Michael Connelly talks abour Harry Bosch's return in THE DROP, and the future of the book business

Denise Mina talks about doing things differently

Recently it has been announced that acclaimed Scottish crime writer Denise Mina would be visiting New Zealand early next year, as part of the 2012 New Zealand International Arts Festival.

As noted on the Festival website, "Mina is a Scottish crime writer and playwright whose style has been described as ‘tartan noir’. She is the author of the Garnethill trilogy and another series featuring Patricia ‘Paddy’ Meehan, a Glasgow journalist. Mina’s first Paddy Meehan novel, The Field of Blood, has become a BBC drama."

Ian Rankin has previously described Mina as "one of the most exciting writers to have emerged in Britain for years". Last month, Mina was interviewed by my fellow Ngaio Marsh Award judge Bernard Carpinter, who writes the monthly crime fiction column for the New Zealand Listener. That article is now available to read in full online. Amongst other things, Mina talks about being bored by "everything's awful endings", her most recent novel, THE END OF THE WASP SEASON, writing about a sex worker as "a full human being" rather than a caricature just to be brutally killed, why she began writing crime fiction, and much more.

It's a good piece by Carpinter, and I recommend you go and have a read (click here).

Q & A with Mons Kallentoft (MIDWINTER SACRIFICE)

One of the great things about being a crime fiction reviewer is that I get sent books from authors I might not have otherwise tried - and some end up becoming new favourites. Over the past two and a half years I've 'discovered' many such new-to-me authors, some through my own experimenting (just trying new books from the stores or libraries), and others from publicists who've recommended someone new-to-me, to me.

Recently I received a review copy of MIDWINTER SACRIFICE by Mons Kallentoft, another exceptional writer being noticed now as part of the ever-growing Scandinavian crime wave. Whatever you think of Stieg Larsson's Millennium trilogy, one great thing about it is it has opened the wider reading world's eyes to the talented crime writers in Scandinavia (many of whom were already big successes at home and in other non-English speaking nations pre-Larsson mania), and led to more Scandinavian crime fiction being translated into English, for all of us keen crime readers to enjoy.

MIDWINTER SACRIFICE is Kallentoft's fourth novel, but his first foray into crime fiction. It's always fascinating to see published writers, who've written in other styles or genres, turning their hand to crime fiction. Published in Sweden in 2007, it has been a bestseller, and has now been translated into several languages. It introduces Malin Fors, a single mother  and the most talented and ambitious detective on the local police force. Kallentoft has since written four more Malin Fors tales (MIDWINTER SACRIFICE is the first to be translated into English). The books are set in his childhood hometown of Linkoping, Sweden.

I will soon be doing a 9mm interview with Kallentoft, but in the meantime I thought you might enjoy this recent Q&A session his publisher has sent through to me:

Linkoping: how does it fit into your life?
It’s an average Swedish town where I grew up, and where I moved away from as soon as I could. I left at 20, so it is a huge part of me, and writing the stories helped me to reconnect to my childhood and young adulthood.

Would you live there again?

You can’t actually run away from who you are. In one of my earlier books I wrote about it, but it is only possible to go back in my books. These stories are like echoes from that era and I can look back and work out a lot of things and emotions.

Mercy in an author?

Mercy? No. To write you have to be merciless. You can’t turn away when the story gets too dark and scary. You have to keep going. I find the books very emotional to write because I can’t get away with side-stepping the hard bits.

Why is your main character a girl?
I was trying to do something a bit different and I talked with my wife about it. Most detectives are middle-aged and jaded, and we thought a young woman in the middle of her working life would be a good place to start. I do talk about her with my wife when I get stuck on the emotional side of things, but I reckon I know her pretty well by now – and she is definitely NOT my wife! In fact she is more like me – her frustrations with small town life come directly from my own experience.

How many other countries are you published in?
My books are now in 22 languages and I have been to many of the countries involved. I have yet to go to Romania, but I travel a lot – so one day I will!

Your first books?
They were set in Madrid and Brussels – all over the place – and I wrote about what I saw and the people I watched. They weren’t really crime novels, but they touched on the dark side of life. It was when I started to write about Linkoping that crime seemed the right genre for me!

Awards?
Pesetas was my first novel, and won the Swedish equivalent of your Whitbread Award. For a debut. The book came from the year I spent in Madrid. I also wrote a non-fiction travel and food book, Food Noir, which won a travel award. I’d like to do another one of those as I have a lot of material ready and waiting. I only need the time to do it!

How many books altogether?
Five Malin Fors novels, one travel, and novels set in Stockholm, where I live now, Belgium and Spain. If the house burned down, I’d save one called Fresh, Healthy and Spontaneous (that title is a bit of a mouthful!). It’s about a branding expert and his views on life and family, about how he applies branding strategy to manage all the details of his life. It’s a black black black comedy.

Seasons and the weather and the part they play?
I had the idea that crime novels benefit from easy symbols for the reader to catch hold of. So I have written the seasons into the Malin Fors novels. The cold is an easy way to reach people, on one level it represents the cold inside all mankind … it runs through all the characters too – emotionally and figuratively cold. I also like to give the books the feel of different colours and sounds. Midwinter Sacrifice, for instance, is icy and blue – and it is quite a silent book because the sounds are muted by the winter and snow. My Summer book (ed - "SUMMERTIME DEATH" - pictured right) has much more noise. Using seasons also gives me a tight framework for the stories. Like a Greek drama – it is all very contained!

The translation?
My English translator, Neil Smith, is excellent. He is not the first to try my books, but he is the best. It’s so hard to get it right, and he seems to capture the tone and voices in them.

Mountain or valley?
Mountain

River or Sea?
Sea

Best food?
In the Basque area of northern Spain. It is without doubt the best food in the world.

Favourite book?
The Great Gatsby. It’s perfect in every sense – form, character, plot and creation. I love reading it – every time. And also Cormac McCarthy’s book Blood Meridian.

Favourite film?
That is a really hard one. The French Connection I think. I also love those slow, stylish, mystery thrillers you can just sink into.

Favourite city?
Madrid, Hong Kong, Sydney, Bangkok … Macau because of its sense of the underbelly

Have you read MIDWINTER SACRIFICE, or any other Mons Kallentoft books? If not, do they sound intriguing? What do you think of his Q&A? Comments welcome.

9mm: An interview with Bev Robitai

The 9mm series has been on a bit of slow burn in the past few months, but don't worry, it will continue to be a regular feature here on Crime Watch (hopefully an increasingly regular feature moving forward, rather than the once every few weeks thing it's become recently).

Today, for the 57th instalment of the popular series, I am sharing my 9mm interview with New Zealand mystery writer Bev Robitai, who lives on Auckland's North Shore. I first came across Robitai's work last year, when I read her theatre-set debut mystery MURDER IN THE SECOND ROW, having purchased the ebook from Smashwords. You can read my review of that novel here, and another well-written review here (Reactions to Reading).

Robitai is a photographer for publications in New Zealand and overseas and a freelance writer for magazines like Next. Born in the United Kingdom, she has lived on Auckland's North Shore for 12 years, and spent the prior two decades in Nelson (my hometown). Although MURDER IN THE SECOND ROW is set in a fictional town, it was inspired by Robitai's experiences in the Nelson theatre community.

Robitai released her second mystery novel, AN EYE FOR AN EYE, in April (read more here), and I understand she is working on more crime novels too. You can read more about her at her website here.

But for now, Robitai stares down the barrel of 9mm.

9MM: AN INTERVIEW WITH BEV ROBITAI

Who is your favourite recurring crime fiction hero/detective?
I’m enjoying the unfolding of Jack Reacher as Lee Child reveals more of his story in each book. He was such an enigma at first. I’m also falling back in love with Ngaio Marsh’s Roderick Alleyn – he’s so intelligent, charming, and funny.

