The Power of The Outsider

I've always been fascinated by the out-of-place. The marginalised, the unsure, the people faking it 'til they make it, right down to the actual swindlers and imposters and con artists. If writing compelling narrative fiction is about tension, what's more tense than someone being where they believe (or someone else believes, if they knew the truth) that they don't deserve to be?

In my debut novel 'A Reluctant Spy', the protagonist Jamie Tulloch is a perennial fish out of water who turns his unease into a career. At the age of 23, a working class loner adrift at his Cambridge college, he agrees to become a Legend, part of a secret MI6 programme to recruit individuals willing to act as living cover stories. Sign up and you'll get a secret helping hand through life - access, job offers, nudges in the right direction. But at some point, you'll need to step out of your life for a few weeks while a lookalike agent uses your identity as bulletproof cover. Except, of course, something goes wrong and Jamie finds himself on a mission he's not trained, ready or even very willing to take on.

While I don't precisely share Jamie's life history (my upbringing was a whole lot less tough than his, and I very definitely didn't go to Cambridge), we do share a common experience of navigating social contexts, workplaces, relationships and friendships that crossed boundaries and left us feeling out of place. I was in my university's Officer Training Corps for three years and got partway through the process of applying to Sandhurst, which was my first serious brush with people from a dramatically different background. After that, I was lucky enough to get into a graduate scheme and move to London, where I brought a regional accent and a distinct feeling of imposter syndrome to the glossy world of IT consulting. I vividly remember ending up at parties with investment banking trainees and wondering how on earth I'd ended up there.

Unlike Jamie, though, I hadn't made a Faustian pact that dictated my future, so I was free to choose a different path. I returned to Scotland and developed parallel careers in digital design and writing. And as I did, an old fascination returned to me - the world of spies and spying.

When I was studying English Literature at the University of Aberdeen, I wrote my final dissertation on the topic of Paranoia in Modern Spy Fiction, focusing on Graham Greene and John Le Carré. I looked at the isolated, fearful lone spy, without gadgets or guns or even certainty about their mission, conducting morally compromised missions in dangerous, brutal and hostile territories.

That initial fascination with paranoia and fear in spy fiction then spent a couple of decades marinating in a whole slew of different takes on the world of espionage, from the betrayed and amnesiac human weapon of the Bourne books and films to the misfits and misanthropes of the glorious Slough House series by Mick Herron. So when I was in discussions with my agent and editor about my debut novel, I wanted to draw on that continually broadening spy fiction tradition. But what would I bring, personally? The answer seemed obvious - the feeling of being an ordinary person who is pretty sure they're not actually supposed to be where they are.

As I wrote the book, I realised that what I most wanted Jamie to experience was the same thing I had through various jobs, relationships and pursuits - the slowly dawning realisation that I was actually able to take on scary new roles, learn new skills, and that I did deserve to be there. And that far from being the deceitful and sinister infiltration of a Tom Ripley-esque character, the ability to adapt, to learn new social rules and to function in hierarchies and contexts you weren't born into is a serious life skill and advantage.

In the book, Jamie uses his chameleonic abilities to deal with rogue Russian mercenaries, CIA operatives, arms dealers and many more mysterious characters swirling around his target, Arkady Bocharov, while proving to himself that he might just have what it takes to be an effective covert agent. And in writing this book, I got to indulge that crucial question - what would would my price be to become a 'living cover story' like Jamie? And what would I do if I found myself in the same situation, thrown into the middle of an active mission?

My hope is readers will ask themselves the same questions. And I also hope they'll grow to love the often haplessly foolhardy Jamie Tulloch and the other members of the Legends Programme trying desperately to keep him alive.

A Reluctant Spy by David Goodman (Headline) Out Now

Jamie Tulloch is a successful exec at a top tech company, a long way from the tough upbringing that drove him to rise so far and so quickly.  But he has a secret...since the age of 23, he's had a helping hand from the Legend Programme, a secret intelligence effort to prepare impenetrable backstories for undercover agents. Real people, living real lives, willing to hand over their identities for a few weeks in return for a helping hand with plum jobs, influence and access. When his tap on the shoulder finally comes, it's swiftly followed by the thud of a body. Arriving at a French airport ready to hand over his identity, Jamie finds his primary contact dead, the agent who's supposed to step into his life AWOL and his options for escape non-existent. Pitched into a deadly mission on hostile territory, Jamie must contend with a rogue Russian general, arms dealers, elite hackers, CIA tac-ops and the discovery of a brewing plan for war. Dangerously out of his depth, he must convince his sceptical mission handler he can do the job of a trained field agent while using his own life story as convincing cover. Can Jamie play himself well enough to avoid being killed - and to avert a lethal global conflict?

More information about the author and his writing can be found on his website. You can also follow him on X @WordsByGoodman and on Instagram @davidgoodmanauthor

Forthcoming books from Headline Publishing

 July 2024

It's the event of the year - the company summer party. Mel can't wait. Sun, sea, cocktails, her sights set on her work crush, and letting her hair down with her colleagues. One big happy family. What could go wrong? But as the Champagne flows and the sun begins to set, cracks in the team start to appear. Secrets, lies, revenge. No one is as innocent as they seem.  But could someone be guilty of murder? Mel soon realises someone is orchestrating a deadly plan. And she needs to uncover the truth if she's going to get out alive . . . The Summer Party is by Kate Gray.

August 2024

Abel Bac, a police officer, has been suspended from duty for unknown reasons. Haunted by a recurring nightmare, he walks the streets of Paris hoping to lose himself in the city, but somehow, he always finds his way home. Solitary by nature, he retreats from the extroversion of his new neighbour Elsa, and his former colleague Camille who is pained by her unrequited love for him. All that gives Abel comfort are the ninety-four orchids which populate his small apartment.  In museums across Paris something strange is happening. A white horse appears in the library of the Pompidou Centre. In a small museum, stuffed wolves are displayed in fine garments drinking tea. The police are baffled and Abel, who is somehow linked to it all, is becoming more and more unnerved.  Soon, the hidden darkness of his life will rise to the surface and lead him to Mila, the mysterious artist at the heart of this enigma. And it is not long before we discover that nothing about these events is coincidental. Artifice is by Claire Berest.

