Spybrary

Crime reviewer and presenter Jake Kerridge is the subject of the latest podcast on Spybrary, discussing the Waterstones promotion Summer of Spies in the run-up to the new John Le Carré novel in September.

The full podcast can be found at http://spybrary.com/009-jake-kerridge-summer-of-spies/

Full details of the events, held at Waterstones, Gower Street, London and which run throughout July and August can be found at: https://www.waterstones.com/events/search/shop/gower-street

The Story of Classic Crime in 100 Books – Only a Hundred?

We all like lists, partly because we like a good argument. Any attempt to pick the “hundred best” books, whether in the crime genre or anywhere else, is bound to prompt controversy. But this hasn’t deterred critics over the years - Julian Symons and Harry Keating, both doyens of crime reviewing in the second half of the last century, both had a go. With my new genre study for the British Library, The Story of Classic Crime in 100 Books, however, I wasn’t trying to list “the best” books; I set out to do something rather different.

Actually, this book isn’t focused on a list – it’s about telling a story, of how crime fiction developed between the end of the Victorian era and 1950. I’ve picked titles that help to illustrate a variety of themes as that story unfolds. Of course, there are plenty of predictable choices, ranging from The Hound of the Baskervilles to Strangers on a Train. But I like to think that there are plenty of choices that will come as a surprise, perhaps in the same way that a pleasing plot twist in a mystery may catch even an alert reader unawares. I’ve included plenty of personal favourites, such as Roy Horniman’s Israel Rank, but again, this isn’t an attempt simply to list my own top hundred most-loved crime novels. I wanted to focus more on a diverse and appealing range of entries.

In the book’s introduction, I say that some of my choices are unashamedly idiosyncratic, and having the chance to come up with some unlikely titles was an important part of the appeal for me of writing the book. It serves, as the title suggests, as a companion to the British Library’s popular Crime Classics series, but again I’ve tried to defy expectations by selecting only a limited number of the books that have appeared so far in the series. I didn’t want simply to repeat what I’d said about books and authors in my introductions to books in the series. Nor did I want to rehash all that I said in my last book about the genre, The Golden Age of Murder. I wanted to offer readers value by trying to give them something fresh.

But, as with The Golden Age of Murder, if to a lesser extent, I used the techniques of a novelist in telling the story of classic crime, and that meant that – as writers do when they tell a story long enough to fill a book – I kept revising my ideas as I worked on the manuscript. One hundred books written over a time span of half a century isn’t really as large a number as it may seem! Some of the choices that featured in my original synopsis had to give way to other books that seemed, as time went on, better to reflect different aspects of the story. As a rough estimate, I’d say I changed about a quarter of the selections over the time (rather more than twelve months) that I was writing the book.

So some of the titles you’d expect to see in a “best of” list are probably conspicuous by their absence. Some, I hope and expect, you may never have heard of, even if you’re a real aficionado. For me, that’s a good thing, because I believe that part of the pleasure of reading a book like this lies in making fresh discoveries. (Just as I did long ago, after reading Symons’ wonderful history of the genre,) Of course, one hundred titles isn’t nearly enough – so in all, I finished up by mentioning another six hundred in addition to those discussed in depth. If this book tempts you to search out some obscure but fascinating books (and given the number of titles to choose from, there are lots of possibilities!), I’ll be delighted. Happy hunting!

The Story of Classic Crime in 100 Books is published in the UK on 7 July by the British Library, and in the US on 1 August by Poisoned Pen Press.  

More information about the author can be found on his website.  You can also follow him on Twitter @medwardbooks

Walk In Silence by John Gordon Sinclair

Today on the blog as part of the Walk in Silence blog tour author John Gordon Sinclair gives us an insight to the storyline, characters and inspirations behind his latest novel.

“There’s no law that says you have to obey the law.” Keira Lynch: lawyer.

One week before she is due to give evidence in the trial of a man who put three bullets in her Keira Lynch sets off for Albania to honour a promise she made to Kaltrina Dervishi – a former client.

Before her murder Kaltrina confided to Keira that she had a young son called Ermir back in Albania whose life would be in danger if his whereabouts were known. Keira swore that if anything should happen to Kaltrina, she would make sure Ermir was well looked after. With the help of a two-bit punk by the name of Daud Pasha, Keira tracks the boy down, but soon finds herself in a situation where she’s not only trying to save him, but stop his life following the same path as hers… and becoming a killer.

Walk In Silence opens with a scene that mirrors a chapter near the beginning of Blood Whispers (2nd novel) in which we see the young boy Ermir’s grandparents being murdered, but ‘filmed’ from a different angle: The neighbours notice a young boy covered in blood outside their window and realise it’s Ermir. We then jump forward in time to find Keira Lynch already in Albania preparing to meet seedy fixer Daud Pasha who claims to know of Ermir’s whereabouts.

When Keira was just eight years old she picked up a gun and shot a man. Through troubled teenage years into adulthood there was only ever one question on her mind…could she kill again?

Keira Lynch – also known as - Niamh McGuire, first appeared in Seventy Times Seven and although important to the story was a relatively minor character. When I finished the book – set in the early nineties - I wanted to continue the story, but the main characters of Sean McGuire and Danny McGuire were not suitable to take the storyline forward.

Keira seemed the obvious choice. In her first appearance in a leading role (Blood Whispers) she is trying to come to terms with her childhood and what happened to her, but by the time we get to her in Walk in Silence she is much more composed and resigned to what she has become. It’s difficult to go into too much detail without giving away major plot points in each of the three novels, but Seventy Times Seven, Blood Whispers and Walk In Silence are a loose trilogy with the latter two books much more closely linked both in plot and character. 

Both books have action that takes place in rural and coastal Albania respectively. There were many reasons for choosing to locate the book there.

