David McCloskey on The Persian

I’d originally envisioned my new novel, The Persian, to be about a joint CIA-Mossad operation in Iran, but as I tinkered with that it became clear that the more daring and, importantly, kinetic the operation became, the less likely it was that CIA would be involved. For example, when Mossad ran a targeted killing program aimed at Iranian nuclear scientists, the CIA stayed out of the fray. Most often CIA did not even know these operations were underway.

So this just wasn’t a CIA story. In fact, I was beginning to feel the CIA might not have a role in it at all. This was a novel about the secret shadow war playing out between the intelligence services of Israel and Iran. Why complicate it by injecting an inauthentic American presence? So the CIA went by the wayside for this novel, and what emerged was a rich tapestry of Israelis and Iranians, all of whom are in desperate conflict, all of whom think they are doing what’s best for their families and their countries. 

My starting point is always to get the setting right, and then let the characters and plotlines grow from there. When I began writing The Persian, I tried to nail the current dynamics of the Israel-Iran relationship and how their intelligence services fight in secret. Where might the plot take me from there? I hope this approach gives the book a dose of authenticity and the ability to speak to something true in the present, wherever the headlines may go. 

My principal characters in The Persian – as in my other novels – are intelligence officers and agents, so to depict them authentically I need to deal authentically with their craft, which means getting the tradecraft right, whatever the geopolitical or technological environment. This involves a lot of research. It means drawing on my experience working for the CIA, certainly, including in Stations around the Middle East. It means extensive time spent interviewing former case officers and CIA Chiefs of Station. Discussions with former Mossad officers. A lot of time spent with Iranians. Sessions with former Delta Force operators about special operations and asymmetric warfare. Studying technical drawings and specs for next generation UAVs. Even sitting for a week-long course on what we call the ‘Ubiquitous Technical Surveillance’ environment – how tradecraft can be adapted to operate in a world of phones, cameras, sensors, biometrics, cheap data storage, and AI-powered analytic tools. It’s fun, it’s a lot of work, and it’s all in service of the characters. 

In some ways you might think a dentist, Kamran Esfahani, a Persian Jew living out a dreary existence in Stockholm is an unlikely main character for a spy novel. He’s not an intelligence officer, and he’s certainly not a character in the mould of the Hollywood Superhero Spy. But he’s exactly the sort of person who might get a look from an intelligence service such as the Mossad, because he can move in and out of Iran, fly under the radar (he’s a dentist, after all), and, at a deeper level, he’s got cracks in his heart and soul that make him a viable recruitment target. He’s a dentist, but he’s the perfect dentist to turn into a productive support asset. He’s exactly the sort of nondescript but fascinating player who’s rolling the dice in the spy game. Spies can have a loose relationship with the truth, and Kam’s confession is written in the first person for exactly this reason: he’s been keeping a secret. Throughout the novel we wonder if he is being truthful, or if he’s lying, or if he is plying the borderlands between.

I’m often asked how research for my novels and for The Rest is Classified podcast, which I do with Gordon Corera, inform one another? Because I am attempting to write authentic espionage novels, and because the podcast deals with true spy stories, the two streams are complementary. In particular, I’ve found that the podcast provides a great deal of grist for the novels, everything from ideas for characters, to tradecraft, to the spytech. Turns out the real world of espionage contains a host of wild stories a spy novelist might draw from. 

And I draw inspiration from other writers. I’m a longtime reader of the espionage genre, so the list is long. Le Carré of course. Charles McCarry (who I consider the American answer to le Carré). Graham Greene. David Ignatius, Jason Matthews, Daniel Silva, Tom Clancy, Martin Cruz Smith (though he’s perhaps more of a mystery / crime writer). Dozens of others. Outside the genre the list is even longer, but one of the writers is Quentin Tarantino. I like stories that accelerate madly toward the end, and that usually go out with a bang.

