Harry Devlin and Eve of Destruction

It's a long time since I've talked about Harry Devlin on this blog. Harry was my first series character, a lawyer based in Liverpool, and he appeared in eight novels and a handful of short stories. I still get asked if I intend to write another book about Harry, and in a perfect world, I would love to. He's a character I really like, and I am sure there is more mileage in him. But it's not likely to happen in the near future, I'm afraid, because of other pressing projects.



However, I'm delighted that the Devlin chronicles continue to entertain readers, and they have been given a new lease of life by digital publishing and print on demand (two of them were also reprinted as Arcturus Crime Classics a few years ago). But there's been a frustrating gap in the list. There hasn't been a readily available ebook version of the fifth book in the series, Eve of Destruction. The reason for this is to do with complications about the rights. It's all been rather annoying and I've had plenty of emails from readers who have been kind enough to urge me to sort things out.

The good news is that, at long last, this has happened. I'm delighted to say that the novel is now available on Amazon UK, and it will soon be available additionally as a print on demand paperback and in a new hardback format. I'm so pleased about this.

What of the book itself? It was written at a time when I was increasingly keen to introduce Golden Age elements into the series (not that the critics noticed; times were different then....) So, for instance there is a "dying message clue" in the Ellery Queen tradition. The storyline involves a mystery about matrimonial entanglements and mysterious phone messages, and it's a book I really enjoyed writing.  I hope that those who have been patient enough to wait for it to reappear will approve...

It's Always Handy to Have Another Hat - Paul Charles on the Writing Life

Pursuing this blog's interest in the writing life, I'm delighted to host a guest blog from Paul Charles, author of the Christy Kennedy series and a number of other highly enjoyable novels. His theme is one familiar to many writers - that of combining another job with that of authorship. It's not always easy, but the question of how to strike the right balance is, I think, of real interest. Over to you, Paul:

"Recently I bumped into a mate of mine, Martin Edwards, in the USA. Martin’s from Liverpool and I’m an Ulsterman currently exiled in London and our paths crossed in Bethesda, MD, USA at the annual Malice Domestic Crime Writers convention. Martin was on his award-collecting tour and I was out promoting my latest Inspector Starrett mystery, St Ernan’s Blues. It’s always great to see Martin but it’s somehow different when you meet up with a mate by accident on foreign soil. I suppose it’s due to the fact that the time and the connection are more precious or something. Anyway we ensured we’d time for a quick lunch and a catch up chat.

Apart from being crime writers the other thing we share (as Martin reminded me) is that we both have twin careers. He’s a successful solicitor and I’m very fortunate to be an agent in the music business. As Martin pointed out in a recent blog, the other hat we wear has certainly helped us both in various ways with our crime-writing careers.

Also having another “job,” as it were, certainly helps me in my writing in that it permits me to move amongst people unnoticed, while allowing me to observe people in their normal environment to my heart’s content. I’ve always felt that being a celebrity writer must compromise writers somewhat. I suppose what I’m trying to say is that when such a writer enters a room, it’s a bit like a TV camera entering a room. Everyone is very conscious there is a camera – or a famous writer - present and so, without even knowing it, they put on a face, even an accent sometime, and you lose the sense of the real them, of their spirit.  I enjoy nothing more than sitting in a restaurant, or a hotel lobby, or an airport terminal, drinking in the rich cast of characters and dialogue and, when I’m not close enough to overhear their conversations, trying to imagine, from their body language, what they are saying.

One of my favourite such scenes was one Saturday morning I was sitting in a Helsinki hotel lobby, minding my own (and other people’s) business when a group of glamorous and giggly septuagenarian ladies congregated on the nearby sofas. They were all dressed in various pastoral colours, with pumps (gutties rather than trainers) and bobby socks. With their energy, enthusiasm, obvious love of life, not to mention, their air of devilment it would have been very easy to have mistaken them for a bunch of teenagers were it not for the 70 years of Finnish weather they’d endured. I obviously hadn’t a clue what they were talking about but (even without subtitles) it was one of the most enjoyable foreign “movies” I’ve ever seen.

Another enjoyable hotel scene I recall is a Liverpool one. I was in Liverpool for an Elvis Costello concert and staying at the very famous and still extremely elegant Adelphi Hotel. I spent a few hours drinking endless cups of tea (I’ll also confess to eating a few scones) while these wonderful scenarios unfolded before me.  I used some of those scenes pretty much as they happened in The First of The True Believers – my Beatle themed novel.  

