Criminal Splatterings

Fans of The Saint will be interested to know that according to Deadline.com Bridgerton start Regé-Jean Page is due to star at the helm of the re-imaging of The Saint. More information can be found here. It is due to be based in part on Leslie Charteris’ 1920s book series and subsequent 1960s UK TV series starring Roger Moore. 

Over on Crimereads.com bestselling author Darynda Jones lists her 13 must read laugh out loud mysteries. A fantastic list which can be read here. Great to see such luminaries as Janet Evanovich, Carl Hiaasen and Donald E Westlake on the list. Who would I add? Sparkle Hayter of course!

Also on Crimereads.com one of my favourite historical crime writers Lindsey Davis considers the enduring appeal of the Roman Empire as a good setting for historical mysteries. The full article can be read here. The latest book by Lindsey Davis is The Comedy of Terrors and is the ninth book in the series to feature Flavia Albia. who longstanding readers will know is the daughter of her famous character Marcus Didius Falco. 

Fans of S A Cosby will enjoy the interview with him in the Guardian. But hey, the Guardian is clearly playing catch up to those of us who having been raving about him since last year when Blacktop Wasteland was published by Headline. The Shots review of Blacktop Wasteland can be read here.

Recently the crime fiction world have been shocked by the death of Mo Hayder from Motor Neurone Disease. The Shots team play tribute to her on the blog.

If you are like me a fan of podcasts – then you will be interested to note that James Ellroy is going to host about Los Angeles crime. Of course Crimereads has the scoop.

Fans of the Grantchester which is based on the novels of James Runcie will be happy to hear that filming on season 7 has begun. More information can be found here.

There are various crime and police procedurals to look out for in the autumn due to be shown on ITV. 

The Long Call which is based on the Anne Cleeves novel of the same name and will feature Juliet Stevenson, Ben Aldridge and Martin Shaw.

Martin Clunes will reprise his role as as the former London Metropolitan Police Detective Chief Inspector Colin Sutton in a new season of Manhunt.

Angela Black an Hitchcockian thriller that follows one woman as she risks everything she holds dear to fight back against the man who has suppressed and tormented her for most of her adult life is due to be shown in the autumn as well.

The exact dates of transmission have yet to be announced for any of these programme.

If you missed the Four Critics, Four Continents live event then you can watch it again here. We discuss our favourite books of the first half of 2021 and cover such countries as Nigeria, The Deep South of America, Japan, Sweden and New Zealand. 

Fans of Matthew Quirk's political thrillers will be pleased to here that according to Deadline.com, Netflix are due to film a conspiracy thriller series that is based on The Night Agent that was published in 2019. More information can be found here.

If you missed Crime Time's books of the decade event then don't worry. You can rewatch it below. Also you can find the list of all the books discussed on the Crime Time site.

There’s Always Time for a Little Crime… By Victoria Selman

 

Crime fiction, more than any other genre, offers both puzzle and resolution and with it the promise that order will be restored. No wonder we’ve lapped it up the way we have in recent months. 

But it’s not just reading that has provided much needed escapism during these trying times. Podcasts also provide a wonderful way to switch off from everyday life whilst simultaneously offering a sense of connection.

I’ve recently joined crime fiction mavens, Barry Forshaw (Financial Times) and Paul Burke (Crime Time) to present a new show called, On The Sofa With Victoria as part of the hugely popular podcast, Crime Time FM.

iTunes: apple.co/3qCwan9

Spotify: spoti.fi/3y2qLbI

Google: bit.ly/3xZU8eG

On The Sofa With Victoria brings audiences panel-style discussions between some of the most exciting names in contemporary crime fiction including Mark Billingham, Lisa Jewell and CJ Tudor as well as emerging voices and rising stars such as Abigail Dean, Will Carver and Joseph Knox.

Each fortnight, I’ll be chatting to authors and industry insiders about everything from serial killers to series fiction. 

The programme launched on June 15th with an examination of supernatural crime crossovers between Sarah Pinborough and Alex North entitled, Anything Can Happen: https://apple.co/2Tx79x6 

On the 29th, we released our second episode, a fantastic discussion about courtroom dramas with Harriet Tyce and Sarah Vaughan: apple.co/360nM7y

Meanwhile, In Person With Paul features in depth one-on-one interviews with big names such as Laura Lippman, Peter May and Jo Spain along with upcoming authors including Tim Glister, Imran Mahmood and James Wolff. Focusing on new releases, authors discuss their books, motivations and issues in crime fiction with Paul Burke. 

