CrimeFest Hits Bristol, Part IV

(Editor’s note: This is the final installment--whew!--of Ali Karim’s four-part report from the recent CrimeFest convention, held in Southwest England. Part I is here, Part II can be found here, and to read Part III, just click here.)

Ruth Dudley Edwards going to receive her Last Laugh Award.

Day Three, June 7 (continued). In our best bib and tucker, Shots editor Mike Stotter and I strode off toward the CrimeFest bar at the Bristol Marriott Royal Hotel. What’s a gala dinner, after all, without an apéritif and some pre-celebration discussion about the crime novels and authors we’d recently been enjoying?

Our first encounters were with Jason Pinter (The Mark) and Catherine Burke from Mira Books. I like the folks at Mira, as they’re very enthusiastic about crime fiction and publish some of my favorite U.S. writers, including Alex Kava and M.J. Rose--and now Pinter, for whom Mira did a big promo in Shots. Mira has also been supportive of the International Thriller Writers’ objectives. Burke told me that Brit Paul Johnston had just submitted the manuscript of his follow-up to the Barry Award-nominated The Death List, and she said it was “rocking.” She added that she is very excited about Mira’s brand-new imprint (from Mills & Boon/Harlequin), Black Star Crime, which will be launching this summer, as The Bookseller reported:

“Since 2001, crime and thriller sales have increased by 70%,” said M&B marketing manager Oliver Rhodes. “There were two ways for us to go. We could either do what everyone else is doing, and do it better, or carve out our own niche and try to create a unique proposition. The idea is that if people find something they like they can go back and find something similar. It is a brand promise.”

Black Star Crime will include a range of genres, from cosy mysteries to hard-core thrillers, with authors to include new names as well as more established writers. M&B has liaised with Working Partners to generate some of the concepts, as well as acquiring titles itself, and is adamant the quality of the ­stories is paramount. Launch titles include Runaway Minister by Nick Curtis, Streetwise by Chris Freeman, A Narrow Escape by Faith Martin and Murder Plot by Lance Elliott.

“This brings the best of our experience together,” Rhodes said. “We have been very successful with Mira crime authors such as Alex Kava and Paul Johnston. Also we are the only publishers with the know-how to make a fiction series work. We think this has massive potential.”

M&B will spend around £100,000 on its launch marketing campaign, and is due to start presenting the series to retailers this month. The company is keen that the brand is not tarred with the M&B brush, and that it is kept as far as possible from its romance publishing.

After a bit more chatting and the informal knocking back of libations, we all headed off to dinner.

There was a little confusion as we entered the ballroom, because the table-seating arrangement wasn’t clear. We finally discovered that Stotter was to dine with Adrian Muller and Myles Allfrey at the CrimeFest organizers’ table, while I--thanks to my encounter earlier in the day with Norwegian novelist and featured guest author Karin Fossum--was a guest of Random House. To my surprise, I found I was also sitting in company with critic, author, and general man about town Barry Forshaw and his wife, Judith.

Our meals turned out to be delightful, but the real treat for me was dining with Ms. Fossum. Despite her international acclaim, she was incredibly modest and told us how hard it is to write her tough and emotionally charged novels (including the new suspenser Broken). She explained that when she finishes a new book, she has to lock her office door tightly behind her, as the effort of exploring the darker side of the human condition drains her completely. Latching that office door at night apparently keeps the dark thoughts from crawling out and into her non-writing life.

Before the coffee arrived, I managed a quick chat with Irish novelist and radio film reviewer Declan Burke, who’d come over to CrimeFest from Dublin. I am often in his hometown, but our diaries had never seemed to allow for our meeting before this. I told him how much I enjoying reading his blog, but admitted that I haven’t yet gotten round to reading his last novel, The Big O (which Rap Sheet and January Magazine editor J. Kingston Pierce chose as one of his favorite books of 2007). I did congratulate him on winning an American publishing deal and, more importantly, on entering the challenging field of fatherhood. We mutually agreed that it is a great joy when you have children, but the downside is the vulnerability it creates in your soul.

Our conversation was interrupted as Muller took to the stage to welcome everyone to CrimeFest. He also announced that, due to this event’s success, he and Allfrey had decided to hold the Bristol event annually. For next year’s convention, he said, Meg Gardiner has been confirmed as toastrix, and Simon Brett will be among the guests of honor. Then, without further ado, he beckoned this year’s toastrix, Natasha Cooper (A Poisoned Mind), to the stage. Her first task was to present Lizzie Hayes of Mystery Women (above) with a bouquet of flowers for her tireless support of the crime-fiction genre. Hayes was obviously touched but quietly flustered.

