SHOTSMAG CONFIDENTIAL

Sunday, 17 September 2023

Scottish Crime Writing Prize for Unagented Writers

HQ Fiction and Bloody Scotland announce new Scottish Crime Writing Prize in Association with The Times and The Sunday Times in Sctland and 42 Managment

HQ Fiction are thrilled to be launching a competition in partnership with The Times and The Sunday Times in Scotland, Bloody Scotland, and 42 Management and Production to find an unagented Scottish writer writing Scotland-set crime novels. For the purposes of the prize, a crime novel is eligible if the author was born, raised, is a permanent resident in, or has a strong and enduring connection to Scotland.

The judging panel comprises of author and Bloody Scotland board member Abir Mukherjee, Eugenie Furniss and Emily MacDonald from 42, David McCann, Deputy Editor for The Times and The Sunday Times Scotland, and HQ Fiction Publisher for crime and thrillers, Manpreet Grewal.

Entrants can enter the competition by submitting a 500-word synopsis along with the first 5,000-10,000 words of the manuscript and a 200-word author biography to HQPrize@harpercollins.co.uk. Submissions are open from July 1st 2023 until 30th November 2023. The six-strong shortlist will be announced in January 2024, with the winner due to be announced in March 2024. The winner will have their book published by HQ. They will also receive a £10,000 advance, plus agent representation from 42.

For terms and conditions click here.

Saturday, 16 September 2023

McIlvanney Prize and Bloody Scotland Debut Prize announced!!

WINNERS REVEALED FOR THE McILVANNEY PRIZE 2023 & THE BLOODY SCOTLAND DEBUT PRIZE

Friday, 15 September 2023

Gareth Rubin talks to Shots Magazine

We’ve recently been energised by a most unusual novel from the writer and journalist Gareth Rubin.

We wrote at the time of its release: “Gareth Rubin’s two novellas that form The Turnglass is a narrative of mysterious beauty, locking two very different writing styles to tell two very different stories that are linked so, so very elegantly. Less of a novel, more a unique reading experience”

Read the full review HERE

We’ve followed the author from his debut Liberation Square where we introduced our readers to his work HERE

And as ever we had a few questions regarding his most unusual work The Turnglass which the author kindly answered.

Ali Karim: So before we get started, could you give us a quick review of both your career in journalism and creative writing for our readers?

Gareth Rubin: Why not? I started off as a news journalist, turning freelance pretty early and then writing mostly about arts – film, books, theatre – and travel. That was a brilliant time, getting to travel the world and get paid for it. Then something grabbed hold of me and I got the idea of training as an actor. I did that, did a bit of professional work, touring Shakespeare, playing Dracula and other bits and pieces. Then back to journalism, writing about social affairs for the Observer. A bit of jink then, into writing books, and my first novel, Liberation Square, came out four years ago; and my second, The Winter Agent was published in 2020.

Ali: After The Winter Agent, what about COVID and the shutdowns?

Gareth: It came out during the depths of Lockdown when all the bookshops were shut and the publisher was having serious distribution problems, so it was virtually impossible to buy it. That was on the tricky side.

Ali: After Liberation Square and The Winter Agent, what made you change direction toward The Turnglass?

Gareth: God knows. Yeah, it’s a bit of a spin, but I had this idea for a book that you can read from either direction and it just stuck there. I think it was also the technical challenge that appealed. And I wrote it during Lockdown in a conference room at The Observer because the building was empty so I could be left in peace for once.

To read more of the interview click on this link.

Shots Magazine would like to thank Katherine Armstrong of Simon and Schuster for her help in organising this interview.

More information about Gareth Rubin is available from https://www.garethrubin.com

Signed copies of THE TURNGLASS can be obtained from Goldosboro Books, London HERE

Richard and Judy Autumn Book Club Books Announced

Six books, including ones by Janice Hallett, Dinah Jefferies and Greg Hurwitz, have been chosen as Richard and Judy picks for the autumn Book Club, exclusive to W H Smith.

The selection of novels has been curated by Richard Madeley and Judy Finnegan and range from adventure and thriller to comedy.

Mystery writer Hallett’s The Mysterious Case of the Alperton Angels (Viper) features on the list. The book, which Finnegan describes as “creepy and complicated”, lays out a new story in the author’s “inimitable cosy style of dossiers, emails, texts and recorded phone calls".

