And now, the end is near... by Cathy Ace

So, 2020 is finally drawing to a close, but it seems this year still has more bitter pills for us to swallow. The death of John le Carré has encouraged me to add this “Foreword” to the piece I had prepared for today, so – if you’ll forgive me – I’d like to open by tipping my hat to a master of our craft. 

Whilst his stories centered (in the main) upon the world of professional spies, le Carré's writing about human relationships (both personal and professional), politics (from the intimate to the global in scale), the David vs Goliath scenarios he so often utilized - and his ability to create characters, mood, and setting so seamlessly -  made a huge impact upon me from the time I first read The Spy Who Came In From The Cold (which I think I read in the mid-1970s) right through to my reading of Agent Running In The Field, which I read earlier this year. I find it hard to express how very much I was in awe of his skills, and the extent to which his works gave me delight. If ever I wanted to slow down and truly relax when reading a book, I’d choose one of his; he gave me the priceless gift of allowing me to take time to think as I read, and to experience the world through which his tales moved in a very real way. As I write this, I can still conjure characters and settings, as well as scenes, of his I haven’t read for decades, and that’s saying something. Thank you. You, and your talent, will be missed. Many others have been able to write with more knowledge and eloquence than I possess about his enormous influence upon a certain sub-genre of crime writing, but – for me – I shall just remember him as a great writer.

Because I read le Carré I also discovered Len Deighton’s books and, more recently, those by Mick Herron – all of which have also allowed me countless hours of pleasure. I should also mention here - because I'm now thinking "spy" - the Evan Tanner books by Lawrence Block - which are an absolute delight...bizarre, whimsical, yet truly set in this sub-genre. 

 

 

That being said, I’d also like to pick up on comments made by some of my fellow-bloggers here at 7 Criminal Minds: as a group of writers our output covers a wide-range of sub-genres – check out our offerings and you’re likely to find the type of book that would appeal to anyone for whom you need a gift.

Beyond our coterie I would suggest the following: 

The Logan McRae books by Stuart MacBride: dark, not for the faint-hearted! Topics/themes include child abduction, torture and murder, cannibalism, and sex crimes; the violence is graphic, and heartrending. But…if you have a dark heart (it seems I do!) you’ll also find these books to be laugh-out-loud funny. The vividly-drawn characterizations are second to none, and the humor arises from situations that are…well, without context it’s pointless me trying to describe how these police “procedurals” work, but they do – sublimely well, for me.

The Elvis Cole/Joe Pike books by Robert Crais: stylish, full of memorable and enjoyable characters, twisty tales with a real LA flavor. Not too dark, but with call-backs to classic noir and much hat-tipping to Chandler and Hammett.

The Ruth Galloway books by Elly Griffiths: excellent traditional mysteries featuring a strong but flawed female protagonist, and a supporting cast of (mainly) loveable returning characters. I don’t know why Elly’s books aren’t better known than they are in North America, but maybe her recent win of an Edgar (for a standalone, The Stranger Diaries) will change that.

 

Books by Martina Cole: most of Martina Cole’s books are standalones, though there are a few which return to characters over the years (the Maura Ryan trilogy and the DI Kate Burrows quartet). For anyone who enjoys London crime family/London gangster underworld tales (think The Long Good Friday) these books are for them! She’s the Queen of Gangland writing for a reason – she’s bloody good at it; you don’t get to sell a gazillion books by accident. Again, not as widely read in North America as in the UK (strong language, graphic violence warning) but she should be!

 

The Flavia de Luce books by Alan Bradley: the antithesis of Martina Cole’s books, this series featuring a young girl living out her life (full of science and murder!) in a crumbling once-grand home in mid-twentieth century England are a delight for ANY age of reader (tweens upwards). Traditional mysteries rather than cozies, they’re one of my guilty pleasures!

 

The Peter Diamond books by Peter Lovesey: from Wobble To Death (pub. 1970, featuring Victorian detective Sergeant Cribb) to The Finisher (pub. 2020, featuring Supt. Diamond) I have enjoyed every book I have read written by Peter Lovesey. You can't go wrong with any of his works, but I recommend diving into the wonderful Peter Diamond books, set in Bath. 

 

As we face the end of what has – for many – been a desperate fight to stay safe and sane, seemingly unending months of uncertainty and (sadly, for many) loss and heartbreak, I hope you and those you care about are able to find peace and enjoyment between the covers of a book. Escape, enjoy, discover, challenge yourself, solve the crime, bring the culprits to justice…if you can.

Here’s to all of us working out how we’re able to live by The Golden Rule – to treat others as we would wish to be treated – and I wish you a healthy, peaceful end to this year, and 2021.