The Adelphi is also a hotel I imagine Harry Devlin infrequently visiting. Harry Devlin is one of Martin Edwards’ great characters – coincidently Harry is also a Liverpool solicitor. I’ve always been a big fan of the Harry Devlin series and was very happy to hear over my lunch with Martin that it may not be as long as I first feared until Mr Devlin makes a return. I’ve always felt the Harry Devlin series of books are perfect for the small screen and I’m hoping that the next time Martin and I bump into each other again on foreign soil we’ll be discussing, over our lunch, the success of Harry Devlin on TV.."

Appreciation

A group of my closest work colleagues took me out for dinner the other evening. It was a generous gesture, marking my decision to cut back considerably on my working week, in order to spend more time wriitng. They regaled me with witty anecdotes from our shared past, and I felt very glad, as well as touched, that they had enjoyed working together over the years,.

One question they asked was how I felt about being reviewed, and in particular about negative reviews. My feeling on this has always been that anyone who publishes a book has to be prepared for the inevitability that some people won't like it. It's also inevitable that, sooner or later, you will have the misfortune to come across a critic whose motives are questionable. No writer enjoys bad reviews, but as long as a review is written in good faith, and is fair-minded (so the reviewer should, I think, strive to blend criticisms with proper recogntion of postive aspects of the book), there's no point in being upset. Criticism that is constructive, whether from an agent, editor or reviewer, is valuable, and I've certainly tried to improve over the years by listening to people whose judgment I trust. Equally, theres no point in being distracted by the opinions of those with an axe to grind. If there is an advantage to not being a best-seller, perhaps it is that people with axes to grind tend to focus their attention on the big names!

All the same, it's always pleasing to read some unexpected enthusiastic comment about one's work. Through lack of time, I don't spend as long checking out the various excellent book blogs as I'd like to, but I've just come across a post by Puzzle Doctor which made my day. Is Yesterday's Papers in particular, and  the Harry Devlin series in general, under-appreciated? Of course, I'm tempted to think so, just as I like to think that their increased availability, thanks to the arrival of ebooks, will help in time to remedy that..And I must say these appreciative words about books I wrote, for the most part, in the early days of my career as a novelist, truly gratifying..

A New Life for Take My Breath Away

Take My Breath Away is a novel of psychological suspense that means a great deal to me, and I'm delighted that at long last, it's beginning a new life as an ebook, published by Allison & Busby. This was the novel that brought me to A&B, when David Shelley, the then editor, took a shine to my work. It was after this stand-alone book appeared that David suggested I write a new series with a rural setting. The result was the Lake District Mysteries, so I'll always be grateful to him. And he's now the editor of a promising writer called J.K. Rowling, so I hope he does as much for her career!!

The background to Take My Breath Away is that, after seven Harry Devlin novels, I was ready for a change, and to stretch my writing in a fresh direction. I wasn't (and still am not) fed up with Harry - I'd love to continue writing about him in the future, no question. But I had an idea for a one-off book that really excited me, and I was desperate to write it up.

I knew that executing the story idea would be a challenge, because of its unusual and ambitious nature, but I didn't realise quite how much of a challenge it would prove to be. The book was harder to get right than any other that I've produced, and it went through many revisions, and much cutting. David was keen that I make the story crisper and more accessible, and though this took time to achieve, I am sure his editorial advice was spot on.

The novel is set in London, and I still think the tantalising opening scenes are among the best I've written. Two storylines gradually converge, and there's a sub-text that (to my surprise) few reviewers spotted, though I was, and am, pleased with it. I hoped that this would be my "breakthrough" novel, but it wasn't to be. Reviews were very good, but sales weren't as high as for the Harry Devlin books, and certainly far below those for my Lake District Mysteries. I must admit I was disappointed, because I feel that it's at least as good as my series novels, and despite the many differences, it does have a whodunit aspect.

To this day, I remain proud of the book, and I like to think it has aged well. And you never know - perhaps its time has finally come, and lots of ebook fans will take it to their hearts! I'd love it if that happened. Take My Breath Away is certainly different from my other novels, and if any of you do give it a go, I hope you'll find it a satisfying and intriguing read.

