My eNewspaper, the Morgen Bailey Daily, picked up on an article by GQ magazine where they, as the title of this blog post says, talk to a real-life P.I., Patrick Hoffman. The picture, in case you’re wondering, is of the American actor Carl Malden who starred in one of my favourite TV programmes (at the time), The Street of San Fransisco.
The link to the original article is http://www.gq.com/story/talking-to-a-real-life-private-investigator or you can click on the photograph on the right…
Today’s book review of a crime novel is brought to you by yours truly, Morgen Bailey. If you’d like your book reviewed or to send me a book review of another author’s book, see book-reviews for the guidelines. Other options listed on opportunities-on-this-blog.
Being a writer and editor, I read and review books with both hats. If you’re a writer reading this review and found it useful, do let me know.
Diamond Run by Michael Croucher
Synopsis: A story of underworld diamond heists gone wild, this is a terrifying spin through the ruthlessness of organized crime and the fright of a woman who finds herself the quarry. From New York City to Ontario, Canada, criminals and police are in a deadly race.
Caught unaware in their web, Sue Jensen is on her own chilling trail. Her beautiful Victorian house in the Canadian wine country is haunted. Since research is her business, she wants to find out who is the ghost slipping into bed with her at night. Will she discover far more than she ever imagined? Is it possible to put ghosts to rest?
Sergeant Phil Mahood, in a desperate undercover battle against the psychotic mobster-killer who will stop at nothing for diamonds, can only drop vague hints to Sue about the looming danger. Skeptical of her ghost stories and falling in love with her, he is torn as never before.
As the two investigations are about to collide, can Phil be the support Sue needs in her personal quest for the deep secrets of her home? Can he rescue her from the cold-blooded killer who stops at nothing and no one? With his world shaken to the core by Sue’s fear of ghostly presences he does not believe in, and his new love with Sue clouding his professional judgment, will Phil’s mobster targets stay steady in the crosshairs? This is crime suspense at its best.
This novel is available via http://www.amazon.co.uk/Diamond-Run-Phil-Mahood-Book-ebook/dp/B012EKPYIQ and http://www.amazon.com/Diamond-Run-Phil-Mahood-Book-ebook/dp/B012EKPYIQ.
Review (of the eBook’s text-to-speech function)
The chapters are subtitled with the place and date, helping the reader before the narration starts.
Just five Kindle pages in to chapter 1, and we have two dead bodies – my kind of story. 🙂
The character names are interesting, my favourites being Zip, Clifford, Lemon and Jasper, although I would not have had Frank and Phil in the same chapter as audibly, they both start with an F.
One of the characters is a staff sergeant and he is referred to as ‘Staff’ then in the same chapter ‘staff’ is referred to as a noun, which would be less confusing if referred to ‘colleagues’.
The era and procedures felt very authentic, I enjoyed the reference to candid camera.
Both the description and dialogue are very gritty. Some of the dialogue between Sue and Phil initially felt a little stilted but it transpired that they had not dated for very long and their meeting was complicated so understandable.
Chapters are relatively short so can be done in one sitting and there is a good mixture of description and dialogue.
There was one sentence that jarred: ‘I left it there as we walked, enjoying the soft warmth of her skin.’ This implies that they are both enjoying a self month of her skin, which is possible, but I think the author meant just for Phil to be enjoying it.
Speaking of enjoying it, there is a lot to like about this novel, including the phrase ‘A parked car sticks out like a hooker’ and ‘clung to his blubbery torso like a coat of paint’.
I didn’t find the sexy chapters particularly sexy but then I’m not a big romance reader. I’m not a fan of paranormal either so the ‘ghostly’ references were my least favourite but fans of this genre would enjoy them.
And now for writers…
Just in case you missed it, crime writer Kathy Reichs came to London recently and did a talk (for almost three quarters of an hour) on how forensics have influenced her writing career, for her publishers Random House, at the Bart’s Pathology Museum.
You can watch this video at http://www.studiotalk.tv/show/join-kathy-reichs-bestselling-author-and-forensic-anthropologist-in-a-broadcast-from-londons-barts-pathology-museum-on-how-forensics-have-influenced-h.