And finally, for those of you worried about Artemis Aphrodite Procter, CIA case officer, five foot ball of ruthless spy craft and inspired profanity, and feature of my first three novels, do not fear. She will return. Her adventures are far from over though, though she may need to dial down her drinking if she wants to stay healthy enough to keep having them…

The Persian by David McCloskey.(Swift Press)

What happens when a spy is forced to reckon with the consequences of his deception? Kamran Esfahani, a Persian Jewish dentist from Stockholm, dreams of starting afresh in California. To finance his new life, he agrees to spy for Mossad in Iran, working with a clandestine unit tasked with sowing chaos and sabotage inside the country. When he’s captured by Iranian security forces, Kamran is compelled to confess his experiences as a spy, in a testimonial dealing not only with the security of nations, but also with revenge, deceit, and the power of love and forgiveness in a world of lies. Mixing suspense with strikingly cinematic action, David McCloskey takes readers deep into the shadow war between Iran and Israel, delivering propulsive storytelling and riveting tradecraft.

David McCloskey's new novel The Persian is published as a £20 hardback on 29 January by Swift Press.

More information about David McCloskey and his books can be found on his website. He can also be found on Facebook, on X, Instagram and Tik Tok @mccloskeybooks, 

David is also co-hosts The Rest is Classified Podcast.

 

True Crime . . . in Fiction by Alex Finlay

Joe Exotic. Carole Baskin. Adnan Syed. Steven Avery. If you immediately recognize these names, chances are you’re one of the millions who can’t get enough of True Crime. Dating back to the sixteenth century, the True Crime genre is nothing new. But until recent years, the genre was “relegated to the bin of ‘trash’ culture.” Then came high-quality shows – the Serial podcast, the Making a Murderer docu-series, and others – and suddenly creating and watching (and listening to) True Crime became downright respectable. The shows are now a mainstay, and in many instances, national obsessions. 

It was therefore inevitable that True Crime found its way into fiction. Kit Frick, author of the podcast-centric novel, I Killed Zoe Spanos, wrote a compelling piece about the rise of the True-Crime podcast novel, equating the podcaster with a natural offshoot to crime fiction’s long fascination with journalists. 

Beyond podcasts, it’s no wonder that the True Crime documentary has also become attractive to novelists. They allow writers to not only use the age-old story-within-a-story structure, but also explore the medium itself. 

All of this True Crime content – from the well-researched documentaries, to the spectacle that was Tiger King, to weekly Dateline episodes – share one thing in common: they all use private trauma for public entertainment, which is good fodder for novelists. Integrating True Crime documentaries into a novel can allow an author to explore what happens to participants when the cameras stop rolling. When the documentary subjects are left to deal with the aftermath of being a character in a real-life game of Clue. Where members of the public can take it on themselves to seek justice, electronically tarring and feathering people or even entire communities. Where loved ones of victims can see their worst day relived over ten episodes amid a score of haunting string music. In my 2021 thriller, EVERY LAST FEAR, I examined these themes in a story about a family made infamous by a docu-series who are later found dead under mysterious circumstances, a surviving son left to uncover the truth about their final days. 

This month, I release THE NIGHT SHIFT, which doesn’t incorporate a True Crime documentary or podcast, but the novel draws on a type of crime that is the frequent focus of True Crime genre: workplace murders on the nightshift. My novel begins on New Year’s Eve 1999, when four teenagers working at a Blockbuster Video in New Jersey are attacked, and only one survives, inexplicably. Fifteen years later, four more teenage employees are attacked at an ice cream store in the same town, and again only one makes it out alive. In the aftermath, the lives of the survivors of the two crimes intersect, revealing the secrets of both nights.

The idea started when I was strolling the streets of Georgetown, a neighborhood in Washington, D.C., and I spotted the coffee shop where, in 1997, all the employees were brutally murdered at the end of their shift. I remember it well because they caught the killer shortly after I moved to the city a few years later. That day in Georgetown reminded me of another similar tragedy more than a decade later where two employees working late at a high-end athletic store near my home were attacked by masked intruders – one of the two employees was brutally murdered, the other survived. The crime really shook our community, but then there was a twist: police arrested the surviving victim who was later convicted of murdering her co-worker and staging the scene. I’ve since learned of so many of these types of crimes, many which go unsolved. These cases are haunting because they involve young lives cut too short, our own memories of the excitement and camaraderie of first jobs, and the need for justice for the victims, their families, and loved ones.

