These are beach days. Cape Town's hot and the light is long and the laziness of the languid days that opened the year is hard to shake off. The year's taking a slow start.On the crime fiction front nothing visible is happening although there is a behind the scenes sense of anticipation. March is going to be something else. By my count three new novels, one reprint and the first ever SA anthology of crime fiction.
This is a big deal for us. A big deal because just four years back that was probably the sum total of crime thrillers published all year.
Causing a bit of a stir already because of the rave comments he's been getting from US readers is Roger Smith's Mixed Blood. He's an ITW member so you can find out about him at his profile and at his website: http://www.rogersmithbooks.com/.
Sharing the bookshelves with him will be a reprint of Margie Orford's first Clare Hart mystery, Like Clockwork, which was initially published in 2006. She's also an ITW member and her website is at http://www.margieorford.com/ . Later in the year she's publishing the third in her series which will be only the third time in South Africa in English that a crime series has gone to three consecutive books. The first author to do this was James McClure with his Tromp and Zondi novels (eight in all) during the 1970s, followed by Wessel Ebersohn's three-part Yudel Gordon series during the 1980s.Also out in March is Tracy Gilpin's Double Take, which follows hot after her debut novel Double Cross of September last year. In Afrikaans, ITW member Francois Bloemhof kicks in with Harde Woorde the first of two books he'll be publishing this year.
And then the book we've all been waiting for Bad Company, the crime anthology edited by Joanne Hichens. Not all the writers are ITW members although the majority are, which is what convinced Lee Childs to give it a serious punt. At least I'm told he did. It's all rather hush-hush at the moment. But once the wraps are off you'll be the first to know.
Until then - the wraps coming off that is - we're all intrigued about how Bad Company is going to shape at the tills. Short stories are a hard sell in SA at the best of times and crime seems to be the hardest sell of all. As the book chains reported a five per cent drop in sales during December and publishers are chary about the poor sales of local crime fiction anyhow, this anthology's success might have quite a lot riding on it. Be that as it may, Deon Meyer's Blood Safari stayed on one chain's top 10 list for December and there have been signs here and there with other crime writers that maybe we're reaching the tipping point. Not that this is going to translate into huge sales but it might herald a growing acceptance by the local market of their home grown writers.
I say this as word is that some eight English crime novels are in the editorial process for publication this year and five in Afrikaans. Given that there are bound to be some unknowns popping in along the way, 2009 might equal or best last year's crop of ten. It's a matter of watch this space. In the meantime, the south easter has gone down, there's an off-shore breeze holding up the waves and not many surfers in the line-up. I must hit the beach.
ITW International Committee Chair for South Africa, Mike Nicol, is a journalist and writer and now a hard-core crime fiction addict. He's published two crime novels - Payback and Out to Score (a co-authorship), and is a founder of the blog Crime Beat. He lives on Cape Town?s peninsula, up a mountain, in the teeth of the wind.