Jefferies historical novel Night Train to Marrakech (HarperCollins) has also been picked, making this the author’s third appearance in the Richard and Judy Book Club. The book is set in 1960s Morocco, and Madeley has praised Jeffries for capturing the atmosphere of Marrakech “better than anyone else I have ever read".

This is also the third Book Club nomination for Hurwitz, whose thriller The Last Orphan (Penguin) has also been selected as a book club pick. Meanwhile, Charlotte Levin’s "heart-warming" story If I Let You Go (Mantle) is also on the autumn list, as is The Traitor (Penguin) by former crime reporter and civil servant Ava Glass and We All Want Impossible Things (Doubleday), Catherine Newman’s debut novel about love and friendship.

The six recommendations in this series are available in W H Smith stores across the UK and online. Moreover, the Richard and Judy Book Club podcast will also be returning for another series on 28th September, providing an introduction to each of the recommended titles from the authors in conversation with Madeley and Finnegan.

Thursday, 14 September 2023

Holly Seddon on Why Crime Fiction loves to play with memory?

I was around nine, my sister was around five and we were walking home from school one day. (This was the eighties, so that’s not as alarming as it now sounds.) Our flat was in view. I remember looking forward to Round The Bend and Count Duckula so it must have been a Tuesday.

An old lady came out of the green grocer’s shop to my right. I remember the sheet of metal on the pavement that was covering a missing paving slab, I remember her winter coat buttoned up and the smile she gave me. I remember her lying flat on the floor, so suddenly that I didn’t have time to see her foot catch the uneven edge of the metal sheet. A wet pink tooth had skittered from her mouth and across the pavement.

I remember my terrified sister, flying off as fast as she could to find our dad. I remember squatting down, utterly unequipped, next to the old lady. Because she had smiled at me, I felt a kinship or obligation. As she lay, toothless and crying, I said, “Are you okay?” She did not have time to answer me because the green grocer had run out to help, and an off duty fireman. Maybe my dad by then. For the next thirty years I would, from time to time, torture myself about asking such a stupid question. She was very obviously not okay and she needed help, not polite inquiries.

There are other memories from that era, of arguably more significant events, that I have forgotten even though I know from family or public record that they occurred. Memory does not work like a zip drive, it’s more a lucky dip bucket. I should remember crucial events affecting our family or our country, but I remember the smile, coat, tooth and shame. I still felt the shame.

But, when I checked just now, I can see I got some details wrong. There was no green grocer’s shop. So the man I remember in a green tabard, helping, was probably not really there. I also realised that the off duty fireman I remembered helping, had actually helped with a completely different incident during a school trip. Someone helped the old lady but all I really know is that it wasn’t me.

I have no idea if it was even a Tuesday. Count Duckula and Round The Bend were my favourite shows and I probably have other clear memories of racing home to watch those, which I’ve folded in. I don’t remember racing home to watch Blue Peter because I didn’t. It was boring.

My sister and I had not discussed this experience since 1989 but when we finally talked about it recently, she remembered it just as vividly. But she did not remember it exactly the same. And by comparing our memories we dropped some incorrect details, confirmed others, and a clearer picture developed. And when I squirmed in my shame, she said, “but you were nine”. She’d been there too, and she had not thought I’d done anything wrong and then, suddenly, maybe I hadn’t.

Memories feel unshakable, we can see them in our minds and watch them over again like a video. They feel concrete because they are ours, like documents in our mental filing cabinet. And so, when evidence comes along that those memories are flawed, incomplete or even entirely false, that’s pretty terrifying.

We deny it. “I was there, I know what I saw”.

Or we rationalise it. “You think that because you were further away/drunk/short sighted”.

Or, and this is the most unsettling of all, we accept that our memories were wrong in this case. And if these memories are wrong, what other memories might we remember incorrectly? Can we ever trust our memories, our brains, ourselves?

Not really, says Elizabeth Loftus, a leading expert on memory. In her 2013 TED Talk How reliable is your memory, Loftus says that rather than a “recording device”, memory is “constructive” and “reconstructive". She likens it to a Wikipedia page. “You can go in there and change it, but so can other people.”

Crime fiction loves to play with memories. A crack in the psyche is rich compost for unease and fear. What is more frightening than not even trusting yourself?

Some of the biggest crime books of the last decade feature protagonists battling memory issues. From SJ Watson’s Before I Go To Sleep to Paula Hawkins’s The Girl On the Train to In The Woods by Tana French. Fear of our memories failing us, or painting us the wrong picture, is a universal concern.

