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!