The importance of empathy when writing thrillers

 

It’s the 4^th of July today, and of course apart from America’s Independence Day and Election Day in the United Kingdom – it’s also the release day for Peter Swanson’s latest thriller, A TALENT FOR MURDER.

We reviewed it last month, noting that “…….Told in a beguiling style, alternating between third person as well as first person point of views, we get a literary thriller that will make you shiver next time you think about reading a collection of short stories of John Cheever…….Though a warning – this novel is beguiling because under the cheerfully evocative and engaging narrative, lurks a much darker truth about concealed psychopaths and how banal evil can be……”

Read the Full Review HERE

Following our reading of A TALENT FOR MURDER, Peter kindly supplied our readers with a little context on the writing of this engaging [but very dark] narrative >

I write a lot of bad people. I write some good ones, too, and quite a few that fall somewhere in between. What I try to remember with all of these made-up humans is that they have something in common; they are the center of their own story. And they all think they’re the good guy, more or less.

My job, as I see it, is to write these characters as though they are morally equal. That doesn’t mean I don’t somewhat judge them, myself, but I need to let their actions speak louder than my words. Nothing is worse than a writer telling their reader straight out who the good people are and who are the bad. Most readers can figure this out for themselves.

Also, there is not much worse than a one-note villain. That’s why I think empathy is so important to a writer. Whenever I create the antagonist of the story, I remind myself that this particular character was a child once upon a time. That they were more than likely treated poorly by someone along the way. Just as in real life, this is not an excuse for truly heinous actions, but it does help us to understand why they happen. It helps us to feel as though this bad person has complexity.

And that makes for a better book. Once upon a time I wrote a novel called The Kind Worth Killing. There was a murderer in it named Lily Kintner, and somewhere along the way she became the protagonist of the story, and now she’s the protagonist of my latest book, A Talent for Murder. And, yes, she still kills people. But she has her reasons. I suppose all killers do. Anyway, as a writer I just put her on the page and let her do her thing. It’s not for me to judge if she’s a good person or a bad person. That’s up to the reader. 

The importance of empathy when writing thrillers

(c) 2024 Peter Swanson

Shots Magazine would like to pass our thanks to Tara McEvoy and Angus Cargill of Publishers Faber and Faber [London] for their help in getting this essay from Peter Swanson for Shots Readers.

More information about the work of Peter Swanson >

https://commons.trincoll.edu/reporter/features/a-master-of-suspense/

https://wwwshotsmagcouk.blogspot.com/2019/07/the-rules-for-eight-perfect-murders.html

https://wwwshotsmagcouk.blogspot.com/2023/03/the-hotel-that-inspired-kind-worth.html

https://wwwshotsmagcouk.blogspot.com/2020/03/peter-swansons-6th-novel-launched-in.html

https://wwwshotsmagcouk.blogspot.com/2019/03/a-friend-you-havent-met-yet-by-peter.html

https://wwwshotsmagcouk.blogspot.com/2017/01/the-talented-mr-swanson.html

https://wwwshotsmagcouk.blogspot.com/2017/01/inspiration-behind-her-every-fear-for.html

http://www.shotsmag.co.uk/feature_view.aspx?FEATURE_ID=245

And https://www.peter-swanson.com

 

In The St Hilda's Spotlight - Andrew Wilson

 Name:- Andrew Wilson

Job:- Author and Journalist

Website:- https://www.andrewwilsonauthor.co.uk

Twitter: - @andrewwilsonaw

 Introduction

Andrew Wilson is an award-winning author and journalist. His first book 'Beautiful Shadow: A Life of Patricia Highsmith' was shortlisted for the Whitbread biography prize (2003) and won an Edgar Allan Poe award for biography in 2004 and a LAMBDA Literary Award in 2003. His journalism has appeared in a wide range of newspapers and magazines. He also writes under the pseudonym E V Adamson where he is the author of psychological thrillers.

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

I always have lots of books on the go - and because I read so much for work, I have to carve out the time to read books for pleasure. I’ve just finished Christine Mangan’s Palace of the Drowned, set in Venice in 1966. I adored her first novel Tangerine and I loved this one just as much. I write non-fiction as well as crime fiction, and at the moment I’m working on a new book about Marilyn Monroe. So I’m reading lots of books - novels and memoirs - about old Hollywood, which is enormous fun. 

Favourite book:

Too many to mention - of course! But in the list there would have to be a Christie, a Highsmith, and The Secret History by Donna Tartt. 

Which two characters would you invite to dinner and why?

I’d love to sit back and observe Christie’s two greatest detectives: Hercule Poirot and Miss Jane Marple. They could compare case notes, reminisce about murderers they have known, discuss their various methods and perhaps indulge in a little light flirtation over the black coffee. 

How do you relax?

I’m lucky enough to live by the sea in South Devon so I each day I make sure I go for a long walk. But often as I walk through the fields or by the beach I find that this gentle activity is conducive to solving a tricky plot point or untangling a stubborn knot in the narrative.

Which book do you wish you had written and why?

It would have to be Donna Tartt’s The Secret History. I remember devouring it when it was first published in 1992 and being blown away by its compulsive narrative, gripping characters and stylish writing. I like to reread it every couple of years.

