In The Spotlight - Tom Wood

Name:- Tom Wood

Job:- True Crime Writer, Retired Detective, Columnist for The Scotsman

Website:- tomwoodwriter.co.uk

Twitter @TomJWood25

Introduction

Tom Wood was one of Scotland’s most senior and experienced operational police officers. He is an authority on serious violent crime, the policing of large-scale events and a noted authority on the police perspectives on drugs and alcohol. He was Deputy Chief Constable and Director of Operations of Lothian and Borders Police and Officer in Overall Command of the linked murder investigation into the deaths of a number of young women including Helen Scott and Christine Eadie (The World’s End Murders). His current book is Ruxton: The First Modern Murder.

Current book?

I am currently reading Max Hastings expansive history of The Vietnam War - Vietnam. I am currently writing a book about prostitution ‘A public service, stories and voices from the sex industry’ - wonderful subject. 

Favourite book?

Robert Louis Stevenson’s ‘Treasure Island’ fascinated me as a boy and gave me a love of the sea. 

Which two characters would you invite to dinner and why?

As a former detective it would have to be Sherlock Holmes and for pure entertainment it would be GM Fraser’s great anti-hero Harry Flashman - whatever else it wouldn’t be dull! 

How do you relax?

I’m an outdoor person, sailing, fly-fishing, motor cycling. 

What book do you wish you had written and why? 

I wish I had written ‘The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner’ - which was written by James Hogg (The Ettrick Shepherd). This novel influenced Edgar Allan Poe, Wordsworth and Robert Louis Stevenson. A wonderful study of human nature. 

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

‘Get a move on’ I won a pretty big essay competition when I was at primary school then wrote nothing except police reports for fifty years! 

How would you describe your series character?

Since I write about real crimes I don’t have a series character as such- but I do like to draw forgotten heroes back into the light. I am fascinated by histories partiality- who is forgotten and who and why others are remembered. 

My two historic crime novels would be - 

‘His Bloody Project ‘completely different, fresh and compelling (Graeme M Burnet) and ‘The Suspicions of Mr Witcher ‘A police procedural with a difference - wonderfully interpreted. (Kate Summerscale)

Ruxton: The First Modern Murder by Tom Wood (Published by Thomas J Wood)

Two dismembered bodies discarded in the borderlands of Scotland, hideously mutilated to

avoid identification.  Forty-three pieces of rotten flesh and bone wrapped in rags and newspaper.  A jigsaw puzzle of decomposing human remains. A glamorous young wife and her dutiful nursemaid missing.  A handsome, mild-mannered town doctor insanely jealous of his wife’s friendships with other men. It is 1935 and the deaths of Isabella Ruxton and Mary Rogerson would result in one of the most complex investigations the world had ever seen.  The gruesome murders captured worldwide attention with newspapers keeping the public enthralled with all the gory details. But behind the headlines was a different, more important story: the ground-breaking work of Scottish forensic scientists who developed new techniques to solve the case and shape the future of criminal investigation.   With access to previously unseen documents, this book re-examines the case and reveals for the first time the incredible inside story of the investigation and its legacy.  This is the first modern murder.

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

St Hilda's Crime Fiction Weekend goes live online, 14/15 August.

This year will be the 27th Crime Fiction Weekend at St Hilda's, but for many of you, at home and abroad, 2020 may be the first opportunity you have to attend.

Running from Friday evening through to Saturday evening our theme is
‘All Our Yesterdays’: historical crime fiction.

Join us live to find yourself unleashed upon the London of the Swinging Sixties, the winding backstreets of 1950s Bombay, the gin shops and brothels of Georgian London, and backstage on Brighton pier - all in pursuit of Murder. Subjects include Agatha Christie, Patricia Highsmith, Ian Pears, and CJ Sansom.

Andrew Taylor (Ashes Of London, The American Boy, etc) is our Guest Of Honour
and author of the dramatic Whodunnit:
The Murder Of Lucy Ackroyd
'a chillingly implausible tale set in
 the academic badlands beyond Magdalen Bridge.'
Starring: Chief Inspector Taylor, Val McDermid, Sarah Hilary,
Abir Mukherjee, Miriam Margolyes, and Mick Herron.
Blackwell's Bookshop will be awarding a prize to one lucky armchair sleuth.

