Chris Nickson's Blog, page 8

Gipton Well And A Dark Steel Death

There’s a small place that plays an important role in A Dark Steel Death. Gipton Well, or Gipton Spa Bath House  or Gipton Well and Waddington Bath, to offer the full titles, has its part in the book, although I’m not about to give you any spoilers on exactly what.

It’s one of about 26 wells or spas that once existed around Leeds (including the wonderfully-named Slavering Baby Well in Adel), but are mostly covered over or long forgotten, except in some local names, like Sugarwell in Meanwood).

It was originally built in 1671 by Edward Waddington. His grandfather, Alderman John Thwaites, owned Gledhow Hall, and the well was in the estate; on private property, in other words.

Like so many spas, the water which entered the bath house supposedly had healing properties supposedly head healing properties. Leeds historian Ralph Thoresby brought his son Richard there, attempting to cure him of rheumatism, and that involved sitting in the stone-built cold water bath. Lord Irwin was also a regular visitor.

Next to it was a room with a fire for undressing and warming up after a dip in the plunge pool, with a separate spring with water that could be drunk.

Thoresby referred to the place in his Ducatus Leodiensis, where he states the room with its fire is used “to sweat the patient after bathing”.

Edward Parsons also commended the place in his History of Leeds in 1834, and as late as 1881, Kelly’s Directory noted it was still in use, although now it’s “by people who live in the neighbourhood.”

Shortly after it had fallen into disuse and disrepair, to the extent that when the Honourable Hilda Kitson bought Well House Farm (again, the association with the well), which included the spa, she offered £200 to the Council to keep up the spa. The city bought the spa and the land around it in 1926, just after Gledhow Valley Road had opened a few yards away.

While the building has been there for a long, long time, no one seems sure when the walls around the pool were built; certainly much later. I’ve included them in the book purely for plot reasons.

The Friends of Gledhow Valley Woods (an excellent organisation who also provided much of the historical information from their website. Take a look at it here) have doner a great deal of work on the place, and now it’s surrounded by a metal fence to stop vandalism. However, it was open on Sunday as part of Heritage Open Days, and I was able to go inside and take some photos.

Tom Harper’s spectre didn’t fill the place. But after seeing the pictures you’ll be able to be there with him. And I’m sure you will read the book. Hopefully buy it, too, to make sure the final one in the series in published. Thank you.

When The Russian Revolution Came To Leeds

My newest book, A Dark Steel Death, takes place at the start of 1917. It’s a crime novel, but also a war novel – the war on the home front, where things were bleak. The Battle of the Somme the year before had killed and wounded so many of the young men from Leeds; it was said there wasn’t a street in the city that the fighting there hadn’t touch in some way.

But there was more going on the in the world. In Russia, the February Revolution (actually early March in the modern calendar) began to change everything in the country; November would cause a second, final rupture. In Britain, there was plenty of support from the labour movement, with an event held at London’s Albert Hall, attended by 10,000, with another 5,000 outside.

A second, known as the Leeds Convention, was set for June 3, organised by the United Socialist Council, made up of member of the British Socialist Party, the Independent Labour Party, and the Fabian Society.

I toyed with the idea of having that as the backdrop to a book set in 1917. Possibly one of the delegates might have been murdered, or someone protesting the convention. In the end, portraying the outside events in Russia felt a little too complex, and the idea held echoes of the backstory to Gods of Gold. I feel I made the right decision, but this remains a fascinating bit of Leeds history.

The intention was to hold it in Leeds’ Albert Hall – the big room in what was then the Mechanics’ Institute (now Leeds City Museum).

That was where the problems began. Unsurprisingly, the government didn’t want anything like this to happen in the middle of a war. They feared the idea of revolution could spread. They mooted the idea of banning it completely, but didn’t.

Instead, Leeds City Council refused to allow the use of the Albert Hall and ordered all hotel owners to refuse bookings from delegates, and they seemed to gladly comply. The police banned public meetings; anything to try and prevent things moving ahead (in the on, on the Saturday evening, the police asked hoteliers to sell room to delegates who had nowhere else to sleep). The press had no kind words for the delegates or the subject matter.

However, the Leeds Convention, as it came to be known, did happen. The organisers booked the Coliseum, where Prime Minister Asquith had spoken in 1908 (see The Molten City) and locals opened their homes to delegates.

The local papers came out against the convention, as did some of the national dailies.

