Tag: crime thriller

Daily Ponder: Book spotting on the Train

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Kindle

Kindle (Photo credit: Simply Bike)

In just a few hours I’ll be heading up to London for the Crime Writers’ Association (CWA) hosted panel discussion “Is crime the new literary fiction?” that’s being held at Kings Place.

One of the things I always like to do on the train ride to London and back (and on the tube) is to check out the books my fellow travelers are reading. Are they crime thrillers, romance, science fiction, fantasy, historical or something else? And, more importantly, have I read them, and do they look like the type of thing I’d like to read.

I’ve even had quite a few bookish conversations with fellow commuters, and got some excellent recommendations from them. But, it’s not quite as easy as it used to be. That’s because of eReaders. I just can’t (or not as secretly) take a sneaky peep at the cover of the book being read. Although, that said, if I’m standing on the train, and someone sitting nearby is reading on an eReader (especially if the font size is set to large) it is possible.

But, not to be deterred (and, of course, being of a rather nosy disposition!) I’ll be book spotting on the train as I travel.

I wonder what crime thriller books I’ll glimpse today …

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World Book Night: Attention Wannabe Book Givers – applications are open

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2013 World Book Night logo

2013 World Book Night logo

That’s right, applications have opened for applying to become a ‘book giver’ for World Book Night 2013.

If you’ve not heard about World Book Night before, it’s a huge celebration of reading which aims to reach out to the millions of people in the UK who have yet to discover the joys of reading.

Every year, the team behind World Book Night recruit 20,000 ‘book givers’ – people passionate about reading who are given 20 copies of their favorite book from the chosen World Book Night books to gift to people within their community who, for a variety of reasons, wouldn’t usually get the opportunity to read.

Next year, World Book Night will be 23rd April.

The books for 2013 have just been announced, and there are some fabulous picks, with several from the crime thriller genre including The No 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency by  Alexander McCall Smith and Little Face by Sophie Hannah.

To see the full set of books chosen for World Book Night 2013 and to find out more about the event and how to become a book giver visit http://www.worldbooknight.org/

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Review: The Killer Inside Me by Jim Thompson

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Cover of "The Killer Inside Me"

Cover of The Killer Inside Me

Brutal. Compelling. And Utterly Absorbing: first-person narration at its finest

“Lou Ford is the deputy sheriff of a small town in Texas.  The worst thing most people can say against him is that he’s a little slow and a little boring.  But, then, most people don’t know about the sickness – the sickness that almost got Lou put away when he was younger.  The sickness that is about to surface again.”

I have to admit I was rather unsure how I’d find this book. On the cover is an endorsement from Stanley Kubrick. It reads, “Probably the most chilling and believable first-person story of a criminally warped mind I have ever encountered.” This made me worry that the book might be a little too much for me to handle.

But I didn’t need to. Because although Kubrick is absolutely correct: the story is both chilling and believable, and there is no doubt that the first-person narration of Lou Ford is decidedly warped. It’s also brilliant. Utterly brilliant.

A true story of gritty noir, Thompson’s honest and darkly charming style pulls you into the story and gets you to care about Lou Ford, even though you know things are going to get bad. And despite the fact that you know “the sickness” is coming, and that Lou is preparing to do some very bad things, you can’t help but want to read more.

But, let’s be clear, this isn’t a first-person narrated killer like Jeff Lindsay’s Dexter. Lou Ford’s not doing anything that’s justifiable or righteous in any way. And when the bad stuff happens, although you knew it was coming all along, it slams into you quicker than you think.

Lou’s actions are brutal and horrifying, yet you find yourself wanting to stay with him and keep following the story to find out where it leads. Because warped and wrong as what Lou does is, he’s a compelling and complex character that you can’t help but keep reading about.

Written in 1952, and adapted to film in 1976 and 2010, Jim Thompson’s novel still seems fresh and contemporary.

Highly Recommended.