Please, head over to the website to peruse the programme, the speakers and
their subjects, both the fresh blood and the usual suspects!

There is a special concession for alumnae and recordings of the whole event will be available to attendees for a month.

We look forward to seeing you.

The Crossroads of Crime Writing: Historical, Sociological and Cultural Contexts/ Intersections/ Perspectives

CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS—EDITED COLLECTION

Proposal/abstract deadline: November 1, 2020

Final essays due: April 2021

This volume, which will be proposed to a leading independent academic publisher, seeks to explore the implications of crime writing in its various narrative forms through essays which situate orientations fictional and non-fictional, past and present in relation to public perspectives. Just as real crime has served as inspiration for fictional accounts, Kieran Dolin reminds us in Fiction and the Law (Cambridge Press, 2009) that crime literature has long influenced popular understanding of social institutions as well. And so, we are not only interested in offering a comprehensive overview of crime writing in its diverse forms, but in examining how crime writing simultaneously reflects temporal biases and influences popular conceptions of politics, the law, psychology, the self, and more.

Over a century ago, in his examination The Sensational in Modern English Fiction (1919), Walter Clarke Phillips declared, “Whatever sources of appeal may come or go, there is one which from the very structure of modern democratic society seldom bids for applause unheeded — that is, the appeal to fear” (2). And, it is to this appeal that we owe the abundance of crime writing at our disposal— a trove of mystery that undoubtedly fascinates in its ability to entertain while safely reflecting the ugliest truths about ourselves and the societies in which we live.

It is in this vein that Catherine Nickerson asserts in “Murder as Social Criticism,” that crime fiction “is deeply enmeshed with most of the thornier problems of the Victorian, modern, and postmodern eras, including gender roles and privileges, racial prejudice and the formation of racial consciousness, the significance and morality of wealth and capital, and the conflicting demands of privacy and social control” (American Literary History). And, this is just as true of Gothic and Victorian Sensation novels which generally expose social anxieties in relation to cultural, institutional and individual identities as it is of the ever-growing contemporary genre of True Crime which typically concentrates “upon certain events and figures as kinds of cultural flashpoints, and it also has a long history, from colonial narratives to early twentieth-century pulp fiction” (Rosalind Smith, “Dark Places: True Crime Writing in Australia”).

We invite essays that provide new insights into the works of significant authors, series or sub-genres of crime literature that we once thought we knew and/ or examine the intersections of the real and fictional within the broader genre of Crime Writing in meaningful ways. Contributors are encouraged to dissect the historical, cultural, and/ or sociological significance of crime fiction, as well as examine how such works influence true crime writing or vice versa. Possible essay topics could include (but are not limited to) the following:

The History/Genesis of Mystery/Crime Writing and/or its Structure or Tenets

The Nineteenth-Century Police Force and the Detective Novel

Intersections between the Real and Fictional in Historical Crime Novels

British Aesthetic vs. American Hardboiled Crime

The Dime Novel and/or Early Hardboiled Fiction

The Police Procedural and Popular Culture

Historical Mystery as a Means of Contextualizing the Current

Crime Writing and Gender Roles

Racial Consciousness and Detection

Socio-economics of Crime and Detection

Socio-political Readings of the Gentleman Detective and/or Hardboiled Detective

Cross-Dressing and/or Queering in Mysteries

LGBTQ+ Portrayals in Mysteries

Intersections between Detective Film and Literature

Exploring Law through Literature/ Legal Thrillers

Lawyers and the Courtroom Drama

The Serial Killer and Contemporary Culture

Holmesian Influence/Pervasiveness in Western Culture

American Realism in Crime Writing

Capers/The Criminal Mind

Crime Fiction’s Influence on Journalistic Reporting/True Crime

(Neo) Gothic or (Neo)Victorian Sensation Novels

Please email 500-word abstracts along with a 200-word biographical statement to Meghan Nolan (mnolan2@sunyrockland.edu) and Rebecca Martin (doc.rmartin@gmail.com) by November 1st, 2020.