Next, Cooper formally introduced Karin Fossum, who had come with a prepared speech. Even though English is not her first language, Fossum’s articulate and passionate rendering was most moving. The crux of her address was the conviction that even though we are crime-fictionists, we must always consider the reality of crime around us. She detailed an event that still haunts her--and to which she had eluded during an interview earlier in the day. Many years ago, it seems, before she embarked on her writing career, her young daughter had a 5-year-old friend who went missing. As Fossum detailed the anxiety of the time, I couldn’t but help but be reminded of her 2007 novel, Black Seconds, which details a similarly awful event. The child was eventually found--but dead, to the horror of everyone in town. She had been strangled. The perpetrator of this atrocity was never discovered, so people in the town remained nervous and a level of paranoia prevailed. The hotel ballroom was silent as Fossum detailed this incident, her voice still raw with old emotion. She concluded by saying that as crime writers we hold great responsibility, for our fiction mirrors (though often with distortions) what happens in real life, and can influence people in the same way that real crime does. I hate to resort to a cliché, but as she walked off the stage, you could have heard a pin drop.

Jeff Lindsay (Darkly Dreaming Dexter, Dexter by Design) faced the daunting responsibility of following Fossum on stage. I needn’t have feared for his reception, however, as Lindsay (né Jeffry P. Freundlich) put in some time as a stand-up comic before becoming a writer. He managed to lift the mood again with a series of jokes about crime novelists, the best of the bunch being, “How many crime writers does it take to screw in a light bulb? Two, one to put the bulb in and the second to give it a final twist.”

The final speech of that evening was left to Ian Rankin. The gentle Scotsman spoke at length about how happy he is to be working in the crime-fiction genre and how wonderful the writers, editors, reviewers, and fans have been. This enthusiasm, he added, is reflected in the genre’s current popularity. As was the case with Fossum and Lindsay, Rankin was applauded at length for his address.

So, with the speeches done, Cooper announced the prize winners for this evening. Ruth Dudley Edwards was summoned to receive the Last Laugh Award for her novel Murdering Americans. Then Cooper pulled a name out of a hat by way of choosing the winner of a raffle sponsored by Aubible.co.uk. A stunned Adrian Magson (No Tears for the Lost) was called to the stage to receive an MP3 player loaded with a selection of recent audio books. Finally, the 2008 Audible Sounds of Crime Awards (for audio books) were given to an abridged version of Exit Music, by Ian Rankin, and to the unabridged version of The Seventh Sacrament, by David Hewson.

After the dinner and presentations, writers and other conference attendees retired to the bar to toast the winners and runners-up. Stotter and I were proved wise to have gotten some rest earlier in the day, because we ended up (predictably) being the last men standing, along with Michael Marshall (Smith) and the hollow-legged Simon Kernick. It was a most pleasant end to a very interesting evening, and it would be self-indulgent (as well as dull) for me to mention everyone we talked to, because we talked to a lot of people.

One special highlight during that late-night carousal was being asked by Jeff Lindsay to join him and Orion’s Angela McMahon at their table, where we talked for several hours about Dexter, the Showtime series based on Lindsay’s novels. As with many other novelists, Lindsay was amazingly humble about his accomplishments, but also very funny. I asked him at one point how he was coping with the success of Dexter. He smiled and told me that he found it quite surreal. It seems he’d long been living in the shadow of Ernest Hemingway, as he’s married to Papa’s niece, Hilary Hemingway; but Dexter has finally put him in the spotlight. He went on to tell about having been in a taxi recently that was taking him through Manhattan’s Times Square. As he gazed around at the area’s huge billboards, he spotted a gigantic cut-out of his protagonist, Dexter Morgan (Michael C. Hall), holding a kitchen knife. “Man,” he told me, “it was such a huge billboard, that I asked the cab driver to stop for a minute while I took it in. Then I got out of the cab and screamed at the top of my lungs on Times Square, as I still couldn’t believe that a character I created was now adorning a skyscraper in Times Square.”

For the next hour, we listened to Lindsay talk about his early life and his Hemingway connections. I could have listened to him all night--and almost did. I finally left by saying how happy I was that such an intellectual guy had found mainstream success.

After more socializing and a few more beers (plus a few more on top of those), the bar population started to thin out. I glanced at my watch and realized it was close to 4 a.m., at which point Stotter, Marshall, Kernick, and I decided to call it a night. Besides, the conversation between us was by that point bordering on the incoherent. Kernick reckoned that Stotter was speaking a different language, while Mike Marshall appeared as confused as I was when Stotter started to sing.

Day Four, June 8. Due to the lateness of our bedtime, coupled with our not having to worry on this Sunday about any early morning panel moderation, e-mail checks, or work problems, both Stotter and I treated ourselves to a lie-in. We skipped breakfast but did attend the last panel of this year’s CrimeFest, titled “When the Sex, Drugs, and Rock and Roll Are Over: Great Closing Lines.” Appropriate for the conference’s end. It featured the very funny likes of Simon Brett, Natasha Cooper, Ian Rankin and Jeff Lindsay, and was moderated by Laurie R. King (Touchstone).

After thanking all the conference organizers, Stotter and I set off for our last lunch in Bristol. We recounted over the meal our recent exploits, discussed the future of CrimeFest (I hope that more readers will participate next time), and then, with stomachs full, we gathered our luggage. From there, it was off to the Karim-mobile and home.