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If you would like to send me a book review of another author’s books or like your book reviewed (short stories, contemporary crime / women’s novels or writing guides), see book-reviews for the guidelines. Other options listed on opportunities-on-this-blog. And I post writing exercises every weekday on four online writing groups.
If you’re in the Oxfordshire area of UK in the next few days, do take a look at the Wantage Literary Festival, which runs from 25th October to 2nd November.
Events include the following, taking place on Saturday 1st November:
Other speakers include Katie Adie, Nikky Arding, Ciaran Murtagh, Andy McNab and Jenny Lewis. Links to the specific events above and the main page is www.wantagebetjeman.com.
I went to the above festival recently and made 100+ pages (fortunately only A5) of notes so I thought I’d share them with you. Today is the third instalment and because of the quantity, it’ll be pretty much as I wrote it (not word for word but paraphrasing) so my apologies if it feels fragmented. You can read part 1 here and part 2 here.
In Space, No-one Can Hear You Scream – 2pm Friday 18th July 2014
Panel: Steve Mosby (Chair), Lauren Beukes, SJ (Sharon) Bolton, James Smythe, Lavie Tidhar.
After SM introduced the panel, he asked LT about his book and entry to crime-writing and other formats.
LT – prefers writing short stories and hates writing long forms.
SB – reads crime, particularly science-solved crimes. Loves classic horror stories although they can be dissatisfying because the author doesn’t have to explain.
SM – always anted to be a writer?
SB – met a journalist who was going to take a week off work to write a Mills & Boon. She had a student debut so tried to do the same but it didn’t get accepted.
SM – JS so prolific – is it difficult to peg down in theme / setting, are you a magpie?
JS – Yes. Reads everything and sometimes surprises himself. Like SJ, likes writing what he wants to read. Has written two locked-room mysteries.
SM – On page 30 everyone dies, leaving the reader to wonder how he pulls off the rest.
JS – Didn’t want to write a sci-fi novel so had his character who had won a place so was unfamiliar with his surroundings so didn’t need to be specific with the details.
SM to LB – did you have fun with the time-travelling aspect?
LB – yes, played with the 20th Century as who we are in it.
SM – Talked about the violence to women in LB’s books.
LB – spoken from indirect experience.
SB – Many writers have young attractive victims because readers want to read about them.
SM to JS – Good things happen to a good man but bad things happen to him.
JS – What if the guy is told by an algorithm that he’s not going to be president? Family tragedy at the beginning but the family issues are the heart and soul.
SM – A book about fate.
JS – Identity, fate and teeth crop up in everything he’s written. “Don’t ask about the teeth.”
SM – Referred to JS writing for the Guardian.
JS – If fans of the blog had their way they would have him just do that. He wrote The Machine (sci-fi horror).
SM – Lacey Flint series – so you like writing series?
SB – readers and publishers wanted more of the earlier characters but SB prefers writing about Lacey. There was a woman who was convinced her son was the Yorkshire Ripper and others had done the same (about people they knew). Something like that makes us wonder about those people close to us.
SM – asked about location.
LB – Interested in Detroit. Strange to see ruins of our era (industry etc) but still a live city because people still live there.
SM – Worried about being real / tech?
LB – Loves the internet but feels that intimacy is over. Humiliation (YouTube).
<questions then invited from the audience>
I went to the above festival recently and made 100+ pages (fortunately only A5) of notes so I thought I’d share them with you. Today is the second instalment and because of the quantity, it’ll be pretty much as I wrote it (not word for word but paraphrasing) so my apologies if it feels fragmented. You can read part 1 here.
The Good Old Days –10.30am Friday 18th July 2014
Panel: Martyn Waites (aka Tanya Carver, Chair), Mark Edwards, Mari Hannah, James Oswald, Mel Sharratt.
MW: How did you get published?
JO: I self-published, some short stories that had been shortlisted in competitions but not published and sold c.350,000 copies in eight months. I wanted to be ‘properly published’ but kept getting knocked back but then when I did well Penguin approached me.
MS: I was rejected for nine years, including some great personal rejections, so I self-published in December 2011 and it took off. My goal, like JO, was to be traditionally published. My agent took one of my books to the London Book Fair in 2013 and it was picked up (went to auction).
