgson as the participating moderator.

One of the initial questions that the panel discussed was where does the protagonist fit? Are they hero's or antihero's?  According to Priscilla Masters her character Joanna Piercy has flaws which are part of her personality.  Alan Carter explained that his main character is an interfering do-gooder who has currently been sent to the equivalent of "police Serbia" due to his behaviour, so he sees him as an anti-hero. Britta Bolt stated that character flaws are an obsession.

The panellists were also asked who their favourite heroes and anti-heroes were?  Alan Carter stated that his favourite anti-hero was Graham Hurley's Paul Winter.  Britta Bolt indicated that his were the original Sherlock Holmes and Watson.  Rhys Bowen said that she really did not like Jeff Lindsay's character Dexter. Priscilla Masters noted that another anti-hero was Jackson Brodie.  She felt that he came across as a twat. Alan Carter indicated that he felt that Jack Cafferty from the Rebus novels is an antihero.  One of the other questions that was discussed was the popularity of anti-heroes and why they had become so popular over the years.     Also whether or not a true anti-hero had to have that Ripley/ Dexter darkness to make them believeable?  Poirot was seen as hero but also someone who was not liked very much as he came across as someone who knew too much.  This changed slightly just before he died as he was seen as being slightly more vulnerable.

One thing that was agreed was the fact that the crime genre is good at doing the anti-villain.  A lot of crime novels are also about a victim who has been turned into anti-villain.  It was also agreed that anti-heroes are also fun to write but where would you draw the line? Also, are the best crime novels the ones where the antihero takes on aspects of the hero?

It was agreed that flawed heroes included Lee Child's Jack Reacher, Ken Bruen's Jack Taylor and Jack Carter the character created by Ted Lewis.

What else happened yesterday?  SJI Holliday nearly did not make it to her panel.  She had me in fits of laughter as she was explaining that her ticket was booked for Bristol Parkway instead of Bristol Temple Meads and that she missed her station on her way down to Bristol and thought that the next stop would be Bristol Temple Meads.  Alas not!  The next stop was Newport in Wales so she had to get off there and make her way back to Bristol.  Luckily she had factored in some extra time and managed to get to CrimeFest by the skin of her teeth.

Dinner last night was with the lovely David Headley (co-owner of Goldsboro Books) who is running the bookshop this year along with Daniel Gedon, Harry Illingworth, Sophie Portas, L C Tyler, John Curran and Kate Lyall Grant.  It was a wonderful dinner with much hilarity.

Today has however been tempered by hearing the news that B B King has died.  This is so sad  and not nice especially since we have just lost Ben E King!

As usual more to follow about Friday's panels in due course!

CrimeFest 2015 Day 1 Part 1

Copyright Ayo Onatade

So CrimeFest has started today and as usual I shall be doing by usual blogging and tweeting as much as possible.  Also for those of you that have followed me over the years will remember that my blog posts from CrimeFest tend to be a mixture of what is happening in the panels and whatever takes my fancy.  So sit back and enjoy.  If you want to follow what is happening at CrimeFest on Twitter then they are using ♯CrimeFest15.

So what has happened so far? 

The trip down was non-eventful. It was however lovely to bump into the lovely Daniel Gedon from Goldsboro books on the train.  Our arrival at Bristol was enlivened by the fact that it was pouring with rain.

It was lovely to see so many people on arrival at the hotel. Unfortunately I missed the first panel, which was Debut Authors: An Infusion of Fresh Blood, which featured Tom Callaghan, Jason Hewitt, S J I Holiday, Cal Moriarty, and M P Wright and moderated by Jake Kerridge.  It wasn’t done on purpose but I was waiting for my room to be ready.

I did however attend the panel A Woman in a Man’s World that had Ray Celestin, MJ McGrath, Helen Giltrow and William Shaw as panel members and MR Hall as the participating moderator.  This was a very interesting panel and the various comments from the panellists made for a lively debate.  It was interesting to hear from the panellists about their views. One of the things that Ray Celestin stated was that when he was writing his female character he did not want to be seen as sexist when it came to his character.  Furthermore, he chose a female as his third main character as he felt that it was a good idea.  The added problem was that not only was she not allowed to join the police because she was African American.  She was allowed to do menial work.  This is the reason why she joined the Pinkertons instead.  William Shaw also pointed out that for him the problem arose from the fact that he was writing a female character before feminism took root. M J McGrath explained that the inspiration for her main character Edie was from a true-life person who was a small Inuit woman. MR Hall stated that initially his main character was male but he decided that he wanted to write an emotional book hence the reason why he decided to change his main character to female.  In the case of Helen Giltrow she explained that her main female character was created by accident.  She literally took over as the book was been written.  She had initially wanted to write a book with a male hero.  One of the questions that was raised was whether or not women were a lot more interesting as lead characters in crime fiction.  According to MJ McGrath women have a lot more things to struggle with including for example childcare.  As William Shaw explained crime fiction was seen to be a man’s world.  On the other hand, MJ McGrath felt that crime books were all about character and psychological novels are being dominated by women – better known as Domestic Noir.  Both Helen Giltrow and MJ McGrath would have liked to have seen and read Before I Go To Sleep, with a male protagonist.  They also felt that it would also be interesting to read a novel about sexual assault by a woman to a man.  MR Hall also wondered if we expected our female lead characters to be heroic and if there was an actual reason for them to be heroic or an interest in them being so.  It was felt that there was a great tradition of men being the anti-hero but not women.  Ray Celestin however pointed out that we were starting to see women as anti-heroes.  But it was also felt that we expect different things from our male and female heroes.

Some of the other issues that were raised in the panel were whether or not male and female readers got the same from a book or were they looking for different things. Furthermore, it is impossible for women to read violence the same way as men.   It was also felt that women readers were a lot more judgmental about female characters than men.  It was noted that women are by far the largest readers of crime fiction.

More to follow…….