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

You will do it! Growing up in a working class family in the north of England, I had no connections with writing or the arts. I always wanted to be a writer and my route was through journalism - after university, I worked as a feature writer and interviewer for national newspapers and magazines. From this I moved into biography and then into fiction. Although all three disciples are very different, I like to think that journalism helped me with discipline, deadlines and also how to tell a story. 

How would you describe your latest published book?

My latest novel is one published under the pseudonym E.V. Adamson. It’s called Murder Grove (HarperCollins) and it’s about a young couple who leave London to live in an eco-village in southern Spain. Soon after arriving in this paradise, their green dream turns into a nightmare. I based it on my own experience of six years living in an eco-village in southern Spain - without the real-life murders!

With Celebrations: innocent parties, guilty pleasures being the theme at St Hilda's this year, which are you three favourite psychological books and why?

• The Talented Mr Ripley by Patricia Highsmith. Highsmith cleverly seduces the reader into identifying with a twisted mind - the charming psychopath Tom Ripley. This book changed the course of crime fiction.

• Five Little Pigs by Agatha Christie. This is one of the Queen of Crime’s best books. It uses the device of multiple narrators - something which has become increasingly fashionable in recent years - to tell the story of a murder committed years before. If anyone (not familiar with Christie) proclaims that she only wrote cardboard cut-out characters I give them this to read. 

• A Judgement in Stone by Ruth Rendell. I love Rendell’s novels - particularly her Barbara Vine ones - but this novel first published in 1977 has to be one of my favourites. The reader knows the name of the killer and the motive for the murders in the first paragraph, but the suspense is extraordinary. 

If you were to rewatch a psychological film which film would it be and why?

I love Hitchcock’s Vertigo and I must have seen it a dozen or so times. I’ll never forget the first time I saw it - when the final twist was revealed I felt such a sense of shock and awe. It’s such a compelling study of obsession and when I write I often have Bernard Herrmann’s score playing in the background. 

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

This will be my first time in person at St Hilda’s - I took part in a digital event for the festival during Covid. So I can’t wait to meet some of my heroes and heroines in the crime writing field. I’ll have to stop myself fan-boying them. But I hope to break the ice with my secret weapon - Patricia Highsmith’s dressing gown. 

  The Murder Grove by E V Adamson (HarperColins)

Two bodies. Thirty years. And a secret that connects them both… 1990 A woman’s body is found brutally murdered in the woods, and next to it, a shallow grave hiding a terrified young girl. 2021 ...When Mia and Rich move to an eco-village in Spain, they’re looking for a new start. Val Verde is everything they wished for – at least to begin with. But when someone is murdered in an olive grove, Mia realises the village isn’t the safe haven she was hoping for… There’s a killer in the village – and they’ll stop at nothing until they get revenge…

 Information about 2023 St Hilda's College Crime Fiction Weekend and how to book tickets can be found here.

Dark Deeds in Sun-drenched Places by Lexie Elliott

 

We’re an odd bunch, thriller writers. We don’t so much look at the world sideways as from the bottom up, through the lens of whatever we imagine might lie beneath. Sophisticated sun-kissed European cities have me eying the dark shadows of the back alleys, where tourists seldom dare to venture, and I can’t stumble across the sight of a beautiful waterfront villa without wondering what’s lurking in the damp basement or what horrors might be discovered if the river was dredged. One can speculate that Patricia Highsmith’s The Talented Mr Ripley and M. M. Kaye’s Death In… series, along with numerous exotically-set Agatha Christie mysteries, had more of an impact on my teenaged psyche than I appreciated at the time, but I’ve always been utterly fascinated by tales of darkness that play out in the light: is there anything more seductive than a murderous plot conducted in a glamorous care-free location complete with sun-drenched days and hot, sultry nights? 

My latest novel, How to Kill Your Best Friend, is set in just such an environment: a luxury resort on a remote island in Southeast Asia. Setting is so very important to me that on any new project it can almost become a character in itself, and it’s usually the first thing that comes to mind. I’ll be pondering potential ideas and find myself dwelling on a certain location, and an accompanying sense of atmosphere—it’s as if I need to know the where before I can find the characters that inhabit that landscape. However, How to Kill Your Best Friend entirely bucked that trend: the title came to me first, and it was so strong that I couldn’t ignore it; I found myself in the unfamiliar position of working backwards from it. That title threw up so many questions: why would anyone even consider killing their best friend? What must have happened in the past between these friends? How did they get to this extreme point? From mulling those questions, the central relationship quickly unfolded, based around three women (Georgie, Lissa and Bronwyn) who met and bonded through their university swim team—a very convenient shared passion for me to gift them, I must confess, as I myself have a long history of competitive swimming and thus the research was already ticked off. It’s Lissa’s death that brings the friendship group back together; we see the tale through the eyes of Georgie and Bronwyn, who each have their own reasons for questioning how a champion swimmer such as Lissa could possibly have drowned. With the beginnings of a cast of characters in mind, the question of setting reared its head: where would this tale play out? 

