Duane Swierczynski's Blog, page 8

Hard Case Returns... With Some Westlake In Its Back Pocket!

If you're a Hard Case Crime fanatic like myself, the past year has felt a little like limbo, hasn't it? The last HCC release was back in August 2010, and every month since then I've been glancing at my TBR pile with a forlorn expression, missing those red--and-black-and-white spines with the yellow ribbon that represented my assurance of quality. (Sigh.)

Thankfully, we've all been sprung from purgatory. Hard Case Crime is officially back this September with out four new novels by Lawrence Block, Max Allan Collins, Mickey Spillane and Christa Faust. And February 2012 brings something I never thought I'd see again: a new Donald E. Westlake novel. Hard Case honcho Charles Ardai explains:

The book is called THE COMEDY IS FINISHED, and it's going to be our second hardcover ever.  Don wrote it between the late 1970s and early 80s, but never published it because he found himself worrying that its premise -- the kidnapping of a famous television comedian -- was too similar to the movie "The King of Comedy," which Martin Scorsese released around the same time. He shouldn't have worried -- the book and the movie aren't similar at all outside of sharing that basic premise.  It's a hell of a good book and one that very much deserves to be in print, and we're very excited to be bringing it out for the first time, with a fabulous cover by Greg Manchess.

While I hated the hiatus, I've gotta say... this news kind of made it worth the wait. And look at that gorgeous Manchess cover. Hard to say which is more risque; this one, or Manchess's cover for Lawrence Block's Getting Off.

Glad you're back, Hard Case.

Presenting... The Fun & Games Giveaway!

Whenever you pre-order a book, you're giving the author a gift.



Seriously. Publishers and booksellers pay attention to pre-orders, big-time. (Authors, too. Show me a writer who doesn't track his Amazon sales rank like a wolf tracks wounded prey and I'll show you a writer who's unconscious and hooked up to life support.) If pre-orders are strong, everybody does a little happy dance.



So if you're pre-ordering my next novel, Fun & Games, you're giving me a gift. I'd like to give you a gift in return.



This summer I'm going to be traveling cross-country for the official "Fun & Games Across America Tour" (more on that soon). If you pre-order F&G at any time, right up until pub date (June 20th), I'll send you a personalized postcard from a random stop on my trip. Rest assured that I will choose the most tasteless and kitschy postcards possible from the creepiest, rundown roadside pit stops. (You're welcome!)



But that's not all. Five lucky winners will be plucked from the pre-order posse to receive one of these insanely fabulous prizes...



*A set of signed copies of my five previous novels (Secret Dead Men, The Wheelman, The Blonde, Severance Package, Expiration Date), personalized to your liking;



*A pulp fiction grab bag, straight from own library of vintage paperbacks (x2);



* A copy of Rockstar's smash hit video game, L.A. Noire (X-Box version);



* Or, finally, the GRAND PRIZE: the right to name a minor character in the third Charlie Hardie novel, Point & Shoot, which will be published next March. (And damn you if you choose the name "Bucky McFartLips.")



Sound good? Go ahead and pre-order from anywhere (indie stores, online booksellers, brick and mortar chains) and then fill out the handy form below. I'll take it from there. If you don't have a confirmation number, just leave that blank and email me some kind of proof at duane DOT swier AT verizon DOT net.



The five prizes are only valid for U.S. and Canadian readers only, unfortunately... but I'll send a postcard anywhere in the world. So really, everybody wins!





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Presenting... The Fun & Games Giveaway!

Whenever you pre-order a book, you're giving the author a gift.

Seriously. Publishers and booksellers pay attention to pre-orders, big-time. (Authors, too. Show me a writer who doesn't track his Amazon sales rank like a wolf tracks wounded prey and I'll show you a writer who's unconscious and hooked up to life support.) If pre-orders are strong, everybody does a little happy dance.

So if you're pre-ordering my next novel, Fun & Games, you're giving me a gift. I'd like to give you a gift in return.

This summer I'm going to be traveling cross-country for the official "Fun & Games Across America Tour" (more on that soon). If you pre-order F&G at any time, right up until pub date (June 20th), I'll send you a personalized postcard from a random stop on my trip. Rest assured that I will choose the most tasteless and kitschy postcards possible from the creepiest, rundown roadside pit stops. (You're welcome!)

