Mason Cross's Blog, page 5

Noireland and Crimefest

On the road!

I'm looking forward to a couple of festivals over the spring. I'll be at Crimefest in Bristol as usual, and delighted to be going to Noireland in Belfast for the first time - hope to see some of you at one of these.


Noireland
Sunday 10 March | 9:30am

Twenty-First Century Bonds

James Bond has endured as one of the great icons of the thriller genre but how has he influenced modern thrillers and what are the challenges of writing about Secret Service agents for 21st century audiences? James Swallow is the bestselling author of Nomad, whose MI6 agent, Marc Dane, is more comfortable behind the computer than punching bad guys. Asia Mackay’s Secret Service assassin, Lex Tyler, is just returning from maternity leave, determined to prove she’s still up for the job . . . just as long as she can find her Glock under the pile of nappies. And Douglas Lindsay introduces us to DI Ben Westphall, an ex-MI6 agent with a knack for getting into people’s heads. Moderated by Mason Cross.

Tickets and weekend passes available from the festival website



Crimefest
Saturday 11 May | 12:50pm

Missing: Characters Who Aren’t There Anymore

Mason CrossM.J. FordCara HunterS.W. WilliamsParticipating Moderator: Steve MosbyTickets and weekend passes available from the festival website

Swedish paperbacks

Author copies time! I always love getting editions from other countries to see how the book looks on shelves across the world.

This is the Swedish paperback edition of The Samaritan - titled Den Onde Samariten (The Evil Samaritan).






If you're in Sweden, it's on sale now. Glad läsning!

I just found a great review from Dast Magazine last year, when the hardback came out. I don't speak much (okay, any) Swedish, but it's always fun to get Google to translate it:

By Mason Cross
The Samarithan, 2015
Translated by Gabriel Setterborg
Modernista, 2018
ISBN 978-91-7781-179-4, 431 pages

It is really strange that such an exhausted plot as the hunt for a serial killer can become so infernal exciting. Another remark is that authors of this very American genre are a Scot from Glasgow who embraced the really hard-boiled style that for seven, eight decades was introduced by Frank Morrison "Mickey" Spillane, among others. You are drawn very quickly into the evil Samaritan, Cross other thriller after last year's A long track of blood that introduced the human hunter Carter Blake.

The title comes from the fact that the serial killer got the nickname Samariten by offering help to women who got a motor stop, but instead of assisting he tortures his victims before cutting his neck with a saw-toothed knife. In the United States, such crimes have become a frightening reality along long and solitary routes of highway and according to the police, they are difficult to solve.

When a landslide exposes the bodies to three victims in the mountains near Santa Monica, the Los Angeles police investigator Jessica Allen is summoned, and this is not the first time she has seen anything like it - though on the other side of the continent. No traces, small chances of finding an offender.

A little hope is raised when Carter Blake arrives and offers his services, but initially suspicion is apparent. Blake's profile is too good for what they found out about the killer. But it turns out that the helper is a veritable track dog with a slightly scary ability to figure out the next Samarit's trait. And such comes when the killer raises his job to new, frightening levels. It is unpleasant but so exciting and temples that you do not want to stop reading, both about the hunt itself and about the protagonist's past that is about to set it up for him.

Mason Cross was born in 1979 in Glasgow, where he still lives with wife and three children. His previous book was nominated for Theakston's Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year. One doesn't need a load A long track of blood to keep the evil Samaritan . The books are independent of each other but if you want to know Carter Blake better (I think one wants it) it doesn't hurt to read the debut - and the following. Because there will be more.

LEIF PETER JONSSON

Want a free short story?

Last year on Christmas Eve, I sent a free short story to everyone in my Readers Club.


It went down really well, so I've decided to do the same again this year.

All authors are advised to set up an email list, for the obvious reason that it lets us gently remind you when we have a new book out (yeah, I know you thought this was all pure altruism, sorry).