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Review: Kind of Cruel by Sophie Hannah

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A superbly chilling and complex psychological thriller

“Amber Hewerdine knows more than she is telling. She knows that she hasn’t slept since the arson attack which killed her best friend. She knows that it is not normal for four members of your family to disappear one Christmas morning, and then reappear the next day, refusing to explain or ever speak of it again. And she knows that somewhere, buried deep in her subconscious, is the key to what happened all those years ago at Little Orchard.

Kind, cruel, kind of cruel.  These are the words she keeps coming back to. But what do they mean? Any why is she arrested within hours of first saying them, for the murder of a woman she has never met?”

An insomniac, Amber is struggling against her own body, and consults a Hypnotherapist to she if they can help. Instead of the relief she needs, the session unlocks memories that Amber has unknowingly pushed from her consciousness. These confusing and still unplaced memories start Amber on a quest to discover where they come from and why the Police believe she holds the key to an unsolved murder case.

As Amber tries to piece together a series of seemingly unconnected events, and consults the Hypnotherapist for further sessions, things become murkier rather than clearer, and the demons in her past threaten to overwhelm her.

For me, Amber wasn’t a character I instantly liked, but the situation she found herself in, and how she reacted, made her highly intriguing.

As the story progressed, and I found out more about Amber: how she’d taken in her best friends young children after her death, how she always felt in the shadow of her perfect sister-in-law, and how she decided to help DC Simon Waterhouse solve the case, she became someone I really wanted to root for.

I’m a big fan of Sophie Hannah’s brand of complex psychological thrillers, and this story didn’t disappoint. It has a wealth of interwoven connections challenging the reader to solve them.

Kind of Cruel is a chilling and unsettling tale of how unseen pressures and secrets within a family can distort and twist the everyday into the chilling. A shocking glimpse behind the mask of a seemingly ‘perfect’ family, and as much of a ‘why done it’ as a ‘who done it’.

Highly Recommended.

 

 

 

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Writing Prompts: “A Great Place for Murder”

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English: The Old Land Port

English: The Old Land Port (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The other week, along with several of my writing friends from The Nomad Novelist Writers Group, I joined a walking tour of Dickens’ Portsmouth.  It was a fabulous tour, fill of great little insights into the life and world of Dickens.  But the thing I got most from the tour was the opportunity to have a good look around Portsmouth’s nooks and crannies.

A fellow writer had set his recently completed dark thriller in the city.  I was a beta reader of his first draft, and as we walked he gleefully pointed out all the locations that had featured in the novel.

As we neared the end of the tour we came across the Landport Gate. At this point I turned and said, ‘Wow, wouldn’t this make a great place for a murder.’  He agreed.  And as we were discussing how it might happen, we noticed the other people on the tour (non writers) quickly moving away from us.

Perhaps we should have explained we were plotting for a book!

What places have inspired your writing?

 

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Review: Talking to the Dead by Harry Bingham

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A quirky, dynamic and utterly unique detective novel

“For Detective Constable Fiona Griffiths, her first murder is a case of jumping in at the deep end – a woman and her six-year-old daughter killed with chilling brutality in a dingy flat.  The only clue: the platinum bank card of a long-dead tycoon, found amidst the squalor – and the rookie DC’s task is to figure out why.

Her boss, DCI Jackson, is confident Fiona is worth her place on the team.  She’s already proved herself whip-smart, resourceful and dedicated to the job.  But there’s another side to her that Fiona is less keen to reveal.  Something to do with a mysterious two-year gap in her CV.  With her strange inability to cry. And a disconcerting familiarity with corpses.

Fiona is desperate to put the past behind her.  But as more gruesome killings follow, the case starts leading her inexorably back into those dark places in her own mind where another dead girl is waiting to be found.  Herself.”

This book is different to any other detective novel I’ve read.  In a good way.  In a very good way.

Fiona Griffiths is a dynamic, smart and highly resourceful DC.  With the story told from her viewpoint, we get a highly personal view of the hunt for the truth about what happened to Janet and April Mancini.  As an early-career DC, Fiona has to fight for her place on the team investigating the murders, and fight (and win) she does.