The Leeds Weekly Citizen offered a full account of the proceedings, also detailed in the book British Labour and the Russian Revolution (which was reissued in 2017). In the end, 1500 delegates debated four motions. Some big names appeared, including Ramsay MacDonald, Herbert Morrison, Sylvia Pankhurst and Bertha Quinn, who’d go on to become a Labour councillor in Leeds.

Everything went off peacefully, which was more than something else happening in the city over the same weekend – three nights of anti-Jewish rioting. A little about that in weeks to come, another lesser-known and awful incident in the city’s history.

A curious aside: a writer from Leeds was in Russia during and after it all, and came to known the top people. There were rumours that he might also have been a British Intelligence agent as well as a reporter. His name? Arthur Ransome (yes, Swallows And Amazons).

A Dark Steel Death won’t take you inside the Coliseum for the convention, but it will put you on the dangerous and deadly winter streets of Leeds at the start of 1917.

I’d be very grateful if you’d buy a copy or ask your library to stock it.

A Dark Steel Death And Gledhow Woods

At the weekend we walked in Gledhow Valley Woods. Nothing unusual in that. It’s not far from home, a pleasant stroll along Gipton Beck to the past the bridge that leads to the majestic sweep of the carriage drive and up to the old Gledhow Hall, and finally to the lake.

I know it well. We moved to a place right across from it when I was 11. My path to and from school was through the woods. I walked the dog there. Until I was 18 and moved away, I was in there every day. It was my playground, really.

So what, you think. We all have those.

Here’s where my history and my fiction intertwine. This ground is also where the climax of A Dark Steel Death (officially published tomorrow) happens. During World War I, Gledhow Hall became a Voluntary Aid Detachment hospital, one of many in Leeds treating casualties from the front, and…no, no spoilers.

You’ll have to buy the book or borrow it from the library. But it plays out along the woods and all the way to Gipton Spa and Bath House.

Walking, it’s impossible not to remember things that happened to me there. Being chased through the woods when I was a teenager by a skinhead with an axe. More innocently, my dog Mickey chasing a goose down the long hill to the lake, only to find himself unable to stop in time and belly-flopping into the water.

Winter sledging.

A small dip in the lake myself – just one leg below the knee, but it was enough.

A trail to ride my bike. An open area to play football with myself, and all too often having to climb down into the back to retrieve the ball.

I was lucky, having so much green so close. Back then, I had no idea of the history, or the fact that that road along the bottom of the valley was less than 50 years old. It was simply the woods.

Now, I know so much more about the history. The stone bridge near the top of the hill known as Little Switzerland makes for a thin road.

But it was constructed for one man – Jeremiah Dixon, who owned Gledhow Hall. You can see his initials and the date carved into the bridge.

Like so much around Leeds, the land had once belong to Kirkstall Abbey, but with the Dissolution of the Monasteries, it was sold into private hands. Dixon bought the hall in 1763 or 4 and had the bridge built five years later (the date is carved in the sone) to connect his house to his pleasure gardens and ice house on the other side of Gledhow Lane. A later owner, James Kitson, would commission the breathtaking bathroom of hand-painted Burmantofts faience tile (this image doesn’t do it justice).

Early in the 1800s, Turner painted the hall, the lake and some of the grounds from the other side of the valley, giving the scene a sweetness and romance that captures some of the sweep. One hundred years later, Tom Harper would be pursuing a killer through there, the ground neglected and overgrown.

Several decades after that, I’d be watching my dog desperately try to stop himself tumbling into the water. Fast-forward even further and we’d be walking along, watching the ducks in the lake.

Time past and time passing, as a Yorkshire songwriter once sang.

Oh, and please don’t forget to buy your copy of A Dark Steel Death, please. Independent bookshops need your business. But this place has the cheapest price and free postage. Thank you.

A Few More Days…And Some Deals

It’s just a few days until A Dark Steel Death is officially published, and I have to say, I’ve been overwhelmed by the early reviews. It’s the kind of thing a writer always hopes for, but rarely manages.

I hope you won’t mind if I quote from them. It’s the kind of ego boost I need sometimes when I wonder why I’m sitting and typing words for a new books.

Publishers Weekly called it “superior” in a starred review noting that “Nickson does his usual superb job of evoking the period and balancing his lead’s professional challenges with personal ones. This entry reinforces his place in the front rank of historical mystery authors.”