The deadline for selected essays of 5000-7000 words is April 2021.

In The Spotlight: Jill Dawson

©Jill Dawson

Name:- Jill Dawson

Job:- Author, Poet and Journalist

Website:- https://jilldawson.co.uk

Twitter:- @Jdawsonwriter

Introduction:

Jill Dawson is the author of 10 novels including The Crime Writer which won the East Anglian Book of the Year. Most of her books have either been long-listed and short-listed for a number of awards including the Whitbread and the Orange Prize. She has taught for the Arvon Foundation, the Faber Academy, the Guardian/UEA and for the Sunday Times/Oxford Summer School. She was instrumental in founding Escalator, an award for new writers, and is founder and director of Gold Dust Mentoring Writers, which matches new writers with established ones. Her most recently published book is The Language of Birds.

Current book? 

I have started a new novel set in the late 16th century so it’s a lot of non-fiction reading for research, with titles such as Cambridgeshire Customs and Folklore (Enid Porter) and Hilary Mantel’s favourite: Religion and the Decline of Magic, Keith Thomas.

Favourite book –

The Ballad of the Sad Café, Carson McCullers (But it changes, and if you ask me next week I will definitely say something else).

Which two characters would you invite to dinner and why?

Miss Amelia from The Ballad of the Sad Cafe – one of the strangest and most brilliantly drawn characters in fiction and Sula from Toni Morison’s novel of that name, so that I can ask her why she betrayed her friend.

How do you relax?

I’m always relaxed - as I think my friends will testify!

What book do you wish you had written and why?

Michael Ondaatchi’s Divisidero because it’s so sexy and startlingly beautiful on such an achingly sad subject (addiction).

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

I know this looks bad. But you know this will be great material, later…

How would you describe your series character?

I don’t have a series. But….my favourite historical crime fiction has to be George Simenon’s The Mahe Circle (1944) for the dreamy troubling atmosphere and brilliant description of an obsession. And Patricia Highsmith knows a thing or two about obsession, too. I’d go for The Talented Mr Ripley, such an original and perceptive depiction of a fantasist and psychopath, where many imitators since are corny, psychologically inaccurate and predictable. 

The Language of Birds by Jill Dawson (Hodder & Stoughton)

Drawing on the infamous Lord Lucan affair, this compelling novel explores the roots of a

shocking murder from a fresh perspective and brings to vivid life an era when women's voices all too often went unheard. In the summer of 1974, Mandy River arrives in London to make a fresh start and begins working as nanny to the children of one Lady Morven. She quickly finds herself in the midst of a bitter custody battle and the house under siege: Lord Morven is having his wife watched. According to Lady Morven, her estranged husband also has a violent streak, yet she doesn't seem the most reliable witness. Should Mandy believe her? As Mandy edges towards her tragic fate, her friend Rosemary watches from the wings - an odd girl with her own painful past and a rare gift. This time, though, she misreads the signs.

In The Spotlight: Sara Sheridan

Name:- Sara Sheridan

Job:- Author and activist

Website:- http://www.sarasheridan.com

Twitter @sarasheridan

Introduction:-

Sara Sheridan is a Scottish writer over over 20 books which the include cosy crime Mirabelle Bevan noir series. The first book n the Mirabelle Bevan series is Brighton Belle (2012) subsequently followed by London Calling (2012), England Expects (2014), British Bulldog (2015), Operation Goodwood (2016), Russian Roulette(2017) and Indian Summer (2019). The most recent book is Highland Fling (2020). In 2017 she wrote the companion guide to the ITV series, Victoria and in 2019 she also wrote the companion guide to Andrew Davies’s adaptation of Jane Austen’s final, unfinished novel, Sanditon.

Current book?

Literally finished last night: Tough Jews by Rich Cohen, which is non-fiction about 1940s Jewish gangsters in New York. 