What was the very first book you remember reading and really loving, and why?
Hm, I guess you mean something more advanced than Orlando the Marmalade Cat? Then Swallows & Amazons and all Arthur Ransome’s stories. I read them on the sofa with my mum and learned to speed-read so she didn’t turn the page before I’d finished.

Before your debut crime novel, what else had you written (if anything) unpublished manuscripts, short stories, articles?
Plenty of published non-fiction articles. I’ve attempted a romance or two but got stuck on how to keep two intelligent characters apart until the end. It’s so hard to think of plausible reasons two perfectly sane people couldn’t sort out their differences! Short stories I’ve never liked much because if I enjoy a character I want to live with them for a whole book.

Outside of writing, and touring and promotional commitments, what do you really like to do, leisure and activity-wise.
READ! My greatest luxury is pushing everything else aside to dive into a great crime novel. Second choice – photography. At least that gets me out in the fresh air, and has been a secondary career for a good few years. I love theatre production too for the variety of creative skills it uses.

What is one thing that visitors to your hometown should do, that isn't in the tourist brochures, or perhaps they wouldn’t initially consider?
My real hometown is Staines in England and I’d send visitors to the little ‘village green’ beside the Thames on the day the swan-uppers go by. A slice of medieval history in a lovely riverside setting. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swan_Upping

If your life was a movie, which actor could you see playing you?
If I pick a young Goldie Hawn because my husband likes her, then can I pick who’d play him…that seems fair, doesn’t it? I’d choose Richard Gere. No wait, Mark Harmon - he’s got more sense of fun. Oh no wait, I want David Tennant. Yes!

Of your books, which is your favourite, and why?
The one I’m writing at the moment, Body on the Stage, because I love the surprises when the characters become friends and interact. And I get to write all the comedy lines! Eye for an Eye was my first finished book and I’m still excited with it, even though Murder in the Second Row was published first and has had all the attention so far.

What was your initial reaction, and how did you celebrate, when you were first accepted for publication? Or when you first saw your debut story in book form on a bookseller’s shelf?
My biggest thrill was seeing my book in the library. It’s a proper book when it’s in the library! It’s pretty cool seeing it on the shelves in Borders too, but seeing several copies as ‘out on loan’ in the library catalogue is hugely satisfying. It was a great buzz seeing it mentioned on Crime Watch too, thanks for that! J

What is the strangest or most unusual experience you have had at a book signing, author event, or literary festival?
I launched Murder in the Second Row in Nelson, in the theatre I’d used as the setting. An old boyfriend I hadn’t seen for 30 years drove all the way up from Christchurch to surprise me, and I didn’t even recognise him until my husband brought him over to where I was signing books and introduced him. That felt a bit weird! It’s hard to compete with C.J. Box’s answer to this question though – what a classic.

Thank you Bev Robitai. We really appreciate you taking the time to talk with Crime Watch.

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Have you read MURDER IN THE SECOND ROW, or EYE FOR AN EYE? What do you think of Robitai's writing? Do you like crime fiction set in the theatre?

Happy 50th 9mm: An interview with Robert Crais

Welcome to a very special edition of Crime Watch's exclusive 9mm author interview series - the 50TH instalment overall. Not bad for a series that started on a whim - we've averaged nearly one terrific author interview a week since the series began in March 2010, and it's grown far beyond anything I could have imagined when we began.

The list of authors who've participated reads like a veritable 'who's who' of the global crime landscape - from legendary international stars like PD James, Val McDermid, Michael Connelly, James Lee Burke, Lee Child, Faye Kellerman, and many more, to up-and-coming talent, and some terrific local crime writers from New Zealand and Australia that deserve wider attention, here and abroad.

It's been a real privilege to interview all these authors, and a lot of fun too. I hope you've been enjoying the series as much as I and the authors have been. You can check out some of the previous author interviews by clicking on an author's name on the sidebar to the right, on '9mm' on the header bar above, or you can see a clickable list of the first 44 instaments here.

I fully intend to continue the series, and march towards the 100 interview mark over the coming year. There are plenty more crime writers out there who would be great to include in the 9mm 'family' - but at the same time we've got a pretty amazing line-up already. Feel free to go back over some of the old interviews, and perhaps add comments etc, if you like. Suggestions are also always welcome for future interviewees too. So speak up, and let me know what you want to see.

But for now it is time to once again polish off the gun and point it towards a creator of tales mysterious and thrilling. For those new to this rodeo, 9mm consists of the same 9 Murder Mystery questions put to a variety of New Zealand and international crime, thriller, and mystery authors.

Today I am very pleased to share with you all my recent 9mm interview with Robert Crais, creator of the award-winning Elvis Cole and Joe Pike series, and some great standalones. I recently interviewed Crais by telephone for a feature article in the New Zealand Herald (read here), and also asked him the 9mm questions. He was a very personable, interesting, cool guy to talk to. As some of you will know, prior to turning to novels, Crais was also a TV screenwriter on some great shows like Cagney & Lacey, Miami Vice, and Hill Street Blues.

9MM: AN INTERVIEW WITH ROBERT CRAIS

Who is your favourite recurring crime fiction hero/detective?

James Bond. Just I find him eminently entertaining. He represents to me a part of life that I’m completely unfamiliar with but fantasise endlessly - the suave and debonair but at the same time gritty and tough-as-nails super spy. I don’t write that stuff of course, but maybe that’s one of the appeals to me. For me it’s a completely different reality. I wish I were James Bond

What was the very first book you remember reading and really loving, and why?

Probably, and it’s certainly a watershed event for me, Raymond Chandler’s novel THE LITTLE SISTER. I often point back to that book as the book that gave me the rest of my career. I was a teenager at the time, about 15 I guess, and found a paperback copy of it in a second-hand bookstore - and honestly the only reason I picked it up is that the cover painting was of this really hot chick - and I just fell in love with Chandler’s Los Angeles, and the whole thing. I’d never read a private eye novel, and that was my gateway to everything that followed.

Before your debut crime novel, what else had you written (if anything) unpublished manuscripts, short stories, articles?

I started as a short story writer actually, and along with crime fiction I was writing a lot of science fiction and fantasy - the very first few stories I sold weren’t crime stories, they were fantasies. Then TV screenwriting for a number of shows.

Outside of writing, and touring and promotional commitments, what do you really like to do, leisure and activity-wise?

Anything outside. I’m a workout nut. I hike every morning, get up insanely early. I’m a runner. I fly aeroplanes; I love to fly - anything that gets me outside. I have a Cessna 310 twin engine aeroplane. I also fly single engine aeroplanes. I just love the whole notion of getting out in the sky alone - it requires concentration, and that’s a way to free myself from the work I do.

What is one thing that visitors to your hometown should do, that isn't in the tourist brochures, or perhaps they wouldn’t initially consider?

Well, everyone who comes to Los Angeles should go up Mulholland Drive at night. The city comes alive in the darkness, I think, because when you’re up on the crest of the mountain, the lights of the city itself spread out to infinity. They go all the way to the horizon, because Los Angeles is such a big place. It looks like the stars have fallen from the sky. That’s one of the things I fell in love with when I first came here.

If your life was a movie, which actor could you see playing you?

I have never, ever been asked that. Oh, wow... um, Tom Hanks. I’m a huge fan. Listen, you ask me that question and I’m tempted to say some heroic figure like Russell Crowe or somebody who plays gladiators, but Hanks, he seems like a funny guy, a genuine guy, that would be a hoot. There’s a [love for life] and also earnestness to him. He’s the whole palette. Great question, man.

Of your writings, which is your favourite, and why?

You know this is going to sound hokey and put up, but I have to say THE SENTRY. For a variety of reasons, but mostly because I’m really exploring Joe Pike’s character in the last few books, I’m getting into what for me was a mystery, an enigmatic character, and I think I took something on with him that was very, very difficult to pull off, for me as the writer and character. And I like to think that I hit pretty close to the target. I’m extremely proud of that, so right now THE SENTRY is my absolute favourite book.

What was your initial reaction, and how did you celebrate, when you were first accepted for publication? Or when you first saw your debut story in book form on a bookseller’s shelf?

