The Coffin Trail and the Lake District Mysteries

The Coffin Trail is available today as an Amazon Kindle Daily Deal for a modest 98p - a price which I hope will tempt you if you haven't already read it! (The offer isn't available in the US, I'm afraid.) And this reminds me that I ought to give an update on progress with the Lake District Mysteries. In case you're wondering - I'm writing a new one right now!

The Coffin Trail is the first book in the series and when I went back to it to refresh my memory about a number of details, I was startled to realise that I wrote it seventeen years ago; it was then published in 2004 and shortlisted for the Theakston's Prize for best crime novel of the year. Since the other shortlisted novels were by Ian Rankin, Val McDermid, Susan Hill, Stephen Booth, and Lindsey Ashford, it was a truly memorable experience.

When I wrote The Coffin Trail, I intended that it should be the first in a series. That said, I didn't anticipate the direction my career would take in the ensuing years; if you'd told me what would happen, I doubt I'd have believed you. But because I write for the long term, there were ingredients of that first story which I intended would gain greater significance in subsequent books.

The first of those ingredients concerned the garden of Tarn Cottage, which becomes relevant in the second book in the series, The Cipher Garden. The second ingredient - well, I'll leave you to figure it out. Suffice to say that, at long last, I've picked up those early threads in the new book, The Crooked Shore. And readers will therefore encounter the resolution of a mystery they might not even be aware was bubbling under the surface...

I'm hoping that within a week or so, I will have completed the first draft, with a view to the book being published next year. It's been fascinating to return to the Lakes, after a break of several years while I've focused on Gallows Court and Mortmain Hall, among other projects. And I hope that today's deal will introduce a few more readers to the delights of the Lakes as well as the tangled lives of the lead characters, Hannah Scarlett and Daniel Kind. 

Forgotten Book - Unexpected Night

I've been prompted to take a fresh look at the work of American whodunit writer Elizabeth Daly after listening to Sarah Ward talking about Daly's books on a couple of occasions recently. Sarah chose Daly as one of her authors to remember at Crimefest, and also discussed her work in some depth at Bodies from the Library. She also suggested that it helps to get a clear picture of the life of Daly's amateur sleuth, Henry Gamadge, if one starts with Daly's first book in the series.

This raises a point that I find very interesting. A great many people I talk to say that they like to begin a series at the beginning. I can understand why. Characters and relationships can sometimes make more sense than if one plunges into a series when it's already very well-established. When my Lake District Mysteries are sold at events, The Coffin Trail, the first in the series, generally sells best. Yet there are downsides to beginning at the beginning. A good author will want to improve, and sometimes a first book will spend quite a lot of time setting the scene. Later books may be more impressive.

I've just read Daly's debut, Unexpected Night, set in 1939, and published a year later, when Daly was already over 60. Compared to most authors working in the Golden Age tradition - and Daly clearly was - she was a late starter, though she did go on to have a long and successful career. This one i's a decent whodunit with a nice, if well-telegraphed, plot twist, and it introduces Gamadge as an affable, youngish expert in manuscripts.

Overall, however, I think it's fair to say that Daly was one of those writers who honed her technique over the years, and some of her later books represent a significant advance on this one. I felt that the basic set-up, about a young but sickly man who comes into a fortune on his 21st birthday was very contrived, and that the pool of suspects was not the most interesting. Gamadge, too, though likeable, is not truly memorable. I'd rate this one as worth a read, but I think Daly's later books tend to be better.

Grasmere and the Lake District Mysteries

I've not said much on this blog lately about the Lake District Mysteries. But if you're thinking that my attention has shifted away from them, as a result of my focus on The Golden Age of Murder and The Story of Classic Crime in 100 Books, nothing could be further from the truth. My hope has always been that the work I do on classic fiction will have a beneficial impact on my contemporary work, and there are signs that this is what's happening. The latest of those signs is that Amazon have again included The Coffin Trail in their summer promotion. You can get the Kindle version for just 99 pence. If you haven't sampled the series before, I do hope you'll be tempted.