Whilst Fiona, due to her past, is a rather troubled character, she’s also refreshingly up-beat and energetic to be around.  A bit of a maverick, she often ‘goes the extra mile’ (read: not necessarily following procedure), usually to the irritation of her DCI.  But even while I was cringing, hoping she didn’t get caught doing something ‘off the book’, I couldn’t help admire her for her determination and resolve.  Because for Fiona finding out the truth, and unravelling a mass of seemingly unrelated clues, is critical.

And it’s that drive to find the truth that, as she gets closer, begins to threaten both her safety and her sanity.  As the body-count increases, Fiona stays focused despite the rising danger, and equips herself with the tools she needs to feel in control – even if they’re not exactly standard police issue!

This is a story, and a character, that’ll stay with you long after the book is finished.  Intriguing, terrifying and quirkily fun, this novel will make you miss the train, be late for work, and want to stay in to read a few more chapters rather than party.  And it’ll be worth it.

Highly recommended.

Book Review: Speak No Evil by Martyn Waites

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A rapid-paced noir crime thriller with twists and turns a-plenty

“Anne Marie Smeaton is back in the hometown she hasn’t seen for forty years, trying to live a normal life with her partner and teenage son.  But that’s impossible for Anne Marie.  Because forty years ago, when she was eleven years old, she did something unspeakable.  Something so horrifying that society has shunned her ever since.

She’s trying to make peace with her past by telling her story to journalist Joe Donovan.  But it’s not that simple.  By dredging up memories she usually keeps repressed, Anne Marie is unleashing old nightmares from the past.  Suffering from horrifying visions, she sometimes does bad things.  Things she has no memory of afterwards.

So when a teenager on her housing estate is murdered and she wakes up with blood on her hands, Anne Marie naturally fears the worst. Desperate, she turns to Donovan for help.  But Joe Donovan might have his own reasons for getting involved.  Reasons which have to do with the disappearance of his son …”

This is a hard-hitting, noir thriller centred around the murder of a child by a child.  It gradually peels back the surface layers of a community, and exposes a more sinister underbelly lurking just beneath the surface.

I found the multiple plotlines within the story highly intriguing: What did Anne Marie do when she was eleven years old, and why did she do it? Where is Donovan’s son, and can he get him back?  What’s the secret that Donovan’s daughter is hiding? Who is responsible for the murders?

Waites uses multiple point-of-views to tell the story, giving the reader a unique perspective on the present day events, and the history that came before them.  From Donovan and his team we see the private investigation, and through Donovan himself the emotional and personal impact of his son’s abduction. While from Anne Marie we discover the situation that drove her to do what she did (and how it still haunts her). The kids on the housing estate show us how life is for them, the unspoken hierarchies of the block and how sometimes life is regarded so cheaply. Then from news-writer Tess Preston we what a big story means to her, and how she’d do anything to get her big break.

Each character feels alarmingly real, and as the story twists and turns towards conclusion we see how each element (and character) links together, like an intricately created web.

An emotive, rapid paced, rollercoaster of a story it grabbed my attention and had me hooked from the very beginning.  Dark, gritty and utterly believable, I devoured this book over a weekend.

Highly recommended.

Writing Prompts: Stalker-ish Lyrics

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English: Nancy Wilson of the American rock ban...

English: Nancy Wilson of the American rock band Heart (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

As I drove home from work yesterday, the song ‘Alone Again’ sung by Alyssa Reid featuring P. Reign came on the radio.

I loved the rockalicious version by Heart in 1987. I was in my early teens, and that song was the perfect accompaniment for all my teenage angst!

But last night, as I sang along (don’t tell anyone!), I realised just how stalker-ish those lyrics can sound.

To me, as a budding crime thriller writer, the line:  How will I get you Alone? sounds like a fantastic prompt for a whole lot of story.  How there’s an idea …

What lyrics inspire you to write?

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