If you’d like to attend CrimeFest next year, keep May 14-17 open on your calendars. Meanwhile, if you want to see a slide show of images from this year’s convention, click here.

CrimeFest Hits Bristol, Part III

(Editor’s note: This is the third installment of Ali Karim’s four-part report from the recent CrimeFest convention, held in Southwest England. Part I is here, Part II can be found here.)

“Ian Fleming Centenary” panelists Tom Cain, Meg Gardiner, Charles Cumming, Kate Westbrook, Nick Stone, and Mike Stotter.

Day Three, June 7. I was roused by the alarm from my coma-like sleep at 6 a.m. on Saturday morning. Mechanically, I booted up the laptop and checked to see that the world still existed beyond the Bristol Marriott Royal Hotel. After showering, I woke Shots editor Mike Stotter in the next bed, as we had an early panel discussion to attend. While he hit the bathroom and belted out a few songs that carried all too well through the connecting door, I continued working.

Then it was down to breakfast, where we met with Penguin UK authors Nick Stone (King of Swords) and Charles Cumming (Typhoon). They were already wolfing down eggs and coffee, while reading a few notes Stotter had sent them in preparation for this morning’s panel, “Ian Fleming Centenary: How to Write a Thriller.” Stone looked relaxed, but Cumming appeared the worse for wear. Once fortified, the other three went off to prepare for their presentation, while I grabbed another cup of coffee and headed to the hotel’s reception area. There I noticed Ian Rankin (Exit Music) by the lift. I went over to thank him for his recent statement about how politicians have exploited anti-terrorism legislation to control populations through surveillance and enhanced powers. Rankin smiled modestly and said something along the lines of someone’s got to tell it as it is.

As I left him to finish registering for this conference, I bumped into Martyn Waites. I have enjoyed Waites’ work for many years, and was pleased to see the recent debut of his third Joe Donovan thriller, White Riot, set in the northeast of England. The basis of that story is a clash between right-wing extremists and Islamic fundamentalists--a heavy topic, but handled with dramatic flair.

With the 9 a.m. start of Stotter’s presentation nearing, I said my good-byes to Waites and headed off to the King’s Room. The turnout for such an early panel was remarkable. Featured on stage with the moderator: Nick Stone, who penned the introduction to Penguin’s reissue of Fleming’s The Spy Who Loved Me; Charles Cumming, who wrote the intro to Penguin’s The Man with the Golden Gun; the pseudonymous Tom Cain, who is following up last year’s terrific thriller The Accident Man with next month’s The Survivor; Meg Gardiner, author of the Evan Delaney thrillers; and Kate Westbrook (aka Samantha Weinberg), who writes the “Moneypenny Diaries” series. With Sebastian Faulks’ new Bond novel, Devil May Care, having only just been released (and with the latest Bond film, A Quantum of Solace, in the pipeline for the fall), this discussion was very timely. The panelists were divided on the merits of Faulks’ book, but all agreed that he had been wise to place his narrative in the 1960s, for 007 as a character does not translate well into the 21st century. The highlight of this event was seeing Stone’s face take on a boxer’s grimace when one of the audience members, in asking the speakers to name their favorite Bond villains, remarked that Stone looks a bit like Odd-Job from Goldfinger. Before Mr. Stone could leap from the stage and settle this matter at the blunt end of a thrown fist, Stotter thought it prudent to declare that time was up, and the authors had to leave to sign their books elsewhere on the premises.

I stayed behind while the rest departed, for the Kings Room was also where my presentation for the day--the second “Fresh Blood” panel discussion, showcasing debut crime writers--was to take place presently. After the debacle of the previous day, I took no chances this time, but made sure that bottles of water and glasses were laid out for all of the panelists, as well as me. It wasn’t long before my interviewees began arriving. Today’s “new bloods” were Helen Black (Damaged Goods), S.J. (Sharon) Bolton (Sacrifice), Mary Andrea Clarke (The Crimson Cavalier), John Macken (Trial by Blood), Michael Morley (Spider), and Lee Weeks (The Trophy Taker). Sadly, the attendance for this day’s “Fresh Blood” presentation was half the size of Friday’s event; but then, we were up against two star-studded competing panels. Nonetheless, my panel did quite well, with all of the wordsmiths providing insights into how they’d made it into print. Two of the people at my table had never written a novel before, and it was their debut work that was accepted for publication, while the others had been published previously in different genres and under different names. Everyone seemed to enjoy themselves and we shared a few laughs.

After shepherding the authors off to the signing room, I met up with Stotter and congratulated him on a fine job moderating the Ian Fleming panel. We went for a beer and, naturally, bumped into a number of familiar writers. Then, while Stotter remained behind, I returned to the Kings Room to see Ann Cleeves (White Nights) interview Karin Fossum--shown at left--the Norwegian author of Black Seconds (2007).