Ruby Johnson is a nanny and maid to wealthy families in Manhattan's West 74th Street. 
She knows their routines. Their secrets. One night, on her way home, Ruby witnesses a neighbour's murder. She knows the victim. She knows the killer. She makes an anonymous call to the police and names the murderer. But Ruby didn't tell the truth... Because there's something wrong with Ruby Johnson. Eddie Flynn, conman turned trial lawyer, must defend an innocent man accused of this terrible crime. As Ruby's deadly game begins, one thing is certain. It won't be the last murder this witness is involved in. Witness 8 is by Steve Cavanagh. 

Buried too Deep is by Karen Rose. Cora-Jane Winslow's father walked out on her family 23 years ago; his letters to her over the years the only connection she has had to him. When his body is discovered in an abandoned building, she is shocked to discover he has been dead all this time. What happened to him and who would cover up his murder by writing the letters? After his post-traumatic stress disorder forced him to run away from his life, Phin Bishop returns to the Burke Broussard Private Detective Agency, only to stumble upon an armed break-in. Cora-Jane is seen running from the building and his colleague Joy has been shot.  When it appears the shooting is related to Cora-Jane's father, the Agency step in to offer protection while they hunt for the perpetrator. Someone knows what really happened to Cora Jane's father and will stop at nothing to prevent their long-buried secrets being discovered . . .

Would you keep a secret for a stranger, if it meant the blood was on your hands? Celia, Juliette and Nadia are complete strangers with one thing in common: they have all been wronged by Ellis Cobain. A wealthy philanthropist on course for a knighthood, Ellis' public persona is bulletproof - but lurking beneath this veneer is a sinister side that only the women closest to him have seen. When they meet at a boutique hotel on the Cornish coast, brought together by the blind arrogance of their tormentor, they realise what connects them and form a pact: to blackmail him and free themselves from his grasp. But when he is discovered the next morning, murdered in cold blood, they are left scrambling. None of them knows who did it, and now they must desperately cover their tracks. Will they keep each other's secrets, now they are all implicated in his death? Will one turn on the others, when any of them could be next? The Last Time I saw Him is by Rachel Abbott.

September 2024

Going to the Dogs is by Pierre Lemaitre. With Mathilde, there is never a stray bullet, her work is clean and neat. Tonight was an exception. A little whim. Obviously, she could have taken the shot from a distance, done less damage; obviously she could have made the hit with a single bullet. What can I say? I don't know what came over me. This is what she will say if anyone asks. And anyway, who cares? All that matters is that the guy is dead, right?  1985. Paris. Sixty-three-year-old Mathilde Perrin is on another mission. A widow, mother and decorated hero of the Resistance, she is also a ruthless and skilled contract killer, and the most unlikely suspect. But tonight, something has changed. Mathilde is agitated, forgetful and impulsive - so much so that even Ludo, her loyal and long-suffering Dalmatian, has noticed a dangerous shift in her mood.  For Mathilde, retirement is not an option. And no superior, nor police detective nor meddling neighbour will stand in her way. But as Mathilde's mind unravels and the bodies pile up, how long will it take before the killer herself becomes the target?

It's a prize anyone would kill to win. Ten celebrities have arrived to take part in the most gruelling - and lucrative - reality survival show ever devised: two weeks completely alone on a remote Scottish island, in the depths of winter.  With a production team that seems incapable of keeping them safe, a gathering storm and the unrelenting gaze of hidden cameras, the contestants are stretched to the limit as they try and outshine their fellow competitors and hide their darkest secrets. But when a contestant winds up dead, it soon becomes clear that the players are not just fighting for the prize, but for their lives. Isolation Island is by Louise Minchin.

Twelve year old Phoebe's world is falling apart. It's the summer of 1985 and she has just buried her parents, a fire at their family home claiming both in a freak accident. Her life is uprooted in an instant, and she takes little solace in the fact that her uncle Louis and aunt Maude have generously offered to take her in at their home in the Welsh woods. Under the summer sun, though, Phoebe falls into the rhythm of life with her eccentric guardians in their curious idyllic home, the hum of her aunt Maude's beehives filling the air. While exploring the surrounding woods, she strikes up a friendship with a strange girl, Gwyneth, but when she mentions this to her aunt she tells Phoebe that there are no children by that name in the village. Over the course of the summer the two girls strike up a strong bond, though nobody else seems to believe that Gwyneth exists. Soon, Phoebe begins to see the woods for what they truly are - a strange place where the line between life and death is blurred, where spirits roam and secrets fester. But has she learned this truth too late to escape it? Broken Ghosts is by J D Oswald.

October 2024

A Reluctant Spy is by David Goodman. Jamie Tulloch is a successful exec at a top tech company, a long way from the tough upbringing that drove him to rise so far and so quickly. But he has a secret...since the age of 23, he's had a helping hand from the Legend Programme, a secret intelligence effort to prepare impenetrable backstories for undercover agents. Real people, living real lives, willing to hand over their identities for a few weeks in return for a helping hand with plum jobs, influence and access. When his tap on the shoulder finally comes, it's swiftly followed by the thud of a body. Arriving at a French airport ready to hand over his identity, Jamie finds his primary contact dead, the agent who's supposed to step into his life AWOL and his options for escape non-existent. Pitched into a deadly mission on hostile territory, Jamie must contend with a rogue Russian general, arms dealers, elite hackers, CIA tac-ops and the discovery of a brewing plan for war. Dangerously out of his depth, he must convince his sceptical mission handler he can do the job of a trained field agent while using his own life story as convincing cover. Can Jamie play himself well enough to avoid being killed - and to avert a lethal global conflict?

Guilty by Martina Cole and Jacqui Rose is due to be published in October.

November 2024

Thirty-one On The Run . . . Stephanie Plum, New Jersey's hardest working, most under-appreciated bounty hunter, returns with a bang in her latest adventure. While Stephanie's personal life is hanging by a thread, a killer case lands on her doorstep that changes everything. 

One of Us is Guilty is by Simon Kernick will be published in November.