I've found it's actually been a really cool way to interact with my readers, as long as you don't send lots of spammy emails, which I don't, not only because it's a bad idea, but because I'm too lazy. It feels a little more personal than doing the usual social media, which is odd, but there it is.

Anyway. New story, Christmas Eve. So if you're not signed up, what are you waiting for?


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Presumed Dead paperback out today! And author copies unboxing!

Hot on the heels of my cover reveal for next year's book, my 2018 book Presumed Dead, longlisted for the McIlvanney Prize, is out in UK mass-market paperback today. Here's where you can get it:

UK paperbackWaterstonesAmazonWHSmithHive
UK ebookKindleKoboGoogle PlayiBook
UK audioAudibleKobo Audio
Readers in the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand can click here for their local store.
I received my author copies last week, and opening a new box of your own books never stops being exciting.



You can see more pics from the unboxing over on my Instagram page.

If you haven't bought it yet, publication week is a very good time for the author and publisher to do so, so we would be very grateful if you make it your book purchase this week. And if you like it, a quick revew makes all the difference.
And to finish, here's some of the nice things authors, reviewers and readers said about it:



"I absolutely LOVED it." - Jenny Blackhurst

"A driving thriller about loyalty and lies in small town America." - Eva Dolan

"The final twist knocked me sideways!" - Peterborough Evening Telegraph

"Multi-layered deceptions slowly unravel, and the suspect spotlight falls on a number of people towards the end of what is an atmospheric, brooding and compelling thriller." - Tony Forder

"It’s quite the rollercoaster ride let me tell you. Add to that small town blues, a suspicious Sheriff, more death, a bit of action and some cliff hanging shenanigans and you are onto a good thing. Then we have perhaps one of the best endings in a thriller novel I’ve come across for AGES." - Liz Loves Books

"Carter Blake is an excellent character – plausible without being a parody, with enough skills to be excellent at his chosen role and a back story in the shadows which is alluded to but never quite revealed." - Crime Fiction Lover

"Brilliant, brilliant story telling from Mason Cross. If you have not yet discovered the Carter Blake books then this is the perfect opportunity to find out why readers look forward to each new release." - Grab This Book

"I read it very quickly because I couldn't wait to find out what happened next, but then was sad when I finished it cos it was over! But I wasn't disappointed by the ending. OMG, the last couple of chapters! Wow! Absolutely fantastic." - Suze Reviews

What She Saw Last Night - cover

It's cover reveal time once again!
I'm really happy with this one - they've gone with a really strong image and I like the way it looks and feels a little different from the Carter Blake books. 
What She Saw Last Night is published in the UK on April 18, 2019, and you can find out more about the story here.


Available to preorder from the usual places:
Trade paperback (large format)
WaterstonesAmazon 

ebook
KindleKoboGoogleiBooks
Readers outside the UK can click here to see if it's available to preorder in your area yet.

Next year's book: What She Saw Last Night

And now for something completely different.

Okay, not that different. It seems like yesterday when my first book was being published, and all of a sudden it's 2018 and my sixth book is going to be published next year. It's still a thriller, but it's set in the UK. And for the first time, it doesn't star Carter Blake.

I was quite keen to write a standalone book this time around, and lucky for me, my publisher thought this was a good idea too. I've come up with a few story ideas over the past few years that I liked, but weren't quite the right fit for Blake, and this was one of them.

It starts with a normal person, in a normal situation, and then something abnormal happens.


Jenny Bowen is your standard thirtysomething workaholic Londoner. Always busy, always rushing around, not taking time to notice the time pass, until her personal life takes a couple of major hits. First, her marriage breaks down. Second, her father dies unexpectedly.

Her dad's house is in the Scottish Highlands, where Jenny spent part of her teenage years, so she's heading north to take care of the usual duties that follow the death of a parent.

She decides life is moving a little too fast for her, so it might be healthy to decompress, take the long way home. She's always been curious about the sleeper train that runs overnight from London to Scotland, and decides to book a berth on a whim.

