Great Reads

I used to do some reviewing, initially for The Manchester Evening News and then for Tangled Web and Deadly Pleasures.  It’s wonderful to have a stream of books arriving and to discover new authors as well as catching up with favourites.  Recently pressure of work meant I had to give up reviews altogether and I must admit it was a real relief to read books without having one eye on what I was going to write about it.  (Although I’d done this with non crime titles all along.)  Anyway without the pressure of writing any actual reviews I’d like to recommend some books I’ve read recently to you.  Genre and style vary but what they all have in common is great storytelling, vivid settings,  fully rounded characters, quality prose.  They each have an individuality, a unique flavour which means they linger in the mind.  Enjoy.

In no particular order:

Song of Achilles – Madeline Miller

Shadow of the Rock – Thomas Mogford

Bring Up The Bodies – Hilary Mantel

Year of the Tiger – Lisa Brackman

The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry – Rachel Joyce

The Kings of Cool – Don Winslow

Rubbernecker – Belinda Bauer

The Child Who – Simon Lelic

Titles

Ideally I prefer to find a title once the book is written and that’s the way I’ve approached it with my private eye and police series.  Only at the end can I be sure what this particular book is about compared to the others and I’ve often found unexpected themes emerging in the process of writing.

I take a couple of weeks to mull over possible titles, write down any themes, topics, motifs from the novel along with anything about location, character or images that seem particularly strong.  Then I browse books of phrase and fable, proverbs, the dictionary and thesaurus.

I like to use phrases when I can find them and titles that can be interpreted in more than one way.  It helps if there’s something unusual or memorable in the title, to distinguish it from all the others on the shelves.  Once I’ve created a short-list I gradually whittle it down until I have a favourite. It’s a bit like choosing a name for a baby: a list of alternatives informed by the nature of the creature once you know what it’s like.  Sometimes I find the perfect title only to discover that another crime writer has beaten me to it (looking at you Mark Billingham).

More recently, with my stand-alone novels, I’ve had to come up with an idea for the theme of the book and its title at the start of the process – with an option to alter the name if I discover something better in the meantime.   And stashed away I’ve a couple of titles that I love the sound of but have never (yet) suited my stories.

 

TOPcrime2012

If you don’t know anything about this festival you can learn more here.  It was a great chance to meet friends and readers and to hear authors whose work I love debate issues about writing crime.  It’s also a chance to network.  I met my Dutch publisher, Claudia van der Werf from De Fontein,  who will be bringing out the Scott and Bailey novels, starting next year.  On Friday afternoon a panel on eBooks caused a great buzz.  Other people have written eloquently about it – you can read a good account from Steve Mosby, also coverage on the welovethisbook website and from the controversial author at the heart of the storm.

The consensus is that eBooks are here to stay and everyone in the industry needs to adapt to the changing market.  How cheap and disposable should our stories be was a key issue.  How to value books?  If people get used to downloading books for 99p or less will that devalue books as a whole, and end up leaving most authors even more hard up than they already are?  So far my experience of digital publishing has been very positive.  My publisher Constable and Robinson won the Ingram digital publishing award this year and Rob Nichols, the digital marketing director, is skilled at using promotions for limited periods to attract readers.  It worked so well for me that Witness reached No.2 on Amazon’s Kindle fiction list and No.1 in Crime, Mystery and Thrillers.  I’ve also self-published some of my backlist and set a modest price which keeps sales ticking over – and keeps out-of-print titles available for new readers.

On the Saturday evening I was delighted to be one of the suspects in Come Die With Me, a murder mystery dinner organized by Ann Cleeves, and based on her novel The Glass Room novel.  One of the Vera Stanhope series.  What’s special about the event is it gives readers an opportunity to meet and get to know the upcoming authors who host each table.  And to take away free signed copies of the author’s latest title.  My fellow suspects, real identities, author N.J. Cooper, publisher Jeremy Trevathan, forensic soil scientist Lorna Dawson and actor Jon Morrison turned in stellar performances.  Though one of them was lying through his teeth and turned out to be the guilty party.  It was a great event – part of a great weekend and I’m already looking forward to next year.

And the winner is…

I am celebrating this week, after a surprise win at the Daggers Awards on 5th of July.  Margaret Murphy and I jointly won the Short Story Dagger, Margaret with her story The Message and me with Laptop, both from Best Eaten Cold, a Murder Squad anthology, edited by Martin Edwards.  Many thanks to Martin for his excellent work as our editor, and to Matilda Richards at The History Press who approached us initially with the idea of doing a new anthology, also to Barry Forshaw for writing the foreword and, most of all, to Murder Squad.  Since forming, in 2000, at Margaret’s instigation, we’ve been able to support and encourage each other and jointly promote our work and that of the genre as a whole.  I’ve been lucky enough to be short listed twice before, for the John Creasey best first novel in 1995 and for the dagger in the library in 2006.  It is a tremendous honour and a real boost to get on a shortlist (and something to include on book covers and in biographies for time immemorial!).

I can tell you now it genuinely was a surprise to win, there is no subtle whispering in corners to tip you the wink.  So I was very relaxed during the meal before the announcements, not expecting to have to do more than share in the applause.  Our amazement at winning was such that I’m only glad that Margaret was able to string together some words of thanks.  I was useless.

As a reader, when choosing library books, I’d often be drawn by a Dagger reference on the cover.  A guarantee of quality if you like.  I think awarding the Daggers is the most important aspect of the CWA’s work and I’d like to say a big thank you to those in the CWA who have worked so hard to raise the profile of the prizes in recent years.  Congratulations too to everyone who made the shortlists and to those on the long lists for the Gold, John Creasey and Ian Fleming Steel Daggers.  Those winners will be announced later this year.

Finally a massive thanks to all the crime fiction readers out there – the most important part of the equation.