Cathy

http://www.cathyace.com/

Short story, long story by Cathy Ace

Q: Tell us about the first story/stories you ever wrote. First book, published or no.

Okey dokey, here comes a long story about a short story...

After all the usual school essays, and poems for our Eisteddfods etc., the first short story with a criminal bent I ever wrote was called “Dear George”. It was written in a car park in 1987, in about an hour and a half.

Why?

Well, I’d been waiting to collect my sister at the airport, and her flight was delayed. I bought a magazine to read to fill the time (I’d forgotten to carry a book – what an admission!) and the one I chose was a magazine called “Company”. The reason I chose that one was because there was a bold encouragement to do so on the cover: “Murder, and be published!” it shouted at me, so I read the article about a short story competition, and thought, I might enter that.

Fast forward a few months: I rediscovered the magazine, only to realize that the deadline for the competition was a few days away. I’d been cogitating about what I would write (you know, when I got around to writing it!) and was a bit annoyed I hadn’t pulled my finger out…so, the next day, in the middle of my work day as a sales person for a label-printing company, I left the HQ office of my client – Marks & Spencer on Baker Street (yes, that Baker Street) in London – and sat in my car in the multi-storey car park adjacent to Baker Street and wrote the story (by hand, of course) on a notepad. A friend of mine at the office typed it up for me that afternoon, I read it through once and made a few copy changes by hand, and delivered the “manuscript” to the office of the magazine the next day when I was back in central London again.

Fast forward another few months, and I was somewhat taken aback when I received a letter to say the story would, indeed, be published in an anthology called “Murder & Company” alongside stories by “real” authors. I was pleased, excited a little, but – to be honest – not overly so: I’d just remortgaged my flat to be able to set up my own business, and it was tough going, so it was a bit of a frisson rather than a “this could change my life” moment…I had to make my new business work well enough to pay my bills, and the salaries of my freshly-minted employees. The book launch in 1988 was quite an experience, held, as it was, in a fabulous then-new book shop on the Charing Cross Road called Murder One, owned by the legendary Maxim Jakubowski (with whom I am now Friends on FB – ain’t life wonderful!?).

The story was then (in 1990) included in another anthology called “Thrillers”, which was created to become a book for the England & Wales GCSE English Language syllabus (the exam taken at 16 years of age) which blew me away! The list of authors whose work was also included reads like a Who’s Who of crime writing…I’d heard of, and had read, everyone except me! (Side bar: when I first met the wonderful Peter Lovesey in 2017 he was kind enough to sign my copy of this anthology…to which he’d written the introduction, and in which he had two stories…and Felix Frances signed his father’s short story in it for me too!)

By the time I was approached by Martin Jarvis and Rosalind Ayres in 2007 asking if they could produce the story for BBC Radio 4, I had sold my business, migrated to Canada, and had written nine marketing textbooks. The recording of the fabulous Alex Kingston (she of ER and Doctor Who fame) reading “Dear George” isn’t currently available to listen to online but I know that sitting in Canada listening to the broadcast, as Mum and Dad, and my sister Sue, did the same in Wales, was one of my proudest moments. My story, on the BBC! WOW! It was July 9^th 2007.

My father died soon after that broadcast, and I decided that, if I was going to write fiction, I’d better get on with it. So I wrote eleven more short/long stories to accompany “Dear George” and self-published “MURDER: Month by Month”. “Dear George” appeared as the story for January, and it filled that same role in my 2017 publication “Murder Keeps No Calendar”.

For one short story it’s worked hard...and it DID change my life, after all! It features DI Evan Glover, who also appeared in another short story in those aforementioned collections, as well as a novella in “Murder Knows No Season” and in my standalone novel “The Wrong Boy”. He was my very first police character…and he gained not only the #1 amazon bestseller spot with “The Wrong Boy” but that book’s also now been optioned to become a TV mini-series, to be produced and broadcast in Welsh and English by the same UK indie production company that makes the wonderful Agatha Raisin series, Free@LastTV.

Little did I know that all these murders would result from me picking up a magazine to "kill a few hours" at an airport…!

I sent the print copies of those two, original, collections of short stories and novellas to a publisher on Vancouver Island, and they asked me to write what turned out to be the first Cait Morgan Mystery. There are now nine books in that series, which has also been optioned for a series of TV movies by Free@Last TV. 

You can read about all my books – including the collection which includes “Dear George” - at my website, here: http://www.cathyace.com/

If you’d like to read “Dear George” (FREE!!!!) you can do that by using the “Look Inside” feature at amazon, here: Link to MURDER KEEPS NO CALENDAR