She boards at the last minute. As she's finding her way to her room, she sees a harassed-looking woman with a young child in tow: a little girl, maybe seven or eight years old. She's carrying a grey stuffed rabbit.


Jenny awakens the next morning. The train has stopped between stations, and the sky is beginning to lighten.

She ventures out of her room and stumbles on the body of the woman she saw the previous evening. It looks like an overdose. She finds a guard, they take her to the staff quarters and offer her water, try to calm her nerves. All of a sudden she remembers the little girl, realising she's an orphan now. Is she okay? Somebody is with her, right?

The guard looks back at her, confused.

"What little girl?"

~~~
It was a fun experience writing something a little different from the previous books, and getting to play with a new protagonist and a whole new cast of characters.

I particularly enjoyed getting to travel on and do a lot of research about the Caledonian Sleeper, which I'll be blogging about soon. One of the coolest things was that I serendipitiously picked the exact right time to set a book on board the train.

Next year, they're going to be introducing luxurious new 21st century carriages, but right now, the sleeper uses the oldest rolling stock in Britain, dating from the early 1980s. That's great for building atmosphere, of course, but as a mystery writer, it means the technology is a little behind the times: no air conditioning, no wifi, and most importantly, no CCTV cameras.

I'm hoping to have a cover to show you soon, and members of my Readers Club will get the first peek, so if you're not already signed up, go do it.

Because it's a departure from the Blake books, we're going with a slightly different branding. I'll be M.J. Cross on the cover of this book, for starters. What does the J stand for? I'm open to suggestions, but I'm currently leaning toward 'Jedbediah'.

What She Saw Last Night is published in the UK on 18 April 2019, and you can preorder it now:

Trade paperback (large format)

WaterstonesAmazon 

ebook

KindleKoboGoogleiBooks

My episode of Written in Blood - this Tuesday on CBS Reality

My episode of Simon Toyne's true crime series Written in Blood airs this Tuesday night on CBS Reality in the UK.

I was intrigued when Simon asked me to be part of the show, as I'm a big fan of his Solomon Creed books, and it sounded like an interesting thing to be part of. Plus, I got to create a folder in my emails called 'Television', which was nice.


I had previously spoken to the team about being part of season one, when the brief was that crime writers would talk about a case that influenced one of their books. Back then we looked at covering the Washington Sniper case, which was in my mind when I was writing Killing Season, but the idea was nixed as the focus was on UK crimes.

For season two, the remit was broader: crime writers talking about a case that was local to them. When they asked if I knew of any suitable cases, one came to mind immediately.

I grew up in Cambuslang, a suburb on the south-east side of Glasgow. I remembered people used to talk about a pair of murders that happened when I was very young. In fact I was sure I remembered that one of them had taken place very close to my childhood home. I mentioned the case to the researcher from CBS Reality and she agreed it sounded like a potential case to cover. I had a look online, and found surprisingly little about the case; just a couple of retrospective articles.

Those confirmed I had been right, though. The killings - vicious, apparently motiveless murders of lone women - took place in the autumn of 1982, when I was three years old. The first of the two victims, a female taxi driver, was found in her car in Braeside Place, the street behind the back garden of the house where my family lived. I remembered there was a gap in the fence where I used to cut through on my way to the shop.

The articles referenced other developments in the case, including the discovery of a second victim, found on the railway embankment beside my old primary school.

I asked my dad about the night the taxi driver had been murdered, and he told me about being awoken in the middle of the night by the blue lights as the police investigated the scene. They had come around our street to canvas for witnesses the following day.

Surprised there wasn't more online, I decided to go old-school. I went to the Mitchell Library in Glasgow, where they store a vast archive of old newspapers on microfiche.



