Lesley Cookman's Blog, page 12

Pre-Christmas Panic!

Not really - I've got most of the presents and the turkey (frozen, sorry, but organic bronze), made the pudding (very late) with a small one for my son-in-law and written and posted most of the cards.

However - I have NOT put up the decorations. All right, I have put the wreath on the door and bought the tree and the mistletoe, but the latter are still sitting in the garden. When I was a child, my father always put the decorations up on Christmas Eve. These included paperchains of crepe paper in all colours making a tent from the walls to the light fitting. It was part of the whole Christmas experience, and to put the decorations up any earlier still feels like devaluing the currency. I have relented in later years but I don't like it.

The real panic was getting Murder In the Monastery ready. The revisions came in late, (Dear Editor very overworked!) but I did a 48 hour marathon on them, then proofs arrived and I managed to do those in a day. The covers have already been printed, now there's got to be a heroic effort to get the text inside by the release date of January 3rd. I have a feeling it might be a little late!

I have started the next one, Murder In The Dark, title courtesy of son Miles, who also supplied the setting and took me on a guided tour through rural Kent and to see the Tudor house owned by one of his clients. I went off on my own a few days later and found the exact location for the story, and creeped myself out driving along what started out as a lane but ended up as a track through an impenetrable, fog filled forest. Well, that's what it felt like.

Miles, on form, obviously, also supplied the setting and raison d'être for the book after next. Which I shall keep to myself for now, but suffice it to say he and I will be going on a jolly jaunt next year - for research purposes, of course.

That's it for now. I'm going to cheat and use this blog post for the Rather Random Newsletter, too, so to all friends, family, readers and passers-by a Very Merry Christmas and a happy and peaceful New Year.

Arte Umbria and other things

Seraphina at Arte Umbria has asked me to help promote my course next year, which I am trying to do by mentioning it everywhere I can, but I can't keep going on about it! So I shall probably not be going after all, as she needs at least four people to sign up to make it viable.

I know this is probably anti-publicity and won't meet with her approval, but I'm sadly not good at self promotion. My fellow tutor is a dab hand at it, and appears all over t'internet, mentioning her course wherever she goes, but I don't. The romance brigade are particularly good at hosting people on their blogs etc, but the criminal fraternity aren't! This means I'm eternally grateful to be published in a traditional manner rather than having to self-publish, as I don't think I have the chutzpah.

Speaking of publishers, I was the guest of Hazel Cushion, my publisher, at the Romantic Novelists' Association Winter Party this week. I wore sequins, as it is quite a glitzy affair, and stood out a bit! I haven't seen any pictures yet, except the traditional ones of The Shoes. We have an obsession with shoes.

Also this week, I went to the theatre to see The Anniversary, directed by one friend and starring another, and on Thursday Jane Wenham-Jones and I did our In Conversation event at Waterstones in Canterbury, which went very well. We both distributed cards/flyers promoting our courses next year, hers at Chez Castillion and mine at Arte Umbria. So I do try!

So if any of you (is anyone there?) feel like doing a spot of promotin for my Italian Adventure, I'd be very grateful

A brief catch up to keep you all abreast of events. Now t...

A brief catch up to keep you all abreast of events. Now that Murder In The Monastery is done and dusted – almost – the one after that is now in the schedule. After a long conversation with my publisher this week, Murder In The Dark has been scheduled for publication on October 10th.

The title is the result of the consultation I instigated in the last newsletter, on Twitter and Facebook, and thank you to all those who contributed. In fact, the rather obvious title, when you think about it, was suggested by my son Miles, who has also given me the idea for the story. Not only that, he’s taken me out on very pretty research trips round Kent and introduced me to one of the people he works for, who allowed me to roam around her beautiful 400 year old house, and inspect the gardens. Miles has been involved in the restoration of both, which is an ongoing project, luckily for me, as it means I can pop over and have a poke about any time I want!

This also a reminder that Jane Wenham-Jones and I will be doing our thing at Canterbury Waterstones on November 22nd at 6 30. Free entry, wine and crisps!

The Next Big Thing

Last week, my friend author Paul Magrs tagged me in something called The Next Big Thing, which is a chain of author and book recommendations. My turn today, and I shall answer the following questions about Murder By Magic which is available now in paperback and ebook, and I shall tag four more writers who will take up the baton next Wednesday.

What is the title of your next book?

The most recent came out in June and is called Murder by Magic. The next is called Murder In The Monastery and will be out in January.

Where did the idea for the book come from?

The marketing director of the publishing company, who dreamt up the title. I then had to find something to fit.

What genre does your book fall under?

The Libby Sarjeant novels are "cosy" mysteries.