At the time, I happened to be on vacation at, erm, a remote resort on an island in Southeast Asia—I’m sure you can connect the dots—and in truth the idea of a resort setting was instantly captivating, not least of all because it made sense logistically for the swimming and the drowning aspects. Perhaps conditioned by my teenage reading material, I could also see distinct possibilities in the juxtaposition of the terrible ordeals the characters undergo with the glamorous luxury setting: the contrast of the darkness and shade of human nature is never so stark as when played out in an environment where people expect to relax and forget their cares. Whilst not precisely a “locked room” scenario, the resort location provides both physical and mental isolation for the characters: physical, in the sense that they are all geographically removed from their ordinary lives and, moreover, spread out across different villas within the resort; and mental, in the sense that the distance and the time zone difficulties cut them off from contact with their usual support systems, leaving them truly alone with their increasingly anxious thoughts. In addition, once the weather turns ominous on the island and the staff begin to melt away, for all its supposed luxury the resort becomes something of a prison that the characters can’t escape. How many of us have taken the back seat on the organisation of a vacation, leading to the uncomfortable realisation that you have very little idea of where you are and even less idea of what to do if catastrophe strikes? Have you ever found yourself thinking: where, exactly, is the airport, and how might one get there if there were no hotel staff around to help? If you haven’t, you surely will now.

As I write this, I’ve already finished the bulk of the work on my next novel (Bright and Deadly Things, which will be coming out in 2023), and I’m beginning to cast around for ideas for my next project. Unfortunately, we’re going on a beach-based island resort holiday this summer, so I can’t rely on that for any fresh inspiration. Though I will at least make sure I know where I am, and how to get to the airport…

How To Kill Your Best Friend by Lexie Elliott (Atlantic Books) Out Now

The perfect getaway - to get away with murder...Georgie, Lissa and Bronwyn have been best friends since they met on their college swimming team. Now Lissa is dead - drowned off the coast of the remote island where her second husband owns a luxury resort. But could a star open-water swimmer really have drowned? Or is something more sinister going on?Brought together for Lissa's memorial, Georgie, Bron, Lissa's grieving husband and their friends find themselves questioning the circumstances around Lissa's death - and each other. As the weather turns ominous, trapping the guests on the island, it slowly dawns on them that Lissa's death was only the beginning. Nobody knows who they can trust. Or if they'll make it off the island alive...

Winners of 2022 CRIMEFEST Awards Announced

 

CRIMEFEST, one of Europe’s leading crime writing conventions, has announced the winners of its annual awards.

Now in its 15th year, the awards honour the best crime books released in 2021 in the UK.

The genre is the most popular in the UK. Nielsen BookData’s Books & Consumers survey data shows crime fiction sales in the UK across all formats stood at 54m in 2021; a 7% rise on pre-pandemic levels.

The winner of the anticipated Specsavers Debut Crime Novel Award, and £1,000 prize monies, is David Heska Wanbli Weiden for Winter Counts published by Simon & Schuster.

Named by the New York Time as one of “the most critically acclaimed young novelists working now,”Winter Counts was called a “once-in-a-generation thriller” by the Los Angeles Times. Weiden is the first Native American author to win an Anthony Award and the Thriller Award. Set on the Rosebud Indian Reservation, Winter Counts is an examination of the broken criminal justice system on reservations, and a meditation on Native identity.

A further £1,000 prize is awarded to Richard Osman and actor Lesley Manville, reader of Osman’s The Man Who Died Twice. It’s the second year the pair has scooped the Audible Sounds of Crime Award, sponsored by Audible and voted by Audible UK listeners, after winning in 2021 for his phenomenal debut smash-hit, The Thursday Murder Club.

All category winners will receive a Bristol Blue Glass commemorative award.

The eDunnit Award for the best e-book goes to Abigail Dean for Girl A. Born in Manchester, and a former bookseller for Waterstones, Dean now works as a lawyer for Google. Her astonishing debut novel about siblings who flee abusive parents received widespread acclaim as a story of redemption, horror and love. It was a Sunday Times and New York Times global best seller.

Winner of the H.R.F Keating Award for best biographical or critical book on crime fiction is Patricia Highsmith: Her Diaries and Notebooks, edited by Anna von Planta, which was published for the centenary of Highsmith’s birth in 2021. It was praised by the New York Times as offering “the most complete picture ever published” of the canonical author.

The Last Laugh Award goes to Mick Herron’s Slough House. The Jackson Lamb series of dysfunctional British intelligence agents has recently been adapted by Apple TV starring Oscar-winner Gary Oldman.

Best Crime Novel for Children, aged 8-12, goes to M.G. Leonard’s birdwatching detective, Twitch. The internationally bestselling author tells a mystery adventure about friendship, bravery and birds, and Twitch is a celebration of the natural world.

Best Crime Novel for Young Adults, aged 12-16, is awarded to

Angeline Boulley for Firekeeper’s Daughter. The novel was praised by the Guardian as, “an interrogation of racist misogyny and a swift-paced, compelling thriller.”

This year also sees the introduction of the Thalia Proctor Memorial Award for Best Adapted TV Crime Drama. The award is named in honour of Thalia, a CrimeFest team member and a much-loved figure in the world of crime fiction, and who sadly died earlier this year.

