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| Thursday August 31 2017 | Issue 27 |
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By Karen Robinson
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Sometimes I forget that my favourite characters are not real people. I feel I know them better than some of my nearest and dearest, and in one of those questionnaires about your “ideal dinner party” mine would consist almost entirely of fictional detectives — so I hope the off-licence does bulk deliveries, as Rebus is definitely on the guest list (see our news about him below). And Vera would probably help me do the washing up. Our video of a conversation between her creator, Ann Cleeves, and Brenda Blethyn, who plays her on television, is a fascinating insight into how a character is created, developed and extended off the page and onto the screen. It's a bumper issue of Crime Club this month, with plenty of recommendations for top reads to stockpile as autumn approaches. There are plenty of giveaways too — a total of 20 books, if you hit the jackpot with all of them, and one comes with a slap-up lunch at the exclusive Ivy Club.
■ Find previous issues of Crime Club here
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| Karen Robinson |
| The Sunday Times |
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Q&A: Attica Locke
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Screenwriter and novelist Attica Locke shines a light into murky corners of America
You write passionate fiction that confronts the racism embedded in areas of American society. How do you make sure the message doesn’t swamp the demands of plot and character?
My responsibility as a storyteller is to entertain so I try to find a way for the more political aspects of the story to come out in terms of character, not long, preachy chunks of prose. The crime genre itself keeps a writer disciplined: you can’t leave a body on page four and never deal with it. The mechanics of an investigation keep the writer from pontificating.
You now live in Los Angeles, so what was it about your Texas upbringing that makes you return to the state in your writing?
Texas is a magical place to me because it is the lens through which I first saw the whole world. I come from a long line of black Texans who never left the state — not after Emancipation, not during the Great Migration when hundreds of thousands of southern blacks fled to places like Chicago and Detroit, New York and California. My family stayed and devoted themselves to civic service, to the fight for civil rights, to making Texas a better and a more hospitable place for black people. I dearly respect my ancestors for that. And I try to remember their lesson: the worst impulses of a state or a country don’t get to define it.
Beyoncé’s mother used to be your hairdresser. Did that help when you were writing the music-industry TV series Empire?
Not really, but I have fond memories of watching her grow up — of course never knowing all that constant rehearsing would lead to world domination (ha!). It was fun to have her Destiny’s Child co-singer on Empire. Kelly Rowland and I bonded over our Houston roots.
How do you approach the different demands of creating characters for screen and novels?
The beauty of prose is that you can be inside your character’s psyche, but I also think the best fiction borrows from screenwriting. If you leave a little white space on the page, readers get to know characters by what they do and say — and the possible contradiction between the two.
Your name, Attica, has a resonance of Atticus Finch, Harper Lee’s heroic lawyer who stood up for a wrongly-accused black man. But that’s not the real story behind it, is it?
Nope. I was named after the prison uprising at Attica Correctional Facility in upstate New York in 1971. My parents were moved by the inmates standing up for their basic human rights. So different story — but social justice is wrapped up in my name, for sure.
Tell us a secret.
I was hungover and maybe still a little drunk when I took my SATs (the college entrance exam in the States).
Tell us a joke.
Donald Trump.
Bluebird, Bluebird by Attica Locke is published by Serpent’s Tail on September 28. Buy it here / Read first chapter
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Video: Ann Cleeves and Brenda Blethyn
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Ann Cleeves created Vera on the page, Brenda Blethyn brings her to life on the TV screen. Watch this fascinating video of the two women in conversation about DCI Stanhope, as Cleeves reveals what we will find out about Vera in her new book The Seagull (Macmillan; But it here / Read first chapter). Blethyn’s perceptive observations about the character she plays cause Cleeves to remark: “I get insights from Bren all the time.”
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The mystery of Black Dahlia
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The unsolved murder of Elizabeth Short, pictured, in 1947 Los Angeles — the “Black Dahlia” case — has been a touchstone for noir fiction ever since. For her new book, Piu Eatwell decided to seek out the facts.
“Y’are sure ya don’t want me to go with you? They’re bad folks there.” The Los Angeles Sheriff’s officer squinted warily at the straggle of cabins. He was wearing sweatpants and loose bomber jacket. A Smith & Wesson .45 glinted from the inside flap.
“It’s OK.”
“Alrighty, please yourself.” He shambled back to the unmarked Dodge parked by the sidewalk. He settled in the driver’s seat, fingers of the left hand tapping rhythmically to the Dixie Chicks on the car radio, those of the right keeping an iron grip on the Smith & Wesson.
