In The St Hilda's Spotlight - Imran Mahmood

Name:- Imran Mahmood

Job:- Criminal and Civil Barrister and author

Twitter:- @imranmahmood777

Introduction:-

Barrister and author Imran Mahmood's first novel You Don't Know Me was published in 2017. It was also selected for the BBC Radio 2 Book Club Choice and was shortlisted for the Glass Bell Award in 2018. It was also longlisted in 2018 for the CWA Gold Dagger and the Theakstons Old PeculierCrime Novel of the year Award. It was also made into a BBC drama (to great aclaim) in 2021. His second book I Know What I Saw was published in 2021 and was one of The Times best thrillers of 2021. His most recent book is All I said Was True was published iin July 2022.

Current book? (This can either be the current book that you are reading or writing or both)

I have just delivered 3rd draft of book 4. It is about grief and regret as well (obviously) as murder! I loved writing this book and it’s the one I'm proudest of. I can't wait to see it out next year.

Favourite book?

This is a always To Kill a Mocking Bird. It deals with everything – race, class, poverty, wealth, slavery, human rights, power, justice, morality, truth, integrity, coming of age – the lot. A few other books try to do all of this but the genius of Harper Lee was that she told stories of horror through the lens of an innocent - child. The effect is devastating. 

Which two characters would you invite to dinner and why?

Staying with To Kill a Mockingbird I would like to have Atticus Finch and Scout round for a home-made curry!

How do you relax?

I write of course! And cook. Or if I have time I paint (badly) or do a little woodwork. I make things for the kids that they don’t have any appreciation for. 

Which book do you wish you had written and why?

I'm going to sidestep Harper Lee this time (because there is no way I could have written that). I’m going to say The First Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman for its modest sales!

Also, it displays a great understanding of the market. There’s a whole section of society (that read) but who find themselves totally invisible in culture. Osman realised that and boy did he make the most of it! Also it’s such a perfectly delivered mystery. Can't fault it.

What would you say to your younger self if you were just starting out as a writer?

Writing is very difficult. Reading is much easier. Just read.

What made you decide to write standalone novels as opposed to a series and would you write a series?

I had only intended to write the one book! I had no idea that when you write one – publishers and agents just expect you to carry on. There was no way to turn book 1 into a series so book 2 was a standalone. And by then I liked the idea of meeting new characters that I knew nothing about. I have since thought about a returnable series. I think it’s a lot of work despite the impression you get and it takes a long time (4 plus books I think) to establish a series. I don’t think I have the patience to do that

With Town and Country: Green Lanes to Mean Streets being the theme at St Hilda's this year, Where is your favourite town and where is your favourite country? Why have you chosen these?

London (which is about 100 towns really rather than one place). It’s my adoptive home (from Liverpool) and I love 2 things about it. That you can become anonymous in London very easily. And that the tolerance levels are so high (as a rule) that you can be any version of yourself that you want to be without (usually) ever attracting a second-look. I love that I sat on the Tube last week and someone wandered on wearing a tutu, a blonde Elsa wig to their waist, drinking beer from a Pringle can. She was probably in her sixties. Nobody batted an eye. I love that. The price of being left alone when you want to be left alone is often being left alone when you don’t. So it’s not a perfect city – but where is?

Favourite country – UK. Not a natural patriot. But the UK (despite everything) feels free and safe and there aren’t many places I could spend the rest of my life in. There’s always something to spoil a great country. Geographically/geologically/structurally? the USA has everything. Mountains, lakes, deserts, snow, beaches, big modern cities, slow lazy cities, canyons, waterfalls, huge national parks. But then – you know it has people like Trump in it. And a lot of guns! 

What are you looking forward to at St Hilda's?

Meeting so many new people after so much hiding away for the last 2 years!

All I Said Was True by Imran Mahmood (Bloomsbury Publishing PLC)

I didn't kill her. Trust me...When Amy Blahn died on a London rooftop, Layla Mahoney was there. Layla was holding her. But all she can say when she's arrested is that 'It was Michael. Find Michael and you'll find out everything you need to know.' The problem is, the police can't find him - they aren't even sure he exists. Layla knows she only has forty-eight hours to convince the police that bringing in the man she knows only as 'Michael' will clear her name and reveal a dangerous game affecting not just Amy and Layla, but her husband Russell and countless others. But as the detectives begin to uncover the whole truth about what happened to Amy, Layla will soon have to decide: how much of that truth can she really risk being exposed?

