Borders

Borders UK has gone into administration, and I’m sorry to hear it. We need all the bookshops we can get, and I have a soft spot for several of the Borders stores – and not just because they have often stocked my titles in gratifying quantities (surely, though, that can’t be why the business has run into trouble?)

The very first Murder Squad event, way back in 2000, was held at a Borders store in Ellesmere Port. I remember it very fondly – in the nine years our collective of Northern crime writers has been going, the seven founder members haven’t all appeared together that many times. But it was a good evening, and not long after, we all appeared at the Borders store in John Baker’s York.

Here’s a confession, though. Not every Borders event I’ve attended has been quite so successful. I recall one event with Kate Ellis and Chris Simms – two first-rate writers – where the turn-out was thin (and if you discounted those who were friends of Kate’s, it was very, very thin!). But even then, we had a good time, not least in the pub afterwards. It was my first meeting with Chris, and I’ve been pleased to see his career take off in a big way since. He’s currently working on an interesting short story project with which I am likely to become involved – more news about this at a future date.

I can only hope that the business can be salvaged, and that those large and appealing stores don’t disappear altogether. Of course, like many writers, I have an especially soft spot for smaller independent bookshops. But there are some marvellous people working for the chains, and it would be really sad if many jobs were lost as a result of Borders’ inability to withstand the pressures of the modern book-selling market.

Interview and Podcasts

One of the very pleasant things about participating in crime fiction events is that they can lead to all sorts of unexpected and agreeable further activities. A good example cropped up recently when I put on my Victorian mystery event at Stockton-on-~Tees. I was approached afterwards by a couple of chaps from Southside Broadcasting, which has links not only with hospital radio in the North East, but also festivals further afield, in particular in Lincoln.

The outcome of our conversation was that on Friday I was interviewed by Southside by phone about my writing. This was a pre-record, to be broadcast in the near future, and Southside kindly offered to let me have an mp3 version to upload on my site as a podcast.

A podcast would be a new departure for me, though there is already on my website a video interview that I did with Legal TV before it disappeared into oblivion (I don’t think this was solely because I used to appear on their programmes).

What I’m wondering is whether those of you who have websites, and those of you who visit authors’ websites, think that podcast interviews are potentially of interest and worth including on a site such as mine? Or don’t you have enough time to bother with them? In my own case, I’ve listened to very few, one of the exceptions being an interview that John Baker gave about his latest novel, which I found fascinating. My website contains plenty of text interviews, but it is worth expanding in this direction? All opinions, for and against, will be gratefully received…

An evening with Murder Squad

I’ve mentioned Murder Squad several times in this blog. It’s a group of seven Northern crime writers, founded by Margaret Murphy, and last Thursday evening, six of us (Chaz Brenchley, who is unwell, was the absentee) met up at the house of Cath Stainclife in Manchester.

It’s not easy for seven people who live in various different parts of the north to get together in the same place at the same time. In fact, the last time we were all together was three years ago, when another crime writer, Zoe Sharp, took the above photograph – at an Ilkley hotel, where a CWA lunch was taking place.

Since Murder Squad was founded, many good things have happened to its members. For instance, Cath has turned Blue Murder into a successful tv series, and Ann Cleeves has won the CWA Gold Dagger. Margaret is now the CWA chair, and I won the CWA Short Story Dagger last year. Together with Chaz, Stuart Pawson and John Baker, we’ve produced brochures, newsletters, performance events, a website, a CD, and an anthology of short stories.

But times remain tough in publishing, and Murder Squad is still a great support network for all of us. We discussed plans for the future – including ideas to celebrate our tenth anniversary next year. More information in due course.

Waterloo Sunset and the Kinks

An endlessly intriguing feature of the blogosphere is that you stumble across all sorts of unexpected delights. I think it was a link from John Baker’s blog that took me to a site on the topic of ‘The Kinks in Literature’, where I found a very positive review of Waterloo Sunset (the song which provided the title was, of course, a Kinks hit written by the great Ray Davies.) It turned out that the compiler of the site is Dave Quayle, and among other things he’s acquainted both with John and that very fine short story writer Mat Coward.

When I was young, my parents used to go out to a club in Northwich called The Grey Parrot (a name slightly reminiscent of The Odd Flamingo, the eponymous club in Nina Bawden’s crime novel, perhaps?) There was a small hotel attached to the club and many bands who played Saturday gigs in the town in the 1960s stayed there overnight. So my parents – rather improbably, it must be said – met a good many pop stars of the 1960s. Their number included the Kinks, and they even obtained for me a photo signed by the band members, though I’m afraid it disappeared years ago. I can’t remember many of the others whom they met, though Lulu was among them, but it does strike me as an amusing paradox that a couple who were definitely not part of the Swinging Sixties should actually have had a few late night drinks with so many stars of the day.

