Keep it in the Family Q & A with John Marrs

 Q:- In your own words, tell us a little about Keep It in the Family.

A:- It follows a young married couple, Finn and Mia, who buy a property that needs much renovation work. However, when pregnant Mia begins decorating the nursery, she find a message etched into the skirting boards. It reads, ‘I will save them from the attic.’ Together with her fractious in-laws, they go into the attic and discover it’s much smaller than the floorplan suggests – there’s a hidden room that has been bricked up. And inside, they find seven suitcases, each with a pile of children’s clothes in front of them. The novel is told from four perspectives, along with the person responsible for the secrets the house is hiding. 

Q:- The core idea of the book came to you in a dream. Would you be able to expand upon that? 

A:- It was literally just that. I’ve had dreams before with story ideas and I’ve woken up, telling myself I’ll remember them in the morning but failing to do so. I’ve also other dreams that seemed amazing at 3am but in the cold light of day, they’re just awful! For this book, I dreamed about a couple who bought a house and found suitcases in the loft complete with piles of clothing in front of them. I woke myself up, dictated it into my phone and fell back to sleep. Two days later I remembered vaguely dreaming about a plot, checked it my notes section and thought ‘I might be on to something here.’ By the end of the week, I had my entire story and characters mapped out. 

Q:- You’ve explored disturbed family relations in some of your previous books, including What Lies Between Us. What is it about this that you are keen to explore?

A:- I think I enjoy writing about twisted family relationships because the lives and experiences of my characters are so far removed from my own. My mum and dad were together until my father died 18 years ago, I’m happily married with a wonderful almost-three-year old. My life is nothing like those I write about. I like putting my cast through the wringer, making them suffer and seeing what comes out the other side for them. Some learn from their mistakes, others don’t. Maybe I’m living vicariously through them and and working out how far I’d need to be pushed before I reach breaking point.

Q:- Children are often in danger in your books. As a parent yourself, can this be hard to write about? 

A:- I purposefully don’t go into any great detail about what happens to the children in this book. I hope I give the reader just enough for them to use their own imagination and decide the hows and wherefores. What I found most disturbing was a book I read when researching what it must be like to have a killer in the family. Love As Always, Mum by Fred and Rosemary West’s daughter Mae is more disturbing than any fictional story a writer could come up with.

Q:- The early days of parenthood are so vividly drawn in Keep It In The Family. Did you draw on your own experience of fatherhood? 

A:- For some parts, yes. Our son was born two months prematurely, like Mia’s baby, and he spent the first month of his life in hospital. So I drew on experience of what a worrying time that was for my characters. He is now three so those sleepless lights, self-doubt, panic and apprehension you’re doing it all wrong are still very fresh in my mind! But to be honest, he’s been a great little lad and has made it relatively easy for us. 

Q:- Covid and lockdown make a couple of appearances. Why did you choose to include references to the pandemic, and how challenging was the experience of writing during lockdown? 

A:- I don’t think I could pretend it hadn’t happened, particularly with the dates this book was set in. But I didn’t want it to take precedence over the story. I didn’t include Covid at all in my original drafts, but my editor persuaded me to change my mind. It was the right thing to do or it would be like setting a book in the late 1940s and failing to mention World War 2. Its omittance would have stood out more than its inclusion. 

Q:- You write both speculative fiction and crime thrillers. What’s the process of writing them – do you write both simultaneously, or do you alternate?

A:- I alternate. But I usually have three books on the go at any one time. The one I have just started, the one I’m working on rewrites for with my editor, and the plotting out of the next. I am fortunate to be able to write two different styles of novel for two different publishers who are very patient with each other! So I’m able to alternate books – a speculative for one publisher and then a crime thriller for the next. My brain is constantly buzzing.

Q:- The One was adapted for Netflix last year. How has this changed your life? 

A:- On a day-to-day basis, I don’t know if it has really. But it has perhaps made me more widely known than I was and it’s helped to sell a lot more copies of The One. And as a result, my back catalogue sales have also expanded. Another result has been a project I’ve been working on for my social media channels. I started approaching other authors I didn’t know personally but admired, asking them to take part in my 60 Second Interview challenge on Instagram. And it surprised me how many said yes, and how many of them had heard of me through the Netflix series. So it’s opened up doors that way. I’ve also since had three other books optioned by different production companies so fingers crossed something might happen with them too. It was a very surreal time through, watching on television something I created in my head one evening on the way home from work, then becoming the number one most watched show in the world on Netflix that week. 

