Hull Noir

Saturday 18 November 2017

SLEEPING WITH THE FISHES

10:00 - 11:00am

Nick Quantrill & David Mark

vs.

Lilja Sigurdardottir & Quentin Bates.  The panel look at the style, influence and distinctions and conflicts of Hull and Iceland as locations and inspirations for crime writing.

CRAPHOUSE TO POWERHOUSE

11:30 - 12:30pm

Danielle Ramsay, Jay Stringer, Luca Veste and Paul Finch discuss post-industrial crime fiction in the North and how the M62 draws a virtual line through the national crime fiction psyche.

BREAK

12:30 - 1:30pm

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INTO THE DARKNESS : THE NEW NOIR

1:30 - 2:30pm

As eras come and go and each generation defines itself by what came before. Jake Arnott, Emma Flint, Joseph Knox and Cathi Unsworth look at the challenges of writing contemporary noir fiction and the power of historical setting.

GETTING CARTER : TED LEWIS AND THE HARD BOILING OF BRITISH CRIME FICTION

3:30 - 4:30pm

Howard Linskey, Russel McLean, Sean O’Brien, Andrew Spicer and Nick Triplow discuss the influences of American hardboiled writing in British crime fiction, and the part Ted Lewis played in establishing an authentic British tradition.

TEA

4:30 - 6:45pm

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MARTINA COLE : A CRIME WRITING SILVER JUBILEE

7:00 - 8:00pm

The most borrowed author in prison libraries; the most shoplifted from British bookshops:  best-selling Queen of British crime fiction, Martina Cole, celebrates the 25th anniversary of the publication of her first novel, Dangerous Lady, in the company of critic, author and crime fiction aficionado, Barry Forshaw.

Sunday 19^th November 2017

GETTING AWAY WITH MURDER : GOLDEN AGE VS DIGITAL AGE

10:00 - 11:00am

From wire messages, telegrams and Hansom cabs to new tech, dark web and the emergence of new formats, Abir Mukherjee, Rachel Rhys and Matt Wesolowski discuss the influence of technologies on crime writing and publishing with Ayo Onatade.

BEHIND BARS : FREEDOM, OPPRESSION & CONTROL

11:30 - 12:30pm

With a background of Hull’s historical links to the slave trade abolitionist William Wilberforce and traditions of resistance, Eva Dolan, Kati Hiekkapelto, Stav Sherez and William Ryan explore ways in which crime fiction deals with characters living under oppression or imprisoned by circumstance. 

BREAK

12:30 - 1pm

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OFF THE BEATEN TRACK : EXPLORING ROADS LESS TRAVELLED

1:00 - 2:00pm

Daniel Pembrey, Sarah Ward and David Young discuss the unfashionable and hitherto undiscovered landscapes, languages and settings for crime writing with Jacky Collins, and cast fresh light on where new territories for writing might be found.

BRAWLERS & BASTARDS

2:30 - 3:30pm

From Bill Sikes through Jack Carter and beyond, Steph Broadribb, Mick Herron, Harry Brett and Craig Robertson look at the ways in which crime authors redeem the irredeemable and create antiheroes from the most unlikeable protagonists.

A YEAR IN THE LIFE

4:00 - 5:00pm

Bringing the festival to a close, Mark Billingham and John Connolly take a not entirely serious look at their writing years with Daily Telegraph crime fiction critic, Jake Kerridge. The best, the worst; a year to remember, one to forget; the tears, tantrums and triumphs of a crime writing life.

Chris Simms talks Sleeping Dogs with Nick Quantrill

Chris Simms is the acclaimed author of the Manchester-based DI Spicer series, and more recently, the DC Khan series, set in the same city.  Chris was named as one of Waterstone’s 25 authors of the future.  His novels continue to win awards and gather critical acclaim.  Chris talks to Nick Quantrill about his work.  Nick Quantrill is a Hull based author whose Joe Geraghty novels are published by Caffeine Nights.

Nick - “Sleeping Dogs” is your seventh in the DI Spicer series.  Can you tell us a little about it?

Chris - The action is split between Jon Spicer’s stomping-ground, Manchester, and a community out in the wilds of Galway, Ireland.  Events are sparked by the appearance of a huge fighting dog in Spicer’s local park.  Only the intervention of the family’s pet Boxer, Punch, saves Jon’s young daughter from being horrifically mauled.