It's 1952, and London is victorious but broken, a cityof war ruins and rationing, run by gangsters and black-market spivs. An elaborate midnight heist, the biggest robbery in British history, sends newspapers into afrenzy. Politicians are furious, the police red-faced. They have suspicions but no lead. For two families, it is more than just a sensational headline, as their fathers fail to return home on the day of the robbery. Young Addie Rowe, daughter of a missing Jamaican postman and drunk ex-club hostess mother, struggles to care for her little ssister ina dilapitaed Briston rooming house. Claire Martin increasingly rsentfu of roads not taken, strives to maake the rent and to keep her teenage son Ray from falling under unsavoury influences in Noting Dale. She finds herself caught between the interests of dangerous men who may the truth behind her husband's disappearance: Dave Lander, whose reserved nature she fnds difficult to reconcile with his reputation as a violent gang enforcer, and Teddy 'Mother' Nunn, sociopathic, evangelising outlaw and top lieutenant in Billy Hill's underworld. Drawn together through the years in the city's invisible web of crime and poverty, the fates of the broken families and violent men collide in 1958, as the West Indian community of Notting Hill's slums come under attack from thugs and Teddy Boys. For Addie, Claire, Dave and Mother, old scores will be settled and new dreams chased in the crucible of London's violent summer. White City is by Dominic Nolan.

Setting as Character By Ashley Tate

 Although I am a writer (and a soon to be published author!), I consider myself a reader first and foremost; starting as a child when I’d read from sunup to sundown, and whenever I can squeeze a book in now. And as an avid reader and lover of storytelling, I want to be pulled into a book from the outset; I want to become so immersed in the pages that everything else slips away. Reading is my absolute favourite thing to do—imagine! You can fall in love, be horrified, be inspired all from the comfort of your couch or bed—but it also serves as a great escape from reality. Nothing pulls me out of the stresses and anxieties of the real world (of which there are many, especially in the last handful of years) like getting lost in a good book. And I think that one of the best ways to ensure that a reader is hooked (whether that’s me reading or someone reading my book) is with setting. So, it’s probably no surprise then, that creating and crafting setting is my favourite part of the entire writing process.

I treat setting as though it’s just as important as the plot and characters and structure—this is how I ensure my sense of place and world building leaps directly off the page to pull my reader all the way in. In this way setting can become a character in its own right. A city or town or planet or dystopian hell-scape on a far-away star that can live and breathe and be its own multi-dimensional character.

Some authors prefer to write about places and locations that exist in the world, but I prefer fictionalizing them, so that my reader can picture themselves being dropped right there without any preconceived idea of what the place is really like. My debut thriller, Twenty-Seven Minutes, takes place in fictional West Wilmer, a small rural town that could be found anywhere in North America. The kind of town that everyone knows; surrounded by a patchwork of razed fields, a long dusty highway, and rusting water tower. A town where there’s one Main Street and one local bar, in the case of my debut this bar is Flo’s, and where everyone knows everyone else and has for generations; where no one really leaves, where the secrets linger within the town’s borders and gossip can take on an insidious life of its own.

When crafting my setting, I want the reader to feel it and smell it and live in it for the duration of the story. To that end, setting is one of the first parts of my writing process—where do I want this story to take place? When? How? Further: How can this small fictional town of West Wilmer help tell the story of its characters? And as a thriller writer, how can it help add tension for the reader?

Twenty-Seven Minutes is a thriller about the transformative nature of grief and what happens when long-standing secrets become impossible to keep buried. The decision to set this in a small town meant that I could draw on the aspects of one—how close-knit communities can sometimes feel claustrophobic (adding tension to the story), how everyone knows everyone’s business (making it hard to hide from your past) and how those hard-to-hide secrets can weigh so heavily on someone that they begin to unravel (adding more tension and a propulsive sense of a ticking clock) for the reader.

The irony here is that I grew up in the middle of a very large, very busy city. But I spent many childhood summers on the farm where my mother grew up, in a rural town on the East coast of Canada. During those idyllic summers, I learned to swim in the Ocean, hang laundry on a clothes’ line, eat vegetables pulled directly from the garden, borrow books from the Book-Mobile that would rumble by the old farmhouse, and hear nothing at night but crickets, and nothing in the morning but crows. I learned the art of “visiting” neighbours, and the smell of barns and old churches and the joy of pulling into the parking lot of an ice-cream bar on the side of the highway (trust me, nothing tastes as good as when it comes from a bored teenager behind a splintered wooden counter).

As writers, we must be keenly observant and attuned to noticing even the tiniest of details—this is how we add layers of reality to our stories, how our characters come alive, and in terms of setting, how readers can really feel themselves in that place—and it was that incredibly stark contrast of those quiet rural summers spent on the farm, to my loud and busy and boisterous city life, that made such an impression on me during those formative and impressionable years as a wide-eyed young girl, that I fell in love with setting, and especially small towns.

 

Twenty-Seven Minutes by Ashley Tate (Headline, £20)

THE QUESTION- For the last ten years, the small town of West Wilmer has been struggling to answer one question: on the night of the crash that killed his sister, why did it take Grant Dean twenty-seven minutes to call for help? If he'd called sooner, Phoebe might still be alive. THE SECRET - As the anniversary of Phoebe's death approaches, Grant is consumed by his memories and the secret that's been suffocating him for years. But he and Phoebe weren't the only ones in the car that night. Becca was there too - she's the only other person who knows what really happened. Or is she? THE TRUTH - Everyone remembers Phoebe, but local girl June also lost someone that night. Her brother Wyatt has been missing for ten years and, now that her mother is dead, June has no one left - no family, no friends. Until someone appears at her door. Someone who knows what really happened that night. And they are ready to tell the truth?

Ashley Tate can be found on X @tate_ab and on Instagram @ashleytateauthor

Committed:- A New Take on Terrorism By Chris Merritt

When we think of terrorism, what probably comes to mind is the deadliest attacks of the new millennium: 9/11, Madrid, London, Mumbai, Paris. We think of groups like ISIS, Al-Shabaab, and Boko Haram. For most of the 21^st Century, Islamist extremism has grabbed the headlines. Not so today.

In 2021, for the first time since 9/11, the FBI classified far-right extremism as a bigger threat inside the US than that posed by Islamic terror groups. In fact, since 9/11, racially-motivated extremists have killed more people in the US than Islamists. Violent far-right groups like Atomwaffen Division and Hammerskins have significant followings in Europe, North America, and Australasia. 

Membership of these fringe groups has grown along with the popularity of mainstream far-right political parties, standing for election on anti-immigration, nationalist platforms. However, Western governments have done little to tackle their spread, hate speech, or the violent threat they pose. 

In some cases, politicians have even supported the actions of far-right organisations, for example, Trump telling the Proud Boys – who were among the leaders of the US Capitol riots – to ‘stand by’ on national TV. Troublingly, serving law enforcement and military personnel are often among those identified as members of such groups.