Keep It in The Family by John Marrs (Thomas & Mercer) Out Now

Mia and Finn are busy turning a derelict house into their dream home. At last, they’ll be able to move out of Finn’s parents’ house and start living alone. In the midst of this, Mia falls unexpectedly pregnant, adding a sense of urgency to the renovations. But just as the house is nearly ready, Mia discovers a chilling message scored into a skirting board: I WILL SAVE THEM FROM THE ATTIC. Following this clue up to the eaves, the couple are shocked to find that their dream home was once a house of horrors. In the wake of the traumatic discovery, their baby arrives early. Plagued by nightmares and struggling with motherhood, Mia becomes increasingly obsessed with the terrible crimes that happened in what was to be their new home. Maybe once she uncovers the truth, she’ll be able to focus on her new baby boy Sonny. But in doing so, she is alienating her husband, and risking the fragile relationship between her and in-laws. Meanwhile, the terrible secrets the house has revealed are not confined to the past. A murderer is watching, and waiting for the perfect moment to strike... Mia will do anything to protect her son, but is it already too late? 

More information about John Marrs and his work can be found on his website. You can also find him on Facebook, On Twitter @johnmarrs1 and on Instagram @johnmarrs.author

A Strange Topic for a Thriller by J P Delaney

I was researching real-life accounts of people’s interactions with social workers for a previous novel when I noticed how many were about adopted teenagers who’d tracked down their birth families online. Sometimes the stories had happy outcomes – the teenagers were able to get some answers about who they were and where they’d come from. But there were enough that were messy, or simply fraught with peril, to make me jot down in my ideas book: Adoption reunion - goes wrong?

Coming back to that note months later, I dug into the topic some more, and discovered something that to me seemed extraordinary. Here in the UK, adoptees’ birth certificates are sealed until they turn eighteen, and contact after that is meant to be possible only if both parties separately sign up for a government register. But the reality, according to the Adoption Society, is that over a quarter of adoptees now contact their birth families before then. The reason they can do this is the unintended consequence of a well-meant policy: since 2005, it has been a statutory requirement for social workers to leave a ‘Later Life letter’ with the adoptive parents, explaining exactly who the child’s birth parents were, and the circumstances surrounding their adoption.

The Later Life letter is written for the adopted child to read when they’re old enough to understand it. The exact timing is left up to the adoptive parents, but according to the guidance they’re given, that’s usually when the child is about twelve. (The notion that under-sixteens or under-eighteens are ‘minors’ has now largely been replaced in our legal system by the idea that capacity and responsibility is a sliding scale, the so-called ‘Gillick competency’ rule; ironically, named after a campaigner who thought the very opposite – Victoria Gillick was trying to prevent under-sixteens from being given contraception without their parents’ consent.)

The Later Life letter therefore gets read at a time in life when any young person is beginning to wrestle with their identity, and to pull away from their family unit as they become more independent. For children who were adopted, that natural process can be exacerbated. Therapists use the term ‘ghost kingdoms’ to describe the way some create seductive fantasies of what their ‘real’ parents might be like. Add to that the fact that some will also have attachment issues stemming from early neglect, or simply from the process of being taken into care, and you can see why the urge to break away can be a powerful one.

It works the other way round, too. For mothers whose babies were adopted, it can leave a hole in their life which never entirely shrinks. It’s a claim much repeated (though also much contested) that the UK carries out more ‘forced’ adoptions – that is, adoptions by court order against the parent’s wishes – than any other European country. Many of those mothers may also be searching for traces of their birth children. 

As I began fleshing out my research and giving it the shape of a thriller, I was acutely aware that I was dealing with issues that, for many people, are all too real. My Darling Daughter is about a rebellious fifteen-year-old who finds her birth mother online, and discovers that she appears to have the perfect life – married to a rock musician, wealthy, with a gorgeous Instagram-worthy house and no other children. But it turns out there are details in the Later Life letter that don’t quite tally with the glamorous image the mother’s been presenting, and there are hidden dangers for both characters as their very different worlds collide.