As it happens, I'm just back from a brief but pleasurable trip to the Lakes. It was a dual purpose visit. First, I was invited to talk to a group of visiting Americans. They were members of a party led by Kathy Ackley and Nicky Godfrey-Evans, whom I've known for a number of years, and they were a great group. A special bonus for me was that among them were those terrific crime writers Charles and Caroline Todd. In recent years, the Todds happen to have shared some happy moments with me at awards ceremonies both here and in the US, and it was great to spend time with them again - not forgetting Linda and DeAnna. A fun evening..

The location of the get-together was Grasmere, a village as charming in reality as its reputation suggests. Each of the Lake District Mysteries is set in a different part of the National Park, but I've not yet sent Hannah and Daniel to Grasmere, partly because it seemed a bit of an obvious step, and I wanted to explore one or two less familiar locations. But I do like Grasmere very much, and it may be time that it featured in one of my books. Meanwhile, I was very glad to sign books in Sam Read, the lovely local bookshop. What I think may be happening in quite a few cases, by the way, is that readers who sample my books (and those by others) as ebooks are starting to buy traditional print copies in the shops. Several people have told me that they've done this, and it does seem interesting that perhaps more of a crossover may develop between online and actual book retailing than has been thought likely in the past.

Another terrific bookshop, Fred Holdsworth's of Ambleside (above), featured on my itinerary on my way home. Again, it's good to see a proud independent bookshop really thriving, and playing an important part in the local community, and I was delighted to catch up over a coffee with Steve, the owner.  And as I toured the area, with research for the next novel in mind, I took in Stagshaw Gardens, Holehird Gardens, Kendal, and Sedbergh. It's a lovely part of the world, and now of course the Lake District is becoming a UNESCO World Hetitage site. About time too!

Anthony, Ambler, and Words in the Square

A quick trip to London for two contrasting events began brilliantly, when I received an email telling me that The Golden Age of Murder has been shortlisted for an Anthony award, at the New Orleans Bouchercon this September. The shortlist includes, as well as Kate White's popular MWA cookbook, and two other highly informative and interesting books, Val McDermid's book on Forensics, which I rushed out to purchase shortly after its original publication.

So The Golden Age of Murder has won two awards and been shortlisted for two others; three of my novels have, over the years, been shortlisted for major awards (one of which, the Theakston's award for best crime novel of the year, for which The Coffin Trail was a contender, was actually won by Val) but I've never had an experience like this. It's a once in a lifetime thing, and to say I'm delighted is a massive under-statement.

On Friday evening, I was one of no fewer than eight speakers at the British Library, talking about Eric Ambler. Three of Ambler's post-war novels have just been reissued in the BL's Classic Thrillers series, and I wrote introductions for each of them. I'm an Ambler fan - my favourite is his masterpiece, The Mask of Dimitrios - and it was a pleasure to chat about his work. I particularly liked Stav Sherez' suggestion that Ambler's work has something in common with that of the noir writers. A thoughtful and persuasive observation, I think.

The next day, I headed for St James's Square (pictured above) for the London Library's celebration of its 175th anniversary, Words in the Square. There was a glittering cast of speakers, so I felt honoured to be included among the invitees. Last year, Golden Age expert and commentator Helen Szamuely took me on a guided tour of the Library, and I thought it a fantastic place, full of atmosphere and history.

The panellists whom I was moderating were James Runcie (son of the Archbishop, literary curator, documentary producer and author of the books on which the highly successful TV series Grantchester is based), Simon Brett, and Kate Summerscale, author of The Suspicions of Mr Whicher, one of the most successful books about real life crime in living memory. Simon told the story of the creation of The Sinking Admiral, which is due to be published next month - something that I hope all crime fans who like a bit of fun with their fiction will anticipate eagerly. With writers of such pedigree, moderating is an easy task, and the hour sped by. The audience seemed to enjoy it, and I certainly did.

Reaction to The Golden Age of Murder

When you publish a book, it's usually far from easy to predict how it will be received. You've done your best with it, your agent and editor are happy with it (bad news if they aren't!), but you can never quite be sure how others will react. Authors are often said not to be the best judges of their own work. My most commercially successful novel is The Coffin Trail, and in sales terms, my least commercially successful, is Dancing for the Hangman. Yet my own feeling is that the latter book is possibly, in literary terms, my best. Who knows? All these judgments are subjective, like all reviews.

