Peter Robinson's Blog, page 8

Crimes and Ballads: Peter Robinson and Martin Carthy in York

On March 19, Peter Robinson and Martin Carthy took to the stage in York to perform Crimes and Ballads, a combination of a story by Peter Robinson and songs by Martin Carthy. Based on the English folk song Little Musgrave, Peter Robinson’s story sets out the tale of unrequited love. “At appropriate intervals Robinson takes a back seat and the space that presents itself allows Carthy to sing songs that complement the text. Tales of loss and longing and of heartbreak and stolen dreams.”

As reported by David Markham in York Mix:

To witness them individually would have been enough. To pair them together was inspired. I couldn’t help but think that in a world where we as a population are increasingly expected to embrace pace and change, tonight’s performance demanded that we stop and think and revel in the talents of two gifted men and the warmth of the community of people in the building. Sometimes the old ways are the best.

It was a moving performance, in an intimate setting in a converted church. There will be other performances in the future, and we’ll post information about them on the site.

Before the Poison wins Dilys Award!

Before the Poison has won the 2013 Dilys Award for Best Novel, awarded by the Independent Mystery Booksellers Association. The award was announced by Tom Schantz at the Left Coast Crime Convention, in Colorado Springs, on 23 March.

This is a very great honour indeed. I have never won a Dilys Award before, so it’s also a big thrill. I’m especially glad at having won for Before the Poison, which was something of a departure for me. My thanks to the Independent Mystery Booksellers Association for the award and for all your support over the years.

Get more information.

News and Forthcoming Events

(The above ad was recently seen in the train station in York, England.)

Books to Die For, edited by John Connelly and Declan Burke has been nominated for an Edgar Award in the Critical/Biographical category. I have an essay on Ruth Rendell’s A Judgement in Stone in this collection, which is full of fine articles on a variety of crime novels, some well known, others undeservedly neglected. Congratulations to the editors!

I have also just heard that Before the Poison has been nominated for a Dilys Award for best novel by the Independent Mystery Booksellers Association, USA. The votes have to be in by 4th February and the result will be out shortly thereafter.

I have a few events of interest coming up in the near future, starting with a music/ short story event with Martin Carthy called Crimes and Ballads at the York Literature Festival in association with the Black Swan Folk Club, in York, UK, on 19th March at 7.30pm. Hurry, it will sell out! Details here.

You can see an excerpt from our previous collaboration at the Beverley Folk Festival last June at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lth_EA...

From 2nd to 5th May, I will be International Guest of Honour at Malice Domestic in Bethesda, MD. This is a great honour indeed, and I’m really looking forward to it. Laura Lippman will be Toastmaster. Details at www.malicedomestic.org

I recently wrote a few words for UNCUT magazine in the UK on Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon for the 40th year commemoration issue. Forty years! Can’t believe it. Should be out soon.

In the summer, I hope to be teaching a course in Crime Writing at the University of Toronto School of Continuing Studies. This runs from 15th to 19th July. I’ve done it several times before, and we all usually enjoy ourselves. Perhaps we all learn something, too!

From 16th to 18th August, I’ll be at the St Hilda’s Crime Conference in Oxford, UK, where I’ll be delivering a paper on crime fiction today.

Shortly after that, on 17th or 18th September, I’ll be giving a paper at crime conference at the University of Leeds.

I’ll be doing something, I know not what, at the Richmond Books and Boots Festival, in Richmond, North Yorkshire between 20th and 22nd September. I might be interviewing a famous crime writer, leading a walk or simply reading and talking.

On 26th September, I am set to give a talk at the New York Public Libraries Convention in Niagara Falls, NY.

There are more events waiting to be finalised, and I’ll post more details as they become available.

Finally, while Watching the Dark has been racing up the UK paperback bestseller list, it has just been published in hardcover in the USA, where it briefly reached the New York Times extended list and has been garnering some terrific reviews, some of which you can check out at the following sites: the Wall Street Journal, the Richmond Times Dispatch, BookPage and the New York Post.

DCI Banks Comes to PBS

We’re proud to announce that the DCI Banks TV series, first broadcast on ITV in the UK, is coming to PBS all across the United States. The series, starring Stephen Tompkinson as Alan Banks, will debut in January; check your local PBS station’s schedule for times.

The other good news is that after receiving great viewing ratings for series two, DCI Banks has been recommissioned for a third series of six one hour episodes based on three books still to be determined. Filming will take place between August and November 2013, for broadcast early in 2014.

