Irish Author Mel Healy: Do They Speak English in Irish Crime Fiction? Sunday, Jun 1 2014 

Uncategorized , , , , , Auntie M Writes Crime 12:51 am

Auntie M is thrilled to announce the publication of her third Nora Tierney Mystery, THE SCARLET WENCH. scarletwench_cover_front
While she’s out on tour, please welcome Irish crime writer Mel Healy, author of the Moss Reid series, who will attempt to explain the vagaries of language he faces as a writer– as soon as we both murder a pint!

Another Case in Cowtown, Mel Healy

Do They Speak English in Irish Crime Fiction?

by Mel Healy

Here’s a little dilemma when writing crime fiction in English: what KIND of English should you use? The answer may seem obvious for US or British authors – simply set your spellchecker to “English (United States)” or “English (United Kingdom)” and off you go.

But it’s not quite so simple in my crime novels, which are mostly set in Ireland with mainly Irish characters. My spellchecker is set to “UK English”, the kind of spelling generally used in Ireland, which Irish readers would expect. Yet there are linguistic differences far deeper than mere spellings, or minor differences in syntax between UK English (as in “I met him on Monday, he killed her on Tuesday”) and US English (“I met him Monday, he killed her Tuesday”).

Take food. My central character, Moss Reid, is a PI and a foodie. His philosophy in life is “eat, drink and investigate – in that order.” So he uses British rather than American terms to talk about his grub – from courgettes (not zucchini) to biscuits (never cookies).

He’ll also talk about specific Irish food and drink: a “sliced pan” (as in a loaf of pre-sliced bread in rectangular prism shape), “colcannon”, “red lemonade” (I’ve an entire chapter on that), “Tayto crisps”. His food is stored in “a press” (the Hiberno-English term for a cupboard or closet) or “the fridge” (rarely “a refrigerator” in Ireland).

He never goes for “a few drinks” either. He goes “for a pint”. One pint, singular – which often descends into the plural because he “could murder another” (i.e. could do with a second one). In England, by contrast, Inspector Morse would drop into an Oxford pub (never a bar of course) for a pint of “real ale”. In Dublin, Moss Reid would have a pint or “a glass” (Irish pub term for a half pint) of “stout” rather than “ale”.

With the obvious exception of “pints”, my characters generally prefer metric to imperial units for food and drink, along with a plethora of Hiberno-English measurements such as the “rake”, “feed” or “clatter”. These mean “a lot”, “many” – as in “a rake of pints”, “a feed of drink”, “a few scoops”.

Hiberno-English uses a rake (sorry) of “British English” nouns in peculiarly Irish ways:

– “A yoke” is an all-purpose noun for objects, gadgets (particularly things whose name escapes you)
– “The jacks” are the toilets / ladies / gents (UK), bathroom / restroom (US), washroom (Canadian English)
– “The messages” refers to the shopping
– And “I’m dying for a fag” – this one always confuses my American friends – simply means someone has a craving for a cigarette.

My characters are more likely to say “grand” or “deadly” than the American “awesome”. In Hiberno-English a “deadly jumper” is a nice piece of clothing while a “deadly weapon” is not nice at all. Or take the word “crack” or “craic”: “a term for news, gossip, fun, entertainment, and enjoyable conversation” (Wikipedia). Hence phrases such as “mighty craic” or “the crack was ninety”.

So my characters use an English that’s quite different even to British English. They occasionally slip in an Irish word or phrase such as “slán” (“goodbye) or, more importantly, use Irish-language loan words when dealing with official state titles – the Taoiseach (head of government), the Oireachtas (parliament), and, of course, the Garda Síochána (police force) or gardaí or plain guards (cops).

Other relatively new phrases in common parlance from the Irish political and economic scene – “NAMA”, “Bertie-speak”, “the Galway tent” – are just the latest layers on top of all the older shorthand and sayings from Ireland’s largely colonial history. Hiberno-English dances at the linguistic crossroads, and does a rake of linguistic borrowing and bending in its merry dance. Hence my characters use terms such as:

– “Acting the maggot” (joking or acting the fool)
– “Culchie” (an unsophisticated rural person)
– “Eejit”, “bollix” (idiot)
– “Mitch” (play truant)
– “Bowsies”, “gurriers”, “gougers” (various nouns for rough or unruly elements)

Cultural reference-points are also quite different. Irish homes get US and British TV shows and know all about Oprah or Dr Who. But the media flow tends to be one-way: outsiders might know about U2 or “Father Ted” but wouldn’t have a clue about most Irish radio and TV, from “Love/Hate” to Mario Rosenstock, or catchphrases such as “Stop the lights” (from a 1970s gameshow).

Hiberno-English has another twist: sentence constructions that echo the Irish language. For example, in Irish you can’t say “I have written another book” – there’s no “have” in Irish. Hiberno-English mirrors this with “I’m after writing another book”. This construction (“I’m after killing him”, “She’s only after losing four stone!”) is called the “hot news perfect” or the “after perfect”.

Or take the question “Is that yourself there?” The reply might be along the lines of “It is.” Because Irish has no words for “yes” and “no”, in Hiberno-English the verb in the question gets recycled:

“Are you going for a pint?”
“I am” (instead of plain “yes”).

“Is your iPad working?”
“It isn’t” (rather than plain “no”). “Cos it’s banjaxed” (broken).

Hiberno-English likes conditionals (“She asked me would I help her” rather than “She asked me to help her”) and negatives (“This wouldn’t be the road to Skibbereen would it?”) and apparently empty words in conversations – like “like”, “know what I mean”, “so”, “sure”, “only”, “at all at all”. And, like Irish, it has both a second person singular (“you”) and second person plural (“youse”).

As the poet Ciaran Carson puts it: “I write in English, but the ghost of Irish hovers behind it.” Hiberno-English is a melting pot, with words and constructions from Irish, and archaic English words that fell out of use in British English. It even fills in certain gaps in English syntax. For example, “amn’t” (as in “am not”) is taken for granted in colloquial speech and literature (James Joyce in “Ulysses”: “Amn’t I with you? Amn’t I your girl?”), yet regarded outside Ireland as ungrammatical.