Adoption in fiction is of course nothing new – it was a staple of Victorian ‘sensation’ writers like Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins, who used it to explore issues relevant to the age, such as status and social mobility. But in the era of Facebook and Instagram, adoption also throws up new questions of the kind central to any domestic noir – questions of identity, loyalty and trust, not to mention how well we really know our nearest and dearest, with nothing less than your whole family unit at stake. It’s a sensitive subject – one I’ve tried to approach tactfully – but it’s also a fascinating one, and a cracking starting point for a psychological drama. My characters certainly aren’t typical – most adoptions are successful, as are most adoption reunions – but they are meant to be authentic, and I hope my readers will enjoy the twisty and sometimes mind-bending journey they’re about to embark on together.

My Darling Daughter by J P Delaney (Quercus) Out Now

The child you never knew knows all your secrets... Out of the blue, Susie Jukes is contacted on social media by Anna, the girl she gave up for adoption fifteen years ago. But when they meet, Anna's home life sounds distinctly strange to Susie and her husband Gabe. And when Anna's adoptive parents seem to overreact to the fact she contacted them at all, Susie becomes convinced that Anna needs her help. But is Anna's own behaviour simply what you'd expect from someone recovering from a traumatic childhood? Or are there other secrets at play here - secrets Susie has also been hiding for the last fifteen years?

More information about J P Delaney can be found on his website.

In The St Hilda's Spotlight - Peter May

 

Name:- Peter May

Job:- Author and former television dramatist

Twitter:- @authorpetermay

Website:- http://www.petermay.co.uk

Introduction:-

Peter May is a scottish author and a naturalised French citizen. He is the author of a number of different series and standalone novels. 

The Blackhouse the first in the Lewis Trilogy was first published in France under the title L'Ile des Chasseurs d'Oiseaux. It won the Prix des Lecteurs at Le Havre's Ancres Noires Festival in 2010 and won the Barry Award for Crime Novel of the Year and the Cezam Prix Littéraire Inter CE (Readers' prize for best novel by a European author, published in France) in 2011. It was also chosen as one of the Richard and Judy books for the autumn 2011 list. The second book The Lewis Man won the French daily newspaper Le Télégramme's 10,000-euro Grand Prix des Lecteurs, the Prix des Lecteurs at Le Havre's Ancres Noires Festival, 2012 and the won the 2012 Prix International at the Cognac Festival. The Chessman, the third book in the trilogy was published in 2013 and was shortlisted for the Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Book of the Year 2014.

In 2014, Entry Island (a standalone novel) won both the Deanston's Scottish Crime Novel of the Year and the UK's ITV Crime Thriller Book Club Best Read of the Year Award. It also won the French Trophée 813 for the Best Foreign Crime Novel of the year 2015. In 2021 he was awarded the CWA Dagger in the Library which recognises the popularity of an author's body of work with readers and users of libraries.

The Enzo Files are set in France featuring a half scottish, half Italian former forensic scientist, now working as a biology professor. His has written six books in his China thriller series and he is the only westerner to be honoured by the Beijing Chapter of the Chinese Crime Writers Association where he is an honorary member.

His most recent book is The Night Gate which is an Enzo File book. Peter May is currently writing A Winter Grave that is due out in January 2023.

Current book? (This can either be the current book that you are reading or writing)

I am in the production process with my latest book, which will be released next January. I have just gone through the copy-edit and should receive proofs within the next two weeks. “A Winter Grave” is a thriller set in 2051 (the year of my 100th birthday) in a world transformed by climate change. It is largely set in the West Highlands of my native Scotland and I feel that it might be one of my very best.

Favourite book?

“The Beastly Beatitudes of Balthazar B” by J.P. Donleavy. I first read this book when I was eighteen, and it profoundly influenced my writing style.

Which two characters would you invite to dinner and why? 

Inspector Jules Maigret to discuss the insights into the human condition that made him such a intelligent and compassionate investigator; Charles Latimer, Eric Ambler’s mystery writer in “The Mask if Dimitrious”. I’d love to ask him why he didn’t regard the extraordinary adventures he had just been through as inspirational material for his next book – rather than sitting down at the end of it to write yet another “golden age” murder mystery set in a country mansion.

How do you relax?

Writing and recording music. Music has been one of the great loves of my life, playing in bands from my early teens and into my twenties. Now that I have more time, and a little money, I have been able to install a home recording studio to indulge my passion fully. I will be bringing out an album of original songs later this year.