But that's not all. Five lucky winners will be plucked from the pre-order posse to receive one of these insanely fabulous prizes...

*A set of signed copies of my five previous novels (Secret Dead Men, The Wheelman, The Blonde, Severance Package, Expiration Date), personalized to your liking;

*A pulp fiction grab bag, straight from own library of vintage paperbacks (x2);

* A copy of Rockstar's smash hit video game, L.A. Noire (X-Box version);

* Or, finally, the GRAND PRIZE: the right to name a minor character in the third Charlie Hardie novel, Point & Shoot, which will be published next March. (And damn you if you choose the name "Bucky McFartLips.")

Sound good? Go ahead and pre-order from anywhere (indie stores, online booksellers, brick and mortar chains) and then fill out the handy form below. I'll take it from there. If you don't have a confirmation number, just leave that blank and email me some kind of proof at duane DOT swier AT verizon DOT net.

The five prizes are only valid for U.S. and Canadian readers only, unfortunately... but I'll send a postcard anywhere in the world. So really, everybody wins!

&lt;p&gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;p&amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;Loading...&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/p&amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&lt;/p&gt;

Odds and Sods

Been tidying up the desk here at Secret Dead Blog HQ and found a few items of note that I wanted to pass along...

* In case you haven't seen it yet, the story I wrote for L.A. Noire is now available for as a free download. (Scroll up and down on the same page for links to the other stories.) If you've been playing the game, you'll see that my tale ties right into the "Marriage Made in Heaven" story line.

* Annnnnd on June 6th, you'll be able to buy the complete e-collection for just 99 cents. Cheaper than a beer in the diviest of dives! You can pre-order a copy now at Amazon, Apple's iBooks, or Barnes & Noble.

* Keir Graff at Booklist asked me to recommend a book for their "Mystery Month" series, and I was more than happy to sing the praises of Jim Nisbet's brilliant Dark Companion.

* Fun & Games will be out in less than a month, and I'm happy to report that good reviews keep on rollin' in. The Library Journal says the novel is for "readers who like their action fast, brutal and smart" (and even provides a handy pronunciation key for my absurd surname). Meanwhile, The Mystery Site says that F&G is "fast-paced, well and not overly written."

* If you've pre-ordered Fun & Games, or are considering such a thing, watch this space in a few days. I've got something special in mind for you...

* And last, but nowhere near least, I'm proud to report that my previous novel, Expiration Date, has been nominated for an Anthony Award in the category of Best Paperback Original. (Mr. Goddard, we meet again!) The Anthony winner will be determined by votes from this year's Bouchercon attendees. In completely unrelated news, if you see me at Bouchercon, remind me that I owe you a drink. Several in fact. Here, I'll even hold your ballot so you can pick up that mega-sized cocktail with two hands... there you go... bottoms up...

The Secret Dead Blog Q&A: Dave White

Award-winning crime novelist Dave White has been a friend of Secret Dead Blog for years now, though we're not sure why. The first time Secret Dead Blog met him, Dave made some crack expecting to see a fifty-five-year-old man. (At the time, Secret Dead Blog was 33.) But that was okay. Over the next two years, Secret Dead Blog left a series of increasingly absurd comments on Dave's blog under the pseudonym, "Abe Vigoda." At one point, "Abe Vigoda" even inspired a few copycat Abe Vigodas, which drove poor Dave out of his fool mind. Secret Dead Blog did not reveal the truth about Abe Vigoda until years (and we're talking years) later.

Anyway, Dave is out with an ass-kicking new novel called Witness to Death, so Secret Dead Blog thought it would be fun to ask him a few questions about it.

Secret Dead Blog: Witness to Death is your first stand-alone thriller. What inspired it? (Please tell me that it's totally autobiographical, because that will make my day.)

Dave White: Minus the explosions, vicious assassins, tasers, hand grenades, guns, knives, and running for your life, it was completely autobiographical. 