If only…

The Go Buy The Book blog greatly enjoyed it, noting “the research is spot on, taking us back to wartime Leeds and introducing us to some of the real events of the time. Fact and fiction are merged really well, Chris Nickson, once again, delivering an engaging and tense plot where you really don’t know what is going to happen next.”

Booklist calls A Dark Steel Death “the latest in this successful series” and believes “this is a sure bet for the PBS crowd, who love their historical mysteries.”

Kirkus Reviews says it’s a gritty police procedural with well-drawn characters.”

And then there’s Yorkshire Bylines, which has an extensive review that makes me smile. “And that’s the thing with Nickson, he’s so good at telling a story that you don’t really have time to think about it when you start one of his books. You turn to the first page and you’re in, you’re hooked…offers facts wrapped up in fiction so readers don’t even realise they’re learning something. It’s fascinating to have an insight into a familiar place in an unfamiliar time.

Nickson makes the reader care about each character, even the villains, and so many of the issues raised in this book are relevant now, over a hundred years after it was set. It may be a crime thriller but it’s a social commentary too; for example, the reality of the war hero returning home with shell shock…Even when the situation is resolved it feels that it never really will be.

His female characters are strong and standalone, not just accessories to the male characters; from strong, proud Annabelle Harper, his suffragist wife who is struggling with her own health to his brave, sad daughter, Mary.”

Wow, that’s pretty much all I can say.

For those who read on Kindle, Amazon UK currently has it on sale for that. Not that I’d try to nudge you, but…you know.

And a few other UK Kindle deals on my books. My Lottie Armstrong and Chesterfield series are always £2.37, but here are a few more:

The Dead On Leave (one you might not know) is 99p

Free From All Danger is £2.79 (and £2.94 for the hardback)

Leeds, The Biography (short stories) is £3.98

The Leaden Heart is £4.98 (£5.24 for the hardback)

The Broken Token – my first published novel, with Richard Nottingham) is £4.99

Wish me luck for next Tuesday, please. And please, feel free to buy a copy to make sure my publisher will put out the final volume in the series. Or reserve it from your library, so they will buy it, and you can borrow it.

Thank you.

The Right Note. Or Phrase.

Sorry, but to start off with an aside, A Dark Steel Death is published very soon and I hope you’ll buy it or reserve a copy from your library. I’ve made another video trailer to try and convince you.

Now, on to the main feature…

When I was much younger, I looked up to musicians who could play at blistering speed. Ten Years After on Going Home? Give it to me. The flash of Keith Emerson? Oh yes – saw him live a few times, in fact. But, as I’ve grown older, I’ve learned that so much bluster often covers up the fact that technique can mean saying nothing.

Growing older, I’ve come to realise it’s the right not, and the proper silence that are more eloquent. The quietness of Bill Evans, the two notes from the late Peter Green in Fleetwood Mac that conveyed a world of hurt. The oblique, startling keyboard move of Thelonious Monk. The way Robert Wyatt allows the air into his songs.

It’s much the same with writers. I’ve come across those who overwrite, maybe caught up in language. No doubt it’s good; the critics seems to think so. But we’re all different. It wearies me, the same way that listening to an overbusy guitar solo tires my senses. The same way notes and silence serve a piece of music, not the other way round, then words and spaces are there to serve the story.

There are many kinds of writing of course, just as there are many types of music. My tastes are my own, I’m not trying to impose them on anyone.  I keep trying to hack away the excess in my work and allow the story and the characters to shine through. They’re what matters. If a reader doesn’t actually notice the writing, then I’ve probably succeeded.

Saying Goodbye To Book Family

This morning I finished writing the 11th and final Tom Harper book. It’s a strange feeling to know I’m saying a final farewell to Tom, Annabelle, Mary, Ash and the others. After all, we’ve gone through 30 years together – it takes place in 1920, three decades after Gods of Gold. An awful lot has happened along the way, to Leeds, to the world, and to them. I’ve been their companion for almost a million words.

Curiously, it’s not the first time I’ve written a book with the title Rusted Souls. I completed a version last year, but even as I was working on it, I know Tom deserved to bow out on something better than this. I set it aside and never went back to it, and I know that was the right decision.

This one is the Tom Harper book I was meant to write.