Fossum, to whose work I was introduced at the inaugural Harrogate Festival back in 2003, proved to be every bit as melancholic in person as she is in her fiction. If you haven’t read her books, they’re deeply moving but tinged with tragedy and heartbreak, and don’t always tie up all the loose ends of a crime and its aftermath. Cleeves worked well with the soft-spoken Fossum, allowing her to explain why her work is sometimes as troubling to her as it is to her readers. One member of the audience finally asked Fossum, “Considering the sadness that pervades your work, have you experienced any personal tragedy yourself?” Cleeves indicated that her guest didn’t really have to respond; however, Fossum, after pausing for a moment to collect her thoughts, said, “If you come to the banquet tonight, I will answer that question.” That note of mystery sent a hush over the attendees and halted the questioning.

Afterward, I approached Fossum in the signing room and told her how much I’ve enjoyed her work, especially her fourth book in the Inspector Sejer series, 2005’s Calling Out for You (released in the States as The Indian Bride). That novel had made me very sad indeed, as I read about the poor woman who’d come all the way from India, only to end up lonely and dead in Norway. Fossum could see that the novel was very personal to me (since I am of Indian heritage), so she tried to cheer me up a little as she signed my books, remarking that “Your name is very similar to mine, Karim and Karin.” It wasn’t much, but it did lighten the mood.

Because the queue at Fossum’s station was growing rather long, I told her that I looked forward to seeing her at that evening’s banquet, and then stepped away. But as I was leaving the room, one of the CrimeFest organizers, Adrian Muller--who was planning the seating for the banquet and had overheard my exchange with Karin Fossum--asked if I’d like to sit with her at the Random House authors’ table for dinner. It seems somebody else had had to drop out. I said “yes” without hesitation.

Following one more panel (the subject this time: crime novels being translated into movies), Mike Stotter and I set off for lunch. We found a pub not far from the hotel where we could dine on the traditional UK delicacy of sausage and mash in onion gravy, all washed down with a pint of cider (we were, after all, close to cider territory in Britain’s southwest). Our stopping for lunch this way meant that we had to miss seeing critic-author Peter Guttridge interview Ian Rankin, but we know Rankin and Guttridge well enough and are more than a little familiar with their work, so decided that the attractions of sausage and mash were stronger.

Back at the Marriott, we ran into Martyn Waites again. He was on his way to participate in a panel presentation about private-eye fiction. There were two other noteworthy discussions slated for that same hour of the afternoon--one about police procedurals, the other on novels in translation. But since Stotter and I couldn’t decide which to attend, and we knew that this night would be a late one, we went off to the hotel’s health club instead. An hour’s worth of swimming, sauna, and steam did the job of burning off our lunch.

And then it was back to our hotel room for a quick nap--another part of our preparation for that evening’s gala banquet. Not until 6 p.m. did we rise, shower, and suit up for the celebration to come. Being the party dudes that we are, we headed to the bar.

(Part IV can be found here.)

CrimeFest Hits Bristol, Part II

(Editor’s note: This is the second installment of British correspondent Ali Karim’s report from the recent CrimeFest convention, held in Southwest England. Part I can be found here.)

Peter Guttridge interviews CrimeFest special guest Jeff Lindsay.

Day Two, June 6. My alarm went off at 6 a.m. and I felt distinctly queasy, as I reckoned I’d had less than two hours sleep. Shots editor Mike Stotter and I had been rather unsuccessful at pacing ourselves at the start of CrimeFest, and in fact had wound up drinking most of the night away with novelist Simon Kernick (Severed). Now, it seemed, I was paying the price.

It was my demanding day job that forced me to switch on my laptop computer at this ridiculous hour of the morning. While the machine was busy booting up, I ran my head under the shower nozzle, the temperature as cold as the dial would permit. After drying my face and hair, I went through my e-mail messages, sorted out a few issues (most of them caused by the soaring cost of fuel), then made several cell phone calls and slammed back some Aspirin. Working with two hours’ sleep was made more challenging by the sound of Stotter’s stentorian snoring from the next bed. When I could take no more, I finally shut the lid on my laptop and climbed into the shower once again, hoping that a bit more cold water torture would stir me back to life. I was set to moderate the first of two “Fresh Blood” panels (showcasing debut crime writers) at the ungodly hour of 9 a.m., and couldn’t afford to be less than sharp.

Dry again and dressed, I headed off to breakfast with Tony Black (Paying for It) and Caro Ramsey (Absolution), which for me comprised a lot of coffee. And I do mean a lot of coffee.

I’d e-mailed the members of both my Friday and Saturday morning “Fresh Blood” panels prior to this conference beginning, sending them notes, pointers, advice, and some questions that I hoped would stimulate their thoughts and insights. I was conscious of the fact that for some of these writers, this would be the first convention panel they’d ever sat on, and perhaps the first public speaking they’d ever done. Rather than start off cold before an audience, I suggested that we all meet 20 minutes before the discussion was to commence, so we could chat a bit and get some rapport going.