In The Short Straw, I wanted to play with childhood memories and the long tendrils they can have. My three main characters – adult sisters - have contrasting and confusing childhood memories of a particular day that appear to show one thing and then - when finally put together - tell an altogether different and more sinister story. It takes them returning to an abandoned mansion they have not seen for thirty years, for the memories to surface fully. And when they do, they realise they are in terrible danger.

But I also wanted to give the sisters what my sister gave to me. Reassurance and forgiveness. Look, I was there too, and it wasn’t your fault. You were nine.

We can often feel like we are our memories. But maybe, more importantly, we are a combination of perceptions. Our own and other people’s, the documented evidence and the nebulous anecdotal evidence of how we made others feel. Maybe this is why it is so important, so valuable, to share memories with each other. Maybe, without sharing, we will never be able to see the full picture.

The Short Straw by Holly Seddon (Orion Publishing) Out Now

Three troubled sisters find themselves lost in a storm at night, and seek safety at Moirthwaite Manor, where their mother once worked. They are shocked to find the isolated mansion that loomed so large through their childhoods has long been abandoned. Drawing straws to decide who should get help, one sister heads back into the darkness. With the siblings separated, the deadly secrets hidden in the house finally make themselves known and we learn the unspeakable truth that will tear the family apart.

More information about Holly Seddon and her work can be found on her website. You can also find her on X @hollyseddon on Instagram @hollyseddonauthor and on Facebook.

Writing the Lure of Water

It was early autumn, a clear day with a cloud-scudded sky, and they had leapt into the water, their skin kissed by silver bubbles. They raced each other against the current, up to where the weeds stood tall, suspended in fronds, and the newly fallen leaves glowed like jewels from the bottom of the river.

- Extract from SILENT WATERS, publishing 14th September.

What is it about the water that draws us? Is it that, like the flames of a fire, water is always moving? Are we hypnotised by it?

I am certainly drawn to writing about the water. I love the beauty of it, and the power it can wield. In truth, I fear it, and there's something wonderful about writing about what we fear. Perhaps that's why a lot of writers write. Because writing whatever 'fear' means to us enables us to explore something difficult. Most importantly, when we write 'The End', we have survived it.

Everyone knows water can be our friend – a clear blue lagoon, a holiday swimming pool for our kids. But it can also be a foe, and it's not just the obvious expanses of water we should look out for, like the dark shadow of the rip in the sea, or the rainfall that falls so fast and so heavy that it causes floods and landslides. No, quite often, the most dangerous areas of the water are the ones we don't think anything of; the village pond, the bathtub, the river we run alongside everyday.

I found a way to write my enchantment with water into a thriller – and it was by exploring the profession of police diving. In SILENT WATERS, I explore the perils of it via my protagonist, Jen Harper, a full time police diver, as I was lucky enough to talk to a diver to research the book. I can verify for absolute certainty that diving is one of the toughest jobs within the police; it requires such grit and determination and patience and I have the utmost respect for anyone that specialises in it.

I asked my contact what drew them to police diving, and they had replied with the joyful simplicity that they loved the water: the depth and the murk of it, the smoothness of it and its rhythmic calm, how the light plays on the surface of it, but also, conversely, its blackest corners, too.

Police diving allows a variety of environment, and a variety of cases, but an officer that specialiaes within that unit doesn't hold the day to day grind that most police officers incur. Divers are never involved in the ‘whys’ of an investigation, only the hunting of what’s crucial to solve them. Divers do a job and then they move on, rarely finding out the resolutions of a case they’ve searched for. Quite often they find out what happened in a case when they see it on the news.

There’s nowhere underwater you can think of that a diver hasn’t been or won’t go; the sea, in lakes and rivers, canals, sewers and wells. A police diver is someone who craves a very particular type of challenge, and who has a deep drive for success against odds when looking for lost belongings, vehicles, weapons, bodies.

It’s a person who is comfortable being claustrophobic, who likes working in the silence. And perhaps there's something calming about this – in our busy world, perhaps the quiet of the water is comforting. Perhaps the fact that a diver cannot see when in the water and has to do everything by touch, is also comforting, womb-like. They are in a submerged world, with only their heartbeats for company.

