Chris Weigand from The Guardian recently went to the Harrogate Crime Writing Festival and posted it about it on the Guardian's books blog here and here.
Now he brings us an interview with Harlan Coben whom he describes as "master of the soft-centred suburban thriller".
Well worth a read.
A crime fiction author contacted me in the week with details of a petition regarding the funding for the Olympics in London in 2012. You can find it here.
I'll start at the beginning: the petition was created by Dawn Kenyon of Carlisle Carers Association and she petitions "the Prime Minister to stop the Chancellor from using lottery money to fund the Olympics in 2012". Please note (1): Dawn Kenyon is from a carers association. Please note (2): for some of the money that the lottery generates, (all previously aimed at charitable causes), the proposal is now to redirect a portion into the coffers of the ever increasing cost to stage the 2012 Olympics in London.
I'm not surprised this petition originated with someone working in a carers association. This is what it means, in black and white: the lottery has raised money for years and has distributed it on the basis of grants and in other ways to charities; the charities thus get to depend on this income stream to provide their services and ensure their survival. Take that income away and it means less or no services from that charity. It may also mean an end to that charity, should the loss of income be so material. Please read on...
I had a penchant (craving/addiction?) for dark chocolate Bounty bars at university; I had one almost every day. But I lost it along the way and by the time I started work, even the memory of that squidgey, pressed, ever so sweet coconut, in an envelope of bitter-sweet chocolate was gone - regardless of the TV advertisements. Likewise, when I started reading crime fiction, with a vengeance akin to addiction in 1992, the serial killer novel was a unique thrill. I simply could not get enough of it.
Roll on to the birth of the next millennium and I started to realise I had become a tad tired of this. Roll on to 2003, or thereabouts and I started to acknowledge that I really was tired of this sub-genre. By 2004/5, I was happy to say that I was all "serial-killered out".
Originally, I put this down to culture. I'd embarked on that reading "fix" when based in North America for eighteen months in the early nineties. There, they have serial killers aplenty, or so it seems. The UK did not/does not still.
Returning to the UK, I was slow, initially, to take up the British authors, as they didn't have the pace I was used to. One exception was Minette Walters, where I picked up a copy of "The Scold's Bridle" in a local bookshop and found something I considered unique. I'd no idea what a "scold's bridle" was until I read that novel. Also, I'd had no idea that people lived that kind of life until I read that novel. I was hooked and went back to the bookshop and bought the (small at the time) backlist. I still didn't have a replication of the "serial killer chase pace", but I was intrigued enough to keep turning the pages.
So what made the long term change for me, and why? And why do I seek your thoughts on this?
UK-based reader of crime fiction for many years.
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