That's actually not a lie. The main character, John Brighton, is -- well was -- a lot like me. He was a teacher in his late 20s, getting over a break-up, wondering if he's good at his job, and just basically trying to figure out who he is. Sounds like someone in a Nick Hornby novel, in a way. Someone dealing with those guy insecurities we're never allowed to talk about. Then I wanted to take that guy and stick him in a James Bond novel. 


But the heart of the novel is autobiographical. There ya go, Duane. Day made.

SDB: You're bravely venturing into the e-book jungle. What's the best thing about it... and what's the worst?

DW: The best part is the control I have. I got to pick the cover, I got to have it formatted the way I wanted it. I put it up myself so I could choose when it went on sale. I love that. If the book succeeds it's because of me. If it fails, it's still because of me. There's a lot of freedom with that.

And, not to sound like a canned answer in a job interview, but the worst part is also having total control. I can check sales anytime I want and I can see when the book is moving and/or not moving. If it's not moving, I feel like I want to do something about it... I'm trying to implement some rules on myself (number of times I can check sales, how much I can post about the book and where)... but it's hard and it's really iPhone-like addictive. 

SDB: Why did you ignore my sage advice and not kill Jackson Donne at the end of his first appearance in your acclaimed debut, When One Man Dies?

DW: He is dead. He died at the end of the first book. You just have to read between the lines to see it.  And what's cool about that is... the second book, The Evil That Men Do is actually a really wild ghost story.

I took your advice, I just didn't want to tell you. How much credit can I give my mentor?

SDB: What's up next for you, novel or story-wise?

DW: There are a few things on the boiler. I have to write a few short stories that I'm not sure I'm allowed to talk about yet. I'm revising a serial killer novel about a man who's not really a serial killer.  And I have an idea for a new PI and a new PI series that I want to work on. Lots of ideas, just gotta get 'em on paper.  Or computer screen...

SDB: How angry were you when I confessed to being your "Abe Vigoda" stalker after all those years?

DW: I'm not sure I was angry as much as stunned. When you told me, it felt like the end of The Usual Suspects... all the pieces began to fall into place. All the clues made sense... the little hints. Of course, "Abe" was a kind of martyr... the end of his era seemed to touch of a continuous stream of anonymous or half-hearted celebrities who wanted to comment on my blog and make fun of me. Once I got over the stunned feeling, I think I actually ended up a bit impressed. You know how to keep a secret. Well done, sir.

Witness to Death is available at Amazon (for the amazing low price of 99 cents!) and Barnes & Noble (also only 99 cents). Pick up a copy, keep the kid out of trouble.

Fun, Games and Fire

Behold... the cover for the German edition of my next novel, Fun & Games! You can click on the image for a larger view.

Let me point out a few things about this cover. For one thing, the title is not German for "fun and games"; that particular phrase does not translate. So instead, it's Der Bewacher, which according to my publisher means something like "the keeper" or "the minder," especially of property. Which makes perfect sense, because the series hero (Charlie Hardie) is a house sitter. The next two books in the series will follow a similar pattern: Hell & Gone will be called Der Wärter ("the warden"), and Point & Shoot will be called Der Retter ("the rescuer"). Not to spoil anything... but those titles are pretty spot-on.

Then there's a cover image itself, which is pretty damned Die Hard-ian, if you ask me. I love it. Yes, it points to a particular scene in the novel. Two scenes, in fact. It's also a nice change from my previous Heyne covers, which focused on a single element (a shovel, an hourglass, a champagne flute, etc.).

But the biggest change is the name. This is the debut of "Duane Swierczynski" in Germany. Previously, my novels appeared under the name of "Duane Louis" (my first and middle names). I've written about this before, so I won't bore you with the same old story one more time. I am curious to see if German readers will be as mystified by the pronunciation as American readers. (Remember kids, it's easy: sweer-ZIN-ski. Ask for it by name!)

Anyway, what do you guys think? Hot as hell, or a bit too 'splodey?

That's Noire With an "E," Pal

I swear, I have the receipt to prove it.

