March First Monday Crime, part 2

On the issue of misogyny, Erin Kelly was quick to declare that she objects to strong female protagonists inevitably being described as `feisty’.  Matt Arlidge has a strong female lead in Helen Grace and as such readers often think M. J. Arlidge is a woman! In his book `Pop Goes the Weasel’ a prostitute is taking her revenge, in a reversal of the traditional prostitute-as-easy-victim. He described her as a female Jack the Ripper. Daniel Cole cited J.K. Rowling as his favourite writer, which surprised a few people in the audience, but he then talked about her Cormoran Strike novels, which made more sense, maybe, than Harry Potter. Would she be accused of misogyny, I wondered, for having chosen Robert Galbraith as her pseudonym?

Erin was asked about her novelisation of the ‘Broadchurch’ TV series. She said that when the first episode was shown, her sister sent her a text: `This is just the sort of thing you write!’ She said she wrote the book because she was on maternity leave and out of contract and she wanted to write a book without having to think up a story. This turned out to be a bit of a mixed blessing, rather like the courtroom scenes in `He Said, She Said’, which were very difficult to write.

Matt comes at crime writing from a strong background as a screen writer in `Eastenders’, ‘Silent Witness’ and `Monarch of the Glen’ among others. He loves the power of TV and the joys of collaboration, as opposed to the more lonely life of the writer, although he feels TV is a much more cynical world and he finds the publishing one much `nicer’! There was much amusement about the casting of Emilia Fox as the pathologist in `Silent Witness’ and how her crisp vowels are a joy to listen to as she discusses dead bodies. Another instance of a woman defining the success of a series, perhaps.

Julia Crouch started off as an actress and due to her voice training didn’t need the microphone! She loved directing, but found it too demanding and the pay was `rubbish’, so she gave it up `to be a good mum’.

How do you find a good writer to read? was the next topic under discussion. Largely through word of mouth, is the answer. The crime reading community is a very passionate and loyal one and crime fiction, it was agreed, is among the best writing, because you need to keep the pace going at the same time as having something to say. `Great Expectations’ is really a thriller, it was argued and I would agree. Writing crime fiction is a good way to write a State of the Nation novel. It unpicks the gloss and examines sexual mores and attitudes to marriage, such as in Julia’s book. Other themes in `My Husband's Wife' are social cleansing and housing problems.

Matt did a lot of research about women’s prisons for `Hide and Seek' and was shocked by the number of women with mental health problems who end up in prison, to the great detriment of their children and wider families.

Erin began with an image, when she started `He Said, She Said'. The idea of it suddenly going dark in the middle of the day. And then someone hears a scream. However, when she researched sexual assault, she discovered that you’re far more likely to freeze than to fight, so she took out the scream and began her research on eclipses.

Daniel seemed less concerned by social issues in `Ragdoll', but did say that it was important to ground crime fiction in the details of everyday life that readers can relate to, eg someone worrying about their Tesco Club vouchers. However, having worked as a paramedic, RSPCA officer and for the RNLI, he clearly has a well developed social conscience in real life.

For some each book is a mountain, whether it’s your twenty-something one like Val McDermid or your second, although Daniel said he’s completed book two already. Matt said he wants to create `narrative crack’ and he pitched 7 novels at once in the series to Penguin! The only sour note seems to be that Peter James has allegedly copyrighted DS (Roy) Grace, so Matt frequently hears from Peter’s solicitors in relation to his own DI (Helen) Grace.

And that brings me to the end of a stimulating evening (I had a train to catch back to Cambridge) and this blog. Emily Glenister at DHH Literary agency asked the best question at the close of play. All great crime writers are passionate readers, so what were the (fab) four reading at the moment? The answers ranged from a book yet to be published (June ’17), `Persons Unknown’ by Susie Steiner to recent debuts, like ‘Himself’ by Jess Kidd and `Good Me, Bad Me’ by Ali Land through to the old classic, Stephen King’s `Carrie’, his first novel, published in 1974. Good books don’t date.

March First Monday Crime, Part 1

I climbed the grand staircase inside Brown’s restaurant in St Martin’s Lane, London, to the magnificent Judge’s Court, formally the main courtroom of Westminster County Court, from which convicted felons were sent down to the cells below, where the wine cellars are now housed. The room even has the original Judge’s bench, a fitting venue for the latest First Monday crime event. As I waited for the four writers: Erin Kelly, Daniel Cole, Julia Crouch and MJ Arlidge, with Barry Forshaw- aka `Mister Noir’- as chair, to arrive, I cast my eye over the old black and white photographs of London, which adorn the green walls of this splendid, wood-panelled room.

There was plenty of chat among the audience streaming in, holding glasses of wine and voluminous bags (to purchase signed copies after the event?). I even recognised several people from the pub next door. I smiled to myself as I heard someone assert `5,000 words a day’, whereas I can’t even manage half that. The latest books from the evening’s writers were stacked high on a table at the front, MJ Arlidge’s `Hide & Seek’, Daniel Cole’s ‘Ragdoll’ and Julia Crouch’s `Her Husband’s Lover’, the only book I’ve already read (and greatly enjoyed), as it was inside a goody bag at another First Monday Crime event last year. Erin Kelly was clutching the only copy of her latest book, ‘He Said, She Said’, as it has yet to become available in this country. However, we were all given an exclusive chapter sample to wet our appetites: `We stand side by side in front of the speckled mirror.’ Who wouldn’t want to read on after an opener like that?