By now youse are probably wondering “Do the Irish speak English?” That’s also the title of a lecture by Terence Dolan, compiler of a Hiberno-English dictionary. Hiberno-English “is a distillation of the Irish character,” he says. “Irish people over the centuries have been oppressed, so therefore they don’t want people to know what it is they’re thinking or saying.” Hence, he says, Hiberno-English is “devious to start with, and evasive”. A real bonus when you’re writing crime fiction, particularly dialogue.

Without overdoing it, the dialogue in my books tries to give a flavour of all this. Maybe that’s breaking a textbook rule, as well as screenwriter John Yorke‘s sound advice: “Good dialogue doesn’t resemble conversation – it presents the illusion of conversation, subservient to the demands of characterisation and structure”.

But sometimes rules are there to be broken. Especially when speaking “broken English”.

Finally we can’t avoid the questions of (a) how much swearing to include (the Irish do tend to use swearwords as punctuation marks) and (b) the feckin’ weather. Apparently Ireland has more words for rain than the Inuit have for snow, and only in Ireland would a light sprinkling of rain be described as “a soft day”.

At the end of the day, though, let’s not get too hung up on the differences. Readers notice the differences standing out when something is phrased in a way that wouldn’t be heard in their locale. But the strength and beauty of the English language is that it’s both global and local. It spans borders yet enriches itself through its sheer diversity, feeding on the linguistic and cultural differences from place to rainy place.

Right. I’m off to murder a pint.

Mel Healy’s first two novels in the “Moss Reid” series are “Another Case in Cowtown” and “Black Marigolds“. For more info see his Amazon author profile at http://amazon.com/author/melhealy

 

Daniel Palmer: Desperate Sunday, May 25 2014 

Uncategorized , , , , , Auntie M Writes Crime 12:20 am

Desperate
Just when you think there can’t be a new twist to a story, along comes Daniel Palmer, who surprises readers yet again with his newest thriller, Desperate.

Told strongly in first person from the point of view of Gage Dekker, he and his second wife Anna Miller are desperate to adopt. Both have survived the loss of a child, and for Gage, the added loss of his first wife, Karen, compounds his despair when he meets Anna in a grief survivor’s group. After a whirlwind courtship, a meeting of the minds and hearts, the two are married six months when they decide to adopt after Anna experiences a miscarriage.

A chance meeting with unwed mother Lily turns their anticipated long wait to adopt into a sudden rush when Lily asks them to adopt her baby. With their upstairs tenant gone, Lily is installed over their heads to await the blessed event.

And then things start to horribly go wrong for Gage in several areas of his life, and Lily seems to be at the bottom of it all.

But Anna refuses to believe Gage when he insists Lily is sabotaging his life. The two women have bonded and Anna is desperate for this child to complete their family; she blames Gage for the seemingly innocuous incidents that have him believing Lily is not who she seems to be.

As the stakes are raised, Gage will find himself embroiled in a fantastical plot he can’t find a way out of, one that leads to murder, and he’s stuck at the heart of it.

This compelling thriller will appear to leave Gage no way out, and then the complicated plot takes yet another twist until it careens around a sharp curve and readers will be left breathless and amazed at the audacity Palmer infuses into his novel.

Compelling and intelligently written, Palmer will hook readers and draw you in, in this inventive thriller with its surprising events. Unexpected and original.

 

Linda Barnes: The Perfect Ghost Sunday, May 18 2014 

Uncategorized , , , , Auntie M Writes Crime 12:03 am

Linda Barnes is best known for her award-winning Carlotta Carlyle novels. Now she returns with an intriguing premise for a crime novel in The Perfect Ghost. perfectghost
Em Moore is the quieter, writing half of the ghost-writing “autobiography” team of T E Blakmore. Her partner, Teddy Blake, the face of the team with his charismatic personality and winning way during interviews of their subjects, has perished in a car accident.

Despite panic attacks and agoraphobia, Em pursues finishing their most recent contract with the actor, director and filmmaker Garrett Malcolm, and travels to his lavish compound on Cape Cod. The son of a family with theatrical ties, Malcolm is known for his attention to detail and his way with women. A widower with an only daughter, Malcolm wins over the impressionable Em.

It’s hard for Em to come out of her shell but she persists, using learned coping mechanisms, and soon winning Malcolm’s interest and finally his respect. She feverishly pursues their remaining interviews while composing the book, all the while distracted by the persistent questions of a local police detective who suspects Teddy’s accident was not quite so accidental.

Along the way she finds herself reluctantly introduced to a local gossip-monger and tries to decipher the clues he’s collected that point to a dark secret Malcolm is hiding.

Told in Em’s narrative to Teddy, we see the action through her eyes and the unfolding of a story that will leave readers with raised eyebrows, and in a final unseen twist, shocked at the ending.

Barnes just a great job folding readers into Em’s world, who will be caught up in her story. She uses devices like police reports, newspaper clippings and the transcripts of some of Teddy’s interviews to weave a compelling story that will leave readers totally unprepared for its surprising climax.

 

A Bag of Goodies: Robertson, Entwistle, Parks, Sigurdartdottir, & Hawley Sunday, May 11 2014 

Uncategorized , , , , , , , , , Auntie M Writes Crime 12:41 am

Auntie M wishes all the mothers reading this a very Happy Mother’s Day.
Today she’s going to give you a really mixed bag of goodies to choose from for your reading pleasure.MoriarityReturnsLetter

First up is Moriarty Returns a Letter by Michael Robertson, the continuing saga of brothers Nigel and Reggie Heath, whose law firm is located at 221B Baker Street. Its rental comes with the added burden of herding the mail that arrives addressed to Sherlock Holmes.

