Michael Ridpath's Blog, page 10
September 21, 2012
FAR NORTH giveaway
My US publishers, Minotaur, are giving away 10 free copies of FAR NORTH to readers living in the US. Remember FAR NORTH is the same book as 66 DEGREES NORTH.
Here is the link:
http://www.goodreads.com/giveaway/sho...
Here is the link:
http://www.goodreads.com/giveaway/sho...
August 14, 2012
Financial thrillers out on Kindle
Two of my financial thrillers, Free To Trade and On The Edge have just been made available on Kindle. Free To Trade was my first novel (which reached no 2 in the bestseller list). It's about a young bond trader who investigates the death of a colleague. On The Edge, written in 2004, is about an egomaniac hedge fund manager who thinks he can destroy the euro. If you do read them, write a brief review on the Kindle site: they are looking a little lonely at the moment.
July 7, 2012
Far North = 66 Degrees North
Two countries, two titles. “66 Degrees North” will be published in the US in August with the title “Far North”. So don’t buy both books!
The time was when a book could quite happily be published under different titles in the US and the UK, and the only misunderstanding would be at airports. But no longer. In the days of the internet, review blogs, Goodreads, Amazon, Facebook and so on, there is plenty of scope for confusion.
Knowing this, I was disappointed when my American publishers said that they didn’t want to publish 66 Degrees North under that title. I respected their view: if your publishers think your title is wrong for their country, you should probably listen. They know more about selling books than you do. At first I didn’t understand it, though. I mean, 66 Degrees North is the latitude of Iceland, which is a geographic fact independent of Britain or America. Was it just that Americans weren’t very good at geography?
I was actually at our house in Massachusetts at the time, and I discussed this with a number of American friends, who insisted they new what latitude was. Then one of them, Kathy, pointed out the similarity to the famous Route 66 across America to California, especially since Americans use phrases such as 58 North to describe roads (although I think Route 66 is probably 66E or 66W rather than 66N). That made sense to me. I also began to think why 66 North resonated with me, more than say 64 degrees North which is the actual latitude of Reykjavík. I realised there are three reasons. 66 North is an Icelandic clothing company with great ads that make me think of Iceland. Also, the two most important dates to Englishmen are 1066 and 1966. None of that applied to Americans.
I explained that what I was trying to convey by the use of 66 Degrees North was that Iceland and my story were really far north. Which was when I wrote an e-mail to my American editor saying “how about FAR NORTH?”. She liked it.
So, sorry for the confusion. But there is a reason.
The time was when a book could quite happily be published under different titles in the US and the UK, and the only misunderstanding would be at airports. But no longer. In the days of the internet, review blogs, Goodreads, Amazon, Facebook and so on, there is plenty of scope for confusion.
Knowing this, I was disappointed when my American publishers said that they didn’t want to publish 66 Degrees North under that title. I respected their view: if your publishers think your title is wrong for their country, you should probably listen. They know more about selling books than you do. At first I didn’t understand it, though. I mean, 66 Degrees North is the latitude of Iceland, which is a geographic fact independent of Britain or America. Was it just that Americans weren’t very good at geography?
I was actually at our house in Massachusetts at the time, and I discussed this with a number of American friends, who insisted they new what latitude was. Then one of them, Kathy, pointed out the similarity to the famous Route 66 across America to California, especially since Americans use phrases such as 58 North to describe roads (although I think Route 66 is probably 66E or 66W rather than 66N). That made sense to me. I also began to think why 66 North resonated with me, more than say 64 degrees North which is the actual latitude of Reykjavík. I realised there are three reasons. 66 North is an Icelandic clothing company with great ads that make me think of Iceland. Also, the two most important dates to Englishmen are 1066 and 1966. None of that applied to Americans.
I explained that what I was trying to convey by the use of 66 Degrees North was that Iceland and my story were really far north. Which was when I wrote an e-mail to my American editor saying “how about FAR NORTH?”. She liked it.
So, sorry for the confusion. But there is a reason.
June 8, 2012
Why is a Brit writing about an American Detective in Iceland?