Tony Black was on Friday’s panel, as were Elena Forbes (Die with Me, Our Lady of Pain), Kaye C. Hill (Dead Woman’s Shoes), Roger Hudson (Death Comes by Amphora), Ken Isaacson (Silent Counsel), and Roz Southey (Chords and Discords). Forbes had participated on panels before, I knew, including during last year’s Harrogate Crime Writing Festival; and Isaacson has been heavily involved with the Mystery Writers of America, New York Chapter. So I was less concerned about them, than I was for the rest--and my hungover self. Yet we all had notes in front of us, like barriers against embarrassment, so I was feeling adequately relaxed as our audience began filing into the auditorium. It was a decent turnout, despite the early hour.

After introductions all around, the rest of my panelists started explaining what had drawn them to the writing life. Feeling my mouth becoming unusually dry, I grabbed for one of the big bottled waters that had been placed on the table for us to share--only to discover that I had no glass to fill. I scanned the table and saw that everyone had a glass, save for me. This was a horrific predicament, as my mouth was feeling drier than the Gobi desert, thanks to a night of heavy drinking. What made matters more difficult, was that my panelists were doing an excellent job of responding to questions, and I didn’t want to interrupt the flow by leaping off the stage in a desperate search for some sort of drinking vessel.

My sleep-deprived brain tried to work through my options, the best one of which seemed to be that I should somehow procure the still-unused glass in front of Elena Forbes, who was sitting right beside me. But I hadn’t worked out how to do that without embarrassment, before the panel completed its latest round of responses and looked to me for the next question. By this point, my tongue was solidly glued to the roof of my mouth. I was literally tongue-tied--a first for me. Meanwhile, the room had fallen silent. What was I to do? Finally, I just grabbed the liter bottle of water in front of me, flipped the corked stopper, and rammed the nozzle into my mouth. I hadn’t realized, though, that the bloody thing held sparkling water, so although the liquid freed my tongue from my palate, the bubbles flew up my nose, making me gag. Forbes smiled my way, indulgently, and I noticed some of our listeners twittering at such vulgar behavior from the panel’s moderator. “Fuck it!” I said out loud, taking another big swig, wiping a hand across my mouth, and diving back into the discussion as if nothing had happened.

Fortunately, the rest of that presentation went off without incident, and everybody seemed to have a good time. I even noticed some people who’d overslept their early alarms (including Mr. Stotter) sneaking in at the back of the room halfway through. All of the panelists proved to be knowledgeable and insightful about their own work, whether their subject matter was serial killings, courtroom menaces, or historical violence. And, thankfully, nobody said anything more about how I’d sucked down an entire liter bottle of sparking water during our discussion, damn the bubbles.

After shepherding my panelists into the book-signing room, however, I had to find a toilet, as my bladder was near to bursting.

From there, Stotter and I went off to have coffee and a chat with American author Chris Mooney, who had flown in from Boston for CrimeFest. I first met Mooney in 2003, and have followed his career ever since. He writes tough and gripping thrillers such as Deviant Ways, World Without End, and 2004’s Remembering Sarah, which was nominated for both the Edgar and Barry awards. I really loved that last novel, and as a consequence interviewed Mooney. Since then, he’s embarked on a new series featuring female investigator Darby McCormick. The first installment was last year’s The Missing (a video trailer for which can be seen here).

I should warn you, though, Mooney’s work packs a punch. Which is why I had to laugh when he shared with me his favorite fan letter:

Dear Mr. Mooney,

I’m writing to you in regards to your book Deviant Ways. I finished it in two days and I couldn’t sleep. You are seriously one disturbed individual to write things like that. It’s clear you have deep psychological problems, and you should have them treated, provided a therapist would treat you.

The book was sick, sick, sick.

Seriously, what’s wrong with you?

Sincerely,
Susan

P.S. -- When is your next book coming out?

As it turned out, an advance reader’s copy of Mooney’s second Darby McCormick novel, The Secret Friend (due out in Britain in July), was in the CrimeFest goodie bag all participants received. Naturally, I asked the author to sign my copy.

We then accompanied him to his next panel, entitled “The Bleeding Edge: Writing Violence.” This was a most interesting discussion, moderated by Natasha Cooper, and I was amused to see that Mooney was the sole male participant; other speakers were Sheila Quigley, Caro Ramsey, and Lee Weeks. The main thrust of the debate on violence echoed around the question of why women writers tend to explore the more visceral elements of crime fiction. Cooper turned out to be an excellent moderator, keeping her panel discussion moving at a good pace. Quigley was in top form and as funny as ever. And I enjoyed listening to Weeks, especially as she was going to be on my second “Fresh Blood” panel. It seems she once worked the bar scene in the Far East as a hostess. This led her to real-life troubles with the Chinese triads, which resulted in her becoming a heroin addict. All of this informs her new novel, The Trophy Taker.