It’s still only a draft. I’m going to allow it to percolate for a few weeks, go back and hopefully make it a better book – probably about the time A Dark Steel Death is officially published (although everyone appears to be selling it already, so do please get your copy or reserve it from your local library). And even then, there’s no guarantee my publisher will want it. Of course, I hope they will, to round things off neatly.

I feel sad to be saying goodbye to people who’ve been such good friends. More than that, they’ve become family. I know them so well, their joys, their sorrows and the pain they have. Strange as it may sound, I feel privileged to have been in their lives.

And please, don’t tell me they’re fictional. I won’t believe you.

A Very Limited Time Offer On The Crooked Spire

In May, The Crooked Spire reached the stage in Chesterfield as a murder-mystery musical. Very professional produced, too. Back then, I said the company that did it has plans to make it available online.

Well, that time has just about come – but it’ll only be for a short while. From tomorrow (July 8), one of the performances of the show will be available via here for one month only. However, you should be aware that it’ll cost £8 to view. A very fair sum, given the work that so many people put into it.

If you decide to watch it, I hope you’ll enjoy it. I know that when I saw it, they did a cracking job.

My Books, My Rules

It’s about 16 years since I wrote my first published novel, The Broken Token – it took a while to find someone willing to put it out. But for some reason, I’ve remembered that I created a set of rules for myself back then. I’d read plenty of crime novels and I was tired of the loner, heavy drinking detective, and so much that went along with it.

My main character would be married. Most are. Since then, only one of my protagonists hasn’t been married on quickly on the way there. I wasn’t trying to be different, simply to reflect life. And most have had happy marriages, with or without children.

I decided that anyone could die. Again, it was simply life. People die at all ages, for all manner of reasons. Within the business of enforcing the law, there’s always a greater chance of violence. I kept that rule throughout the Richard Nottingham series (and one death brought quite a few variations on “you bastard”). I ditched it for the Tom Harper books, because conditions and life expectancy had improved in a century and a half, although things do happen, like Billy Reed’s heart attack. And the main characters have stayed alive (so far) in the Simon Westow series. I’ll say nothing else about that.

The characters have lives outside their work. We all do, and they’re often more important than anything else. They round out the people, make them human and three-dimensional. Know that and you know them and you’re even more willing to follow them.

The reader has to feel they’ve walked through the place, and experienced that time. All the sighs and smalls and noise. It needs to be alive to be convincing. It’s one reason that most of my books are set in Leeds. It’s the place I feel, that I know through the soles of my shoes. I can sense the different periods of history, like seeing through different layers of time. I can touch them, taste them. All I do is write down that move in my head, including the descriptions of the where and when.

History is important, but it’s more the local than national effect. As we grow into the 20th century, that changes, but as a rule of thumb it’s true. People cared about what affected them directly. How they lived, conditions of houses, money in their pocket. A writer needs to know their history. But to be convincing, it needs to be worn lightly. Woven into the fabric of the story so it falls gently on a reader’s shoulders. No information dumps.

Create people that readers care about. Even the second character need three dimensions. Cardboard doesn’t work.

I still try to live by all of those. But – and it’s a very big but – there also has to be a good, powerful story that will engage people. That’s at the heart of it all.

I try, but it’s only you, the readers, who can say if I succeed.

To finish, please indulge me while I ask a favour. My most recent novel, The Blood Covenant, has had the types of reviews a writer can only dream about. The one coming in September, which isn’t far away now, is very good, the 10th Tom Harper novel. Yes, I’d love for you to buy them. Ideally from an independent bookshop, but outlets like Speedy Hen and the Hive in the UK have excellent prices and free postage. Like everyone, though, I know we’re all squeezed and books are a luxury. If you can’t afford it, please order from your local library. If they don’t have it, they will get it in. If every library system in the UK, US, Canada, Australia and NZ ordered copies of both, it would be handsome sales figures. And it would be on the shelves for everyone to read.

Even if you can afford, please consider the library request – that way it’s there for others.

Thank you.

If you have some time to spare – quite a bit of time – I was interviewed for the Working House podcast. You can listen here.

A Dark Steel Death – The Video

Leeds, December 5, 1916

The car slid quickly through the streets. Deputy Chief Constable Tom Harper stared out of the window. Leeds was black, a wartime winter-darkness, barely a single thin sliver of light showing through the blackout. A quarter of an hour before, he’d been comfortably asleep in bed, until he was torn out of a dream by the telephone bell. As he hurried to answer, he wondered if it was finally happening: the Zeppelins had come to attack Leeds.