Yesterday's Papers Once More

This week sees the publication of Yesterday's Papers, my fourth Harry Devlin novel, as an Arcturus Crime Classic, not quite twenty years after its first appearance. Unusually, the book has been published by three different publishers as a mass market paperback over the years (there is also an ebook version with a wonderful intro by Peter Lovesey, as well as a paperback print on demand version.) Originally the publisher was Bantam. Later, when I moved publishers to Hodder, they reprinted the earlier titles including this one. It's also, in a way, a "cold case" story that anticipates elements of my Lake District Mysteries.

I'm especially gratified because this is a book for which I've always had a soft spot. If pushed, I'd say it's probably my personal favourite among the Devlin titles. I'm not one of those authors who disowns his earlier books, or feels unduly embarrassed about them - even though I'm the first to admit that I'd write them differently (in some respects) if I were writing them today. I must say that it's rare for me to re-read my earlier work, though I do have to do so occasionally (for instance, when checking proofs of new versions or checking facts for an article.) But the early books provide, in some ways, a snapshot of ideas and issues that were interesting me or concerning me at the time I wrote them. That's true of most novels, of course, and it's one of the reasons I find it so fascinating to investigate books of the past. They cast a light on the times when they were written, even if the author didn't intend to do so.

The story of my career as a writer is illustrated (or so I might think in darker moments0 by the story of Yesterday's Papers. I felt it was the most successful book I'd written to date, with lots of twists and quite a bit of humour, as well as a glance at the era of the Mersey Sound in Liverpool during the Sixties. Bantam had tried to promote me by pricing the books very competitively. But it didn't result in mega-sales, and a complication was that I had a separate hardback publisher, Piatkus. Yesterday's Papers, however, earned numerous glowing reviews in Britain and elsewhere, and was even one of only a couple or so of crime novels featured in The Sunday Times Paperbacks of the Year. I dreamed that this would boost sales - only to be told that Bantam had already decided not to publish me any more. A shame, because they are a top publisher, and I had a really nice editor, Francesca Liversidge. But these things happen in a writer's career, and one of the most corrosive emotions is self-pity. Frustrating as the writing life can be, it's also a great life. You have to get on and make the most of it. And before long, as I say, another good publisher, Hodder, and an excellent editor, Kate Lyall Grant, came along..

Against this background, the revival of Yesterday's Papers is really rather a Christmas treat for me. I still think the plot-lines are among the best I've managed to come up with. And I'm hoping that a new group of readers will enjoy discovering Harry Devlin, and will be entertained by a story that reaches back to a time when the songs of Liverpool were being sung the world over.

Murder, magic and music

Most readers of this blog are, I think, fans of independent bookshops, and I had a great time last Thursday evening visiting Formby Books, a newish venture set up by Tony, a very good and experienced bookseller. It really was as varied and enjoyable a bookshop event as I’ve participated in.

Formby is a very pleasing place, located between Liverpool and Southport, but with a distinct identity. The shop shares premises with a florist’s, and there is a cafe (a very good idea!). Tony had arranged wine and nibbles, but none of us expected a turnout of 60 on a chilly evening. A very gratifying response from the local community.

There was a magician, John Harding, who works sometimes for Manchester United (actually, Man City are in need of magic more at present, I'm sorry to say), and a glamorous singer, Vicky Abban, who amazingly turned out to be Tony’s deputy manager (should Marc Amos recruit a singing assistant, I wonder?). John did up-close tricks which engaged the audience greatly, while Vicky chose numbers with a crime/thriller link (but I should have requested my favourite Bond theme, “We Have All the Time in the World” – I’m sure she’d have done that brilliant John Barry-Hal David song really well.)

Then I shared the platform with my old chum Kate Ellis, who was launching her new book, The Cadaver Game. The event coincided very happily with publication of All the Lonely People as an Arcturus Crime Classic, and I’m really excited to see readers buying Harry Devlin’s first adventure 20 years after he first prowled the mean streets of Merseyside. In fact, the book sold out on the night, and various customers placed orders.

The audience included two more old friends, the delightful Liverpool romance writer June Francis, and the versatile sometime crime writer Ron Ellis. It was also good to meet a wide range of other mystery fans – including the moving spirit behind that very good blog In Search of the Classic Mystery Novel, Puzzle Doctor. All too soon the evening was over, but I hope its success will be the start of many good things for Tony and his team.