From the golden sandy beaches that front the Adriatic to the dramatic mountainous regions in the north Albania is a country of contrast.

The Albanian civil war in 1997 - sparked by a failed pyramid scheme backed by the government that saw billion dollar losses for its citizens - led to over 2000 civilian deaths. “Guns were the first thing we went for, then flour for bread,” said Aleksander Marleci, a local politician in the town of Shkodra, in northern Albania.

Up until the early nineties it had very few - if any- cars and the roads so bad that the police would pull drivers over for driving in a straight line: there were so many potholes that only a drunk wouldn’t swerve to avoid them. Including these small details elevates what would have been an ordinary driving scene into battle between driver and road. It’s one of the nuggets thrown up by research.  It’s also interesting to note that Albania is one of the only countries in the world to ban religion.

The Kosovo Albanian rebel group the KLA was formed in the wake of the conflict that took place in the late nineties. Most of those involved went on to join the Albanian army, the police force or the criminal under world. Even well established criminal enterprises like the Mafia prefer not to deal with the Albanian underworld because of their readiness to shoot first and forget about asking questions.

Albania can be as dangerous as it is beautiful - depending on the company you keep.

With the collapse of communism and the end of Enva Hoxha’s rule, Albania finally began to open up to the West and after a massive investment program was voted one of the top ten holiday destinations in the world by the New York Times. A troubled and intriguing part of the world with a complex narrative, it’s the perfect setting for the equally complex Keira Lynch to find herself in a spot of bother.

When writing I try to imagine watching the movie version of my book (a minor delusion). I edit as if I’m editing film; nothing stays that holds up the action. Even in conversations with my literary editor I tend to refer to Chapters as Scenes. In my self deluded state I can imagine having a conversation with the location manager who thanks me for setting the book in such a diverse and filmic area of the world.

Walk in Silence by John Gordon Sinclair is out now (Faber & Faber, £12.99)

The first time it happened Keira had no choice.

The second, she was protecting her Client. The third time Keira Lynch killed someone there was no question in her mind…it was becoming too easy.

Buy it from SHOTS A-Store

Character-ology – how I created Roxane Weary By Kristen Lepionka

Ask any writer about their process for creating a character and you’ll surely get very different answers. For me, it’s not so much about creating as it is uncovering, as if the character already exists out there and it’s only a matter of getting to know them. Less architecture, and more archaeology. The idea for Roxane Weary, the troubled private investigator at the centre of my novel The Last Place You Look, first came to me with only a name. A first name. Roxane, with one N, like Roxane Gay or Cyrano de Bergerac’s wife. I loved the name because it sounds both hard and feminine to me--you’ve got rocks, plus the ladylike sound of “Ann,” plus that sexy, bold X in the middle. I knew that was the kind of character I wanted to write about.

Other than a first name, the only thing I had to go on was an image in my head: my Roxane answering her phone from the floor under her desk. How did she get there? What was she going to next? I had many questions.

But Roxane wasn’t saying much yet.

While waiting for her to talk to me, I started to examine the tropes of the mystery world to see what I did and didn’t want her to be. The hard-drinking, bad-at-relationships loner type of private investigator is classic in the genre--when it comes to male characters. I wanted to explore that identity but from the point of view of a woman. I also wanted to explore the genre from a bisexual identity, which isn’t often represented in mystery fiction. And lastly, I wanted to write someone with a messy interior and personal life, for whom solving mysteries is not just a job but a necessity for her well-being.

She finally started talking when I figured out her last name while watching television--I saw the actor Jake Weary in the credits of whatever I was watching, and something immediately clicked.

Roxane Weary.

That was it.

From there, I started getting a clearer picture of her I learned that she likes whiskey--specifically, Crown Royal, a preference she inherited from her father. I learned that she lived in the same city as me. She told me she was thirty-four years old, the baby of the family. One of her brothers was a construction worker, and the other was a bartender and small-time drug dealer. The family was still reeling from the recent death of Frank Weary, Roxane’s father.

To further complicate her personal life, she told me she has two on-again-off-again sexual entanglements. One with homicide detective Tom, her father’s former partner, and one with Catherine, an art teacher who Roxane has known since high school.

It wasn’t until I had a good sense of her as a person that I was able to figure out the type of case she should investigate--because I wanted it to challenge her, to overlap on her past, and build to a climax that she alone could resolve.

The Last Place You Look by Kristen Lepionka is published by Faber & Faber in July (£7.99).

Nobody knows what happened to Sarah Cook. The beautiful blonde teenager disappeared fifteen years ago, the same night her parents were brutally murdered in their suburban Ohio home. Her boyfriend Brad Stockton―black and from the wrong side of the tracks―was convicted of the murders and is now on death row. Though he’s maintained his innocence all along, the clock is running out. His execution is only weeks away when his devoted sister insists she spied Sarah at an area gas station. Willing to try anything, she hires PI Roxane Weary to look at the case and see if she can locate Sarah.  Brad might be in a bad way, but private investigator Roxane Weary isn’t doing so hot herself. Still reeling from the recent death of her cop father in the line of duty, her main way of dealing with her grief has been working as little and drinking as much as possible. But Roxane finds herself drawn in to the story of Sarah's vanishing act, especially when she links the disappearance to one of her father’s unsolved murder cases involving another teen girl.  The stakes get higher as Roxane discovers that the two girls may not be the only beautiful blonde teenagers who’ve turned up missing or dead. As her investigation gets darker and darker, Roxane will have to risk everything to find the truth. Lives depend on her cracking this case―hers included.

Buy this book at SHOTS A-Store.

You can find more information about this author on her website.  You can also follow her on Twitter @KMLWrites. You can also find her on Facebook.