Oh, well, I probably broke out a six pack. With THE MONKEY’S RAINCOAT, I had written a couple of manuscripts before that did not sell, in fact they were so bad that I never submitted them, I’m the only person that has ever read them, they were that awful. They were both crime novels - one was a private eye novel and the other was a crime novel but not a PI novel. And they were both just failures, they simply didn’t work as books, as stories.

So when I started out writing THE MONKEY’S RAINCOAT, my goal was just to write a story that made sense, still something that I was proud of, but after two failures in a row I was like ‘please, just let me have a beginning, middle and an end of a story that makes sense’. It did not sell right away. When I finished it I felt that it was a successful story, but when we began to submit it to publishers in New York it did not sell right away, it was rejected many times. I think on ninth or tenth time it finally sold and sold as a paperback original. But then I was ecstatic at that point. It’s been a long time ago now, but I probably broke out a six pack and had a party.

--- And seeing it on a bookshelf in a store must have felt good?

The best... having it in your hand. In fact I still have three or four copies - when I would go around town and see it in a bookstore for the first time, I would buy the copy, and then write in the book the date and where I bought it, where I saw it for that first time. And I still have some of those, it meant that much to me.

What is the strangest or most unusual experience you have had at a book signing, author event, or literary festival?

I was doing a signing outside of Philadelphia, and there was this long line of people, and a woman in this line holding up a two-year-old boy, and she's waiting, and waiting, and waiting. And she gets closer and closer and closer, and finally she reaches the table and pops the child on the table in front of me and says 'here's your Daddy!'.

It was a joke, a complete joke, but it was one of those things where the whole room fell absolutely quiet... and then she burst out laughing, and then about 100 people in the room all burst out laughing - you could feel the relief, especially from me. It was a very funny moment, a very funny moment.

Thank you Robert Crais. We really appreciate you taking the time to talk with Crime Watch.

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Have you read THE SENTRY? Any of the Elvis Cole and Joe Pike novels, or Crais's acclaimed standalones like DEMOLITION ANGEL? Have you watched Cagney and Lacey, Hill Street Blues or Miami Vice? What is your favourite Robert Crais book? Comments welcome.

Ngaio Marsh Award judge Mike Ripley interviewed at The Rap Sheet

On Tuesday I wrote about how I've received plenty of credit for the creation of the Ngaio Marsh Award for Best Crime Novel, including in a few media stories about the rise and growing recognition of Kiwi crime fiction (read Herald on Sunday article here, Listener article here, Fairfax magazines article here), but the truth of the matter was that it was very much a team effort to bring New Zealand's first-ever crime fiction award to fruition late last year.

Another of the terrific international judges who generously gave histime to read, rate and comment on New Zealand crime novels that (in some cases) weren't even available in his home country, was the irrepressible Mike 'the Ripster' Ripley. Along with being the author of the award-winning ‘Angel’ comic thrillers (see fansite here), Ripley is a renowned crime fiction commentator, and has helped Ostara Publishing resurrect some thriller titles that "have unjustifiably become unavailable either through the ravages of time or the forces of publishing economics". Read more about that project here.

Ripley is also the co-editor of three Fresh Blood anthologies promoting new British crime writing (with Maxim Jakubowski), for ten years was the crime fiction critic of the Daily Telegraph, and is now well known for his great “Getting Away with Murder column” in Shots Ezine.

Author, editor, publisher, commentator - Mike Ripley has been an integral part of the British crime writing scene for decades, and we were absolutely delighted to have someone of his calibre and expertise on board as a judge for the inaugural Ngaio Marsh Award for Best Crime Novel.

Ripley was interviewed by Michael Gregorio of The Rap Sheet earlier this week. It's an interesting interview, and well worth a read. Gregorio and Ripley traverse a variety of interesting subjects, with plenty of dashes of the famous Ripley humour, including his own novels, his crime fiction commentary, his recovery from a stroke (and the book he wrote about it), and more. I recommend you go and have a read of the interview here.

I read and enjoyed Ripley's ANGELS IN ARMS last year, and am looking forward to reading FAMILY OF ANGELS and ANGEL CONFIDENTIAL, which I also recently acquired. Ripley has a caper-esque style that might give you a belly laugh or two while you are flipping through the pages of an interesting story filled with quirky and memorable characters.

Have you read any of Mike Ripley's 'Angel' novels? Do you like satirical or humorous crime fiction? Do you read Getting Away with Murder? Thoughts welcome.

A St Patricks Day Special: the Irish 9mm interviews

Well, it may not quite be St Patrick's Day in Ireland itself, time-wise, but here in the first country to see the sun, the celebrations are already well under way, with parties and events at Irish pubs and many other places throughout the day and night here in New Zealand.

St Patrick is of course the most well-known patron saint of Ireland, and over the centuries the day of celebration that was originally more about feast and tied to religion, became a wider celebration of Irish culture in general. It's a public holiday for our friends in Ireland, but is also widely celebrated elsewhere in the English-speaking world, especially in places like Australia, New Zealand, and the United States, which each had large numbers of Irish immigrants over the years.

For Crime Watch's celebration of all things Irish today, I thought I would revisit the 9mm author interviews I've done with writers from the Emerald Isle. So grab yourself a Guiness (or Kilkenny if you're that way inclined), kick back, and scroll through the thoughts and comments from a trio of terrific Irish crime writers: Rob Kitchin, Declan Burke, and John Connolly.

9MM: An interview with Rob Kitchin

Who is your favourite recurring crime fiction hero/detective?
Hmmmm. I have soft spots for Bernie Gunther (Philip Kerr), Jack Irish (Peter Temple), Harry Bosch (Michael Connelly), Omar Yussef (Matt Benyon Rees), De Luca (Carlo Lucarelli), Hap Collins and Leonard Pine (Joe Lansdale) and John Rebus (Ian Rankin).

What was the very first book you remember reading and really loving, and why?
Oh God, this is tricky. I've no idea what this book was! I got hooked on fiction in my early teens. I remember I went through a spy thriller phase working my way through Ted Allbeury, Len Deighton and John Le Carre. The Cold War was still live at the time and I was taken by the cloak and dagger plots, the underlying politics, and the intertextuality vis-à-vis real events and people.

Before your debut crime novel, what else had you written (if anything) unpublished manuscripts, short stories, articles?
I'd had quite a bit of academic writing published in journals and edited books, and I'd had 17 academic books published. Writing is something that improves with practice, and although it's a very different kind of writing, there's no doubt that my fiction writing has benefited from my academic work.

Outside of writing, and touring and promotional commitments, what do you really like to do, leisure and activity-wise?
Read. Mostly crime fiction, but also some history, travel writing and popular science. Writing fiction is actually a big part of my leisure time - I have a full-time job that my writing has to be fitted around.

What is one thing that visitors to your hometown should do, that isn't in the tourist brochures, or perhaps they wouldn’t initially consider?
If hometown is where I presently live, then it's a small, Dublin commuter town that has half-a-dozen pubs, a couple of restaurants, a GAA club, and not much else. You could take a walk along the canal.

If your life was a movie, which actor could you see playing you?
If my life were a movie, the audience would be asleep in the first five minutes.

Of your books, which is your favourite, and why?
My favourite is 'Saving Siobhan', a comic crime caper set in Ireland, which is unpublished and has been rejected a fair few times by agents and publishers as either being (a) too quirky and niche to gain sufficient sales, or (b) too mainstream that it'll disappear in the pack. What's frustrating about the letters is that they all start with, 'I really enjoyed this, but ...'

The fact that they really enjoyed it, and perhaps other people would enjoy it, seems to somehow disappear from their decision making. I think increasingly publishers want guaranteed mega-sales for no risk, and small town Ireland is seen as too parochial to capture attention and sales and is therefore a potential investment risk. Oh well. I like the characters, I'm happy with the plot, and it rattles along at a good pace. The few people who've read it agree that it's my best piece to date. I'm not really sure what to do with it right now. I'll probably have another go at getting it out there once THE WHITE GALLOWS is published in a couple of weeks time.

