It’s been a very special week with Letters To My Daughters Killer featured on ITV3 Specsavers Crime Thriller Club on Monday and Ruthless, the third Scott and Bailey novel, out today 9th October to coincide with the new TV series. Today is also Super Thursday. 315 new titles will be in the bookshops and you can find out more about the special day here and here. It’s just three years since I started writing the novels based on the TV show.  I was a big fan of Scott & Bailey before I was approached to write a prequel and it was an honour, as well as a terrifying prospect, to be asked.   I loved the way the series captured female friendships – and fallings out – and the three strong women at the heart of it who are all gifted at the job they do.  Also impressive was the way the investigations were faithful to police procedure and reflected a Manchester I knew.  I’m delighted to be receiving some wonderful reviews for Ruthless.  If you’d like a taster of the novel you can hear an extract from the audio book version.

 

In case you missed Monday’s Crime Thriller Club, it included me talking about writing Letters To My Daughter’s Killer and a critique of the book from authors Mark Billingham, Sophie Hannah, Kate Mosse, Peter James and Val McDermid as well as guest actor Stephen Tompkinson and host Bradley Walsh.  I was really thrilled by the responses and have been walking on air ever since! You can watch the show on itvplayer – it is Episode 4. The awards ceremony is on October 24th in London and screened on 27th October.  One of the six books selected for the Crime Thriller Book Club will be chosen as best read.  Details of all the shortlists for the awards can be found here.

Now – where’s that bubbly?

My big news is that Letters To My Daughter’s Killer has been chosen for this year’s Specsavers Crime Thriller Book Club.  Six titles will be  featured in the weekly series Crime Thriller Club starting on ITV3 on September 15th and running up to The Specsavers Crime Thriller Awards on Sunday October 26th.  (Look out for me in one of the episodes. We had great fun filming this in Manchester earlier this year – though the use of Police Crime Scene Tape and white SOCO suits caused some consternation for the neighbours!)  It’s a real honour to have the book selected.  You can see the shortlists here http://www.crimethrillerawards.com/2013-daggers/. Happy reading!

Summer reads in the sense that it is summer and these are the books I’ve enjoyed this season so far. It’s a varied list with works from famous prize-winning authors as well as from those just starting out.  Some are crime, some not.  Some British, some American. Reading the titles again I’m struck by how each book has a completely distinctive style and voice, creates a unique world. Exactly what the best books do. Take a peek…

Cold Light by Jenn Ashworth

The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt

Safe House by Chris Ewan

The Weight of Blood by Laura McHugh

The Palace of Curiosities by Rosie Garland

American Rust by Philipp Meyer

The Long Fall by Julia Crouch

Luke and Jon by Robert Williams

Other People’s Money by Justin Cartwright

This Friday 18th July the House of Lords will give a Second Reading to the Assisted Dying Bill.  I have generally been a supporter of individual liberty when it comes to matters about a person’s health and well-being and in the past thought it would be better to have more options at the end of life but although I’ve supported the principle of assisted dying I hadn’t considered it in much depth until I wrote a novel on the topic – The Kindest Thing.  Researching this, where a woman helps her terminally ill husband end his life and is then tried for murder, convinced me that we need a law to protect and safeguard people who are dying and their loved ones who wish to support them in choosing when to die.   And that having safe, medical means to end our lives would be a far more humane system than the current situation where people are forced either to travel abroad earlier than they might wish or risk a fraught DIY attempt at ending life.  Preparing a paper about the issue for St Hilda’s Mystery and Crime  conference 2011, I was struck by the success of the assisted dying bill in Oregon USA and how the experience there has allayed many of the fears people have about a change to the law, resulting in a much more humane situation than is the case here.

Lord Falconer’s Assisted Dying Bill would clarify the situation here and (as is the case in Oregon) it would be robustly designed to prevent abuse or coercion of vulnerable people and would enable people who are close to death a chance to die with dignity and care.

As a patron of Dignity in Dying, I’d invite you to visit the website and lend your support to the campaign.  If I may quote Sir Terry Pratchett from his Richard Dimbleby lecture on the topic, ‘Let us consider me as a test case…. if I knew that I could die at any time I wanted, then suddenly every day would be as ­precious as a million pounds.  If I knew that I could die, I would live.  My life, my death, my choice.’

UPDATE:  The Bill passed the Second Reading Stage and will now progress to Committee Stage.  For details of the route to legislation see here.

My list of recommended reads is even longer this time – I’ve been away and that meant more reading opportunity. Especially as we were without a TV.  Enjoy!

The Humans by Matt Haig

After the Fire, A Still Small Voice by Evie Wyld

Strumpet City by James Plunkett

The Spinning Heart by Donal Ryan

I Am Pilgrim by Terry Hayes

The Flight by M.R. Hall

What Lies Within by Tom Vowler

The Fault In Our Stars by John Green

The Boat by Clara Salaman

The Rosie Project by Graeme Simsion

Perfect by Rachel Joyce

We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves by Karen Joy Fowler

Countdown City by Ben H. Winters

The Cuckoo’s Calling by Robert Galbraith

Gods in Alabama by Joshilyn Jackson

The Husband’s Secret by Liane Moriarty

 

 

Most of May I spent in Chengdu, in China, researching my new novel. It was a fantastic trip, a combination of soaking in the sights, sounds, smells and everyday life of the city interspersed with day trips out to surrounding attractions. We were staying with my eldest son who works there as an English teacher. He is fluent in Chinese which was a huge advantage for us in negotiating journeys and talking to Chinese people about some of the questions I had. And he was able to show us the ropes so we could get around and fend for ourselves while he was at work. We learnt a smattering of words before we went but it is possible to order food purely by pointing at pictures and performing energetic sign language. I was delighted to be invited to give an author talk at The Bookworm Chengdu, an English language bookshop, library, restaurant and bar. My first international bookshop appearance. It was a lovely venue and a really enjoyable evening. The Bookworm hosts a large literary festival every March with authors from all over the world appearing at their branches in Chengdu, Beijing and Suzhou.

