IT'S A CRIME! (OR A MYSTERY...)

Just under a week to go for "Murder Most Famous"

This 45 minute programme - you know, the one with six "celebs" competing to write a crime fiction Quick Read for 2009's World Book Day - starts on Monday March 3rd on BBC2.

In some rather odd scheduling, it's to be screened at 13:30 every day of that week except Wednesday, when it's on at 14:00.  Let's hope all those pre-school tots are busy messing up their mummies' kitchens with poster paints, crayons and playdough while trips to the autopsy and experiences of gunhandling are on the TV.

You have to wonder what audience is being targeted here.  It's certainly not existing crime fiction readers.  Perhaps they read the crime blogs and realised that quite a few crime fiction readers and writers got the hump at what they see as such a dastardly lowering of the tone for the genre.

Luckily, with Virgin, I can watch it in the evening on demand.  I suspect it will be a laugh.

The Cat Trap - K. T. McCaffrey

First up, you can buy K. T. McCaffrey's novel The Cat Trap via Amazon here, but I strongly recommend you avoid reading the synopsis on there.  Simply, it does not do the book enough justice, revealing a little too much of the plot and in an order out of synch with the voyage of discovery in the novel itself.  The cover is eye-catching and promises a dynamic story with a strong female focus, so what is delivered?

In a nutshell: investigative reporter Emma Boylan left her husband and took up with Detective Inspector Jim Connolly.  Connolly's marriage had always seemed an ill match with a policeman married to a rather wealthy woman whose father gave them their large house as a wedding gift.  All is fine, until one day, Connolly's ex-wife asks him to visit her at precisely mid-day.  With no answer, Connolly eventually discovers the body of Iseult in a car in the garage, an apparent suicide.  Then comes the implosion.  Connolly is arrested in connection with his ex-wife's death and while on remand, Iseult's friend Nuala is found on the property having been badly beaten and apparently raped.  Fingers point at Connolly for Nuala's murder when she later dies in hospital.  Emma is convinced that Jim is innocent, but she's up against her media colleagues, Connolly's own police colleagues and Dublin society in trying to find out the truth...

Early scenes central to the plot are mixed with some other quite sinister ones.  It soon becomes apparent that there are some very malign women operating in Dublin.  And just what is the link?  In crime fiction the setting for low life activities often falls to those with little money; but here, it's with those with too much money and time on their hands that we enter that sinister and eerie world.

The novel is great on suspense and full of red herrings.  You really do have to read all the way to the end to fnd out the truth, as Emma eventually does.  There are plenty of strong and memorable characters, but are they all the seem to be?

Lastly, reading can also be an education.  I was familiar with colonic irrigation but I'd never heard of "anal bleaching".  (Go on, Google it yourself if you don't already know.)  I mention this as an example of the world entered in this novel.  How some live...

The Cat Trap is a classic suspenseful mystery, brimming with malevolent and misplaced motivations and a welcome addition to the crime fiction reader's bookshelf.  Just make sure it's high up in the To Be Read list.

Rob Brydon’s Identity Crisis

Rob Brydon’s Identity Crisis is on BBC4 on Friday at 9pm.  It's a programme in which he revisits his Welshness and challenges stereotypes.  (Apparently the Welsh are considered to be miserable.)

Proving he's a brave man (or simply reckless), A.A.Gill has taken part in the programme and writes about it in The Sunday Times.  Gill, don't forget, once called the Welsh "ugly pugnacious little trolls".  I'd urge my fellow Welsh men and women to relax and have a laugh.  This para had me laughing:

"The Welsh bruise easier than ripe peaches; they have insult detectors more sensitive than a bat in a thunderstorm. They can take offence at silence, and nothing in the world has skin as gossamer-fine as a Welshman with a grievance. Except for Brydon: he has skin like Cherie Blair’s buttocks."

50 crime writers to read before you die

Thanks to Dec at Crime Always Pays for this post.  Otherwise, I'd have missed The Daily Telegraph's 50 crime writers to read before you die.  A bit more debate can be found here, at Crime Scraps.  At the time of writing, The Telegraph's comment section had attracted 226 comments on its article.

Comments are often intriguing.  I loved this one:

"I don't read crime books - I find them to be mostly violent and upsetting.

I prefer to read historical and political biographies, such as that of Dr Livingstone and Jackie Kennedy.

I think people who like to read about murder and rape are mentally unhealthy."

There must be plenty of mentally unhealthy people out there then; all wandering around undiagnosed.

But oh, go on, such lists are subjective aren't they?  Great to see John Lawton on the list.  Odd to see Frances Fyfield, with this comment - "Fyfield emerged as a rival to Minette Walters when publishers in the mid-1990s were obsessed with grim, cod-psychological nasties inspired by Ruth Rendell. She's relaxed into a more comfortable format." - but no Minette Walters.