I didn’t base THE NIGHT SHIFT on any of the real crimes, but they got me thinking about the heartbreak and trauma that accompany these peculiarly insidious types of mass murders, something I explore in the novel. I delve into the legacy of trauma for the families, the pressure on law enforcement from communities, and the senselessness of these shameful events on the night shift. 

The Night Shift by Alex Finlay (Head of Zeus) Out Now 

What connects a massacre at a Blockbuster video store in 1999 with the murder of four teenagers fifteen years later? It's New Year's Eve of 1999 when four teenagers working late are attacked at a Blockbuster video store in New Jersey. Only one survives. Police quickly identify a suspect, the boyfriend of one of the victims, who flees and is never seen again. Fifteen years later, four more teenagers are attacked at an ice cream store in the same town, and again only one makes it out alive. In the aftermath of the latest crime, three lives intersect: the lone survivor of the Blockbuster massacre, who is forced to relive the horrors of her tragedy; the brother of the fugitive accused, who is convinced the police have the wrong suspect; and FBI agent Sarah Keller, who must delve into the secrets of both nights to uncover the truth about the Night Shift Murders...

More information about Alex Finlay and his books can be found on his website. You can also find him on Facebook and on Instagram.

John Dryden on Passenger List - From Podcast to Novel

 

It all started with a missing plane…

The search for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 was most expensive search operation in aviation history. It had been a regular scheduled international passenger flight that took off from Kuala Lumpur International Airport to its planned destination, Beijing on the evening of 8th March 2014. Everything seemed normal. The crew communicated with air traffic control around thirty eight minutes after take-off when the flight was over the South China Sea. And then it just disappeared from the radar screens. Later military radars revealed that the plane had deviated westwards from its planned flight path towards the vast India Ocean. Over the coming weeks there were new theories every day about what might have happened and who was responsible. Was it the pilot, who had recently gone through a religious conversion? Was it the two passengers travelling with fake passports? Had the plane been hijacked and diverted? Were the passengers being kept hostage in a hanger somewhere? It was a global mystery. 

What impacted me most was the relatives of the passengers, the pain they were having to endure in the gaze of the media. Imagine being told you had lost a precious child or partner or parent without any further information or knowledge of how or why, of what had happened. The pain was etched into their faces as they turned up to the many briefing and press conferences and as they gradually lost confidence in the official investigation. Without facts, whilst the fate of the plane was still a mystery, they had one thing they could cling on to; hope. Hope that their loved-ones may still be alive out there somewhere.

Air travel has always fascinated me. As a child I was a regular “unaccompanied minor” flying from the Middle East where my parents worked, to school in England. I used to dread arriving at Heathrow where my aunt would meet me and dutifully deliver me to a small boarding school in Eastbourne. It all seemed so dreary to my eight-year-old self. On the flight I’d looked down at the vast empty desert and pray that the flight would have to make a crash landing and that I’d join a tribe of Bedouins and go on a great adventure. It never happened and thankfully I’ve never been involved in an air crash. They are incredibly rare. Maybe that’s why they are so fascinating. Cock-pit recordings of doomed flights are striking by the lack of panic. Flight crews always sound so calm and professional, doing what they’ve been trained to do, or maybe they are clinging to the one thing left to cling to; hope that they will make it out alive.

A career in writing stories and scripts and producing audio dramas followed, and after the disappearance of MA 370 I became quite obsessed with plane disappearances of which there are a few – flights that have simply disappeared with no conclusive answers as to where, how or why. 