Favourite book

This is like picking a favourite kid. I mean HOW? I’m going to reply by saying books that resonate with me are Eva Ibbotson’s adult fiction, Lorna Moon’s brilliant short stories, The Green Mile by Ann Enright, The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman.

Which two characters would you invite to dinner and why?

If you mean fictional characters: - Jane Marple because she is my lifelong favourite character (even though someone might get murdered while she was visiting cos that happens a lot) and Johnathan Strange because of the magic. 

How do you relax?

I’m not very good at relaxing but I deep breathe several times a day and that helps me to pace myself. I also love walking and swimming. Plus if things get really stressful I knit. (I know – I’m a granny, basically)

What book do you wish you had written and why? Oh gosh – well you wanted 2 of my favourite historical novels and why and these tie in with this question so….

Water Music by TC Boyle, which is about Mungo Park’s doomed trips down the Niger in the late 1700s/early 1800s – absolutely the best historical novel I ever read. I seethe with jealousy over the way Boyle captures the rambunctious late Georgian era. 

Next – Poor Things by Alasdair Gray, which I love for its wit. Alasdair was a very funny man and this book set in Victorian Glasgow is a riot. 

Now this is tricky cos neither of those are historical crime. I mean – I don’t consider Christie historical crime cos she wrote contemporary crime – it’s just that time passed. This is further complicated because the two genres tell their stories in different ways. So if I’m picking 2 historical crime books ie crime stories written in a past era by a writer not living in that era, it would be:

Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco. The medieval fascinates me and there is an inescapable tension to this book that I LOVE. 

Fingersmith by Sarah Waters which is clever but still manages to engage the heart. I also enjoy Waters’s female characters a lot – they feel real.

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

I’d say keep going! I never meant to be a writer so I think the younger me would reply ‘what are you talking about?’ I was always an enthusiastic reader, and then I had to take some time off work and decided to write a novel (really so I could say I was doing something….) It sold 3 weeks after I sent off the first draft and went into the top 50 when it was published and that was that. 

How would you describe your series character?

Mirabelle is an evolving character – we first meet her in the early 1950s when she is grieving and in post-war traumatic shock. Today we’d recognise her as being mildly depressed. The whole country was, pretty much. Over the series, she cheers up (in fact, the series in a way is that story, about how Britain cheered up after WWII). She’s resourceful, moral, clear-sighted and sexy. She also dresses very well. Nothing like me. 

Highland Fling by Sara Sheridan.

Scottish Highlands, 1958, Britain is awash in Cold War anxiety as Mirabelle Bevan heads for the Highlands on a holiday to visit Superintendent Alan McGregor's family. More glamorous than she expected, the Robertsons welcome her with open arms and an array of cocktails, but she has scarcely arrived when the body of an American fashion buyer turns up brutally murdered, plunging the local village into disarray and sending shockwaves around the close, Highland community. Mirabelle can't resist investigating, but what she finds lays the limitations of her feelings for McGregor bare and calls into question the loyalties of all those around her from the Robertson's housekeeper Mrs Gillies to the family of the dead woman. What started as a relaxing break in scenic surroundings soon spirals into a week fraught with danger. As the press descend on the Robertson's Highland estate, it rapidly becomes clear that things are not as black and as they first appeared and Mirabelle can't count on anyone . . .

Political Genre-Bending in Bacurau by Kate Reed Petty

I love thrillers. In books, movies, and anecdotes shared over dinner, what I love best are stories about criminals and backstabbers, lies and jealousy, ghosts and uncanny coincidences—all the twisted logics of the human condition. I have many friends who prefer their entertainment to relax; I like mine to thrill. I want to look at the frightening parts of life from the safe vantage of a good story. 

At the same time, I find many of the familiar tropes of thrillers grating. Police protagonists, for example—especially those who "bend the rules" in relentless pursuit of the "bad guys"—look more and more like destructive propaganda. Stories that hinge on violence against women feel similarly insidious. I don't necessarily want a righteous political message to neatly tie up everything I read and watch. It's just that I'm tired of lazy, regressive tropes giving sneaky justification to the rampant unfairness we see in the news every day. 