The award is decided entirely by public vote from a longlist of the 43 TV programmes broadcast on British TV in the last year, based on a crime book. Ann Cleeves won the inaugural gong for Shetland, beating a strong shortlist that featured Antony Horowitz for Alex Rider, M.C. Beaton for Agatha Raisin and James Runcie for Grantchester.

Adrian Muller, Co-host of CRIMEFEST, said: The crime genre has dominated the book charts and our TV screens, keeping many of us company, particularly in the last two challenging years. The genre never fails to offer escapism and entertainment, as well as often exploring big issues and emotions. As a genre that also often makes sense of a chaotic world, it’s helped many people and is something we need today more than ever. We’re proud to celebrate the best the genre offers.”

CRIMEFEST had to postpone its 2020 and 2021 conventions, due to Covid restrictions. Hosted in Bristol, it is one of the biggest crime fiction events in Europe, and one of the most popular dates in the international crime fiction calendar, with circa 60 panel events and 150 authors over four days.

Leading British crime fiction reviewers and reviewers of fiction for children and young adults, alongside the members of the School Library Association (SLA) form the CRIMEFEST judging panels, aside from Audible Sounds of Crime Award in which Audible listeners establish the shortlist and the winning title.

Co-host of CRIMEFEST, Donna Moore, added: “We are proud to be one of the few genre awards that recognise e-books and audiobooks, humour, children and Young Adult crime fiction novels. We aim to be the most inclusive of awards to reflect the values of our convention, and the incredible diversity and reach of the genre which dominates the cultural landscape.”

CRIMEFEST was created following the hugely successful one-off visit to Bristol in 2006 of the American Left Coast Crime convention. It was established in 2008. It follows the egalitarian format of most US conventions, making it open to all commercially published authors and readers alike.

2022 CrimeFest Award Winners

SPECSAVERS DEBUT CRIME NOVEL AWARD

Winter Count by David Heska Wanbli Weiden (Simon & Schuster)

AUDIBLE SOUNDS OF CRIME AWARD

The Man Who Died Twice by Richard Osman read by Lesley Manville (Penguin Random House Audio)

eDUNNIT AWARD

Girl A by Abigail Dean, (HarperCollins)

H.R.F. KEATING AWARD

Patricia Highsmith: Her Diaries and Notebooks edited by Anna von Planta (Weidenfeld & Nicolson)

LAST LAUGH AWARD

Slough House by Mick Herron (Baskerville, John Murray Press)

BEST CRIME FICTION NOVEL FOR CHILDREN

Twitch by M.G. Leonard (Walker Books)

BEST CRIME FICTION NOVEL FOR YOUNG ADULTS

Firekeeper's Daughter by Angeline Boulley (Rock the Boat)

THALIA PROCTOR MEMORIAL AWARD FOR BEST ADAPTED TV CRIME DRAMA

Shetland (season 6), based on the books by Ann Cleeves. Produced by Silverprint Pictures, part of ITV Studios; shown on BBC1.

‘The Talented Mr Ripley’ and ‘Out of Her Depth’ by Lizzy Barber

‘Tom envied him with a heart-breaking surge of envy and self-pity’ writes Patricia Highsmith of Dickie Greenleaf in the early chapters of The Talented Mr Ripley. Tom, a penniless upstart but excellent impersonator, has managed to worm his way into the affections of Dickie’s father, who at the start of the novel sends Tom on a reconnaissance trip to the small (fabricated) Italian town of Mongibello, where Dickie has escaped to, to try and persuade him to return to America. Only, when Tom arrives in Italy, he discovers that Dickie has no intention of returning home. And, more to the point, neither does Tom. 

I am not the first reader or author to be captivated by Patricia Highsmith’s Ripley novels. In Tom, she created a true antihero; an underdog and unreliable narrator we somehow still root for; and in his idol, Dickie Greenleaf, Dickie’s girlfriend Marge and a band of wealthy expats, she creates a world that we, along with Tom, love to hate. Her clean, well-measured prose shines a light on every facet of their intoxicating world and has created an enduring legacy which has seen multiple adaptations – including the recent announcement of a new Talented Mr Ripley television series starring Fleabag’s Andrew Scott in the titular role. 

Out of Her Depth is a psychological thriller about an unassuming young woman, Rachel, who receives an incredible opportunity to work at a beautiful hotel in the Florentine Hills, where she meets the magnetic but dangerous Diana and the dashing but careless Sebastian. She is drawn into their privileged circle and luxuriates in their world of glamourous parties and exotic trips…until something goes wrong. It is not a reworking of the original, but there are themes and events (not least the Romantic Italian setting) which I was keen to explore in my work. And what drew me to Tom, and indeed the most in Out of Her Depth, was exactly that initial quote: his intermixed feelings of envy and self-pity.

Rachel, like Tom Ripley, is an outsider, a voyeur. By chance, she finds herself part of this impossible new world, but although she does step inside it, she is still painfully aware of her ‘otherness,’ that she will never truly fit in. As Tom’s friendship with Dickie blooms, he emulates him: he takes on his words and phrases, he begins to dress like him, he even wants to learn to speak Italian as good as Dickie’s. Highsmith, to allude to a spoiler (and if this is a spoiler for you, I’d say stop reading this now and get the book!), takes this to the extreme: Tom murders Dickie and fully impersonates him: but even then he constantly feels that he is only a poor copy. Diana frequently makes Rachel aware of her differences – ‘you shouldn’t nod like that,’ ‘it’s bathroom, not bafroom’ – telling her what to eat, buying her the right clothes, and under her tutelage Rachel begins to reinvent herself. 