Not only did I want to explore the police diving but I wanted to really convey the feeling of being underwater, the delight of it, and the danger. I read books about individual relationships with water (The Swimmers by Julie Otsuka), articles from members of wild swimming communities, and nature books about what water tasted like in rivers, and what vegetation grew along the river banks. It was brilliantly immersive. So much so, that I've found myself writing my new book set against the backdrop of a Scottish Loch. More on that to come..

Silent Waters by L V Matthews (Welbeck Publishing Group) Out Now

Is blood thicker than water? At five a.m. one summer's morning, police diver Jen Harper wakes to find herself submerged in the silt of a river with no memory of how she got there. Forty-eight hours later, she's called to dive in the same river in search of a missing woman, Claudia Franklin. But for Jen, this is no ordinary job. Her and Claudia's families were entangled for decades - there is unresolved resentment between them, unspoken secrets. Jen hasn't seen Claudia for twelve years now. Or has she?

Wednesday, 13 September 2023

Researching History by Mark Wightman

I was thinking the other day about how, when writing historical fiction, getting things right matters so much. And not only because there will always be a keen-eyed reader waiting to pounce and let you know when you don’t! No, there’s more to it than simple compliance with the recorded facts.

When researching my new book Chasing the Dragon – the second in the Betancourt Mysteries series about a Eurasian detective battling injustice in colonial-era Singapore, I did a couple of months of research before I even attempted to write the first words. I recall speaking to a Very Well-Known Author about my method, and she questioned whether all this research was nothing more than dressed-up procrastination. Wouldn’t I be better, she asked, just getting a draft of the story down and working on polishing the details later? Perhaps. But I explained that isn’t why I do the research; it isn’t simply researching facts. At the earliest stage of the writing process I’m less interested in exactly how deep the Singapore harbour was in 1940, or how high Bukit Chandu is, or exactly how many miles it is from the Marine Police station at Empress Place to the opium processing plant at Pasir Panjang. I agree that all that can come later. The type of research that I have to do before I can start writing is researching the lives and times of the people – what would life have been like for the characters that populate my books? This is particularly true for the lives of the Asian characters. When I started researching my series, one of the most difficult challenges was finding source material that related the social history of the people I wanted to write about. There was plenty of material about the lives of the expatriate colonial community – memoirs, biographies, travelogues, etc, but next to nothing about the lives of the hundreds of thousands of Chinese, Indian, and Malay immigrants who had flooded into Singapore over the preceding hundred years or so. Often, the only time that the lives of the workers were recorded was in the coroner’s reports of their deaths and such reports make fascinating, if sometimes harrowing social histories.

Another challenge when researching and writing historical novels is to remember that I’m writing fiction and not a historical treatise. If the reader learns something about the subject I write about (and I hope they do) then fine and well. But it’s important to tell the story through the sensibilities of the characters as they would have perceived things at the time, and not merely retell the received wisdom of later historical studies. In Chasing the Dragon, the story pivots around two apparently unrelated things: an ancient relic known as the Singapore Stone, and the government-run opium trade. Researching these two subjects presented unique but different challenges.

The Singapore Stone is a fragment of a much larger edifice (one of a pair, in fact) that someone, at some point in the pre-colonial past, erected as a monument – to what we don’t know – at the entrance to the Singapore River. The original stones were estimated to be about 3m high and between 60 and 120 cm thick. The stones happened to be in the way of a British engineer, so, rather than work around them, he blew them up, and all we have of them now is a single fragment which resides in the National Museum of Singapore. What made these stones fascinating is that they had engraved upon them about fifty or so lines of cuneiform writing which, when translated, or so it was hoped, might shed some light on who had left them and why. Several people tried, including Sir Stamford Raffles, the ‘founder’ of Singapore himself, but no one was successful. From my story’s perspective, an archaeologist is close to unravelling the secret of the stone. My challenge as a writer was to be careful about what could be reasonably inferred, given that much of the knowledge gleaned about Singapore’s real history (which, it is now believed, may date back to the 10th century CE) wasn’t uncovered until the numerous archaeological digs began in the 1980s. The temporal distance between the author and their subject matters.