By now it was approaching lunchtime. I’d thought about attending either of two panels at this hour, but given our difficult, early start on the day, Stotter and I decided to regroup. We went back to our room, gathered our shorts and towels, and headed for the hotel pool. A 40-minute swim, capped off with a steam and a sauna, and a nap beside the water was just the sort of detoxing the doctor ordered.

We were up and dressed again in time to see critic-author Peter Guttridge interview CrimeFest featured guest Jeff Lindsay (Darkly Dreaming Dexter, Dexter by Design). This turned out to be one of the high points of the convention. Lindsey (aka Jeffry P. Freundlich) is something of a renaissance man--writer, playwright, film writer, poet, and stand-up comic. Plus, he’s married to author Hilary Hemingway, the daughter of famous Ernest’s brother Leicester. The exchange between these two novelists was very funny, as well as being informative. And, thanks to my asking what was determined to be a good question, I received a signed copy of the first-season DVD of Dexter, the Showtime series based on Lindsay’s novels.

Another quick change of clothes, and it was off to meet with Selina Walker, the publishing director of Transworld, who’d kindly invited Stotter and me to dinner. She had booked us a table at a restaurant called The Glass Boat, which was exactly that--a restaurant on a craft moored in Bristol’s gentrified dockland. Joining us as Transworld’s guests were fellow critics Laura Wilson and Barry Forshaw, who arrived with his delightful wife, Judith. I was also very happy to meet Walker’s colleague and commissioning editor, Simon Thorogood, again. Thorogood is consummate professional, who has introduced some great new talents to the Transworld list, including Tom Cain, who penned last year’s blistering The Accident Man.

Also seated around our table were a few Transworld authors: Ariana Franklin, who won last year’s Ellis Peters Historical Dagger Award for her second novel, Mistress of the Art of Death, and with whom I managed to talk a bit about her new book, The Death Maze; techno-thriller writer John Macken; the wonderful Christopher Fowler, horror novelist, filmmaker, and author of the surreal Bryant and May mysteries; S.J. (Sharon) Bolton; and the aforementioned Tom Cain.

Bolton laughed rather nervously when I recounted the tale of my late-night drinking and early morning panel. She (along with Macken) was to sit on my second “Fresh Blood” panel the next day, and seemed relieved when I assured her that I’d be heading off to bed at a decent hour this evening. I told her that I’d enjoyed her first novel, Sacrifice, which is a crime-cum-horror story--“almost a 21st-century Stepford Wives having Rosemary’s Baby for The Wicker Man,” as London Times critic Peter Millar wrote earlier this spring.

Beyond the fine company, dinner was terrific. The big surprise was Simon Thorogood’s gift to all of the reviewers: an ARC of Tom Cain’s follow-up to The Accident Man, titled The Survivor (due out next month in the UK). According to the back jacket copy:

The Accident Man is back . . .

Samuel Carver makes bad accidents happen to worse people. He’s very good at his job. But nobody’s perfect. And one of Carver’s targets has got away.

Now the world faces a new age of conflict driven by religious fanaticism. In Russia, the government have admitted they no longer know the whereabouts of one hundred small-scale ‘suitcase nukes’. In Afghanistan and Kosovo, ruthless terrorists plot the downfall of their hated enemies. In Texas, a dying billionaire plots his own personal Armageddon.

And Carver can do nothing to stop them. He was beaten and tortured and left to die, but Samuel Carver is a hard man to kill. When he awakes in a Swiss sanatorium from weeks of torment, he discovers that the woman he loves has vanished. Somehow he must find the strength to track her down.

Carver’s hunt will take him deep into the heart of a conspiracy in which the lives of millions are at stake. He must confront an agonizing choice between his duty and his heart, and face the ultimate sacrifice. As the clock ticks down to doomsday, who will survive the final, explosive conflagration?

In The Survivor the worlds of fact and fiction collide in a thriller that grips from the first page to the last.

So, armed with our new books, we walked back to the Bristol Marriott Royal Hotel, during which time I chatted with Macken and Bolton about the next morning’s presentation. After thanking Walker and Thorogood for their hospitality, Stotter and I went to the bar for a night cap. One beer apiece. And then it was off to bed, despite the persistent importuning of Simon Kernick, our drinking buddy from the evening before, who’d already dragged Michael Marshall (Smith) to his beer-bottle-laden table. With full stomachs, heads awash in thoughts of the crime novels we’d just been discussing, and residual sleep deprivation, we slept like logs.

CrimeFest had, in reality, only just begun.

(Part III can be found here.)

CrimeFest Hits Bristol, Part I

(Editor’s note: This is the opening installment of hard-working British correspondent Ali Karim’s report from last weekend’s CrimeFest convention, held in Southwest England. Three more posts are expected to follow over the next few days.)

The Bristol Marriott Royal Hotel, this year’s CrimeFest venue.