Diana, much like Dickie to Tom, sees Rachel as a pet, a fun project to work on, and Rachel, blossoming under her attention, laps it up. The book is set in past and present day, and in the present, we see Rachel’s bitterness at never fully conforming: her realisation that she will never truly match Diana: and that realisation is an ugly thing, as ugly as Tom’s murder of Dickie. 

There has been much discussion about Ripley’s sexuality – his fascination with Dickie and subsequent hatred for Marge - but regardless of what Highsmith’s intentions were (she herself remained agnostic on the subject), I think what is rife in the book is a palpable desire. Tom wants Dickie; he wants to be Dickie; he wants Dickie to want him. His feelings are intense and intoxicating. This is what I wanted to explore with Rachel and Diana: Rachel has romantic feelings for Sebastian, but the friendship she has with Diana is all encompassing. It is that heady expression of teenage female friendship that is confusing and, for Rachel, toxic: she is so intoxicated by Diana’s good parts that she cannot see anything bad. And that desire turns into an obsession that long outlasts their teenage Summer…and begins to have deadly consequences…

Out of Her Depth by Lizzy Barber (Out Now) Pan Macmillan

There are summers that will change your life. There are summers that may end it. In the lush green hills beyond Florence sits the Villa Medici-a graceful pensione surrounded by manicured gardens. Rachel, a college student from an outer London suburb, can't believe her luck in landing a summer job here. Especially when she's drawn into a circle of privileged young sophisticates, including her glamorous co-worker Diana, who promises to help Rachel win the affections of handsome, confident Sebastian. But as champagne flows and rivalries fester in the Tuscan countryside, Rachel realizes that Diana has motivations of her own. Adrift in a world of backstabbing and bed-hopping, lavish parties and easy betrayal, Rachel feels the stakes rising along with the temperatures until, one night, something snaps. Someone dies. And nothing will ever be the same...

More information about Lizzy Barber can be found on her website. You can also follow her on Twitter @ByLizzyBarber and on Instagram @bylizzybarber

Andrew Wilson Book Launch and literary talk

 

Andrew Wilson, author of Beautiful Shadow, the first biography of Patricia Highsmith (Strangers on a Train, The Talented Mr Ripley, Carol), talks about Highsmith’s life, her newly published – and at times shocking – diaries, and her influence on writing his own thriller Five Strangers. Five Strangers has just been published too.

Signed books will be available!

Details

Date: 26 November 2021

Time: 6:30 pm - 11:30 pm

Cost: Free

Sign up here.

For The thrillers That Will Mess With Your Head by Liz Lawler

 

Strangers on a Train by Patricia Highsmith was the first psychological thriller I ever read. The plot was utterly brilliant. Two men meet on a train, and by the end of their journey they have formed a twisted plan to swap murders. They can’t possibly get caught for their actions, because they are complete strangers to their intended victims. There is only one problem with their plan. Only one of them is a psychopath. This was not a whodunit, but about motivations in the mind of a killer.

It was probably ten years later before I watched Alfred Hitchcock’s take on the story. My dad didn’t read at all, he left school when he was ten and a half, and he wanted me to see this great film. I remember telling him I’d read the book, and him replying, ‘I bet you wish you’d known there was a film.’ Like it was a hardship for me to have read it when I could have just watched it.

Patricia Highsmith put me on the road to reading every other type of thriller story thereafter. My interest never waned. I think it’s the satisfaction of seeing all the clues comes together that keeps me glued this genre. After the thrill of chasing for the conclusion in my mind. I think I would have enjoyed being a detective. And in fact wanted to join the police when I was 18. My mum said I was too short. That I had to be five foot four. But even if I were half an inch taller, becoming a police officer was never on the cards. My mum had other plans for me. I was to be a nurse.

She was right, of course. I was a natural from day one. I found it easy to communicate with patients and put them at their ease. Nursing is a very hands on job and the last thing a patient needs is to feel self-conscious. As one minute you’re looking at their face, the next you’re inspecting their bottom. As that then causes problems. You don’t want someone with a broken hip, or worse, trying to cover up their privates or refusing to use a bedpan. 

So nursing was then my career and for many years it’s what I did.

Until one day after working a night shift, I came home intending only to take the children to school and myself then to bed, I picked up a pen and notebook and began writing a story. I don’t know what triggered it. Nothing in particular stands out from that night. It was a normal night for accident and emergency. I just remember feeling edgy, and having this need to write. Once started it then became impossible to stop. I was drawn in by characters I was creating and feeling an excitement building from where this plot was going. Weeks passed and every notepad I possessed had been filled in. Until one day it was finally finished. When I knew there was nothing more to be said. There was only one thing then left to do, and that was to read it.

It was after doing this when writing truly began for me. I enjoyed the story. It was bizarre, because even knowing what was to happen, I was feeling a tension and was wanting to get to the end to see everything turn out all right.