The asphalt parking lot was overshadowed by a motel sign. A notice by the entrance read, “Vacancies: Cash Only.”
The woman at the register was a petite Mexican. She seemed pleased at the gift I presented her: a bouquet of slightly tired Dahlia pinnata blooms from the Whole Foods store near my hotel in downtown Los Angeles.
“Dahlia is national flower of my country,” she said, in a voice that was quiet and heavily accented. If she was also thinking about other, darker connotations that the flowers evoked, she gave no hint of it. She took a bunch of keys from the desk and led me to the cabin.
The room was sparse and smelled of cigarette smoke and Aqua Velva. It probably always had.
So this, I thought, was it. The room that was discovered soaked in blood on the morning of January 15, 1947. The scene of one of the most infamous crimes in American history, finally revealed.
A door slammed in the wind. As traffic hummed on the Harbor Freeway, I thought of WH Auden’s words inspired by Bruegel’s Icarus: “About suffering they were never wrong, the Old Masters”. How it would take place when someone was eating, or opening a window, or strolling along the sidewalk. Or in a motel buried in the backstreets of downtown LA.
Did this dingy place still carry an imprint of the grotesque crime that took place there, 70 years ago? I was straining to catch any such echo, when one of the Mexican motel workers came running up. He was brandishing something in his hand…
Black Dahlia, Red Rose by Piu Eatwell is published by Coronet on September 28. Buy it here / Read first chapter
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Harlan Coben books for you and a friend
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Harlan Coben’s twisty thrillers take the reader on the equivalent of a rollercoaster ride: fast, exciting, heart-stopping — and you can’t get off until the end. The international bestseller’s latest book, Don’t Let Go (Century; Buy it here / Read first chapter), is a small-town drama where the deaths of a teenage boy and his girlfriend continue to haunt the victim’s cop brother 15 years later. To mark its release, the publisher is offering five Crime Club readers the chance to win it, plus a copy of Home, Coben’s last thriller, and two copies of Fool Me Once — so you can be a generous pal to a fellow-crime lover. To enter, email your name and address to arrowcompetitions@penguinrandomhouse.co.uk with COBEN in the subject line by September 15.
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Looking ahead: our September picks
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The Scarred Woman by Jussi Adler-Olsen, translated by William Frost
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Quercus
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In Copenhagen’s Department Q (cold cases), Detective Carl Morck finds that Rose, his star investigator, is rapidly parting company with mental stability. Then a benefits clerk with breast cancer decides to go rogue and show what she really thinks of her young clients. The cruelty and madness are all too real, though the humour is as dark as the pain and there’s a masterful precision to the plot’s dynamic thrust.
Read first chapter
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Buy this book
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★ Star pick
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Lightning Men by Thomas Mullen
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Little, Brown
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Follow-up to last year’s stunning Darktown has post-war Atlanta’s first Negro police officers (only allowed to arrest other black people) joined by a white cop whose brother-in-law is an enthusiastic member of the Klan. There’s horrifying everyday detail of life under the Jim Crow laws as racial and personal tensions smoulder and the city is convulsed by drug-dealer turf wars and the growing demand for black rights. Violent, compassionate and brilliant.
Read first chapter
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Buy this book
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Munich by Robert Harris
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Hutchinson
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There’s an embargo on reviews until later this month, so this is all we can say: it’s September 1938 and as Hitler and Chamberlain travel to the titular city, a couple of other characters are also on their way to a confrontation there… the classic set-up for one of Harris’s reliably readable historical what-ifs.
Read first chapter
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Buy this book
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★ Star pick
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Black Teeth by Zane Lovitt
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Text Publishing
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This exhilaratingly twisted, Chandler-influenced Aussie noir has Jason — a socially anxious Melbourne tech nerd with a vivid and occasionally pungent turn of phrase — caught up in two men’s desire for vengeance, with a bracingly downbeat femme fatale complicating the action. Read to the end of chapter one and you’ll be hooked.
Read first chapter
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Buy this book
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The Zealot’s Bones by DM Mark
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Mulholland Books
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If Hull ever had a golden age, it certainly wasn’t 1849. Author David Mark, who usually writes Hull-based contemporary noir, has his former soldier Mesach Stone arrive in the city as cholera is carrying off its citizens by the cartload. He then realises that forces darker than the disease are also dealing death. Persuasively atmospheric.
Read first chapter
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Buy this book
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The Downside by Mike Cooper
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Head of Zeus
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Finn’s planning an ambitious robbery in New Jersey — the kind that involves industrial equipment and suffers nail-biting setbacks on the way to the big score. But as the machinery starts to roll, who can he trust among his team? Old-school heist gets a dash of tech-savvy with whip-smart dialogue and a chicane of plot twists. Precision-engineered entertainment.