What was your initial reaction, and how did you celebrate, when you were first accepted for publication? Or when you first saw your debut story in book form on a bookseller’s shelf?
The first thing I had published was an article in an academic journal.

The initial feedback consisted of three reviews - one basically saying to accept the paper as it was, another that it needed major revisions but would be okay after those, and the final one saying it was hopeless and it should be rejected. It was a very sweet and sour moment.

Interestingly, it is by far my most cited paper, which suggests everything has been downhill since then! Receiving my first book, and seeing it in a bookshop, was a bit of anti-climax to be honest. The exciting bit, I think, was getting the proofs and the realisation that it was definitely going to see the light of day. I did get a kick seeing a pile of THE RULE BOOK in a bookshop in Dublin Airport. That was a 'perhaps there might be a future in this' moment.

What is the strangest or most unusual experience you have had at a book signing, author event, or literary festival?
Since I've only done a couple of signings and I've not yet been to a book fair or literary festival, I've not had much in the way of unusual experiences. When we launched the encyclopedia for which I was co-editor in chief, one of the panelists we'd invited to push it off into the world gave it a good thrashing in front of the 200 or so people who attended. That was quite sobering, especially after it had taken five years to put together and involved 840 writers from over 40 countries! The lesson is to be careful when picking someone to launch a book.


The Crime Watch 9mm Author Interview: Declan Burke

Who is your favourite recurring crime fiction hero/detective?
That would have to be Philip Marlowe. The first time I read the opening paragraph of The Big Sleep, it felt like coming home. Odd, really, because I’ve never been to LA. Generally speaking, I’m more a fan of standalones rather than series heroes, but I’ll be first in line if they ever discover an unpublished Marlowe manuscript. I reread at least one Chandler per year, just to remind myself of (a) why I love books, (b) why I want to write, and (c) how far I have to go to get to where I’d like to be.

What was the very first book you remember reading and really loving, and why?
Very tough question. You can love books for all sorts of reasons, not all of them to do with the story or the writing. And when you’re young, you tend to read indiscriminately, without worrying about whether you actually like or love a book - I doubt very much if I ever stopped to think about whether I was enjoying the Enid Blyton books, for example, as I wolfed them down. But I do remember having my socks blown off by Watership Down when I was about 10 or 11. A story about rabbits, from the POV of rabbits? And heartbreaking to boot? I even loved the General, Woundwort, when he went for the dog’s throat …

Before your debut crime novel, what else had you written (if anything) unpublished manuscripts, short stories, articles?
I’d been working as a journalist for about eight years or so before Eightball Boogie was published in 2004, mainly writing about arts and cultural stuff - movies, books, theatre. I’d also written a novel-length story set in the Greek islands that was utter rubbish, but which was important to me (and possibly one of the most important things I ever wrote) in that it meant I at least had the stamina to write a book-length story. Starting a story is the easiest thing in the world. Seeing it through is tough, tough, tough.

Outside of writing, and touring and promotional commitments, what do you really like to do, leisure and activity-wise?
Writing is really only a hobby to me; I’ve only had two books published (Eightball Boogie and The Big O (2007)), both of which were very low-key affairs. And in these straitened times, working a full-time job as a freelance journalist, and with a young family to co-support, I don’t get much time to write, let alone tour and promote. For leisure, I’m lucky in that my job involves going to movies and theatre, and reading quite a bit for review. So there’s a lot of cross-over there between work and leisure. For strictly leisure time, I like to spend as much time as possible with my little girl, Lily, who has just turned two and is brilliant fun. I watch a little TV - football, Family Guy, science and history documentaries - listen to some music, potter in the garden a bit, do some blogging … Any spare time after that is spent reading, though.

What is one thing that visitors to your hometown should do, that isn't in the tourist brochures, or perhaps they wouldn’t initially consider?
I live in Wicklow now, which is called ‘the Garden of Ireland’, but I’m originally from Sligo, in the northwest of Ireland, which is renowned for its association with WB Yeats. It’s a beautiful place: there are mountains, forests, bogs, the Atlantic, good surfing, good fishing … in fact, it’s a great place to set a novel, because practically any kind of urban or rural setting you need is available within five or ten miles of Sligo town centre. What visitors do tend to overlook is Sligo’s ancient history. There are perfectly preserved settlements at Carrowkeel, for example, that predate the better-known Newgrange by about 500 years, and the Egyptian pyramids by about 1,000 years.

If your life was a movie, which actor could you see playing you?
If my life was a movie, it’d be stuck in development hell. Who would I like to see play me? George Clooney, one of the very few interesting movie stars with real screen presence. Who would be likely to play me? Steve Buscemi.


Of your books, which is your favourite, and why?
Now that’s a tough bloody question. It’s like asking which of your kids you love most. And the honest answer is that I love them all equally, and I’m including those that haven’t been published when I say ‘all’. Eightball was magic because it was my first, and I’ll never replicate that shining, incandescent moment when I first held the book - an actual book, written by me - in my hands. It happened on a street in Galway, and I believe I kind of blanked out for a few seconds. I’d waited a long, long time to see that book … The Big O I love because it was a co-published deal with Hag’s Head, I and my wife put our mortgage money where my mouth was by paying 50% of the costs, and it ended up a modest success, from a co-published little effort (880 copies in Ireland) that ended up getting a pretty decent deal in the States, and allowed me go to the States for a road-trip to promote it. Bad for Good (which is currently out under consideration) I love because it’s radically different to the previous books, and I’m still not sure where the voice came from, or where the notion of having a hospital porter blow up his hospital came from. But even the books that will never see the light of day, I love them too, because they’re me at my most me. Which is the main reason why I write, I think.

What was your initial reaction, and how did you celebrate, when you were first accepted for publication? Or when you first saw your debut story in book form on a bookseller’s shelf?
I can’t really remember, to be honest, possibly because I very probably went out drinking. But it’s a strange, strange thing hearing that your book is going to be published - you’re delighted, of course, because for me I’d had that monkey on my back for nigh on 20 years, having subconsciously set myself that much as a target in order to have a life worth living (!), and the relief that it was finally going to happen was immense. So there’s shock, and relief, and delight … and ten minutes later you’re worried if people are going to like it.

I had a bizarre experience, actually, in that a couple of months before Eightball was published, I read a Ken Bruen novel, I think it was The Guards. And I remember vividly putting it down and realising that Eightball was going to be evaluated on the same criteria, and having a panic attack of sorts, and then wondering what Ken Bruen would make of my book. And the very following morning, I got a letter from the publisher, via my agent, containing a blurb from Ken Bruen, in which he claimed I was the future of Irish crime fiction. That was a pretty good morning.

What is the strangest or most unusual experience you have had at a book signing, author event, or literary festival?
Most unusual event at a literary festival? Sorry, Craig - what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. Generally speaking, though, the most unusual thing that happens at my book signings is that people actually turn up to have their books signed. That never ceases to amaze me.


The Crime Watch 9mm Author Interview: John Connolly

Who is your favourite recurring crime fiction hero/detective?
Ah, probably it’s a tie between Ross Macdonald’s Lew Archer - because of that capacity for empathy, that’s important to me - and James Lee Burke’s Dave Robicheaux, who taught me that writing can be very poetic, I think.

What was the very first book you remember reading and really loving, and why?
It was a Secret Seven book by Enid Blyton, which I remember reading at the dining table in our sitting room, and I remember struggling because I hadn’t been reading for very long, and I struggled through with words phonetically, and for years afterwards I thought the word ‘cupboard’ was pronounced ‘cup board’ - and my mother must have thought I was like little Lord Fauntleroy, “can we get something from the cup board?”

Before your debut crime novel, what else had you written (if anything) unpublished manuscripts, short stories, articles?
Nothing. I’d written for the Irish Times, so I’d been a journalist, but I’d not written fiction. Lots of articles but nothing in terms of fiction, no.

