F.R. Jameson's Blog, page 15
July 2, 2018
Roseanna by Maj Sjöwall & Per Wahlöö (translated by Lois Roth)
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Well, this is a hell of a way to introduce a character. It was only when I came to enter the fact I was reading ROSEANNA onto Goodreads that I realised it is the inaugural book of the Martin Beck series (as you may guess, I’m more of a ‘pick up and read’ type of guy, than a ‘research deeply beforehand’ type of guy’). There was the legend in front of me: ‘Martin Beck, 1’. And the interesting thing is that by the time I did add it to this website, I was already sixty pages through and hadn’t noticed that this was an introductory novel. There was no grand and startling entrance; instead there was a police station, a somewhat miserable homicide detective and his downbeat, but professional team. And of course there was a murder which had to be solved. There’s little in the way of background, little in terms of context, we are in Sweden in the 1960s and there’s work to be done.
This is certainly one of the most existential crime novels I’ve ever read. Throughout there’s a sense of disorientation, of questioning the world and the way it works, questioning the terrible things man does. Of course all mystery novels are about questions, all mystery novels are about the terrible things men do; but here the questions don’t stop at the exit to the interrogation room, they are everywhere in the world. I make it sound bleak, yet the forward propulsion of the plot and the tension of each fresh questioning, means that it’s never dull or a chore to get through. It’s grim and unrelenting, sure, but also fundamentally gripping. There’s a reason why these two are the godparents of Swedish crime fiction. As undoubtedly this isn’t an English crime novel or an American crime novel, it’s most definitely Scandinavian – the missing link between Ingmar Bergman and Harry Hole.
A body of a young woman is found in a lake and Martin Beck and his team are called to investigate. As summer turns to winter and everything gets colder and darker, the investigation continues – seemingly without conclusion. At the centre of the book is a sex crime, around it are possible other sexual assaults and the horror of it all is restated again and again. This is not a book that goes for moments of levity, this is not a novel which tries to lighten the tone; this is an examination of a crime which almost feels ground down by it. At the centre we have the policeman, Martin Beck, who is seemingly ill throughout, as if his malaise at the murders he faces and the state of the modern world has turned into physical illness. As I said this is his introduction as a character, but we find out little about him – he has a loveless marriage, a couple of kids and is building a model boat. What’s really important to him is his job, or more specifically the case he’s acting on. His colleagues are so ill defined they are almost cyphers, his team is barely indistinguishable from one another, but again that adds to the procedural existentialism of it. Rather than give these other policemen names, Sjowell and Wahloo may as well have just called them Officer A and officer B.
This is a truly Scandinavian crime novel.
Life is bleak, horrible things happen and there seems to be no escape from it. Martin Beck is building a model ship, that is how he amuses himself when he’s not working (which takes up most of his time) or dealing with his family (which takes up less). He distracts his mind from what’s going on around him, by working on this tiny replica of a boat. It’s his form of escape. But Roseanna McKay, the victim, died on a boat. She was someone who was escaping, heading across Europe for the trip of a lifetime, and the horrible nature of life caught up with her there. And so before he’s even finished it, the model of the boat – not even a real boat, but a model which couldn’t sail him anywhere anyway – just looks even more futile as a means of getting away. It’s actually pointed out that Roseanna McKay could have died in an accident, just been hit by a truck, but instead she was murdered and so became Martin Beck’s responsibility. And so this detective, who is one of life’s questioners, starts to question the world all over again and when he finds the answer he’s looking for, it doesn’t seem to give him any satisfaction at all.
Again, this is a very Scandinavian crime novel.
And in the background is an American cop with the unlikely name of Kafka. Raymond Chandler once called a character Hemmingway, describing him as “A guy that keeps saying the same thing over and over until you believe it must be good” (which given Chandler’s style, is a dig you wonder how seriously to take). The Kafka reference in ROSEANNA can’t help but add to the jaded existentialism of it all (even if the character of Kafka himself is the least jaded police officer on show). It’s a reminder that for all these questions that need to be asked, there are – like Joseph K finds in THE TRIAL and THE CASTLE – some questions which can’t be answered.
I know I’ve made it sound bleak, I know I’ve hammered down the point that this is very Scandinavian; but if you want to clutch a book between white knuckles and feel the hairs on the back on your neck rise, this is definitely one to go for.
Fancy a taste of my own thriller, DIANA CHRISTMAS? You can get the first three chapters here.
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June 28, 2018
Me, Hitting Deadlines, in 2018
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I missed the slot for my writing diary last week, didn’t I?
I’m wracked with guilt as a consequence.
But here’s the thing, I’m going to miss the next few weeks as well. I have various self imposed deadlines for ‘Screen Siren Noir’ volumes 3 and 4 and they’re in August before my long awaited two week holiday and I need to hit them.
