Ian Rankin wishes he'd never read Brady's book

Each week in the Herald on Sunday (one of the New Zealand publications I review crime fiction for), books editor Nicky Pellegrino includes a quickfire 'Booklover' interview with an author or other famous person - asking them about the books they're reading, their favourites of all time, and more.

This week's interviewee was acclaimed Scottish crime writer Ian Rankin, whose latest thriller, THE IMPOSSIBLE DEAD (the second book in the Malcolm Fox/Complaints series) was released recently.

Amongst other things, Rankin shares that the book he wished he'd never read was THE GATES OF JANUS by Moors Murderer Ian Brady. "Brady is an infamous serial killer and this book is his credo. I read it only for research purposes and it made my skin crawl," says Rankin.

I've watched a few documentaries about the Moors Murders, and read a little bit about Myra Hindley and Ian Brady, but haven't ever read THE GATES OF JANUS - after Rankin's comments I probably wouldn't want to either - or anything that Hindley wrote herself. Although I used to be reasonably fascinated by true crime when I was younger, I don't read a lot of it lately - and I'm not sure how much I'd want to read about a serial killer's justifications for what they did.

On a sunnier note, you can read more about the books Rankin is currently reading, and has really enjoyed, in the full Booklover interview here.

Galaxy Book Awards honour crime fiction and more

The 2011 Galaxy National Book Awards nominees have been released, with a few crime writers featuring. One of the Awards' eleven categories is for the Thriller & Crime Novel of the Year, but crime writers also feature in some of the other more general categories too.

The Galaxy National Book Awards tout themselves at 'the Oscars of the book industry', and they certainly highlight and celebrate a variety of books, with categories ranging from crime, to children's books, to cookery/food books, to biography/autobiography, to audiobooks, and more. It's good to see that crime/thriller writing has its own category (not every genre does, as there are catch-all categories like 'popular fiction' and 'paperback of the year', etc). The nominees for the Thriller & Crime Novel of the Year in association with iBookstore are:

• Before I Go To Sleep S.J. Watson (Doubleday)
• The Fear Index Robert Harris (Hutchinson)
• Heartstone C J Sansom (Pan)
• The Family Martina Cole (Headline)
• The Impossible Dead Ian Rankin (Orion)
• Trick Of The Dark Val McDermid (Sphere)

Acclaimed new crime writer SJ Watson, who recently won the CWA John Creasey (New Blood) Dagger for his debut Before I Go To Sleep, features strongly in the Galaxy line-ups; also receiving nominations for New Writer of the Year, and AudioBook of the Year.

American thriller writer Gregg Hurwitz is nominated in the Paperback of the Year category for his excellent thriller You're Next (read my review here, and my feature article on Hurwitz discussing that novel here). Norwegian star Jo Nesbo (The Leopard) has been nominated for International Writer of the Year, finding himself up against the likes of Haruki Murakami, and Booker nominee AD Miller (Snowdrops) has also been nominated in the New Writer of the Year category. It is nice to see crime getting something of a look-in, especially in awards which are made across genres. Though like any awards nominee lists, there's bound to be plenty to discuss in terms of people left off the list, and whether people think the nominated books are better than others that seem overlooked.

The winners will be revealed on 4th November at a ceremony at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel in west London, which will be hosted by comedian Dara O'Briain. The event will be staged and filmed by Cactus TV, with a series of six programmes about the awards to be screened between 13th November and 17th December on More4. Cactus TV Managing DirectorAmanda Ross said, "It will be far more interesting for the viewers to experience the event in bite-size chunks spread across six shows, as we will be able to properly focus on the category winners."

You can read more about the 2011 Galaxy Book Awards at the website here. Graham Beattie has a full list of the categories and nominees here.