So to my podcast series Passenger List, which is now a novel… It’s a mystery thriller about a plane, Atlantic Flight 702 that goes missing between London and New York. Six months after the disappearance, Kaitlin Le, a college student whose twin brother Conor was one of the passengers, goes on her on a quest to discover the truth. She has long lost faith in the official investigation which has concluded that a bird-strike caused the plane to crash in one of the deepest parts of the Atlantic, and against the wishes of her parents, puts her degree course on hold to obsessively pursue her own personal investigation. She makes contact with other relatives of the passengers on board and becomes increasingly convinced that there are darker forces trying to conceal the truth. It’s a very human story of grief and coming to terms with the sudden loss of a loved one, but it’s also a deep mystery, circling in on itself as the truth becomes harder and harder for Kaitlin to find.

The idea of making a fiction podcast using just “found sound” was immensely appealing. The whole story was constructed from tapped phone calls, cock-pit recordings, FBI interrogations and, of course, Kaitlin’s personal recordings – she meticulously records everything she does and every encounter in the hope of going over it again and again and finding some nugget of information that may lead her to the truth. I saw it as a story about a fruitless quest for answers where, in the end there are none. But I found myself also going down the same rabbit hole as Kaitlin, and the further I went the more real the world of the story became and I didn’t want to let go until I had all the answers. This wasn’t something just I experienced but, to my surprise, the podcast gave birth to a global community of amateur investigators picking through every clue and piece of evidence in the podcast, as if the story were real.

Working on the novel helped me complete the journey. Having only “found sound” in the audio series was compelling but it was also limiting. It meant there was could be no “interior” Kaitlin. In the novel, I could let the reader experience the very personal journey she goes on. The one thing that keeps Kaitlin going is hope; hope that, despite all the odds, her investigation might lead her to finding not just the truth about what happened to Flight 702, but finding her brother alive. 

Passenger List by John Dryden (Published by Orion) Out Now

A missing plane. A cabin full of suspects. One woman's quest for the truth. When Atlantic Airlines Flight 702 disappears mid-flight between London and New York, the world is stunned. With the public clamouring for answers, authorities seem at a loss as to how to explain the plane's disappearance. There were 256 passengers on Flight 702, with many carrying dark secrets on board with them. Could one of them hold the truth behind the plane's disappearance? College student Kaitlin Le's beloved twin brother Conor was on that plane. She refuses to believe the official statements, or to join her parents in their blind acceptance of Conor's death. But as she journeys deeper into the murky heart of what really happened on board that plane, it becomes clear she's drawing attention to herself. And there are some people who would rather the truth behind the fate of Flight 702 stayed buried...

Katie Lowe - Down The Rabbit Hole—True Crime, Social Media, and the Problem of Doubt

 

Imagine a true crime podcast on its fourth season—a worldwide phenomenon, the kind that it feels like everyone’s talking about, each time a new episode airs. Imagine a charismatic host, and a gripping murder mystery at its heart; a conviction that seems wrong even at the most basic level—and a clear “bad guy,” an obvious alternative suspect: in this case, the wife of the deceased, the only person known to be at the scene of the crime.

When the episode ends, you’re compelled to visit the hashtag—maybe you don’t seek it out; maybe it’s trending. And maybe, just maybe, you put in your two cents: your thoughts on the interplay of characters involved in the story, the whodunnit at the heart of the case.

It’s the sort of thing we all do without thinking. Many of us have at least one social media platform that we prefer. In my case, that’s always been Twitter. I love the quickness of it, the back-and-forth, the bark and bite—and I love that it always gives me something new. That fizz and spark in my brain when I get a new notification, or the little bar tells me there are new tweets to view? I just can’t get enough.

Same with true crime: I’ve listened to (or watched) every last one of the big-name investigative series that come to mind, when you think of the genre. I find them addictive, in just the same way as the very best thrillers—because, let’s face it, they’re crafted along the same lines. I need to know what happens. No matter how awful the crime, I can’t look away.

Still, these twin passions of mine have long given me an itch of… Call it doubt, call it guilt—call it whatever you want. It was simply a niggling feeling that there had to be people at the heart of these stories who didn’t ask for the intrusion; who didn’t want to be involved. 

Of course, I’m a novelist. It’s part of the job description to metabolise things you feel uneasy, or ambivalent, or just plain weird about, and turn them into stories. So let’s go back to that podcast—the one everyone’s talking, and tweeting, about. 

