Back where it all began

Yesterday I made the three and a half hour round trip to Boroughbridge in North Yorkshire. Quite a long way to go for a lunch (and if the traffic is bad, it can be a five-hour plus trip) but definitely worth while. For this was the autumn lunch of the Northern Chapter of the Crime Writers’ Association, and the venue was the Crown Hotel, where I attended the Chapter’s inaugural lunch, more than twenty years ago.

At that time, I didn’t know any crime writers, but I was immediately made to feel at home by the convenor Peter Walker, who was there again yesterday. Peter is best known these days as author of the books on which the massively successful TV series ‘Heartbeat’ is based. He was one of three people at the lunch who have chaired the CWA – Lesley Horton and Margaret Murphy being the others.

Among those attending that inaugural lunch were Peter and Margaret Lewis, two academics who have written successful non-fiction books about the genre, as well as some good fiction. They have also set up that much-acclaimed small press, Flambard Press, publisher of Dancing for the Hangman. The three of us dined at the same table, accompanied (among others) by Roger and Jean from Cornwell Internet, who are responsible for the CWA’s website, and those of many leading crime writers.

There is always a ‘feelgood’ factor about these lunches, and this continues with Roger Forsdyke as convenor in succession to Peter Walker. Roger has just published a novel which benefits from his many years of experience in the police. There was an excellent turn-out of 37 people, a sure sign, as Roger said, that the Northern Chapter is the best supported of all the regional branches of the CWA. I enjoyed meeting up with friends old and new (the latter group includes Frances Brody and the historical novelist Karen Maitland). And on the drive back home, I reflected on how very glad I am that I accepted Peter’s original invitation to the Crown, all those years ago.

Ngaio Marsh

Ngaio Marsh was one of the great names of the Golden Age of detective fiction, but I I’ve seldom if ever mentioned her in this blog. The omission isn’t due to disregard. In my teens, I read quite a few of her books, but although I thought her a smooth writer, the plots didn’t match up to those of Christie or Sayers, and before long I focused my attention on more contemporary writers, such as Michael Gilbert and Julian Symons.

But every now and then I’ve dabbled in Marsh. For instance, I watched one or two of the Inspector Alleyn mysteries on television, and I recently treated myself to the box set (when I’ll ever find time to watch all the episodes is a conundrum I haven’t solved as yet.) And I very much enjoyed Margaret Lewis’s biography of Ngaio. It’s a substantial work, tirelessly researched, by an academic with a huge love of detective fiction. In fact, Margaret, along with her husband Peter, preside over Flambard Press, an excellent small press who brought out Dancing for the Hangman late last year.

Margaret also helped me to include a short article by Ngaio which I featured in a collection of Northern crime writing called Northern Blood. How I managed to justify including something by a New Zealander in a book focusing on the North of England is another story!

I’ve now obtained a copy of Ngaio Marsh: the woman and her work. This is a collection of essays edited by B.J.Rahn – who, is, like Margaret, an academic whose passion for the genre is matched by her knowledge and understanding of it. The contributors include Margaret, Julian Symons, Catherine Aird, Harry Keating and Doug Greene. I’m looking forward to reading it.

North by North East

I’m just back from a fascinating trip to the North East of England. All too brief, but restorative (at least, once I’d had an extensive lie-in this morning!) Among other things, there was the chance to meet up with Peter and Margaret Lewis, of Flambard Press, publishers of Dancing for the Hangman. We had coffee and scones together on Friday morning at the home of our mutual friends Ann and Tim Cleeves, in Whitley Bay. Great to see all of them again.

The previous evening, I’d staged the Victorian mystery event at Stockton-on-Tees. Claire Pratt and her colleagues really did me proud. I’ve never been to Stockton before, and I have to say that its traffic system and gyratory provided a mystery more challenging than anything Agatha Christie ever devised. But Claire talked me through it on the phone and I was delighted to meet her at last – we’ve been trying to organise the trip for a couple of years. The wait was well worth while as far as I was concerned.

The next day, a trip by Metro from Whitley Bay took me to the sparkling new city library in the centre of Newcastle, and another big audience for ‘Who Killed George Hargrave?’ Sheila Naughton told me that Val McDermid appeared at the library a fortnight ago, and Lee Child is due there shortly, but this was their first interactive mystery event. A fabulous place, and it would be good to think that other cities model their library plans on Newcastle’s stunning achievement.

In Prison

At the CWA annual conference in Lincoln, we had a reception on the Saturday evening, before dinner, at the Victorian prison in Lincoln Castle. This was a fascinating place, and we had a chance to look around the condemned cell and elsewhere, nerves appropriately steadied by a glass of wine paid for by the admirable Flambard Press.

Here are a few photos, but I’d like to draw your attention in particular to the prison chapel. This is the only surviving example in Britain of a chapel where the ‘separate system’ was operated. In the mid 19th century, there was a vogue for keeping prisoners completely isolated. They were denied all contact with each other, using solitary cells, a rule of silence – and hoods.

The pews in the chapel were specially designed so that the prisoners could only see the chaplain in his pulpit. Each prisoner stood, or sat, in a wooden compartment which was locked before another prisoner was admitted. Condemned criminals sat at the back, women at the front and debtors to the side. Sitting was actually not easy, since the ‘seats’ were slanted rather than straight – anything to deny comfort, I suppose (and anyone unwise enough to fall asleep mid-sermon would slide on to the stony floor...)