Outside of writing, and touring and promotional commitments, what do you really like to do, leisure and activity-wise?
It doesn’t leave a whole lot of time, to be perfectly honest (chuckling). Ah, I go to the gym because it’s good to get out of the house and to do something so I don’t turn into some kind of vegetable. I actually find - somebody once said that the secret to happiness is to find something you would do as a hobby, and convince somebody to pay you to do it. And given that I’m doing what I probably would have done as a hobby had I been given the opportunity, and had I had ‘a proper job’, I actually don’t begrudge the time I spend doing it. So most of my time, it’s a bit like that Raymond Chandler thing - he was asked what was his writing day like, and he said he spent 6-7 hours a day sleeping, 3 hours a day eating, 4 hours a day writing, and the rest of it thinking about writing. And that’s kind of what my day has become.

What is one thing that visitors to your hometown should do, that isn't in the tourist brochures, or perhaps they wouldn’t initially consider?
They should go to the crypt of St Michan’s Church on the north side of Dublin, where there’s these preserved bodies of these nuns, but also this huge Crusader Knight - they had to break his legs to get him in the coffin - and you can touch his finger. Touching his finger is supposed to be good luck, so you can touch the finger of this mummified Knight... Don’t go kissing rocks...

If your life was a movie, which actor could you see playing you?
Um... my girlfriend is convinced I look like Colin Firth, and I’ve met Colin Firth, and I really don’t, you know (chuckling). So I don’t know - I suspect that they’d pick somebody bug-eyed like Steve Buscemi, you know, “we’re trying to capturing your character not so much your looks” - and I’d think “no, not Steve Buscemi...”


Of your books, which is your favourite, and why?
THE BOOK OF LOST THINGS, simply because it was very personal, and also because I finished it and thought “that was a good day’s work”. And if you’re - I hate people who separate art and craft, any kind of art, you’re not going to get to judge it, but art comes out of craft. And as a craftsman, sometimes you put the finish, and think “that’s as good as I can do”, and you sleep well after doing that.

What was your initial reaction, and how did you celebrate, when you were first accepted for publication? Or when you first saw your debut story in book form on a bookseller’s shelf?
I did really mundane things... I paid off my credit card bill. That was how I celebrated, I paid off my credit card bill. I was so fearful that it was all going to be taken away from me, that I think I was afraid to spend any of the money. So I paid it off, and I got an apartment that I could live in and work in. Very mundane things - I don’t think I ever ... now when I send off a book I take my family out to dinner, we’ll do something really simple. It was funny, there was no great splurge of buying things. No Ferrari, I’ve got a second-hand Ford Mondeo.

What is the strangest or most unusual experience you have had at a book signing, author event, or literary festival?
I had a woman come up to me once at a signing at a festival, saying ‘I love, I just love your books - I’ve been looking for you all weekend and if you’d please just stay there, I will come back and get my book signed. And she did, and she came back and handed me a copy of Ian Rankin’s BLACK AND BLUE, and said “there you go Mr Rankin, will you sign that for me please?”

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So there you have it, an Emerald trio for St Patrick's Day. Hope you enjoyed it. There are some terrific Irish crime writers out there (I have recently read and really enjoyed BORDERLANDS by Brian McGilloway, and have a Ken Bruen and a Declan Hughes book in my TBR pile too), so get out there and get amongst some Emerald Noir to celebrate St Patrick's Day. With a nice Irish beer of course.

Have you read any Rob Kitchin, Declan Burke, or John Connolly novels? Are you a fan of Irish crime writing or crime writers? What do you think of the 9mm interviews above? Comments welcome.

The joy of hassling her own heroine: my Weekend Herald feature interview with Vanda Symon

The joy of hassling her own heroine
Kiwi crime queen Vanda Symon talks to CRAIG SISTERSON about accidental heroines and playing with swords

IN REAL life everything that happens to us has an effect on how we behave and how we act, so the same should hold true for literary characters, especially those who often populate the world of detective fiction, says Vanda Symon.

Symon, who was a finalist for the inaugural Ngaio Marsh Award for Best Crime Fiction in November, has certainly seen her own headstrong heroine, Sam Shephard, evolve professionally - from sole-charge Mataura police officer to young Dunedin detective - and personally over the course of her acclaimed series.

“Right from the outset I wanted to have a character who wasn’t static, and who was affected by the events that happen in each book,” says Symon, whose fourth novel, Bound, was launched this week.

In Bound, Shephard and her colleagues are investigating a brutal home invasion that left a dodgy businessman dead, and his wife hospitalised - she nearly choked to death after being tied to a chair, gagged, and left to watch his blood pool on the floor. When the evidence starts pointing to a couple of high-profile lowlifes, both prime suspects in an unsolved cop killing, many of Shephard’s colleagues are ecstatic.

But she’s not so sure, and decides to investigate further - much to their chagrin - while at the same time dealing with a dying father, ongoing family issues, and the stresses of a relationship. “I love writing about Sam, doing mean and nasty things to her,” laughs Symon. “She’s great to hassle.”

Talking to Symon, a former pharmacist and now “domestic goddess” and fulltime writer, is in many ways like reading one of her novels - there’s a real sense of fun, even when the subject matter might be serious, a southern sassiness amongst the dark deeds.

Unsurprisingly, Symon’s recurring protagonist likewise has plenty of personality. Detective Shephard is a heroine you want to follow - feisty, passionate, flawed. The latter is particularly important to Symon, who believes the best characters in crime fiction, such as Michael Connelly’s Harry Bosch, aren’t always right. “They make mistakes, they get themselves into the poo,” she says. “And I wanted that, I wanted Sam to be human.”

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'When you're a terribly polite person and you don't swear much, you can have a character who lets rip every now and then and does things you wouldn't.'

Vanda Symon

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Another “lovely thing about writing fiction”, she adds, is being able to create main characters who, although they may have something of the author in them, are also “people who are the things you’re not”.

While Shephard shares her creator’s love of life and can-do attitude, the slightly younger, occasionally less-wise heroine is also a little blunter, a trait Symon enjoys writing. “When you’re a terribly polite person and you don’t swear much, you can have a character that lets rip every now and then, and does things that you wouldn’t do.”

Surprisingly, given that the character of Shephard (along with well-drawn southern settings, snappy repartee between characters, touches of humour, and visual storytelling) is a key part of what makes Symon’s writing stand out, the stroppy heroine wasn’t originally slated to be the star.

Symon says she originally envisaged a male detective hero when she started writing her 2007 debut, Overkill, until a real-life realisation changed things.

“I can’t even remember exactly what it was, but my husband did something completely daft, and I went ‘oh my God, I can’t even understand my own husband, how could I get into the head of a male’, so I changed it,” she laughs. “And the moment I changed it to a female, Sam Shephard stepped up fully-formed as a character, and it was like she attituded her way into my life.”

Symon’s life was already full. She was a busy young mother to two preschoolers, but decided it was time to kick-start her lifelong writing dream.

“Working in pharmacy you have to concentrate all day, because let’s face it if you make a mistake, you can kill someone,” she says. “I was just absolutely mentally shattered by the end of the night, so I didn’t actually get the opportunity to write until I had children.”

Not that it was easy. As many stay-at-home parents would understand, any fantasies of uninterrupted writing time quickly evaporated.

Symon began penning Overkill by snatching writing time in amongst a hectic maternal schedule.: “You know, you’re sitting at the dining table, wiping, feeding a child here, wandering over and playing LEGO there... having a discussion with your mother-in-law, making cups of tea for anyone who visits, all the while writing a novel at the same time,” she laughs. The result, Overkill, took four-and-a-half years to write and have published.

Now her children are older and at school, Symon admits she has a more settled writing schedule, and treats crime writing as her “day job”. She aims to write a novel every year, and is working on a “darker” standalone thriller set in Auckland, revolving around a brutal kidnapping, scheduled for release next year.