So I was unsure about how people would respond to The Golden Age of Murder. It's 25 years (even I find this hard to believe) since I pitched the idea of an Oxford Companion about the crime genre to the late Michael Cox, then a senior editor at Oxford University Press, and later a successful novelist, so people can see how long it's taken me to reach this point. When you've worked long and hard on a project, you hope the results will justify the effort. But there are no guarantees; life isn't like that.

I realised over time that I wanted to write a book that was ambitious, wide-ranging, very personal, and... different. Rash of me, really. I don't even know for sure if it is, as some have said, a reference book. A quarter of a century ago, I did want to write a reference book, but my priorities have evolved as I've developed as a novelist. Above all, I wanted to tell a story, and the more I researched it, the more I felt that the story of the early years of the Detection Club deserved to be told. And it was important to me to tell the story with a degree of empathy with the writers, and also with humour .

To say that I've been thrilled by readers' reaction to this book to date is true, but it hardly conveys the excitement I feel about the number of people who have "got" what I was trying to do. It's a long book, with a tight structure that is not very obvious, although each chapter does have a distinct theme. So I thought that the readers most likely to appreciate it might be those who read it more than once, and then found they enjoyed going back to it. And since I was aiming to interest Golden Age fans but also to intrigue and entertain those who  had little or no real interest in GA books, I was expecting quite a lot of scepticism. That may still come, of course. But the reviews so far have been fantastic, beyond my wildest dreams..I've been lucky throughout my career to have been reviewed in national newspapers as well as specialist magazines and more recently blogs, but I've never had so many great reviews in such a short space of time

One or two extremely interesting projects have already been mooted as a result of the book's appearance, and if anything comes of them, that will certainly be a bonus. In my own mind, I am primarily a novelist and short story writer, rather than a writer of non-fiction, but I care about, and take care over, all my books, and I certainly care very much about the story told in The Golden Age of Murder. I'm so pleased that plenty of other people seem to care too.





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Disconnect - the movie - and connecting....

Disoonnect is a 2012 film that I found very watchable. More than that, it made me think. In keeping with its title, it's a rather fragmentary piece of work, putting together three stories about people who run into trouble of various kinds thanks to their absorption with the internet. There are links between the different stories, although they are rather loose, and the human dramas are well told, and well acted,

So we have a story about cyber-bullying, where two boys pretend to be a girl and induce another boy to send a revealing photo of himself, which they promptly circulate to their circle. The victim responds by hanging himself. This is a highly topical situation, with all the publicity recently surrounding celebrities whose private photos have been hacked and publicised. It's a scenario which tells us more about the worthlessness of the hackers than anyone else, and I found this story the most powerful in the film.

Another story concerns a journalist who befriends a teenager who is, in effect, a male prostitute, while the final story is about a couple whose bank accounts are broken into by a hacker. One of the themes common to the three stories is that of impersonation. The internet makes it easy for people to disguise their identities, and the ability to pretend to be someone else - a subject that's always fascinated me as a novelist, as anyone who has read The Arsenic Labyrinth will appreciate - can be corrupting in the extreme.

Disconnect is a film I can recommend, even though its "messages" are not necessarily straightforward (and that's not a criticism -some social issues are too complex to give rise to straightforward messages.)  One issue it doesn't really touch on is that of internet trolls, and I feel sure that trolls will soon feature in a number of novels and films, because their unpleasant behaviour is, let's face it, interesting.

My own view is that it is the anonymity of trolls that is the central problem, because it facilitates and encourages a malign blend of cowardice and cruelty. If people who behave unkindly could not hide their identity, surely many of them would behave differently. Most human beings are, I like to think, instinctively decent, but the phoney comfort blanket of anonymity tempts them to hurt others for no good reason. As always, I'd be interested in your views (as long as you put your name to them!) My final reflection prompted by this thought-provoking film is this. If ever there was a suitably topical subject for a novelist, it's the question of anonymous trolling on the internet.

Bargain Corner!