So I look back and ask myself how did it ever begin? Was it my love of reading that started it? Or was it something deeper that scratched at the surface? Repressed feelings? Or from a study of human nature? Nursing exposes you to traumatic events. Severe injuries, death, suicide and suffering. To characters with psychological complexities. Why does that woman stay with him? Why keep letting him beat her up? Why is that teenager self-harming? Why won’t that child sit with her mummy? Why did that lad kick another lad’s head?

With every patient you end up taking a little bit of their story away with you. Because you care and you feel and because what happened is real. I think one possibility, is that having stored away lots of memories, my mind decided to have a sort out. To free up some space in the hard drive. To save it from a crash.

The Silent Mother by Liz Lawler (Bookoutre) Out Now

‘I’m so very sorry. But your son is dead.’ As I hear the words every mother dreads my pulse races and I go cold. But even as my world turns upside down I know the things I’m being told just don’t add up. I have to find out what really happened the night my beautiful boy died… The police tell me it was a tragedy no one could have prevented. But then they reveal the terrible things Tom was keeping from me. The person they describe is nothing like the decent, honest man I raised. Newly qualified as a doctor, Tom had such a bright future ahead of him. A mother knows her own child. And I’m determined to prove my son’s innocence. It’s the last thing I will ever be able to do for him. So I have come to the city where he lived and moved into his empty flat under a different name. When I discover his diary, it becomes clear his death wasn’t an accident. And as I get to know Tom’s friends and neighbours I realise they’re all keeping secrets. But as I get closer to the truth, I realise my life is in danger too…

You can find follow her on Twitter @AuthorLizLawler

Author Bio-

Liz Lawler grew up sharing pants, socks, occasionally a toothbrush, sleeping four to a bed. Born in Chatham and partly raised in Dublin, she is one of fourteen children. She spent over twenty years as a nurse and has since fitted in working as a flight attendant, a general manager of a five star hotel, and is now working with trains. She became an author in 2017 when her debut novel Don’t Wake Up was published by Twenty7. 

Criminal Splatterings

Interesting article in the Independent by John Rentoul on top 10 detective hobbies. Interesting to see what detectives such as Philip Marlowe, Max Carrados and Marcus Didus Falco to name a few liked to do in their spare time. The article can be read here.

All 4/ Walter Presents always have a wide range of brilliant crime dramas. A new one to look out for is Bullets which is a Finish thriller involving an undercover agent. More info and episodes can be found here. 

In advance of him being seen in the forth coming Slough House series Gary Oldman can be seen in Crisis a film set against the backdrop of the opioid epidemic, where three stories collide in this dramatic thriller. More information can be found here.

In case you missed it Alison Flood's review of the Guardian's thrillers of the month can be found here.

With 2021 being the 100^th anniversary of Patricia Highsmith Guy Lodge of the Guardian rounds up the best film adaptaion of her works. The article can be read here.

Friends of Mystery have these wonderful sessions called Bloody Thursday where by they interview authors and otthers in the mystery world. Normally this would be done in person but due to the pandemic it is now on line for the moment. Having just taken part in the most recent event where S A Cosby was interviewed I can certainly say that they are well worth taking part in. They only happen five times a year and are free. More information can be found here.

If you have missed the news then you will be pleased to hear that the programme for this year's Granite Noir has been released. As with most events it will be online. It will also be free. The dates are 19^th to 21^st February 2021. More information can be found here.

Also the dates for the brilliant St Hilda's crime fiction weekend have been announced. Clear your diaries! It will take place 13^th to 15^th August 2021. More information to follow.

Next week Sunday (7 February 2021) Radio 4 book club will be discussing Tana French's book The Wych Elm along with the author. More information can be found here.

On 8 February the Dallas Arts Museum will be hosting a vrtual event with Walter Mosley to celebrate the publication of his new Easy Rawlins novel Blood Grove. More information about the event and tickets can be found here.

Over on Book Riot ten of the best female assassin books have been proofiled. The list can be found here. An interesting list that is not solely crime.

Also Publishers Weekly have drawn up a list of the 10 most dynamic detective duos in crime fiction. The list cand be found here. Not totally surprised with the list but do think that others could have been included. 

Over on the International Crime Fiction Research Group webpage they have taken the opportunity of it being 100 years since the publication of Agatha Christie's first mystery novel The Mysterious Affair at Styles which introduced readers to Hercule Poirot to have a closer look at the different dimensions of space in her 45 novels and how the places where homicides were committed have evolved over the course of Christie’s career.

Criminal Splatterings

The 37th Deutscher Krimipreis (German Crime Prize) has been announced. The national winner was Zoë Beck with Paradise City. The international winner was Denise Mina with her novel Götter Und Tiere (Gods and Animals).  The whole list complete list of winners and second and third places can be found here.

Not sure how I missed this bit of award news regarding the Staunch Prize. The winner of the 2020 prize for fiction is Attica Locke with her novel Heaven, My Home.  Heaven is my Home is the second book in her Highway 59 Series.  More information can be found here.