Read first chapter
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Buy this book
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★ Star pick
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Moscow at Midnight by Sally McGrane
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Contraband
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Already published in translation in Germany, to enthusiastic reviews, this playful spy thriller has Max, out on his ear from the CIA, picking up some dodgy contract work that sends him back to his former stamping ground. But contemporary Russia, where Max finds his old contacts clinging on, turns out to be so deliriously weird and dangerous that Cold War espionage starts to look simple. There’s grimy charm, acerbic wit and an OTT plot — but in Russia these days, you could well believe it.
Read first chapter
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Buy this book
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The Frozen Woman by Jon Michelet, translated by Don Bartlett
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No Exit Press
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A rare English edition from the prolific Norwegian novelist is well worth the translation. A woman is found dead in the snow, but as the investigation gets under way the oddly-angled narrative spins and spreads from the investigating cops to include a grimly pathetic biker gang and a top industrialist, while strange notions break the surface of the text from deep in the characters’ minds. Entertainingly eccentric for a police procedural.
Read first chapter
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Buy this book
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Good Me Bad Me by Ali Land
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Penguin (new in paperback)
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Milly, living in a foster family as she prepares to be a witness at her mother’s trial, slowly reveals the enormity of her parent’s crimes (serial horrible abuse of children), but her own role is more opaque — she’s damaged and dangerous, certainly, but was she simply a victim? Complex and compelling, you can hardly bear to know what’s coming next, though you can’t actually put it down.
Read first chapter
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Buy this book
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Sleeping Beauties by Jo Spain
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Quercus
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Inspector Tom Reynolds and his team are astonished to realise that there’s a serial killer at work in Ireland — and it looks like he’s just taken his latest young female victim. Tense police procedure is given the life-blood of wide-ranging humanity that covers victims, their loved ones and romantically confused coppers, with a particularly serious portrait of male friendship.
Read first chapter
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Buy this book
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The Reluctant Contact by Stephen Burke
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Hodder & Stoughton
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We’re in a fascinating time and place: 1977 Pyramiden, a Soviet coal-mining enclave in Arctic Norway that only sees sunlight for six months of the year. A suspicious death in the mine sets a tone of lurking danger and mistrust as Yuri, the community’s chief engineer, gets involved with a woman and a plot, neither of which might be what they first appear.
Read first chapter
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Buy this book
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Character to treasure
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Helen Cadbury’s work will be celebrated in York next month, says Ruth Ware
I met Helen Cadbury on social media long before I ever met her in real life — shooting the breeze on Facebook and Twitter, sharing jokes and commiserating over setbacks, some minor, some serious. The news of her cancer diagnosis was very much the latter, and there was a collective intake of breath on the writers’ group we were both members of when she posted about it, followed by deeper sorrow a year or so later, when she privately shared the news that it had returned.
Her death in July, age 52, caused a shockwave through the crime-writing community, its intensity tribute to her stature as a writer, and her value as a friend. People posted about the loss to crime fiction (and to poetry — Sarah Hilary pointed out how rare it is to find an accomplished crime writer who is also an excellent poet), but also about her sense of humour, which was often endearingly filthy and sweary. But most of all, people posted about Helen’s kindness — her ability to make a friend of you within moments of meeting, and her compassion and empathy, in her life and in her Sean Denton crime novels.
On the face of it To Catch a Rabbit, the first in the series, deals with grim themes: trafficking, sex work, exploitation, missing persons. And it’s to Helen’s credit that she faces these unflinchingly and never glosses over what she’s depicting. But through it all, her good humour and kindness shine through — in the character of Karen Friedman, and her dogged, determined search for her brother Phil, and through Sean Denton himself. The dyslexic PCSO is endlessly kind, unfailingly cheerful, always trying to do the right thing even when circumstances get him down.
I was honoured to be asked to talk about To Catch a Rabbit as York’s Big City Read for 2017. Running from September 14 to November 10, the programme is an opportunity to celebrate an incredibly talented writer and a chance for readers to pick up one of 5,000 copies being given away free across the city.
I hope you’ll join us at the launch on September 14. And if you can’t be there in person, you can still take part in reading along with To Catch a Rabbit, its sequel Bones in the Nest, or the third and final book in the series, Race to the Kill (due to be launched during the Big City Read). This latest title sees Sean, now a fully-fledged PC, still championing the underdog in an unsafe and unfair world as he returns to old stamping grounds — where a refugee has been found dead.