There was some irony in that we were staying in the city that now makes 20% of the world’s computers but there were swathes of the web that were simply not available to us due to internet censorship. So I had no access to Twitter or any wordpress or blogspot sites. I also discovered that I couldn’t send any emails only receive them. Half-way through our visit I got an email from writer and editor Martin Edwards subject: Short Story Dagger, saying, Hi Cath, By the time you read this, I am sure you will know that you have been shortlisted for the Dagger again. I’m really pleased for you!! Talk about a wonderful surprise! I was too excited to sleep that night. Since then I’ve been able to see the shortlist and I am awed to be in such spectacular company. So a big thanks to Martin and to the CWA for all the work in organising these awards which do so much to promote crime fiction. The results will be announced on June 30th along with the results of the International Dagger, Debut Dagger, Library Dagger, Non-Fiction and the Ellis Peters Historical Dagger as well as the presentation to Simon Brett of the Diamond Dagger. And I shall be tweeting all about it. If there’s a signal…

The idea for this novel was quite simple – a bereaved mother writes to the person who killed her daughter in an attempt to move beyond rage, and the desire for vengeance, and to find some sort of acceptance.  There is a long tradition of novels written in letter form, Shelley’s Frankenstein is one, as is Dracula by Bram Stoker and more recently Shriver’s We Need To Talk About Kevin.  There were challenges in choosing to use this narrative style, in getting the tone right and working out what information was revealed when and what would be divulged to the murderer through the letters, but I found it refreshing to try something so different. These days many of us use emails in place of letters but for the most personal most significant events, around love and death and birth, we still may choose to write a physical letter.  Something that can be held and kept safe and re-read.  When I was younger I wrote regularly to lots of people, family and friends, as a way of keeping in touch.  Now decades later that has shrunk to continuing correspondence with just two.  Prison must be one of the few places where personal letters still predominate, as prisoners are unable to send email or use Skype or mobile phones.  And there is no limit on the number of letters a prisoner can receive.  So the epistolary form did seem to be the best narrative device for the story I wanted to tell.  Hope you like it.

When I write I hear the words in my head.  Not just the dialogue but the narration too.  And I see the pictures, the locations, people, their clothes and so on.  I assume everybody does.  Working in radio I’ve noticed that there are sometimes differences between how I ‘hear’ what I’ve written and how an actor delivers it, and that always surprises me.  But I imagine as readers we each translate the marks on the page in our own way, with our own voices supplying that soundtrack as we follow the story.

For my novels I’m using speech recognition these days, reading aloud what I’ve written in longhand (I know – bizarre) through a microphone and into a Word document.  It’s a complete pain when the phone rings or there’s someone at the door or I get a sneezing fit but on the whole it’s quicker than me just typing it all up.  And staves off the RSI.  But I don’t really get to hear the flow of the writing in that part of the process, I’m reading it in quite a clipped and unemotional way in order to get the best accuracy.  Even then there are many errors (I’ll have to save some up for another post).  Once I’ve corrected the mistakes I read my work aloud.  Not only does it help me improve the rhythm and see how the pace changes but it’s great for spotting repetition and abrupt endings and weak sections.  Through pressure of work I don’t always get time to read everything out loud and then when the book is published and I perform a reading in public I notice all sorts of things I’d want to change if I only had the chance.

Here’s a list of my latest recommendations.  Hopefully there is something for everyone here as it’s quite a mix in terms of genre  – though fair to say half of them are crime fiction.  What they all share is a strong story, vivid characters and locations and accomplished writing.  What else could you ask for?  Happy reading.

Someone Else’s Skin by Sarah Hilary

The Universe Versus Alex Woods by Gavin Extence

The Stranger You Know by Jane Casey

Harvest by Jim Crace

The Cry by Helen Fitzgerald

Burial Rites by Hannah Kent

A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness

Trouble Man by Tom Benn

The Son by Philipp Meyer

Red Joan by Jennie Roonie

The Shock of the Fall by Nathan Filer

Keep Your Friends Close by Paula Daly

Last week I delivered the manuscript for my 20th novel.  Twentieth!  It’s hard to believe I’ve written that many.  One question people ask is whether it gets easier and I don’t think it does.  Harder perhaps, thinking up fresh situations that I haven’t explored before.  The process may be more familiar but the core activities of writing: finding characters, developing the story, choosing the words, shaping the material, editing and improving it, are still as challenging and as engaging as ever.  Some books flow more easily, others take a while to uncover.  In my mind I think the making of a novel is a combination of discovery and construction.  It’s like mining for an artefact that is buried and as you dig it out, you clean and sculpt and colour it until it feels complete.  I’ve no idea whether the ‘mining’ metaphor rings true for other people but it doesn’t matter.  As practitioners we all find out what methods work for us, whether we plot in advance or just start writing, when we edit, whether research precedes the writing or is done on the hoof, dipping into the internet as we go, whether we count the words or the pages, if we write chronologically or weave collages together, if we use particular software to help us with structure and continuity, whether we read aloud or dictate our work.  When I start afresh with each book I still need that leap of faith, a suspension of the critical voice that tries to undermine my efforts.  And when the book is written I have the all too familiar lurch of confidence while I wait for feedback, maybe even greater these days as with each new title there’s the hope it will be an improvement on what came before.  The buzz I get from writing remains just as strong and rewarding as it always was and I can’t imagine ever wanting to stop.