I pre-ordered my copy of L.A. Noire, the forthcoming detective thriller game from Rockstar, back in January, many weeks before I even caught wind of any anthology, let alone the idea that I might be part of it. Now, I'm not much of a gamer. The last video game I really went wild for was Rockstar's Grand Theft Auto III way back in December 2001, in those lazy, crazy months before I became a father. (Our son Parker, the hardcore gamer in our family, was born the following March.)

But the siren call of L.A. Noire was too great to resist. Like GTA III, the game offers the opportunity to wallow in crime and mayhem in a sprawling urban environment. In GTA III, it was the fictional "Liberty City." In L.A. Noire, however, you're racing around a breathtakingly-accurate postwar Los Angeles, solving crimes straight out of the darkest film noirs and crime thrillers of that era. The game's out May 17, at which point my son Parker will have to surrender his X-Box controller for a few weeks. (Sorry, son. But I am bigger than you.)

This is why I was insanely excited to contribute a story to L.A. Noire: The Collected Stories, an anthology of eight tales spinning out of (and around) the L.A. Noire universe. The lineup (present company excluded) is flat-out stellar: Megan Abbott. Lawrence Block. Joe Lansdale. Joyce Carol Oates. Francine Prose. Jonathan Santlofer. Andrew Vachss. Each story will roll out separately over the next few weeks, and then released as a Mulholland Books ebook on June 6, complete with an introduction by Charles "Hard Case" Ardai. You can find the complete rundown of stories, along with a teaser excerpt of Megan Abbott's "The Girl," right here at the Rockstar website.

My contribution is called "Hell of An Affair," and I'll let you guys know the minute it's online. The best part of the research process was traveling up to Rockstar Games for a top-secret preview of the game. I am bound by nondisclosure agreements, so I can't reveal a blessed thing, but let me just say this: I am very, very glad I pre-ordered my copy. The boy will just have to deal with it.

The Lineup: Bargaining with David Corbett

The Lineup is Gerald So's annual chapbook series of crime poetry, and issue #4 is out now, featuring work from such hardboiled types as Ken Bruen, Reed Farrel Coleman, David Corbett, Kieran Shea, Keith Rawson and Steve Weddle, among others. This latest installment is dedicated to the memory of my friend David Thompson, who Gerald writes was "the first bookseller to believe in The Lineup."

For the 26th stop on The Lineup's "So Dark For April" tour, I asked contributor David Corbett to answer a few of my silly questions about his excellent and disturbing contribution, "The Bargain" (reprinted below).

Secret Dead Blog: What kind of creative itch does a poem scratch -- as opposed to say a short story or a novel?

DC: Stories and novels involve dramatic movement. Even if "something happens" in a poem, the basic purpose is to convey a certain emotional moment. And the itch that gets scratched when writing a poem is the desire to find and somehow capture that unique moment. It's like trying to capture a sound or a tone rather than a conversation. Or at least that's how I approach it. I realize that's a terrible description of poetry overall -- it fails to account for Coleridge's Rime of the Ancient Mariner or Stevens' The Man with the Blue Guitar or Jeffers' Roan Stallion or any number of other large, complex or dramatic poems. But that sort of poetry is, frankly, beyond my skill set. So, it's moments for me.

SDB: "Bargain" is fantastic and utterly haunting. You've got a hint of redemption in there, but also a profound feeling of unease. Was there a particular inspiration for this poem?

DC: Well, thanks for the kind words. The poem was originally (and in a different version) written for my late wife when she was alive. My feelings for her were very much colored by my brother's death at age 39 . I realized that life is tenuous, unpredictable. And one day, I just noticed I was being kind to a fly or a moth that I might, at an earlier stage of my life, just crushed and been done with. But I felt a little more respectful given my newfound awareness of mortality.

Sadly, Terri (my wife) also died young, and the poem took on an even deeper, almost eerie resonance for me. But the crime angle only arose when I was asked to contribute to The Lineup, and I stepped back from the more personal aspect and saw it in a whole new light. I frankly couldn't tell you where the inspiration for that addition came from, it just appeared. But I think it does add an interesting element to the theme--of recognizing the fragility of life, and trying in a blatantly magical or ritualistic way to preserve the one life that has come to mean so much, and which the poem's "narrator" is terrified will be taken away suddenly, tragically, wrongly. A circumstance he knows too well.

