Why do we keep returning to the Island by Bonnie Burke-Patel

Everything you have with you, already in your heart, arrives with you on the island, and only becomes amplified, greater, in such isolation.

And so the story begins. Eight lonely souls on an island off the English coast; spending Christmas at the house on Saints’ Climb because, whatever their superficial reasons, they have nowhere else to be.

Between a cast of wealthy recluse father and traumatised adult son (George and Xavier Starvely), a taciturn archaeologist (Ryefield), documentary-makers Nathan and Chris, French widower Victor, groundskeeper Rik, and housekeeper Marianne… I’m proud to set my third gothic crime novel somewhere entirely unoriginal. In fact, it was sort of the point.

Whether it’s the Queen of Crime’s unbeatable And Then There Were None, literary gems like Elizabeth O’Connor’s Whale Fall, or delightful romps like Louise Minchin’s Isolation Island, the island holds an enduring appeal for reader and writer alike. And when a setting becomes such a cultural artefact, it also becomes self-perpetuating, because nosy writers like me want to know why.

Pull up for my TED Talk, and I’ll tell you why I brought you back to the island…

As a psychology

By its nature, the island is a separate thing. An isolated piece of land, cut off by sea on all sides. And more often than not, in crime fiction, it’s just within view of the mainland’s shore. Tantalisingly close, and when the bodies start dropping, it’s all the more agonising that help is just out of reach. When a storm blows in, the inhabitants of Saints’ Climb could almost reach help if they tried, couldn’t they?

Physically and psychologically, the island acts as a liminal space; land in the water, adjacent to but not part of the main. We see the island from the shore, and we see the mainland from the island. And so the island doubles the psychology of the lonely characters, stranded on their own emotional bits of rock and wondering if there is a way to connect with each other amid the violence.

The specifics of Saints’ Climb as an island were also inspired by that most Freudian pit, childhood. Growing up in the West Country, islands were quite literally on the horizon whenever my family took a jaunt to our local seaside, Weston-super-Mare. A rundown coastal town in the British tradition, I love it with all my heart. Between cold sloppy sandcastles and donkey rides, my three siblings and I would look at the horizon and see two mysterious lumps out at sea - Flat Holm and Steep Holm islands. Only as an adult would I discover their fascinating records as seabird colonies, cholera isolation hospitals, pieces of radio history… As a kid, they stuck in my mind as gothic lacuna just out of reach, and full of magical potential. Anything at all might fill them. Perhaps it’s not surprising that as an adult, they would re-emerge in a novel.

As a writer

Being a writer is about choices - of the infinite possible stories in the universe, you have to choose, winnow, erode all the possibilities until you’re left with the story you want to tell. And because of this immense freedom, I actually find it useful to have a containing framework. Stick eight people on the island. Now some of them have to die without anyone knowing how. Make me work for it. Make me give you something new in a space that’s already a densely populated fictional landscape. How much new ground can I find on a rock?

 And that’s where the literary tradition that might seem like it restricts the writer, opens it up. Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None is a masterpiece. Her ten victims trapped on the island die off like flies as every possibility evaporates as soon as the reader has thought of it. It has also sold 100 million copies worldwide; commonly cited as the bestselling crime novel of all time. The majority of the readers of We Search the Island for Grace will have read it or seen a TV adaptation… and some still won’t. Now I have the additional challenge of writing a novel for two distinct audiences. Is George Starvely an echo of one of Christie’s characters? What about Ryefield? Marianne? Are these tropes about to be subverted or leaned in to; are they breadcrumbs or traps? Does this still compel a reader who has never touched a Christie in their life?

It’s the author’s joy of never having a singular unitary reader. A book is a new story under every set of eyes that reads it, and all the associations, experiences, and pre-existing knowledge they bring. We’re all our own islands, and we’re all connected by the act of reading.