Paul: “It’s amazing what you learn from authors, not just about their current book, but also what they have planned next and which of your favourite characters are about to make it to the big screen. It can get intense but we also have a lot of fun too.”

Barry’s Blu-Rays features Barry Forshaw’s insights on new crime DVD and Blu-ray releases based on the commentaries he does, often with Kim Newman, and the sleeve notes he writes for new releases and reissue as well as conversations with industry insiders Many of you will know Barry as a crime fiction expert but he is also a highly respected film writer. 

Check out the first interview with Michael Mackenzie, senior producer Arrow Films Video, released in June: https://apple.co/3dqb2Lq

We also have Heads Together, a magazine style show where the Crime Time FM team discuss news, reviews and all things bookish, from festivals to awards and a monthly watchlist: https://apple.co/3hk7lIf

There really is something for everyone whether you’re interested in the latest trends and themes in crime fiction or discovering new authors and films. 

Catch us here and do let us know what you think via Twitter:

@VictoriaSelman @Paulodaburka @BarryForshaw3

We’d love to hear from you!

iTunes: apple.co/3qCwan9

Spotify: spoti.fi/3y2qLbI

Google: bit.ly/3xZU8eG

The Team: 

Victoria Selman writes for the Independent and is the author of the critically acclaimed Ziba MacKenzie series. Her debut novel, Blood for Blood, was shortlisted for the prestigious CWA Debut Dagger Award and an Amazon Charts #1 bestseller for five weeks, selling over half a million copies. She was recently shortlisted for the 2021 CWA Short Story Dagger Award. 

Contact her on Twitter @VictoriaSelman

Barry Forshaw is the crime fiction critic for the Financial Times and provides extras for Blurays. Books include Crime Fiction: A Reader’s Guide, the Keating Award-winning Brit Noir, British Crime Writing: An Encyclopedia (also a Keating winner), British Gothic Cinema, Italian Cinema: Arthouse to Exploitation, Sex and Film and BFI Classics: War of the Worlds. He edits Crime Time (www.crimetime.co.uk). 

Contact him on Twitter @BarryForshaw3

Paul Burke writes about books, with a special interest in crime fiction, for a number of magazines and online book sites, including Crime Time, NB Magazine, the European Literature Network and Crime Fiction Lover. 

Contact him on Twitter @Paulodaburka

Barry Forshaw talks about British Crime Film: Something to be Proud Of

Today’s guest blogger is from crime fiction critic Barry Forshaw.  A former Vice-Chair of the Crime Writer’s Association Barry is a writer and journalist whose books include British Crime Writing: An Encyclopaedia and The Rough Guide to Crime Fiction.  He is also the editor of the crime fiction website Crime Time.  His latest book is British Crime Film: Subverting the Social Order – a comprehensive social history of British crime film.

The British (or, perhaps, the English) have a problem with being proud of things these days.  It may be a legacy of the less admirable aspects of Empire, but while other nations allow their chests to swell with patriotic pride (look at the Scots; for instance), the English have a more ambiguous attitude when it comes to celebrating their own achievements.  The recent, much-trumpeted opening ceremony for the Olympics featured extensive sections of rap (British, perhaps – although it might be argued that it’s a quintessentially American phenomenon), but the one short burst of Elgar was virtually the only acknowledgement of the prestigious musical tradition in this country, and there wasn't even any real faith invested in the second Elgarian Olympic moment at the closing ceremony, interrupted within seconds of it starting by Timothy Spall's hectoring, pantomime impersonation of Winston Churchill.

Nevertheless, when it comes to self-deprecation – why, we’re bloody good at that.  Moreover, perhaps we have reason to be; there was much national soul-searching over the recent decimation of Army ranks (widely felt to be a dumping on the scrapheap of men who had dedicated their lives to the service of their country) which was widely covered.  And this strange conflict between British pride and shame had me thinking of one thing we can be proud of: the long, impressive legacy of crime movies made in this country.  What's more, one of the most famous, The League of Gentlemen, had as a crucial part of its narrative Army men who felt they had been thrown on the scrapheap (and turn to crime).  Topical, eh?  And writing British Crime Film, I was reminded – again and again – how often this branch of popular cinema had its finger on the pulse of many key notions of Britishness (and even Englishness).