Even in those days, it was recognised before long that this was an utterly inhumane way of dealing with people, and the ‘separate system’ was abandoned. But seeing it was a reminder that being ‘tough on crime’ means very different things to different people at different times.

Winged With Death

I first met John Baker through the Northern Chapter of the Crime
Writers' Association, and he and I were later invited by Margaret Murphy
to form the seven-strong collective of northern crime writers called
Murder Squad. I was in on John's crime writing career
from the outset, when I read and enjoyed his first book, Poet in the Gutter, introducing Sam Turner

John has become a noted blogger, but it's been some time since he last published a novel. Now, he's back with something rather different, a notable novel published by
Flambard Press and called Winged with Death. We talked though cyberspace: here's the conversation - which continues tomorow.

Martin: I'm not sure you would describe Winged with Death as a crime
novel, though I tend to think the genre is elastic enough to accommodate
it. Not that it matters - the important point is that it's a really good
book. And very different from those of your other books that I've read.
Was it a deliberate choice to write 'something completely different'?


John: I don't think Winged with Death is a crime novel. There is a crime
in it, probably several, but it isn't a crime novel because it makes no
nods to the conventions of the genre. One of the inspirations for the
novel came from looking at the works of people like JB Priestley and HG
Wells, Orwell as well, those writers who were concerned with the nature
of time. The initial idea was to write a novel about time and it was
that that gave me the impetus to internalise the process, to take it to
bed with me and to begin mulling over the ways that I might approach it,
consciously and sub consciously. Many of the elements of the novel first
came to me in dreams, the location for instance, and the idea of using
the narrative like a dance, moving the reader this way and that, setting
her spinning for a while and then bringing her to a kind of stasis. I
use the word dance with some insight, meaning its ability to communicate
rather than manipulate.

I was also determined to write a novel in the first-person. All of my
previous novels were written in the third person (one partially in the
second-person) and, as a writer, I needed to come to grips with a
first-person narrative for my own satisfaction.
So the answer to your question is yes. Winged with Death is something
completely different to anything I have attempted before, and it was
always going to be that.

Martin; You'd probably agree that we are very different writers (in
fact, you may be very glad about that!) Yet I like to think that there
are some points of similarity between us. One is that our latest books
represent a significant departure from our previous work - although
writing up the life of Dr Crippen is a temporary departure from
contemporary crime in my case. Winged with Death, like Dancing for the
Hangman, is published by Flambard. How did you find the experience of
working with a smaller publisher after years with Orion?


John: I only ever had one good editor at Orion, and that was Mike Petty,
so it was good to work again with someone who actually liked my work. My
later editors at Orion were people who inherited me and we didn't work
together over a project for which we shared a passion. We worked around
something which actually divided us rather than united us, and I was
asked more than once if I could write like (this months popular author)
or (the current projection for next year's breakthrough darling).
I suppose there must be people who are prepared to prostitute themselves
in this way; but it was never going to be a possibility for me.
Working with Flambard was good because the general attitude was 'how can
we make a good manuscript better', and that is something I've always been
happy to go along with.

Continues tomorrow....

Dancing again

Over the years, a number of my books have been reprinted. It’s quite a morale boost when this happens, so when Flambard Press told me that Dancing for the Hangman was to be reprinted, I was delighted. Then came the news that the printers had gone bust, victims of the economic meltdown. Aaaaagh!

Happily, another firm has now printed the book, and I finally received my copy of the reprint yesterday. And this gives me an excuse – or at least, all the excuse I need –to reproduce the basic artwork used for the cover (though my lack of know-how prevents me re-sizing it adequately...)

Rightly or wrongly, covers matter to a book. I’ve been fascinated in recent times to see how many cover images are actually used on several different crime novels. A number have been featured on those excellent blogs The Rap Sheet and Eurocrime, and I’ve been amazed that publishers of best-selling writers have shown such a lack of originality. (Incidentally, Jeff Kingston Pierce of The Rap Sheet has another blog called Killer Covers which is packed with interesting info and images on the subject of covers.)

For Dancing with the Hangman, Flambard chose an image marketed by an outfit called Art Evolution. It is ‘Sand Ridge’, by Harry Hall. The first time I saw it, I was mystified. No Edwardian gaslights!! I really wasn’t too impressed. But the more I have looked at the image, the more it has grown on me. Quite insidious. In the end, I became so partial to it that I bought a framed print of the image, which Harry was kind enough to inscribe for me, and it now hangs on the wall at home.

Flambard News

My Murder Squad colleague John Baker wrote a number of warmly reviewed crime novels in the 90s, but in recent years he has become well-known as a leading blogger. I'm glad to say, though, that he's returned to novel-writing, and his new book, Winged with Death, is due to be published in March. More about this in due course.

John's book is published by Flambard Press, as is my latest, Dancing for the Hangman. Flambard have an interesting and eclectic list; they publish poetry, but also, on occasion, such prominent names in the crime fiction world as Val McDermid and H.R.F. Keating, and they are great to work with. I'm glad to say, too, that they have just let me know that Dancing for the Hangman is going into a reprint. Good news, which I find rather encouraging.