We Search The Island For Grace by Bonnie Burke-Patel (Bedford Square  Out Now

They gather at Saints’ Climb, the only house on an island off the Somerset coast. Seven men with nowhere else to be at Christmas. Father and son George and Xavier Starvely; James, a taciturn archaeologist uneasy with the living; Victor, a French widower; Rik, the groundskeeper; and Chris and Nathan, the two men who want to make a documentary about this place and its extraordinary collection of medieval art. And the housekeeper Marianne, who seems to find peace in serving. Erected around the stone labyrinth built into the floor by monks, Saints’ Climb is a house heavy with loneliness. Xavier Starvely is a successful academic with a real life elsewhere. Yet he is wracked with guilt over the fragmentary memories of a childhood tragedy, and when his guests arrive on the island for Christmas, the deaths begin afresh. A labyrinth is different from a maze. There are no false turns or dead ends: there is only one winding path, which, followed faithfully, will always lead to the centre. What will each find at the centre of the labyrinth? And can it save them?

 You can find Bonnie Burke-Patel on Instagram @bonnieburkepatel

 

 

Books to Look Forward to from Quercus Books

The Dordogne town of St Denis may be picturesque and sleepy, but it has more than its fair share of mysteries, as Bruno, chef de police, knows all too well. But when Bruno is invited to the 90th birthday of a powerful local patriarch - a war hero with high-level political connections in France, Russia and Israel - he encounters a family with more secrets than even he had imagined. When one of the other guests is found dead the next morning and the family try to cover it up, Bruno knows it's his duty to prevent the victim from becoming just another skeleton in their closet. Even if his digging reveals things Bruno himself would rather keep buried. Meanwhile, very modern battles are being fought in St Denis between hunters defending their traditions and environmentalists protecting local wildlife. Neither side, it seems, is above the use of violent tactics. At the centre of it all, Bruno must use all his cunning and character to protect his community's future from its present - and its past.  The Dying Season is by Martin Walker and is due to be published in July 2015.

After two years in the Seattle Police Department Detective Alice Madison seems to have found the kind of peace in her private and working life that she has not known before. However when a burglary escalates into an horrific murder she is put in charge of the investigation and finds herself tracking a killer who might have stalked the city for years and whose existence is the stuff of myth in high security prisons. Her own past comes under scrutiny and enemies close to home want her to fail as Madison and her partner hunt down a skillful, determined murderer with a talent for death, and Madison's private life falls apart.  Blood and Bone is by V M Giambanco and is due to be published in August 2015.

Box 21 is by Roslund and Hellstrom and is due to be published in December 2015.  CI Ewert Grens comes face to face with the cruel reality of human trafficking.  Lydia Grajauskas will never forget the face.  The face of the trafficker who brought her to Stockholm: the man responsible for three unrelenting years of forced prostitution and slavery.  DCI Ewert Grens will never forget the name.  The name of the prisoner the day his life was destroyed: the man responsible for twenty-five years of torturous heartache. Sweden will never forget their revenge . . . Box 21 is a steely, airtight thriller containing both the harshest aspects of degradation and retaliation, and the toughest questions surrounding the morality of violent and obsessive reprisal.

Taking Pity is by David Mark and is due to be published in July 2015. They have taken DS Aector McAvoy's family. They have taken DCI Colin Ray's foundation. They have taken DS Trish Pharaoh's fight. Now the ruthless criminal network that has tightened its stranglehold on Hull intends to take everything that remains from those who dare to stand in its way. Taking Pity is a police procedural thriller that pulls no punches. It is the story of three officers who can take no more, and a merciless nemesis that takes no chances, no prisoners and no pity.

The Memory of Evil is the final instalment in Roberto Costantini's internationally bestselling crime trilogy, and revisits Commissario Balistreri in 2011, five years on from the events of The Deliverance of Evil.  It is due to be published in September 2015. Now head of Homicide in Rome, Michele Balistreri is forced again to team up with investigative journalist Linda Nardi, as the pair follow a malevolent trail that stretches from Nairobi to San Francisco, and which will eventually lead Balistreri back to the island of La Moneta, the scene of his mother's apparent suicide in the summer of 1969, where a secret and sinister truth that has evaded him for five decades lies sickeningly in wait.