Jon then finds evidence of a link to Ireland and realises the attack had been carefully planned by people who know exactly where he lives.  It’s every policeman’s worst nightmare.

In previous Spicer novels, I’ve built up Jon’s back-story – including the fact his great grandfather, Padraig, was an Irish navvy who fought his way out of the slums of 19th century Manchester through bare-knuckle fighting.  I wanted to explore Jon’s family history in Sleeping Dogs – and disturbing long-buried secrets seemed the ideal way to do it. 

Nick - Was taking Spicer out of his home city of Manchester a deliberate decision to test

him even more that you have previously?  His personal life, always a strength of the series, seems to be particularly tested.

Chris - Yes, I purposefully took him out of his comfort zone to see how he fared in a foreign country with all sorts of cultural issues to contend with.  What I didn’t want to do is take the easy option and give his enemies paramilitary links: it had to be more subtle – and personal – than that.

Nick - After setting the first six books in the series in Manchester, did you find it a challenge to write about a different place, or did it enable you to find new aspects of Spicer’s character?

Chris - The part of Ireland Spicer ends up in is rugged and raw.  I love landscapes like these and, during the course of the novel, found myself painting parallels between the terrain and Spicer.  Galway’s coast is regularly battered by vicious storms; Spicer gets similar treatment at one point from the locals he’s tangling with. 

Nick - You’ve published “Sleeping Dogs” yourself, but Severn House publishes your latest series starring DC Iona Khan.  Are you officially a hybrid author?

Chris - I suppose so – though it wasn’t planned this way.  Until recently, the publishing industry giveth, and the publishing industry taketh away.  As an author, you did as you were told if you wanted to keep writing.  Now, if an author and publisher don’t see eye-to-eye, the author has the option of going it alone.  I knew “Sleeping Dogs” was a cracking read – possibly the best Spicer yet – so I couldn’t bear to abandon it.  That’s why, for me, the emergence of independent publishing has been a lifeline.  Only a few years ago, “Sleeping Dogs” would never have seen the light of day.  Obviously, this all represents a huge loss of power for publishers. 

Nick - What were the challenges and pleasures of publishing “Sleeping Dogs” yourself?

Chris - Being with a publisher is like having a security blanket.  Things, you like to believe, are all being taken care of.  Whip that blanket away and you feel exposed.  It’s just you.  But you know what?  It was just me when I wrote my first novel over 12 years ago.  Gritting my teeth and sending if off to agents.  Waiting for weeks, then seeing the rejection slips trickle in.  Gritting my teeth and sending if off to more agents.

Independent publishing lets you rediscover all of that.  It’s hugely exciting.  Yes, it forces you to do things like marketing and publicity you previously hoped the publisher was attending to.  Yes, you have to agonise over what price to charge.  But unlike publishers, I’m not trying to protect my book printing business: so my eBooks cost just £2.99.  What’s so liberating is that more people are buying copies of my eBooks now than ever before.  As a result, I’ve been able to bring out print copies too.   

Nick - What’s next for Spicer?  Can we expect more of his investigations, or is his race run?

Chris - I’ve given up trying to predict events in this game!  “Sleeping Dogs” ends with the door wide open for more DI Spicer.  DC Khan - as a female struggling in the macho environment of the Counter Terrorism Unit - continues to intrigue me.  But I’ve also written a novel-length ghost story; “Sing Me To Sleep” launches soon – and it combines the pace of a crime novel with the suspense of a supernatural thriller.  Ideally, I’ll find a way to continue with all three types of book.

More information about Chris Simms and his books can be found on his website.  You can also find him on Facebook.

Sleeping Dogs is available now at Amazon.  For more information, see www.chrissimms.info

Swimming in The Killing Pool with Kevin Sampson

Kevin Sampson is the author of eight critically acclaimed novels, and although much of his work is concerned with the themes and issues, you would find in a crime novel, “The Killing Pool” marks his first full-on excursion into the genre.  Kevin talks to Hull crime writer, Nick Quantrill about it:

Nick – “The Killing Pool” is your new novel and introduces readers to DCI McCartney.  What is it all about?