Which book do you wish you had written and why?

Ernest Hemingway’s “A Moveable Feast”, because I would love to have lived that life, met those people, experienced those things.

What would you say to your younger self if you were just starting out as a writer.

Stick at it. No matter how many knockbacks you receive, just keep writing and believe in yourself, even when others don’t.

How would you describe your series characters? 

I have only once set out to write a series – the Enzo Files. My China Thrillers only became a series at the prompting of my publisher. Likewise the Lewis Trilogy. I loved the characters in both those series because through them I was able to explore emotions and experiences, and create the kind of long term relationships I had learned to craft as a writer of TV soap. But Enzo was a character with whom I wholly identified. My age, my cultural background. Scottish, now living in France, and toiling to repair the fractured relationship with his daughter from a previous marriage. We have grown old together, drunk great wine and eaten wonderful food together, entered semi-retirement together, and might one day sit down to discuss a future collaboration.

With Town and Country: Green Lanes to Mean Streets being the theme at St Hilda's this year, Where is your favourite town and where is your favourite country? Why have you chosen these?

My favourite town is Toulouse – La Ville Rose. A wonderful old mediaeval town built of red brick, with a thriving student culture that makes it such a living, vibrant place, even for an oldie like me. My favourite country is the part of rural south-west France where I live. Rolling hills, majestic rivers, forested valleys, ancient stone villages, and a way of life that is laid back and life-affirming.

What are you looking forward to at St Hilda's?

My regret is that I won’t be there in person. Because of this damned pandemic, I’m not ready to travel yet. I love Oxford, and have done several book events there, and I am sad at missing the opportunity to visit a place of such historical importance in the pioneering of women’s rights in education. Happily, due to the wonders of the internet, I will be able to join the audience for a live interactive after my pre-recorded speech, and I’m looking forward to that very much.

The Night Gate by Peter May (Quercus Publishing) Out Now.

In a sleepy French village, the body of a man shot through the head is disinterred by the roots of a fallen tree. A week later a famous art critic is viciously murdered in a nearby house. The deaths occurred more than seventy years apart. Asked by a colleague to inspect the site of the former, forensics expert Enzo Macleod quickly finds himself embroiled in the investigation of the latter. Two extraordinary narratives are set in train - one historical, unfolding in the treacherous wartime years of Occupied France; the other contemporary, set in the autumn of 2020 as France re-enters Covid lockdown. And Enzo's investigations reveal an unexpected link between the murders - the Mona Lisa. Tasked by the exiled General Charles de Gaulle to keep the world's most famous painting out of Nazi hands after the fall of France in 1940, 28-year-old Georgette Pignal finds herself swept along by the tide of history. Following in the wake of Da Vinci's Mona Lisa as it is moved from château to château by the Louvre, she finds herself just one step ahead of two German art experts sent to steal it for rival patrons - Hitler and Göring. What none of them know is that the Louvre itself has taken exceptional measures to keep the painting safe, unwittingly setting in train a fatal sequence of events extending over seven decades. Events that have led to both killings. The Night Gate spans three generations, taking us from war-torn London, the Outer Hebrides of Scotland, Berlin and Vichy France, to the deadly enemy facing the world in 2020.

A Winter Grave (Quercus Publishing) Out January 2023

2051. The warnings of climate emergency have been ignored and vast areas of the planet are under water, famine and population displacement are now the norm. Cameron Brodie, a Glasgow detective who has been diagnosed with cancer has been given six months to live when he is ordered to investigate a suspicious finding of a body entombed in ice on a mountain near the village of Kinlochleven. After a hazardous journey to the isolated and ice-bound village he meets the pathologist assigned to the perform the autopsy, Sita, an immigrant originally from India. Sita's autopsy establishes that the body, that of a missing journalist George Younger was murdered. She has collected evidence that once put through the DNA database could identify the killer. But after a restless nights sleep Brodie wakes to a crime scene and must race against time to identify the faceless killer.