I've been lucky enough to be "featured author" on the Crime Readers' Association site this past month. The CRA is an initiative of the CWA,which is expanding its activities in a variety of ways that will, I am sure, be of benefit to crime fans, whatever their particular tastes in the genre.

To celebrate, my UK publishers Allison & Busby are giving away five copies of The Coffin Trail, the first of the Lake District Mysteries to UK based readers. The details are here. And for those who develop a taste for the Lakes books as a result, The Frozen Shroud is still available in the Amazon Summer Sale at just 99p for the Kindle version.

Broadchurch - ITV review

Broadchurch, the new ITV drama in eight hour-long episodes starring David Tennant, aired earlier this week and I've just caught up with it. Initial verdict - very promising. The drawn-out structure suggests the influence of the success of The Killing, although I've heard that those involved say that the story has been under development for a while, and that the Scandinavian serial's success is really a coincidence. I can believe that, since it's not too uncommon for similar ideas simply to be "in the ether" at around the same time.

Broadchurch is a pleasant community on the south coast ripped apart by the murder of a boy, the son of a seemingly very likeable couple. He is found dead on a beach, and it soon becomes apparent that he is a murder victim, though the killer may have tried to make it look like an accident, a fall from a cliff. The locale photographs well, by no means as bleak as those Scandinavian settings for crime with which we've become familiar, but none the worse for that.

Tennant plays a newly appointed Detective Inspector, who has arrived in Broadchurch to get over a career disaster. This made me think immediately of Hannah Scarlett, whose calamitous involvement in the Rao case is the trigger for appointment to cold case work before the action of The Coffin Trail begins. But again, I'm sure there's no question of plagiarism. It's just a great idea for a senior police officer's backstory!

There are sure to be plenty of suspects, and so far we've only been introduced directly to a handful of them. The victim' s best friend also knows more than he is prepared to admit to his parents - silly boy! I hope it doesn't prove to be a fatal mistake. Quite simply, I found myself engaged from start to finish. The journalists covering the case are nicely portrayed, as are the various cops, while Jodie Whittaker was terrific as the bereaved mother, in a number of rather poignant scenes. The first episode had me hooked, and  I only hope that the rest of the series is of the same quality.

Harrogate

Today I set off for the Theakston's Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival at Harrogate. For the first time I've been invited to be on a panel, 'Legal Eagles', on Saturday. My fellow panellists include the marvellous Frances Fyfield.

I've been involved with Harrogate in various ways over the years. Hosting a table at a murder mystery dinner, for instance, and giving a talk at the Creative Thursday workshop to would-be writers. It's always a very well organised weekend and for that Sharon Canavar, Erica James and their team take great credit.

One highlight was when The Coffin Trail was shortlisted for the best crime novel award, and I was up against Ian Rankin, Val McDermid (who won), Stephen Booth, and Susan Hill. It was certainly one of the highlights of my career, even though I do think I've written quite a few better books both before and since The Coffin Trail!

And another good occasion was the launch four years ago of the CWA anthology I.D. at an event at the Pump Rooms. Note the pints of Theakstons strategically displayed on the book table!

Identity: Chelsea Girl - review

Questions of identity fascinate me. People who want to solve their problems by becoming a different person, people obsessed with the lives of others – these ideas form a significant element in my books. Examples include The Coffin Trail, The Arsenic Labyrinth and The Serpent Pool. So naturally I was drawn to the concept behind the newish ITV series Identity.

Identity involves a team of cops specialising in identity fraud cases. Keeley Hawes is the star, but there is strong support from a good cast, including Holly Aird and Aiden Gillen. The show was devised by Ed Whitmore, who was involved with Waking the Dead – a series which I saw only fleetingly, but thought not at all bad.

My first encounter with Identity was an episode called Chelsea Girl. The set-up is excellent – a British girl called Olivia befriends another woman in Australia. But the new friend kills her, steals her identity, and catches a plane to England. Soon the cops are on her trail, and find that she is a woman with a troubled past. Now she is returning to her roots.

This was a very fast-paced show, a thriller rather than a whodunit. The killer is quickly identified, and the only question was how much havoc the killer would cause before she was caught. The story-line was highly melodramatic, but it was entertaining, and I shall certainly take another look at Identity, as soon as time permits.