2017 Harper Lee Prize for Fiction

The University of Alabama School of Law and the ABA Journal have announced that James Grippando, author of “Gone Again,” will receive the 2017 Harper Lee Prize for Legal Fiction.

Grippando is the seventh winner of the Prize. The award, authorised by Lee, is given annually to a book-length work of fiction that best illuminates the role of lawyers in society and their power to effect change.

“I don’t know who’s happier, James Grippando the writer or James Grippando the lawyer,” Grippando said. “Winning the 2017 Harper Lee Prize for Legal Fiction is easily the proudest moment of my dual career.”

Seven years ago, to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the publication of “To Kill a Mockingbird,” and to honour former Alabama law student and author Harper Lee, The University of Alabama School of Law and the ABA Journal partnered to create The Harper Lee Prize for Legal Fiction.

“Gone Again” was chosen by a distinguished panel of writers. They are: Deborah Johnson, winner of the 2015 Harper Lee Prize for Legal Fiction and author of “The Secret of Magic”; Cassandra King, author of “The Same Sweet Girls’ Guide to Life”; Don Noble, host of Alabama Public Radio’s book review series as well as host of “Bookmark,” which airs on Alabama Public Television; and Han Nolan, author of “Dancing on the Edge.”

The Selection Committee honoured Lee’s charge to grant the award to a published work of fiction that best illuminates the role of lawyers in society and their power to effect change.

“Jack Swyteck is a lawyer’s lawyer,” Nolan said. “He works within the system, relentlessly searching for the truth as he races against time to defend a death row inmate.”

Noble agreed. “If I am ever in legal trouble, there is no lawyer I would rather have than Grippando’s Jack Swyteck,” he said. “The man is dedicated to social justice, resourceful and tireless.”

Grippando will be honoured with a signed special edition of “To Kill a Mockingbird” and an article in the ABA Journal.

“Grippando’s book does a masterful, entertaining job exploring the important topic of the death penalty and actual innocence,” said Molly McDonough, editor and publisher of the ABA Journal. “In ‘Gone Again,’ attorney Jack Swyteck focuses on finding the truth while navigating the complexities of habeas petitions for a despicable client.”

The 2017 prize will be awarded at The University of Alabama School of Law on Sept. 14. After the award presentation, the Selection Committee will convene a panel discussion of Grippando’s “Gone Again” in relationship to Lee’s “To Kill a Mockingbird.”

The resurrection of Penny Wanawake

Susan Moody was born and brought up in Oxford. Her first crime novel, Penny Black, was originally published in 1984 and was the first in a series of seven books featuring amateur sleuth Penny Wanawake.  They have now been republished by Williams & Whiting. Susan Moody is a former Chair of the Crime Writer’s Association of Great Britain, a former World President of the International Association of Crime Writers and a member of the Detection Club.  She is currently the 2016 Writer in Residence for The Pen Factor.

I've just been rereading To Kill A Mocking Bird (by Harper Lee) and reflecting on the nine years I spent living in east Tennessee during the mid-60s, as the civil rights movement got under way.  They were stirring and dangerous times. Bombings, shootings, lynchings … activists down south in Tennessee, Alabama. Missouri etc were brave people indeed.

My husband and I were involved with the NAACP, the National Association for the

Advancement of Coloured People, founded by Medgar Evers, who worked tirelessly for voter registration rights, the desegregation of schools and colleges, and boycotts of companies practising discrimination against black people, before he was assassinated by the Klan.  We held meetings at our house, with the black attendees forced to sneak up from the woods, since they weren't supposed to be in our segregated white area.

  

We were watched.  One evening a sinister glow shone behind our venetian blinds and we discovered a cross burning on the lawn.  How had someone managed to plant it in the grass and set fire to it without us hearing anything?  Who was responsible? We knew the neighbours weren't sympathetic to the cause, but this was rather more than simple disagreement with our views.  This was in Oak Ridge, known as Atomic City, established in 1942 as a production site for the vast operation that developed the atomic bomb at the  Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

 

Another time, the Ku Klux Klan came into town.  The origin of the words Ku Klux apparently comes from the Greek word Kyklos, meaning circle, though it seemed highly unlikely that this redneck organisation of bigoted and intolerant homophobic, anti-Semitic, witch-hunting ignorami even knew what Greek was.  By the 1960s, the Klan, heavily against giving black people the vote, was concentrated on striking fear into the hearts of a superstitious people deliberately kept uneducated and disenfranchised.  The white ghost-like robes, the pointed hoods, the featureless head-coverings with only holes for eyes were indeed terrifying. 