Glaring omissions for me include: Robert Wilson; Michael Connelly (ye gods, had the panel taken too many Mogadons?); Ian Rankin; John Harvey; Harlan Coben; John Sandford; Andrew Taylor; Minette Walters; Patricia Cornwell (for her early work) and lastly, someone no one has suggested in the comments there, Ridley Pearson (his Boldt/Matthews novels were excellent and I miss them).

The nonsensical, which is always out there...

This had me giggling from Brian Appleyard.  This bit got me going:

"In my experience the words are as bourgeois as a giant, 4X4 baby buggy or an uncontrollable fondness for seabass (halibut is better)."

Do give it a click.

Sadness and closure in book buying, Robotham, Hayder, Bristol and crime...

Talking to a friend last night, we were stuck to think of a book I wanted to buy alongside Michael Robotham's latest, Shatter, to get the free delivery with Amazon.  Tonight, I remembered that I wanted Matt Beynon Rees's latest, A Grave in Gaza (American title and edition); The Saladin Murders if purchasing the UK edition, which is paperback only.

So, there I was placing my order on Amazon and I knew I'd have to change the delivery address.  (I'd always had my parcels delivered to my parents' address.)  Tick, done.    The next thing I noticed was that the invoice address came up as my parents' address.  Tick, changed also.

You get on with life as best you can and then something comes up and bites you in the backside to remind you that life is changing and needs to continue to change; that there is no going back.  Memories and material things are all you have left when you've lost loved ones.

I hope that Amazon pack this duo well.  They did a miserable job with my previous order, which I returned for a refund.  I hope that Royal Mail will take the parcel back to the office, if I'm not in for the delivery.  I had one parcel left on my doorstep recently.  If it hadn't proved to be a temptation for theft, the parcel could have suffered rain damage.  Luckily, I was in at the time.

I have many novels to be read lying around this house.  Thanks to Faber, Bantam, Macmillan New Writing, Mira and some others, I have quite a few proof copies.  But there are still other novels and authors I will continue to seek out.  Robotham has impressed me with every one of his novels to date and he's a professor when it comes to pace.  It's really hard to do something else when you've started one of his novels.  Matt Rees's first novel will feature here in the near future.  The Bethlehem Murders is a superb read focused on the sense of justice.  It has one particular heart-rending moment that does not leave the memory.  The truth will out?  It ain't necessarily so.  Rees knows how to build tension.

Back to Robotham, Bristol seems to be the popular crime scene in crime fiction this year.  Robotham's novel Shatter has psychologist Joseph O'Loughlin called to the Clifton Suspension Bridge to try and stop a woman from leaping.  Mo Hayder's latest (Ritual) returns to the DI Jack Caffery series - with the promise of a new Walking Man series - and he moves from London to Bristol.  Hayder can pick some odd names for characters.  In Tokyo we had a character called "Grey" and in Ritual we have a character called "Flea".  On Tuesday, 18 March, Hayder will be at Waterstone's in Bristol at 7pm (the Broadmead branch).  They have a hand written poster of events in the window and they describe Ritual as "grisly".

Ritual is a novel dedicated to 'Adam'.  'Adam' don't forget, is the once young and innocent life whose torso was found in the Thames; 'Adam' thought to be a victim of a ritual killing.  It will be interesting to see what Hayder does with her Muti-related story in Ritual.  'Adam's' case was so sad and heart-breaking to those of us in this country.  The Metropolitan Police did all they could to seek justice for that young boy (estimated at between 4 and 7 years of age when he was killed).  It is easy to appreciate that officers of The Met were deeply affected by this case.

Hayder is not afraid to approach the potentially controversial in her fictional writing.  Will Ritual be a tale too close in time to the reality of 'Adam's' dreadful death?  But, she remembers 'Adam' in her dedication and that's a wonderful slice of humanity.  He had little of life and possibly little in life - we do not know how he fared in the latter.  This now departed mere tot - and yes, that's all he was - deserves to be enshrined in the memory of those who value life and seek justice.  He deserved better, much better.  He deserved the usual fate of a young child: cuddles; love; nurturing; play; development; education; the prospect of a long and fulfilling life.  He did nothing to deserve murder for whatever irrational reason.

Hayder has me quaking already when it comes to the fiction side of things.  Unlike any other crime fiction author, I'd say her imagination holds no bounds.  I know that Tokyo was lauded in many circles, but I had a problem with that novel.  The main issue for me was the subject matter.

But for me, nothing Hayder has done has been without a sense of risk and jeopardy.  The early Cafferys were "tell it like it is" - no holds barred police procedurals - Tokyo shook the roots of Japan's history and Pig Island was an excursion into the unusual and odd.  You may feel you know the writing, but Hayder surprises every time.

Back to Bristol: don't forget Crimefest 2008.  It's all happening there.  The list of participants is growing in 2008 and it's good to see.

The Noble Outlaw - Bernard Knight

My late mother may be described as an avid fan of this Crowner John series from Bernard Knight; she who read little crime fiction in her lattter years as it had become far too "gory" apparently.  Crowner John was her exception and I now have the series in my hands.