Bristol, England, holds a special place in my heart, because it was the birthplace of a man I consider to be the grandfather of modern-day thrillers: Geoffrey Household. Best remembered for writing the definitive chase novel, 1939’s Rogue Male, Household has often been cited by crime writers as a source of inspiration. David Morrell (Scavenger) once explained to me the importance of Household’s work to his own authorial career:

“I believe that if you’re going to write a certain type of fiction--mysteries or thrillers or science fiction or horror--you should be an expert in the history of your specialty. Philip Klass was the person who told me about Geoffrey Household. He saw some similarities between my work and Household’s. So I read everything Household wrote. Rogue Male, Watcher in the Shadows, The Courtesy of Death, Dance of the Dwarfs. Wow. When I found Household, I said, ‘You mean I’m allowed to write like that?’”

Coincidentally, Morrell was one of the special guests at Left Coast Crime 2006, which was also held in Bristol under the direction of Adrian Muller and Myles Allfrey, with support from Liz Hatherall and this year’s Bouchercon fan guest of honor, Thalia Proctor. I really enjoyed that event, as it seems did everyone else who attended. I guess that’s why Muller and Allfrey decided to launch CrimeFest (originally intended to be a biennial event, but now slated to become an annual conference). And as the weekend went on, I became ever more glad they had.

Organizing an event of this magnitude takes a lot of nerve, especially given the to-be-expected lot of unexpected problems--one of which was a calendar issue regarding guest of honor Lee Child, whose touring schedule for Nothing to Lose ultimately precluded his participation in CrimeFest. Fortunately, Child had forewarned Muller and Allfrey in time that they could find a substitute: Jeff Lindsay (aka Jeffry P. Freundlich), author of Darkly Dreaming Dexter (2004) and its sequels, who flew over from the States to participate. This development was rather exciting to me, as I had interviewed Lindsay via phone back in 2004. I would finally have the chance to meet him in person and maybe chat about his books, as well as the cable-TV series they’ve spawned.

Also slated as a featured guest was Norwegian novelist Karin Fossum (Black Seconds, Broken), who I first met--in company with blogger-author Sarah Weinman--at the inaugural Harrogate Crime Writing Festival in 2003. I’ve been a follower of Fossum’s melancholic tales of crime ever since. And joining Fossum and Lindsay under the spotlight was star Scottish wordsmith Ian Rankin (Exit Music), who--like David Morrell--was a Left Coast Crime participant in 2006. (I vividly recall drinking the night away with him in a bar, talking about rock music and our mutual appreciation of Hawkwind.) Just to prove how tight and tangled is the British crime-fiction scene, last year’s Harrogate programming chair, Natasha Cooper, had been recruited for CrimeFest as “toastrix.”

In preparing for this convention, I checked the roster of attendees. It read like a who’s who of crime fiction, not just in terms of authors but also from the standpoint of reviewers and other critical readers. And I was surprised to see that many Americans and Europeans from the continent were registered. Of course, I wouldn’t have any more time to get acquainted with all of the prime participants, than I would have an opportunity to attend the complete selection of panels and other events on offer. Conferences of this sort always force one to prioritize. I could only drink with so many old acquaintances and endure so much sleep deprivation. Complicating everything, I was scheduled to battle author Charles Cumming (Typhoon) across the chessboard one more time.

* * *

Day One, June 5. I arrived midday Thursday in the blazing sun, depositing my car in the basement car park of the Bristol Marriott Royal Hotel and then trundling up in the lift. Thankfully, a porter came to assist me with my luggage. If he was surprised by the weight of my baggage, he gave no indication. The problem is that I collect books, and I like to have my first-edition advanced reader copies signed by their authors; hence, I rarely travel light to these events.

Checking in at the same time was my editor at Shots, Mike Stotter, with whom I would be rooming for the next few days (to save expenses, and despite the issue of my snoring--and Stotter’s tendency to belt out Mary Poppins songs in his sleep). He’d come over from London on the train and packed less ponderously than I had. After depositing all the bags upstairs in our room, we went down again to register. There in the queue we found Charles Cumming, who was grinning damned near ear-to-ear and waving his chess board in my direction as if it were a weapon. Beaming back, I whispered between gritted teeth, “Wait until I’ve had a drink, then we’ll see who’s boss of the board.” Cummings looked nonplussed, which was rather worrisome. Fortunately, Stotter’s stomach took that moment to begin rumbling, so we trotted off for some lunch.

Over a leisurely Italian meal washed down with cold beer, we discussed the persistent guilt book reviewers may feel while attending events such as CrimeFest. You know you’re destined to bump into writers whose work you admire, but whose latest book you ... well, just haven’t had time to read. That happens more and more these days. The public at large might not comprehend the scale of present crime-fiction publishing, or the pressures it places on writers to turn out new novels every year. This genre is one of the few book-selling sectors that is booming, probably because readers are attracted to its explorations of the darker aspects of human nature. Stotter and I agreed that such delvings might in fact represent the oldest form of fictional storytelling. Even sections of the Bible, the Koran, and the Torah can be seen as crime stories of a sort, though I’ll leave it to others to debate how much of those works are factual, fictional, or a combination of the two.