Dear Elizabeth, I've been watching you. I hope to see you...Soon. Liz Cafferky is on the up. Rescued from her dark past by the owner of a drop-in centre for older men, Liz soon finds herself as the charity's face - and the unwilling darling of the Dublin media. Amidst her claustrophobic fame, Liz barely notices a letter from a new fan. But then one of the Centre's clients is brutally murdered, and Elizabeth receives another, more sinister note. Running from her own ghosts, Liz is too scared to go to the police. And with no leads, there is little Sergeant Claire Boyle can do to protect her. Are You Watching Me is by Sinéad Crowley and is due to be published in July 2015.

Enough Rope is by Barbara Nadel and is due to be published in August 2015.  Private investigator and ex-soldier Lee Arnold and superintendent Paul Venus are by no means friends, but when Venus' son Harry is kidnapped and ransom demands arrive from an address in Arnold's patch in east London, the superintendent doesn't know who else to turn to. Arnold and his partner Mumtaz Hakim soon find themselves chasing leads into several of the East End's uneasily coexisting communities. Mumtaz uncovers a link to one of the area's powerful Bangladeshi families, whose property empire has always seemed suspicious, while Arnold suspects the involvement of more old-fashioned East End gangsters, and wonders if some of the nastier rumours about Venus himself might be true. And neither Mumtaz nor Lee like the look of the children of the super-rich, arriving in droves in the trendy parts of Hoxton and Shoreditch and living in luxury just a stone's throw from grinding urban poverty. The truth, however, is stranger and more dangerous than either Arnold or Hakim imagine. Enough Rope is a powerful and thrilling novel of London's ever-evolving dark side.

To shed light on a recent murder in Duluth, Jonathan Stride is forced to relive the darkest days of his and the city's past. NINE YEARS- It is almost a decade since Duluth said goodbye to its innocence. The city creeps ever closer to the tenth anniversary of the year in which it found itself both gripped by murder and united in terror; and during which the pillar of its community, DS Jonathan Stride, had his home and heart torn to ribbons by the claws of cancer.  NINE LIVES - Cat Mateo, an orphan with a knack of landing on her feet, has bid farewell to a life on the streets. This once-stray teenager owes her rescue to Detective Stride, the father figure she holds close to her heart. But Cat holds something else to her chest - a secret: the sheer power of which she could not possibly comprehend.  A secret that, once out of the bag, will not just viciously scratch at Duluth's still-healing wounds, but will make DS Jonathan Stride wave goodbye to his convictions about the events nine years before, and say hello to his darkest fears.  Goodbye to the Dead is by Brian Freeman and is due to be published in October 2015.

Smoke and Mirrors is by Elly Grifiths and is due to be published in November 2015. Brighton, 1951.  Pantomime season is in full swing on the snowy pier with Max Mephisto starring in Aladdin. But Max's headlines have been stolen by the disappearance ­­of two local children. With fairy tales in the air, it's not long before the press have found a nickname for the case: 'Hansel and Gretel'.  DI Edgar Stephens has plenty of leads to investigate. The missing girl, Annie, used to write plays and perform them with her friends. Does the clue lie in Annie's unfinished - and rather disturbing - last script? Or might it lie with the eccentric theatricals who have assembled for the pantomime?  For Stan (aka the Great Diablo), who's also appearing in Aladdin, the case raises more personal memories. Back before the Great War, he witnessed the murder of a young girl while he was starring in another show, an event which has eerie parallels to the current case.  Once again Edgar enlists Max's help in penetrating the shadowy theatrical world that seems to hold the key. But with both distracted by their own personal problems, neither can afford to miss a trick. For Annie and her friend, time is running out.