Imagine you’re one of the people at the heart of it. You’re the wife—the “bad guy,” the woman at the scene of the crime, whose fingerprints were found on the knife. The murder of your husband, ten years earlier, is something you’ve tried desperately to move on from—building a new life, with your daughter, and a man that you love—until the podcast brings it back, the whole world watching on.

When you’re dragged into a narrative you never wanted to be a part of, and the whole world—or so it seems—is convinced of your guilt… What effect does that have? How would that feel? What would you do?

This is the question at the heart of my new book, The Murder of Graham Catton. I wanted to know what it would feel like to be at the centre of the storm—and as I was writing, I wasn’t sure which way I’d end up going. Maybe I’d be for the storm—a force for good, for finding out the truth, for uncovering secrets that shouldn’t be kept. Or maybe I’d be against it—an intrusive pile-on, a kind of cruelty, a very modern public shaming.

In the end, I’m not sure I ever quite made up my mind. Hannah Catton was one of the hardest characters I’ve ever tried to write—because she’s secretive, and stubborn, and frustrating. The same goes for the podcaster, Anna Byers—believing in the value of the truth above all things, the same stubbornness all the way through to her bones. And the chorus of voices that chime in, from social media, confident in Hannah’s guilt? I’ve sat among them—convinced that I know it all; that I’m indisputably right.

That I wasn’t sure who was the villain of my story, I think, made The Murder of Graham Catton a better book—because I had to write my way through, feeling something like empathy for everyone involved. I had to figure it out as I went along—caught up in the podcast’s narrative, the feelings of “the wife,” and the crowd watching on.

And who was the villain, in the end? And who really did kill Graham Catton?

You’ll just have to read it and find out.

The Murder of Graham Catton by Katie Lowe (HarperCollins Publishing) Out 10 June 2021.

It's time to hear the truth... Ten years ago, Hannah Catton's husband was brutally murdered in their home. The murderer was convicted. The case was closed. But now a podcast called Conviction is investigating this horrific crime - and they have Hannah in their sights. Someone knows more than they're letting on, and listeners are about to become judge, jury and executioner as they undercover the truth about the murder of Graham Catton.

More information about Katie Lowe can be found on her website.

You can also follow her on Twitter @fatgirlphd

Lynda La Plante - Listening to the Dead and The Judas Horse

 

Queen of Crime Drama Lynda La Plante launching series 2 of true crime podcast on 24th February; LISTENING TO THE DEAD

The forensics podcast Listening to the Dead is available via all good audio platforms. Season 2 will feature episodes on; blunt force homicide, poisoning, gun shot wounds, terrorism & mass disaster, strangulation & cause unknown.

LISTENING TO THE DEAD SEASON 2 PODCAST

Lynda La Plante’s true-crime podcast series, Listening to the Dead, co-hosted by CSI Cass Sutherland, will feature interviews with specialists in the field of criminal science.

The first series, which focussed on forensic science was an Apple Podcast bestseller. The new series, launching on 24th February 2021, will look at how investigators approach different causes of death – from blunt force to poisoning – with a focus on the methods used in the Prime Suspect and Tennison series. The podcast is a contributing factor to the incredible success Lynda La Plante enjoys in audiobook format, with sales of Buried in 2020 55% higher than her previous audio bestseller, Widows, in 2018.

NEW NOVEL JUDAS HORSE OUT 1ST APRIL 2021

La Plante will also be continuing her Detective Jack Warr series with a new book, Judas Horse, publishing on 1st April 2021. The first in the series, Buried, was published at the very start of the Covid-19 pandemic in April 2020, but despite this became a bestselling sensation, reaching #2 in the Sunday Times bestseller charts in both hardback and paperback, and going on to sell over 100,000 units in the UK and 130,000 units worldwide, making it La Plante’s biggest seller since Bloodline in 2011.

Lynda La Plante said “I am thrilled with all the activity taking place this year, re-packaging, online festivals, my podcast and the new Tennison,Unholy Murder, and Jack Warr novel, Judas Horse. I am also so grateful to the publishers, retailers and especially the readers, who have encouraged and supported me over the years. I’m looking forward to being able to meet and thank them all in person, hopefully in the not too distant future.”