This innovative series is pure delight, and opens with an exhibition of vintage letters to Sherlock Holmes going on display at the Marylebone Hotel. Reggie and his fiancee Laura are set to leave on an engagement trip, a precursor to their long-anticipated wedding.

Then Darla Rennie turns up, a troubled young woman convinced Reggie is Sherlock Holmes and that she is the descendent of Moriarty. With the single-minded determination and cunning abilities of the evil Professor, Darla manages to turn up at unexpected times and places and generally throws a substantive monkey wrench into the proceedings.

The history of her gripe has its seeds in the death of an 1890’s Pinkerton officer from America working undercover in England. His story and one from the 1940’s add to the storyline as the contemporary 1990’s events unfold.

Nigel and Reggie prove an interesting pair of protagonists in the series, not quite Holmes nor Watson, but certainly with shades of each in their makeup. A fine addition to the series.

thraxton-hall-200
Keeping with the Sherlockian theme, the next offering is Vaughn Entwistle’s The Revenant of Thraxton Hall, which goes back in time to the days immediately after Sir Arthur Conan Doyle killed off Holmes in his story in The Strand Magazine, setting off a public frenzy that saw people sporting black arm bands in mourning and pelting the author with rotten tomatoes when they recognized him out in public.

When medium Hope Thraxton asks Conan Doyle to attend her, the young heiress informs him she needs his help to stop a murder–hers. Despite misgivings at leaving his ill wife at home, the author jumps at the chance to leave town,an dis accompanied by his good friend, Oscar Wilde. Together the two venture to Thraxton Hall for the meeting of the Society for Psychical Research, a group of supernaturalists who each have a motive for wanting young Hope’s death.

Spookiness abounds, with weird happenings and nightly seances, acts of levitation and the pronouncements of a russian mystic of the revenant, or returning spirit, who haunts Thraxton Hall. All of the action is lightened by Wilde’s breezy patter and affectations. The two men will attempt to figure out the real motives of those at the gathering before murder can occur. The first of a planned series, these feature Conan Doyle’s real-life absorption with the paranormal and promise to be filled with whimsy quirks and fantastical plots.

player-225

Leaving England for Newark, New Jersey, brings us to Brad Park’s newest Carter Ross mystery, The Player. Told in first-person narrative with Ross’ wry humor at the forefront, this caper revolves around strange illnesses affecting the residents of a small neighborhood, a story that sets Ross’ antenna quivering.

As he uses the skills of a new intern to augment his work, Ross fends off the odd relationship he’s developed with his editor and former lover, Tina, but a new wrinkle has them revisiting their roles. The story he’s working on goes beyond a supposedly smarmy developer and equally suspicious crime boss.

But his poking around sets off alarms and he soon finds himself embroiled in the people who might benefit from a class action lawsuit and finds he’s found himself a brand new enemy.

Park’s humor keeps this series from bogging down while he tackles serious issues and gives outsiders a real perspective of life inside a newspaper and of blue collar Newark.

IRememberYou

Icelandic author Yrsa Sigurdartdottir already has a following for her mystery series featuring lawyer Thora Gudmundsdottir. She returns with a new a ghost story, I Remember You, that will wrap you up in its eeriness and leave an impact long after the last page has been turned.

Three people arrive in the isolated village of the Icelandic Westfjords, set to start work on renovating an old house. Bought by two male friends, one has died suddenly, leaving his widow to accompany the other married couple as they set to work.

The remoteness and debilitated condition of the house add to the spooky atmosphere as weird things start to happen. It soon becomes evident that some otherworldly force wants them to leave the house.

The story runs alongside the saga of a divorced physician who becomes involved in investigating the suicide of a woman–a woman he discovers had become obsessed with his own son, who disappeared and is presumed dead.

This scary thriller who have you on the edge of your sheet and looking over your shoulder. If you like stories that raise the hairs on the back of your neck, this one’s for you.

Conspiracy

Noah Hawley has created and written screenplays and television shows and several previous novels. Now he brings A Conspiracy of Tall Men to the reader in the same way controversy followed him for The Good Father.

In this offering, Linus Owen teaches conspiracy theory on the college level and follows his own ideas on the subject with two dedicated theorist friends in his off-time. He and his wife, advertising executive Claudia, have an ideal life and have decided to start their family after her return from visiting her mother in Chicago.

Then two FBI agents arrive with startling news. Claudia has been killed in a plane crash–but the plane was headed to Brazil. What she was doing on that plane and how she got there form the basis of the investigation Linus pursues.

From the get go, he sees the list of passengers he’s received is not complete. Then he learns Claudia’s fellow traveler was VP of a large pharmaceutical company. With his conspiracy radar pinging on high, Linus sets out to unravel the mystery of his wife’s death, with the help of his friends, to devastating circumstances.

Linus’ rambling thoughts and asides provide black humor for the book, but it will be the unusual reader who will not find themselves buying into his rants and ideas as the action unfolds. Entertaining and different.

 

Jan McCanless: The Beryl’s Cove Mysteries and More Sunday, May 4 2014 

Uncategorized , , , Auntie M Writes Crime 12:18 am

While Auntie M is in MN enjoying her four Grands there and her 23rd wedding anniversary, please welcome author Jan McCanless, whose wit and charm delight readers.

Over Connected but Underwired

by Jan McCanless
McCanless 1

There was a cartoon in the paper the other day that had the born loser looking forlornly at his computer screen, and Gladys was asking him what the trouble was. He replied that there was a news story he wanted to read that would help him with his memory, and he couldn’t access it because he had forgotten his password. That, my friends, is the story of my life!!

You would think that being a newspaper columnist I would know how to do tricks on a computer, I mean, really make it sit up and spin around. Hah !!!!! I know just enough to get me by vis-a-vis my emails and sending in my work to various editors around the country.