Unexplained bloodstains appear in a young couple's apartment; a disembodied hand is found in a rubbish dump; political prisoners resort to horrific measures in order to make a point. In this brilliant new collection of stories, Alberto Barrera Tyszka casts an eye on the violence that afflicts Latin America, and in particular its intimate effects on the individuals who suffer and inflict it. Mixing the surreal with the quotidian, the banal with the unspeakable, Tyszka has created a fragmentary panorama of man's misdeeds against his own kind. These windingly elliptical stories are ceaselessly surprising, and will bury themselves into your subconscious long after the final page is turned.  Crimes is due to be published in August 2015.

Pen 33 is by Roslund and Hellstrom and is due to be published in November 2015.  Bernt Lund harbours a sickness. He is a monster: in the mind of society, in the mind of his two nine-year-old victims' parents, and in the mind of his fellow inmates.  Lennart Oscarsson harbours a secret. Yet he is seen as dependable: in the eyes of his family, in the eyes of colleagues, and in the eyes of the prisoners he oversees.  These men's weaknesses will soon hand DCI Ewert Grens the most profoundly sickening and impossibly sensitive case of both his career and Stockholm's history.  Pen 33 is both an unforgiving collision between a time-hardened policeman and a truly heinous crime, and an unflinching exploration of what people - whether criminals or victims - are capable of when they choose to relinquish self-control.

The First Man is by Xavier-Marie Bonnot and is due to be published in July 2015.  Commandant Michel de Palma, known by his colleagues as 'the Baron', has chosen early retirement and plans to travel the world. But he is dragged back into the force when a case that has haunted him for a decade erupts once more. Resurfacing from Le Guen's Cave, a prehistoric grotto thirty-eight metres below sea level outside Marseille, an experienced diver mysteriously gets into difficulties. Meanwhile, Thomas Autran, a serial killer with a peculiar interest in the supernatural, suffering from a dangerous form of schizophrenia, is once again on the run. Ancient cave paintings, savage murders committed according to a precise ritual: a return to the first ages of humanity, the era of the great Palaeolithic hunters. And despite the gory trail left at each crime scene, de Palma must first understand the child, the secrets of a family, a story of exploitation - and revenge - before he can track down the First Man

She is the girl with the dragon tattoo. Lisbeth Salander. An uncompromising misfit whose burning sense of injustice and talent for investigation will never respect boundaries of state or status. He is a campaigning journalist. Mikael Blomkvist. A lone wolf whose integrity and championing of the truth bring him time and again to the brink of unemployment - and prosecution. The call comes in late at night: a superhacker has gained access to critical, top secret U.S. intelligence. Blomkvist knows only one person who could crack the best security systems in the world. This case has all the hallmarks of Salander. She is accused of acting without reason, taking risks just because she can, but though they have lost touch, Blomkvist knows Lisbeth better than that. There must be something deeper at the heart of this - maybe even the scoop that Millennium magazine so desperately needs for its survival. A tangled web of truth that someone is prepared to kill to protect...  The Girl in the Spider’s Web is by David Lagercrantz and is due to be published in August 2015

The Great Swindle is by Pierre Lemaitre and is due to be published in November 2015.  1918. The war on the Western Front is all but over. Wanting to impress his superiors, an ambitious officer, Lieutenant Henry D'Aulnay Pradelle, sends two soldiers over the top and shoots them in the back to incite their comrades to attack the German lines.  When Albert Maillard reaches the bodies and realises how they must have died, the Lieutenant pushes him into a shellhole in the hope of silencing him for good. But Albert is rescued by a fellow soldier, Edouard Péricourt, who takes a piece of shrapnel in the face for his troubles. In the field hospital, Edouard refuses cosmetic surgery and will not face his family in his current state. Albert finds him a new identity and informs Edouard's wealthy father of his son's "death".  Back in civilian life, Albert becomes Edouard's carer. A young girl, Louise, is Edouard's salvation. In her company his talent for art is rekindled, as is his sense of mischief. He devises a confidence trick that can make them a fortune - taking money for never-to-be-built war memorials from gullible towns. Meanwhile, Lieutenant Pradelle has married Edouard's sister Madeline and is running a scam of his own . . .