Venturing into a pre-WWII setting is almost unknown for me, but when the delightful Karen at Eurocrime gave me the chance of reading this novel for that site, I thought I'd take the opportunity with haste.  And let's hear it for the Welsh: Bernard Knight, CBE is something of a paradox with his writing.  Now retired from an outstanding career in forensic pathology that led to a Professorship at the University of Wales and all the current medical and technical knowledge that that holds, Knight creates a series set in the medieval period where cause of death is still being discovered.

Set in Exeter in the 12th century, the series features Crowner John who is the Coroner for the area, following a successful career in warfare, supporting Richard the Lionheart in his travels across Europe.  In The Noble Outlaw, Crowner John has a case of murdered guildsmen to investigate as well as having to contend with some of the political shenanigans of the day and the reappearance of his brother-in-law's ability to cause consternation all round.  Life was not so very different in some ways, all those centuries ago...

CARE anybody?

Norm from Crimescraps pursues with vigour here.

Click on that link to find out why the vulnerable in our society deserve respect.

Touchstone - Laurie R. King

One American reviewer once described Laurie R. King as the new P. D. James, which begged the question as to whether he or she had actually read books by either author? The only similarity is that bookstores would place books by each author on their 'crime' shelves, and there the similarity ends.

Laurie R. King has published eighteen books, ranging from the Kate Martinelli police procedurals set in modern-day San Francisco, to the thought-provoking yet fascinating Mary Russell series which, incidentally, features Sherlock Holmes as the mentor to the young Russell in the 1920s. I first read a Kate Martinelli title ten years ago when I spotted the setting as San Francisco, a city I was just about to visit for the first time. With only four titles in the series, but being impressed by the quality of the prose and the originality of the story, I persuaded myself to try a 'historical' novel with the first Mary Russell book. I have to confess that I hadn't been a fan of historical fiction before, not being partial to Victorians in togas (well, you get my drift), and it did take me two or three of the Russells before I welcomed them as equally as Mrs King's other work. The sense of time and place is so real, but never at the expense of the story, and I never felt as if the period in which the novels were set were being hammered home unnecessarily - indeed, with varied locations used to backdrop each book, they are as important and relevant as the stories being told.

Which brings me to Laurie R. King's latest offering, Touchstone, a stand-alone novel set shortly after the Great War in locations as diverse as London and Cornwall. I must confess immediately to a preference for novels which stand by themselves away from a series; as the author says on her own blog, it gives her 'a chance to flex her literary muscles', with the opportunity to develop a unique selection of characters and background that support the story in its entirety. Touchstone is no exception; a rich and diverse offering which challenges the mind and demands a single-sitting reading - no easy task at 500 pages plus. Indeed, part of the pleasure of this novel is in the savouring, with the lead character of Bennett Gray a superb vehicle from whom to provide just one of the many perspectives in this book.

Followers of Laurie R. King's blog will know how much time, care and love goes into her books. No corporate publicity machine producing multiple titles each year; indeed, often eighteen months or more may elapse between her books, and are welcomed with open arms by an extremely loyal readership. With Touchstone as the latest example of how this author keeps in touch with this reader, I would always welcome a more prolific output; however, I am glad Laurie R. King doesn't feel the need to compromise in any way, and continues to produce absolute gems.

[Note: The American edition of Touchstone, from Bantam, is available now.  The UK edition, to be published by Poisoned Pen Press, is scheduled for 1 June 2008.]

The author of this review is my good friend Chris in Scotland, who is also a good friend of this blog and a well-embedded crime fiction afficionado.  My thanks to Chris for his allocation of time and enthusiasm in providing this review.

This Night's Foul Work - Fred Vargas

Now then: I enjoyed Wash This Blood Clean from My Hands, so I looked forward to reading This Night's Foul Work by Fred Vargas (translated from the original French by Siân Reynolds).  Wash This Blood... was my first Vargas and I have a soft spot for eccentrics (characters fitting that description abound), a love of the original (this one defined "quirky"), and so I was suitably impressed.  So what does This Night's Foul Work offer?

In a nutshell: Commissaire Adamsberg and his team have the investigation of the murder of two men on their hands - their throats have been cut.  Adamsberg is also drawn away from Paris, to Haroncourt in the départment of the Eure where he is entrusted with the details of the brutal killings of two stags.  He is haunted by a shadow - well, more than one ghost -  one of which is a female nurse serial killer he saw off to prison two years ago, now escaped.  Could she be behind the murders?  (As the dead men carried her calling card.)  Meanwhile, Adamsberg has a new recruit in his team and they have a history.  What is the New Recruit's objective in seeking to work for Adamsberg?  The pathologist is on sick leave suffering from the "vapours" (depression) and is replaced with Ariane Lagarde, someone who crossed swords with Adamsberg 23 years ago, when he got the better of her thoughts on a case...