Tuesday 31 May 2022

The face-to-face season is fully underway


The ‘making an appearance’ season is now in full swing. These last few days alone, I’ve been a guest at two such events. Most recently, I had the pleasure of doing a one-to-one with close friend and superb author, MW Craven, this one at Waterstones in Kendal, as seen above. You’ll note that even my dogs, Buck and Buddy, got in on the act. I also got onto a panel at ChillerCon in Scarborough. Though ChillerCon was a particularly big event for me because, in addition to that, I managed to get my very own Book Aid for Ukraine thing going.

A bit more about these various items further down, because another big event is now due in the near future. CRIME AT THE OLD COURTS, in my home town of Wigan. More about that one shortly too.

On top of all this, and seeing that MW (Mike) Craven appears several times in today’s blog, it’s clearly a timely occasion for me to review his brand new novel, THE BOTANIST, which is just out in hardback. You’ll find that review, as usual, in the Thrillers, Chillers section at the bottom end of today’s column.


Before any of that, though …

Appearances count

It was very gratifying to hook up with old mucker and top quality crime author, Mike Craven, at Waterstones in Kendal the other night, a venue where, thanks to local lad (and very fine author in his own right) Simon Kurt Unsworth, we’ve both been guests several times now, and where I’d certainly be happy to appear again.

This was a particularly good event, as we were faced by a fun and knowledgeable crowd of readers, who were genuinely interested in our books, were warmly responsive to our jokes and banter, and who asked lots of intelligent questions.

I obviously can’t speak for every author, but I can certify that I personally love meet-the-readers nights like this, and will always try to make the effort to attend if I’m invited.

It’s flattering and very gratifying to encounter people who’ve enjoyed your books enough to want to talk to you about them. Authors tend to pursue a solitary profession. In work terms, there are long periods when we have contact with no one. You can be hammering the keyboard up there in your office, or back-bedroom, or attic, or wherever it is you work, and then you suddenly stop and wonder “it’s been so long since I’ve heard from someone … am I actually part of anything here? Is there anyone out there who knows I exist?”

Even when your manuscript has been accepted for publication, it can be months before you hear something. Some of the Kendal folk who attended the other night were surprised to learn that both Mike and I struggled to recall details from our two most recent books (THE BOTANIST in Mike’s case, and NEVER SEEN AGAIN in mine), because they’d left our desks for the last time quite a considerable time ago and we haven’t really had any involvement with them since.

But it’s nice to meet people who appreciate your work. So nice that I’ll say it again: speaking for myself, I’ll always endeavour to participate in events like these if I’m fortunate enough to continue to be invited.

Coming soon

This brings me to the next big event due in my diary for 2022: CRIME AT THE OLD COURTS, Wigan, on June 11 (i.e. a week Saturday).

Now, Wigan is known by most people as something of a post-industrial blot on the hinterland between Manchester and Lancashire. In the eyes of many, it’s mainly famous for George Orwell, Rugby League and Northern Soul. But while all those items have done their bit to put Wigan on the cultural map (along with many others: tomato sausages, pies, clog-fighting), there are other things going on here too.

In recent times, the Old Courts, the venerable old Victorian court building in the heart of town, from whence felons of every sort were once despatched either to the gallows or the prison ships, has become an arts and entertainment centre, and crime fiction events (somewhat appropriately, I suppose) are now a staple of its annual itinerary.

Several times now, I’ve had the honour of being invited to participate in Noir at the Wigan Bar in the Old Courts, which usually involves several crime writers reading their latest piece of work in public, answering questions for local radio, mingling with their readers and sampling a few beers. However, on June 11 this year, a slightly bigger event, CRIME AT THE OLD COURTS, is scheduled to take place, and yet again I’m delighted to announce that I’ll be getting involved.

Celebrating the publication of THE BOTANIST, not to mention British crime and thriller writing in general, and hosted by Caz and Sam from the UK CRIME BOOK CLUB on Facebook, the programme will mainly comprise an afternoon of conversation with some of the bestselling authors in the crime genre, with a line-up that includes two 2022 CWA Dagger nominees, past CWA Dagger winners, Top 10 ‘The Best Crime & Thriller Authors of All Time’ (WH Smith Customer Poll), UK Crime Book Club book of the year winners, and a two-times British Fantasy Award winner.

As well as myself, the rollcall of writers who’ll be attending will include MW Craven, Caroline England, RC Ridgestock, Malcolm Hollingdrake and Patricia Dixon, all of us available to sign books (which can be bought there on the day).

For tickets, follow this LINK. But there’s also a chance to win yourself a freebie.

Coming very soon via Wigan Libraries, pick up a book by any of the authors named above for a chance to find this ‘dagger in the library’ FREE entry.  

We’re all very excited and anticipating a grand event in an atmospheric surrounding. 

Of course, exactly the same thing was hoped for ChillerCon in Scarborough last weekend, and it fulfilled that expectation admirably.