ME: I was on TV in the late 1990s about aspiring writer. I met my collaborator Louise (Voss). It was picked up by the BBC for TV but not published. We put it on Kindle and it got to no.1. It was then picked up by Harper Collins but didn’t get into the shops so we thought that was that so we self-published ‘The Magpies’ which sold around 250,000 copies. I was in debt at the time as I’d given up my day job when taken on by HC but ‘The Magpies’ paid off my debt.
MH: I tried the traditionally published route and came very close to getting an agent and publishing deal. I went with a small press but got the feeling it wasn’t going to plan and was then advised that they couldn’t publish it within the contracted time by which time I’d spent the advance. Every writer needs an agent. Even when I got mine it wasn’t easy as my main character is gay. Her book was published in Germany first and got more polite rejections through her agent.
MW: Was published in 1998 “not that anyone noticed”. How important is it having an editor?
JO: It’s very helpful when readers point out mistakes but it’s not a professional way to get feedback. I’ve been friends with Stuart McBride for a long time and swapped manuscripts.
MS: I was too close to my work and learned by my mistakes. I have six beta readers (my mum’s my biggest critic). I do four drafts before anyone else sees them.
MW: I roll around the floor agonising over my drafts!
ME: There’s a lot of dross out there. When writing with Louise, we edit each other’s writing.
MS: Early copies of one of my books had a prologue but I took it out because I had it pointed out to me that it gave away the plot.
JO: I offered a free second book if anyone spotted any mistakes in the first one.
MH: I also write scripts so I’ve been told my writing is very visual.
MW: The pricing structure is very different with Kindle versus paperbacks and with the former there seems to be a “race to the bottom”.
ME: My eBooks are £3.99 and I’ve begged my publisher to lower the price so I’d sell more and proportionally make more profit.
MW: There’s a war going on between traditional and self-publishing with the latter reducing the former’s profits. What will we do when Amazon kills traditional publishing?
MH: I don’t think they will. There’s too much pleasure from browsing at a bookshop.
JO: I sell twice as many paperbacks than eBooks. I’ve been in publishing for 20 years and it’s always been in crisis.
Questions were then invited from the audience.
I went to the above festival last weekend and made 108 pages (fortunately only A5) of notes so I thought I’d share them with you. Today is the first instalment and because of the quantity, it’ll be pretty much as I wrote it (not word for word but paraphrasing) so my apologies if it feels fragmented. You can read part 2 here.
Theakston’s Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival Award Ceremony – Thursday 17th July 2014
After meeting up with some fellow crime writers from Crime and Publishment, we headed off to the first event, the (short) festival’s award ceremony.
Scottish crime writer Denise Mina had won the award for the previous two years and she had again made the shortlist. It was won however by Belinda Bauer for her novel Rubbernecker and she went to accept the award to a rapturous applause. I’ve not read the book but clearly a popular winner. There was another award given out: an outstanding achievement award to Lynda La Plante who when thanking the organisation, voters and audience, had us all in stitches. She was due to return for a one-hour interview on the Saturday morning so I think we were all look forward to that.
After more chat with C&P friends, we went to our respective hotels (most were staying in the venue hotel, I’d left it too late – not a mistake I’ll make next year as I’ve already booked to return). I was staying at a hotel only a few yards away, The Majestic, which certainly lived up to its name with its car turning circle (with a fountain in it) that would have given the Savoy or Dorchester a run for its money. Sadly the same couldn’t be said for the staff (it felt like they were just going through the motions) and floor-hard bed. This isn’t a hotel review so I shall move swiftly on.
Interview with Denise Mina – 9am Friday 18th July 2014
BBC Radio 4’s Mark Lawson interviewed Denise.
Mark: Were you prepared for winning a third time?
Denise: No. I’d not written a speech as always better ad libbing but it’s a relief and Belinda’s great.
M: Do you plot? I’ve never guessed what happens in any of your books.
D: I’m a pantser, falling off the cliff headfirst. Two-thirds of the way through writing, I’m not sure if I can finish it as I don’t know who the murderer is. Some authors shoe-horn in characters to fit. Just read Graham Greene’s Brighton Rock so aspects of that in The Red Road. Crime writing is about narrative, about story telling. I hate the thought of someone reading her books because they have to, I’d rather them read something else.