I'd come from a liberal upbringing in Oxford, followed by two years in Paris.  Coming from Europe, I was shocked and appalled by the discrimination I witnessed there.  Not to mention the moonshine stills in the woods, the chain-gangs of convicts overseen by a white guy on a horse, with a rifle across his knees, the only restaurant in town a self-service place where black men were allowed to take your tray at the till and carry it to a table, as long as they were wearing white gloves.  And I shall never forget hearing a child of about eleven calling out  "Boy!  Boy!  I want more water." 

So by the time I got back to England, I felt I had to do something to equalize things.  I'm not implying that my Penny Wanawake series was a manifesto for civil rights but – thanks to a competition organized by the Sunday Times, looking for a new female protagonist in the field of crime – I created tall, rich, beautiful and socially concerned Penny.  I wanted a black woman who was not intimidated by white folks, who felt she had as much right as anyone else to walk down the mean streets, who was the equal of everyone else.

 That was quite a few years ago.  I'm absolutely thrilled that Williams & Whiting, a new and go-ahead publisher, has seen fit to re-issue all the Penny books.  The original reviews were ecstatic ('A protagonist who strides right into the gallery of amateur sleuths to occupy a position of distinction,' said the Financial Times.  'Debuts do not come more exotic or exuberant,' wrote The Times.  'Finger-lickin' good,' commented The Observer.)  

I very much hope that Penny will find a new audience among today's crime readers.

Amanda Jennings on 5 books of my past

I love thinking back over the books that I have read in my past. It’s wonderful to remember those that struck a special chord and consider why they meant something special to me, why I identified so strongly with them at that particular time in my life. 

Books are the gateways to other worlds. They provide snapshots of a different way of life and allow the reader to experience all sorts of things – dangerous, sad, terrifying, romantic, erotic, fantastical – and all from the safety of a favourite reading spot. Escapism, stepping out of conscious reality and into the pages of a book, even if only occasionally, is a glorious thing.

Books are tools of empathy, they allow us to walk in another person’s shoes. It was the books I’ve had an emotional connection with that helped to cultivate my sense of injustice, opened my mind, made me think, and challenged me, and hence have had the greatest impact. The five I’ve selected from a very long list are:

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

Soon after we got together, my then-boyfriend, now-husband, was appalled when he found out I hadn’t read this book. He gave me his many-times read copy and insisted I read it. I feel in love with the book from the first page. Everything about this story of prejudice, hypocrisy and justice transfixed me. As I turned the pages, I was enveloped by the story of Scout and Atticus and the idea that we must all be brave and stand up for what is good and right. I gave my husband a signed copy of the book for our first wedding anniversary and our second daughter’s middle name is Scout.

Animal Farm by George Orwell

This allegorical gem from George Orwell was the first book to make me cry real tears. I must have been about thirteen when we read it out loud at school, each of us taking it in turns to read passages. When we reached the part where Boxer is loaded into the horse transporter and driven away – betrayed, lied to, used and dispatched, his innocence and faith present as he walks trustingly to his fate – my tears flowed freely. Even now that scene has the power to move me deeply.

A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess

I read this book when I was about fifteen and was mesmerised by this nightmarish vision of society. It was like nothing I had ever read before – and I’d go so far as to say like nothing I’ve read since. I was both horrified and addicted to Alex, Our Humble Narrator, and his gang of Droogs as they marauded heir way through the pages in a flurry of rape and mindless violence, my stomach seizing up with disgust and fascination. I later learnt that Burgess wrote the book in a matter of weeks following an attack on his wife by a group of men that resulted in her miscarrying, which gives this depiction of a broken dystopian society yet more resonance. Removed from us, yes, but not so very far.