While far-right terrorism might seem a world away from Islamic extremism, the two share more in common than you might think. Central to participation in each is the process of radicalisation: the development of an extreme ideology based on hatred of those who believe something different.

As a psychologist and former diplomat who has worked in conflict zones where people killed each other over their beliefs, I was fascinated by the psychological link between these two types of extremism. In my new book, Committed, I explore the parallels between them in the conversion of ordinary people to terrorist ideologies. But how does this conversion happen?

Humans are more susceptible to messages when they come from an authority figure or group to which we feel aligned. We consider ourselves part of the ‘in-group’, and we begin to feel negatively towards any ‘out-groups’. Extremists create this sense of affinity by tapping into racial, economic, social, political, and religious divisions, over-simplifying and exploiting them by manipulating their adherents to hate the ‘out-group’ that supposedly hates them. With this justification, violence is just a short step away.

My main character, Ellen McGinley, was a CIA undercover operative during a deadly Islamist terror attack in Paris, five years ago, which she blames herself for not preventing. In the present day, she is trying to confront a domestic terror threat in the US which no one else believes is real, and she won’t stop – even if it costs her everything.

In occasional chapters narrated by one of the domestic terror group, Peter, we see from the other side how someone might come to be drawn into a radical group. Poverty, hatred, a sense of being betrayed by those in power, personal failure, social rejection, and frustration are all factors that contribute to the characters’ susceptibility to join an extreme group and engage in violence.

Though Committed is a work of fiction, the issues at its heart are very real. And as society, we ignore them at our peril.

If you’d like to read more, you can purchase Committed here: https://t.co/C4kmTAIFIk

Committed by Chris Merritt (Headline)

Former CIA undercover operative Ellen McGinley is battling to overcome PTSD when she stumbles upon a domestic terror plot. The deadly attack is due to take place in six days and will strike at the very heart of her homeland. For Ellen, it's a chance to find redemption for her greatest mistake - one she will never allow herself to forget. But no sooner than she alerts the authorities, she finds herself diagnosed as delusional and locked in a psychiatric ward. No one believes her story. She's the only one who thinks the danger is real, which means she's the only one who can stop it. Ellen must draw on all her old skills to escape, stay alive, protect her family, and find those responsible - before all hell breaks loose.

Chris Merritt is a clinical psychologist and former diplomat. As a member of the British foreign service, he completed postings in Jerusalem and Iraq. He has also lived and worked in the US. Committed is his eighth novel.

More information about the author can be found on his website. You can also follow him on Twitter @DrCJMerritt on Instagram @cjmerritt81 and on Facebook.

Alex Hay on heist plots

 Heist novels are having a moment. 

Take PJ Ellis’s Love and Other Scams, a glorious debut romcom telling the story of two con-artists plotting a diamond robbery at London’s ritziest wedding. 

Or Sophie Wan’s Women of Good Fortune, coming in March 2024, a fast and fabulous story about bride-to-be Lulu, grudgingly marrying an eligible Shanghai bachelor while her friends plot to steal her wedding gifts. 

Or – if I may be so bold – my own historical heist, The Housekeepers, which publishes in July 2023. Set in London in 1905, it tells the story of sharp-witted Mrs King, dismissed from one of Mayfair’s grandest mansions, and about to launch the most audacious robbery high society has ever seen in order to get her revenge. 

What makes a heist a joy to read – and write? 

Well, from this author’s perspective, it’s all about structure. For heists have rules. We need a glorious prize, a thousand obstacles, a set of fearsome opponents guarding their treasures. And the prize at the heart of the novel can be metaphorical as well as literal. So it goes in The Housekeepers. For Mrs King, leading a gang of former servants and criminal associates, is certainly seeking a fortune – but she’s also after something more subtle and slippery altogether: the truth. Answers to questions that have nagged at her all her life…

Mrs King’s path has clear milestones, ordained by the archetypes of the heist plot: gathering her team, unveiling her plan, running side-jobs here, overseeing double-crossings there. We get surprises, scandals, subterfuge, secrets. And, perhaps most important of all – friendship. Loyalty. The coming-together of a merry band wreaking revenge upon their world – or delivering justice, however you look at it. For of course the heist must operate to its own unique moral code – and that’s all part of the delight. 

The Housekeepers has been described as Upstairs Downstairs meets Ocean’s Eleven which is possibly THE GREATEST COMPLIMENT that could ever be bestowed upon it. The iconic Danny Ocean is of course the perfect example of a heist protagonist. Cool-headed, charismatic, secretive; he drives his team, and his story, with verve and ambition, and we are gripped as well. It was the remote, sardonic qualities of the heist leader that I was channelling when creating my very own Mrs King. Because it takes more than gumption to rob a Las Vegas casino – or a glorious Park Lane mansion. You need a chip of ice in the heart, a certain audacious self-belief, too.

Perhaps this is what lured me into writing a heist most of all. Haven’t we all wished, at times, to right the wrongs around us? Haven’t we all felt squashed, put-down, bypassed, jaded? I started writing The Housekeepers in the summer of 2020, as we emerged from the first grim lockdown at the start of the Coronavirus pandemic. Work was stressful. Life was scary. And writing Mrs King was my escape. I entered her world – licked with all the delicious textures and tones of the past – but I entered her mindset, too. And this was the real treat. I gave her the traits I deeply admire: resilience, ambition, capability, compassion. And those I don’t (but must admit I share): envy, impatience, irritability. But through Mrs King I could raze my enemies to the ground, lift my friends to the skies – and earn myself a splendid fortune (and a glorious 1905 model Rolls Royce) along the way. 

Wish-fulfilment? Absolutely. 

A joy to write? Unendingly. 

In chapter one of The Housekeepers, Mrs King is dismissed from her post, thrown out of the opulent mansion she’s served for over twenty years. As she marches through the back gate, she plucks a wildflower from the ground. Her first theft. Or rather, her first correction. “It wasn’t simply stealing, not at all,” she thinks. And at the end of the day, this is why I love heist plots. They aren’t just about crimes. They’re not simply tales of cops and robbers. They’re about possession and self-possession, about determination. They’re about belonging. In other words: the stuff of life. 

And novels.