Beside the seaside

ChillerCon was a slightly different beast from those other festivals I’ve so far mentioned in that it focussed primarily on horror fiction, rather than crime or thrillers (though all these disciplines, in my view, are horns on the same demonic goat). And this time in particular, certainly where I was concerned, there was a strong crime and thriller element. I was a guest on the Crime and Horror panel for example, which was great fun, especially as it was moderated by author, journalist and broadcaster, Barry Forshaw, a recognised expert on both genres. In addition to that, when ChillerCon was originally due to be held last March, it seemed like a good opportunity to launch my latest crime novel, NEVER SEEN AGAIN, as it was due for publication that same week.

You may wonder why a horror group would be interested in a crime novel, but through my helming of the TERROR TALES series, my own horror stories, my horror movie, THE DEVIL’S ROCK and my horror novel, STRONGHOLD, I like to think that I’ve got lots of friends and contacts over on that darkest side of all (plus, let’s be honest … it’s not like crime fiction and horror fiction don’t overlap regularly; it’s only the marketing people who try to sell them as completely different animals).

Anyway, the latter thing didn’t happen. You may remember that, back in March, the pandemic briefly threatened to rear its ugly head again, and so ChillerCon was delayed until last weekend, though thankfully, on this occasion it went ahead and was a genuinely splendid event. 

There were all kinds of illustrious horror people there, including Robert Lloyd Parry, whose one-man MR James shows really are something to behold (he’s pictured here alongside me). To add to the mix, there were lots of books launched, lots of readings, and a massive amount of genial bar-side chat.

It was one of the best events of its kind that I’ve attended, but it worked out especially well for me because, instead of launching NEVER SEEN AGAIN, which obviously couldn’t happen two months after it hit the shops, I opted to hold a charity event instead, signing and giving away as many copies of the book as I could for a £5 donation each, all proceeds to humanitarian aid for the Ukraine.

This went better than either I or my lovely wife, Cath (pictured here), who is so continually supportive, could have anticipated. Dozens of people attended, there was an electric atmosphere, and of the 40-odd books I had available, only four were left afterwards. We raised the total sum of £237.50, which even as we speak, is winging its way towards the Disasters Emergency Committee’s Ukraine Humanitarian Appeal.

I owe huge gratitude to everyone who came along, either to acquire a book or simply to offer moral support. It made an already really good weekend even better.

The future

Well, that’s it in terms of spring and early summer events, though some folk will be aware that once we get into high summer, mid-July to be specific, there is the Theakston’s Crime Writing Festival at Harrogate, one of the biggest on the circuit and an occasion that no aspiring crime or thriller author can ever afford to miss, and much later in 2022, November in fact, SFX XIII, which is primarily a sci-fi and fantasy convention. I’ll be at that one too, on that occasion probably wearing my DR WHO and TERROR TALES hats (not literally, of course), though I have to say that during the last one of these sci-fi weekenders I guested at, I signed many more of my crime novels than on lots of other occasions all rolled together, so you can never assume that everyone who attends these massive occasions will be hidebound by the subject-matter of the day.


THRILLERS, CHILLERS, SHOCKERS AND KILLERS …

An ongoing series of reviews of dark fiction (crime, thriller, horror and sci-fi) – both old and new – that I have recently read and enjoyed. I’ll endeavour to keep the SPOILERS to a minimum; there will certainly be no given-away denouements or exposed twists-in-the-tail, but by the definition of the word ‘review’, I’m going to be talking about these books in more than just thumbnail detail, extolling the aspects that I particularly enjoyed (I’ll outline the plot first, and follow it with my opinions) … so I guess if you’d rather not know anything at all about these pieces of work in advance of reading them yourself, then these particular posts will not be your thing.

THE BOTANIST
by MW Craven (2022)

Outline
Kane Hunt, a misogynistic TV pundit who specialises in baiting feminists, is involved in a live television debate when he mysteriously collapses and dies. Shortly before this occured, Hunt revealed that he had received several death threats, including a letter containing a pressed flower and an odd but sinister poem.

Meanwhile, Detective Sergeant Washington Poe and civilian back-up, Tilly Bradshaw, key operatives in the National Crime Agency’s specialist Serial Crime Analysis Section, are on a stakeout to try and capture a Watford rapist known as Spring Heeled Jack for his ability to free-run across rooftops. Halfway through the case, Poe is distracted when he learns that Professor Estelle Doyle, the brilliant but adversarial forensics expert who has helped him during previous investigations, and one of his few close personal friends, has been arrested on suspicion of murdering her wealthy father in his palatial residence in Northumbria.

Poe immediately heads up there to get the facts, though the SIO responsible for Doyle’s arrest, Detective Chief Inspector Tai-young Lee, proves hostile, deeply resenting his questioning of her expertise. However, the problem for Doyle (and Poe) is that the evidence against her is overwhelming. Old man Doyle was shot dead in an armchair at his home, and his daughter, who has never denied being present, had gunfire residue on her hands. On top of that, it was snowing at the time, only one set of footprints were found leading to the house and these belonged to Doyle. It looks like an open-and-shut case, though Poe still refuses to believe that his friend is a murderer.