20 Years on

Can it really be true? It is now twenty years since the publication of my first novel. Quite an astonishing thought – especially for someone who still learning his craft and determined to keep improving as a writer! But it is a fact.

All the Lonely People was the first Harry Devlin novel. Harry is a Liverpool lawyer who still carries a torch for the wife who left him to move in with local villain. When she returns unexpectedly to his flat on the waterfront, he can't help hoping that they can start again. But shortly afterwards, she is found murdered, and Harry is the prime suspect. He needs to clear his name, but is also desperate to see the real culprit found, and justice done.

The book was published at a very busy and exciting time in my life. Our first child – who later designed this very blog! – was only a few months old, and I was also heavily involved in work as a partner in my firm, as well as writing legal books and articles. But to have a novel published was something special, even so – it was the fulfilment of a dream I'd had since I was a small child.

The book was successful. Reviews were great, Transworld bought the paperback rights and the book was one of seven nominated for the John Creasey Memorial Dagger for best debut crime novel. Before long there was a TV deal, although nothing came of it.

But things like television, awards and reviews are outside the control of an author. All that a writer can do is write to the very best of his or her ability. I was very keen, having made the leap to published status, to keep going – and so, by the time the first book appeared, its successor, Suspicious Minds, was already written.

I wrote seven books about Harry Devlin before moving on to other things, but he's a character I've always liked and enjoyed writing about. So it was a real pleasure to re-introduce him three years ago in Waterloo Sunset. A couple of years back, All the Lonely People was published in the US for the very first time, much to my delight.

Over the past 20 years, I've been lucky enough to see the appearance of a number of editions of the Harry Devlin books, but the first seven have been out of print in the UK for quite some time. This strikes me as a pity, because, despite the passage of time, I like to think that the books hold up very well.

So I'm pleased to say that discussions are now taking place which may lead to the production of e-book versions of the early Harry Devlin books, perhaps with a number of brand-new "special features". I'm not yet sure this will happen, but I do hope so, as I would love to introduce Harry to a new generation of readers.

But in the meantime, I'm happy to look back on the last 20 years and reflect on how fortunate I've been to do something I love, and even get paid for it, for so long. Now I'm looking forward to the years ahead!

My first bad review

I'm glad my post about reviews on Wednesday attracted quite a lot of interest. As a reviewer, as well as a writer, I'm all too well aware of the sensitivities of the subject - and its importance to those concerned.

I thought I'd tell you the story of my first bad review, back in 1991. Of course, I was excited by the appearance of my first book, All the Lonely People. It featured a Liverpool lawyer, Harry Devlin, and was the first in a series of (so far!) eight books.

The early reviews were great. Then I read one in a magazine for law students. It began well, by immediately comparing my book to Raymond Chandler. I was pleased, though surprised, as it really bore no resemblance to the work of the great private eye writer.

Then, as I read on, it emerged that the reviewer really didn't like Raymond Chandler. Nor did she like poor old Harry. And she didn't like my book, either. Indeed, she went on to make it clear she didn't have any time for crime fiction in any shape or form.

I remain unclear as to why she bothered to write the review, but I do know the magazine soon became defunct and of course I really didn't mourn it! Anyway, my book was later shortlisted for the award for best crime debut of the year. So perhaps, whatever its faults, it wasn't too terrible after all.

But the incident has stayed with me as an encouraging example of why one shouldn't get too despondent about reviews, however unkind or indeed unfair. And there is one golden rule, I think, for authors. It's a mistake to argue with reviewers who don't like your book. You have to chalk it up to experience. Not a happy experience, sure, and like any other writer, I love having my books positively reviewed. But there are much worse things in life than bad reviews. Besides, just occasionally, a bad review says more about the reviewer than about the book.

Where to begin a series?

When reading a series of crime novels, is it necessary to begin at the beginning? In the past, it hardly mattered. Poirot and Sherlock Holmes don’t exactly ‘grow’ as characters. Nor, really, do Father Brown or Gideon Fell or Jane Marple. But Lord Peter Wimsey did develop, in the books featuring Harriet Vane, and Dorothy L. Sayers set the trend for treating detectives as people who would change over time, almost (if not quite) in the way that people do in real life.

Now, it is common for detectives’ lives to change as the series goes on. In fact, many readers love this aspect of a crime series – I do myself. But it raises the question – should one read the stories in the chronological order in which they were written? And to complicate matters, some authors write ‘prequels’.