I spent a couple of evenings scrolling through issues of the Glasgow Herald and the Evening Times from 1982 and early '83. It was fascinating seeing the case unfold against the backdrop of the time: turmoil in the Middle East, a Thatcher landslide in the '83 general election, the USSR sabre-rattling, the Troubles still simmering away in Northern Ireland. Some familiar trends, some that seem further away than a mere four decades.

The murder case was covered sporadically over the weeks and months, in brief updates as the police closed in on a suspect. Only the occasional front page. It was unsettling to discover how many of the locations relevant to the case were places I had frequented growing up, and still pass by on a regular basis today. The killer and one of his victims both lived on the street my family later moved to.

The media was different in those days. Murders were out of the ordinary, of course, even though the crime rate was far higher in the early eighties than it is now, but absent the 24-hour news cycle, it didn't have the sort of blanket coverage that a similar case would have now. The term "serial killer" didn't have the currency it does today. And, of course, there was no internet, no social media. The crimes were reported, updates would surface every couple of weeks, and eventually a suspect was arrested, tried and convicted.

The case wasn't a constant topic of conversation when I was growing up, or anything like that, but it was there in the background. Reading the coverage of the case made me think about growing up, not exactly in the shadow of these vicious crimes, but knowing from an early age that bad things could happen where you lived. Almost literally in your back yard, in my case.

Do I write crime fiction because I grew up with that awareness that evil can lurk in the most innocuous settings? It's impossible to say.

Perhaps it's one of the reasons I've always been fascinated by the way psychopaths can blend in, hide their true nature from the everyday world. The way relatives and friends and neighbours always express disbelief and confusion when they find out there was a monster in their midst. The shattering of the easy, comforting illusion that "this kind of thing doesn't happen here."

You can see the whole story this Tuesday night.

Written in Blood 
Sky 146 | Freeview 66 | Virgin Media 148 | Freesat 135

Readers Club competition winners

A big thanks to everyone who entered both the Facebook and the Readers Club competitions to win Written in Blood bookmarks and other goodies.

Winners came from as far afield as Singapore and the Netherlands - one of the best things about this gig is finding out you have readers in places you've never been.

The Facebook winners were posted earlier this week on my page - incidentally, go like the page, if you haven't already.

Members of my Readers Club who won a signed deleted scene from Presumed Dead and a set of snazzy Written in Blood bookmarks were:

Alec HookeGina RaeLisa GrayMalcolm GilliesTasha TayTim WindramAmy Beth MarantinoAnne CarlinEsmie LangstonMariandel Vlemmix
...and the winner of the special, Readers Club-only grand prize of the bookmarks, deleted scene and a signed US hardcover edition of The Samaritan was Michael Chapleo.


Congrats to the winners, thanks to all who entered, and if you'd like to know about my next Readers Club exclusive, you can sign up for free right here.
If you're in the UK, my Written in Blood episode airs on CBS Reality on Tuesday evening - I'll be doing a live Twitter Q&A during the show, so feel free to tweet a question.

Presumed Dead mass-market paperback cover

My publisher has finalised the mass-market paperback cover of Presumed Dead, complete with a fantastic quote from the excellent Jenny Blackhurst. Check it out:



You can preorder the UK paperback in the usual places like Waterstones and Amazon now, and it will be in the stores from 29th November. 
If you absolutely can't wait, you can get the slightly more expensive trade paperback or ebook right now. I won't stand in your way.
Back soon with some information on a slightly different sort of book for 2019...

Bloody Scotland 2018

So Presumed Dead didn't make the shortlist for the McIlvanney Prize, which was fine because several other authors I admire didn't make it either, which is testament to the strength of the list. On the night, the very worthy winner was Liam McIlvanney for The Quaker .

Some diary conflicts made it a flying visit for me this year, but even though I arrived late Friday and left late Saturday, I was able to pack a surprising amount into twenty-four hours. It was as wonderful as always to catch up with the usual suspects and meet some new faces. I even got to be defeated by Val McDermid's team for the second time this year in the quiz.

As always, it was a fantastic operation ably run by Bob McDevitt and team. Anyway, here's some of my pictorial highlights...