For her part, Doyle claims that she was invited to the house for lunch by her father, the twosome attempting to rebuild relations after years of estrangement, and found him in the armchair, already dead. Unfortunately, the fact that she and her father have long been at daggers-drawn provides motive in the eyes of her accusers.

While all this is going on, Tilly Bradshaw works out that the flower sent to Kane Hunt is part of a deliberate attempt to clue the police in about the rare poison used to kill him. Clearly, the murderer likes to play games and set his opponents riddles. None of this bodes well, and there is real concern when another flower, and another oblique poem, are sent to notoriously corrupt MP, Harrison Cummings.

Like Hunt, these ‘gifts’ are clearly intended to warn Cummings beforehand that he’s been marked for death, which seems bizarre as it obviously gives the cops an advantage. The MP is thus put under full-time protection and assumed from this point on to be safe.

The assumption proves incorrect.

Cummings is also killed by a lethal substance, the clue to the identity of which, only belatedly, become evident in the flower and the poem he was sent.

The NCAS now know they have a serial poisoner on their hands, whose ability to handle and administer extremely unusual and deadly materials, and who can get to his intended victims wherever they may be sheltering – ‘toxins for toxic people’, as it becomes apparent – are almost uncanny.

It would be a challenge for any police unit to tackle such a case, but Poe must continually divide his time between this enquiry and his attempts to work out who has framed Estelle Doyle, perhaps dedicating more time to the latter than he should, because he finds it utterly baffling and increasingly feels that Doyle is heading for a lifetime in prison.

In terms of the poisoner, the team is briefly diverted by a potential suspect who actually works for the Parliamentary Protection Corps, though this proves to be a red herring because then the real killer – ‘the Botanist’, as he is now known – makes actual contact with them.

He insists that he only kills narcissists whose presence in society is damaging it, and demands that a once-famous but now disgraced and burnt-out journalist, Henning Stahl, be brought out of retirement to tell his story. He also promises that he will keep on killing.

Stahl, a long term alcoholic, is a sad mess and has no clue why the Botanist has chosen him to be the conduit, but he is prepared to attempt to get himself together as he can sense that this may be his way back to the limelight.

Meanwhile, a prominent internet influencer, Karen Royal-Cross, appears online, taking a break from her usual tirades against illegal immigrants, and those ‘libtards’ who support them, to laugh about the fact that she’s just received a pressed flower through the post and a slightly crazy poem.

Clearly, the Botanist intends to continue with his work, publicly singling out those he considers unworthy of life, and then successfully eliminating them wherever they are hiding, by means that are almost undetectable …

Review
There is simply no way to dislike the Washington Poe series.

MW (Mike) Craven has done fantastically well with these books for all sorts of very good reasons. I’ll try to assess these one by one as we talk about The Botanist, because despite the high bar that Craven set for himself in previous volumes, The Puppet Master, Black Summer, The Curator and Dead Ground, this one, the fifth in the series to date, is the best, and exemplifies everything the author is doing right with these books.

First of all, we have the characters.

Washington Poe himself (the name alone is instantly memorable) is everyone’s idea of what a good copper should be. He has a soul and a conscience, he strives always to do the right thing, but at the same time he is pleasingly unforgiving when it comes to violent criminals. An ex-soldier, Poe is in many ways ‘old school’, even though he works for the super politically correct National Crime Agency. He knows there is all kinds of tech at his disposal, but he prefers to work his cases with boot-leather. He can be blunt, gruff and to the point, is good with his fists (and sometimes quick) but he’s not a violent cop. He’s affable with the general public and a warm presence among friends and neighbours (it’s also the case that his dog, Edgar, adores him, always a giveaway that this is one of the good guys). He lives frugally in a reclaimed croft high on Shap Fell, making him one of the lowest-maintenance heroes I’ve thus far encountered in fiction.

However, his most attractive traits are his failings. Poe has long been unlucky in love (up until now, maybe), in personal terms leads a lonely existence, and deep down is plagued by self-doubt. He’s not always au fait with the most modern police techniques and is often frustrated by them, but he’s not a maverick, he’s a team-player, who trusts and relies on his colleagues. Like other real people, he also makes mistakes, though more often than not, when this does happen, he still tends to work his way through to a result.

But Washington Poe is only one half of this ultra-effective crime-fighting team. The other is Tilly Bradshaw, who is the polar opposite of her rugged male colleague. Her official role is as intelligence analyst and online researcher, and yet she’s inordinately naïve, verging on being autistic. She possesses zero people skills, a sense of humour that no one else understands, and is often frightened and bewildered by the dreadful extremes of evil that she encounters in her job. But all this is the key to her relationship with Poe, who, over the course of several tense enquiries, has morphed into the parent/sibling and, most important of all, friend, she never previously had. But while Poe is mostly instinct, Bradshaw is primarily brain. She has an incredible facility to retain information across a range of disciplines, while her grasp of logic is astonishing, and her ability to calculate quickly and accurately, mesmerising; she is undaunted by the seemingly most complex problems.