I have read many crime series, but very few have I read in the order in which they were written. An exception is Ann Cleeves’ books about Jimmy Perez, the Shetland Quartet. And that is a series where, in my opinion (but for reasons I won’t explain – no spoilers here!) it is best to read them in order. Often, though, this is a luxury which a reader does not have. What if the early books are out of print (like my early Harry Devlin books), for instance?

As a rule of thumb, I am relaxed about reading a series out of order, and I think most readers should be. But the author’s side of the bargain is that it’s important to bear new readers in mind even when one is writing, say, book six in a series – one needs to sketch in the backstory, but with great economy, so that spoilers are avoided, and long-time readers do not become bored by repetition.

Penalty

I did wonder about making this blog a football free zone for the duration of the World Cup. The hype about the tournament is predictably excessive, and a low point was reached on Saturday, I thought, when both Sky News and BBC News led with the ‘breaking news’ that the England team’s coach had arrived at the stadium before the match. As my wife wearily pointed out, it would have been more newsworthy if they’d decided not to turn up (and poor Rob Green probably wishes he hadn’t...)

However, the fact is that I grew up in a football household, and although I was a hopeless player, I’m still very keen on the game – my Dad’s life revolved around it, and as a result, so did mine and my mother’s. One book I am truly proud of is the 400 page history of the local club, Northwich Victoria, that he wrote over the last ten years of his life. Happily, it was published to considerable acclaim shortly before he died, and that gave him enormous, and well deserved, satisfaction. Quite an achievement for a man who left school at the age of 14.

After he died, I wrote a short story in his memory which has been published a couple of times. It was called ‘Penalty’, and the story centres around an old football ground, not dissimilar from the Drill Field in Northwich, which my father discovered was the oldest ground on which senior football had been played continuously, anywhere in the world. Football is a sport replete in tradition, and the story draws on the history of the game. I think it is sad that, a few years ago, the Drill Field was sold off and houses were built upon it. A piece of sporting heritage, lost forever.

Football has featured in some of my other stories, notably a Harry Devlin mystery called ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’, which involved dark doings in the Liverpool football world. Several crime novels have had football themes or elements, but not many strike me as truly satisfactory. My first crime novel, Dead Shot, was no masterpiece either, and I was sensible enough never to try to get it published. I’m not sure if anyone has produced a mystery with a World Cup setting. If not, it may just be that the current tournament will inspire someone to write one...

When Should a Series End?

One of the fascinations about the fast-paced conversations that blogging and social networks facilitate is that a single contribution to debate can create a fresh and intriguing direction for the discussion. The way in which these cyberspace conversations mimic, yet differ from, spoken conversations would be a good field for research.

But today my focus is on a thought-provoking comment made on this blog by Paul Beech in relation to detective series. He asked: when should a series end? Let me quote directly from him:

‘The author running out of steam or simply fancying a change doesn’t quite justify a “never again” ending with a popular character, surely? After all the author might discover a fresh head of steam after a break. But what if the series was conceived thematically as a cycle and this is now complete? Or if the character’s personal goal is achieved – a relationship (Daniel Kind / Hannah Scarlett), reconciliation with a daughter (John Harvey’s Frank Elder), etc. Is it then time, regretfully perhaps, to move on?’

Series can come to an end, or an apparent end, in a variety of ways. Conan Doyle decided to dispose of Sherlock Holmes because he became frustrated that detective stories were getting in the way of his other activities – but, of course, public pressure forced him into a re-think. Nicolas Freeling, presumably bored with his finest creation, killed off Van Der Valk, but then had the detective’s widow investigate subsequent cases.

More commonly, an author decides upon a change of direction, but prudently avoids killing off the detective – just in case. It's still relatively uncommon for series to be conceived thematically as a cycle, although as Paul says, it does happen. Increasingly in the money- and sales-driven business climate of the modern publishing world, the decision is taken out of the author’s hands when the publishers simply decree that they will not produce any more books featuring a particular detective. If the author is lucky, the publisher will accept further books with a different set-up. But often, nowadays, the author is cut adrift. I can think of several friends who have suffered this fate, and it is a great shame.

Oddly, an unsuccessful television series can so disappoint a writer that they are reluctant to write about the character again – the protagonist has, in a sense, been ‘spoiled’ in their eyes. I can think of two British writers, one male and one female, of whom this could be said.