Which is why I can't stop talking about the film Bacurau. Winner of last year's Cannes Jury Prize, the movie bends and stretches the tropes of my favorite genres in exhilarating ways. 

The film takes place in a subtly-near future; "Bacurau" is also the name of the fictional rural village that is the story's main character. A government-funded dam has cut off the town's water supply in service of elsewhere profits. The residents resist the water theft with dignity and intelligence; they truck in fresh water, smuggle in their own medicine, share food, and throw away the sedatives given as "charity" from a local politician. Co-Director Kleber Mendonça Filho has described Bacurau as one of the world's "helping communities," where people have learned "to live relatively well even on the margins of public power." 

In addition to self-sufficiency, the town is also capable of violent resistance. One of their near-mythic members, a queer revolutionary figure, has gone into hiding after attacking the dam. Another is famous for the surveillance videos on YouTube of his gunmanship. The director based the village on Brazil's quilombos, which were historically settled by people who escaped enslavement; there is a museum in the center of Bacurau that quietly celebrates this history, including a display of antique guns—that still work. 

Watching any thriller brings me two essential kinds of pleasure. The first is akin to the pleasure of eating crème brûlée; it comes from appreciating and enjoying the flawless execution of a classic form. The second comes from innovation. I love watching the classic form inverted, expectations set up and then thwarted, tropes reinvented to new ends. It's less of a crème brûlée than a peanut-butter-and-pickle sandwich. 

The magic of Bacurau is that it delivers both of these pleasures. The movie aligns most closely with the structure of a western—the story of a remote town under siege from foreigners. Yet there is no rugged individualist hero of the story; the entire town is the protagonist, with different people sharing screen time the way they share food. There's horror, with nods to the apocalyptic visions of John Carpenter and George Miller, and an extended sequence that, Predator-like, turns the tables on a group of invaders. There's also a good bit of exploitation film, brilliant in a film that is essentially a commentary on exploitation. The directors masterfully execute tension and suspense and then twist into something totally unexpected. And in doing so, they offer a path through genre that I believe is important for all storytellers in our current era. 

In The Atrocity Exhibition, JG Ballard writes about the homogenizing influence of Disney on museums as well as individual people in the twentieth century, saying that both are packaged to be easily understandable and attractive. "Desperate for the new, but disappointed with anything but the familiar, we recolonize past and future," Ballard writes, complaining about the way tropes become commercial signifiers. 

But something different is happening now, and not only in Bacurau. For the forthcoming horror Antebellum, for example, co-directors Gerard Bush and Christopher Renz sought out the camera lenses used on Gone With the Wind because, Bush says, "We need to correct the record with the same weapon that was used to misinform and mislead."

Genre tropes are a kind of lens, too. As the horrors of our exploitive and racist economic systems are bursting daily in the news, I'm grateful for storytellers putting these old lenses to new use. Instead of recolonizing past and future, they're starting to decolonize. It's only a movie, but I'm glad it's a start. 

True Story by Kate Reed Petty (Quercus Publishing) Out Now

After a college party, two boys drive a girl home: drunk and passed out in the back seat.

Rumours spread about what they did to her, but later they'll tell the police a different version of events. Alice will never remember what truly happened. Her fracture runs deep, hidden beneath cleverness and wry humour. Nick - a sensitive, misguided boy who stood by - will never forget. That's just the beginning of this extraordinary journey into memory, fear and self-portrayal. Through university applications, a terrifying abusive relationship, a fateful reckoning with addiction and a final mind-bending twist, Alice and Nick will take on different roles to each other - some real, some invented - until finally, brought face to face once again, the secret of that night is revealed. 

2020 Ngaio Marsh Finalists

A diverse array of fresh contenders have amassed to challenge New Zealand’s king of crime fiction as the finalists for the 2020 Ngaio Marsh Awards were revealed today.

“Ten years after we launched the Ngaio Marsh Awards to help celebrate excellence in local crime, mystery, thriller, and suspense writing it’s heartening to see so many new voices infusing and stretching our #yeahnoir community,” says founder Craig Sisterson. 