Returning to our hotel, we passed Cumming again, who was sitting in the bar reading a book on chess, and went up to the first floor, where Stotter was supposed to moderate a panel. Along the way, we bumped into Simon Kernick, who’d just arrived and was clutching a beer. Goaded by our inquiries, he explained that after penning Relentless (2006), Severed (2007), and the forthcoming Deadline, he thinks it would be hard for him to return to writing the sort of police procedurals that got him started in this business. He said he prefers the pacing of thrillers. And with that pronouncement, he tipped back the last of his beer, tossed the bottle into a nearby bin, and wandered off to grab another, belching heavily as he walked.

The discussion Stotter was moderating focused on how Britain’s National Archives have become a useful tool for crime writers. Panelists were Peter Guttridge, Victoria Blake, and Alanna Knight, all of whom have been involved in writing the non-fiction Crime Archives Series. Edward Marston was also scheduled to attend, but personal matters finally prevented him from making CrimeFest this year. Stotter kept the panel lively as each writer described the surreal experience of working in the dusty cellars that make up the National Archives, researching the criminal cases to which they’d been assigned, be it Ruth Ellis, the Burke and Hare murders, or the Great Train Robbery. It seems the National Archives chose crime writers to detail these historical cases, hoping the results would be fast paced as well as factual. One problem all of the panelists cited was how to condense the case notes and capture the drama of the crimes within books of less than 130 pages long. Guttridge, who was asked to write about the Great Train Robbery, recounted his experience of doing research in the National Archives, at the same time as others were there tracing their family trees. It seems the first pile of information he collected collapsed at his table, spilling out several rather graphic mortuary photographs. He quickly snapped the file shut, lest the others around him thought him some sort of weirdo. As is typically the case with critic and author Guttridge, this tale won him a laugh.

Among the most welcome innovations at CrimeFest: the panel discussion audience members who asked the most intriguing questions received free books. In the case of Stotter’s panel, the winner was awarded a full set of the National Archives Crime Series. A great prize, indeed.

With that panel event completed, Stotter and I headed off to the bar, where we spent time talking--and then talking some more--with attending writers. We also bumped into a few of the Harrogate festival organizers, who were very excited to tell us more about what Kernick, the current chair of that festival, has planned for this year’s convention in mid-July.

With evening approaching, a number of us headed off to participate in the CrimeFest Quiz, which was being held in a pub opposite the Marriott. Authors Guttridge and Laura Wilson were to serve as quiz masters. Competing team sizes were limited to four people. Stotter and I decided to join forces with Rik Shepherd and his partner, Carol, from the rec.arts.mystery newsgroup. We’ve know Shepherd and Carol for many years, and it was good to spend more time with them.

One of the problems with events such as CrimeFest, ThrillerFest, Left Coast Crime, Bouchercon, Mayhem in the Midlands, Crimescene, Magna Cum Murder, Love Is Murder, and other conventions is that you never get enough time to connect with everyone. So joining in a competition of this sort is an excellent excuse to get together. The only thing better, of course, is to win--which we did in style! Shepherd, especially, was terrific on historical matters, while we all seemed adept as answering questions about Patricia Highsmith. (Not to thump my drum too loudly, but this is the second team with which I’ve triumphed over one of these quizzes. The previous time was at Harrogate last summer.) Being the generous sort, we congratulated the second-place finishers, who included Lefty Award-winner Donna Moore, Steve Mosby, and Ken Isaacson. If memory serves me correctly, third-place honors went to Karen Meek and Maxine Clarke’s EuroCrime team. And the prize for our winning? Books of course!

After a bit of celebrating with everyone, and lots of babbling about the subject we all had in common--crime and thriller fiction--Stotter and I headed back to the Marriott, where we ordered more drinks at the bar. We chatted up some of the folks who had arrived earlier, and as we did so, Charles Cumming suddenly appeared with his chess set. It seemed the time had come for a game.

As we arranged the board, I ordered some more beer and then settled in to play black. It was a bit difficult to concentrate, as we attracted more than a bit of attention from the other conventioneers. And the drinks I’d been enjoying were taking their toll on me. As he’d done the last time we faced off like this, Cumming again commented on the aggressive nature of my game. But when I moved my queen to attack I made a fatal mistake. I was looking for an exchange situation with Cumming’s queen, but due to the beer fuzzing my head, I miscalculated and Cumming took my queen. I realized I couldn’t reciprocate. Judging my chances of survival low, I reluctantly resigned, telling Cumming that the next time we met over the board, I wouldn’t be so inebriated. He just laughed, pleased to have won.

Stotter and I carried on drinking with Simon Kernick until close to 4 a.m.--not exactly a good way to pace ourselves at the start of the convention. And then we decided to go to bed. As difficult as it had been to win the CrimeFest quiz, the task of locating our room in the early hours of the morning was no less an interesting challenge.

(Part II can be found here.)