The only remaining fragment of the Singapore Stone, courtesy of the National Museum of Singapore

An artist’s rendition of the markings on the Singapore Stone

In the course of his investigations my detective, Inspector Maximo Betancourt, is led into the murky world of the government-run opium trade. My challenge here was not so much finding about how the colonial government actually ran the importation, processing, and distribution of opium – all that is well-documented, starting with the activities of the British East India Company in India in the 18th C, right through to the start of the Second World War. My challenge again was finding out what life was like for working class opium addicts in the colony. In this case, newspapers were less helpful, as they gave only bald matter-of-fact reports of opium-related crime. More valuable were coroner’s reports which, depending on the number of witnesses who knew the deceased and how voluble they were about telling their stories, could show a lot more about how the person had come to be enslaved by the drug, and the effect it had had on their life. But the thing I found that shone the most light on the lives of opium users was a series of photographs taken by an American photographer named Carl Mydans in 1941/42 which captured every aspect of the trade, from the squalor and depravity of the government-licensed dens to the production line at the packaging plant – an engineering marvel known as the ‘House of the Tiny Tin Tubes’.

The interior of an opium den. © Carl Mydans/LIFE Magazine, Time Inc

Inside the opium packaging plant at Bukit Chandu, Singapore. © Carl Mydans/LIFE Magazine, Time Inc.

I hope that in my novel Chasing the Dragon and its predecessor Waking the Tiger I manage to give a flavour of Singapore and the lives of its denizens as they actually were in 1940. I know I had, and continue to have, a fascinating time learning and retelling the history.

Chasing The Dragon by Mark Wightman (Hobeck Books) Out Now.

Singapore, 1940 A local fisherman finds the body of a missing American archaeologist. Detective Inspector Betancourt of the Singapore Marine Police is first on the scene. Something doesn't quite add up. He finds out that the archaeologist, Richard Fulbright, was close to deciphering the previously-untranslatable script on a pre-colonial relic known as the Singapore Stone. This was no accidental drowning. Is there more to this case than archaeological rivalries? Betancourt also discovers that Fulbright had been having an affair. He is sure he is onto something bigger than just academic infighting. A government opium factory draws criminal interest. In his investigations into the death, Betancourt finds his own life in danger, and now he has also put himself on the wrong side of British Military Intelligence, and he is unsure which set of opponents he fears the most...

More information about Mark Wightman and his books can be found on his website. You can also follow him on X @mark_wightman and on Facebook. He can also be found on Instagram @mark_wightman.

Tuesday, 12 September 2023

The Traitor by Ava Glass - Extract

I am pleased to host an extract from The Traitor by Ava Glass as part of The Traitor Blog Tour.

He was exhausted. He wanted to keep working but the numbers had begun to swim across the lighted screen, refusing to line up in neat, military rows so he could find the pattern he knew must be hidden among them somewhere.

It was just that he was so close. If he could only stay awake he was certain he’d find what he needed. But it was after two in the morning, and when he closed his eyes and rubbed his knuckles against his forehead he still saw the numbers, burned on his retinas.

He would sleep for a few hours and then start again.

His hands went through the nightly rituals. Turning off the laptop. Flipping it over to remove the battery. Unplugging the Wi-Fi box and router, wrapping each cable neatly behind every device.

It seemed pointless. To be hacked you had to be discovered, and being discovered would mean . . .

He stood abruptly, pushing the chair back so hard it squawked a protest against the wooden floor, and walked away from the things that frightened him. When he crossed the living room, he didn’t have to make a single turn – the apartment held almost no furniture. A sofa, a bed, a chair – that was all he needed. More would be superfluous.

He checked the three locks on the front door and punched the eight-digit code into the alarm. Then he flipped the light switch and the room plunged into darkness. Instantly, he wanted to turn the lights back on again. It took effort to stay in the dark.

The work was making him paranoid. Everywhere he went, he saw shadows following him. All day long he’d felt watched.

Now, the sensation that he was not alone was almost overwhelming.

As he walked the straight line to the bedroom, he reminded himself that nobody could possibly know who he was or where he lived. He’d been careful. By the time he climbed into bed, he almost believed it. When he closed his eyes, he saw the numbers again, floating behind his eyelids like tropical fish.

He had to finish this work before it finished him.

‘Tomorrow. It ends tomorrow.’ He murmured the word aloud, like a promise.

He could not have been asleep long when a sound shook him awake, and he sat up with a start. In the pitch black, he strained his ears, but all he could hear was his own panicked breathing, quick and harsh.

He thought perhaps he’d dreamed the sound. But then it came again. A soft breath – like a sigh.

The lights came on, blinding him. He flung up a hand to shield his eyes.

There were two of them. One stood by the door next to a large black suitcase. The other leaned over the bed, grinning.

That was when he knew he’d been wrong about everything.