Here’s a brief promo video for the DCI Banks series.

Before the Poison Wins Sweden’s Golden Crowbar Award

Before the Poison was awarded Sweden’s Golden Crowbar Award (Martin Beck Award) this weekend for best translated crime novel. It is Peter’s second win; the first was for In a Dry Season in 2002.

The Martin Beck Award is given by the Svenska Deckarakademin (Swedish Crime Writers’ Academy).

New DCI Banks TV Series Starting Soon

ITV will be showing the second series of DCI Banks in the UK starting on Wednesday, 10th October, 2012, rather than in January 2013 as originally thought. The series begins with Strange Affair, then continues with adaptations of Dry Bones that Dream (Final Account) and Innocent Graves. Caroline Catz replaces Andrea Lowe for most of the series, as Andrea was on maternity leave, but the rest of the cast remains the same. Watch out for some excellent guest stars.

Get a Sneak Preview of Watching the Dark, the Next Inspector Banks Novel

Watching the Dark is due out on August 16 in the UK, in just two days. If you want to get a head start on the new Inspector Banks novel, here’s a video of Peter talking about how he wrote Watching the Dark.

And you can also read the first chapter of Watching the Dark in advance. Download this PDF file.

Summer Update

It’s been a busy summer so far, and it looks set to get even busier. In addition to a few bookstore events in the UK, I also took part in two major festivals and visited my Hungarian publishers, General Press, in Budapest. They produce beautiful hardcover editions of the books.

Of course, everyone was talking about the amount of rain that fell in the UK in June and July, and driving back to Richmond from a signing at Grove Books in Ilkley in hail, thunder and lightning was quite an experience. As was the mud at the Beverley Fold Festival. This small and friendly festival happens every year in Beverley, an attractive market town in East Yorkshire, and usually manages to get an interesting line-up. This year I got to see Steeleye Span for the first time in about forty years, and they were terrific. Martin Carthy (once a member of Steeleye) was one of the headliners at the festival, and I got to do an event with him on Sunday lunchtime.

Onstage with Martin Carthy at the Beverley Festival, June, 2012.

I had worked with his daughter Eliza Carthy on a few occasions at Beverley and other festivals, but this was my first time with Martin. I wrote a short story specially for the occasion, a story based in the world of folk song collecting and murder ballads, and Martin selected a number of songs to echo and amplify the themes. We played to a full house – or tent – and everyone seemed to enjoy themselves, especially us. The story was called “The Variant,” but I have changed the title to “Enchantress,” and it should be published in The Strand magazine before too long. I’m also hoping to post a link to a video recording of the event as soon as it comes my way.

I managed to make time to spend a day on the set of second series of DCI Banks. They were filming in the old Yorkshire TV studio on Kirkstall Road in Leeds, so I was able to get my father and stepmother down there to watch the proceedings. They were both thrilled, though I think a little surprised by the number of times each small scene is filmed.

On set with DCI Banks. My father in the foreground!

This is an unusual series in that Andrea Lowe, who plays Annie Cabbot, was seven months pregnant when filming started and could only take part in the opening of the first episode. The producers and writers managed to come up with a completely new character, someone I have never even mentioned in the books, called Helen Morton. She is played by the excellent Caroline Catz (The Vice, Murder in Suburbia, Doc Martin). The books that Left Bank have adapted for this series are Strange Affair, Dry Bones that Dream (Final Account) and Innocent Graves, and there are many fine guest stars you are sure to recognise. The series is set to show in the UK in January 2013. We still have our fingers crossed for US/Canadian distribution, and most European countries have already picked up the series.

Stephen Tompkinson (Banks) and Jack Deam (Ken Blackstone).

In mid-July it was time for the tenth anniversary of the Theakston’s Old Peculier Crime Festival in Harrogate. And what a line-up they had, including international guests such as Laura Lippman, Jo Nesbo, Camilla Lackberg, Harlan Coben and Deon Meyer. You can see some photos here.

My event at Harrogate involved sitting on stage with Ian Rankin at 10pm on Friday evening and chatting for an hour, as we did at the very first festival in 2003. The festival kindly provided a bar on the stage, and Theakston’s brewery supplied a cask of bitter. Mark Billingham poured us the first pint as he introduced us, but after that we took care of ourselves. The chat was wide ranging and often involved quite a lot of laughter. The event was sold out, with around 500 people attending, and a good time was had by all. Afterwards, Ian and I signed books for an hour, then it was back to the bar! Though I value the time I did have chatting with fans from as far away as Liechtenstein and with fellow crime writers I don’t see very often, there were many others I would have liked to have spent more time with. But I had to get back to Toronto the following day.