Kevin – It is the first in a series of crime thrillers featuring drug liaison officer DCI Billy McCartney.  McCartney is in his 50s now and has spent his career chasing major drug traffickers.  In The Killing Pool, he is 24 hours away from nailing the Rozaki brothers, a Liverpool-based heroin gang, when a decapitated corpse turns up on his patch.  McCartney’s search for the killers peels back the layers of a drug-dealing dynasty and takes Mac closer and closer to a nemesis he has been tracking for decades.

Nick - McCartney (interesting choice of name…) is a complex man and the heart of the story.  What do you think makes him different to other the cops on the block?

Kevin – It is an interesting choice of name, isn’t it?  McCartney is not unlike many cops in that he’s a loner who is, seemingly, married to the job.  Yet what becomes apparent, as the tale unfolds, is Mac’s perception of himself as a modern-day Lone Ranger – a caped crusader, of sorts.  There’s a degree of performance about his way of operating, almost as though he dons a mask and goes out into the night to rattle the Bad Guys.  He’s a highly conflicted individual who seems incapable of forming relationships; we’re never entirely sure, right up until the final few pages, who Mac really is and what is driving his obsession with smack – his obsessive desire to nail the kingpins of the heroin world.  Yet there’s innocence there, too.  This is Book 1 and I’d say we’ll only know McCartney properly after the next instalment.  We’ll know, by then, a little more about his name, too.

Nick – The city of Liverpool makes for a very effective backdrop to the complex web of crime and corruption, but there’s also hope and heart in there, too.  It becomes a character in its own right.  Is a sense of place important to the novel, to you as a writer?

Kevin – Definitely.  Liverpool is up there with Baltimore or Naples or Marseille as a ports city that lends itself to fable and that strong sense of place is, I think, a major asset to a great crime thriller.  Whether you’re talking Chandler or Phillip Kerr or Jo Nesbo, the setting is absolutely pungent.  It goes beyond the basic function of providing a backdrop and becomes a vital, vivid element of the story in its own right.  In The Killing Pool, it’s important that Liverpool comes alive for the reader as a historic, international seaport whose docks have borne witness to terrible things, over the years.  This makes the figure and the persona of McCartney all the more poignant, somehow.

Nick - The format of the novel, as it alternates between the protagonists all in the first person, gives it a very claustrophobic feel.  Was it a deliberate stylistic decision?  Did it make it a more difficult novel to write, than say if you were utilising the third person voice?

Kevin – I thought long and hard before settling upon that narrative device.  With a thriller, plot, story, and pace are all paramount; but this is Book 1 in a series, and I felt it just as important to establish the characters, too.  I wanted readers to have a strong sense of who McCartney is by the end of the book.  It’s not just McCartney, either – all the characters have to make an impact, quickly.  Misha, the Somali girl who witnessed the slaying; Shakespeare, the hapless career criminal; Alfie Manners, the seemingly bent cop; Terence Connolly, fixer to the international drug cartels; WPC Lucinda Smithson, the idealistic uniform-cop – these characters all have varying ‘stage time’ in the book.  Some of them only appear for a page or two, yet their role is pivotal.  It’s important that the reader gets a real sense of who they are, in the time they have available.  For me, the first person narrative is a hugely effective way of doing that – it is, literally, character building.

Nick – Do you see “The Killing Pool” as being a logical progression from your previous work?  Has the police procedural proved a better vehicle for exploring the issues that are important to you as a writer?

Kevin – It’s complimentary to, but quite distinctive from my previous novels.  Readers could draw comparisons with two earlier crime novels of mine, Outlaws and Clubland (in fact I’m hoping that some eagle-eyed readers will spot one or two of the characters from those books hiding away in The Killing Pool!)  Some of the things that have always interested me include politics, subcultures, gangs, the inner city, corruption, drugs, sex, identity, organised crime…and I’m fascinated by the concept of regeneration as a physical entity and as a more abstract notion.  I think the crime genre gives you the freedom to explore all those themes in interesting ways, while still keeping you in check with its emphasis on plot and pace.  I’ve always been quite gritty, and there’s a certain cinematic quality to some of my writing.  Having said that, I’m by no means assuming that the crime community are going to embrace me with wide-open arms!  It’s going to be interesting to see what people think.

Nick – What’s next for DCI McCartney?