When thinking of the Ipcress File Sir Michael Caine usually comes to mind as he played the iconic character Harry Palmer.  ITV have commissioned a six-part series of the classic Len Deighton novel.  Joe Cole from Gangs of London and Peaky Blinders, Lucy Boynton from Bohemian Rhapsody and Murder on the Orient Express and Tom Hollander who stared in The Night Manager and Birdbox are all due to take part with Joe Cole playing Harry Palmer. The Ipcress File will be filmed on location in Liverpool and Croatia during 2021.   More information can be found here.

Not strictly speaking crime fiction but great to hear that there will be a third season of His Dark Materials which is based on the novels by Phillip Pullman of the same name.  More information can be found here.

Look out for Traces a suspense filled crime thriller that is based on an original idea by crime writer Val McDermid.  Traces is set in the world of forensic science in Dundee, Scotland.  The first episode of the six-part series is due to be shown on Monday 4 January at 9:00pm on BBC 1.  More information can be found here.

True crime enthusiasts will welcome the new 15-part series programme Moment of Proof that is due to start on BBC 1 on Monday 4 January 2021 at 11:45am.  The series will be told through interviews, reconstructions and evidence from the cases, the officers behind major historic criminal inquiries give us access to the crimes they solved through the leads they followed.  More information can be found here.

Over on BBC Radio 3 look out for Peking Noir (drama on 3) where historian Paul French presents a true crime docudrama about the secrets of a Russian refugee, Shura, who ran the 1930’s Peking underworld.  More information can be found here.  The transmission date and time to be confirmed.

Radio 4 Extra are due to transmit A Fatal Inversion by Ruth Rendell.  It is a tale of murder set in the hot summer of 19576.  More information can be found here.  It is due to be transmitted on Saturday 9 January 2021 at 06:00am.

To celebrate the 100th birthday of Patricia Highsmith BBC Radio 4 Extra will be transmitting The Cry of The Owl on Tuesday 19 January at 06:30am.  The first of a four-part episode.  More information can be found here.

From Walter Presents comes a stylish Norwegian thriller that follows a police case spinning out of control. Monsters a seven-part series due to be shown on Channel 4 from 1 January. More information can be found here.

100 years of Agatha Christie – An interesting article by freelance journalist Nandhu Sundaram about the work of Agatha Christie and their timeless appeal.  The article can be read here.

If you missed it, there is a brilliant article in the Guardian on Will Dean and writing his new book Last Thing to Burn.  It can be read here.

Peter Swanson has also written an article in the Guardian about his top ten Christmas stories.  The article can be read here.

In the “i” there is an interview with Tana French who talks about the characters in her work.  The interview can be read here.

Also in the “i” an article about Becky Cooper’s debut novel We Keep The Dead Close, which is based on the mysterious death of a Harvard graduate student.  The article can be read here.

 Over on Dead Good Books they have not only listed debut novels to look out for in 2021 that can be found here but also 20 crime TV shows not to be missed in 2021 that can be found here. Amongst the TV crime shows that will be coming to the small screen are Grace which are based on the Roy Grace novels by Peter James, series 11 of Vera, Sweetpea based on the novel by C J Skuse and Val McDermid’s Karen Pirie series!

For those of you that like your history of crime fiction will be pleased to know that Netflix will be showing Lupin which is inspired by the adventures of Arsène Lupin the French gentleman thief.  The information can be found here.  It starts on 8 January and the trailer can be seen below.

Books to Look Forward to From Bloomsbury Publishing

 January 2021

Wicked deeds require the cover of darkness... A struggling silhouette artist in Victorian Bath seeks out a renowned child spirit medium in order to speak to the dead - and to try and identify their killers - in this beguiling new tale from Laura Purcell. Silhouette artist Agnes is struggling to keep her business afloat. Still recovering from a serious illness herself, making enough money to support her elderly mother and her orphaned nephew Cedric has never been easy, but then one of her clients is murdered shortly after sitting for Agnes, and then another, and another... Desperately seeking an answer, Agnes approaches Pearl, a child spirit medium lodging in Bath with her older half-sister and her ailing father, hoping that if Pearl can make contact with those who died, they might reveal who killed them. But Agnes and Pearl quickly discover that instead they may have opened the door to something that they can never put back... What secrets lie hidden in the darkness? The Shape of Darkness is by Laura Purcell.

Post Mortem is by Gary Bell. Can Rook keep his criminal past a secret when facing the most dangerous case of his life? Thirteen men have died in a London prison. Barrister Elliot Rook QC, who risks losing everything if his secret criminal past is revealed, must defend Charli Meadows, the vulnerable single mother accused of smuggling the deadly tainted drugs inside. But just as Rook becomes suspicious of those closest to Charli, a note arrives at his flat - threatening violence if the trial is not called off. While Rook battles to defend Charli and protect himself, his young protege Zara Barnes is fighting for her livelihood. In a few short weeks, only one tenancy at the legal chambers will be available to the ever-multiplying mass of pupils. Determined to make it hers, Zara takes on her biggest solo case yet. But will her gamble pay off?