What actors would you choose to play the part of your characters in a movie rendition?

I wouldn't. They wouldn't match up to the pictures in my head!

Will your book be self-pubished or represented by an agency?

All my books are traditionally published by Accent Press and my pantomimes by Jasper Publishing.

How long did it take you to write the first draft of the manuscript?

I'm going to come clean and say I don't do drafts. I edit as I go, but as I'm contracted to do two books a year I don't get time to do drafts. (Probably explains a lot!)

What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?

Amazon tells me people who buy my books also buy Simon Brett, Hazel Holt and Rebecca Tope, writers with whom I've done events in the past and whose books I love.

Who or what inspitred you to write this book?

My bank manager.

What else about your book might pique the reader's interest?

They're set in Kent? The central character's a middle-aged woman? Um - I don't know, really!

There we are. I'm not brilliant at this sort of thing, but I'm sure my tagged authors will be. Check out their blogs next Wednesday and find out.

Julia Williams, who writes terrific relationship books about real people, http://www.juliawilliamsauthor.com/ http://maniacmum.blogspot.co.uk/

Carola Dunn, author of several detective/mystery series http://caroladunn.weebly.com/ http://murderousmusings.blogspot.co.uk/

Victoria Lamb, a historical novelist with two new books out this year, both set in the 16th centry http://www.victorialambbooks.com/

Christina Jones, one of my oldest and dearest writer friends, who writes what she calls "Bucolic Frolics". http://www.christinajones.co.uk/#/blo...

I've tried everything I can think of to make these show up as links - think my software must be up the creek. Will keep trying!

Do I really write crime?

I have had cause, recently, to read some of my amazon reviews. This is a strange process, as amazon haven't linked them all up, so instead of seeing all the print reviews on the Kindle site, you know "This review is from a different edition of this book", mine are all separate. Anyway, while checking this, I discovered all these nasty reviews, complaining about how much time Libby and her mates spend eating and drinking. Someone with no life had actually bothered to count how many cups of tea etc had been made/consumed. Now, why? If she was so incensed (I'm assuming it was a she) by this style and the behaviour of my characters, why did she bother a)to read it all and b) to count the things?

I have already commented about the free download system, and the license it gives to the generally miserable to "buy" and comment on books they would normally never read, but this was following on an email from someone who tried my book and "had to get used to the style". She finishes up saying she's now hooked on the series and - ahem - thought she'd got over being hooked on soaps!

I know my style is chatty, but it got me to thinking, perhaps I don't actually write proper crime. Perhaps people buy my books expecting murders and gore and car chases? No, I didn't think so either, and this is why I label my books "Mystery" rather than crime. And do people really mind about Libby's tea and wine consumption? At least I don't talk about her obsession with her weight, or Big Pants.

Anyway, I just wondered if I was misleading readers. Perhaps I should suggest to my publishers that we start renaming the series as "Mystery" rather "Murder". You know, like "Mystery of the Pantomime Cat" and the "Mystery of the Bad Reviewer". Now, I quite like the sound of that...

If you've read this far, here's a little bit of promo for my son Leo, whose first novel Welome the Pigz is now available on amazon, Do give it a try. (Yes, all right, I'm a pushy Mum.) When Blogger lets me, I'll publish a link here.

News, views and Murder in the Monastery

This is the cover for Murder in the Monastery, which proves that I'm writing it! Mind you, it's spelled wrong. I shall have words. It will be out on January 3rd, possibly a little earlier in bricks and mortar bookshops. I have a list of events which I shall paste here, except it will probably appear in a huge unnattractive lump, blogger having decided it still doesn't like me much, but here goes: August 7th: I will be on Radio Kent with Pat Marsh at 3.45 pm August 8th: I will be in conversation with Jane Wenham-Jones at Waterstones, St Margaret's Street, Canterbury at 6.30 pm. Tickets £3 redeemable against book purchase. There will be wine! October 3rd: Swalecliffe Library at 7.30 pm October 5th: Ilford Central Library at 2pm January 12th 2013: The New Kent History and Library Centre at 2pm And from June 19th to June 26th 2013 I shall be the inaugural Creative Writing Tutor at Arte Umbria Now let's see if it's worked!