Kevin – Next up is another historic case that comes rearing back to life when a teenage runaway turns up in London, having fled a compound in the Rif Mountains of Morocco.  The story she tells the police brings McCartney back to one of the very few cases he didn’t fully close – a drug-ring on the island of Ibiza, led by a gang of wealthy playboys from Morocco.

The book trailer is available for viewing below:

You can follow Kevin on Twitter - @ksampsonwriter or on Facebook 

The Next Big Thing Interview with Nick Quantrill

Following his interview with Peter Guttridge at www.crimetime.co.uk, Howard Linskey talks to Nick Quantrill for the ‘Next Big Thing’ series:

 

What is the working title of your next book?

It’s called “The Crooked Beat” and will be the third Joe Geraghty novel. Geraghty is a small-time Private Investigator working from my home city of Hull.

Where did the idea come from the book?

Like with the two previous Geraghty novels, I was looking for something interesting happening in in and around the city and it had to be the Docks. With big investment in green technology hopefully imminent, the area will change massively, both physically and in character. Either way, as a writer, I can’t really lose. Once I had the location, the idea of someone smuggling some cigarettes into the country and then promptly losing them seemed like fun…

What genre does your book fall under?

It’s a crime novel.

What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?

If your brother’s life was put in danger, would you take his place?

Will you will be self-published or represented by an agency?

Like my first two Joe Geraghty novels, it’ll be published by Caffeine Nights, a small press who specialise in publishing crime fiction.

How long did it take you to write the first draft of the manuscript?

I started background reading for it during the summer 2009, so two years, but it was very much a stop-start process, as I worked on other projects during that time.

Who or what inspired you to write this book?

Fear. I combine writing with looking after my young daughter, so if I don’t look busy, I would probably have to get a real job again. And I’d rather not.

And your commissioning editor?

Darren Laws is the man behind Caffeine Nights, so he makes the decisions directly.

What else about your book might pique the readers' interest?

I think it’s the location. Hull and the East Riding is still a largely unmapped part of the country, its relative isolation giving it a feel of ‘otherness.’ I hope the Joe Geraghty novels capture something of what it’s like living in a battered and possibly unfairly maligned northern city.

For more information – www.hullcrimefiction.co.uk

For the next in the series of interviews, I'm passing the baton on to three excellent writers of crime fiction:

Neil White : www.neilwhite.net

Eric Beetner : www.ericbeetner.blogspot.com

Martin Stanley : www.thegamblesnovel.com

“Hard Time and Great Expectations”

“Hard Time and Great Expectations” – a short film based on an extract from “Broken Dreams” by Nick Quantrill

The theme of the 2012 Humber Mouth Literary Festival, maybe not surprisingly, as we celebrate the 200th birthday of Charles Dickens is “Hard Times and Great Expectations” With the work of Dickens having obvious links to crime writing, through both its subject matter and its craft, I wanted to find a way of including my work in the programme.

“Broken Dreams”, is a crime novel which in part concerns the case of a missing woman.  PI Joe Geraghty is hired by her dying mother, who wishes to make one last one attempt to find her.  More specifically, it’s a story about my home city of Hull and its defining feature, the fishing industry.  But the fishing industry is long gone, effectively dying at the hands of government policy in the mid-1970s.  Being born in 1974, I have no direct line of reference as to how the city was at its finest, but I can see how the effects still trickle down now in terms of unemployment and lack of opportunity for many.  The only conclusion I could draw was that in such circumstances, some people prosper and some people throw the towel in. “Hard Times and Great Expectations” in a nutshell. 

Within “Broken Dreams”, I knew I had a passage, which voiced this.  Geraghty goes to a pub on Hessle Road, once the heart of the fishing industry, to talk to the missing woman’s family.  It’s there that Geraghty learns that her father worked the trawlers that would leave the city for months on end and what a heavy price family life had to pay. 

The Festival organisers liked the potential of the idea enough to commission me to work with a local filmmaker.  I knew of Dave Lee through his work with the Larkin 25 project, but more importantly, the short-film he had made with fellow-Hull writer, Russ Litten, to promote his novel, “Scream If You Want To Go Faster”.  I knew people like Dave and Russ saw the city the same way as I did.  So after thrashing out the details, the scene was moved from the pub to the Pier Head, which overlooks the city’s docks, to allow details of the city’s regeneration and hopes for the future to be included.