This is what makes the two-handed team so formidable, but also such a delight. These are buddy-buddy cop stories of a very different ilk, not so much relying on wisecracks and banter, but on MW Craven’s ability to find genuine but often gentle humour not just in Bradshaw’s innocence, but in the often awkward and even embarrassing questions that it poses for Poe.

The secondary characters in The Botanist are equally interesting. DI Stephanie Flynn is Poe’s line-manager, an archetypal no-nonsense gaffer who will back her team and bollock them in equal measure. She’s by-the-book but not rigidly so, especially where Poe is concerned, because she’s been around long enough to know that law enforcement can’t always be like that. Then we have Estelle Doyle, the cool, clipped and beautiful forensics specialist, whom the team rely on continually, and who, once, she’s been accused of murder, Poe seems to grow an extra arm and leg in his efforts to rescue. Clearly, he’s long carried a candle for her, even though superficially they are chalk and cheese, and maybe on occasion she’s hinted at returning the chemistry … though that’s all I’m going to say about that (yes, there are some crucial developments in this relationship).

This brings us to the book’s next big asset … its villain.

It’s always difficult to talk about villains when reviewing a thriller, for the simple reason that you don’t want to give anything away. I thus can’t reveal too much here, but I will say that while Mike Craven has always employed majestically villainous villains, the Washington Poe novels are also reminiscent of the real world. You won’t find the Joker in these stories, or Auric Goldfinger. Poe deals with criminals whose prototypes genuinely exist (mostly serving life sentences in supermax prisons around the world). Realism is everything. Though that doesn’t stop them plumbing the depths of wickedness, and in The Botanist, even given those strictures, he takes us as close to super villainy as it’s possible to imagine.

It’s all the more effective, because when the killer here is finally unmasked, and because Craven has yet again indulged in his meticulous research, we find ourselves confronted by an individual whose insanity is as compelling as it is terrifying, and yet who is entirely believable. With the assistance of real life scientist, Brian Price, who is credited at the end of the book, Craven has also given us a poisoner of such ingenuity that no one appears to be safe from him, anywhere, at anytime – at one point, Poe declares that it’s almost like black magic – and yet it’s not a fantasy, it’s all scientifically possible. At the same time, the titular Botanist ticks all the correct psychological boxes for a convincing member of the criminally insane fraternity. We genuinely know that such a malformed personality could exist, because we’ve all seen them on True Crime programmes.

Authenticity is always – but always – the key for Mike Craven.

Washington Poe might almost be a figure from the Wild West, but this is not that place. In police terms, this is a world of hard rules and high technology. It’s a time when crimes are no longer solved simply by kicking doors down, but by attempting to read the unhinged mind, where medicine and forensics are artfully used in the pursuit of justice, and where there are no grey areas when it comes to procedure; procedure can be an ass, but you’ve got to be clever to get around it, not just bull-headed.

Craven sprinkles The Botanist with all these contemporary details, and yet none of it gets in the way. There’s an unwritten rule in crime-writing: don’t let the facts spoil the story. Ultimately, you’re telling a yarn and you want to excite and intrigue your readers; informing them about modern policing culture and technique is a secondary consideration. But if you can hit that button too, and not interrupt the narrative, in fact maybe even bolster it (because legal minutiae and the like can often create fortuitous and unforeseen twists in the narrative, and certainly does here), you’re doing an even better job.

And this is the whole story with The Botanist. You get immersed in detail, and yet it remains nail-bitingly tense. This maniac can genuinely strike anyone anywhere … and that becomes an overwhelming factor as you read. He welcomes pursuit by the police because he likes to show off how cunning he is, and this device alone works tremendously, hitting us with ticking clocks aplenty and one compelling scenario following another, though each time the villain is two steps ahead. At the same time that all this is going on, you’re completely hooked by the ‘locked room mystery’ that has seen Estelle Doyle charged with murder. You know she hasn’t done it; she’s a recurring character and a paid-up good guy, but the evidence seems insurmountable. Eventually, you have no choice but to contemplate the unthinkable …

The Botanist is second-to-none. It’s been a great series so far, but this is the best volume to date. A fast, enthralling and superbly executed read, which deserves to be read by every crime fan out there.

When a book is the fifth in the series, it hardly seems sensible to talk about who you’d love to see playing the leads should it ever get a film or TV adaptation. Surely that should be reserved for the first one? Well, The Puppet Show was the first in the Washington Poe series, and I did exactly that when I reviewed it several years ago. Therefore, I’ve got no hesitation in nominating a cast for this one too, utilising the same actors in the same roles that I did the first time round, and adding yet more talent for this latest outing. (It’s only a game of course, but it’s fun):

DS Washington Poe – Nick Blood
Tilly Bradshaw – Ella Purnell
DI Stephanie Flynn – Joanne Froggatt
Professor Estelle Doyle – Claire Foy
DCI Tai-young Lee – Han Hyo-joo
Henning Stahl – Paul Kaye
The Botanist – Arthur Darvill
Douglas Salt – Jason Isaacs

Thursday 5 May 2022

Big fun in prospect as festival season starts


Well, Easter is past and spring is well and truly underway. Hope it’s looking promising for everyone so far (international calamities aside, of course). All I can say is thank Heaven the festival and convention season is almost upon us. Today’s blog therefore, is all about that.