The Housekeepers by Alex Hay (Headline)

Upstairs, Madam is planing the party of the season. Downstairs, the servants are plotting the heist of the century. When Mrs King, housekeeper to the most illustrious home in Mayfair, is suddenly dismissed after years of loyal service, she knows just who to recruit to help her take revenge. A black-market queen out to settle her scores. An actress desperate for a magnificent part. A seamstress dreaming of a better life. And Mrs King's predecessor, who has been keeping the dark secrets of Park Lane far too long. Mrs King has an audacious plan in mind, one that will reunite her women in the depths of the house on the night of a magnificent ball - and play out right under the noses of her former employers...  They come from nothing, but they'll leave with everything.

Alex Hay’s debut novel, The Housekeepers is published by Headline on July 6th.

In The Lyme Crime Spotlight :- Barbara Nadel

 Name:- Barbara Nadel

Job:- Author

Twitter:- @BarbaraNadel

Introduction:

Barbara Nadel is the author of three different series. The Inspector Çetin Ikmen books which are police procedurals set in Istanbul, Turkey. The Francis Hancock Series featuring a crime-solving undertaker and the Mumtaz Hakim and Lee Arnold Series who have a small detective agency. Deadly Web the seventh book in the Inspector Ikmen series won the CWA Silver Dagger in 2005. In 2006 Last Rites was the winner of the Swedish Jury magazine's Flintyxan ("Flint Axe") award for Best Historical Crime Novel. In 2008 Ashes to Ashes won the London Borough of Redbridge Big Book of the Year Award and in 2010 Sure and Certain Death won the London Borough of Redbridge Crime Fiction Book of the Year Award.

Current book: 

This is called 'Bride Price' and is an Inspector Ikmen mystery.

Favourite Book: 

'The Alexandria Quartet' by Lawrence Durrell.

How do you relax? 

I don't. I appear to be incapable.

Which book do you wish you had written and why:

'Dan Leno and the Limehouse Golem' by Peter Ackroyd. To me this is the epitome of a mysterious London book. And because London is my home and I was brought up with tales of its music halls, magicians and seers, I wish I'd written this.

What would you say to your younger self if you were starting out as an author?

Have confidence in your talent and don't be put off by those who tell you you're bound to fail.

Why do you prefer to write two different series as opposed to a standalone novel and would you consider writing a standalone novel? 

I think I have to have my psychologist's hat on here. In series, I like to see how characters develop over time and how they respond to different scenarios and challenges across the courses of their lives. I have many ideas for standalone books and would love to write one or more in the future. Plans are afoot, but not yet come to fruition.

What are you looking forward to at Lyme Crime? 

So much! Seeing so many friends is the big one for me. Also going somewhere I've never been before and, of course, Derek Farrell's 'Noir at the Bar'.

Bride Price by Barbara Nadel (Headline) Out Now

When jeweller Fahrettin Muftugolu is found dead in his apartment in the Istanbul district of Vefa, it looks like suicide. Searching the jeweller's home, Inspector Mehmet Suleyman and his team come across a hoard of extraordinary artefacts including solid gold religious relics and a mummified human head. But are they real and, if so, who owns these priceless possessions? As his colleagues begin their investigation, Suleyman is distracted by troubles of his own. His wedding to Gonca Serekoglu is days away, but when Gonca receives her bridal bedcover from a Roma haberdasher and discovers that it is covered in blood, she sees this as a curse on their marriage. Suleyman asks his old friend Cetin Ikmen to help him uncover the truth, but the task is not that simple... Meanwhile, as the stories swirling around Muftugolu become increasingly sinister, the dead man's wife appears, laying claim to his valuables, and Suleyman is drawn into a dark and dangerous world of smuggling and savagery . . .

Tickets can be bought here :- https://www.lymecrime.co.uk/tickets--contact.html

The inspiration behind Shiver / Mind Games and Bodies in the Ice By Allie Reynolds

 

A hand protruding from the ice. That’s the gruesome image that provided the first spark of inspiration for my thriller Shiver. 

Many years ago, I was a freestyle snowboarder, once in the top ten UK. I spent five winters living and training in the high mountains of France, Switzerland, Austria and Canada. I was obsessed with the icy white world at the top of a mountain. Even back then, I was a keen writer. I kept a journal where I tried to capture this incredible environment on paper, knowing that one day I wanted to write a novel set there. 

The high mountains are full of natural dangerous like cliffs, avalanches and changeable weather conditions. Glaciers can be riddled with crevasses – sometimes hidden by a thin layer of snow or ‘snow bridge’ so if you take just one step in the wrong direction, you could literally fall to your death. Snowstorms can blow in at short notice, cutting off roads and stranding people. All in all, it seemed perfect setting for a thriller but it took me years to hit upon the idea for Shiver.

Years later, while living in sunny Queensland, Australia, a news article caught my eye about some climbers out hiking in the French Alps that summer, who spotted a hand and two shoes protruding from the ice. They’d called in rescue teams who had uncovered the body of a man who’d gone missing thirty years earlier. The article went on to explain that with climate change causing glaciers to retreat, many more bodies are expected to emerge. I couldn’t get the creepy idea of bodies in the ice from my head. 

I did some further research and was shocked to learn that Mont Blanc area, where I’d spent my first winter season, was currently believed to hold 161 bodies of alpinists who’d gone missing over the years. I knew the high mountains were dangerous but I never realised they were quite so deadly. 

It struck me then that if someone goes missing in such terrain, we might not learn for years if their death is an accident or something more sinister – or perhaps they aren’t really there at all. The mountains provide a perfect place to disappear. When I asked myself who might wish to do away with someone in the mountains, the answer seemed obvious: a sporting rival.

As a former athlete, I love reading sports memoirs and sports psychology books. In particular, I’m interested in the mental aspect of sports. It’s been said that winning in a sport is as much as 90% a game of the mind – that two athletes might be equally naturally talented but the one who plays a better mental game will win every time. 

In a YouTube video I was fascinated to hear one athlete say this about his rival: he’s one of the most competitive people on earth. He plays real mind games. What exactly did he mean by ‘mind games’? Further research revealed countless tales of the sorts of games athletes play, in sports such as basketball, golf, boxing, soccer and rugby, where big money is on offer for the top players. Tactics included intimidation, trash talking (for example saying terrible things about another player’s wife or daughter), and generally trying to get under their opponent’s skin to rile them and make them crack. 