She also produces and hosts “Write On”, a monthly books show on Radio Toroa, is working towards a PhD in Pharmacy (focused on poisons used by Dame Ngaio Marsh in her best-selling crime novels), wanders Dunedin scoping “good places to hide dead bodies”, and crosses swords with other members of her classic fencing club. She loves the strategy that combines with physical skill in fencing.

“There’s also something terribly romantic about a sport that involves swords,” she says, laughing. “I feel like d’Artagnan.”

Dumas’s famous character was a hot-headed if talented youth who evolves into a beloved hero. Sort of like Sam Shephard.

Bound (Penguin, $30)

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This feature interview was first published in the Saturday 5 February 2011 issue of the Weekend Herald, and is reprinted here with the kind permission of Books Editor Linda Herrick.

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I don't usually buy the Women's Weekly, but...

Some say that it's good to try to do something new every day - well, today I've definitely done that. For the first time in my 32 and a bit years on the planet, I've walked into a store, and bought a copy of the Australian Women's Weekly (New Zealand edition).

And it was even for myself, and not part of some prank or dare. That's not to say I've never browsed the magazine before, in doctor and dentist offices, or some of Mum's copies when I was growing up (I remember a pretty cool recipe book they put out that was in our Nelson home too). Just that I'm not really the Weekly's regular target readership; that is the 1 in 4 New Zealand women who apparently read it every month, and the 1 in 2 New Zealand women that read at least one copy each year. I'm not sure how that compares to other local publications, but given that annual readership would entail at least 1 million unique New Zealand women, that's a pretty impressive reach, and must make the AWW (NZ ed) close to the most well-read publication on sale here.

So why did I 'try something new' and buy the February issue (pictured above, with newsreader Wendy Petrie on the cover). Well, my sources told me there might be an article I'd be very interested in, within its pages this month. And sure enough, flicking through to the books and review section (page 163-164 in particular), I found it: an interesting two-page interview with our own crime queen Vanda Symon, listed as the Weekly's 'Author of the Month'.

Symon is interviewed by Weekly staffer Sarah Lynch about her new book BOUND, her fascinating heroine Sam Shephard, research and writing, her family life, finding inspiration, and future plans, amongst other things. Interestingly, Lynch also asked Symon whether she saw herself "as part of a golden age of New Zealand thriller writing" - perhaps further recognition that the 'big media' in New Zealand is picking up more and more on the (small but growing) wave of top quality Kiwi crime writers we have now.

Symon said: "Now is a very exciting time to be writing crime fiction in New Zealand, with a strong core of successful crime writers and lots of emerging ones. And now we have the Ngaio Marsh Award for Best Crime Novel, which is fantastic as it finaly rewards and gives recognition to great New Zealand crime writing."

Hear hear!

Both Symon's BOUND and Stuart MacBride's SHATTER THE BONES are also reviewed in this issue of the Weekly (along with several non-crime books). Unfortunately the interview and reviews are not available online - however given the ubiquitous nature of the Weekly, local readers of Crime Watch should have no problem going and picking themselves up a copy this month.

After all, if I can, you can....

9mm: An interview with Yvonne E. Walus

Welcome to the latest instalment in Crime Watch's ongoing series of author interviews; 9mm - 9 Murder Mystery questions put to a variety of New Zealand and international crime, thriller, and mystery authors.

After a run of international authors in the 9mm series recently, I thought I’d introduce you to another New Zealand-based crime writer. So today, for the 43rd instalment of 9mm, we are talking to Yvonne E. Walus, who was born in Poland, spent her teenage years in South Africa, travelled extensively, and now has spent the past several years living in New Zealand. Just like her diverse geographic ‘homes’, Walus also has many literary homes; she writes in several genres, including crime, romance, short stories, poetry, and more. She also has several blogs, covering her different writings and interests, and writes articles for the likes of Mystery Readers’ Journal.

Her most recent crime novel is MURDER @ PLAY, a prequel to her debut MURDER @ WORK, which was shortlisted for the South African Writers’ Circle Novel Award. Although she now lives in New Zealand, Walus’s murder mysteries have thusfar been set in her teenage home of South Africa, particularly dealing with the period around the end of Apartheid in the 1990s. You can see a book trailer for MURDER @ PLAY courtesy of YouTube below:

You can read more about Yvonne E. Walus here, and see the full list of blogs she contributes to here. MURDER @ PLAY is now also available on Kindle (see here) for a very reasonable price.

But for now, Yvonne E. Walus stares down the barrel of 9mm.

The Crime Watch 9mm Author Interview: Yvonne E. Walus

Who is your favourite recurring crime fiction hero/detective?
My childhood hero was, predictably, Hercule Poirot. I've changed my mind several times since, and am currently into Harlan Coben's Windsor Horne Lockwood.

What was the very first book you remember reading and really loving, and why?
"The Mysterious Affair at Styles" had me hooked before I was 10. I loved all the misdirection and the relentless logic of the solution.

Before your debut crime novel, what else had you written (if anything;) unpublished manuscripts, short stories, articles?
Science fiction short stories, literary short fiction, poetry and travel articles. For some bizarre reason, I didn't know how to write short crime fiction for years.

Outside of writing, and touring and promotional commitments, what do you really like to do, leisure and activity-wise?
I spend a lot of time parenting my children, and I actually enjoy it... mostly. This leaves very little time for things I'd like to do more of: sleep, travel, sleep, scuba diving, sleep, reading, wine tasting, beach walks... did I mention sleep?

What is one thing that visitors to your hometown should do, that isn't in the tourist brochures, or perhaps they wouldn’t initially consider?
Define my hometown. If it's where I live, and it's North Shore City (not Super City), they should sit on a bench at the Tui Park beach in Beach Haven, look at the water and listen to the silence. My original hometown is Warsaw, Poland, and there I would invite the visitors to take the first mode of transport out of the city and head south until you hit a tiny spot called Wieliczka, where you go underground to tour a salt mine.

If your life was a movie, which actor could you see playing you?
Sophia Loren

Of your books, which is your favourite, and why?
Always the one I'm currently writing. Of the published ones, I prefer "Murder @ Play".

What was your initial reaction, and how did you celebrate, when you were first accepted for publication? Or when you first saw your debut story in book form on a bookseller’s shelf?
When I got the contract, I thought I must have made a mistake and sent the manuscript to a vanity press! I almost chucked it in the bin....

What is the strangest or most unusual experience you have had at a book signing, author event, or literary festival?
I remember a particular book signing in downtown Auckland, where one Kiwi reader told me "Murder @ Play" wasn't South African enough. It felt strangely gratifying. I consider my setting an integral part of the novels, and to hear people say they loved it and wanted more... it confirmed that my instinct was right.

In contrast, many Americans feel uncomfortable with books set in foreign countries. I understand and respect that, but I'm so very glad New Zealanders can embrace New Zealand fiction set elsewhere.


Thank you Yvonne E. Walus. We really appreciate you taking the time to talk with Crime Watch.

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So what do you think of this 9mm interview? Have you read any of Yvonne E. Walus’s crime novels, or her other stories and articles? Do you like the idea of South African murder mysteries set during the late Apartheid/transition era? What do you think of crime writers setting their novels somewhere other than the country they live in (eg Irishman John Connelly setting his books in the USA rather than Ireland, etc)? What about book trailers? I'd love to read your comments. Please share your thoughts.

9mm: An interview with Michael Connelly

Welcome to the latest instalment in Crime Watch's ongoing series of author interviews; 9mm - 9 Murder Mystery questions put to a variety of New Zealand and international crime, thriller, and mystery authors.

I am hoping to share some more 9mm interviews with New Zealand-based authors with you soon, but today, for the 42nd instalment in our ongoing series, I have another fantastic international author for you; one of the true giants of the genre worldwide, and the modern maestro of contemporary LA crime fiction, Michael Connelly.