            No. This was worse. Far worse.

            He could see the fire from half a mile away. Flames licked high into the sky. A moment later he smelled the hard, overwhelming stink of cordite.

            ‘Duty sergeant, sir.’ He’d had to press the receiver against his good ear to make out the words. The man’s voice was flat, empty of expression. ‘Our officers at Filling Station Number One rang in. There’s been an explosion. A car is on its way for you.’           

  Filling Station Number One. Everyone around here knew it by a different name – Barnbow.

The book is out everywhere, hardback and e-book, in September. You can pre-order it now.

Fancy Something New?

I’m not quite sure what this is going to be come. The working title is When The Music Stops and I have around 10,000 words written. One this is certain – it’s not a crime story. Set in 1930s Leeds, with some inspiration from my father’s own life.

Here’s a little bit. I hope – I really do hope – you’ll tell me what you think. Meanwhile, I hope you enjoy.

Leeds, March 1935

Bramley swimming baths had been made over. The local pool was closed each winter and covered with layers of heavy boards, so the council could use them for Saturday night dances, with the stage at one end for the musicians. A hand-lettered sign announced The Mark Sharp Sextet.

            The bus had been late. The band had been forced to dash from the stop, carrying Billy Dobson’s drums in their cases. He was setting up now, nailing down the bass drum to stop it travelling as he kept the beat. The caretaker started to object, but Mark talked right over him.

            ‘You’ve got a choice. It’s that or he’ll be all the way out the door by the second number and you’ll have a riot on your hands.’ He shrugged and glanced towards the crowd, pressing around and murmuring, eager for things to begin and get full value for their shilling admission. ‘Up to you.’

            ‘I suppose,’ the caretaker agreed grudgingly. ‘You lot just make sure to clean up after yourselves later, mind.’

            One small victory, Mark thought. Now all he had to do was win over those people who were waiting. They’d expect their money’s worth. If you didn’t give them what they wanted, they wouldn’t come back. Half the country was on the dole, and every penny was tight.

            He’d prepared the running order of songs during the afternoon. A good mix of pace. Plenty in there that was familiar, one or two that were new, and a few chances for a quiet smooch on the floor.

‘Why don’t we start with Midnight instead of What Did I tell Ya?’ Will the trumpeter asked quietly. He was older, experienced, someone who’d spent the last five years playing in groups around Leeds. ‘Give them a gentle introduction instead of jumping in.’

Mark shook his head. ‘We’ll stick with this. Look at them, they’re ready. They’ll be dancing in a flash.’

Thirty seconds into the song and he saw he was right. The crowd was moving. Will gave him a nod and a rueful smile.

Give the people what they want, Mark thought. That was the secret.

An hour later, the final notes of Smoke Gets In Your Eyes drifted up towards the ceiling. Dancers who’d been clinging tight to each other parted and began to applaud. Five more seconds and the band had vanished, off to talk to women they’d been eyeing, smoke a cigarette or find a bottle of beer. Mark remained on the piano stool, lighting a cigarette and smiling to himself. Not a bad set. The crowd had loved it. He watched the faces, smiling, happy to be out somewhere. Couples, singles, even a family over by the far wall.

He stubbed the cigarette out in the ashtray. His left hand began to move across the keyboard, tracing out the melody in his head. The instrument was an old, battered upright, the ivory keys turned tobacco yellow, but it was loud and in tune. A few vamped chords, then his right hand added some tentative little lines, poking and prodding.

            This was the time of the evening he relished. The chance to simply play, letting his mind and his fingers wander. It was always the same; while the others rushed away on the break, he stayed on the bandstand and played. Gave them a little jazz. Doodling, Will called it, with a shake of his head. Mark didn’t care; this was his time. Sometimes, when he hit it just right, people would gather round the piano, caught up in the music. He’d pick them up and carry them along with him. Those were the moments. That was the magic.

            Not tonight, though. Two minutes and he stopped. His inspiration was lost in the bustle of conversation all around. For a moment he thought a brunette might be staring his way, but she turned to talk to her friend. He laughed to himself.

If you haven’t read it yet, The Blood Covenant has been out since the end of last year, and I’ve received the best reviews of my career for it. If your library doesn’t have it, ask them to buy a copy. Or you can buy one yourself, if you can afford to.