The reading of the piece was given by Hull-born actor, Paul Popplewell.  In my naivety, I simply thought was a job suited to the writer of the piece.  I was very wrong.  The two characters are brought to live in a way I could only dream of, and it is no exaggeration to say I could have cried tears of joy when Paul pronounced ‘overdose’ as ‘ova-dose’.  It was the sound of Hull captured in a single word.  The setting was created for Dave to lay images over the top of the reading and his film perfectly captures the beauty and desolation of the industrial backdrop.  As the deal to bring green technology to the Docks of Hull and create thousands of jobs is about to be concluded, I’m proud that the film captures my city on the cusp of a major change.

View the film below!

 Humber Mouth crime event – “Crime Writing and The Humber : The Hardest of Times” – June 28th 7pm £2 (including refreshments) Hull Central Library featuring David Mark, Nick Quantrill and Nick Triplow.

Mapping the unfashionable city

Nick Quantrill is our guest blogger. He talks about his hometown Hull where his books are set and his series character Joe Geraghty. In 2006 he won the HarperCollins “Crime Tour” Short Story Competition. As states on his website when not writing fiction, Nick contributes reviews and essays to a variety of football and music websites. He lives in Hull with his wife, cat and the constant fear his favourite sports teams will let him down.

My home city of Hull stands in isolation on the River Humber in East Yorkshire. At best, you’d politely refer to it as unfashionable and possibly point to its regular appearance propping up national social and educational league tables. I certainly haven’t been dealt the hand of Rankin’s Edinburgh or Billingham’s London. Hull has always been an industrial city and its thriving fishing industry once provided the city’s wealth and purpose. But the Cod Wars of the 1970s, which saw Iceland’s setting of quotas in their fishing waters, decimated the industry, and along with it, the city.

My debut novel, “Broken Dreams”, attempts to capture some of this within the structure of a crime novel and explain the city. The star of the story, Joe Geraghty, is a small-time PI who operates from the historic old town of Hull. Asked by a dying woman to find her estranged daughter, the story behind her disappearance points to the girl’s deceased father, Ron Platt. As a former trawler-man left high and dry with no work and no financial compensation, his world was radically different, leaving him unable to understand the choices his daughter made. Hull had to be more than a map on the page. Hull had to bleed into the soul of characters such as Ron. The city had to impact on their lives, and for many, the lack of alternative employment has been a reality.

The second Joe Geraghty novel, “The Late Greats”, is also set in Hull. The challenge this time was to move away from one of the defining aspects of the city to capturing something of its character. “The Late Greats” is more inward looking and attempts to portray this through the story of reformed 1990s band, New Holland. When singer, Greg Tasker, is reported missing, Geraghty finds himself going deeper into the city and into Tasker’s life, forcing him to explore relationships between groups of very different people and how they make sense of themselves in the wider context of the place. Hull’s good and bad points surface in the story. The city can be often be cynical and wary of outsiders. But my Hull is also unpretentious and self-sustaining, as evidenced by the way the city, with little fanfare, dusted itself down after being the second most bombed city in the UK during World War Two, and more recently, after the 2007 floods.

The third, as yet untitled, Geraghty novel once again tries to examine the city from a different viewpoint. Instead of looking inwards, this time the issue of renewal and finding a new purpose in a changing world forms the backdrop to the story. The answer might lie in leading the way with renewable energy, with Siemens in the process of agreeing to build a major offshore wind turbine manufacturing plant, creating a significant number of local jobs. As a resident of the city, I hope the plan comes to fruition. As a crime writer, I can’t really lose either way. The future is very much open and there for the taking.

My Hull is a contradiction. Its isolation can make it a harsh and difficult place. You don’t pass through Hull. You have to have a purpose to visit. But the city also a distinct character and feel. For better or worse, it lives and breathes. Rankin and Billingham have the iconic buildings and the romance of Edinburgh and London, but I know I’m equally lucky. Every city is unique and fascinating, whatever the outside perception of it is, and through the eyes of Joe Geraghty, I’ll continue to discover and map my isolated city on the River Humber in East Yorkshire.

Information:

“Broken Dreams” is published by Caffeine Nights. “The Late Greats” follows autumn 2011. Joe Geraghty stories feature in “The Mammoth Book of Best British Crime” Volumes Eight and Nine.

www.hullcrimefiction.co.uk