About Lynda La Plante

#1 Sunday Times Bestselling author

Over 30 internationally bestselling novels

Over 170 hours of international television scripted

One of the best-loved authors in the world and 6th most popular in the UK

Recipient of four BAFTA awards

CBE since 2008 for services to Literature, Drama and Charity

1 of only 3 screenwriters to have been made an honorary fellow at the British Film Institute

The first lay person to be awarded with an honorary fellowship by The Forensic Science Society

Biography

Lynda La Plante was born in Liverpool. She trained for the stage at RADA and worked with the National theatre and RDC before becoming a television actress. She then turned to writing– and made her breakthrough with the phenomenally successful TV series Widows. Her novels have all been international bestsellers.

Her original script for the much-acclaimed Prime Suspect won awards from BAFTA, Emmy, British Broadcasting and Royal Television Society, as well as the 1993 Edgar Allan Poe Award. Lynda has written and produced over 170 hours of international television.

Lynda is one of only three screenwriters to have been made an honorary fellow of the British Film Institute and was awarded the BAFTA Dennis Potter Best Writer Award in 2000. In 2008, she was awarded a CBE in the Queen's Birthday Honours List for services to Literature, Drama and Charity.

If you would like to hear from Lynda, please sign up at here or you can visit Lynda’s website for further information. You can also follow Lynda on Facebook and Twitter

Megan Goldin on writing Courtroom Dramas

"I want the truth.”

“You can't handle the truth.”

Who among us doesn't know which movie these lines are from!

The courtroom scene from the showdown between Tom Cruise and Jack Nicholson's characters in the 1992 movie A Few Good Men is one of the most quoted and memed movie scenes ever.

There's arguably no moment more suspenseful in literature or cinema than a trial with justice hanging in the balance, and the awful possibility of injustice triumphing. For my money, no jump scare, or shootout can ever trump a great courtroom scene.

From Tom Robinson’s murder trial in To Kill A Mockingbird to the trial in John Grisham’s legal thriller A Time To Kill, fictional trials provide almost unparalleled heart stopping drama without a a single shot being fired. The palpable surge of elation when good wins out, or tears and bitter disappointment when justice does not prevail, make courtroom dramas compelling reading or watching.

Among my favorite courtroom dramas is the 1957 movie Witness for The Prosecution. The suspense. The twist. The brilliant tactics of the defence lawyer, played by Charles Laughton. Or Spencer Tracey's fiery courtroom rhetoric in the film Inherit The Wind, about the 1925 Scopes 'Monkey' Trial which pitted Darwinism against Creationism but which was also a parable for McCarthyism, at its height when the film came out in 1960.

Or of course Gregory Peck's famous courtroom scene as Atticus Finch in the 1962 film adaptation of To Kill a Mockingbird. The heart-wrenching consequences of that trial hung over the rest of the novel, and the film, like a dark shadow as it did the life of the young narrator of the story, Scout. .

Having watched, read and loved many of these movies and books, it was as if I'd been preparing to write about a trial all my life when I wrote the courtroom scenes for my thriller The Night Swim. The novel is about a true crime podcaster covering a rape trial in a small coastal town while investigating the mysterious drowning of a teenage girl decades earlier.

In preparation for the courtroom battle between the prosecutor Mitch Alkins and the defence lawyer Dale Quinn, I did plenty of research. I watched trials and talked to lawyers and judges and many others. I read transcripts and judgements from many different trials and I researched all sorts of details in the interests of accuracy. Then I wrote, and rewrote, those scenes until they were exactly as I’d seen them unfolding in my imagination when I first thought of the plot for the novel.

Research is important and it's one of my favorite parts of writing a novel. Although, too much research may be a double edged sword when it comes to writing a fictional trial. Writing suspenseful fiction often necessitates taking liberties with the truth. Real trials can be a snooze fest.