Thankfully I didn’t find any examples of such tactics being played in extreme sports like freestyle snowboarding, but my imagination went to work. In a dangerous sport and a dangerous environment, mind games could have deadly consequences, which made them perfect material for a psychological thriller. 

Athletes make great thriller characters, too, in my opinion. Focussed, driven… and quite possibly ruthless. I’m always surprised we don’t see more of them in crime and thriller novels. A storyline began to form in my head about a close-knit group of snowboarders vying to be the best. If they’re equally matched in terms of physical ability, they may have to resort to other measures to get ahead. How far might someone go to win? 

I’m happy to say that I didn’t play or experience any ‘mind games’ while I was snowboarding. If I had, I might not be here to tell the tale. But if you read Shiver, I hope you enjoy the mind games the characters play with each other and the reader – from the safety of your armchair.

Shiver by Allie Reynolds is out 28th October in paperback, priced £7.99 (Headline).

They don't know what I did. And I intend to keep it that way. When Milla is invited to a reunion in the French Alps resort that saw the peak of her snowboarding career, she drops everything to go. While she would rather forget the events of that winter, the invitation comes from Curtis, the one person she can't seem to let go. The five friends haven't seen each other for ten years, since the disappearance of the beautiful and enigmatic Saskia. But when an icebreaker game turns menacing, they realise they don't know who has really gathered them there and how far they will go to find the truth. In a deserted lodge high up a mountain, the secrets of the past are about to come to light.

On becoming a real author by Alan Johnson

 

Alan Johnson is a former MP for Kingston Upon Hull West and Hessle. His memoirs have won the Royal Society of Literature Ondaatje Prize and the Specsavers National Book Awards "Autobiography of the Year”. The titles of his four memoirs all come from the titles of songs that the Beatles have either written or performed.

When I once told a book festival audience that I wanted to write fiction some wag responded by suggesting I write my Party’s next election manifesto. I was still an MP and thick-skinned enough to withstand the gentle humour of someone who’d paid good money to hear me talk about my four volumes of memoir.

The desire I’d expressed was genuine. Apart from the fact that I’d practically exhausted all the available material, I was sick of writing about myself. My memoirs had done well but I didn’t feel entitled to consider myself a proper author until I’d done the really difficult bit; developing plot and character.

I was already enamoured with the actual process of writing. Politics doesn’t involve much in the way of creativity and it’s practitioners rarely have the luxury of seeing an idea through to fruition. Former Prime Minister Harold Macmillan, when asked by a journalist to identify the greatest threat to his administration, famously answered “events dear boy, events”.

I was always buffeted by events as a politician and to an even greater extent as a trade union leader before that, which is why I so valued the almost complete control that writing gave me. I say “almost complete” because, although I was solely responsible for the way I told my story, the story itself was preordained. I could describe the characters but not invent them; follow the plot but not create it. Writing fiction is much harder but infinitely more satisfying. Suddenly I was the dictator I’d so often wished I was in my previous life (although I’d have been a benign one - obviously).

So, I wanted to write fiction but why crime fiction? I’ve devoured a lot of mysteries, particularly in my formative years. It began with a battered paperback copy of a Georgette Heyer detective story that somehow found its way into my bedroom. It wasn’t very good. Heyer’s forte was, of course, the Regency novel but the book was good enough to encourage me to further explore the genre.

Before long I was taking my precious collection of ‘Charles Buchan’s Football Monthly’ magazines to the Popular Book Shop in Shepherds Bush to swap them for a bagful of paperbacks by inter-alia Agatha Christie, Raymond Chandler, Ngaio Marsh, Leslie Charteris and Margery Allingham.

By the time the Beatles released their twelfth single in June 1966 I really did “wanna be a Paperback Writer” (but only if I failed in my bid to be a rock star). I was a sixteen years old shelf stacker at Tesco having left school the year before. In a way school stayed with me because my brilliant English teacher, Mr Carlen had given all his pupils a list of 40 books they should read. The actual list hasn’t survived but I remember Bleak House (with the wonderful Inspector Bucket) being on it along with Rogue Male and The Moonstone. Dickens, Geoffrey Household and Wilkie Collins wrote thrillers that seemed to escape narrow categorisation. They were just good books.

It wasn’t until about five years ago that I read my first Maigret, ‘Inquest on Bouvet’, a slim, green Penguin Crime paperback which could easily have been in that Popular Book Shop selection. Published in 1963 with the price (2’6 in old money) printed on the cover, I picked it up in another second hand bookshop whilst on holiday. Like almost all Maigret books it’s more novella than novel running to just 152 pages. I read it on the beach in one day and I’ve read about five Maigret’s a year since. All 75 are newly available, reprinted and retranslated, in a wonderful initiative by Penguin/Random House. It is Georges Simenon’s creation, rather than Conan-Doyle’s that I consider to be the greatest of all fictional detectives.

I hope ‘The Late Train to Gipsy Hill’ carries at least a modicum of what I learnt from so many great crime novels (although I also hope it’s not derivative of any). I’m not hoping for the Nobel Prize that Simenon so bitterly resented failing to win. I just wanted to write a book that is as pleasurable for it’s purchasers to read as it was for me to write.’

The Late Train to Gipsy Hill by Alan Johnson is published in hardback by Wildfire Books on 2nd September 2021 

Gary Nelson has a routine for the commute to his rather dull job in the city. Each day, he watches transfixed as a beautiful woman on the train applies her make up in a ritual he now knows by heart. He's never dared to strike up a conversation . . . but maybe one day. Then one evening, on the late train to Gipsy Hill, the woman who has beguiled him for so long, invites him to take the empty seat beside her. Fiddling with her mascara, she holds up her mirror and Gary reads the words 'HELP ME' scrawled in sticky black letters on the glass. From that moment, Gary's life is turned on its head. He finds himself on the run from the Russian mafia, the FSB and even the Metropolitan Police - all because of what because this mysterious young woman may have witnessed. In the race to find out the truth, Gary discovers that there is a lot more to her than meets the eye...

Y Gwyll – The Dusk by James Oswald

 

It seems like you can’t switch on the TV these days without being confronted by a dozen or more different detectives, all vying for your attention. Home grown series like Broadchurch or Silent Witness; slick US shows like Bones and True Detective; and the newcomers - at least to these shores - the Scandinavians and Europeans with their bleak vistas and even bleaker characters. What is it about these shows that is so popular? Why do we keep coming back to them?