I used to write financial thrillers, I have written eight. But when I decided that I wanted to write about a distinctive detective, and I was searching around for a distinctive place for this detective to come from, I came up with Iceland.
Iceland is a fascinating country. It has a population of 300,000, and only about three murders a year. This is a bit of a problem, because I kill off at least three people in each of my books. But Oxford has about the same population and Oxford managed to sustain many a Morse novel.
In real life it’s not very difficult being an Icelandic detective. Icelandic murders tend not to be very imaginative. It’s mostly two drunken men meeting in the street and one hitting the other too hard.
Iceland has tremendous variety. It certainly is a distinctive place. The people are a hard-working, manic lot with a highly developed sense of humour, big on irony. The overwhelming theme in Iceland is the clash of the old and the new. In 1940 Iceland was probably the poorest country in Europe, by 2007 it was one of the most advanced. Every Icelander seems to have a Facebook page; every Icelander’s grandmother believed in elves. And of course the landscape is full of myths and legends, trolls and elves, and the sites of the great medieval sagas.
So I had decided on Iceland, but now I needed an Icelandic detective. Naming a detective normally takes a lot of thought, but in this case it was easy – Magnus. The late Magnus Magnusson, who moved to Edinburgh when he was six months old, is every Briton’s favourite Icelander, and his name is far too good to waste.
But then a problem arose: I needed a detective who spoke Icelandic but was also a bit of an outsider. This was partly because I am obviously an outsider and would find it hard to pull off book after book written from the point of view of someone whose language I don’t speak. But also I wanted to point out the many extraordinary aspects of Icelandic society, which would be difficult if Magnus was a native – to him they wouldn’t seem worth mentioning.
So I devised a complicated background for Magnus, which not only addressed this difficulty, but also gave him a set of personal insecurities of the kind that any good fictional detective should carry around with him.
Magnus’s story goes as follows. He was born in Iceland, but his parents split up when he was a child, and Magnus followed his father to Boston where his father took a job as a professor of Mathematics. So Magnus grew up a lone Icelandic kid in an American High School, reading the sagas for comfort. He went to university and was planning to go to Law School, when his father was murdered. The local police couldn’t find the killer, and despite his obsession with the task, neither could Magnus. But it caused him to change his career plans and become a cop.
Twelve years later, he is a homicide detective in Boston when he gets caught up in a police corruption scandal and he needs to disappear for his own safety. The Reykjavík police are looking for an adviser to help them with increasing levels of big-city crime. So Magnus moves to Reykjavík.
He still doesn’t know who killed his father. I do, but I’m not telling you, or him. Not for a few books anyway.
There arises an obvious question: why isn’t Magnus British? Well, he was at first. The problem is that a British cop would fit right in to Iceland. Icelanders are reserved at first, they have an ironic sense of humour, and they don’t carry guns. America provided a much greater contrast, so I made Magnus American. And also, subconsciously, I suspect that I wanted to escape from England during those long hours writing these books. Three years later, and I am very glad I made that decision.
Iceland is a fascinating country. It has a population of 300,000, and only about three murders a year. This is a bit of a problem, because I kill off at least three people in each of my books. But Oxford has about the same population and Oxford managed to sustain many a Morse novel.
In real life it’s not very difficult being an Icelandic detective. Icelandic murders tend not to be very imaginative. It’s mostly two drunken men meeting in the street and one hitting the other too hard.
Iceland has tremendous variety. It certainly is a distinctive place. The people are a hard-working, manic lot with a highly developed sense of humour, big on irony. The overwhelming theme in Iceland is the clash of the old and the new. In 1940 Iceland was probably the poorest country in Europe, by 2007 it was one of the most advanced. Every Icelander seems to have a Facebook page; every Icelander’s grandmother believed in elves. And of course the landscape is full of myths and legends, trolls and elves, and the sites of the great medieval sagas.