Sit in the public gallery in a real courtroom and you will be forced to endure excruciatingly long hours of listening to witnesses giving dry and repetitive testimony as well as plenty of hushed inside-baseball discussions on rules and legal technicalities.

There will be chairs squeaking, throats clearing and endless re-reading of transcripts in the echoey courtroom. But dramatic cross-examinations will be few and far between. In the fictional courtroom, days or even weeks of dry testimony are boiled down to a few dramatic moments. Lawyers can and do catch witnesses in lies in the most delicious ways. Watch Witness For The Prosecution for one of the best examples of this.

There’s a constant flow of clever repartee between sparring lawyers. Closing statements are filled with passionate rhetoric that move the courtroom to tears. Judges are irascible. Witnesses drop unexpected bombshells, or are broken under cross-examination. It’s rare in real life for a lawyer to break a witness on the stand and force him, or her to confess to being the real culprit as happens almost routinely in episodes of the long running TV show Law & Order and its spin-offs as well as many other legal dramas.

But it doesn't really matter because fictional trials might be a little loose with the facts but they often encapsulate the essence of the truth.

The Night Swim by Megan Goldin. Published by Mirror Books (Out Now)

Ever since her true-crime podcast became an overnight sensation and set an innocent man free, Rachel Krall has become a household name - and the last hope for people seeking justice. But she's used to being recognised for her voice, not her face. Which makes it all the more unsettling when she finds a note on her car windshield, addressed to her, begging for help. The new season of Rachel's podcast has brought her to a small town being torn apart by a devastating rape trial. A local golden boy, a swimmer destined for Olympic greatness, has been accused of raping the beloved granddaughter of the police chief. Under pressure to make Season 3 a success, Rachel throws herself into her investigation - but the mysterious letters keep coming. Someone is following her, and she won't stop until Rachel finds out what happened to her sister twenty-five years ago. Officially, Jenny Stills tragically drowned, but the letters insist she was murdered - and when Rachel starts asking questions, nobody in town wants to answer. The past and present start to collide as Rachel uncovers startling connections between the two cases - and a revelation that will change the course of the trial and the lives of everyone involved.

The Night Swim can be bought here.

Bio

Megan Goldin worked as a correspondent for Reuters and other media outlets where she covered war, peace, international terrorism and financial meltdowns in the Middle East and Asia. She is now based in Melbourne, Australia where she raises three sons and is a foster mum to Labrador puppies learning to be guide dogs. The Escape Room was her debut novel.

#TheNightSwim

Bestselling crime authors Vaseem Khan and Abir Mukherjee launch new podcast, Red Hot Chilli Writers

A new podcast is being launched by bestselling crime authors Vaseem Khan (the Baby Ganesh Agency series) and Abir Mukherjee (the Wyndham and Banerjee novels) alongside four other British Asian writers: Ayisha Malik, Amit Dhand, Imran Mahmood and Alex Khan, with cameo appearances by Abir’s mum.

 

The Red Hot Chilli Writers will discuss books and writing, as well as the creative arts, pop culture, risqué humour and Big Fat Asian weddings. The podcast will feature big name interviews, alongside offering advice, on-air therapy and lashing of cultural anarchy: they dare to explore the parts that other podcasts cannot react.

Red Hot Chilli Writers will be available fortnightly via all podcast subscription platforms.

An introductory clip of the podcast can be heard here on SPOTIFY, iTunes and Spreaker

A video welcome from the hosts can be seen on the podcast website: https://www.redhotchilliwriters.com/

Vaseem Khan said: “This podcast is about building a cultural bridge between different communities within the creative industries, from readers and artists to publishers and agents.”

Abir Mukherjee added: “Our aim is to have fun, be informative and create dialogue around topical issues. Diversity is a big deal in the arts right now, but who says we can’t tackle it with humour?”

Vaseem Khan’s most recent publication is Bad Day at the Vulture Club (Hodder and Stoughton, £16.99)

Abir Mukherjee’s most recent publication is Smoke and Ashes (Vintage, £8.99)

For further information, or to enquire about guest booking, please contact Steven Cooper at Hodder: steven.cooper@hodder.co.uk / 0203 122 7016

The many heads of a Hydra by Matt Wesolowski

The Hydra is a many headed serpent of Greek mythology who guards the entrance to the underworld.  The hydra could be utilised in literary terms as a metaphor for futility; when you cut of one of those heads, two sprout up in their place.