Confession time: while I’ve written eleven novels featuring Detective Inspector Tony McLean and three featuring Detective Constable Constance Fairchild, I haven’t watched a great deal of crime drama on TV in recent times. In my defence, I’d add that I haven’t watched a great deal of anything at all on TV in the past decade. I run a livestock farm pretty much single-handedly. That takes up most of my time during the day. In the evenings I write. Somewhere I manage to find some time to read, although not as much as I’d like to. Telly comes a distant fourth.

The last crime drama I can remember watching (at least the first series, I’ve got a little catching up to do!) was BBC Wales’ excellent Hinterland – otherwise known as Y Gwyll, or The Dusk in Welsh. Mostly I was drawn in by the fact it was filmed in and around Aberystwyth, where I’d lived for ten years before returning to Scotland to take on the family farm. Some of the series was filmed on the research farm where I used to work – you can see the house where I wrote the first two Inspector McLean novels in episode two, next door to where the murderer lives! A few of the locals turn up as extras too, which is equal parts distracting and hilarious.

More fascinating is seeing how the show is structured visually. Actual geography very much takes second place to getting the best, most atmospheric shot whenever possible. Many’s the time the detectives drive out of Aberystwyth and then arrive at their destination from completely the wrong direction. Or there’s an aerial shot of a car dodging sheep as it speeds across the mountain road towards Rhayader, and the next thing they’re arriving in Borth – exactly the other way.

Setting is always important to any story, but with crime fiction it is often crucial. Edinburgh is an essential backdrop to the Inspector McLean stories, verging as they do on the edges of the supernatural. The city becomes one of the characters, dark and mysterious and layered both by age and architecture. Television being a visual medium brings that reliance on setting all the more to the fore.

The setting for Hinterland – the moorland of the Cambrian Mountains and the Cardigan Bay coast of Wales - is an area of great beauty, wide open vistas and very few people. At its centre, Aberystwyth is quite literally the end of the line – the furthest you can go into Wales on a train before you fall into the sea. It’s a prosperous enough place, with the University, Bronglais Hospital and the Welsh Assembly Government offices the main employers, but like many a seaside town it’s also the metaphorical end of the line, where successive waves of incomers have ended up and not done so well. There is desperation, poverty, the misery of drug abuse and people who have simply reached breaking point. There’s a tension, too, between the Welsh-speaking locals and the incomers, many of whom have spread further afield into the small villages dotted inland and along the coast. All in all a perfect melting pot for studying the worst of the human condition.

But what really makes Hinterland for me, beyond the sense of hiraeth I get from its wonderfully bleak and evocative setting, is its use of the Welsh language. The series was recorded in both Welsh language and English versions, and the Welsh, suitably subtitled, was initially more popular than the English. That sense of foreignness – otherness – cranks up the tension another notch, tapping into the same exotic and sinister vein as the most successful Scandinavian and European crime noir shows, like Trapped and Spiral. It is at once familiar and unsettlingly different, the normal routines of life interrupted by something unspeakable.

And is that not, after all, what we look for in our crime fiction, both written and viewed? Crime affects us all, one way or another, and seeing it through the lens of fiction gives us that distance necessary to process and deal with it. The enduring appeal of crime series on the TV comes from the way we can immerse ourselves in other worlds, experience the vicarious thrill, revulsion and horror, empathise with the victims or even root for the underdog villains, all from the warm safety of our living room and favourite armchair.

What Will Burn by James Oswald (Headline Publishing)

The charred remains of an elderly woman are discovered in a burned-out game-keepers cottage, hidden away in woodland to the west of Edinburgh. Clearly no accidental fire, Detective Inspector Tony McLean suspects that neither is this simply a grim arson attack. There is far more to the victim than her humble surroundings might suggest, and something ritualistic to her horrific murder.  Nor will it be the only case of death by fire that Tony and his team will be faced with. This is only the beginning, and with such evil clouding the air, Tony begins to wonder what else will burn. 

Escape to the Country? Why Small Towns Smoulder - Erin Kinsley

Some years ago, I made my own escape to the country, fulfilling a life-long dream by moving to a charming cottage in an idyllically pretty Derbyshire village. Up to that point, I had lived mostly in cities, and what a revelation village life was. The pub, the post office and the school-gate gatherings were all hotbeds of sizzling gossip: secret affairs which were all too public, bankruptcies and domestic assaults everyone knew about, rumours of corruption in the ranks of parish council. 

Happily, there was never murder. Other small towns and villages aren’t so lucky.

The Anglesey village of Llanfair PG (pop 3014) is best known for the long form of its name (Llanfair pwllgwyngyll gogery chwyrn drobwll llan tysilio gogo goch, 58 letters and second longest in the world). But in 2001 it was the scene of a horrific murder, when ninety-year-old widow Mabel Leyshon was stabbed 22 times as she watched TV in her bungalow. Once she was dead, her 17-year-old killer cut out her heart with a kitchen knife before draining her blood into a saucepan and drinking it. In court, the killer was described as obsessed with vampires; he thought the village an ideal hunting ground as there were so many old people who no one would miss. Which might make one question the wisdom of a country retirement. 

The murder in my second novel, Innocent, is less bloody, but the setting’s a not-dissimilar country town, where everyone believes they know everyone else’s business. Small towns draw crime writers like bees round honeypots, and with good reason. As Miss Marple knew all too well, all human life – and human nature – is there, and proximity to one’s neighbours seems to supercharge emotions, turning what elsewhere might be mild aversions into bitter hatred and harmless crushes into mad passions. 

As I was writing Innocent, I thought long and hard about why that should be so, and to me, the answer came down to the lack of choices in remote communities. If it’s a long drive to somewhere else on a Saturday night, you’ll be going to the local pub, along with your mates and all those people who get on your nerves. If you need bread or milk, you’ll visit the local shop, where you might bump into someone you can’t stand, but for appearances’ sake, you’ll be polite, pass the time of day. If your wife’s been indiscreet, it cuts deep to see her lover walk his dog past your house every day. Undercurrents flow like torrents. 

But I loved writing about the shifting sands of small-town relationships: one-time best friends might ignore each other at the Christmas carol service; punches are quite believably thrown by a jealous husband in the golf club bar; whispers follow a young mum, speculating on her child’s paternity. So many motives and opportunities; in small-town settings, the red herrings swim in shoals. 