In The St Hilda's Spotlight - Imran Mahmood

Name:- Imran Mahmood

Job:- Criminal and Civil Barrister and author

Twitter:- @imranmahmood777

Introduction:-

Barrister and author Imran Mahmood's first novel You Don't Know Me was published in 2017. It was also selected for the BBC Radio 2 Book Club Choice and was shortlisted for the Glass Bell Award in 2018. It was also longlisted in 2018 for the CWA Gold Dagger and the Theakstons Old PeculierCrime Novel of the year Award. It was also made into a BBC drama (to great aclaim) in 2021. His second book I Know What I Saw was published in 2021 and was one of The Times best thrillers of 2021. His most recent book is All I said Was True was published iin July 2022.

Current book? (This can either be the current book that you are reading or writing or both)

I have just delivered 3rd draft of book 4. It is about grief and regret as well (obviously) as murder! I loved writing this book and it’s the one I'm proudest of. I can't wait to see it out next year.

Favourite book?

This is a always To Kill a Mocking Bird. It deals with everything – race, class, poverty, wealth, slavery, human rights, power, justice, morality, truth, integrity, coming of age – the lot. A few other books try to do all of this but the genius of Harper Lee was that she told stories of horror through the lens of an innocent - child. The effect is devastating. 

Which two characters would you invite to dinner and why?

Staying with To Kill a Mockingbird I would like to have Atticus Finch and Scout round for a home-made curry!

How do you relax?

I write of course! And cook. Or if I have time I paint (badly) or do a little woodwork. I make things for the kids that they don’t have any appreciation for. 

Which book do you wish you had written and why?

I'm going to sidestep Harper Lee this time (because there is no way I could have written that). I’m going to say The First Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman for its modest sales!

Also, it displays a great understanding of the market. There’s a whole section of society (that read) but who find themselves totally invisible in culture. Osman realised that and boy did he make the most of it! Also it’s such a perfectly delivered mystery. Can't fault it.

What would you say to your younger self if you were just starting out as a writer?

Writing is very difficult. Reading is much easier. Just read.

What made you decide to write standalone novels as opposed to a series and would you write a series?

I had only intended to write the one book! I had no idea that when you write one – publishers and agents just expect you to carry on. There was no way to turn book 1 into a series so book 2 was a standalone. And by then I liked the idea of meeting new characters that I knew nothing about. I have since thought about a returnable series. I think it’s a lot of work despite the impression you get and it takes a long time (4 plus books I think) to establish a series. I don’t think I have the patience to do that

With Town and Country: Green Lanes to Mean Streets being the theme at St Hilda's this year, Where is your favourite town and where is your favourite country? Why have you chosen these?

London (which is about 100 towns really rather than one place). It’s my adoptive home (from Liverpool) and I love 2 things about it. That you can become anonymous in London very easily. And that the tolerance levels are so high (as a rule) that you can be any version of yourself that you want to be without (usually) ever attracting a second-look. I love that I sat on the Tube last week and someone wandered on wearing a tutu, a blonde Elsa wig to their waist, drinking beer from a Pringle can. She was probably in her sixties. Nobody batted an eye. I love that. The price of being left alone when you want to be left alone is often being left alone when you don’t. So it’s not a perfect city – but where is?

Favourite country – UK. Not a natural patriot. But the UK (despite everything) feels free and safe and there aren’t many places I could spend the rest of my life in. There’s always something to spoil a great country. Geographically/geologically/structurally? the USA has everything. Mountains, lakes, deserts, snow, beaches, big modern cities, slow lazy cities, canyons, waterfalls, huge national parks. But then – you know it has people like Trump in it. And a lot of guns! 

What are you looking forward to at St Hilda's?

Meeting so many new people after so much hiding away for the last 2 years!

All I Said Was True by Imran Mahmood (Bloomsbury Publishing PLC)

I didn't kill her. Trust me...When Amy Blahn died on a London rooftop, Layla Mahoney was there. Layla was holding her. But all she can say when she's arrested is that 'It was Michael. Find Michael and you'll find out everything you need to know.' The problem is, the police can't find him - they aren't even sure he exists. Layla knows she only has forty-eight hours to convince the police that bringing in the man she knows only as 'Michael' will clear her name and reveal a dangerous game affecting not just Amy and Layla, but her husband Russell and countless others. But as the detectives begin to uncover the whole truth about what happened to Amy, Layla will soon have to decide: how much of that truth can she really risk being exposed?