Race to the Kill by Helen Cadbury is published by Allison and Busby on September 21. Buy it here / Read first chapter
The Lying Game by Ruth Ware is published by Harvill Secker. Buy it here
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David Ashton giveaway and Audible download
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There was an outpouring of Radio 4-listener outrage (questions were asked on Feedback) when actor-turned-writer David Ashton’s McLevy drama series was dropped last year. Luckily, fans of the thoughtful 19th-century Edinburgh detective and his rather more flamboyant comrade, brothel-keeper Jean Brash, still have Ashton’s atmospheric McLevy books to enjoy. The latest is The Lost Daughter (Two Roads; Buy it here / Read first chapter) and to celebrate its arrival, the publisher is giving five lucky readers the chance to win five backlist titles: Mistress of the Just Land, Nor Will He Sleep, A Trick of the Light, Fall From Grace and Shadow of the Serpent. To enter, email your name and address to enquiries@tworoadsbooks.com with DAVID ASHTON in the subject line by September 15.
EXCLUSIVE Listen to two chapters of The Lost Daughter audiobook, read by Siobhan Redmond and David Ashton, published by Two Roads:
▶ Chapter 1
▶ Chapter 6
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Crime wave: the latest books news
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Smiley’s back! After a 25-year fictional gap, John le Carré’s A Legacy of Spies conjures a plot that interweaves the Cold War past of iconic characters George Smiley, Jim Prideaux et al with contemporary sleuths whose values are very different. Penguin Viking has embargoed reviews until publication day on September 7, when le Carré will give a talk at the Royal Festival Hall. The gig is sold out, but you can still watch a live broadcast of it at cinemas around the country. Find out more at the author’s recently revamped website www.johnlecarre.com. And there’s more news for le Carré fans with Penguin’s announcement that it will have 21 of his novels published as Penguin Modern Classics by 2018 — “the most extensive body of work by a living author to be awarded this status”. The Cold War ain’t over yet.
Fact into fiction: in a new CBS Reality original series, thriller-writer Simon Toyne asks top authors about how they have based novels on some of the UK’s darkest crimes. Written in Blood will also feature reconstructions and interviews with forensic experts and detectives closest to the case. The ten episodes include Elly Griffiths on the abduction and murder of Leanne Tiernan, Peter James on Rotherham “shoe rapist” James Lloyd, and Marnie Riches on Manchester gang violence. Watch Mark Billingham discuss the “honour killing” of Banaz Mahmod in the trailer for September 3’s series opener here, and Alex Marwood on the James Bulger case for episode two here.
Normal for Norfolk: Norwich is about to fill up with some of the world’s best crime-writing talent as the annual Noirwich festival looms. From September 14-17, venues as varied as a department store restaurant, an arts centre and the University of East Anglia campus will host a star line-up of authors — from established festival favourites Val McDermid and Mark Billingham (when do they ever find the time to write?) to smoking hot new talents Felicia Yap and Leye Adenle. On Friday, September 15, Crime Club is proud to present the first Noirwich Talk (or Bloody Talk, as the organisers dub it), Age of Extremes, in which Swedish blockbuster Arne Dahl will examine the connections between noir writing and the new and ever-turbulent world order. Included in the £8 ticket price is an exhibition of original manuscript material from key crime writers, curated by the British Archive for Contemporary Writing. Full details at noirwich.co.uk.
It’s being so cheerful that keeps him going: it seems that we can’t get enough of Ian Rankin’s famously grouchy Edinburgh detective John Rebus — the most recent Rebus paperback, Rather Be the Devil, sold 10% more than previous novels in the series of 21 books that began 30 years ago. Rankin has just announced that he’s writing a new Rebus novel, to be published by Orion, in autumn 2018. “Luckily for me there’s still plenty of life (and fight) in the old dog,” he told an Edinburgh audience, before adding: “Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to spend time with an old friend.”
Meet Ian Rankin at Cheltenham: the Rebus author won’t be spending all his time in seclusion as he creates new sources of danger, irritation and outrage for his gloomy cop. He’ll be appearing at our Crime Club event at the Times and Sunday Times Cheltenham Literature Festival on Wednesday, October 11, where he’ll be interviewed on stage by James Naughtie. The festival, which runs from October 6-15, will host an array of fine crime and thriller talent, from Robert Harris, Emma Flint and Denise Mina to politicians turned would-be bestsellers Vince Cable and Stanley Johnson. So, something for all tastes. Public ticket sales open on September 6, visit cheltenhamfestivals.com to create your wish list now, ready to book online or by phone on 01242 850270.