Which is not in any way to denigrate how situations fester and boil over in real-life small towns. Consider the 1988 murder of poor Helen McCourt, who had a very public row with Ian Simms, a married man and landlord of her local pub. Simms had a fancy for Helen, but she had no interest in him. After their disagreement, he told several customers she’d been gossiping about his young mistress, and how he hated her – enough, apparently, to murder her. Traces of Helen’s blood were found in Simm’s flat over the pub, and her blood-soaked clothing was recovered from a riverbank twenty miles away. But the spurned landlord was thorough in his disposal of her body, which to this day has never been found. 

As for Mable Leyshon’s small-town killer, maybe the neighbours didn’t know him as well as they thought. ‘He wasn’t a weirdo,’ said one. ‘He didn’t wear black, and neither was he a village bad lad. He was just a normal kid who wore jeans and trainers.’

So if you’re thinking of escaping to the country, be careful not to upset your local landlord, and be sure your teenage neighbour doesn’t have vampires on his mind. 

The grass is always greener – except where it’s stained with red. 

Innocent by Erin Kinsley (Published by Headline Publishing)

A murder tears a small town apart but who did it? The pretty market town of Sterndale is a close-knit community where everyone thinks they know everyone else. But at a lavish summer wedding a local celebrity is discovered slumped in the gardens, the victim of a violent assault that leads to a murder investigation. As the police search for answers, suspicion and paranoia build - and the lives of the locals are turned upside down. Secrets that lurk beneath the pristine façade of Sterndale come to light as detectives close in on the truth... 

Mark Ellis on Coronavirus Britain v Wartime Britain

In recent weeks I’ve seen several media comments seeking to contrast our current Coronavirus troubles with those endured on the Home Front in World War 2. These have been mainly prompted by the rapid escalation of Coronavirus deaths, with the reported number now exceeding that of UK civilians killed during the Blitz in 1940/41. The two crises are of course very different but I thought it might be useful to set out some facts and figures to enable informed comparison.

As of the date of writing, there have been nearly 35,000 UK virus deaths according to the public health authorities. 32,000 deaths were caused by bombing in the Blitz and there were 87,000 casualties. The total number of war-related civilian deaths was 67,000.

The London Blitz lasted for eleven weeks and the city was bombed every night bar one. Other cities and towns were also subjected to heavy bombing. These included Swansea, Cardiff, Bristol, Southampton, Plymouth, Birmingham, Coventry and Liverpool. While the 1940/41 Blitz represented the worst phase of the Luftwaffe bombing of Britain, sporadic air attacks continued throughout the war. In 1944 London again came under heavy bombardment, this time from German V1 (and later V2) missiles, or as they were better known, ‘Doodlebugs’. These killed over 6,000 people and caused more than 18,000 casualties.

In addition to civilian casualties, over 384,000 members of the armed forces lost their lives in the war.

The wartime population had some deprivations which we in lockdown don’t have and vice versa.

Wartime food options were very limited. Many basic products, such as sugar, meats, fats, bacon, and cheese were rationed. A number of other products, though not rationed, were hard to find. Tropical fruits such as bananas, oranges and lemons were like gold dust. By contrast during the current crisis, apart from the hoarding panics seen in the early days, most food and other domestic products have been in plentiful supply. There is one point of food shopping we have in common, though – the requirement to form long queues.

Apart from a few weeks at the outset of the war, cinemas, theatres, dancehalls and other places of entertainment were open for the duration. We appear to have a while yet to wait for them to be open to us. It should, however, be remembered that the wartime population had few forms of home family  entertainment. The radio, playing cards and reading were pretty much the extent. People from then would be astonished at our world of Netflix, Spotify, YouTube, Twitter and Facebook.

Wartime pubs and restaurants were open. Restaurant fare, except occasionally if you were very rich, was limited, but if you wanted a change of scene from home, you could get it. We cannot, and it seems we have some weeks to wait before we can.

In the war, as now, major sporting events were put on hold. However, ordinary sport carried on during the war years. Professional league football was suspended between 1939 and 1945 but where possible, other non-professional competition continued. Inter-service football matches were popular and drew large crowds.  Rugby and cricket continued on a similar basis. There were no limitations on the sporting activities ordinary people could engage in, other than where facilities had been put to alternative wartime use. Most golf clubs stayed open. Some new rules were introduced to accommodate the war. For example Richmond Golf Club introduced a rule that ‘in competitions, during gunfire or while bombs are falling, players may take cover without penalty for ceasing play’.

Parks have been a godsend to many of us during the lockdown. In WW2 most remained open, but some areas of parkland were unavailable as they were taken over for military use. In London there were gun batteries in Hyde Park and Holland Park. Other park space was used for allotments and air raid shelters.

Petrol was rationed and many people mothballed their cars for the duration of the war. Traffic on the roads declined substantially then, as it has during lockdown. Shortages of petrol have not, however, been the problem for us.

The war had a terrible impact on the economy. It took a long time for Britain to recover and the last repayment of US and Canadian war debts was only made by the British Government in 2006. The economic impact of the virus is clearly going to be substantial, although one hopes much more short-lived.

So there are points of similarity and points of difference between then and now. The biggest overall difference, however, is that the crisis faced by the British people in the war was an existential one. Defeat would have meant the loss of liberty and the British way of life. Tragic as the impact of the pandemic has been for many, it has not placed the existence of the country in peril.  

A Death in Mayfair by Mark Ellis (Published by Headline)

December 1941.  On a bright Sunday morning in Hawaii, Japanese planes swoop down and attack the US naval base at Pearl Harbour. America enters the war and Britain no longer stands alone against Hitler.  Conditions on the home front remain bleak. In a city pulverised by the Blitz, with rampant crime and corruption and overstretched police resources, life for Scotland Yard detective Frank Merlin continues as arduous as ever.  In the week of Japan's aggression, the shattered body of beautiful film star Laura Curzon is found on the pavement beneath her Mayfair apartment, an apparent suicide. A mile away, the body of a strangled young girl is discovered in the rubble of a bombed-out building.   Merlin and his team investigate, encountering fraudulent film moguls, philandering movie stars, depraved Satanists and brutal gangsters as they battle through a wintry London in pursuit of the truth.

More information about Mark Ellis can be found on his website.   He can also be found on Facebook and Twitter @MarkEllis15