Lost River

I’ve mentioned Stephen Booth’s Lost River in the context of the amount of background information that the book contains, but there is much more to it than that. This is the tenth book in the Cooper and Fry series (although oddly, the press release says it’s the ninth – the correct figure appears on the dust wrapper) and one of the reasons I plucked it out of the voluminous pile of splendid books that I really ought to read was the evocative title, which really is made relevant to the story, in a neat and highly satisfactory manner that remains unclear until a late stage.

The opening chapter is gripping, with Ben Cooper involved in a tragic incident, when he fails to save a young girl from drowning. He becomes intrigued by her family, the Nields, and it is quickly apparent that all is not right in the Nield household. Ben is an appealing character, and the only false note is when he says to the grieving mother, ‘Be thankful that you still have your oldest child.’ This comment is relevant to the plot, but I didn’t think Ben - who is a nice guy - would say something so insensitive.

This is a good example of the way in which contemporary writers work with the conventions of traditional British crime fiction, whilst updating them. The story of the Nields alternates with Diane Fry’s journey back into her own past, a journey that takes her back to Birmingham. The first half of the book moves at a rather sedate pace, but the momentum gathers in the second half, and Diane’s quest eventually ends with her making not one but two quite shocking discoveries. To some extent, Diane’s story takes centre stage in the later part of the book, which I hadn’t expected, and it’s a good example of how a talented crime writer will confound reader expectations.

And Stephen Booth certainly is a talented writer. One of my fondest memories is of the Harrogate Festival four years ago, when I was short-listed for the Theakston’s prize for the best crime novel of the year (for The Coffin Trail.) And sitting alongside me were not only Ian Rankin and Val McDermid, but also Stephen Booth. Neither Stephen nor I won, but it was a great evening all the same, and one that lives on vividly in my memory.

Too Much Information?

A work colleague once startled me by saying that he judged a novel by how much he learned from it, in terms of information that he hadn’t previously known. He felt that he didn’t have much time to invest in reading fiction, and so he wanted an extra dividend, apart from the pleasure of the narrative. This way of looking at reading fiction had never occurred to me before, but I’ve thought of it many times since.

Lately, I’ve been reminded of it while reading a new book by Stephen Booth, Lost River. This is the latest entry in a highly successful series set in Derbyshire’s Peak District, and I shall review it another day. But what struck me very forcibly when reading it – especially the first half of the book – was how much factual information was crammed into it.

So, among many other things, I learned the name of the man who invented custard, tit-bits about Ozzy Osbourne’s early days in Birmingham, and quite a lot of information about present day computer games.

I found this interesting, partly because some of the detail was fascinating, but also because there is an authorial judgment to be made about how much trivia to include in a novel. Some writers hardly bother with it all, others take a different approach. The exact balance inevitably varies, depending on the type of story - for instance, Kate Ellis's novels, although contemporary, offer a good deal of insight into history and archaeology. In my own books, I do include quite a bit of background information (for instance, about second hand bookselling in The Serpent Pool), but I tend to be anxious about the need to keep the narrative pace going and so I restrict the supplementary material to stuff that is directly relevant to the story-line.

Judging by my colleague’s comment, though, some writers may be missing a trick. Perhaps there is an increasing demand among some readers for information as well as narrative in a novel. Is this the case? Or can there sometimes be too much information? I would be glad to learn the views of those visit this blog.