Detective fiction - a short appreciation

This is an abbreviated version of an essay written in 2003, so things have changed in the subsequent nine years, but I think the essentials remain the same. This essay discusses the place of detective and mystery fiction within the literary world from its inception to the present, and where this particular type of novel fits. It also talks about markets, America, and includes a précis of the rest of the story, including an explanation of why there are peripheral characters and their importance. Edgar Allan Poe is popularly known as the “father of detective fiction”, but in fact this genre, as it became known, was already in existence before the acclaimed The Purloined Letter, originally published in a magazine in 1845. The first group of American writers emerged in the 1830s, and examples have been recorded as early as 1790. In 1828 and 1829, in France, Eugene-Francois Vidocq published his Memoires, unfortunately acknowledged subsequently as largely fictional and written by two hack writers, but referred to by Poe’s Dupin as a “good guesser, and a persevering man…without educated thought.” Herman Melville’s Benito Cereno also came into this category at around the same time. In Britain, what came to be known as “Sensation” novels were appearing. Probably the best known of these was Wilkie Collins’ The Woman in White. In America in 1878, Anna Katherine Green wrote, among other works, The Circular Study, a definitive work detailing the uncovering of hidden facts about the past and characters relating to the crime. Between The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins and Conan Doyle’s A Study in Scarlet, a now forgotten writer, Emile Gaboriau, enhanced the popularity of the detective story and further defined the genre with works including L’Affaire Lerouge and The Mystery of Orcival. Charles Dickens’ Bleak House, with its respectable Inspector Bucket, falls into this category, and his unfinished The Mystery of Edwin Drood is considered to be his attempt to play his friend Wilkie Collins at his own game, with a first class mystery at its heart. Also in the mid to late nineteenth century a series of “yellowbacks” appeared to cater for the new generation of railway travellers. Series such as “Routledge’s Railway Library” were sold at railway stations including many “reminiscences” of fictional policeman in the style of Vidocq. Sherlock Holmes, created by Arthur Conan Doyle, appeared in the late nineteenth century and inspired a huge range of imitators. Collections of these have been published in a series of books edited by Hugh Greene: The Rivals of Sherlock Holmes, Further Rivals of Sherlock Holmes and The American Rivals of Sherlock Holmes. Arguably, the first “Locked Room” mystery was Gaston Leroux’s Mystery of the Yellow Room, although Poe’s Murders in the Rue Morgue contains a sealed room. This is largely regarded as a cheat, however, and Leroux’s Yellow Room the first in the genre, an element of which is still found in modern crime and detective fiction. The greatest proponent of the “Locked Room Mystery” was without doubt John Dickson Carr, who also wrote as Carter Dickson. Dickson Carr described the secret passage as a “low trick”, and continued to invent more and more convoluted plots in which victims could be demonstrated to be alive after they were dead and murderers to be elsewhere when their crimes were committed. The Hollow Man and The Ten Teacups are definitive examples of his art. After the “Great Detective” era came a very different breed of detective, exemplified by R Austin Freeman’s Dr Thorndyke and GK Chesterton’s Father Brown. Thorndyke gave history the inverted mystery, explaining how the crime was committed and devoting the story to how the detective achieves his solution. Both Conan Doyle and Austin Freeman gave us forerunners of today’s forensic detectives. Detective fiction at this point was the reading choice of the educated public, and the twentieth century saw the birth of the “Golden Age”. In Britain this has come to be defined by Agatha Christie, although there were many other writers in the first quarter of the century who were her equal, if not her superior, in literary achievement if not output. Some historians like to confine the Golden Age to the 1920s, but in fact it continued until well after the second World War, and the 1930s was a decade during which many of the detectives were created who have formed pattern cards for the future. Ngaio Marsh, Michael Innes, John Dickson Carr and in America, Rex Stout, joined Agatha Christie, Freeman Wills Croft, Patricia Wentworth, Dorothy L Sayers, Margery Allingham, Josephine Tey and others whose creations are not only still read today, but have become fiction classics. As with other “classic” writers, Dickens, Austen, Thackeray, Elliot and Hardy, their novels are still adapted for television and film. The development of what is now known as the “Noir” novel, the “Hardboiled PI” (Private Investigator) and the Police Procedural was achieved mainly in America, but is now just as popular this side of the Atlantic. In recent years, our own Police Procedurals have overshadowed other forms of the genre, although many of these owe more to the Golden Age than to their US counterparts. Dalgleish, Wexford and Morse are characters who lead the investigations, not components in the solving of a crime. They have also adhered to the convention of the “sidekick” first popularised by Conan Doyle with Watson and Holmes. Perhaps the most realistic procedurals are Reginald Hill’s Dalziel and Pascoe novels, which, however, are still character led, and stick to the series partnership format. Gwendoline Butler was the first in this field with her Inspector Coffin, and, writing as Jennie Melville, has created the female police procedural in this country with her Charmian Daniels of Windsor. Apart from the main protagonists, there are other running characters in all these novels. The Golden Age still casts its shadow and the genre that most closely adheres to its rules and precepts is now referred to as “cosy”. There are excellent modern proponents of the “cosy” in Britain, Simon Brett, Hazel Holt and Veronica Heley to name three, but the sub-genre, having been created in England, has now become enormously popular in the United States. Hundreds of series have been spawned, using all the conventions established since the middle of the nineteenth century. In Britain, Val McDermid and Gillian Linscott could both be said to have overtones of this genre, although Linscott's Nell Bray series is set in the early years of the last century, but both writers have created series characters who are not connected to the police. A sense of place is also important, and in the gentler type of crime novel is almost a character in itself. This can be demonstrated by the popularity of the television series that grow from them, “The Midsomer Murders”, based on Caroline Graham’s excellent books, which are, in fact, far removed from the television adaptations, is an excellent example. The closed circle of suspects created in the 1920s by Agatha Christie and her contemporaries, the observations of Sherlock Holmes, the forensic detection of Dr Thorndyke, the sidekick character, as in Dr Watson, or Poirot’s Captain Hastings, all of these have become incorporated into the traditions of the detective story. In the United States hundreds of females, in all walks of life and of all ages, regularly become caught up in inexplicable murders, accompanied by their sisters, close friends, occasionally husbands and a cast of regular characters. Those that are single almost invariably become romantically involved with the local policeman, and rarely move away from their home town. These writers have recreated the essentially English cosy as far as they are able in modern day America, and some of them, with notable success, set them in England. Martha Grimes’ Plant and Jury series is a case in point, and Elizabeth George’s Inspector Lynley series is considered by many to be on the more literary side of detective fiction, as, indeed, is our own PD James. The detective story, and mystery fiction as a whole, fulfils all the requirements of a good novel. It contains suspense, conflict, tragedy, moral choice, questions and a ready made construct of beginning, middle and end. Justice almost always triumphs, not necessarily formal justice, but satisfying to the reader. Unfortunately, the word “genre” is used in a mainly pejorative sense, especially when the genre is either “romantic” or “crime”, to indicate something which is too lightweight and badly written to warrant serious study. However, both crime and romance are the basis of many mainstream novels which are considered to be “literary”, and in fact, when mystery fiction was in its infancy there was no such thing as “genre”. There were just novels. Crime, and muder in particular, is an outrage, whether in a quiet English backwater or the urban jungle. The solving of such a crime and the bringing of the perpetrator to justice restores balance and order. The popularity of the crime and mystery novel is, therefore, no mystery.