In many ways, the modest critical standing of much British crime cinema has afforded it a rich seam of possibilities.  Genre cinema was for many years treated with critical disdain (consolidated by the fact that audiences – while enjoying it – regarded the field as nothing more than entertainment).

From Robbery to Get Carter

Throughout its long and colourful history, British crime cinema has encountered a series of problems peculiar to the genre.  While the subject of the heist or ambitious robbery (in films such as Quentin Lawrence’s Cash on Demand (1961) or Peter Yates’ version of the Great Train Robbery, Robbery (1967)) has been relatively unproblematic, there are certain areas that proved to be incendiary when the films were examined by the British Board of Film Censors (the name of the organisation was changed in a piece of Orwellian rewriting to the British Board of Film Classification – appropriately, in 1984); and it’s not hard to discern the reasons for the fuss. In the 1960s, the BBFC made little secret of the fact that it regarded its role as maintaining the rigid status quo of society as much as protecting the vulnerable, biddable public from sights that would cause offence or (worse still) inspire imitative behaviour.  The 1961 Joseph Losey film The Damned featured scenes of gang violence in the original screenplay submitted to the Board, and inspired a strikingly nannyish response.  The earlier Brighton Rock (1947) had caused a similar fuss.  As so often in the history of British film censorship from the 1940s onwards, it is the ‘dangerous influence’ of popular cinema that was seen to be as threatening as any graphic violence or sexuality (although the latter elements in crime films were firmly fixed in the popular imagination as depicting more explicit erotic activity and female nudity than more mainstream product).  Ironically, though, the most iconic of modern British gangster films, Mike Hodges’ Get Carter (1971), casts a notably cold eye on its ruthless protagonist, however charismatically he is played by Michael Caine.  There was an ideological distance between British filmmakers and their criminal subjects – these films did not deal in hero-worship, despite the compelling energy of their protagonists.

Class and sex

Studying the British crime film from the mid-1940s to the present offers a microcosm of the events that shaped the nation, from the election of the post-war Labour government through the subsequent shift from middle-class drawing-room drama to the new dominance of northern-based realist drama.  There was a changing view of class and a freeing-up of previously rigid sexual attitudes.  However, most significant was the new, more jaundiced take on the certainties of the establishment (the government, the legal profession or the hidebound moralism of the press).  And the often-iconoclastic impulses of the crime film could be read as a commentary on the shifting sands of moral viewpoints.

Subversive?  Perhaps.  Finally, though, this is an imposing parade of truly impressive films that we in Britain can point to with pride.  Writing British Crime Film was my attempt to celebrate this striking legacy.  A legacy that is, thankfully, alive and kicking.

British Crime Film by Barry Forshaw is published by Palgrave Macmillan and is officially published on Monday 3 September 2012.

Barry Forshaw’s Book To Die For - The Ministry of Fear by Graham Greene

 

The first of our blogger/reviewers take on Books to Die For is Barry Forshaw.

British critic Barry Forshaw is a writer and journalist whose writing career covers a number of genres.  He is the acknowledged expert on Scandinavian crime fiction and the author of numerous work on films and crime fiction.  He has done documentaries on crime fiction for a number of television stations.  His work includes The Rough Guide to Crime Fiction, British Crime Writing: An Encyclopaedia.  He is also the editor of the well-regarded online crime fiction magazine Crime Time.  His most recent book is Death in a Cold Climate - A Guide to Scandinavian Crime Fiction and his latest book, which is due out in September, is British Crime Film: Subverting the Social Order.  A former Vice-Chair of the Crime Writers’Association.  He also wrote the first UK biography on Stieg Larsson – The Man Who Left Too Soon.