I’ll be telling you where I am as the big events unfold, what I’ll be doing and who I’ll be doing it with. I’ll also be reporting on the current status of my new novel, NEVER SEEN AGAIN, which seems to be going down well (and is currently ONLY 99p on Kindle).

In addition, and because my festival schedule, as usual, winds its way across the darker end of the literary spectrum, focussing mainly on crime, thriller and horror fiction, I thought that for today’s review I ought to find a novel that perhaps has a foot in every one of those camps. As such, I settled on Ian McGuire’s extremely dark and chilling THE NORTH WATER.

It’s the sort of novel you might sometimes find on the literary fiction shelf and maybe, for that reason, ignore it. If that’s the case, don’t ignore today’s review. You’ll find it, as usual, in the Thrillers, Chillers section in the lower end of this blogpost. Seriously, no fan of dark fiction can afford to pass this novel by.


Of course, if you’re only here for the Ian McGuire review, that’s absolutely fine. Zoom on down to it straight away. Before then though, you might be interested in …

Let the conventions commence

The literary festival season is one of the joys of the writing life. Literary events, as I like to think of them, can be held at any time and in almost any place, though for the most part they tend to come thicker and faster from mid spring through to late autumn, the majority tending to congregate in the warmest months of the year, which only adds to the holiday atmosphere that often surrounds them.

I’m leery of getting too excited about this year’s agenda, primarily because I don’t want to tempt fate. In 2020 of course, it was all but cancelled due to the Covid pandemic, while last year, with the virus still around, it was really only a shadow of its normal self. This year, thus far, we have what promises to be a full programme, though of course you can’t be too confident.

But if this year’s schedule actually comes to pass, and fingers crossed it will, it promises an awful lot. And I hope to be participating as fully as everyone else.

For the uninitiated, these events, which mostly tend to be held over carefully selected weekends, at specific venues – usually hotels in city centres where there is lots of immediate access to pubs, Indian restaurants and kebab shops – while not exactly centred around book-talk, usually have lots of book stuff going on because they are attended primarily by writers and readers. Invariably, there are panels, workshops, readings from new books, ‘pitch an agent’ sessions, quizzes and the like. Plus, there is almost always a Book Room, where all kinds of new releases, overseas imports and independent publications that you’re unlikely to have read about in the trade press can be had at reasonable prices.

Of course, the centre of all activity tends to be a bar, where the atmosphere ranges from genial to raucous (and everywhere in between) … but never underestimate the importance of this. The whole idea of these events is to bring authors into direct contact with their public. And when I say authors, I mean big names, major international sellers, wordsmiths who you can guarantee would sell the film rights to their laundry list if they actually have one. So, if you’re there, even if you’re just a reader or a fan, you shouldn’t be afraid to doorstop these guys and gals as they hold up the bar or wander the hotel corridors, and chat to them. Because that’s why they’re there. They attend these events specifically to socialise with those who read and enjoy their work.

As I say, these are special occasions. So, if you’ve never popped onto this circuit, even for a day or so, you’re missing a treat.

My schedule

My own involvement this year will, perhaps inevitably, be based around my 2022 publication, NEVER SEEN AGAIN

For those unaware (and if you exist, shame on you), it’s an urban thriller built around a cold case kidnapping, and featuring a disgraced investigative reporter who, when he unexpectedly receives a vital clue, goes all out to discover what happened to an heiress abducted over six years earlier, and who might – though it seems incredible – still be alive.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not going to be attending these functions purely to hawk my latest novel around. That would be a tad unsavoury. But there’ll be plenty copies at most of them, and I’ll be there, with pen in hand, so, you know …

Anyway, the events worth mentioning (thus far, because others may join the list as the weeks roll by), in chronological order, are:

CRIMEFEST, Bristol, May 12-15

One of the major crime-fiction events in the calendar, often one of the earliest in the year and always (to date, at least) held in the grand old city of Bristol. This year, the host venue is the Mercure Bristol Royal.

This is another of my favourite weekends of the year, because the atmosphere is always superb but also very literary. In my experience, this one tends to be colonised by writers, agents, editors and publishers rather than readers, though readers are welcome to attend, and quite a few do. There is often much industry chat, but plenty amber nectar goes down too … it’s a great social occasion, and located right in the heart of one of the most interesting cities in Britain.

I’ll be there, as I say, and am fortunate enough to be participating on a panel on the Saturday afternoon, called TRYING TO FORGET: WHEN THE PAST COMES BACK TO HAUNT YOU, with some serious company, CL Taylor, Alex Dahl and Robert Scragg, while the moderator is the one and only Alison Bruce.

If that doesn’t grab you, there are lots of other interesting events to be had over the weekend, ranging from examinations of crime scene procedures to crime-fighting technology, from spies and assassins to sweet old ladies who also happen to be serial killers. Big names attending include Ann Cleeves, Robert Goddard, Catriona Ward, Sarah Pinborough, Steve Cavanagh and Maxim Jakubowski, among many others.