Somebody told me recently that they were surprised I was not banging away on an old Underwood typewriter someplace. Hey, if I could find one, I would…

I have a sister-in-law who raves about her Kindle, her iPad, her tablet, her iPhones, whatever. She will begin rhapsodizing over all these electronics, while I sit there with that deer-in-the-headlights look. Just this morning, my friend emailed about a new computer he is trying to set up at his house. He raved about memory chips, hardware, motherboard, gigabites, etc, and I sat here, my eyes glazing over. I’m thinking to myself, what in the world are these people talking about??

I recall a job I once had that required me to have a cell phone so the office could get in touch with me. At that time, my daughter had given me an old one she felt was obsolete, so, there I was, riding around on the tour bus I was escorting someplace, when the phone rang. I whipped it out, pulled up the antenna, and to my horror, all 56 passengers on the bus were laughing and pointing at me. What????? It was a cell phone for heavens sake!! Not long after this, the thing simply died on me. It was, after all, a fossil from the dinosaur age. Off I went to my local wireless store. See, I did learn the terminology. Wireless, has a nice ring to it, doesn’t it? Give me the cheapest, easiest thing to operate, I told them. They did, but then the salesman started to explain all the neat things it would do: you hit this button, it turns on the camera; this over here, he said, was the speaker; on and on. Even told me how I could text. Text, me???

Putting my new toy in my handbag, I inadvertently turned the camera on. It would be a disaster, but, I did get a lot of nice shots of the interior of my handbag. The first time it rang, it scared me to death. I had forgotten how to turn it on and speak into it. Well, you can understand my predicament now, can’t you? I am definitely of the on/off switch generation, and you people have put me in this situation , and I can tell you right now I am not happy about it.

Soon after they bought me my first microwave oven, I told my children that I would never want for any other modern device. They told me I had to come into the modern age and to use a computer. “Get connected, Mom” they told me. “You can’t access the internet with a microwave oven.” How do they know, have they ever tried?

The whole world is ‘connected’ electronically, but I am underwired for such things. It’s all I can do to operate my can opener/knife sharpener, and I didn’t even realize my can opener also contained a knife sharpener until my daughter-in-law used it one day. I thought those ridges on the back of the thing were merely a nice design.

Look, I’m happy, blissful in my ignorance, and think of the time I don’t waste by being constantly on one of those electronic gizmos. Just for your information, I don’t care for vending machines, either. They always seem to take my money and stop functioning at that moment. Besides, if I learned to be really proficient on one of those things, what in the world would I write about?

Contact Jan at janet.mccanless@janmacbooks.com or via the e mail at janmccanless@aol.com She may write you back!

2007--Janet-McCanless-backside#1
Jan McCanless is a retired high school teacher and free lance columnist for several national newspapers and national publications. She’s authored 9 books, 7 in the Beryl’s Cove mystery series, and 2 compilations of funny columns, magazine articles and humor presentations around the country. A former woman of the year in Rowan County, Jan was among the nominees for International Woman of the year in 2005, for her work as a child advocate and in family violence prevention.

Listed as one of North Carolinas premier humorists, Jan often writes about her escapades trying to unravel the confusion of electronics, while maintaining her status as a member of the on/off switch generation. She takes pride in the fact she just recently learned how to use my electric knife sharpener, and braved the world of the ATM.

Married for a lifetime, she is the proud mother of 3, and grandmother of 9, who happen to feel, as I do, that I am awesome! She resides in rural Rowan County, but, you can probably catch her at one of her appearances around the country, or some regional book fair or signing. Jan says: “You can’t miss me, I am the one without the cell phone attached to my head, or using the iPad or any other gadget popular today. I’ll be doing my figuring on paper, with pencil, but I do work crossword puzzles in ink. Having been compared to Erma Bombeck, all I can say is: I am funnier and prettier, so, enjoy yourself while you read about my latest adventure.”
Murder on the Mississippi cover galley

The Beryl’s Cove Mysteries:

Beryl’s Cove and the Elvis Man

The Case of the Doomed Diplomat – a Beryl’s Cove Mystery

Great Scott -A Beryl’s Cove Mystery

The Haunted Chapel – A Beryl’s Cove Mystery

Back to Beryl’s Cove -Train Ride to Homicide

The Choir Loft Murders – A Beryl’s Cove Mystery

Murder on the Mississippi – A Brother Jerome Story and Beryl’s Cove Mystery

Compilations:

Wyatt Earp, GAP Pickles and Thoughts of Home -won the Mother Vine award for best short stories of 2013

Tire Patch Cookies are Good for the Soul -nominee for Mother Vine award for 2014

th-th-that’s all folks !!!!!

 

R. E. Donald: The Highway Mysteries and Hunter Rayne Sunday, Apr 27 2014 

Uncategorized , , , , Auntie M Writes Crime 12:58 am

Auntie M is at the Day of the Book in Kensington, MD today. Please drop by the Bridle Path Press table to say hello if you are in the area. In my absence, welcome R. E. Donald, who shares the story of her Highway Mystery Series.

A Hero in the Slow Lane

If you don’t personally know a trucker, this might come as a surprise: truck drivers are as diverse and disparate a group of individuals as the general population. Some are happy-go-lucky and chatty, some are crude and unkind, some are well-educated and eccentric, some are cowardly and mean, some are messy and good-natured – I could go on.

An assorted group of former truck drivers, for example, are Elvis Presley, Liam Neeson, Charles Bronson, Sean Connery and Richard Pryor. The long-haul driver I write about in the Highway Mysteries, Hunter Rayne, is a hero, in his own polite, tormented way.
SlowCurve

Why would a woman whose favorite mystery novelists at the time were Dorothy L. Sayers, Elizabeth George and P.D. James, choose to create a series whose hero is a truck driver? Having lived most of my life on the west coast of North America, I couldn’t write a series set in England (although Elizabeth George, whom I learned a great deal from at an excellent writing workshop at The Book Passage, has done it very successfully). I wanted to write a traditional-style mystery in a setting that I knew well, with believable situations, and with characters that seemed so real that a reader might expect to meet them in her home town. I had a lifetime of west coast characters and twenty-five years experience in the international transportation industry to draw on for ideas and inspiration.
IceontheGrapevine
I looked at my bookshelf and realized it held numerous series featuring police detectives, lawyers and private eyes. I had no desire to compete head-on with the likes of Michael Connelly, John Lescroart and Sue Grafton, yet I wanted a hero who might realistically get involved in investigating murders and also have access to some of the investigative tools a true amateur would not. A former homicide investigator with friends still in the police force fit the bill.

