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Thursday 17th May | ||||||||||
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Jon Jefferson Talks To Crime Time From the backwoods of the American South to the corridors of papal power... Jon Jefferson, the writer behind the bestselling "Body Farm" novels by Jefferson Bass, the latest of which has just hit bookstores and e-readers in the U.K. and U.S Unusually, Dead Man's Land didn't start off as my idea at all, unlike my other novels. I had a meeting with Maxine Hitchcock, editorial director of Simon & Schuster about joining the company, at which she said they were looking for a work of fiction featuring a 'detective in the trenches of WW1'. I said it was interesting idea – what better place to commit murder than in a place were thousands are being slaughtered each day? A Willing Victim: Laura Wilson Talks To Crime Time I chose to set the fourth D.I. Stratton novel in 1956, because it was a momentous year in Western politics. In January, John Forster Dulles had made his famous 'brinkmanship' speech, in which he advocated playing a nuclear weapons-based game of 'chicken' with the Soviets. For the USA's European allies – sitting targets in any exchange of fire – this was not reassuring. Their mounting fear of nuclear holocaust intensified alarmingly when, in November, when the action of the book is set, Soviet tanks rolled into Hungary... Body Blow: Peter Cocks Talks To Crime Time Is it possible to write hard-hitting crime for young adults without pulling punches? The young adult audience has grown up with an increasingly sophisticated range of references, and is spared no blushes by TV, but I found that the teen book market did not always cater for this newly developed readership. I set out to try and write a crime novel for teens without compromising in either language or subject matter... Martin O'Brien on The Dying Minutes The Dying Minutes is the seventh book in the Jacquot series, which means that after six previous outings with Chief Inspector Daniel Jacquot, and nearly eight years in his company, there's not much I don't know about my lead character Have Sex With Dead Crime Writers It was with a great sense of freedom (and also responsibility) that I was able to commission myself – through Endeavour Press – to re-boot the Raffles stories, the originals having been written by E.W. Hornung. Thankfully the stories have been well received . . . New Turf: John Lawton Talks To Barry Forshaw The excellent John Lawton's equally excellent backlist is being reissued, starting with the latest Troy, with the six other novels in the series to follow at intervals over about a year. A uniform edition of sorts – and the perfect opportunity for a Crime Time chat.... Border Run: Simon Lewis Talks To Crime Time The old man pointing the crossbow at me wore a khaki shirt and no shoes, and his rope belt had a couple of carrots and a machete stuck into it. He was dark and small, and, I guessed, a member of the Wa minority. He chuckled. We were on a narrow trail, with bamboo groves either side so tall that they cut out most of the light. The crossbow was clearly homemade - perhaps a family heirloom - rather cumbersome, and, fortunately for me, it wasn't loaded... Brian Freeman On Spilled Blood And Lady Gaga Sometimes inspiration comes in strange places. For my seventh novel, SPILLED BLOOD, I owe an odd debt to Lady Gaga. No, she probably isn't the first person who comes to mind for crime fiction. Let me explain. My books often start with setting – places that seem ripe for the sort of remote, rural crime that I write – and that was true of SPILLED BLOOD. I'd recently done a series of library events in southwestern Minnesota, which is a bleak, barren part of the state, particularly during the winter months... Or The Bull Kills You: Jason Webster Talks To Crime Time Or the Bull Kills You is the opening novel in a series I'm writing set in Valencia, Spain - where I live. The story begins with the murder of Spain's top bullfighter. The man sent to investigate is Chief Inspector Max Cámara of the Spanish National Police - my main character. Declan Burke On Irish (and Scandinavian) Crime... From Crime Always Pays, the author of Absolute Zero Cool on national trends...Scandinavian Crime Fiction: Whither The Mavericks? Dead Scared: SJ Bolton Talks To Crime Time The more scared we become, the more vulnerable we are - to the whispered deception and the insidious erosion of courage - until we reach the point at which terror can no longer be contained, when it breaks free of its restraints and begins to override reason... Making The Switch: Joan Lock Talks To Crime Time I had been writing crime/police non-fiction books for many years when I decided it was time to try a crime novel. But I wasn't sure I had sufficient imagination so I decided to base the book around a real-life event: the Regent's Park canal boat explosion of 1874. Gods Of Gotham: Lyndsay Faye Talks To Crime Time I very much identify with Faulkner saying that THE SOUND AND THE FURY began with an image of Caddy up a pear tree with muddy pants—THE GODS OF GOTHAM (an admittedly lesser work but one with a much higher body count, so I've got that going for me) began with a little girl running through the streets, covered in blood that wasn't her own... Italian Noir: Michael Gregorio The duo who are Michael Gregroio talk to Crime Time...Once upon a terrible time, anything your publisher wouldn't take was destined for the dustbin Obsession And Self-destruction: Steven Dunne On Deity Deity is a novel born out of my observations of today's teenagers making the difficult journey towards adulthood. As a teacher in Derby, I see young people trying to balance their dreams against society's expectations of them to knuckle down and contribute. Growing up is more difficult than ever for teenagers as they are bombarded from all sides with often conflicting information on how to live their lives. Generating Suspense: Nancy Bilyeau On The Crown When I came up with the idea for my first novel, I began with the time period: the reign of Henry VIII. I've always been fascinated with the Tudor age. I enjoy reading historical mysteries and thrillers, and wanted to try to write one myself... William Landay On Defending Jacob DEFENDING JACOB takes up the question of the emerging science of "behavioral genetics", which suggests that physical factors — very specific genetic mutations or malfunctioning of the brain — may create a biological tendency toward violence. In the novel, the protagonist Andy Barber is haunted by the idea that he has passed a "murder gene" to his teenage son. Is it possible? Hi folks. I have two new books on Amazon Kindle: CAMDEN CALLING and MISSING IN ACTON. The first one is a sequel to 'Some Like it Cold' (also on Kindle) and the other one has a new character called Vincent Company Where no-one will hear you scream... My first thought exactly, once I'd left the main road past the small Carmarthenshire village of Rhandirmyn and in the overwhelming silence, trekked up towards the bleak landscape of what had to be a disused lead mine. Encircled by dark forestry and the constant airborne flow of rooks, my second thought was how long would it take me to escape? David Dickinson: Reviving Mycroft Holmes When Richard Foreman of Endeavour Press asked me to write a short story about the Adventures of Mycroft Holmes, I was reluctant at first. True, I had been writing detective stories set in roughly the same period about my own fictional investigator called Lord Francis Powerscourt. True, I had always been a great fan of Sherlock Holmes. But something I remembered about Mycroft in the stories made me feel he would be a difficult character to write about. Mycroft never goes anywhere, unless in very exceptional circumstances... Vengeance In Mind: Up To Date With NJ Cooper Vengeance in Mind successfully went into production just before Christmas, after an excellent edit by Simon & Schuster's Emma Lowth. The proposed jacket looks great. Publication is due in the summer of 2012, in time (I hope) for The Theakston's Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival in Harrogate, which is always a highlight of my year. The 2011 Harrogate festival, chaired by Dreda Say Mitchell, was a wow with more tickets sold than ever before. As a member of the committee, I'm always immensely cheered to see people coming back year after year, as well as meeting first-timers. In 2012, Mark Billingham will chair again, so I'm looking forward to fireworks (metaphorical) and great fun. Tom Harper Talks To Crime Time My latest novel, Secrets of the Dead, was published in September by Arrow. It's a multi-stranded thriller that slips between the career of the Roman emperor Constantine the Great, and the criminal chaos of the modern Balkans. Crime Time's own Barry Forshaw picked it as one of his dozen best crime and thriller books of 2011 in The Independent. - In June, I attended a garden party at Buckingham Palace, in recognition for my work chairing the Crime Writers' Association. Being a thriller writer, I spent half the time stuffing my face with cake, and the other half storing up details in case I ever have to write a scene of someone breaking in. I still don't know if the guys in baseball caps on the roof were armed... The paperback of the latest Jim Stringer novel, The Somme Stations (winner of the CWA Ellis Peters Historical Crime Award), is published by Faber in February. Jim Stringer remains abroad – it has been remarked that he is turning into a sort of dour Tintin – for the next book in the series, The Baghdad Railway Club, which is published by Faber in June 2012. The story concerns the FIRST British invasion of Iraq (we called it Mesopotamia then), in 1917... Robert Ryan Talks To Crime Time The main event for me of 2011 was a move to a new publisher, Simon & Schuster. Next 25 |