They did know who he was. And what he’d been doing.

And they had come to make him stop.He was exhausted. He wanted to keep working but the numbers had begun to swim across the lighted screen, refusing to line up in neat, military rows so he could find the pattern he knew must be hidden among them somewhere.

It was just that he was so close. If he could only stay awake he was certain he’d find what he needed. But it was after two in the morning, and when he closed his eyes and rubbed his knuckles against his forehead he still saw the numbers, burned on his retinas.

He would sleep for a few hours and then start again.

His hands went through the nightly rituals. Turning off the laptop. Flipping it over to remove the battery. Unplugging the Wi-Fi box and router, wrapping each cable neatly behind every device.

It seemed pointless. To be hacked you had to be discovered, and being discovered would mean . . .

The work was making him paranoid. Everywhere he went, he saw shadows following him. All day long he’d felt watched.

Now, the sensation that he was not alone was almost overwhelming.

He had to finish this work before it finished him.

‘Tomorrow. It ends tomorrow.’ He murmured the word aloud, like a promise.

He thought perhaps he’d dreamed the sound. But then it came again. A soft breath – like a sigh.

The lights came on, blinding him. He flung up a hand to shield his eyes.

There were two of them. One stood by the door next to a large black suitcase. The other leaned over the bed, grinning.

That was when he knew he’d been wrong about everything.

They did know who he was. And what he’d been doing.

And they had come to make him stop.

The Traitor by Ava Glass (Penguin Random House) Out 14 September 2023

London. Early morning. A body is found in a padlocked suitcase. Investigator Emma Makepeace knows it's murder. And it's personal. She quickly establishes that the dead man had been shadowing two oligarchs suspected of procuring illegal weapons in the UK. And it seems likely that an insider working deep within the British government is helping them. To find out who the traitor is, Emma goes deep undercover on a superyacht owned by one of the oligarchs. But the glamorous veneer of the rich hides dark secrets. Out at sea, Emma is both hunter and prey, and no one can protect her. Never has the turquoise sea and golden sands of the Rivera seemed so dangerous. As the hunt intensifies, Emma knows that she is in mortal danger. And that she needs to find the traitor before they find her . . .

More information about Ava Glass and her work can be found on her website. You can also find her on X @AvaGlassBooks and on Instagram @avaglassbooks.More information about Ava Glass and her work can be found on her website. You can also find her on X @AvaGlassBooks and on Instagram @avaglassbooks.

Monday, 11 September 2023

Lee Child to judge Black Spring Press Crime Book Prize

The Black Spring Crime Series is delighted to announce that the inaugural judge for its new crime-mystery prize will be Lee Child, world-famous, best-selling author of the Jack Reacher series, whose books have sold over 100 million copies.

Lee Child says, ‘Long ago people would say, “This is a great book, but you need to give it fifty pages.” That's crazy now, in our hyper-fast world. Now readers give you fifty words. Your first paragraph, basically. That's where you win or lose. It doesn't always need to be slam-bam, but it does always need to give the reader absolutely no choice but to race ahead. Send your entry in to Black Spring's contest, I’ll judge the best... and if you win, I'll be first in line to buy your book.’

The competition –

The Big Bang: Black Spring's Best Opening to a Crime/Thriller Prize - is open to anyone over the age of 18 who wants to write in the English-language and has an interest in crime, thriller or mystery novels.

We are looking for the best 50-200 words of an ‘opening’ for a crime-mystery-thriller novel/story. The work must be never-before-published (including online), original to the author, and ideally written for this prize. It need not be connected to a completed book. Indeed, we very much hope the prize encourages people to start a novel, with this first page – and maybe go on to complete it. Writers can enter as many times as they want.

The contest opened on September 7th and will close on December 7th. All submission info can be found at the blackspringcrimeseries.com website.

Friday, 8 September 2023

Call For Papers: Environments of Global Crime Fiction

Call For Papers:

Environments of Global Crime Fiction

Papers to be given at the American Comparative Literature Associaton (ACLA) annual meeting. The meeting will take place will take place at the Palais des congrès de Montréal in Montreal, March 14-17, 2024.