CHILLERCON, Scarborough, May 26-29



Previously StokerCon and having been cancelled twice already due to the pandemic, ChillerCon, now with its own particular identity, has at last nailed down a slot for itself at the end of May and is already looking like one of the major horror fiction events of the year.

It’s going to be so big in fact that it will straddle two of Scarborough’s grandest and quirkiest hotels, the Royal and the Grand, which conveniently are only a matter of 50 yards apart, and occupy high ground overlooking the roaring surf of the North Sea.

If there’s anyone toying with the idea of attending but perhaps is concerned that horror as a genre is a tad too extreme for their taste, ChillerCon also features much to do with thriller and crime fiction, though it will all be strictly of the darker variety.

For example, check out some of the big names attending: Alexandra Benedict, Mike Carey, Mick Garris, Robert Lloyd Parry, Gillian Redfearn, James Brogden, Ramsey Campbell, Grady Hendrix, Stephen Jones, Tim Lebbon, Kim Newman and Catriona Ward.  

Personally, I’ve got quite a bit of involvement at this year’s ChillerCon.

I’m delighted to announce that on the Saturday, May 28, I’ll be a guest on the panel, CRIMINAL MINDS: CRIME/HORROR CROSSOVER, which I’m guessing will do what it says on the tin, investigate the points where the two sub-genres meet and perhaps where they counter each other. It’ll be moderated by a master of ceremonies who’s well-known to all involved in both these fields (and adored by most), though I can’t name him yet, while sitting alongside me will be some serious luminaries of crime and horror (again, their names are embargoed at present, but watch this space).

It should be a fun event, but that won’t be the end of my duties on the Saturday. A little later in the day, 5pm to be precise, in the Cocktail Bar at the Grand Hotel, I’ll be signing and selling copies of my novel, NEVER SEEN AGAIN, for a fiver each, all proceeds to go to humanitarian aid for Ukraine. There is obviously only a finite number of copies available, so it will need to be done on a first come first served basis. There will be complimentary drinks too, so you can always just come along for a chat.

MW CRAVEN: IN CONVERSATION WITH PAUL FINCH, Kendal, May 30

Closely following Scarborough, the next day in fact, I’ll be in Kendal in the lovely Lake District, where, in a special event organised by Waterstones in Kendal, held at 7pm at the Waterstones shop in the Westmorland Centre, I’ll be in conversation with MW Craven, a powerhouse crime writer and fellow craggy north-of-Englander, whose Washington Poe series has taken the crime and thriller world by storm in recent years.

His next novel, THE BOTANIST, sees Poe and his innocent civvy sidekick, Tilly Bradshaw, pursue a highly skilled poisoner, while at the same time having to cope with a convincing murder accusation levelled against one of their own colleagues.

Mike and I will be discussing this, along with my own new book, NEVER SEEN AGAIN, in our usual nonchalant manner, plus anything else that comes up, cracking jokes, taking questions from the audience and the like.

If you’d like to get a ticket, just follow the link.

CRIME AT THE OLD COURTS, Wigan, June 11

Speaking of Mike Craven, I’ll also be guesting alongside him at this one-day event in my home town, Wigan. Mike will be celebrating publication of THE BOTANIST, but at the same time the day will focus on British crime writing in general.

I’ll be honest, there’s nothing I enjoy more than getting involved in events like these on home turf. There’s an old saying: ‘You can never be a hero in your hometown’. That’s undoubtedly true, but I feel I’ll have a chance to buck that trend if Wigan’s arts crowd continues its efforts to put their town on the crime-writing map.

This is the latest of several such events, and already it boasts an attractive line-up of guests. Aside from myself and MW Craven, also present will be Malcolm Hollingdrake, RC Bridgestock, Caroline England (left) and Patricia Dixon. Tickets for this one go on sale next week.

The event will run from 12 noon until 6pm in the evening, and will feature authors in conversation, books for sale, book signings, various of the sessions hosted by Caz and Sam from UK Crime Book Club. There’ll also be a licensed bar and refreshments. For ticket information, watch this space.

THEAKSTON’S OLD PECULIAR CRIME WRITING FESTIVAL, Harrogate, July 21-24

This is one of the biggies, as they say. Even last year, when several regular events were still under cancellation due to Covid, the Harrogate festival – one of the most eagerly awaited and best attended in the annual crime fiction calendar, and now regarded as the largest celebration of the genre in Europe – made a very welcome comeback.

A part of the furniture in the genteel Yorkshire spa town of Harrogate since 2003, this grand occasion doesn’t just host the much-covetted Dagger Awards (as annually decided on and awarded by the Crime Writers’ Association), it presents panels, chats, readings, signing sessions, workshops, TV and radio interviews and the like, most of the action taking part in the historic Old Swan Hotel, and its beautiful and extensive gardens, and, all in all, is a phenomenal opportunity for fans and readers to mingle shoulder-to-shoulder with some of the true grandees of the industry, publishers, editors, agents and of course, the authors themselves.