SDB: Bugs? Did it have to be bugs?

DC: Creep ya out, did I? Bugs are "the least of creatures," as it were. We all too often kill them mindlessly. So changing that mindset, respecting even the lives of insects, means that death has finally registered in a truly profound way. Even bugs gets spared now -- that's what the guy is saying. As though to show he's atoned, that he gets it, and hoping that will mean something in the grand scheme of things -- while fearing it won't.


"Bargain"
By David Corbett

Since we met, fewer insects die.
Today (for example) you were gone
but a fat green fly hammered
blind against the window —
so I cracked it open and off he went:
tumbling wind, sunblue sky.

And last night you were out with the girls, but here
a brown moth scurried hot inside the lampshade —
I cupped my hand, nursed it
all the way downstairs, through the den,
cracked the door open: a tiny dark
flutter whirling toward the porch light.

Before only wasps survived —
menacing hang, throbbing wings,
hard and sleek and all that shiny black.

Her name? Ask the law. Ask her mother
or read the papers from that day
about the man in the shiny black Jag
and his eight-year-old daughter.
He'll be alone, they told me.
One more lie in a hive of lies,
buzzing inside me for years now
like the things I tell myself to
bargain off the ghost that hovers
just a little behind in the mirror.
The face I can't forget because
she wasn't meant to be there at all.

Nine years back, that was.
Turned a leaf, walked away, started fresh.
(Cut loose, actually — no longer much good at the thing.)
Then you came along. You.
So good, so wise, so blind.
Even unknowing, you taught me
the proper weight of things:
fate against fat chance,
in-the-palm-of-my-hand against through-my-fingers,
the smallest life against my own.
Worse, yours.

There's the machinery, I think too much —
can hear the blood hissing through
my brain as I reframe every angle —
sucker's pride, schemer's luck,
the rancid taint in a loving wish,
the entomology of ghosts and
the constant scuttering nearness of:
She has not come home.
She might never.

Copyright (c) 2011 David Corbett

For Appearances' Sake

I know, I know, it's been deadly quiet around here. This is no way to run a blog. All I say can is, I've been writing my ass off, and I'll try harder to post more.

(Ironically, I have a ton of blog post ideas... but whenever I'm tempted to sit down and crank one of them out, a deadline nags at me. You know, one of those deadlines that will eventually result in a paycheck. So they're tough to ignore.)

Anyway, if you've missed me, and happen to give in the greater Philadelphia area, you have two chances to see me IN PERSON! (oh yes, the thrills never stop) over the next two weeks.

First up: a Philadelphia Noir panel smack dab in the middle of the Free Library of Philadelphia's Philadelphia Book Festival. (In case you were wondering, yes, the event takes place in Philadelphia.) We'll be getting part of the old band back together: yours truly, Carlin Romano, Asali Solomon and Jim Zervanos. April 13, 6 p.m. in the Skyline Room. If you stop by, please do say hello.

Second up: a joint Tales From the Cobra Wars signing on April 23rd at the Doylestown Bookshop in (wait for it) Doylestown, PA. I'll be joined by Jon McGoran (who some of you may know as "D.H. Dublin"), Jonathan Maberry and Dennis Tafoya, talking about our stories in IDW's big bad and brand new G.I. Joe antho edited by Max Brooks. (My own contribution, "Speed Trap," is actually a 15,000 word novella, and received some very kind reviews when it published in the back of G.I. Joe Cobra Special #2 last September.) Here's your chance to have this sucker signed by nearly half of its contributors!

Secret Dead Guest Post! Russel D McLean's "McGenre"

Welcome to the Secret Dead Blog, Tartan Edition.

You will notice I am not Duane Swierczynski. Why? Because a) I have an accent you're probably straining to understand even on the screen and b) my name is much easier to spell. Although people do insist on adding an extra L.

My name is Russel D McLean. I am a Scotsman. A crime writer. A general miscreant. And I am here today as part of a two week blog tour to promote my latest novel to hit the US, The Lost Sister; a dark, violent PI novel in the vein of Ross McDonald and Lawrence Block but set in modern-day Scotland.