You will need to submit your individual paper abstract by 30 September. All the details here: https://www.acla.org/node/add/paper

Organizer: Patrick Deer

Co-Organizer: Andrew Pepper

Contact the Seminar Organisers

This seminar takes the global environmental crisis – the spectre of ecological and even planetary collapse due to anthropogenic climate change – as a starting point to consider the ways that global crime fiction has sought to expose, mitigate, reflect and reconfigure impending catastrophe. Contributions are invited that consider how or how well ‘the (crime) genre’s central ideological concerns with culpability and criminality’ align to the climate crisis (King 2021). Participants are invited to explore the implications for our understanding of genre; whether crime fiction that addresses climate change and environmental catastrophe continues to function as crime fiction or whether the resulting mutations require new descriptive categories (e.g. King’s "crimate" fiction). Other approaches might be to think about crime fiction’s capacities for addressing the uneven effects of environmental crises and the implications for vulnerable transnational populations especially in the Global South. We are also keen to extend our understanding of crime fiction’s long history of engaging with toxic settings and environmental crises to include other extinction threats (e.g. planetary disasters, nuclear devastation, pandemics and other dystopian imaginaries). This seminar is part of an ongoing enquiry into the complex relations between the situatedness and specificities of crime fiction as genre (and of individual crime stories) and the wider frames of comparative analysis and global politics (see ACLA 2023, 2022, 2021, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015).

Organizers: Andrew Pepper, Nicole Kenley and Patrick Deer

https://www.acla.org/environments-global-crime-fiction

Thursday, 7 September 2023

Petrona Award Shortlist 2023

Outstanding crime fiction from Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden and Switzerland shortlisted for the 2023 Petrona Award

Seven impressive crime novels from Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden and Switzerland have been shortlisted for the 2023 Petrona Award for the Best Scandinavian Crime Novel of the Year. The shortlist is announced today, Thursday 7 September and is as follows:

Femicide by Pascal Engman tr. Michael Gallagher (Sweden, Legend Press)

The Corpse Flower by Anne Mette Hancock tr. Tara F Chace (Denmark, Swift Press)

The Axe Woman by Håkan Nesser tr. Sarah Death (Sweden, Mantle)

Land of Snow and Ashes by Petra Rautiainen tr. David Hackston (Finland, Pushkin Press)

Kalmann by Joachim B Schmidt tr. Jamie Lee Searle (Switzerland, Bitter Lemon Press)

Red as Blood by Lilja Sigurðardóttir tr. Quentin Bates (Iceland, Orenda Books)

Bitter Flowers by Gunnar Staalesen tr. Don Bartlett (Norway, Orenda Books)

The winning title will be announced on 5th October 2023.

The Petrona Award is open to crime fiction in translation, either written by a Scandinavian author or set in Scandinavia, and published in the UK in the previous calendar year.

The Petrona team would like to thank our sponsor, David Hicks, for his continued generous support of the Petrona Award.

The judges’ comments on the shortlist:

There were 43 entries for the 2023 Petrona Award from six countries (Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden and Switzerland). There were twenty-one female, nineteen male, two female/male pairs and one male/male pair of authors. The novels were translated by 22 translators and submitted by 22 publishers/imprints.

This year’s Petrona Award shortlist sees Sweden represented with two novels and Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Switzerland with one novel each. The judges selected the shortlist from a particularly strong pool of candidates with the shortlisted titles ranging from police procedural and private investigator to historical.

As ever, we are extremely grateful to the seven translators whose expertise and skill have allowed readers to access these outstanding examples of Scandinavian crime fiction, and to the publishers who continue to champion and support translated fiction.

The judges’ comments on each of the shortlisted titles:

Pascal Engman - FEMICIDE tr. Michael Gallagher (Sweden, Legend Press)

FEMICIDE is a page turning, absorbing, thriller featuring Detective Vanessa Frank. A young woman is found murdered in her apartment in the same week her violent ex-boyfriend is released from prison. Meanwhile, we hear the story of Jasmina, a survivor of a recent severe sexual assault. Engman dives into the world of incels through Tom, a very believable character who is part of a weaponised gender war.

As expected this is not a comfortable read, addressing the whole incel phenomenon which is of growing concern. The well written characters and increasingly tense plot strands keep the reader absorbed as the story comes to a pinnacle as the attacks against women escalate.

Anne Mette Hancock - THE CORPSE FLOWER tr. Tara F Chace (Denmark, Swift Press)

Journalist Heloise Kaldan is trapped in a nightmare. One of her sources has been caught lying. Then she receives a cryptic letter from Anna Kiel, wanted for murder, but not seen by anyone in three years. When the reporter who first wrote about the case is found murdered, detective Erik Schafer comes up with the first lead. Has Kiel struck again? As Kaldan starts digging deeper she realises that to tell Kiel’s story she will have to revisit her own dark past.