The downside of free downloads

Apparently, the free offer of Murder By Magic was taken up by thousands, on both sides of the Atlantic. Great - except that it means no money for either Accent Press or me. In the week after the free download, Murder by Magic and Murder in Steeple Martin were both put up as 77 pence downloads and sold a reasonable amount. The downside is that people who would normally never buy your books trawl the free download charts (and I got as high as number 8 in the top 100) and that's the problem. I have now attracted two lousy reviews from people who, by their own admission, would not normally buy my books, even accusing me of lifting the idea of the series from another author. As the other author and I actually discussed the similarity of our series before either of them were written, this was infuriating. I have subsequently had a comforting email from that author (albeit from the Pelopponese where he and his wife are sunning themselves - sigh) and I know it shouldn't worry me. But it has shown me the problems free downloads can encounter. If my books are at a normal price, then people who like them and other books like them will find them and buy them. If they are cheap or free, anyone will download them, possibly to their detriment. So I think, perhaps, we won't do it again!

Exciting News!

First - Murder by Magic got to number 8 in the Amazon free downloads, and number 1 in Women Sleuths and British Detectives. Heavens above! Subsequently, Accent Press have put it out at the special price of 77p, with the first in the series, Murder in Steeple Martin at the same price. A week or so back, a friend of mine, author Gilli Allan, got in touch to say that another friend of hers ran painting courses in Umbria, Italy, and was looking to add writing courses. And lo and behold - guess who's their first tutor? ME! Arte Umbria is run by Sara Moody and her husband David, and I shall be there telling people how to write (ha!) next June. I can't wait, and I probably won't ever come home again. Do have a look at their wonderful website, which I can't seem to give a link to, but as soon as I can, I will. More updates on when the print edition of Magic comes out as soon as I have it.

Amazon Bestsellers

I haven't been constantly tweeting my FREE ebook, but lots of other people have, and guess what? I'm currently number 17 in the top 100 free downloads, number 1 in British detective and number 2 in Women sleuths. Just shows you what a free offer can do! Only today, Wednesday, and Thursday to go, then we will see what happens. Obviously it will come out of the free download charts, but we're hoping it will translate to backlist sales. Click on the cover to get it FREE!