So I had decided on Iceland, but now I needed an Icelandic detective. Naming a detective normally takes a lot of thought, but in this case it was easy – Magnus. The late Magnus Magnusson, who moved to Edinburgh when he was six months old, is every Briton’s favourite Icelander, and his name is far too good to waste.
But then a problem arose: I needed a detective who spoke Icelandic but was also a bit of an outsider. This was partly because I am obviously an outsider and would find it hard to pull off book after book written from the point of view of someone whose language I don’t speak. But also I wanted to point out the many extraordinary aspects of Icelandic society, which would be difficult if Magnus was a native – to him they wouldn’t seem worth mentioning.
So I devised a complicated background for Magnus, which not only addressed this difficulty, but also gave him a set of personal insecurities of the kind that any good fictional detective should carry around with him.
Magnus’s story goes as follows. He was born in Iceland, but his parents split up when he was a child, and Magnus followed his father to Boston where his father took a job as a professor of Mathematics. So Magnus grew up a lone Icelandic kid in an American High School, reading the sagas for comfort. He went to university and was planning to go to Law School, when his father was murdered. The local police couldn’t find the killer, and despite his obsession with the task, neither could Magnus. But it caused him to change his career plans and become a cop.
Twelve years later, he is a homicide detective in Boston when he gets caught up in a police corruption scandal and he needs to disappear for his own safety. The Reykjavík police are looking for an adviser to help them with increasing levels of big-city crime. So Magnus moves to Reykjavík.
He still doesn’t know who killed his father. I do, but I’m not telling you, or him. Not for a few books anyway.
There arises an obvious question: why isn’t Magnus British? Well, he was at first. The problem is that a British cop would fit right in to Iceland. Icelanders are reserved at first, they have an ironic sense of humour, and they don’t carry guns. America provided a much greater contrast, so I made Magnus American. And also, subconsciously, I suspect that I wanted to escape from England during those long hours writing these books. Three years later, and I am very glad I made that decision.
June 7, 2012
Interview by Mystery People
This is an interview with me by Lizzie Hayes of Mystery People.
http://promotingcrime.blogspot.co.uk/...
http://promotingcrime.blogspot.co.uk/...
June 1, 2012
Meltwater Publication Day!
Today is publication day for Meltwater, at least in the UK.
Meltwater is the third novel in the Fire and Ice series about Magnus, my Icelandic detective.
A bunch of Internet activists, known as Freeflow, arrive in Iceland to edit a secret war-crimes video that has been leaked to them. They take an afternoon off to visit an erupting volcano, and one of them is murdered at the rim. Magnus investigates, but is hampered by the far larger eruption of Eyjafjallajökull. It turns out Freeflow have made lots of enemies over the years, so there are plenty of suspects.
Meltwater is the third novel in the Fire and Ice series about Magnus, my Icelandic detective.
A bunch of Internet activists, known as Freeflow, arrive in Iceland to edit a secret war-crimes video that has been leaked to them. They take an afternoon off to visit an erupting volcano, and one of them is murdered at the rim. Magnus investigates, but is hampered by the far larger eruption of Eyjafjallajökull. It turns out Freeflow have made lots of enemies over the years, so there are plenty of suspects.
May 19, 2012
Edge of Nowhere
Last summer, when I was on holiday in Massachusetts, I wrote a long short story, more of a novella really, called Edge of Nowhere. It features my Icelandic detective, Magnus. He is sent up to Bolungarvik, an isolated village in the West Fjords.
There has been an accident: a landslide has killed a road worker. The problem is that the locals think the elves did it in revenge for a tunnel that has just been blasted through the elves home.
I have posted the first couple of chapters on this Goodreads site, and if you want to buy the whole story for not very much, you can download it from Kindle. If you haven't got a Kindle, well I'm sorry. I'll feel a bit bad about that.
There has been an accident: a landslide has killed a road worker. The problem is that the locals think the elves did it in revenge for a tunnel that has just been blasted through the elves home.
I have posted the first couple of chapters on this Goodreads site, and if you want to buy the whole story for not very much, you can download it from Kindle. If you haven't got a Kindle, well I'm sorry. I'll feel a bit bad about that.