In fact, after the non-event in 2020 and last year’s somewhat reduced convention, I suspect there’ll be even more of the latter this year than usual. Check out this list of the special guests who’ll be in attendance: Denise Mina, Lynda la Plante, Paula Hawkins, Tess Gerritsen, Michael Connelly, Lucy Foley, Charlie Higson, John Connolly, CL Taylor and Kathy Reichs … and there are likely to be more added to that list as we get closer to July.

For my own part, I’ll be doing my usual thing of propping up the bar, sitting in the sun and happily talking to anyone who feels like saying ‘hello.’

The second half of 2022 is not likely to be event-free, though it’s probably a little early in this uncertain world of ours to talk as though things from August onward are already set in stone. One thing I can definitely announce, though many details are yet to be ironed out on this one, is SFW XIII (the ever-popular – and I mean hugely popular – SCI-FI WEEKENDER) at Great Yarmouth, November 10-13. It’s a full weekend of panels with authors and media guests as well as great evening entertainment, and inevitably will go heavily on the themes of Sci-Fi, Fantasy and Horror.

I’m not sure what my role will be at this one, but I’ll definitely be attending and it’s yet another big event in 2022 that I can’t wait for.

THRILLERS, CHILLERS, SHOCKERS AND KILLERS …

An ongoing series of reviews of dark fiction (crime, thriller, horror and sci-fi) – both old and new – that I have recently read and enjoyed. I’ll endeavour to keep the SPOILERS to a minimum; there will certainly be no given-away denouements or exposed twists-in-the-tail, but by the definition of the word ‘review’, I’m going to be talking about these books in more than just thumbnail detail, extolling the aspects that I particularly enjoyed (I’ll outline the plot first, and follow it with my opinions) … so I guess if you’d rather not know anything at all about these pieces of work in advance of reading them yourself, then these particular posts will not be your thing.

THE NORTH WATER 
by Ian McGuire (2016)

Outline
In 1859, Hull, on England’s Humberside coast, is a rough, tough whaling town where many dregs of humanity have washed up simply because there is nowhere else for them to go. One of these is Henry Drax, a loutish, drunken harpooner, who also happens to be a serial rapist and murderer of young boys. Not long after he’s shown up, Drax strikes again, firstly killing a fellow whaler in a pub fight and then attacking another child, raping and brutalising him to death, but feeling no concern that either of these crimes will have consequences as he’ll shortly be aboard the whaling ship, Volunteer, bound for the so-called North Water, the vast stretch of semi-frozen ocean that lies between Greenland and Canada in northern Baffin Bay.

At the same time, a desperado of a different sort arrives, also looking to join the crew of the Volunteer. Patrick Sumner is an Irish-born surgeon recently cashiered out of the British Army for some unspecified offence committed during the Siege of Delhi. Sumner, who came home from India wounded and with a laudanum habit, is here simply because he can’t find paid medical work anywhere else, and has no real idea what he is letting himself in for, having to live and work below decks among whalers, in a part of the world where the temperatures are so low that the sea itself freezes solid.

As if this isn’t going to be problem enough, the voyage of the Volunteer already feels as though it may be ill-fated. Brownlee, the skipper, while superficially efficient, has a reputation for being unlucky. His last vessel, the Percival, was ‘crushed to matchwood by a berg’, a full 18 of his crewmen dying in the process. The owner of the whaling company, Baxter, doesn’t fill Sumner with confidence either, and with good reason. Though only Brownlee is initially aware of it, this whole voyage is an insurance scam. Baxter has fallen on hard times. There are still plenty of whales in the sea, but paraffin is now replacing whale oil, and the whaling industry is dying out in towns like Hull. The shipping boss has thus instructed Brownlee to sink the Volunteer, but only when they are far into the Great White North, where the crew can be rescued by another ship of the fleet, the Hastings, but where there’ll be no possibility of an investigation discovering the truth.

As the voyage gets underway, other villains on board are drawing their own wicked plans. Having searched Sumner’s trunk, Drax and first-mate Cavendish, another reprobate, discover that he is in possession of a valuable ring that he possibly acquired in India. They have no doubt it would bring them a pretty penny if they could get hold of it themselves, but before then they must find a way to dispense with Sumner. Their first attempt to kill him misfires, when, during a sealing expedition on the pack-ice, he falls through a crevasse into the freezing water, and they leave him, only for the Irishman to prove doughtier than they expected, and live long enough to be saved by another crew member.

Debilitated through frostbite, Sumner has no option but to remain on board as the ship heads further into the frozen seas, now catching, killing and stripping down whales, which is a heartless, gruesome process, though in this desperate world the only interest anyone has is how much money they can make from it.

While the crew works, Sumner treats a cabin boy complaining of stomach problems. Giving him a full examination, the doctor discovers that the lad has been anally raped, though he is too frightened to name his attacker. Sumner reports to Brownlee, who, though he’s at heart an immoral man and knee deep in the prospective insurance fraud, is suitably angered by this to commence questioning the crew. Not long afterwards, the same boy goes missing, but is eventually found dead, strangled and stuffed into a barrel. It seems obvious that his rapist is the culprit, and Henry Drax spreads suspicion to a misanthropic ship’s carpenter called McKendrick, whom he claims he regularly saw in the boy’s company.