The evening began as Barry introduced the `quartet of crime’. First was Matt Arlidge, whom he referred to as a hotshot. DI Helen Grace is on the track of a monster and the writing `grabs the reader by the throat’. He’s been likened to the next Jo Nesbo. `Hide and Seek’ is Helen’s 6^th outing. Her nephew has framed her for 3 murders she didn’t commit and she’s awaiting trial in Holloway prison. There’s now a serial killer on the loose in the prison and she fears her days are numbered.

Erin Kelly often writes about family dysfunction and takes her titles from William Blake, such as `The Burning Air’, which was available in place of `He Said, She Said’. However, the latter is a departure for Erin, being set in the `eclipse chasing community’. A young couple in 1999 are at a festival and later become the star witnesses in a rape trial, so it’s also partly a courtroom drama. I looked at the Judge’s bench behind her and smiled.

Julia Crouch first termed the phrase `domestic noir’ and depicts marriage as a minefield. In `My Husband’s Wife’ the reader is constantly wrong-footed; where should one’s sympathies lie, with the first wife or the second?

Much was made of Daniel Cole being only 34- although he looked even younger. `Ragdoll’ is his first book, described by Barry as a `kinetic thriller’. The detective is called to a crime scene in a flat opposite his own and finds the `ragdoll’ hanging, composed of 6 different people’s body parts, stitched together. The media then receives a list of 6 more names and the date when they’ll die. It apparently reads like a movie and has lots of dark humour.

Erin first went into journalism, because she was told it was easier to get a book published if your name was already known and then `got stuck’ there for ten years. She wrote her first book, `The Poison Tree’, when she was pregnant with her first child. She cited Barbara Vine, Daphne DuMaurier and Patricia Highsmith as influences.

Matt’s initial foray away from screenwriting was `Eeny Meeny’, the first in the D.I. Helen Grace series. The title was chosen by his publisher and it was particularly apt as it concerned two different people repeatedly being abducted and then locked in a room with a gun with a single bullet- whose life was worth more? Did being a parent mean you should be spared? Interestingly, the largely female readership said they actually needed more emotional cruelty in the book! He then kept going with nursery rhyme titles, like `Pop Goes the weasel’, `Liar, Liar’ and `Little Boy Blue’ and, of course, `Hide and Seek’.

Daniel’s `Ragdoll’ was described by his agent as `Like Seven, but funnier.’ He said it started off life as a screenplay. He wrote scripts for 6 years and kept getting through to `the last round’ and then being told they didn’t quite love it enough (Sound familiar?) `Ragdoll’ was his last attempt at getting his work out there and his determination clearly paid off.

Julia said that women are often victims in crime fiction or assistants to drink-sodden detectives, whereas her women are in charge of doing bad stuff. She says she’s channeling the spirit of punk: women behaving badly. This then brought the discussion round to the fact that many women crime fiction writers are accused of misogyny. This will be covered in Part Two of my blog!

Celebrating my Return with `Cambridge Black', by Alison Bruce

I’ve decided to start blogging again after a gap of many months, now that I’ve finally finished the major rewrite of my thriller, Her Silent Throat, with an additional POV. To celebrate this return to the land of the enjoying, I took myself down to Heffer’s bookshop in Cambridge (where I now live) for the launch of Alison Bruce’s new book, Cambridge Black.

This is the seventh and last in the series featuring DC Gary Goodhew and cleverly named, since the first in the series was called Cambridge Blue. She said that despite the title, she hadn’t felt able to kill him off and he would now feature in a couple of short stories. He’s at a crossroads in his life and the cover depicts Alison Bruce herself walking away from the camera, down her chosen twilight path, an elegant and lone figure.

We celebrated the event with wine and- somewhat quirkily- pink and violet-iced cupcakes with a black seven in the centre.

She spoke a little about how she came to write the series. She was walking in Cambridge in 1989 and came up with an ingenious way to murder someone. She imagined this murder as a film plot and therefore went on a script writing course, but learnt that it’s hard to sell a script if the story hasn’t been published as a book first. Her idea eventually became the third in the Gary Goodhew series and may explain her skill in painting such a vivid portrait of Cambridge. She’s been credited with doing for Cambridge what Colin Dexter did for Oxford. As for the character of Gary Goodhew himself, apparently a friend rang her up and asked whether he could be in the book, only he wanted to be younger and better looking than in real life.

And then she needed an agent. She very sensibly made a shortlist of authors she enjoyed reading who loved their agents and Broo Doherty at DHH Literary Agency came top of the list. She then approached Broo, who did become her agent in time and they’ve been together ever since. Cambridge Black is dedicated to Broo: `thank you for having faith in Goodhew, the series and my writing.’

I bought my copy of Cambridge Black- discounted by £4- and stood in the queue to have it signed by the author who sat behind a table with a flower jauntily tucked behind her ear. She clearly has a loyal fan base and some people I spoke to had travelled for up to 2 hours to attend. I found it refreshing that several seemed not to have been to a launch before, but had come to know Alison through her husband’s music and had seen her scribbling away at gigs. Four had clubbed together to buy the hardback with the fastest reader being allowed first dibs. One man was a delivery driver and attested to the accuracy of her settings- he even knew the lockups where several bodies were discovered in a freezer in one of her books.

I look forward to her next book, a new venture, which is out later in the year. As the Independent said of her writing, sounding a bit like Morse himself: `It’s all orchestrated (from opening adagio to allegro finale) with authority.’