The Stranger Diaries with Elly Griffiths

SATURDAY, 27TH OCTOBER 6.30PM

AT HEFFERS BOOKSHOP

We are delighted to welcome Elly Griffiths back to Cambridge. The 2016 winner of the CWA Dagger in the Library will speak on her new standalone gothic thriller, The Stranger Diaries.

Clare Cassidy is no stranger to murder. As a literature teacher specialising in the Gothic writer RM Holland, she teaches a short course on it every year. Then Clare's life and work collide tragically when one of her colleagues is found dead, a line from an RM Holland story by her body. The investigating police detective is convinced the writer's works somehow hold the key to the case. Not knowing who to trust, Clare confides her darkest suspicions and fears about the case to her journal. Then one day she notices some other writing in the diary. Writing that isn't hers...

Elly Griffiths is also the author of the bestselling Dr Ruth Galloway novels. The series has won the CWA Dagger in the Library, and has been shortlisted three times for the Theakston's Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year. Her Stephens and Mephisto series is based in 1950s Brighton. Don't miss this opportunity to hear from her in the intimate setting of Heffers bookshop!

Ticket information can be found here.

Pace in Crime Novels

One of the things that makes a crime novel is pace. Tension is created by a sense of danger, and then the speed at which the danger resolves. 

The best crime writers are masters of economy. James Ellroy’s terse sentences in LA Confidential aren’t just a kind of grammatical puritanism, they’re a way of getting to the point of the action. In an interview with Paris Review Ellroy explained, 'Because, the story was violent, and full of action, I saw the value of writing in a fast, clipped style. So I cut every unnecessary word from every sentence.’ 

I’m a big Simenon fan too. His was a kind of painterly minimalism for whom a tiny detail could form an entire character sketch -  ‘the black commas’ of a man’s moustache, the lines on a naked woman’s body from where her clothes had been too tight, a celluloid protector for a traveller’s necktie. Simenon knew the value of getting the reader where they need to be fast, and without flourish. "Adjectives, adverbs, and every word which is there just to make an effect. Every sentence which is there just for the sentence. You know, you have a beautiful sentence—cut it. Every time I find such a thing in one of my novels it is to be cut,” he once said.

Elmore Leonard, another genius of pace, famously wrote his 10 Rules for Writing. Number 10 was, ‘Leave out the parts readers tend to skip.’ 

But sometimes you have to breathe, surely? By the time Ellroy wrote The Cold Six Thousand his quest for economy had become so extreme it became comical. "''They got close. They dropped guns off. They shot inland. They torched huts.”               

The thing about speed is you only notice how fast you’ve been going when you slow down. What makes roller coasters scary isn’t just the speed of the drop, it’s the pause before the decent. It is those moments of stillness, when the readers sensible something terrible is going to happen, but the characters in the book, going about their daily lives, don’t. The Birdwatcher is set in Dungeness. It’s a beautiful place of eerie calm. My main character is an ordinary, neighbourhood officer who enjoys the simple tasks of looking for stolen lawnmowers and attending community meetings. The wide shingle beach is extraordinarily beautiful in autumn, when sunlight cracks through low dark cloud. It’s a place where the birdwatchers gather to witness the beautiful migrations that take place each season. And what could possibly go wrong in a place like that? 

The Birdwatcher by William Shaw, is out now by Quercus Publishing (£12.99)

Police Sergeant William South has a reason for not wanting to be on the murder

investigation. He is a murderer himself. But the victim was his only friend; like him, a passionate birdwatcher. South is warily partnered with the strong-willed Detective Sergeant Alexandra Cupidi, newly recruited to the Kent coast from London. Together they find the body, violently beaten, forced inside a wooden chest. Only rage could kill a man like this. South knows it. But soon - too soon - they find a suspect: Donnie Fraser, a drifter from Northern Ireland. His presence in Kent disturbs William - because he knew him as a boy. If the past is catching up with him, South wants to meet it head on. For even as he desperately investigates the connections, he knows there is no crime, however duplicitous or cruel, that can compare to the great lie of his childhood. Moving from the storm-lashed, bird-wheeling skies of the Kent Coast to the wordless war of the Troubles, The Birdwatcher is a crime novel of suspense, intelligence and powerful humanity about fathers and sons, grief and guilt and facing the darkness within.

You can find more information about William Shaw and his books on his website.