Carrie by Stephen King

This revenge parable, with bullying at its core, held me from the first page. I knew what Carrie was doing as she wreaks havoc on her tormentors was wrong, but at the same time I cheered her on. The depictions of the bullies, that group of girls intent on making the vulnerable outcast’s life a misery with taunting, teasing and humiliating her, cut to the bone. King was one of my favourite writers as a teen, and this tale stuck with me as an example of how cruelty and unkindness should have no place in any human interaction.

Atonement by Ian McEwan

Such a beautifully written book. The prose is stunning and Ian MacEwan captures that period so perfectly you feel as if you are living with the Tallis family. I read it when it came out, I was twenty-eight and had just had my second child, and I understood childhood very differently once I had become a mother. The pain of watching Briony wrongly accuse Robbie in a fit of childish petulance and hurt, of observing the far-reaching effects of that lie, undoubtedly influenced on the type of stories I now write myself. Atonement is one of the books I wish I’d written.

In Her Wake, by Amanda Jennings is published by Orenda Books

£8.99

You can find out more information about her work on her website.  You can also follow Amanda Jennings on Twitter @MandaJJennings

Help decide the winner of the 2015 Harper Lee Prize for Legal Fiction

The ABA Journal and the University of Alabama School of Law have announced the finalists for the fifth annual Harper Lee Prize for Legal Fiction. The books picked as this year’s finalists are My Sister’s Grave, by Robert Dugoni; Terminal City, by Linda Fairstein; and The Secret of Magic, by Deborah Johnson. The prize, which is co-sponsored by the two groups and authorized by Harper Lee, has been awarded each year since To Kill a Mockingbird’s 50th anniversary to the novel that best illuminates the role of lawyers in society and their power to effect change.

The panelists who will vote to select a winner from the group of finalists are Roy Blount Jr., author and humorist; Wayne Flynt, author and Alabama historian; Mary McDonagh Murphy, independent film and television writer and producer; and Michele Norris, NPR host and special correspondent. The public is invited to cast their own votes on the book they think most deserves the prize; the public vote will act as a fifth judge. Voting closes on Friday, June 5 at 11:59 p.m.

The 2015 prize will be awarded Sept. 3 at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., in conjunction with the Library of Congress National Book Festival. The winner will be announced prior to the ceremony and will receive a copy of To Kill a Mockingbird signed by Harper Lee. Previous winners include John Grisham, for The Confession (2011) and Sycamore Row (2014); Michael Connelly for The Fifth Witness (2012); and Paul Goldstein for Havana Requiem (2013).

You can vote here.

The Finalists

My Sister’s Grave by Robert Dugoni

Tracy Crosswhite has spent 20 years questioning the facts surrounding her sister Sarah’s disappearance and the murder trial that followed. She doesn’t believe that Edmund House—a convicted rapist and the man condemned for Sarah’s murder—is the guilty party. Motivated by the opportunity to obtain real justice, Tracy became a homicide detective with the Seattle PD and dedicated her life to tracking down killers. When Sarah’s remains are finally discovered near their hometown in the northern Cascade mountains of Washington State, Tracy is determined to get the answers she’s been seeking. As she searches for the real killer, she unearths dark, long-kept secrets that will forever change her relationship to her past—and open the door to deadly danger.

Terminal City by Linda Fairstein

From the world’s largest Tiffany clock decorating the 42nd Street entrance to its spectacular main concourse, Grand Central has been a symbol of beauty and innovation in New York City for more than 100 years. But “the world’s loveliest station” is hiding more than just an underground train system. When the body of a young woman is found in the tower suite of the Waldorf Astoria—one of the most prestigious hotels in Manhattan—assistant DA Alex Cooper and detectives Mike Chapman and Mercer Wallace find themselves hunting for an elusive killer whose only signature is carving a carefully drawn symbol into his victims’ bodies, a symbol that bears a striking resemblance to train tracks.

The Secret of Magic by Deborah Johnson

Regina Robichard works for Thurgood Marshall, who receives an unusual letter asking the NAACP to investigate the murder of a returning black war hero. It is signed by M. P. Calhoun, the most reclusive author in the country. As a child, Regina was captivated by Calhoun’s The Secret of Magic, a novel in which white and black children played together in a magical forest. Once down in Mississippi, Regina finds that nothing in the South is as it seems. She must navigate the muddy waters of racism, relationships, and her own tragic past.