Looking to the Future

This, I think, will be my last post for The Rap Sheet. I’ve enjoyed the experience very much and I’m extremely grateful to editor J. Kingston Pierce for giving me the opportunity to sound off. It’s been fun, as he promised me it would be.

I’d like to finish with a piece, not about me so much, but about some other new crime writers who have found their way onto my radar. First up is Brian McGilloway, whose first novel, Borderlands, has just been published by Macmillan New Writing, the UK publishers of my novel Taking Comfort. Brian is reviewed and interviewed by a blogger who has always been unstinting in her support of new crime writers, yours truly included: the person who posts under the pseudonym “Crimefictionreader.”

It was from Crimefictionreader, as well, that I learnt about the second debut crime writer I think will be well worth looking out for, Chris Ewan, whose novel The Good Thief’s Guide to Amsterdam is being published in Britain this summer by Long Barn Books (with Simon & Schuster releasing the paperback). Long Barn Books, as you may or may not know, is the publishing company founded by Susan Hill, herself a crime writer of no little repute. Chris is the second winner of Long Barn Books’ First Novel Competition. I’ve spent many more years as an unpublished novelist than a published one, so I know how hard it is to get that vital initial break. Therefore, both Macmillan New Writing and the Long Barn First Novel Competition are initiatives that I wholeheartedly support.

Another small publisher with an interesting list, and an original approach, is Flame Books. It’s the publisher of the novel I’m reading at the moment, a crime work called A Dangerous Man, by Anne Brooke. A Dangerous Man has garnered praise from no less a writer than Andrew Taylor, who described it as “a dark and chilling parable about art, love and murder.” What’s remarkable about Anne Brooke’s work is her ability to enter convincingly and with extraordinary empathy into the milieus of her protagonists, which I imagine are very different from her own. I don’t know for sure, but I don’t believe she has that much direct experience of male homosexual prostitutes, which makes this a bold and brave book for her to write. I’m all for brave, bold books.

For myself, I hope that the future will give me the opportunity to write some more novels. I’m certainly intending to take the character of Porfiry Petrovich on into a series. As I said in my last post, I’ve never written a crime series before. I enjoy, though, the challenges of writing within a genre, one of which comes from the very definite expectations that readers have. So-called literary fiction can be whatever it wants to be, I think; whereas genre fiction, to some extent, has to be mindful of reader expectations, whilst at the same time somehow managing to be fresh and, well, unexpected. A difficult paradox. To help me prepare for the task ahead, I asked the ever-supportive Crimefictionreader for the book buyer’s perspective. This was the response:

For a series to be enduring, I think a writer has to be sure about any major changes they make. Upsetting the apple cart can lead to other things and other developments, but it can remain a simple ‘upsetting the apple cart’ to a reader. [Patricia] Cornwell still sells by the bucket load, but moving [Dr. Kay] Scarpetta into the private sector led to everything becoming personal and remaining so, time and time again. The same with setting. [Inspector] Morse’s foray into Australia, albeit for TV and not a novel, was not so interesting. On the other hand, Chris Ewan’s debut, The Good Thief’s Guide to Amsterdam, will move on to Paris next, possibly New York after that. But the nature of the stories and main character simply lend themselves to that. It’s not possible for Charlie Howard [the protagonist in A Good Thief’s Guide] to stay in one place for too long!

I believe that readers feel they are the recipients of a package when it comes to a series. When one part of the package is lost, it’s not quite the same. Change can be so fresh and dramatic, it’s like a new novel or series; and if that’s the case, it can also lead to a sense of loss.

One thing’s for sure, Porfiry Petrovich, in my books at least, will always remain in St. Petersburg. If anyone else would like to add their views to Crimefictionreader’s, please feel free to leave a comment below.