Had Graham Greene (1904-1991) not written the 'serious' novels (such as A Burnt Case and The Heart of the Matter) which marked him out as one of the greatest of all English writers, his ‘entertainments’ (as the author rather dismissively described them) would constitute a body of crime and thriller fiction almost without equal in the field.  Early in his career, Greene introduced an element of the spy story into The Confidential Agent (1939), in which D, the agent of a Latin government (Republican Spain in all but name), figures in a narrative that was clearly influential on such later writers as John le Carré.  The latter has long acknowledged Greene’s considerable influence on his work.  Greene's most celebrated crime novel, of course, is Brighton Rock (1938, with its psychotic young antihero Pinkie), which the author decided to move out of his ‘entertainments’ category.  This sometimes slippery shifting of genres by the author was always a rather arbitrary endeavour: the moral concerns of the thrillers were often precisely those of the more serious books, while the pursuit narratives of the serious books (such as the whisky priest on the run in The Power and the Glory, 1940) had precisely the same visceral trajectory as the thrillers.  However, all the books have that dark and sardonic view of existence, which quickly became identified as ‘Greeneland’, a queasy admixture of the seedy, the surrealistically funny and the dangerous.  Two other crucial ingredients need to be identified in the Greene mix: the author’s uneasy relationship with Catholicism (he converted under the influence of his wife's piety, but was never an unquestioning believer after the fashion of his correspondent and colleague Evelyn Waugh, who chastised Greene for his doubts).  Greene’s work is also distinguished by its frank and realistic depiction of the sexual relations between men and women – not, that is to say, in any graphic fashion, but with an unblinking assessment of the joys and despair concomitant with sexual passion.

Which novel is the best of his thrillers?  Brighton Rock, with its brilliantly realised picture of a violent seaside underworld, is as strong a starting point for those new to Greene as anything he wrote, but my personal choice, on balance, is the superbly honed thriller The Ministry of Fear (1943), which demonstrates an authority and mastery of the narrative form that makes most practitioners look mere journeymen.  London in the Blitz is brilliantly conjured by the author in this dazzling piece.  This is an ‘entertainment’, but the moral issues here are as rigorously handled as anything tackled by Greene in his more ambitious novels.  Arthur Rowe, full of guilt after the death of his sick wife, is plunged into a dangerous world of murderous, shadowy figures.  The Ministry of Fear is possibly the author’s most sheerly enjoyable novel in the ‘thriller’ vein.  (Fritz Lang made a creditable stab at The Ministry of Fear for the cinema.)

UK Launch of The Boy in The Suitcase

(L-R Barry Forshaw, Dr Jakob Stougaard-Nielsen, Lene Kaaberbøl and Agnette Friis (© Ayo Onatade))

I first met authors Lene Kaaberbøl and Agnette Friis at Bouchercon that took place in St Louis in 2011. At the time they were with promoting the first English translation of their book The Boy in the Suitcase.

Our second meeting took place when I attended the UK launch of The Boy in the Suitcase, which took place yesterday evening (17 January) in the Gallery at Foyles Bookshop, which is based along Charing Cross Road in London. Crime fiction expert Barry Forshaw, author of Death in a Cold Climate: A Guide to Scandinavian Crime Fiction and editor of Crime Time chaired the event and they were joined by Scandinavian Crime enthusiast and founder of the legendary Nordic Noir Book Club Dr. Jakob Stougaard-Nielsen (UCL).

The event started off with a brief introduction by Dr Jakob Stougaard-Nielsen who introduced Barry Forshaw. The two authors Lene Kaaberbøl and Agnette Friis where then introduced by Barry Forshaw before he started to talk/ interview them about their book.

One of the first things that was commented on was that aside from the fact that The Boy in The Suitcase was a brilliant multi-stranded book, it was also quite complex. Barry was interested in finding out from them both why this was the case as they had more than 3 voices in the book. They explained that what they wanted to do was to ensure that all the important characters were not only seen from the inside but were also able to view the world. This of course meant that they needed to have 5 different voices, which included that of the villain and Nina’s husband.

They also expressed the view that the villain was not only filled with rage but also still human but when asked how they felt about such a character for example Hannibal Lecter they expressed the view that whilst they felt he was an interesting character he was also seen as a psychopath. Their villain on the other hand (they explained) was a person who had a very ordinary life/dreams that anyone could relate to. They could not go down the route of what Steig Larsson did with his villains. The hardest part is actually making the villain believable.

But what about Nina their heroine and why is she so irritating? They explained that they did not feel the need to make her a perfect person and thus annoying but they did need to find a delicate balance. They did not want readers to lose sympathy with her entirely but people did find her annoying and sometimes found her behaviour a barrier to them finishing the book. It seems that women were mainly the ones as they found it difficult to forgive her for being such a bad mother. Nevertheless, they felt that she did try very hard.