Women Who Like Crime Fiction, revisited

The response to my blog post a little while ago about the fact that most crime fiction talks and other events seem to be attended mainly by women readers prompted a host of fascinating comments, which I’ve been mulling over ever since. On my recent trip to Darnhill Library, for instance, I talked about those comments when answering a question from the audience about the gender of my ‘typical’ reader.

Richmonde, in a fascinating comment on the blog post, had said, ‘We can't just turn up on our own to bars, parties, clubs, concerts – men can. So you'll find us out in force at any event where being a single female isn't an issue: lecture at a library, lunchtime chamber concert, art gallery, religious service, music workshop.’ When I relayed her point to the almost exclusively female audience at Darnhill, there was general agreement that it was spot on.

Coupled with that is the female enthusiasm for mystery fiction. Barbara said in her comment, ‘Women tend to be more social in their reading habits, and men more solitary, generalizing very broadly. Also, I suspect it's simply more acceptable for women to be seen enjoying fiction and books in general than men, who are supposed to be lifting weights or cooking meat over fires or something .’ Of course, as she says, this is a generalisation – I’m afraid you won’t catch me eagerly lifting weights or cooking meat over fires, in fact not ever, and I really love mystery fiction. But there is a lot of truth in Barbara’s general point.

I was also very interested when Maxine said, ‘Apparently 60 per cent of UK readers are women over 50. That is one reason why you are doing so well to have a character like Hannah Scarlett - we like reading about capable, attractive, intelligent women.’ The fact is that when I conceived the Lake District Mysteries, I had the idea of developing a slow-burning relationship between Daniel and Hannah, but I felt that Daniel would be the lead character. That is why the early chapters of The Coffin Trail are dominated by Daniel and his partner (whom none of my readers have ever cared for!) Miranda. But when Peter Robinson was kind enough to read the book pre-publication he commented particularly on the strength of Hannah as a character, and as I have tried to get more and more into her mind-set, she has moved to centre stage in the subsequent books.

The Cipher Garden and Amazon

I’ve received glad tidings from Allison & Busby, namely that The Cipher Garden is to be reprinted shortly, with new cover artwork in the same style as that for The Serpent Pool and the recent reprint of The Coffin Trail. An early version is illustrated above, although there may be a few changes before it is finalised.

This is pleasing news, because one of the unfortunate aspects of life as a published writer – if you are lucky enough to hang around for a few years, and produce a number of books – is that it’s all too easy for your work to slip out of print. This can be frustrating for several reasons. In my own case, I do find that people attending talks I give are sometimes keen to buy the early Harry Devlin books, and I don’t have that many of my own stockpile of copies left!

Yet the truth is that I was relatively lucky. The Devlin series did have a second life – after the books first came out, Hodder reprinted the early titles in the late 90s, as well as publishing the sixth and seventh entries in the series – but even that came to an end. As a result, when I wrote Waterloo Sunset, I was quite careful to make sure that someone could read it without any previous knowledge of the Devlin saga. And at least Waterloo Sunset – a book I enjoyed writing enormously - remains readily obtainable.

As for The Cipher Garden, I wonder if the fact that it’s been quite extensively (and positively, thank goodness!) reviewed on Amazon is a factor in its continuing sales and longevity. I guess that it may be. Whatever people may think about Amazon reviews, they do influence buyers, with five-star reviews clearly pretty important, and I’m certainly very grateful to those who have reviewed this and others of my books kindly on Amazon. One quite prominent writer recently told me of his dismay about negative reviews on Amazon of his latest book, and this rather sad story illustrates, I think, the impact of Amazon reviews on writer morale as well as on sales.

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.

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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Dancing and The Coffin Trail

I’ve received my copies of the audio book version of Dancing for the Hangman. It’s unabridged and published by Soundings. Until a couple of years ago, the audio versions of my novels were on cassette tapes. Now they are in CD format – a sign of changing listener preferences.

Many of my audio books have been read by the excellent Gordon Griffin. This time, because the story is told in the voice of Crippen, an American, the reader is Jeff Harding, who has a number of notable audio books to his credit.