I was fortunate enough to interview Connelly by phone recently for an article in the Weekend Herald, New Zealand's biggest newspaper (read "King of crime offers clues to success" here), and it was an absolute pleasure to talk to him for more than an hour about all manner of things. Along with being a top-drawer storyteller, he is a very intelligent and humble guy, generous with his time and insights. Another highlight in a year of highlights, for me.

You can read more about Michael Connelly in my lengthy Crime Fiction Alphabet post (he was my 'C' author in Kerrie from Mysteries in Paradise's fantastic series) here, and at his own website here. But for now, he stares down the barrel of 9mm.

The Crime Watch 9mm Author Interview: Michael Connelly

Who is your favourite recurring crime fiction hero/detective?
I would have to say Phillip Marlowe. Not only the writing involved, but it was also reading the Marlowe books that made me want to become a writer, so I guess that’s what you’d call, I don’t know, a sentimental connection. If I hadn’t read the Marlowe books I might not have become a writer, so there’s that. But also I write about Los Angeles and Marlowe is a denizen of Los Angeles, and his hopeful cynicism ... I think is akin to what I’m trying to do with Harry Bosch. I know that sounds like a contradiction, but just hopeful cynicism for a place that has everything, all these possibilities, but most often falls short. That was captured in Philip Marlowe’s view, and hopefully I’m getting close to that, or every now and then I hit that, with Harry Bosch.

What was the very first book you remember reading and really loving, and why?
I read TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD when I was 13, so it wasn’t an easy read because I wasn’t a great reader, but it was one that I was not assigned at school - I’d gone to a library and a librarian told me I should read it. It was a library I would visit almost every day in the summer, so I’d read it and put it back on the shelf, and then come back [the next day] and find my spot and read it again, and not only is it a tremendous story that has echoed in my work, especially the Mickey Haller stuff, but it was the start of me reading for myself, which you know is a key thing in any writer’s evolution. When you start reading for yourself and you start looking for the stuff that inspires you, you’re on the road, and for me my road started with TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD.

Before your debut crime novel, what else had you written (if anything); unpublished manuscripts, short stories, articles?
No short stories, but I had written two novels that were never sent out, and they shouldn’t have been sent out - you know, they were learning processes and you know the second one was much better than the first one, and then the third one was the BLACK ECHO, which I felt should be sent out. In a way I look at it all as the process of my first book, but I did write two full novels before I wrote the one that got published.

Bosch wasn’t in them. They were private detective novels. I grew up in Fort Lauderdale, which is pretty much a tourist destination, and it was a place that at least in the ‘70s when I was growing up that a lot of runaways went to, it was like Spring Break, and anyway, it was a place that lured runaways. And I worked in beach restaurants as dishwashers and all these menial jobs and I knew many people who worked these same sorts of jobs who didn’t go home - they had no home, they were runaways, they lived on the street, or lived in daily motels or weekly motels. And that was where that influence came from, and both of those first two novels were about a private detective who specialised in finding runaway teenagers.

They were very helpful to me, they helped me to learn how to write a novel, and so I don’t look at them as failures in any regard. They were things that I needed to do. In that process is where I learned that, at least for me, the books I write were going to live and die with character. The protagonist was going to be what they were about, not a nice plot or a [tricky] plot, they were going to be about the protagonist. And these books didn’t have that, it wasn’t there yet. They were strong on plot, short on character, and that was the real learning process there. So therefore I wouldn’t want to put them out there, they’re not what I do - they were things that I learned from and like I said, they’re in a box somewhere, and that’s where they belong.

Outside of writing, and touring and promotional commitments, what do you really like to do, leisure and activity-wise?
Well I live in Florida, I live by the water, I like to fish, but I look at fishing as a form of writing because once you get the line in the water there’s not a whole lot to do, and what I find is that if I’m in a difficult spot with writing, or I’m trying to build up my inspiration and energy and thinking about what I want to write, then fishing is really good. So it’s a leisure activity, and it’s a part of my process. I have found the thing that really takes me out of writing - that I can just go and not think about writing - is the sport of golf, because there’s just so many things going on that if I really feel like not thinking about writing, I’ll go out and play golf.

What is one thing that visitors to your hometown should do, that isn't in the tourist brochures, or perhaps they wouldn’t initially consider?
I would pick LA, and to me, something I do, I go out there a lot, and I’m still on Eastern Time so I wake up early, and one thing I do is go out on the boardwalk, the strand that runs along all the beach cities for some 20-something miles. I don’t walk the whole 20 miles, but I take long walks in the morning before the city wakes up, and it’s very dark and you see a lot of homeless people sleeping and encampments and all that, and you see the city from a different angle from what most people ever see it, and I’ve always enjoyed that.

If your life was a movie, which actor could you see playing you?
You know what, you’ve finally asked me a question that’s never been asked before… let me think about that for a second. I tempted to say Steve McQueen, but he wouldn’t take the part. I’d say James Gandolfini. Not because he looks like me or anything, but because - and maybe it’s because I like Tony Soprano or something - but he has a certain overconfidence and lack of confidence in certain things. And I’ve watched The Sopranos over the years, and I kind of recognise something about that in me - and also I’m on the spot here and I’m trying not to pick a pretty boy actor, because I don’t think that would be the proper way to go.

Of your books, which is your favourite, and why?
I would probably say THE LAST COYOTE, and it was probably wasn’t my best book because it was like my fourth book and I’ve written like 15 since then, but it’s probably my favourite because of a few reasons. One is that in my life it was the first book I wrote as a fulltime novelist, I was able in the months before I started writing it to retire from journalism, and so the year I was writing THE LAST COYOTE I was just amazed that I was a fulltime novelist, and I kind of revelled in that. And I also saw, I could quite clearly see, that the writing had improved because it was my only focus, and I wasn’t writing at night and then going to the newspaper during the day. It had my undivided attention and I could see improvements almost every day. That was very exciting to me. And the last part was that it’s the case of Harry’s life, it’s about his mother, and so it’s very meaningful on a character level to write that story. Obviously it was my fourth book and I had no idea that Harry Bosch would be around for at least another 15 years, but I was getting the idea that he had some longevity, and that I was going to be writing more about him. And to write more about him I had to kind of … this is a kind of foundation story of what he’s about.

What was your initial reaction, and how did you celebrate, when you were first accepted for publication? Or when you first saw your debut story in book form on a bookseller’s shelf?
I’m not very outwardly demonstrative, but it was a very solemn and fulfilling moment, because I was 36 years old, and I was 20 when I said I wanted to write crime novels. And it wasn’t a hard 16 years, it was a fun 16 years, working a great job at a newspaper, different newspapers, so it wasn’t like a brutal and difficult journey, but it was a journey, and a long journey, to hold the book. You know it comes in the mail, you open it up and hold it, and it’s just very hard to describe. And you know, here you are, I’m a writer and supposed to be a master of words, but you know that was one of the times in my life that I had no words to describe it. You know there were other things going in my life - my father had passed away before, he knew I was going to be published but he passed away before I actually could show him a book, so there’s like a bittersweetness in that because my father was very influential in helping me to get on that journey, and he was the one who had the idea of ‘why don’t you become a journalist, and you can treat it as research for the books you want to write’, and he really kind of came up with what appears now to be like a master plan, but was really like ‘well, maybe this will work - what can we do to get you in position to be able to write these novels that you feel you want to do’. So it was sad because he was very much a part of that. It was good that he knew, and I was able to tell him when he was sick, ‘hey, I just sold the book and it’s going to be published in a year’, and he didn’t make it that year, but he knew and he was proud, and so there’s that little kind of sadness mixed in with such a fulfilling and proud moment.

What is the strangest or most unusual experience you have ever had at a book signing, author event, or literary festival?
Um, one time I was doing an event at a bookstore in Charlotte and there was a guy dressed up as Davey Crockett, with the hat, and he would not stop asking questions, and I soon realised there was something a little off about him, and he would not stop following me, and eventually two people in the store had to hold him while I left in my car, without him being able to follow me. And that was quite strange.