As a fan of the TV series “Murder She Wrote”, I also realized that setting a crime series in a single community raised issues of credibility. How many murders can take place in one small town like Cabot Cove? With my hero on the road, I have a continent full of crime at my disposal.
Sea_to_Sky

That’s how the Highway Mysteries series with “semi-professional” detective Hunter Rayne was born. The first novel in the series, Slow Curve on the Coquihalla, is named after the mountainous highway featured in Discovery Channel’s “Highway Thru Hell” reality show. The supporting cast includes Hunter’s boss and dispatcher Elspeth Watson and a garrulous biker of Viking descent named Dan Sorenson. In spite of an acrimonious relationship with his ex-wife, Hunter struggles to stay connected with his two teenage daughters. His divorce and the suicide of his best friend have left him with wounds that are slow to heal, and a need for the solitude afforded him by life on the road.

You can find Slow Curve on the Coquihalla, Ice on the Grapevine and Sea to Sky in digital or print format at most on-line book retailers, or they can be ordered through your favorite bookstore. A fourth novel in the Highway Mysteries series will be released later this year.

RE Donald web
Full information is available at proudhorsepublishing.com or the author’s website at redonald.com.
About R.E. Donald: Ruth recently moved to a ranch in the South Cariboo region of British Columbia with a French Canadian cowboy, three horses and two dogs. She has never actually driven an eighteen wheeler, and probably never will.

 

Nicola Upson: The Death of Lucy Kyte Sunday, Apr 20 2014 

Uncategorized , , , , , Auntie M Writes Crime 12:38 am

Readers know that Auntie M has long been a fan of Nicola Upson’s series set in the 1930s and featuring Josephine Tey as the protagonist. Starting with An Expert in Murder, through the stunning Fear in the Sunlight, each book is carefully researched and an enjoyable read.

So it was with great delight that after this brief review she is able to bring you an interview with Upson with questions based on her newest offering. THE DEATH OF LUCY KYTE is perhaps the author’s most challenging novel to date, a mystery within a mystery, meticulously researched, and a resounding read. It’s complex plot features the Suffolk countryside as the setting, where Tey has inherited a remote and crumbling cottage from her godmother.
Death of Lucy Kyte

Along with the hard work needed to make it habitable comes just the sort of intrigue to pique the interest of a mystery writer. A centuries-old murder still resonates on the minds of the villagers; yet the young woman named as the beneficiary in Tey’s godmother’s will seems to have disappeared from their memories. How Tey solves the mystery of Lucy Kyte forms the basis of this intelligent and rewarding read. Highly recommended.

And now in her own words, learn the story behind this book and please welcome Nicola Upson:

Auntie M: You obviously spend a great deal of time doing research on your novels and their settings and history: Angel With Two Faces and the Minack Theatre in Cornwall; Fear in the Sunlight and the Hitchcock’s in Portmeirion, Wales. Now with The Death of Lucy Kyte you’ve indicated that Polstead and the story of Maria Marten and William Corder is one you grew up with and wanted to explore in this book. How did you decide on the storyline to bring Josephine Tey to the area and involve her in its history?

Nicola Upson: I felt justified in bringing Josephine to Suffolk, as she had Suffolk ancestry on her mother’s side – her family brewed beer in the county – and it’s clear from her letters that she often visited many of the places that are referred to in the book – Stoke, Lavenham and, of course, Newmarket for the horseracing. ‘Josephine Tey’ was a pseudonym (her real name was Elizabeth MacKintosh) and she claims to have taken that name from her Suffolk great-great-grandmother. But you’re right – the decision to set a book in Suffolk was a personal one, and much more about me than it was about her! It’s my home county, where I grew up and where most of my family still lives, and it’s where my roots are. So – perhaps inevitably – Josephine’s story is a very personal one in this book, a story that touches on her family and her past, and in which she feels very strongly the presence of the people she’s lost, and the book feels very personal to me as well.

The Red Barn Murder – the killing of Maria Marten by her lover, William Corder in May 1827 – is certainly the first crime story I was ever aware of. As a child, I remember summer days out in the Suffolk village of Polstead with my parents, walking past Maria’s house or William’s, fascinated even then by what had happened there and by the real people behind the legend. I lived in Bury St Edmunds, the town where Corder was hanged, and every weekend I passed the Gaol where the execution took place on the way to my grandmother’s house. Bury’s museum, Moyse’s Hall, has a macabre collection of exhibits from the crime – Corder’s scalp and death mask, an account of the trial bound in his skin – and those things were so thrilling and so horrifying to a little girl. And we know from Tey’s work that she was fascinated by true crimes from the past – The Franchise Affair and The Daughter of Time are both based on historical crimes – so I felt she would have loved the facts and the mythologies that circle around the Red Barn Murder, too.

Choosing and getting to know the setting for each book is, for me, one of the greatest joys of writing. Lucy Kyte was different in that Polstead was a place I knew well as a child and have now rediscovered; most of my other novels have been set in locations that I’ve come to know primarily through the act of writing and research, places like Portmeirion or areas of London which were unfamiliar to me before I set books there. So it was special for me to revisit those childhood landscapes, to see Polstead in each new season and to imagine myself back there in a different time – first Josephine’s, and then Maria’s. 



AM: We don’t learn who Lucy Kyte is until the storyline is well-established and unravels, yet her death forms the last part of the book. After reading it, I realized this was absolutely the best title for this book. Did that come to you after writing the book, or was it always your premise from the start?