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Detective Club giveaway
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The Detective Club was an instant sensation when it was launched by publisher Sir Godfrey Collins in 1929. The imprint, which produced a steady stream of inexpensive hardbacks with cheerfully lurid cover illustrations and the “masked gunman” logo, sold more than a million books in its first year alone. Nearly a century later, the Detective Club is enjoying a revival, with HarperCollins reissuing one of its classic titles every month, in hardback with the original covers. The latest is The Passing of Mr Quinn by G Roy Macrae (Read first chapter). If you have the shelf space for a set of collectable Golden Age fiction, each with a newly commissioned introduction by an aficionado of the genre, enter the prize draw to win one of five sets of 10 titles, including Mr Quinn. Simply email your name and address to detectiveclub@harpercollins.co.uk with CRIME CLUB in the subject line by September 15.
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Card sharp
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Journalist and novelist Daisy Waugh reveals her new pen-name, her new crime series — and her surprising new profession
Who needs forensics when they have intuition? Crime-fearing residents of leafy London SW13 can relax in the knowledge that they benefit from both in the first of my Tarot Detective mystery novels. While heroine Dolly Greene’s new boyfriend is a police sergeant (with access to the PNC), Dolly is a professional tarot reader who can interpret her cards’ ancient symbols to uncover dangerous truths about her clients. It’s in the nature of her job to attract the weird and the wretched. Dolly doesn’t seek out trouble, but this is modern London: punters from every walk of life bring it directly to her. The readings can be revealing but they can also be frustratingly unspecific — providing no more than bleak, confusing warnings. In a rational world it’s hard, even for Dolly, to lend them too much weight. And yet time and again they prove to have been spot on.
How does the tarot work? Nobody really knows. In every pack, the 78 cards are laden with images and symbols, drawn from a mix of ancient belief systems. Each card has a specific meaning, but it takes practice, knowledge and trained intuition to be able to interpret them in a meaningful way. The image on each card will also help to trigger the reader’s intuition, but that doesn’t explain how a subject comes to choose their specific cards from the pack. I think the subconscious will of the subject, in choosing their cards, plays as much a part in the process as the intuition of the reader in interpreting them… And no, the cards cannot predict the future, but they can suggest to a client which way the wind is blowing.
Almost anyone who’s had a reading will acknowledge that tarot can deliver disconcerting truths — even if it hasn’t occurred to them that the cards could also help to unlock the clues that might solve crimes. Either way, the tarot is enjoying a wave of interest at the moment, which is good news for me: I trained at the College of Psychic Studies in London and have been reading cards for several years. I use them not simply as a mystery-busting device for a fictional detective, but as a tool for living. I offer professional readings to clients, and I confer with the cards for advice and strategy almost every day.
The Prime of Ms Dolly Greene by EV Harte is published by Constable on September 7. Buy it here / Read first chapter
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Win lunch with Ross Armstrong at the Ivy
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Actor and novelist Ross Armstrong would like to invite a Crime Club reader to bring a friend to lunch with him at the exclusive members-only Ivy Club in central London to celebrate the paperback publication of The Watcher, his critically-acclaimed first thriller (HQ; Buy it here / Read first chapter). To be in with a chance of winning a delicious lunch and some fine conversation about the pleasures and pitfalls of a career in acting and crime writing, email your name, address and phone number to anna.massardi@harpercollins.co.uk with ARMSTRONG in the subject line by Friday September 15. The winner will be chosen at random, though participation is subject to finding a mutually available date. The winner and four runners up will also receive a signed copy of The Watcher.
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Crime bestsellers
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Hardbacks
1 Into the Water by Paula Hawkins
2 I Know a Secret by Tess Gerritsen
3 A Stranger in the House by Shari Lapena
4 The Good Daughter by Karin Slaughter
5 Sleeping in the Ground by Peter Robinson
6 The Late Show by Michael Connelly
7 Fifty Fifty by James Patterson
8 No Middle Name by Lee Child
9 Warlord by Chris Ryan
10 Tom Clancy's Point of Contact by Mike Maden
Paperbacks
1 The Couple Next Door by Shari Lapena
2 The Whistler by John Grisham
3 Cast Iron by Peter May
4 Chaos by Patricia Cornwell
5 16th Seduction by James Patterson
6 No Man's Land by David Baldacci
7 I Am Missing by Tim Weaver
8 The Caller by Chris Carter
9 The Betrayals by Fiona Neill
10 I See You by Clare Mackintosh
Lists prepared and supplied by and copyright to Nielsen BookScan, taken from the TCM for the four weeks ending 30/08/17
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karen.robinson@sunday-times.co.uk
@timescrimeclub