Sometimes, it’s simply the case that the author’s focus switches, and the framework and characters he or she has created in the series do not accommodate a more ambitious approach. This is, you might say, the Dorothy L. Sayers conundrum. Lord Peter Wimsey began almost as a Bertie Wooster type of character, but became a much more serious and substantial figure in later books. Arguably, she might have created a major new series detective, but she preferred to stick with Wimsey. Likewise, Margery Allingham’s Albert Campion evolved quite remarkably as the years went by. Today, I think publishers would prefer their authors to make a fresh start.

In my own case, I wrote seven successive books featuring Harry Devlin, as well as a number of short stories. I then decided that I wanted a change, even though it would have been possible to take up a further contract offer. By the time I’d written a non-series book and was ready to return to Harry, my editor had moved on – and my new editor suggested a series with a rural setting. Hence The Coffin Trail and the beginning of the Lake District Mysteries.

However, I never lost my enthusiasm for Harry, and when Liverpool was European Capital of Culture in 2008, it provided the perfect opportunity to revive him in Waterloo Sunset. It was a book I really enjoyed writing, and I think it is possibly the best of all the Devlins. But commercially, there is not as much demand for that series as for the Lake District Mysteries, so it will (unfortunately) be some time before Harry returns. But I hope he will, one day.

As for Paul’s question about Hannah and Daniel getting together – we’ll just have to wait and see! But here's a hint: their developing relationship is the spine of the series, but I didn't conceive the series in cyclical terms. In my mind, it's very much open-ended. A journey without a particular end in sight....

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Merry Christmas!

Warmest wishes to anyone who takes a glance at this blog on this special day!

The answer to yesterday’s quiz question was indeed Ian Brown, formerly of the Stone Roses. It was through getting to know Ian that I decided to feature the Stone Roses’ 'I Wanna Be Adored' in the eighth and most recent Harry Devlin mystery, Waterloo Sunset, at a moment when Harry is rescued from a very tight spot.

Waterloo Sunset takes its name, of course, from a wonderful song by Ray Davies, who also first made his name as part of a group – the Kinks – but is now widely acknowledged as one of the finest of all British songwriters. There was a very good programme about him in the excellent ‘Songbook’ series on Christmas Eve, which featured the great man talking about the composition of ‘Waterloo Sunset’, as well as performing it splendidly in the studio. If you like Sixties music and you get the chance to see this programme, I can recommend it unreservedly. The insight Ray Davies gives into his craft is, despite his self-deprecating manner, utterly fascinating.

Time and the Detectives

Time management is an important consideration for authors of mystery series, even though we don’t always pay it enough attention when our series characters start out on their fictional journeys. I’m not talking here about time management in the sense of how does one find the time to write the books, but rather in the sense of connecting the chronology of the series to real time.

The classic illustration of the problem is the obituary of Hercule Poirot in The New York Times – ‘by conventional reckoning, Poirot must have been over 130 years old when he solved his last case’). Similarly, Ruth Rendell’s Inspector Wexford was already a senior cop when his first case was published in 1964. It’s sometimes said that authors should start out with young detectives – but ageism isn’t a great solution to the problem! We need and want senior sleuths to figure in series!

So what is an author to do? My own method – I don’t for a moment suggest it’s perfect, but it’s the best I can do – is to elide time somewhat. An example in the Harry Devlin series is the way I dealt with the passage of time between the events of First Cut is the Deepest, and those of Waterloo Sunset. I acknowledge very specifically the passage of time in Harry’s life, and in the redevelopment of Liverpool. But I reduced (in effect) the length of the interval between books. Harry was 32 when All the Lonely People was published; that was my age when I started writing the manuscript. Suffice to say that he’s aged much better than me.

So far, time pressures haven’t been acute in the Lake District Mysteries. But I am planning to deal with them in much the same way. This is fiction, after all. Of course, I’d be interested in the views of others on this tricky subject – it’s one where, I suspect, the right answer is that there is no right answer.

Dancing in the USA

This year has been rather strange in some ways, not least because I haven’t published a brand new novel. My last book came out just before the end of 2008, and The Serpent Pool will appear next February. But I have had some overseas publications to celebrate, and I’m pleased that Dancing for the Hangman will appear under the Five Star imprint on 9 December.