NU:

It’s the only one of my books that has had and kept its title from the very beginning. Titles are so hard because it’s not just your decision: you have to find something that feels right to you for the story, but your publisher has an input and it has to be something which tells a reader what to expect and which fits with the genre you’re working in. It wasn’t until Two for Sorrow that I titled one of my own books! My editor suggested An Expert in Murder, and PD James gave me the poem that’s titled Angel With Two Faces, because she felt it was exactly what the book was about. But there was never any question about this one: as soon as the character was named Lucy Kyte, the book had its title and I’ve never thought of it as anything else.

AM: Even as you’re promoting Lucy Kyte I’m certain you’re researching and writing the next Tey book. What’s in store for Josephine that you can share, and will her cottage figure in the future you have planned for her?

NU:The sixth book in the series – which currently has two titles! – is indeed underway, and it sees Josephine back in London in May, 1937, where she is involved in a cycle of radio plays at the BBC to celebrate the coronation of George VI. The repertory company of characters is back for this book, with Archie and Bridget, the Motleys and Lydia, but there will be other books that are more intensely focused on Josephine in the way that Lucy Kyte is.

Josephine’s cottage will be a very important part of her future, particularly as we head towards the war years. It’s funny, but when I started Lucy Kyte I deliberately held back on making a decision as to whether or not she would keep it at the end of the book: I wanted to feel my way into it as she did, and see how we both settled in! But there was no doubt in my mind by the end that she’d fallen in love with it, and I certainly haven’t finished with Suffolk as a novelist. And in all the books, there is an element of wish-fulfilment, of giving Josephine things in life that I genuinely believe she would have enjoyed under different circumstances. She wrote very movingly to friends about wanting one day to make a home for herself – she’d always lived in digs or the family house – but never got the chance to do that as she died so shortly after her father; I think she’d have liked the one I’ve chosen for her. I hope so, anyway.



AM: Besides Tey, whose writing has been an influence on your own?

NU: PD James. I think it’s significantly down to Phyllis and to Ruth Rendell that people like me are able to write detective fiction with the freedom and popularity that we enjoy today. When they began to publish in the early 1960s, crime fiction was at a crossroads: it could be relegated to the realms of slightly outdmoded entertainment, or it could become the living, breathing reflection of society that it is today; they set us out on the right path, and really expanded those boundaries – and they’re still doing it, creating benchmarks for writers to aspire to and books for readers to love, and I’m hugely grateful to them for that. And when you pick up a PD James novel, you get a brilliant fusion of theme, setting and character which makes the book about so much more than the plot; her descriptive passages take your breath away. For me, Death in Holy Orders is the perfect (crime) novel.

Reginald Hill is another huge influence. He has inspired me to be brave with a series, to try to develop characters whom readers will feel a real ownership of, and to play with the format and not be afraid of trying something a bit unexpected between one book and the next. He was a writer who really trusted his readers to go with him, and that takes a lot of courage.

Pat Barker is a remarkable novelist – I loved Toby’s Room; it’s a brilliant book, and her blend of fact and fiction is truly inspirational.



AM: When you read for pleasure, whose books are on your nightstand?

NU: I love Irish fiction, so Sebastian Barry, William Trevor, Jamie O’Neill and Colm Toibin are favourites. Susan Hill amazes me every time with her versatility. I treasure a book that makes me laugh, and I’m particularly keen on Barbara Pym, Stella Gibbons and Angela Thirkell – that wry, female humour with a real sting in its tail. Every summer, I re-read JL Carr’s A Month in the Country, which is probably the novel I wish I’d written, short and very, very beautiful. Virginia Woolf and Elizabeth Bowen have always been important to me. Wuthering Heights – which I first read when I was seven because of Kate Bush! – is a book I return to often, and it’s never disappointed me at any age – very few books grow with you in that way. Other than Tey, the Golden Age writers I love are Christianna Brand and Edmund Crispin. And the book I’m saving because I don’t want it to be over is The Days of Anna Madrigal, the most recent volume in Armistead Maupin’s Tales of the City.

AM: We share many of the same affections and mentors. Many thanks for sharing your influences, your insights and especially the background regarding this newest addition to your exceptional series.

 

Opposite Poles: Nele Neuhaus and Laura McHugh Sunday, Apr 13 2014 

Uncategorized , , , , , Auntie M Writes Crime 12:16 am

German Nele Neuhaus and American Laura McHugh are two writers who couldn’t be more different in their writing or their settings, yet both of their works use setting to their advantage to add to the stories they want to tell.

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Nele Neuhaus returns with Bad Wolf, the second in her series that started with last year’s Snow White Must Die. Set in Frankfurt and featuring Inspectors Pia Kirchhoff and Oliver von Bodonestein heading their team, the usual police procedural takes on a darker tone despite the nod to Grimm’s fairy tales in Neuhaus’ titles.

It’s hot in Frankfurt in June when a sixteen-year-old girl’s body turns up on a river bank outside of town. Despite the brutality of her injuries, her identity remains unknown and no one turns in a missing person report. Pia’s team is frustrated for weeks and then a new case takes precedence. A television reporter who’s become a known personality is attacked, raped, and locked in the trunk of her car, barely surviving.

Pia suspects the reporter’s investigations into a popular child welfare organization, run by an old, established family with an untarnished reputation, may provide the key to the woman’s attack.

Then a link is drawn with a child pornography ring, and overruns into both inspectors’ personal lives. This chilling tale has a huge emotional component as the different subplots connect. Well-crafted and engrossing, it’s an unpredictable and multi-dimensional book that will hook readers from the start.

Neuhaus started out selling her self-published books out of the trunk of her car before becoming Germany’s top crime writer. Don’t miss this powerful psychological thriller based on a police procedural.

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Laura McHugh’s debut The Weight of Blood is a totally different kind of crime novel, yet every bit as disturbing. Told from the viewpoints of Lucy Dane and Lila, her mother who disappeared when Lucy was a child, the action revolves around the the murder of one of Lucy’s friends, the slow-witted Cheri.