That metaphor of futility, of blindly hacking at a many-headed assailant, the actions of which only make the situation worse is an apt one for writing a novel.

The original idea, the inspiration for writing a prequel to Six Stories was the easy part. Premises tend to fall into my head at the most unexpected moments (in this case whilst mopping the kitchen floor and listening to a true crime podcast).

Then there was the structure, the six episodes, the presenter and the bits in-between. That should have made it all easier, right? Writing this would be a breeze.

Oh how indescribably wrong I was.

 

I don't plan. I never have. I mean, I have, but it's killed the story before I can even be bothered to write it. I have huge admiration for authors who can sit and plot, weaving intricate webs of plot like assiduous literary spiders - perfecting their arcs before settling down to fill the gaps with magic.

This above mess was all I had to go on.

Don't worry, there's no spoilers here - I only ended up using the first line. Actually, only the first four words.

And the bit about BEKS ... don't know what BEKs are? Don't worry ... you will ...

When I wrote Six Stories, I had no idea who killed Tom Jeffries or why until I was half way through episode 5. If I'd have decided beforehand, then it would have been no fun to write. The same rule I imposed on Hydra ... except that with Hydra, we know whodunit, we just don't know why.

My personal circumstances were completely different this time around too. My wife and I had separated the previous year and I was living on my own. Would this have any bearing on my writing? I'd written Six Stories when we were still together.

So the circumstances of the book were different, I was different and this book had to be different too.

I imposed a few rules on Hydra - the first being that it had to be, save for structurally, nothing like Six Stories. There would be no moody landscape that I could hide in if the process got difficult, I wanted this one to be about about motive. Hydra felt like it came from a place of fury. Killing your family with a blunt instrument is an expression of rage. That's where Hydra began and that was the path it had to take. I had little choice in the matter. I never intended to write anything more about Scott King and his podcast!

Then the final rule (imposed by me and some stage in the process) that we'd also find out why Scott King wears a mask.

Now there's a couple of real true crime podcast presenters who hide their identities, one of them even wears a mask! (I assure you, I only found out about him long after Six Stories was published)  and their reasoning is pretty straightforward - they want the story to be the focus, not themselves. That's what Scott King says; he says it a lot. But is it the truth?

It could be, I suppose.

But where would be the fun in that?

I wrote the first draft Hydra in three months. Like most things I write, it gushes from my brain like the pipe of a leaking toilet. The only time it stalled was when we had to find out conclusively why Arla Macleod killed her entire family with a hammer in the middle of the night. Not only that, there were a load of frayed edges, a load of threads that hadn't been tied up, things that had to be resolved. What on earth did BEKs have to do with it? They'd been there from the start, they demanded to be let in. I remember wording whether a resolution would come. If there were too many rules, too many heads to fight. Maybe I simply couldn't write books anymore.

Yet just like in Six Stories, the end announced itself when I least expected it.

As endings sometimes do.

 

Hydra by Matt Wesolowski published by Orenda Books, January 15, 2018 Pbk £8.99
 

Before Scarfell Claw, there was Hydra … One cold November night in 2014, in a small town in the north west of England, 26-year-old Arla Macleod bludgeoned her mother, father and younger sister to death with a hammer, in an unprovoked attack known as the 'Macleod Massacre'. Now incarcerated at a medium-security mental-health institution, Arla will speak to no one but Scott King, an investigative journalist, whose ‘Six Stories’ podcasts have become an internet sensation. King finds himself immersed in an increasingly complex case, interviewing five witnesses and Arla herself, as he questions whether Arla’s responsibility for the massacre was a diminished as her legal team made out. As he unpicks the stories, he finds himself thrust into a world of deadly forbidden ‘games’, online trolls, and the mysterious Black-eyed Children, whose presence extends far beyond the delusions of a murderess …