I know that I’m very fortunate, in the current climate, to have books published by two American publishers. While Poisoned Pen Press have done a fantastic job in bringing out, and publicisng, the Lake District Mysteries, and Waterloo Sunset, Five Star published the first two Harry Devlins as well as the new book about the misadventures of Dr Crippen.

The reviews of Dancing in the UK were great, and the first American review has just appeared, in advance of publication. Booklist calls it ‘a clever reappraisal of the case’ and concludes: ‘Alternately funny and unsettling, the book examines the historical record, filling in some of the gaps and offering up new answers for some of the case’s key questions. An excellent example of the nonfiction novel.’

You can never be sure how reviewers will react to a book, however much you care about it and believe in it. Dancing is very different from my other novels, but it is a book which I am particularly proud to have written, and so it’s all the more pleasing that the critical response has been so positive.

Bad Blood

The overlapping territory between stories with a sci-fi or paranormal element and crime fiction is one that interests me a good deal. I mentioned a while back the vampiric elements that I introduced into the seventh Harry Devlin novel, First Cut is the Deepest – although the murder mystery there had a solution based entirely in the rational world.

But sometimes stories about murder wander away from the established science and into realms of speculative fiction. An example is ‘Bad Blood’, an episode from ‘The X Files’ that I’ve just watched. It’s a story set mainly in a tiny community called Chaney, somewhere in Texas. Half a dozen cattle have been killed and exsanguinated, and when murder is done, Mulder and Scully are called in. But is there a vampire at work, or do the crimes have a different explanation?

Matters are complicated by the fact that we know from the start that Mulder has killed a young man, whom he thought was a vampire, and the events leading up to this are seen first through Scully’s eyes and then through Mulder’s. After the flashbacks, the story moves forward, and it becomes apparent that all in Chaney is not as it seems.

There are several elements in this story that have links with crime fiction – there are some neat clues, and one part of the plot reminded me of a book by Val McDermid. This is not, in the end, so much a crime story as an exercise in fantasy fiction. But it’s a pretty good story, cleverly told.

Researching Place

To what extent should writers research the settings for their books? Opinions vary – after all, Harry Keating famously never visited India until long after his series about Inspector Ghote had won widespread acclaim, not least in India. I gather that the recently deceased Lionel Davidson didn't visit Tibet before writing the Gold Dagger winning The Rose of Tibet. But I think most writers nowadays like to be pretty familiar with their settings, and that’s certainly true of me.

But how do you acquire that familiarity? Sometimes it’s easier said than done. Many years ago, at a crime convention, a member of the audience from Liverpool expressed the view that the fact I hadn’t been born in the city disqualified me from writing about it. Working there for 20 years wasn’t enough. I think the general reaction from the audience was that this was absurd, and in fairness the chap in question (whom I decided to talk to later) eventually seemed to realise this.

With the Lake District, the challenge is different. I’ve never lived or worked there, although I do visit the area as often as I can to try to soak up the atmosphere – and get the details right. But with the Lakes as well as with Liverpool, what I suppose I’m really aiming to do is to convey my personal take on the setting. There is bound to be a degree of subjectivity. I was, therefore, especially gratified last year when The Arsenic Labyrinth was short-listed for Lakeland Book of the Year - the reaction from local people at the Awards lunch to my portrayal of the Lakes was very positive. The same was true this year, when I did a short tour of the area as the guest of Cumbria Libraries.

And finally, though I’m writing about real places, I also make up some of the component parts of those places, partly because I don't want to libel anyone unintentionally (easily done in a murder story set in a real place) and partly because a writer needs a degree of freedom with his or her fiction. You won’t find Brackdale, where Daniel Kind lives, on any map, just as you won’t find Empire Dock in Liverpool, where Harry Devlin has his flat. Authenticity is very important, but with fiction, ultimately the facts have to suit the story.

Bram Stoker

I’ve never been a regular reader of vampire books or watcher of vampire films, but when I read Dracula for the first time about twelve years ago, I enjoyed it much more than I expected. The first half of the book in particular is very gripping. And, of course, it appealed to my sense of humour that the Count had a copy of The Law List in his library, and that the hero, Jonathan Harker, is a lawyer himself.