(If you’re interested in volume 2 by the way, EDEN ST. MICHEL is available for pre-order here.)
As such, I’n focusing on that now and won’t have much time to continue with my thoughts about plot until September. I will be back to it though, I promise you that. I still have a lot more to say, and more epic, blockbuster movies to rewrite in a North London setting.
Until then though, here’s a short story I wrote last year and serialised on this blog. It doesn’t actually have a lot to do with the stuff I’m writing right now, but it will do….
June 27, 2018
The Blue Room by Georges Simenon
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Apparently, Simenon thought that his Maigret novels were his job, while it was his other crime novels that were his passion. It’s easy to see how as a writer he’d reach that conclusion. Whodunnits, after all, have to follow a template; they don’t really work unless they adhere to that template. However other types of crime novels can follow their own path, go different ways and end up as a novel which really is incredibly interesting. Actually, this is a lot more than just interesting.
THE BLUE ROOM is a fantastic read, gripping, unsettling, disturbing and with an ending that wouldn’t disgrace a horror novel. If you’re looking for the bastard French off-spring of Jim Thompson and Barbara Vine (and really, aren’t we all?) you could do a lot worse than pick up a copy of THE BLUE ROOM.
At the start of the novel we know that Tony Falcone, an agricultural salesman from a small village, has been having an affair with a neighbour and that something horrible has happened as a consequence. What happened is gradually revealed, pulled together forensically as the crime is investigated and every corner of Falcone’s life is examined. Imagine a china vase which has been shattered on a hard floor and then painstakingly reassembled to see what it really looked liked. The vase is Tony Falcone, and unfortunately for him, despite his cock-sureness and bravado, when it’s all reassembled, it’s clear that he never really had a grasp on his life at all.
Superb and definitely recommended.
My new thriller, EDEN ST. MICHEL is published next month. You can get yourself a taster of it here!
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June 25, 2018
Smoothen Silky: Demon Fighting Pimp by Derek Slaton
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SMOOTHEN SILKY: DEMON FIGHTING PIMP shouldn’t work.
Well, it shouldn’t work as anything other than a short sketch on a TV comedy show. The premise is that there’s a super cool pimp – so not a real pimp in anyway; instead an amalgam of a thousand blaxploitation movies, 1970s cop show stereotypes and, yes, TV sketch shows – who works for an agency which fights demons. Oh yes, and these demons largely come in the form of frat boys.
It really is that silly and ridiculous. But here’s the thing, Derek Slaton just about makes it work. It should be a sketch on a TV show, but he manages to force the idea it into a full length entertaining novel.
Even so it’s hard to miss that the characters are one note, it’s plot utterly ridiculous and – with its central character being who he is – the female characters are little more than breasts and attitude. And yet I still ended up reading it with a stupid smile on my face.
Whether I’ll read the second in the series, I don’t know – that might be pushing things too far. But then maybe one day, I’ll want something brash and silly which doesn’t take itself at all seriously, and MIDGET WITH A CHAINSAW is what I’ll go for.
June 20, 2018
Secret by William F. Aicher
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You develop a different set of primal fears when you have a child. There’s a constant dread of something bad and terrible maybe happening to your darling babe that’s impossible to totally lose. More than once I’ve run with my heart pounding at the beeping of the monitor, only for everything to turn out fine. In that moment when I’m frantically scarpering though, it is all my worst fears made real.
That’s what William Aicher is tapping into in this short, and aptly named, creepy little bedtime story. Every parent’s dread that something bad might happen to their baby. If that kind of thing freaks you out then obviously this story isn’t for you, otherwise it’s a delicious chiller with a lovely twist.
If you’re interested, you can read my own creepy little stories FOR FREE here.
June 18, 2018
The Nightmare Room by Chris Sorensen
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A married couple, with some initially undefined trauma hanging over them, move to the husband’s home town to both look after his ailing parents and make a fresh start. But there seems to be something that deeply affects the husband in the house they settle into. Something in the basement which is dark and threatening and likely to tear their lives apart.
This is an absolutely fantastic debut novel! A cracking piece of horror which roots its story and characters in an intimate reality and thus makes its scares all the more horrible. You believe in these people, and are fully immersed in their world, so it can’t help but have an effect when bad things happen to them.
I am a huge fan of Stephen King and in this book’s characters and setting and the amount of sheer scares, this feels like a novel The King of Castle Rock would be immensely proud of.
My new novel, EDEN ST. MICHEL is out next month. You can read an extract from it right here!
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June 16, 2018
Weekend giveaway!!!
Psssst…
My British noir novel, DIANA CHRISTMAS is completely free on kindle this weekend. You can pick up your copy here. Enjoy!