The setting this time is the tiny village of Henbane, deep in the Ozark Mountains. Filled with strange ways and customs, and a fear of strangers, it’s an area the modern world has almost passed by. McHugh manages to make the landscape come alive, and the story is inspired by a true incident that took place in the Missouri town where the author went to school.

Small wonder then that its authenticity rings so true. Readers will be drawn in immediately by the voice of Lucy and then by that of her mother, Lila, a young woman whose destiny is not hers to decide. Lucy is haunted by the mystery surrounding Lila’s disappearance and by the murder of young Cheri. Here is McHugh in Lucy’s voice describing her emotions when Cheri’s body is found: “…Boys our age, the ones at school, were cruel. They called her a retard and make her cry. I told her to ignore them, but I never told them to stop, and that’s what I remembered when Cheri’s body turned up in the tree: the ways I had failed her.”

That sense of failure will drive Lucy to investigate Cheri’s death, while not forgetting her mother, and the result will call into question everything Lucy thinks she has come to learn about family and secrets.

This is beautifully written novel that will suck you in from its opening as the story gains momentum to its powerful conclusion. No spoilers here: read it yourself and you’ll find you’re flipping pages well past bedtime.

ALSO RECOMMENDED: Cover of Snow by Jenny Milchman. This debut follows young widow Nora Hamilton, trying to make sense of the suicide of her police officer husband, a man who loved her, his job, and their Adirondack town–and died without leaving her a note of explanation? A taut and believable mystery.

Hard Going: Cynthia Harrod-Eagles newest Bill Slider crime novel brings back his family and partner in a complex mystery that interrupts his vacation week. A retired solicitor, known for his good deeds, has been bashed in the head with a statue in a frenzied attack that will have them searching into the man’s past for the culprit. Highly satisfying.

Hunting Shadows: Inspector Rutledge returns in Charles Todd’s sixteenth book in the post WWI series. The countryside of Cambridgeshire finds Rutledge to town to locate the murderer of a man at the doorstep to Ely Cathedral, on his way to a wedding. After a second murder, one witness’s description leaves the locals convinced a madman is on their doorstep. Great period details and a intricate plotting are the hallmark of this series.

AND NEW IN PAPERBACK: Jane Casey’s The Last Girl, the third DC Maeve Kerrigan novel. Compared to Tana French or Denis Mina, Casey’s series twists and turns through the investigation of the murder of a wealthy defense attorney. But was this a disgruntled client, or does the truth lie closer to home?

 

Elizabeth Haynes: Under a Silent Moon Sunday, Apr 6 2014 

Uncategorized , , , Auntie M Writes Crime 12:36 am

When Auntie M met Elizabeth Haynes last summer at Bouchercon, she found a warm, funny family woman with a history of working in police intelligence. Haynes’ darkly creative imagination was behind her first three sterling thrillers: Into the Darkest Corner, Dark Tide, and Human Remains.

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Now Haynes is back with an incredible new book, the first of a series, where she brings her past experience into a startling procedural that has her trademark unusual way of telling a story. Under a Silent Moon introduces DCI Louisa Smith, heading up a investigation team in London’s suburbs.

What sets this novel apart from the usual police procedural is the device Haynes uses, containing a mix of police reports, witness statements, call logs and crime charts that add superb layers to the complex story and very human characters she creates. Haynes’ graphs and charts are the ones used in reality, and they add an extra layer to the book, while showing the inner workings of a real police investigation like never before. It also explains the role of the civilian police analyst and how their work aids and interweaves with the police.

Two women in horse country are dead, and Lou and her team must establish if their deaths are related. At a farm outside a small English village, a lovely young woman had been found murdered, the bloody scene a testament to her last minutes. In a nearby quarry, a car fallen into holds the body of an older woman and is at first considered a suicide. But is there a link between the two women and their deaths?

When it’s found that the first victim, Polly Leuchars, had open sexual relationships with many people of both sexes, the suspect list grows. Then an elusive woman who may have been involved in Polly’s circle brings drama of a different kind to a member of Lou’s team. There will be hasty decisions, regrets, and lives brought close to the brink of death before it all comes together.

Haynes has a wonderful grasp of human relations and emotions, and by telling the story from multiple points of view, she maintains a steady, growing tension that affects Lou and her team as they move to separate motive and opportunity within the lies they are being told. By having the same information Lou and her team are privy to at their fingertips, the reader feels they are uniquely involved in getting to the truth as Lou’s team investigates. It’s a wonderful device that immediately keeps the reader flipping pages to the next point of the view, the next interview, the next chart, at the same time as readers are caught up in the emotions and private stories of Lou and her team. It’s to Haynes’ credit that she manages to bring her police team off as every bit as human as the victims and suspects they are interviewing.

This is the first of a planned series and DCI Lou Smith is more than capable of holding the reader’s attention for future novels. Highly recommended.

 

Ab Fab: Best of Recent UK Crime Thursday, Mar 27 2014 

Uncategorized Auntie M Writes Crime 2:51 pm


Absolutely Fabulous was the name of wildly offbeat British sitcom that premiered in the 1990’s and starred Jennifer Saunders, Joanna Lumley and Julia Sawalha. Its nickname “Ab Fab” has become part of the lexicon of Brit slang that Auntie M is using here to describe the collection of UK crime novels you’ll want to explore.


Sophie Hannah’s Kind of Cruel continues in the vein she’s established for examining the investigations of married detectives Charlie Zailer and Simon Waterhouse. She uses the protagonist of each case to describe the majority of the action, including Zailer and Waterhouse, in an unusual device that is simply brilliant.

Readers will be caught up in the puzzle that is Amber’s Hwerdine’s life.Amber suffers from insomnia since the death of her best friend, a death that also gave Amber and her husband custody of the friend’s two young girls. Determined to make a safe home for Dinah and Nonie, Amber visits a hypnotist to help her with her insomnia and utters the words “kind of cruel,” which in turn alerts Waterhouse to a different murder case. These were the very words inscribed on a pad in the victim’s flat; but Amber doesn’t know this woman? So how did she know that unusual phrase?

