Crime
18 August 2008
Although Greg and I are in France at the moment, we are coming to the end of the tour to promote the launch of Sépulcre - the French edition of Sepulchre. So thoughts turn to whatever it is we have to do next.
For me it is a wonderful trip - thought gruelling - to Singapore, Australia and New Zealand. It has recently dawned on me that I will be arriving in the southern hemisphere winter. I feel something has gone wrong with my organisation!
For Greg, there is a lot of Crime.
In fact, the Harrogate Crime Writing Festival is often the last event either of us takes part in before going on summer holiday - and so it was this year. Next up, however, Greg is teaching a weekend course at West Dean College in West Sussex from 5 to 7 September.
He will be working with a true crime expert, Tim Bouquet, to discuss real world investigative techniques, as well as his own experience as an author and journalist. Tim is also the author of Cold Steel, a brilliant investigative non-fiction work into the takeover of Europe's biggest steel company ...
Macmillan and Picador editor Maria Rejt will also be helping with her professional insight into developing and selling a crime or thriller novel.
There is a huge range of crime fiction, from classic mystery detection to bloodthirsty modern realism to oblique and reflective literary writing. Greg's chosen a set of three books which - among many, many others - we will definitely use as examples:
- Ngaio March's archetypal mystery whodunit set in a London theatre, Opening Night, featuring her series detective Roderick Alleyn
- Minette Walters' brilliant, socially aware, contemporary English crime novel The Shape of Snakes (not one of a series)
- Robert Crais' LA Requiem, an almost-literary contemporary US thriller with plenty of back-story around the odd couple detectives, Elvis Cole and Joe Pike
They will also refer to the work of current successful crime and thriller writers, such as Val McDermid, Mark Billingham, Ian Rankin, Sara Paretsky, R J Ellory and others.
The
Sepulchre is a criminal place.