The authors also revealed that whilst doing their research they found out that there were a lot of unaccompanied children going missing in Denmark. Over 600 have gone missing in the last 10 years. Some had in fact moved on but others had been sold for prostitution etc. The difficult was that hardly anything was being done about this because they were immigrants but it would be a different matter if the missing children were from Denmark. There were different rules for immigrants as opposed to Danes.

One of the other questions that was raised was whether or not there was a legacy of Russia hanging on the Danes? They felt that there was not and they did not just want to write a Danish novel but wanted to ensure that Nina came into contact with all sorts of people.

With journalists currently being in the news they were also asked how journalists were currently being viewed in Denmark. It was explained that unlike in the UK they did not really have tabloid newspapers and thus they were not seen to be as bad as UK journalists but that the quality of journalism was indeed going down what with the internet and the failure to properly check sources.

They authors were also asked how did they work together. They pointed out that they wrote separate chapters before going through each other’s chapters and commenting on them. It did (they agreed) sometimes lead to the odd argument but this was something that they got over very easily. They both had a basic mutual respect for each other’s work and were thus able to point out where they saw problems.

It was also agreed that not only were Scandinavian writers likeable but there was a sense that writing crime fiction was a good way of communicating ideas.

The topic of titles was discussed. It is well known the Eva Gabrielson was not happy about the fact that the title to the first Stieg Larsson book was changed from Men Who Hated Women (Män som hatar kvinnor) to The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. The title of the second book in the series is (in English translation) A Quiet Unfelt Killing, which is a line from the book. However they explained that the titled worked better in Danish and that they did not believe that once it had been translated into English that it would still have that title. The third book is set in Ukraine with references to Stalin.

One of the things they made clear was that they wanted to avoid clichés. They explained that they were not so much interested in corruption for example but more interested in the complacency surrounding it.

The success of such television programmes as The Killing and Borgen was also commented on. Both authors were bemused by the phenomenon and wide spread acclaim both programmes had received as Danes were less overwhelmed by them. There were as they explained others, some that were good and some that were bad. The fact that so many people were prepared to sit through programmes with English subtitles amazed them. They could to a certain extent understand The Killing but could not understand Borgen since it is about Danish politics.

Dr Stougaard-Nielsen commented that well crafted writing and art was very much appreciated by anybody who came into contact with it as they saw it for what it was.

The Boy in The Suitcase won two major awards and was also nominated for The Glass Key they were asked whether or not this had raised their profile. Both authors agreed that it had. They had thought that they would win Best First Novel as the book has only been published three to four months earlier but they had surprisingly won Thriller of the Year. Sadly however, The Glass Key is not so well known outside Scandinavia and usually it is accompanied by the comment that it is the award that Steig Larsson won twice”.

Boundaries were also discussed with the authors and whether or not they had boundaries that they would not cross. The reason for the question was because Barry Forshaw had just finished reading Hans Koppel’s She’s Never Going Back which he found to be a very dispiriting read with humiliating sex scenes. They agreed that the did have boundaries which hey would not cross. They indicated that they would not write about anything that they were uncomfortable with themselves and that there was a fine line between titillation and showing things for what they were. Real crime is as far as they were concerned bad enough and they did not feel the need to go overboard. Their book is from their point of view not really a howdunnit or a whodunit but a whydunnit.

The audience were also informed that the film rights for the books were under discussion but they could not really talk about it. They also confirmed that Lene Kaaberbøl had in fact done the English translation of the book.

The authors were also asked questions one of which was whether or not they felt it was right that authors should use their books for social commentary or should they be seen as pure entertainment. Both authors agreed that they should but that the books should also entertain. It was as they explained supposed to do both.

The event at Foyles was extremely well attended. It was a testament this evening to how much Nordic crime is read by the full room. The Galley was full and the authors had an extremely receptive audience. At the end of the evening the authors joined the attendees for drinks and signed books as well.

My thanks go to Lene Kaaberbøl, Agnette Friis, Barry Forshaw and Dr. Jakob Stougaard-Nielsen for such an enjoyable evening and Foyles Bookshop for hosting it. If you have not yet read The Boy in The Suitcase then I urge you to do so. It will in my opinion be one of the best crime novels this year.