Of course, tours like this get dull if I spend every shilling myself, so what I'm doing is talking every day about different topics to do with the writing of the books or crime fiction in general. I figured given the fact that Duane straddles so many genres at once, I'd talk a little about genre today.

There are two questions I get asked most often at events.


The second is, "Why do you write crime fiction?"

People seem surprised, you know, that I do this. My primary school teacher showed up at a recent event with her eyebrows raised that I was writing such mean novels. After all, I was the quiet kid. But then if you know your clichés, it's the quiet ones you gotta watch out for.

But it is, in its way, a good question. Especially given that I wanted to be the next Philip K Dick, except without going through the drug problems and that eventual breakdown/revelation/enlightenment thing .

Usually at this point I get interrupted: "So why don't you write SF?"

My glib response is simple (and maybe true): I was shite. Truly, utterly completely. I loved the genre with a passion, but my voice was utterly unsuited to writing SF. I couldn't balance the fantastic and the mundane. My tone was all over the place.

But, of course, I was in my teens at this point. Of course I was appalling. With  very few exceptions, most people can't write truthfully in their teens. There's too much conflict in you. If you're still figuring out who you are, how can you figure out who your characters are?

In my early twenties, I guess I got better at it. The last SF novel I wrote – with the appalling title of The Many Faces of Alexander Harvey  – started to get some traction. But not enough to land a deal. So I figured I needed a new approach.

I still wrote some pulpy shorts but on the whole I was beginning to realise that I was less interested in the SF side of the stories than I was in the distinctly human aspect.

Dark motivations were beginning to appeal. Much of this had to do with my reblooming affair with crime fiction. Thanks to my dad's influence, I was turning more and to crime novels. The darker they were, the better, of course.  I was eating up Ellroy, Block, Leonard, McDonald…

And then I decided to try my hand at a couple of crime fiction stories. My first attempt – later published online under a pseudonym (I have three at the last count, all since retired) – was pretty derivative, as many of these things are, but I could sense something in it. I mean, I was passionate about the characters and what happened to them. I was getting a true kick out of it, not worrying about the plausibility of the more fantastical elements, just letting the story tell itself.

It would take me a few years, of course, to actually get a handle on how to write crime stories that were my own. My style would change, naturally, but the thrill of the crime story would remain. And I've spent a long time trying to work out why.

In the last few years that I've realised what it is about crime that works for me as a reader and as a writer. The genre is huge; a church that encompasses all kinds of faiths. From the simple puzzle mystery to the most tragic of dramas and everything in between. And while popular opinion may occasionally limit the genre (and claim anything outside of expectations to be "literary") I think that the basic remit of crime fiction as a genre is so encompassing as to be near enough limitless.

All we need, after all, at the heart of the story is an act that transgresses societal norms. After that, any approach is fair game. We can find out whodunit or whydunit. We can recoil in horror. We can restore order or we can chart chaos. We can do almost anything.

But what I love, what pulls me back again and again, is the emotional and psychological impact of crime and transgressive acts upon people. The victims, the perpetrators, the appointed (self and societal) investigators, almost everyone in the cast is affected by this one act and then you have a dramatic domino effect that you can explore throughout your story. Of course, it all sounds incredibly worthy and "literary" doesn't it?

But that's the joy of crime fiction. It can, if you let it, do all that stuff literary fiction claims hold to… and still grip with a story that really moves, and characters who are undergoing real and fascinating changes.

At the same time, it can, if you want it to, be pure escapism. You can read it purely on a surface level and, to quote crime genre expert Ali Karim, watch the baddies get biffed (and, if you're reading noir, often the good guys too).

It's the ultimate genre. The least constrained. The one that – as writers such as my most gracious host prove time and again – can be moulded so that it looks like something else entirely. Is, to use an example, Expiration Date a crime novel or an SF novel? You ask me, it's both and there's no reason it shouldn't be. Because, bloody hell, it's a good story.

So I guess that's the long answer to the question I get asked second most often (behind the swearing one). But in the end, it's not about genre for me, but about whether the story is any good. And I hope, in the case of The Lost Sister, readers agree with me on the fact that no matter the genre, it's still a damn fine story.