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June 15, 2018
Thinking about Plots – part 3
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Tradition has it that there are only seven basic plots.
Overcoming the Monster.
Rags to Riches.
The Quest.
Voyage and Return.
Comedy
Tragedy
Rebirth
When you see that list written down, and think of your favourite books, films and TV, then they will all fit in to some degree or another with the above. Some will cross over more than one. You can write a tragic quest story, after all, or a comic rags to riches tale. But in the end, those are the main building blocks of all stories.
Now, whenever you see them written down like that, you’ll get smartarses who claim that every story has thus already been written.
That’s nonsense. All these plots are malleable, they are there to be changed and moulded by your hands and turned into something that’s yours.
Let’s prove this by having a look at the quest tale.
Let’s have a look at RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK.
Why RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK? I wanted something that nearly everyone will have seen. Also, something that is really good.
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Basically, the plot of RAIDERS OF THE LOST Ark is this:
“An archaeologist sets off in pursuit of ancient religious icon, The Ark of the Covenant. Along the way he battles with his arch rival who has gone into league with Nazis. The archaeologist also reconnects with his lost love, and together they manage to track down the Ark. But the Nazis take it from them and open it up hoping to wield the power for themselves, but as the power is too wonderful and too dreadful for them it destroys them, leaving the archaeologist and his love together.”
There’s a bit more to it, I know, but I think that covers the bare bones.
So now that we have that as a structure, let’s change it around a bit.
Instead of an archaeologist at a ridiculously fancy and gleaming university, let’s make him a music teacher working out of his flat in East London.
Let’s go whole hog, and instead of Harrison Ford, let’s have him as a Toby Jones type. A middle-aged violin tutor in Walthamstow.
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Now, what would this man hunt?
How about a legendarily lost Stradivarius violin that is believed to have mystical properties?
So, our hero, Toby Jones of East London is tracking down a magical violin in East London. He has to have a rival and this rival has to be some kind of equal. So maybe another slightly more suave and polished violin teacher.
Now that violin teacher has to have some extra threat behind him.
How about some evil French musicians from The Conservatoire de Paris? Capable of wonderful artistry, but unable to hide their evil brutish ways in the pursuit of the beautiful music.
Along the way Toby Jones reconnects with his ex-wife – who runs a sandwich shop in The City – and the two of them bicker and fight until they almost accidently discover the violin in a railway carriage heading to Norwich.
But the French musicians swoop in and take it.
A grand ceremony is held in an empty church in Angel. The other violin teacher playing the instrument. Toby Jones realises just in time what’s going to happen and tells his wife to block his ears so they can’t listen to it. The French musicians are disintegrated by the power of the music and Toby and his wife are left together to bicker another day.
There you go. The plot of RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK adapted to a new purpose.
And if I were to write it as an 80,000 word novel, throw in discussions about old records, childhood friends and trips to see Arsenal, it would become entirely its own thing. As much Nick Hornby as it is Steven Spielberg.
But the structure of the plot is there. I may have altered all the details, but it’s still the bare bones of RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK. Except this one centres a short middle-aged violin teacher with a contentious relationship with his ex-wife.
The plot is borrowed, but it’s borrowed to make its own thing.
Interested in my fiction? You can read the opening chapters of my forthcoming novel, EDEN ST. MICHEL here!
June 14, 2018
An extra Thursday treat…
An extract from DIANA CHRISTMAS appeared on the wonderful Always Trust in Books site today. If for some reason you haven’t already read anything of DIANA CHRISTMAS, just click below…
Enjoy!
June 13, 2018
The Curse of the Mummy’s Tomb (1964)
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Something I greatly enjoy about watching these old Hammer films is discovering hidden gems. Those films which aren’t well remembered today, but have something interesting and quirky about them. As well as having some damned effective scares. Hammer, in its prime – despite numerous copies elsewhere – did have a distinct and distinctly British style.
I enjoyed THE WITCHES, which I didn’t really know much about, and THE PLAGUE OF THE ZOMBIES, which I didn’t really know much about.
But obviously, I was eventually going to run out of luck.
No studio is going to constantly produce classic, neglected gem, classic, neglected gem.
There were always going to be duds as well.
And THE CURSE OF THE MUMMY’S TOMB is definitely one of those.
It’s not as if it’s bad in the sense that it’s poorly made, it’s perfectly competently executed – it’s just so dull. A boring film with boring leads and a boring A to B to C plot and a truly boring villain. My word is it tedious.
Until Brendan Fraser and CGI came along, all Mummy films had the problem that their central monster is just a bit lumbering and tedious. Well, THE CURSE OF THE MUMMY’S TOMB deals with that by being especially tedious itself.
Fancy reading some of my own horror? The short story collection, SOMETHING WENT WRONG & OTHER STRANGE TALES is available free and exclusive here…