And now it’s almost time for the book tours to begin again. Watching the Dark is published in the UK on August 16 and in Canada on August 28. US publication is not until February, 2013, and most foreign editions, including those in Sweden, France and the Netherlands, should be out next year. The large format paperback editions should be out in Australia, New Zealand and South Africa, among other places, around the same time as the the UK edition. In an exciting move, my Canadian publishers McClelland & Stewart have made some early copies available for my appearance at the Festival of the Written Arts, in Sechelt, British Columbia, August 16 to 19. My 7 pm Saturday night event is sold out, which means an audience of close to 500. This festival is always a great event. The organisation is very professional, the location could hardly be better and the audiences are enthusiastic. McClelland & Stewart are also producing a TV ad for the book to show on PBS.

I no sooner touch down in Toronto on Sunday, August 19, than I’m flying out to London on August 20 to start the tour there the following day. Here are the appearances arranged so far:

Tuesday, August 21, 6.30pm. Talk at Swiss Cottage Library, with Waterstones, Finchley Road, selling books. Tickets are £3 (available from Waterstones, Finchley Road) and proceeds will go to the Swiss Cottage Users Group. London.

Thursday, August 23, 12.00pm. Signing at Waterstones, United Reform Building, 89a Broad Street, Reading.

Friday, August 24, 8.30am approx. BBC Breakfast Television.

Friday, August 24, 12.00pm. Signing at Waterstones, 78-80 St Peter’s Street, Derby.

Friday, August 24, 7.00pm. Talk at Waterstones, 1/5 Bridlesmith Gate, Nottingham.

Saturday, August 25, 12.30pm. Signing at Waterstones, 61-62 Bishopgate Walk, Ridings Centre, Wakefield.

Saturday, August 25, 7.00pm. Talk/signing at Waterstones, 93 Albion St, Leeds.

Monday, August 27, 12.30pm. Signing at Waterstones, 38a The Plaza, East Kilbride.

Monday, August 27, 7.00pm. Edinburgh Festival. Scottish Power Studio Theatre. Edinburgh.

Tuesday, August 28, 12.30pm. Signing at Atkinson Pryce, 27 High Street, Biggar,

Tuesday, August 28, 6.30pm. Event at Forum Cinema, Market Place, Hexham.

Wednesday, August 29, 1.00pm. Signing at Waterstones, Emerson Chambers, Blackett Street, Newcastle.

Wednesday, August 29, 7.00pm. Event at Carlisle Library, 11 Globe Lane, Carlisle.

Thursday, August 30, 12.30pm. Waterstones, 102 High Street, Northallerton.

Thursday, August 30, 7.00pm. White Rose Bookshop, Thirsk. TBA.

Back in Canada, I have several events lined up, including Word on the Street, in Toronto, The Ottawa Writers Festival (with Mark Billingham) and a writing workshop at the Huntsville Festival. More details later.

Coming Soon: Watching the Dark, the Next Inspector Banks Novel

Banks returns for his 20th adventure in Watching the Dark (UK – 16th August; Canada – 1st September; and February, 2013, in the USA). This time a fellow detective is murdered on the grounds of St Peter’s Police Convalescence and Treatment Centre, near Eastvale, and the investigation indicates that he might have been involved in some dodgy activities. In his investigation, Banks is aided, or perhaps hindered, by a new character, Inspector Joanna Passero, an icy Hitchcock blonde from Professional Standards, eager to prove herself and make the move to Major Crimes. You probably don’t enjoy being told the plot of a book before you read it any more than I do, so I’ll stop there and hope you’re intrigued enough to find out for yourselves how it all unfolds!

Below are the UK and Canadian covers. Look for this new Inspector Banks novel in your favorite bookstore very soon.

     

Before the Poison Wins Best Novel Award

Peter’s standalone novel Before the Poison has been announced as the winner of 2012 Arthur Ellis Award for Best Novel by the Crime Writers of Canada. Other nominees included Alan Bradley, William Deverell, Louise Penny and Robert Rotenberg.

This is Peter’s sixth Arthur Ellis award, which comes with a wonderful statuette, as shown here.