When I came to write the seventh Harry Devlin novel, First Cut is the Deepest, which involves the apparent serial killing of Liverpool lawyers, and the stalking of Harry himself, I used various quotes from Dracula and references to the story to give my tale further texture. It was a book I enjoyed writing, and it was well received at the time, so I am very sorry that it is currently not in print.

When I was in Oxford for the St Hilda’s week-end, I was sorry to see that Waterfield’s, a nice second hand bookshop on the High, is closing down. They were holding a book sale and I picked up several titles, including a shortish book about Stoker by Andrew Maunder.

I found it enjoyable and interesting. Stoker worked from time to time on the fringes of our genre, and he claimed a strong friendship with Arthur Conan Doyle. The Mystery of the Sea involves cryptography, and it’s a tad surprising that it’s so little known. And Stoker is one of those writers who has produced at least one completely unexpected title – Duties of the Clerks of Petty Sessions in Ireland. Bet that one never troubled the best-seller lists.

Dancing again

Dancing for the Hangman is due to be published in the United States towards the end of this year. I’ve just received this preview of the front cover, which seems good to me The publishers are Five Star, who have also published two of my Harry Devlin novels in the States (the Lake District Mysteries are published by Poisoned Pen Press.)

Dancing took quite a while to bring out, but I’m really pleased with the reaction to it in the UK. I’ve just received the latest issue of CADS – a magazine I’ll talk more about before long, because this issue is crammed with fascinating things, as usual – and although the main focus is on books of the past, there’s a nice review of Dancing for the Hangman. All the more pleasing because the reviewer, magazine Geoff Bradley, is someone whose opinion I value, because he never heaps praise on books he has doubts about.

Here’s part of what Geoff said:

‘I’m not really one for true crime and I know very little of the Crippen case, but I did find this novel fascinating. The author manages to get inside Crippen in such a way as to make his personality, inadequacies and motivations clear…I must confess I wasn’t expecting to enjoy this book, but enjoy it I did. – very much so. Using the real story with the fictionalised insights into Crippen’s own mind make for a winning combination and a book which I highly commend.’

Open Book etc.

Barry Forshaw rang to tip me off that he’d talked about my work on the BBC Radio 4 programme ‘Open Book’ yesterday, while warning me that there was always the chance that any mention of my name might be edited out of the final interview! The theme of that part of the programme was lawyers who write crime fiction and the starting point was Mariella Frostrup’s interview of P.D.James about Cyril Hare. I’ve talked about my admiration for Hare on this blog, and James is clearly a huge fan, especially of Tragedy at Law.

Barry was then interviewed by Mariella (lucky chap) about lawyers who write crime and gave me a name check, along with Frances Fyfield, when talking about British lawyer-writers. The Americans, he mentioned were Scott Turow, John Grisham and Mark Gimenez, so I felt I was in very select company.

By coincidence, Steve Steinbock has just blogged about my very first novel, All the Lonely People, which introduced the Liverpool lawyer Harry Devlin, on Criminal Brief. Steve recently gave my latest novel with a legal background, Waterloo Sunset, a terrific review in The Strand Magazine, and this time I am quite unable to resist linking to his generous remarks.


Finally, three more entries on the blogroll: Bookwitch, Paul Brazill, and Deighton Dossier. Do also check out Rob Mallows’ impressive website about Len Deighton.

Valentines

Valentine’s Day. A day for romance. And a good day for a massacre, too. The eternal themes of love and death run alongside each other in much crime fiction. They are certainly at the heart of my own work, and have been from the beginning.

On the very first page of my very first book, All the Lonely People, Harry Devlin comes home to find his estranged wife Liz watching a Woody Allen film. And the film, naturally, is Love and Death. Heavy symbolism, huh? Soon poor old Liz is dead herself, and Harry has to find her killer.

I remember, incidentally, receiving the page proofs of that first book. It should have been a great moment, but I became miserable when I re-read the opening pages. I felt I’d achieved a great ambition in getting published – but felt depressed that the book wasn’t as good as I had hoped it would be. Looking back, I think I was too hard on myself, or perhaps simply too emotional about it. The book really did very well, and although I’d write it differently today, when I glance at it now, the story does seem at least to have a real energy about it, as well as a bit of heart.

I don’t think it’s giving too much away too soon to mention that my current work-in-progress, The Serpent Pool, involves a murder committed on Valentine’s Day. And needless to say, this turns out not merely to be an accident of the calendar…