A dark and compelling story with echoes of Stieg Larsson's THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO, this is an exceptionally strong start to the series, with a balanced blend of journalistic detection, psychological thriller and police procedural.

Håkan Nesser - THE AXE WOMAN tr. Sarah Death (Sweden, Mantle)

The fifth and final Inspector Gunnar Barbarotti novel from Håkan Nesser, sees Barbarotti returning to work after a personal tragedy and tasked with the investigation of a cold case, based on the unexplained disappearance of Arnold Morinder five years previously. Morinder's former partner Ellen Bjarnebo, who had been previously convicted of the brutal murder of her first husband, is sought by Barbarotti for more information, but she too has disappeared.

Håkan Nesser's credentials as a superior storyteller are once more in evidence in THE AXE WOMAN, with its impressive narrative arc and peerless characterisation, coupled with a perceptive translation by Sarah Death.

Petra Rautiainen - LAND OF SNOW AND ASHES tr. David Hackston (Finland, Pushkin Press)

LAND OF SNOW AND ASHES is set at a prison camp in Finnish Lapland in 1944 during the occupation by Nazi Germany, and in 1947 when journalist Inkeri arrives in remote Enontekiö on an assignment to chart the area’s social development. Inkeri gets to know the small community, discovers disturbing silenced crimes, and tries to find out what happened to her missing husband. Rautiainen weaves in the elements of Finland’s recent hidden history in the European context, and gives voice to the Sámi people, while Inkeri’s personal investigation shows the painful truths of human brutality and the cost of survival in extreme conditions.

A harsh yet beautiful landscape adds to the mystery and allows for reflection and thought in this striking historical but contemporary novel.

Joachim B Schmidt - KALMANN tr. Jamie Lee Searle (Switzerland, Bitter Lemon Press)

A local hotel owner and entrepreneur has gone missing, then Kalmann Odinsson discovers a pool of blood in the snow in the quiet village of Raufarhofn. Kalmann is an engaging, highly observant, neurodiverse character who sees the world his own way and who can easily become overwhelmed. He hunts and makes fermented shark and his usually quiet life in the small community falls into turmoil as the police arrive to investigate formally.

This quirky Icelandic story quickly draws the reader in, and information is revealed slowly as the mystery is solved. KALMANN is a beautifully written, absorbing, character-driven tale set in a rich Icelandic landscape.

Lilja Sigurðardóttir - RED AS BLOOD tr. Quentin Bates (Iceland, Orenda Books)

Following the events in COLD AS HELL, the UK-based financial investigator Áróra Jónsdóttir still searches for her sister Ísafold in Iceland, now convinced she will only find her sister’s body. Teaming again with Daníel, an old family friend and a detective, she becomes involved in the murky, violent, criminal underworld when the entrepreneur Flosi’s wife gets kidnapped.

The chilling scenery and tight plotting with unexpected twists propel the novel into the uncommon sphere of financial crime mixed with a strong sense of unease and danger. The writing is sharp, intelligent and witty, and the characters authentic. Sigurðardóttir surprises at every step with her exciting style, faultlessly brought into English by Quentin Bates.

Gunnar Staalesen - BITTER FLOWERS tr. Don Bartlett (Norway, Orenda Books)

BITTER FLOWERS is set in Norway in the 1980s during the heated atmosphere of toxic waste environmental protests. Private investigator Varg Veum is just out of rehab for his alcoholism. The story starts with a body found under suspicious circumstances in a swimming pool. The lifestyle of the rich, their power and the privilege their money affords them comes into question.

Staalesen is an expert at making his characters just complex enough that the reader can empathise with the human condition in the majority of them. BITTER FLOWERS is finely crafted and translated giving the reader a clear sense of location and an array of vivid characters to spend their time with.

The judges

Jackie Farrant - creator of RAVEN CRIME READS and a bookseller/Area Commercial Support for a major book chain in the UK.

Miriam Owen - founder of the NORDIC NOIR blog, passionate about the arts, she moderates author panels and provides support at crime fiction festivals.

Ewa Sherman - translator and writer, and blogger at NORDIC LIGHTHOUSE

Award administrator

Karen Meek – owner of the EURO CRIME blog and website.

Further information can be found on the Petrona Award website: http://www.petronaaward.co.uk.