I’ve included a link to Dave’s site in the blogroll. Other recent additions include Pulp Serrenade, which I discovered recently – very good!

Margaret Murphy

Immediately before our prison visit and reception, which I described yesterday, Margaret Murphy was voted in by the members of the Crime Writers’ Association as the CWA chair for the next twelve months. Margaret and her husband Murf weren’t able to attend the whole conference, because of other commitments, but it was great to catch up with them at Lincoln Castle.

The CWA couldn’t have made a better choice than Margaret. She is a very good writer, and (unlike many writers, including me) she is conspicuously, and consistently, efficient. I’ve known her for around 15 years – we first met through the CWA’s northern chapter meetings – and, helped by the fact that her home in Heswall is not too far away from my patch, I’ve had the good fortune to spend a lot of time with her in the intervening years. For a long time, Murf, Margaret and I regularly attended dinners together organised by another crime writing mate, Jim Parkinson, and these were always very enjoyable occasions.

Margaret founded Murder Squad, a ‘virtual collective’ of Northern crime writers, back in 2000, and she invited me to join, along with Ann Cleeves, Cath Staincliffe, John Baker, Chaz Brenchley and Stuart Pawson. The Squad experience has been great for all of us, and we’re meeting up again shortly, after too long a gap. Without Margaret, it would never have existed.

In these difficult economic times, an organisation like the CWA, as well as its members, is bound to come under financial pressure. But I’m sure Margaret will take it in the right direction. I only hope it doesn’t get in the way of the production of more of those splendid novels of hers.

John Baker again

Here is the second part of my interview with John Baker about his new book, Winged With Death.

Martin: One of the differences between us that I mentioned is your love
of dancing. Whereas I have two left feet. The tango plays an important
part in your book - was that part of your original plan for the novel,
or something that developed as you wrote?

John: I have wanted to use dance as a metaphore for some time, so it was
part of the original plan. It fitted this time because of the location
of the action. The River Plate is where the tango was born in that
critical period around the 1880s. The original maetaphore was coined by
the tanguerros; the leader was immigrant washed up on the shores of this
strange land, while the follower was the land itself. The dance was
about the settlement of the immigrant, the acceptance of the immigrant
by the land, the battle of each against the other and the knowledge that
each needed the input of the other.

For my own purposes, although this original metaphor was almways in the
background, was about communication. It was still about a fight, of
course, because that is what literature is always about, but it was about
reconcilliation as well. And it was there to temper and to modify and to
echo some of the other themes in the novel.

Martin: The book is, in part, set in Montevideo. Yet you've never been
to Uruguay. Of course, you did quite a bit of research, but what
prompted you to write about a real geographical location that you've
never visited?

John: I dreamed about Montevideo. I woke up one morning and realised
that I'd just returned from a night-long trip to Montevideo. I could
still smell it, I could see the colours and hear the sounds of a South
American city in the late sixties/early seventies. I thought I would
have to go there, to visit to make sure that I got everything right. But
then I realised that it could just as easily remain as a dreamscape. I
did the research. I spoke with others who knew the city with some
intimacy. I made sure that I got it right while all the time being aware
that in a very real sense it didn't matter. I was anyway playing with
the concepts of time, why not include those of space as well?
And now, when all that work has been done, do I want to go to Montevideo?
To have a look, to measure perhaps how right or wrong my idea of it was?
It's a place I love. I don't want to give myself an excuse to change it.

Martin: It might be said that one of the themes of the book is 'denial'.
Do you agree, and if so, what fascinates you about denial?

John: In terms of denial in the book, it is one of those themes I
mentioned earlier, which contrast with the theme of dance. Because
denial is an active emotion. It keeps you on the move, keeps you running
away. Whereas dance, in a very real sense is about the moment, and the
moment is about stillness.
What is fascinating about denial is that it represents the modern dilema.
Everyone is hurtling through time with pretensions of permanence; becoming
precious about rock climbing, the razor-edge of a blade, Jesus or
Mohammed. They believe the obsessions of those around them to be founded
on illusion.
That millions of Americans, sophisticated people in many other respects,
can block out all the evidence and assert that some simple controls over
the sales of guns will not affect the stats on the death rate from
firearms accidents, school-room killings, etc., is only one example of the
place of denial in the society in which we live.
There is also the concept of Holocaust denial which is fought against by
the Israeli's, who in turn are in denial about their own State’s murderous
policies in relationship to the Palestinians.
And on a personal level it's exactly the same. Denial is a defense
mechanism in which a person is faced with a fact that is too uncomfortable
to accept and rejects it instead, insisting that it is not true despite
what may be overwhelming evidence.
A man told that his wife is dead may refuse to believe it, setting the
table for her and keeping her clothes and other belongings in the bedroom.
A woman having an affair may not think about pregnancy or sexually
transmitted diseases.
People usually take credit for their successes and find 'good reasons' for
their failures, often blaming the situation or other people.
Alcoholics and drug users often deny that they have a problem.
Optimists deny that things may go wrong. Pessimists deny they may succeed.
There have been many documented cases of people refusing treatment for a
terminal disease because they do not believe it is happening to the. They
would rather die than accept reality. And they do.