The reprinted UK paperback edition of The Coffin Trail is at last available and I’m really pleased with the look of it. The new cover design that Allison & Busby have come up with really appeals to me. One change which I hadn’t anticipated was the switch in size – this version is larger than its predecessors.

My previous paperbacks have been in ‘A format’, and until a couple of years ago this tended to be the format used by publishers for crime novels. There has, however, been a move towards the larger ‘B format’, which was in the past more typically associated with mainstream ‘literary’ novels, and the publishing director at Allison & Busby, Susie Dunlop, felt that it would be good for the design and style of my books to move in that direction. I’m very pleased about this, and pleased in particular that those readers who were keen to get hold of a fresh copy of the first book in the Lake District series will again be able to do so.

Deadman's Hill

The name of Roger Forsdyke may not yet be very well known to crime fans outside the UK, but to British crime writers it is certainly familiar. Roger has for upwards of a decade been a contributor of a regular column to the CWA’s members’ newsletter, ‘Red Herrings’, offering bags of useful information about policing, and the issues of concern to contemporary police officers. He’s an authoritative source, for he has served with Lincolnshire Police for many years. And now he has produced a crime novel.

I got to know Roger (and his wife Penny) many moons ago, through that marvellous social group, the Northern Chapter of the CWA. We have enjoyed many conversations since – though it has to be said that by the end of an evening at the bar, I sometimes have a crick in my neck, for Roger is a very, very tall chap indeed. A couple of years back, he took over as convenor of the group from Peter Walker, who set up the Northern Chapter. Peter, himself a former cop and creator of Heartbeat, is a hard act to follow, but Roger has tackled the role with aplomb.

Roger’s services as an expert adviser are also in demand and I am one of a number of authors whom he has helped with his customary wit and insight. The closing showdown in The Coffin Trail, for instance, owed something to Roger’s guidance on siege tactics.

Roger has long been keen to follow in Peter’s footsteps in another way, as a writer of fiction. Way back in 1995, I had the pleasure of including a short story he wrote called ‘Video Nasty’ in the anthology Northern Blood 3. But work commitments have kept getting in the way of that long-awaited debut novel.

Now, finally, it is here. Deadman’s Hill is published by Starlode and available via Amazon. It’s set in the early 1960s, and tackles the notorious Hanratty case from a fresh angle. I look forward to reading it. And one thing is for sure – the account of police procedure will be utterly convincing, for this is a writer with enormous personal experience of investigating crimes that most of us only read or write about.

Incidentally, I'm indebted to Margot Kinberg, and Uriah of Crime Scraps, themselves two bloggers of note, for giving me a Prolific Blogger Award. Because of domestic commitments too time-consuming and tedious to harp on about, I'm going to wimp out of making futher nominations, but I do appreciate the honour, and at the risk of being repetitious, I should again say how much I appreciate the warmth and goodwill that abounds within what one might call the crime blogging community.

The Coffin Trail

I don’t have the statistics at my fingertips to prove it, but I suspect that, commercially, The Coffin Trail is my most successful book to date. It’s often the case that the first book in a series is an author’s most popular, even if later books are ‘better’ in various respects. Many readers like to start with the first in a series, so it’s likely – all other things being equal – that sales of that title will be highest.

Another reason why The Coffin Trail did well was that it reached the shortlist of six for the Theakston’s Old Peculier Prize for best crime novel of 2006. The award ceremony at the Harrogate Festival that year was hugely enjoyable, even though I realised from the outset that, given the shortlist included Ian Rankin, Val McDermid, Stephen Booth and Susan Hill, it wasn’t likely that I’d carry off the prize.

For some time, though, The Coffin Trail has been out of print in the UK. Good that it's sold out, but still very frustrating! So I’m truly delighted to say that Allison & Busby will be reissuing it, to coincide with the publication of the fourth book in the series, The Serpent Pool.

What is more, they have decided to go for new cover artwork, and I’m very pleased with it. Here is a preview.

Incidentally, I’m sometime asked which of my own books are personal favourites. They are: Yesterday’s Papers, The Devil in Disguise, Waterloo Sunset, Dancing for the Hangman and now The Serpent Pool. As for The Coffin Trail, I’m thrilled that it is about to have a fresh lease of life.