Devils, Lusts and Strange Desires: The Life of Patricia Highsmith is by Richard Bradford. Made famous by the great success of her psychological thrillers, The Talented Mr Ripley and Strangers on a Train, Patricia Highsmith is lauded as one of the great modern writers. However, there has never been a clear picture of the woman behind the books. The triangular relationship between Highsmith's lesbianism, her fraught personality - by parts self-destructive and malicious - and her fiction has been largely avoided by other biographers. She was openly lesbian and would, in modern times, be venerated as a radical exponent of an LGBT lifestyle. However, her status as an exemplar of gay radicalism is undermined by the incontrovertible fact that she was gratuitously cruel and exploitative of her lovers. In this new biography, Richard Bradford brings his sharp, incisive style to one of the great, and most controversial, writers of the twentieth century. He considers Highsmith's best-sellers in the context of her troubled personal life; her alcoholism, her anti-Semitism and her misogyny.

February 2021

Lightseekers is by Femi Kayode. Three young students are brutally murdered in a Nigerian university town, their killings - and their killers - caught on social media. The world knows who murdered them; what no one knows is why. As the legal trial begins, investigative psychologist Philip Taiwo is contacted by the father of one of the boys, desperate for some answers to his son's murder. Philip is an expert in crowd behaviour and violence but travelling to the sleepy university town that bore witness to the killings, he soon feels dramatically out of his depth. Years spent first studying, then living in the US with his wife and children mean he is unfamiliar with many Nigerian customs and no one involved in the case seems willing to speak out. The more Philip digs, and the more people he meets with a connection to the case, the more he begins to realise that there is something very wrong concealed somewhere in this community.

March 2021

The Mystery of the Parsee Lawyer is by Shrabani Basu. In the village of Great Wyrley near Birmingham, someone is mutilating horses. Someone is also sending threatening letters to the vicarage, where the vicar, Shahpur Edalji, is a Parsi convert to Christianity and the first Indian to have a parish in England. His son George - quiet, socially awkward and the only boy at school with distinctly Indian features - grows up into a successful barrister, till he is improbably linked to and then prosecuted for the above crimes in a case that left many convinced that justice hadn't been served. When he is released early, his conviction still hangs over him. Having lost faith in the police and the legal system, George Edalji turns to the one man he believes can clear his name - the one whose novels he spent his time reading in prison, the creator of the world's greatest detective. When he writes to Arthur Conan Doyle asking him to meet, Conan Doyle agrees. From the author of Victoria and Abdul comes an eye-opening look at race and an unexpected friendship in the early days of the twentieth century, and the perils of being foreign in a country built on empire.

Musician Charlotte Dove has vanished after playing in a concert for a prestigious orchestra led by a conductor world-renowned as a charismatic, obsessive genius who pushes his musicians to their very limit. The police insist that there are no signs of foul play and that with Charlotte's passport missing, she is unlikely to be in any danger. But where did Charlotte go? And why would she leave without a word to her husband, fellow musician Henry, having just secured the job of a lifetime? Journalist Richard Blake is struggling to find work in the new online world. He sees Charlotte's disappearance as an opportunity to restart his career by exploiting the growing obsession with true crime podcasts. But the more he delves into Charlotte's past, and the more his audience grows, bringing him into direct conflict with the police, the murkier her story becomes... The Disappearance of Charlotte Dove is by Alice Clark-Platts.

April 2021

Greenwich Park is by Katherine Faulkner. Helen has it all... Daniel is the perfect husband. Rory is the perfect brother. Serena is the perfect sister-in-law. And Rachel? Rachel is the perfect nightmare. When Helen, finally pregnant after years of tragedy, attends her first antenatal class, she is expecting her loving architect husband to arrive soon after, along with her confident, charming brother Rory and his pregnant wife, the effortlessly beautiful Serena. What she is not expecting is Rachel. Extroverted, brash, unsettling single mother-to-be Rachel, who just wants to be Helen's friend. Who just wants to get know Helen and her friends and her family. Who just wants to know everything about them. Every little secret...

May 2021

When the police are called to the report of a late-night shooting, they expect it to be drugs or gang-related. They don't expect to find a young student executed on his way home. Jordan Radley was an aspiring journalist: hard working, well-liked, dedicated. His first major story - looking at the fallout following the closure of a major local factory - had run recently and looked to be the first step in his longed-for career. Even after the story ran, Jordan continued to stay in contact with those he interviewed: he was on his way back from their social club the night he was murdered. But as the detectives quickly discover, not only was Jordan killed, but those responsible also broke into his house, taking his laptop and notes. What was he researching that might have led to his death? And can this really be linked to another case - long ruled an accident - in the same area or are the police being forced to prioritise those with the best connections rather than the ones that most need their help? One Half Truth is by Eva Dolan.

June 2021

I know What I Saw is by Imran Mahmood.  I saw it. He smothered her, pressing his hands on her face. The police don't believe me, they say it's impossible - but I know what I saw. This is Xander Shute: once a wealthy banker, now living on the streets. As he shelters for the night in an empty Mayfair flat, he hears its occupants returning home, and scrambles to hide as the couple argue. Trapped in his hiding place, he soon finds himself witnessing a vicious murder. But who was the dead woman, who the police later tell him can't have been there? And why is the man Xander saw her with evading justice? As Xander searches for answers, his memory of the crime comes under scrutiny, forcing him to confront his long-buried past and the stories he's told about himself. How much he is willing to risk to understand the brutal truth?