“While we’ve had around 80 debut authors enter the Ngaios in recent years, it’s also been fantastic to see many experienced Kiwi storytellers become first-time Ngaios entrants as they’ve entertained readers and explored society through these types of stories.”

Along with the finalists in the Best First Novel category, for the first time two debut authors – Becky Manawatu and RWR McDonald – have been named finalists for the Ngaio Marsh Award for Best Novel. Two of the other finalists – Gudrun Frerichs and Renée – are also first-time crime and thriller writers (having previously published in other genres). They’re joined by 2019 Best First Novel winner JP Pomare and three-time Best Novel winner Paul Cleave. 

The finalists for the 2020 Ngaio Marsh Awards are: 

BEST NOVEL

Whatever it Takes by Paul Cleave (Upstart Press)

Girl from the Tree House by Gudrun Frerichs

Auē by Becky Manawatu (Mākaro Press)

The Nancys by RWR McDonald (Allen & Unwin)

In the Clearing by JP Pomare (Hachette NZ)

The Wild Card by Renée (The Cuba Press)

BEST FIRST NOVEL

Tugga’s Mob by Stephen Johnson (Clan Destine Press)

Auē by Becky Manawatu (Mākaro Press)

The Nancys by RWR McDonald Allen & Unwin)

Into the Void by Christina O’Reilly

This year’s finalists are a fascinating group of Kiwi storytellers who’ve collectively won or been shortlisted for accolades in New Zealand and overseas including the Prime Minister's Awards for Literary Achievement, the Jann Medlicott Acorn Prize for Fiction, the Australian Book Industry Awards, the Victorian Premier's Literary Awards, the Saint-Maur Crime Novel of the Year in France, and the Edgar Awards and Barry Awards in the United States. 

“Our international judging panels have been dealing with a range of rāhui and lockdown situations this year but have thoroughly enjoyed reading the range and quality of stories offered by our Kiwi authors,” says Sisterson. “There were differing favourites, tough decisions, and some great reads our judges loved that didn’t become finalists. A decade on from our inaugural Ngaio Marsh Awards, our local genre is certainly in great health.”

Each category of the Ngaio Marsh Awards is judged by a separate international panel, consisting of book critics for print and online publications, bestselling authors, university academics, and festival directors from the USA, UK, Australia, and New Zealan.

The finalists for the 2020 Ngaio Marsh Awards will be celebrated, and winners announced, at the WORD Christchurch Spring Festival, being held from 29 October to 1 November. 

“It’s been a tough year for so many people,” says Sisterson. “We’re glad to be able to highlight some great Kiwi storytelling. All over the world, people turned to the fruits of the creative industries while in lockdown – reading books and watching films and shows for entertainment, learning, comfort, and escape. While we were saddened to have to cancel a dozen or more library events in April and May, to help keep everyone safe, we’re stoked we now have a chance to once again celebrate some of our local authors. We’re grateful for the support of Rachael King and WORD Christchurch, and the efforts of all New Zealanders.”

A video of the finalists can be seen below:-

For more information on this year’s finalist authors and books, or the Ngaio Marsh Awards in general, please contact founder and judging convenor Craig Sisterson - craigsisterson@hotmail.com

In The Spotlight: Vaseem Khan

Name: Vaseem Khan

Job: Author

Website:-www.vaseemkhan.com

Twitter: @VaseemKhanUK

Vaseem Khan is the author of the bestselling Baby Ganesh Agency series featuring Indian detective Ashwin Chopra and his baby elephant sidekick. The first book in the series, The Unexpected Inheritance of Inspector Chopra, was a Times bestseller and a Waterstones Paperback of the Year. The second won the Shamus Award in the US. In 2018, he was awarded the Eastern Eye Arts, Culture and Theatre Award for Literature. Vaseem was born in London, but spent a decade working in India. 

Current book?