Deja Vu

Last night I got back home from Oxford after an emotional day, but one of genuine happiness. I’d deposited my first born at university – 35 years, almost to the day, since I started a new life at the very same college, reading the very same subject. Lots of scope for nostalgia, especially as his room turned out to be on the floor below the room where I first met the lady who was to become his mother. It all felt a bit surreal.

I was reminded once again, as if I needed a reminder, of the sense of the exciting possibilities of student life, and certainly Oxford has always seemed to me to be a place of infinite possibilities. It was, of course, entertaining to see all the new students, trying not to be embarrassed by their parents. And to revisit old haunts such as the Oxford Union and Blackwell’s. (I was glad to see the bookshop had stocked up with copies of Dancing with the Hangman, and I’ll reflect on the subject of authors visiting bookshops in a future post.)

When I was a student, I wrote a good deal, but struggled to finish any crime fiction. I was too overwhelmed by the challenge of plotting a complex mystery, and the greatest success I had in those days was in writing for radio – a script of mine called ‘The Marrying Kind’ about a bigamist was recorded at Radio Oxford. It was a comedy, and I enjoy humorous writing to this day.

And as I wandered through the city, I added to the photos of the college a shot (it's the picture at the top of this post) of the old Saxon tower in Cornmarket. Which, as readers of the Lake District Mysteries know, is the tower from which Daniel Kind’s partner, Aimee, jumped to her death before the events of The Coffin Trail. But yesterday, it was a tranquil place, albeit dampened by the drizzle. Ah yes, the Oxford rain. I remember it well.

Ripley Under Ground

I enjoyed listening to the second BBC Radio CD about Tom Ripley, this time based on Patricia Highsmith’s Ripley Under Ground. Again, I read the book a long time ago, and although I don’t think it is as dazzling as The Talented Mr Ripley, it is nevertheless good.

In this story, eight yeas after the events of the first, Tom is married to a wealthy French woman, and living the good life. This is funded by his involvement in an art forgery scam. Tom and a few pals have arranged with a nervy British artist, Bernard, to fake pictures by Derwatt, whose death some years ago is (for some reason) unknown to anyone but the conspirators. But then an art collector begins to suspect tht he has been sold a fake, and although Tom impersonates Derwatt at an art show, Bernard loses his nerve and threatens to give the game away.

Tom soon finds himself driven to commit murder again. Not for the first time, the police suspect he has something to hide, but the combination of his silver tongue, and some outrageous luck and coincidences are the means by which Highsmith keeps him at arm’s length from justice.

This story was adapted for radio by Alan McDonald. Alan was one of the first crime writers I got to know – he wrote a couple of books about a Scouse female private eye called Rosie before I published my first Harry Devlin. But he had some bad luck with his publisher (the covers made the stories look like Catherine Cooksons) and he hasn’t written crime novels for quite a while – though, being based in the Lake District, he did give me some valuable help when I was working on The Coffin Trail. He has a long track record with the broadcast media and Ripley Under Ground is a typically professional piece of work.

Scene of the Crime Novel

Last week I gave a couple of talks about the life and misadventures of Dr Crippen, and was very pleased with the audience feedback. First up was an evening at Stretford Library, as part of the Wordfest celebrations. I was informed by someone that I was in competition with a concert by Take That, but the turnout was pretty good, and the question session long and fascinating.

On Friday, I gave the talk at Kendal Library. This is the one and only real life library that I’ve ever featured in a novel – in The Coffin Trail. So it was a real pleasure to be invited by Cumbria Libraries to take part in their Midsummer Murder festival.

The staff were, as at Stretford, very friendly and welcoming. Kendal is one of the Carnegie Libraries, and is celebrating its centenary. There is a new extension to the original building and I was impressed by the mural that decorates it, segments of which are shown in the photos.

Both occasions confirmed me in my belief that libraries form an extremely important part of most communities. It seems inevitable that the burden of debt the government has built up will lead to spending cuts, whoever wins the next election. But I really do hope that this does not mean that libraries suffer. If we are to get through the social problems that financial crises cause, we need strong community cohesion, and libraries have a vital role to play in fostering that cohesion.