Follow him on Twitter @william1shaw

Find him on Facebook

Lisa Lutz on Hate Mail

Lisa Lutz is best known for her series of comedic crime novels featuring the Spellman’s a family of private investigators. The first novel in the series The Spellman Files was in 2008 nominate for three Best novel awards – an Anthony Award, a Barry Award, a Macavity Award.  It was also nominated for a Dilys Award. The second novel in the series Curse of the Spellmans was nominated for an Edgar Award.  The Passenger is her third standalone novel.

I never got hate mail until I wrote a novel. Anger from strangers is a small price to pay for the luxury of writing books for a living. When I first built my author website and offered up my email for anyone to see, I was essentially inviting some kind of relationship with my readers. My general rule is to respond kindly to the positive notes and ignore the negative ones. But I still read them and take them in, and as much as I want to pretend that they have no effect on my writing or what I do, that is simply untrue.

My first book has a lot of footnotes, as do many thereafter. This was—and is—relatively uncommon for fiction, and especially for something shelved in the mystery section. Some people loved the footnotes; others, not so much. It’s fair to say my footnotes got hate mail. I recall my reaction to my first hostile missive on this front. Wow, this person is really angry, I thought. And maybe for the briefest moment I felt bad. But then something shifted internally and I thought the same thing, but with more delight. It’s so cool that I made this person so angry.  As a novelist, you hope for some kind of emotional response from the reader. Why does it have to be positive?

Some readers suggested removing the footnotes completely. Others, adopting the delicate tone of a person concerned about a loved one’s drinking, suggested that I simply cut back. Still others issued direct threats: If I refused to give up the footnotes, they would never read another book of mine again.

I never took any of these messages under advisement. But I can’t claim that they had no effect on my future work. Now there will be more footnotes! I remember thinking, with glee. And indeed, there were. Sometimes when you stand your ground, you have to take a little more ground. At least that was my thinking back then.

I’ve also had letters pleading for a certain relationship between two characters to intensify. I responded promptly, breaking them up permanently. I wasn’t deliberately trying to antagonise my readers, but it concerned me that I was writing a book about a woman asserting her independence and finding her place in the world, and my readers just wanted her to find love. That’s not what I’m about.

I quit the series when I knew I couldn’t write another good Spellman book. I shifted gears and began trying new things. Last year, How to Start a Fire was published. It’s straight fiction, but like everything I write it shares some common ground with the trajectory of crime novels. This year, with The Passenger, I fully embraced the genre. It’s a crime novel, plain and simple.

The letters (or, more frequently these days, comments on social media) still come through. The response has been generally good, but I have noticed a few interesting trends. Some readers just want the same old, same old. And I get that. Others, however, have suggested that my writing has reached a new level; that my more recent books, which are tonally darker, are also more substantial. This, I take issue with. True comedy has as much meat and as strong a point of view as any other fiction. The jokes just make it easier to digest.

Years ago I met a man at a party. He asked what I did for a living. I told him I wrote comedic novels and gave him the general premise. He was not impressed. Later, he asked me if I ever aspired to write something more serious. I felt myself go cold inside. I contained my urge to sling insults at him and just answered the question.

“No, my literary aspiration is the spit-take.”

I meant it. Even now, if I can say or write something funny enough to make a person choke (in a non-lethal manner) on his or her beverage, I feel perhaps overly satisfied by that accomplishment. At its essence, a joke is about the surprise of seeing a situation from an unexpected angle. Even the grittiest crime writer has the same goal. The end result might be a gasp instead of a laugh, but you want to keep your readers off-balance. You want to show them a new way of looking at the world.

 The Passenger by Lisa Lutz (£7.99 Titan Books)

IN CASE YOU WERE WONDERING, I DIDN'T DO IT.  I DON'T HAVE AN ALIBI, SO YOU'LL HAVE TO TAKE MY WORD FOR IT...With her husband's dead body still warm, Tanya Dubois has only one option: run. When the police figure out that she doesn't officially exist, they'll start asking questions she can't answer. Desperate to keep the past buried, she adopts and sheds identities as she flees.  Along the way she meets a cop with unknown motives and a troubled woman who sees through her disguise-and who may be friend or foe.  But ultimately she is alone, and the past can no longer be ignored...

You can find more information about Lisa Lutz on her website. You can also follow her on Twitter @lisalutz and find her on Facebook.