Convinced that he’s caught the villain, Brownlee throws McKendrick in the brig, but Sumner is less certain. For various reasons, he suspects Drax, though no one else will listen to him. Drax is amused by that, but now recognises the doctor as a potential foe as well as someone he wishes to kill for the purpose of robbery, while Brownlee is too preoccupied by the forthcoming disaster he must somehow manufacture to think this thing through. And all the while, as this incendiary atmosphere brews in the damp, muggy confines of the blood-soaked ship, the Volunteer sails further and further into the constant dark of the Arctic winter, and the perilous climes of the North Water …

Review
Though marketed as historical adventure fiction, The North Water is without doubt one of the darkest novels I’ve ever read. Ian McGuire is classified by many as a practitioner of ‘realist literature’, which, in a nutshell, means describing things the way they are, or were, on a warts and all basis.

So when you picture the grime and squalor below decks on a 19th century commercial whaler, particularly when it’s regularly awash with the blood, blubber and bone of the prey it has so mercilessly harpooned and then protractedly slaughtered, that is precisely what you get here. It is grim stuff, leaving no ugly detail to the imagination. And we are treated to similar when it comes to McGuire’s portrayal of an industrial northern port like Hull in the 1850s, where everything is smoky and grimy, where there is horrible dereliction, where human wrecks occupy the taverns and brothels, where violence happens all the time, where children sell themselves, and where a murderous animal like Henry Drax can blend in so comfortably. Even more affecting, we get similar with the Siege of Delhi, which we see in flashback; here, Britain’s war against the Indian uprising is depicted as a near-apocalypse, neither side showing mercy, multiple innocents caught up in the maelstrom, square-jawed British soldiers unrepentant at the carnage they’ve wreaked.

So yes, while this one is billed as a historical adventure, don’t be getting into The North Water anticipating some Boys’ Own yarn.

The star of the show, for me at least, is Henry Drax. A wolf in human clothing, he’s a predatory killer several decades before Jack the Ripper popularised such a notion. One might argue that such characters aren’t uncommon in scary fiction, but I’d riposte that it’s uncommon they’re as frightening as Henry Drax is. Ian McGuire demonstrates immense skill in his creation of a fictional person who you are literally unnerved by whenever he is on the page.

To start with, there is nothing charismatic or likeable about Drax. He’s not one of these loveable rogues, he’s not someone you ‘understand’ because of his hard background. He’s just a horror, and when you get into his mind, you can see that he’s utterly insane; he doesn’t understand why he rapes and murders, he doesn’t even enjoy it, but he knows that, when he does it, for a brief time at least he’s elevated to godlike status, which in serial killer terms, makes him as close as damn it to the real thing.

But it’s not just that he’s convincingly evil. At no stage, even when this guy is in chains, do you imagine that he’s not going to turn the tables and do something terrible all over again. In fact, as this narrative proceeds, your dread certainty increases that Drax won’t just prove difficult to dispose of, he’ll likely be the last man standing.

In sharp contrast, the hero of the book, Patrick Sumner, is a weak, rather diffident character. Again though, this is Ian McGuire being true to his realist agenda. Sumner is only here because he’s a failure. While he might essentially be on the right side of civilisation, he’s lost everything: his fortune, his reputation, his family, his home, his employability. Though there are quirks in his character even then. His precious ring was loot from the Mutiny, so Sumner made sure he got his share while others were dying. He was then infuriated with himself, not for doing what he did, but for trusting fellow officers who later betrayed him. Much of the time now, he lies in his bunk, drugged, feeling sorry for himself. And isn’t this exactly the way we’d expect one of those pink young men born of the upper classes in the Age of Empire to behave?

Later on in the narrative, when a missionary priest tries to help him, he is sullen and uncommunicative, and he justifies this to himself through his mistrust of religion (even though the religious man is out there providing medicine to the Inuits, while the great intellectual powerhouse of the world, the British Empire, is busy exploiting their homeland).

Ultimately though, we cling to Sumner as one of the few good men in this frozen hell. We have to root for him because, as the odds mount, there is literally no one else to root for.

At the end of the day, we’ve been on adventures in the polar regions before. But I don’t think many that I’ve read have been as visceral as this one. The cold bites you, you can smell the stink of blood and gangrenous flesh, the grime and brutality is all around us, and then, as I say, there is Drax, who stands out as a figure of evil even in this company.

The whole thing is incredibly well-written by Ian McGuire, who has an astonishing eye for the detail of an era now long and thankfully passed. It’s an adventure story, yes, but a bruising, brutal one that you won’t forget for many a year.

At this point in my book reviews I usually indulge myself with some fantasy casting for some imaginary movie or TV adaptation. That is impossible this week because The North Water has already been dramatised by the BBC, with Colin Farrel as Drax, Jack O’Connel as Sumner and the irrepressible Stephen Graham as Brownlee. I haven’t seen the TV series yet, but if it’s half as good as the novel, I’m in for a treat.