Thank you Michael Connelly. We really appreciate you taking the time to talk with Crime Watch.

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So what do you think of this 9mm interview? Have you read THE REVERSAL, or any of Michael Connelly's other books? Have you met Connelly at any author events? What do you think? Are you looking forward to the film adaptation of THE LINCOLN LAWYER? Who should play Harry Bosch if those stories ever make it to the big screen? I'd love to read your comments. Please share your thoughts.

9mm: An interview with Simon Kernick

Welcome to the latest instalment in Crime Watch's ongoing series of author interviews; 9mm - 9 Murder Mystery questions put to a variety of New Zealand and international crime, thriller, and mystery authors.

Today, for the 41st instalment in the series, I have another fantastic international author for you; British thriller writer Simon Kernick, who I was fortunate enough to meet when he visited Auckland last month (see photo above).

Kernick is a former computer programmer in his early 40s who has been described as "Britain's most exciting new thriller writer". He debuted with THE BUSINESS OF DYING in 2002, and his ninth thriller, THE LAST 10 SECONDS, was published here in New Zealand in August. In 2007, his book RELENTLESS, after being selected by Richard and Judy for their recommended summer reads promotion, went on to become the bestselling thriller in the UK for that year.

Kernick is touted as having talked, during the research for his novels, "both on and off the record to members of Special Branch, the Anti-Terrorist Branch and the Serious and Organised Crime Agency, so he gets to hear first hand what actually happens in the dark and murky underbelly of UK crime." You can read my NZLawyer review of THE LAST 10 SECONDS here.

You can read more about Simon Kernick and his books here.

But for now, he stares down the barrel of 9mm.

The Crime Watch 9mm Author Interview: Simon Kernick

Who is your favourite recurring crime fiction hero/detective?
I really like Peter James’s Roy Grace. He’s flawed but he’s still a really nice bloke, and his flaws are I think more believable than some detectives out there. I always enjoy reading about him, and he has this ongoing mystery of his wife’s disappearance, and there always seems to be development in each book, but it never seems to be the development that I assume it would be, and it adds to the story, and it makes you want to read for more than one reason. I love the plots in the books, and I think it’s good to see a new British crime series coming through, and it’s also about a town I know very, very well - I went to college in Brighton - so I love them.

I love Hercule Poirot as well. I’ve read some good Marple ones, but the Poirot ones are probably the best. He was a great recurring detective. Lawrence Block’s Matt Scudder, I’ve always loved. Some of them are just absolutely superb - some can be slightly hit and miss but in general they’re a very, very good series. And what I like about them is that he ages through the books, you read the ‘70s ones and he’s about 30, and you read the latest ones and he’s about heading off for retirement, and I love that. You find out so much more about them, and you find out so much more about the author as well.

What was the very first book you remember reading and really loving, and why?

THE MURDER ON THE LINKS by Agatha Christie; I read it when I was about nine, and it was my first murder mystery book, and I guessed who did it and I got it right, and I loved it. To be honest, I very rarely got it right after that... it just sticks with me, it must have been about 1975 when I read it, and it was one of the old 1960s covers with a group of gendarmes standing around a body on a golf course. I can still picture it absolutely perfectly now - I haven’t thought about it for a long time, but it’s something that sticks in my mind.

Before your debut crime novel, what else had you written (if anything) unpublished manuscripts, short stories, articles?

I had unfortunately (I say unfortunately because it was hard work) written two crime novels that weren’t published, including the second one FINE NIGHT FOR A KILLING, a gang story in very small font that turned out to be about 950 pages, just ridiculously long. And one or two very rough fantasy books that I’d written, but I’d never had anything published at all, other than maybe in school magazines when I was about 15. So there was this sort of range of books I’d written, but they did get better as they went along. Just, you know, not that much better. So none of them will ever see the light of day, no doubt about that.

Outside of writing, and touring and promotional commitments, what do you really like to do, leisure and activity-wise?
I’m a bit of an outdoorsy person, which means I should be living in New Zealand really, because every time I’ve been talking to Rebecca my [NZ] publicist about what she gets up to, she kind of does the things I love doing. Which is hiking - I love walking, I mean often on a weekend where I don’t have my children I’ll do a 25-mile, a 40km walk, which is very tiring but great fun. Kayaking, I’m a big kayaker - river kayaking, I live on the river with a good stretch of water, and I’m planning on doing some longer trips on a bigger river, with some white-water. I love SCUBA diving.

What else do I do? I love cooking, and I do love to go to the pub and see my mates. It’s a two or three nights a week thing. I have a full life, I very rarely get bored.

What is one thing that visitors to your hometown should do, that isn't in the tourist brochures, or perhaps they wouldn’t initially consider?
I would hire a kayak and go kayaking down the river, a little bit out of town and there’s some great little nooks and crannies. I live in Henley on Thames, about an hour outside of London. Outdoor activities; kayaking, walking - it’s beautiful, they film Midsomer Murders around there, and they filmed Miss Marple around there... take a walk through there, it’s gorgeous.

If your life was a movie, which actor could you see playing you?

Blimey, that’s a good ‘un. Brad Pitt to capture my good looks, obviously. Oh God, that’s a question I’ve never been asked. Ah... you always imagine you’d go to actors you like now, and I’m thinking who I really like. Bloody hell, you’ve really caught me off guard here. I love the actor Clive Owen, yeah, Clive Owen - he was always going to be the Dennis Milne, my detective character, in my mind. Yeah Clive Owen, he’s a good actor, and there’s something solid about him.

Of your books, which is your favourite, and why?

Not necessarily the best, but the one that’s my favourite is the second book that I wrote, THE MURDER EXCHANGE, and the reason is I really enjoyed writing it, because parts of it are quite funny, and I enjoyed the comedic element, the gallows humour, and I really enjoyed it when I got a few good one-liners in there. And I don’t usually write with that level of humour much these days. The thing about it was that when I first wrote the first draft, it was bloody awful, and then I went on a trip to Australia and New Zealand and had a bit of time away from it, came back, and then it all just came together, and that’s what I loved about it as well. It just worked on the second draft. I was really worried about it, it was the classic second book, the classic ‘sophomore slump’, and then it just worked, and it was funny, and I think it’s quite a good plot - two thirds of the way through it, I came up with a final plot twist for the end, which I never normally do, and I thought oh yeah I’m glad I did that.

What was your initial reaction, and how did you celebrate, when you were first accepted for publication? Or when you first saw your debut story in book form on a bookseller’s shelf?

When I first walked into a bookstore and saw a book with my name on it on a shelf, I just stood there for about ten minutes looking at it, I remember. I was just so, so happy. Then I just celebrated to myself really, I went for a walk afterwards and just thought about it, and thought it’s been a brutal path in terms of rejections and thinking I’m never going to make it, and real ups and downs - a lot more downs than ups - and then I’ve done it. It was just an ecstatic feeling, a real ecstatic feeling.

What is the strangest or most unusual experience you have had at a book signing, author event, or literary festival?

Well I can think of one that was hugely bizarre. A woman was convinced that we were all being watched by aliens, and actually came up to me and said “do you know they’re watching?” She was an older woman dressed in a pair of jeans and a t-shirt, Daffy Duck or something; a very old lady in her 70s... and then the conversation went on from there. It was in a library, and the staff were trying to move her away from me, probably thinking it might be liable to turn into something more dramatic, they kept trying to shift her away, and she’d look back over her shoulder and say “they’re watching you, they know about you, I know you’re not one of them, but they’re everywhere, they’re everywhere”. And it’s like, ‘My God’, and she even had me convinced near the end, so I was scared [laughing].

Thank you Simon Kernick. We really appreciate you taking the time to talk with Crime Watch.

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So what do you think of this 9mm interview? Have you read THE LAST 10 SECONDS, THE MURDER EXCHANGE, or any of Kernick's other fast-paced thrillers? Have you met Kernick at any author events? What do you think? I'd love to read your comments. Please share your thoughts.