Martin: What was the starting point for your writing of this book?

John: I can't honestly say. My starting point is always thematic. I'm
not interested in plot. The themes which converged around Winged with
Death were time, tango, denial, revolution and abduction.

Martin: Your prose is extremely well-crafted. I'd like to think that
this is the product of endless painful revision, and suffering for your
art, rather than effortless, otherwise the envy wouldn't be easy to
control! Do you write many drafts, and how long did the book take to
write?

John: My first drafts are not very inspiring. Writing, for me, is about
rewriting. About revision and rewriting. I don't go through a fixed
number of drafts, but there are always more than I expected.
Winged with Death took a long time. Around two and a half to three years.
The best part of the experience was the editing. Lots of things came
together then. While I was writing it seemed as though the connections
weren't always there; only in the editing stage did everything fall into
place.

Martin: And did you enjoy the writing process?

John: Yes. Writing is the one thing in my life I always enjoy. Even when
I hate it. When it's absolutely impossible I still manage to hang on,
not go insane, kep the faith. Every time something doesn't work I know
it's only like that as a trial of strength. I only have to close my eyes
and hang in there and it'll all come together.

Martin: You have been blogging for some years, and to much acclaim.
What, for you, is the appeal of blogging? And does it get in the way of
your other writing?

John: Blogging does get in the way of my other writing. But it's part of
my day now. It's a way of communicating with my readers, and with other
writers; it's a way of publishing stray thoughts and irritations and
freeing myself up for the main job of writing another novel. If I didn't
blog I'd have to invent some other way of avoiding the beginning of
another novel.
Blogging is my way of sharpening my pencils, of getting ready to do
something else.

Martin: And finally, what next for John Baker the writer?

John: I'm writing a novel set among the people who left Europe for
America during the middle part of the 19th century. I suppose it's a
kind of quest novel. America is the grail; and the question, or one of
the questions, might be: when you find the grail, what then? When you
find it and collect it up and it ceases to be a quest and becomes
instead a possession, are we actually better off?


So there you have it. I'm not sure I agree with John that it's not a crime novel - in fact, one aspect of the story has a faint echo of a famous Christie mystery. But what can be said for sure is that it's an intensely readable and very rewarding piece of work from a polished writer with a worldview that I find fascinating, even though (or maybe because) it is very different from my own. Recommended.

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....

The Maybrick A to Z

A number of classic true crimes have fascinated me for years. The Crippen case is the obvious example, and yesterday evening I was delighted to read some very positive commentary about Dancing for the Hangman on John Baker's very well-regarded blog. Awaiting me in the post was also a generous article in the Mensa Magazine, which I hope to be able to link to on the website before long.

Among my other favourite real life puzzles is the Maybrick case (especially interesting to me because of its Liverpool setting) and so when I chanced across Christopher Jones’ The Maybrick A to Z a week ago, I couldn’t resist buying a copy. And I've now dipped into it extensively, with pleasurable results. The book is published by Countyvise Press, a small but prolific outfit based on Wirral. The Press produced an anthology of northern crime writing that I put together in the 1990s, and later published my collection of short stories, Where Do You Find Your Ideas? and other stories. But I’d never heard of the Maybrick book until the other day.

Christopher Jones is a deputy head teacher based in Liverpool, the city that was home to James Maybrick and his young American wife Florence. He gives an account of how the couple met and married in 1881, and of the events leading up to James’ mysterious death in 1889. There is an account of the trial – at which Florence was found guilty of poisoning her husband, although she earned a reprieve from the gallows. After serving fifteen years in jail, she was released, and she lived to a ripe old age. But then, in the 1980s, came the sensational discovery of a diary, allegedly written by James, the author of which claimed to be Jack the Ripper.

The combination of these two classic, yet very different, murder cases makes for utterly fascinating reading, and Christopher Jones has done a good deal of research in putting his book together. The format of any A to Z book necessitates some repetition, but on the whole the concept is well-suited to such a complex story. An interesting and worthwhile addition to any true crime library.

Incidentally, this is my 500th post (in 502 days) since I started 'Do you write under your own name?' I'm glad I've kept it ticking over for so long, and I'm very grateful to everyone who has encouraged me to keep going.

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.