The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen. This book won the Pulitzer Prize and you can see why. A satirical masterpiece, written with verve, flair and extraordinary skill, the novel follows a Vietnamese double-agent forced to flee Saigon at the end of the Vietnam War, and finding that life in 1970s America is not quite what he has been led to believe. The book slaughters both American and Vietnamese cultural icons, exposing the hypocrisy and lies that characterise that turbulent time in the history of the two nations. Wickedly funny. (Also I have crippling literary pretensions, and love high quality literary fiction.

Favourite book?

Snow Falling on Cedars. A historical crime novel written to a literary standard, this book examines the murder of an American on a small fishing island by a Japanese local. The plot is complicated by the fact that both men grew up as friends before becoming enemies when WW2 broke out and Japanese Americans found themselves placed into internment camps. 

Which two characters would you invite to dinner and why?

Sauron (a.k.a the Dark Lord) from Lord of the Rings. I’ve always wondered why he was so angry. I think all he really needed was a cuddle and a decent curry. It would also be nice to have Bernie Gunther at the table. I am a recent convert to these WW2 Germany-set crime novels by Phillip Kerr. Bernie Gunther is brilliantly drawn, a cynical, hardboiled detective, harking back to the novels of Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett (I love Sam Spade and Phillip Marlow – especially as played by Humphrey Bogart). He is part of the German machine, often morally compromised, yet at the same time contemptuous of its hateful rhetoric and actions. He’d be a good laugh I reckon.

How do you relax?

I play cricket. Badly. Also planning complex murders is very relaxing, I’ve found.

What book do you wish you had written and why?

Presumed Innocent. Lawyer Scott Turow’s debut was one of the great crime novels of the last century, rightly selling millions of copies and inspiring a fantastic Harrison Ford film. I enjoyed the novel, principally because I love Turow’s precise, lyrically formal prose. Each sentence is like finely spun wool. And that killer twist at the end!

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

Murder a few people. Because authenticity has suddenly become everything in publishing. It’s all about proving that you have the right to write something… (rolls eyes, sighs loudly, makes a rude noise)

How would you describe your series character?

Inspector Chopra made his debut in The Unexpected Inheritance of Inspector Chopra the first book of the Baby Ganesh Agency series. The book went on to become a Times bestseller and set the foundation for the series. Chopra is forced into retirement from the Mumbai Police Force in his late forties but cannot seem to let go of his desire to see justice done in a country where, frankly, if you have wealth and influence you can get away with anything – up to and including murder. A thoroughly decent man, one who believes in old-fashioned policing, and an even older-fashioned moral incorruptibility, he slogs his way through murders, robberies and kidnappings in one of the world’s most colourful cities – all with a baby elephant in tow. The relationship between Chopra and this unusual sidekick (Ganesha) allows me to weave in some gentle humour in between the gritty depictions of modern Mumbai and various dark crimes.

Bad Day at the Vulture Club, the latest book in the Baby Ganesh Agency series, focuses on the murder of a wealthy Parsee in Mumbai's notorious Towers of Silence where the Parsee dead are left to be eaten by vultures. Vaseem’s next book (out in August 2020) will be the start of a new series. Midnight at Malabar House, set in 1950 in Bombay, introduces Persis Wadia, India’s first female police detective, as she attempts to unravel the murder of a prominent British diplomat. 

Midnight at Malabar House by Vaseem Khan (Published by Hodder & Stoughton) Out Now

Bombay, New Year's Eve, 1949. As India celebrates the arrival of a momentous new decade, Inspector Persis Wadia stands vigil in the basement of Malabar House, home to the city's most unwanted unit of police officers. Six months after joining the force she remains India's first female police detective, mistrusted, sidelined and now consigned to the midnight shift. And so, when the phone rings to report the murder of prominent English diplomat Sir James Herriot, the country's most sensational case falls into her lap. As 1950 dawns and India prepares to become the world's largest republic, Persis, accompanied by Scotland Yard criminalist Archie Blackfinch, finds herself investigating a case that is becoming more political by the second. Navigating a country and society in turmoil, Persis, smart, stubborn and untested in the crucible of male hostility that surrounds her, must find a way to solve the murder - whatever the cost.