Waterhouse is convinced Amber is innocent of the murder, yet somehow has knowledge that will help him solve the case. This complex novel is filled with clues that only become apparent at the end. This is literary writing at its finest with intelligent and thoroughly researched psychology that includes a stunning insight into Waterhouse’s psyche. If you weren’t a fan of Sophie Hannah before, you will be after absorbing this compulsively readable book. Hannah was chosen to write a new Hercule Poirot novel that will premiere this fall.

DtMe
CWA Dagger Winner Cath Staincliffe brings the two protagonists of the popular series Scott and Bailey to life in Dead to Me,a police procedural whose characters fairly jump off the page.

While both members of the Murder Investigation Team based in Manchester, these two women are polar opposites. Janet Scott is a consummate interviewer, able to obtain trust and confidences from her suspects, a reliable mum and worker with her own dry sense of humor. Rachel Bailey is impulsive, energetic and outrageously ambitious, but she also has great instincts that could make her a fine detective. Partnered with Janet, the two rub against each other at first but quickly join forces to find the killer of a teenaged girl, brutally murdered in a housing project.

Both women have their own demons to wrestle with in their pasts but when the case becomes complicated, they will face dangers neither could expect. The inner workings of a murder squad with its attendant relationships and vagaries are all on display in this fast-paced winner from the novelist and creator of hit UK TV series Blue Murder.

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Chris Ewan’s deftly plotted thriller Safe House is set on the Isle of Man, a closed, often desolate community that is the perfect setting for this stand alone that offers up the first person perspective of Rob Hale, a heating engineer who races motorcycles.

When Rob wakes up in hospital after an horrific bike accident, he wonders immediately of the fate of his lovely blonde passenger. But his doctors and the police claim there was no woman found at at the scene. Rob’s memories of the lovely Lena are put down to his concussion by everyone but Rob. But how could a woman vanish into thin air?

With his sister’s recent suicide hanging over his family, Rob is determined to find Lena and why her very existence seems to be covered up. He’ll be aided by a private investigator from London, and together he and Rebecca Lewis must follow the clues that will lead to Lena and to the troubling truth behind his sister’s death. Filled with action and corruption, the story never loses sight of family love.

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Backlash is Lynda La Plante’s newest entry in her Anna Travis series. The creator of the Prime Suspect series, La Plante’s eighth novel finds Travis a Detective Chief Inspector who will knock heads once again with her former lover, now boss, Detective Chief Superintendent James Langton.

Langton is supposed to be on sick leave after knee surgery, but somehow he manages to insinuate himself into Anna’s case, to her chagrin. While her case seems to be open and shut at first, with a suspect, an arrest, and a confession by the driver of a white van found with a dead woman in the back, it does appear connected to an earlier case of Langton’s. Five years before, a 13 yr-old girl disappeared and the unsolved case has haunted him since. Now he’s put himself into the midst of Anna’s case and there are sure to be complications when her suspect suddenly changes his story. And it doesn’t help when Langton trades on his complicated relationship with Anna to keep him updated on what should be her case.

deadpeople
Following the success of his strong debut Good People, Ewart Hutton returns with DS Glyn Capaldi in Dead People.

Capaldi’s transfer to rural Wales after a professional fall from grace finds him dealing with the gruesome discovery of a long-dead skeleton found at a remote site during excavation work for a new wind farm in the hills. Missing its head and hands makes the corpse unidentifiable. Then more skeletons are found in the same area and it appears the site is the dumping ground of a serial killer. Capaldi’s not convinced this is accurate, but he fights his superiors’ when he insists this smacks of local knowledge. Complicating matters is a nearby archeological dig with a comely head archeologist who perks Capaldi’s interest. There will be trips to a claustrophobic series of caves, more bodies unearthed, and an apparent suicide before the real culprit is unmasked. Told in first person from Capaldi’s point of view, his self-deprecating humor adds a nice touch in this strong series.


Saints of the Shadow Bible is Ian Rankin’s latest entry into his dark, Edinburgh police procedurals that will find John Rebus and Malcom Fox knocking heads in a complicated cold case. When a 30 yr-old murder case is investigated, the one that Rebus would rather be investigating should take a back seat. But then, this IS Rebus we’re talking about.

A young woman has been found unconscious at the wheel of her car, with signs of another occupant and possible theft. Her boyfriend is the son of a high-ranking politician; neither the boyfriend nor the victim will talk to the police. While he aggravates people he’s investigating with his usual aplomb, Rebus must confront ghosts of his own past as Fox is assigned to look into a group from early in Rebus’ career known the the “Saints.”

Fox and Rebus together seem an unlikely duo and there’s no love lost between the two of them, yet at the bottom of it all the truth will come to the forefront. Will Rebus be exonerated or a victim of his past decisions? Highly readable.


Bad Blood is the newest DI Marjory Fleming novel in her absorbing series set in Scotland. A medical situation with Fleming’s husband, Bill, shadows their son’s triumph playing rugby, and forces Fleming to confront whether she puts her job over her family. Her sergeant, Tam McNee, will be forced to take on a greater role than he likes when a young woman returns to town to find out why the disappearance of her mother was never solved.

Marnie Bruce didn’t exactly have the best upbringing. After being knocked about the head as a child, she woke up to find her mother gone and herself taken into care, a situation she leaves at age 16. She’s been on her own ever since, working in London and saving to return to Scotland to discover what happened to the mother she has terribly mixed feelings about. MArnie’s appearance will set off a chain reaction of events that lead back to the murder of a young boy forty years ago. And then a woman is killed and Marnie becomes a prime suspect.

Deftly plotted, this investigation combines the difficult relationships of Fleming’s team as they struggle to put their personal feelings aside to solve a the murder that has fingers reaching back several decades. Another winner in a series Auntie M enjoys that she hopes you will discover.

 

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