M: Have you had a book where you’ve been two-thirds of the way through and stopped?
D: I have with the present one but I’m confident I’ll find the rest. I’d rewrite all my books if I could. It’s like finishing a house – when you’ve finished you’d go round repainting the skirting etc. Sometimes I send a part-written book to my editor for a second opinion. I love playing with endings and usually have the resolution on the last but one page but then something ‘shatters’ (cosy crime = a perfect resolution).
M: There is no resolution for someone whose loved one has been murdered.
D: There was a similarity in one of my books (The Field of Blood) to the Jamie Bulger case but it wasn’t based on that.
M: There are lots of rude women in your books.
Complementing my interviews, today’s Author Spotlight, the three hundred and sixty-seventh, is of Laurence Walker. If you would like to take part in an author spotlight, take a look at author-spotlights.
Born in 1978, in England, Laurence has worked for most of the past 10 years as a commodities journalist, mainly attached to international energy news services and magazines. He spent a number of years working in Russia and the former Soviet Union (initially teaching English and later as a freelance journalist), settling back in England with his family in 2007, ahead of the birth of his second son.
Laurence’s work-related travel – which has taken him to places as diverse as a coal terminal in Russia’s Arctic Circle and the tobacco fields of southern Kyrgyzstan – and the people he’s met along the way have provided some inspiration for his fiction writing.
His debut novel, Under a Russian Heaven, is out now from 280 Steps, and he’s currently working on a crime novel, set in Central Asia.
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And now from the author himself:
Most of the posts on this blog are guest-related but this is my little corner where I say what I’ve been up to and this week I’ve had a very busy few days…
What I’ve been up to this week:
What this blog’s been up to:
Apart from the weekday writing exercises (posted here 6pm UK time), this past week’s posts were…
What’s caught my eye online:
A quiet week because I’ve not really been looking online but I did spot this today…
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If you’d like to take part in this blog, see https://morgenbailey.wordpress.com/submission-information/opportunities-on-this-blog and / or if something’s caught your eye (writing-related) and you’d like it including in these Monday musings, then do email me (morgen@morgenbailey.com) and you’ll get a mention (don’t forget to include your website address).
Today’s guest blog post, on the topic of writing crime fiction, is brought to you by multi-genre author Jim Webster.
The Detective Story
Although Justice 4.1 (The Tsarina Sector) is a science-fiction story, it is also a detective story, in that there is an investigation followed by an attempt to bring someone to justice.
Now I don’t think there is a ‘correct’ way to write a detective story, I merely explain how I do it. I always start with the crime. Indeed I start with the motive. The motive not merely gives me a reason for the crime, it illuminates the character of the person who is committing it, and that person is very important in the story. So at this point I try to understand my villain. They must have a reason, and in their eyes at least, their motives are reasonable. Even the capricious seem to act out of a sense of entitlement, which is, in their eyes, reasonable.
So having established the motive, I move on to the method. How does our villain commit the crime? Here I find that I’ve got to plan the crime properly, and I spend a lot of time with this. Indeed I’ll go for a long walk at this point, and during this I can mentally turn the crime inside out, examine the plan for weaknesses and refine it. I want a good plan, one that stands up to scrutiny and one that my villain is happy to stake all on.
The next phase is to work out what happens when the crime is committed. It was a good plan, but one of the first rules is that no plan survives contact with reality. So I now mentally play through the crime as it happens. How do passers-by react? How does the victim react? Do the authorities get someone on the scene rapidly? Can the villain actually manage to carry out the plan? It is at this point I decide what happens.
Now then, here temptation can creep in. I find I have to be careful lest I make the whole thing too artistically satisfying. To avoid this I will try and identify ‘crisis points’ in the crime, places where things can go wrong. At these points I might even roll a dice, to see if they do go wrong. If they do, how does the villain cope with the problems? This all feeds back into what ‘really’ happens, and at the end of the process I have the crime. It’s probably a bit messy and not as slick as the perpetrator hoped but it’s a crime.
