2009 MARCHES ON
This month, Len Deighton turns 80 and gets repackaged, James Patterson continues his march to world domination and a double team of American and Scots thriller writers bring the BBC into further disrepute.
This month, Len Deighton turns 80 and gets repackaged, James Patterson continues his march to world domination and a double team of American and Scots thriller writers bring the BBC into further disrepute.
It's March already, ladies and gents. February came and went in the blink of an eye. Your humble host received no love letters on the fourteenth, not even a gas bill. But I suppose people send me missives every other day of the year, so I'm not complaining. But I am, perhaps delusional.Anyway, and so onto our look back the UK thriller-land as of February '09. Its been a relatively quiet month, but with the repackaging of a thriller legend, a few (perhaps unsurprising) facts and figures and a healthy dose of controversy, there were a few items to distract the hardened thriller fan from the fact that the UK had been literally brought to a standstill by this white fluffy stuff that fell from the sky earlier this year.
And yes, last month's jokey headline was actually meant for April which is indeed the cruellest month, some say. Let's just say I had a small accident with a time machine, a pint of IPA and a keyboard...
The Thriller Writer Who Came out of the Cold
Len Deighton is one of those authors who I remember seeing on my dad's bookshelves, but whom I never actually read. Not a slight on Deighton, of course, but merely a mark of the fact that there are so many books out there, you always have one or two you seem to know about but have never actually opened. Anyway, a whole new generation of readers will be re-introduced to Deighton's earlier work with the repackaging of eight early titles by Harpercollins replete with introductions by the author and some very intriguing new covers that caught your correspondent's eye on the press release. Deighton will also be going to e-book and, perhaps more importantly, will be turning 80 this year.
"Ahhhh... Venice."
Italy has proved a popular location for many modern thriller writers including David Hewson and Donna Leon. But now there's a new kid on the plaza, and his name is Jon Trace. Sphere books will be publishing this new serial killer thriller series from Trace which, according to the publicity machine will appeal to fans of some relatively unknown thriller writer called Dan Brown, author of that mildly successful thriller called The Da Vinci Code. Bonus geek points are available (but not too many because its not that tough) if you can tell me which archaeological-thriller movie the headline for this article was stolen - uhhhh, I mean homaged - from.
"Gee, what'll we do tonight Mr Patterson?" "Same thing we do every night... try to take over the world!"
The most borrowed author in UK libraries?
I'll give you a clue. It isn't your humble host. Nor is it JK Rowling, even though her latest book did have the most lendings in 2008.
No, just pipping Nora Roberts (who also writes near future thrillers as JD Robb) to the post is the writing machine also known as James Patterson, who also gets four entries into the top ten most borrowed fiction titles for the year 2008. A whopping 1.5 million Patterson titles were taken out over the last year. Of course, the odds are stacked in his favour given that he releases a new title every three or four months. But what is clear is that readers are always coming back for more.
However, before we swell Patterson's head too far, in terms of the most borrowed fiction titles of the year, his four entries do come in the latter half of the top ten, starting at number five with The Quickie.
Beating him in third place is UK author Simon Kernick, whose Relentless seems to be solidifying his new position as a deserving household name in British thrillers.
Ripper. Yorkshire Ripper.
David Peace's incredible Red Riding Quartet is getting the telly treatment from Channel 4. The first trails ran a couple weeks ago with barely any fanfare and having seen them (they include interviews with the cast), I have to say I'm very excited. Peace's vision of Yorkshire in the 70's and 80's is bleak and unremitting and the closest we get to a UK version of James Ellroy. With a top notch cast including Paddy Considine (from the incredible UK thriller, Dead Man's Shoes), this three-part adaptation (I believe two of the books are condensed into one which probably makes sense when you compare TV storytelling to novelistic storytelling) looks set to return to the glory days of Channel 4 when it produced dramas that pushed the envelope to bursting point and beyond. Below, you'll find a trailer, but sensitive souls be warned as there is a fair amount of swearing even in this thirty second teaser.
"...such a great word..."
Dennis Lehane - author of the excellent Mystic River, and whose latest tome, The Given Day is now sitting temptingly on my shelves - loves UK swear words. And who can blame him? His response on the Simon Mayo show after Scottish thriller writer Quintin Jardine's assertion on a right wing dutch politician that "wankers like him need to be given air time so people can hear what they are" was the rather excellent, "wankers is such a great word." And this after Simon Mayo had made a rushed apology for Jardine having used the word once already. You could almost hear BBC bosses go into meltdown after having spent their last few months dealing with complaints about the content of live broadcasts and leaked recordings including their accidental airing of actor Christian Bale's expletive-filled rant at a lighting guy on the set of the new Terminator movie.
Of course, in the UK "Wankers" a word that certain people think carries a bit of weight so inevitably our conservative daily, The Daily Mail blasted the show for letting the two writers use the word. Frankly, I think they should just be glad that it was as mild as "wanker".
But clearly the controversy has done Jardine some good: a scant two or three weeks later, Hodder Headline announced a seven book deal which will continue Jardine's literary career with a promise to promote his work more heavily outside of his native Scotland.
Until next month, my friends...
Russel
UK contributing editor Russel D McLean is a Scottish bookseller working for a national chain. He has run webzines, agonized over reviews for various publications both in print and online, and written several short stories, several of which have been published in Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine as well as various other crime and noir markets. His debut noir novel, THE GOOD SON, is available in the UK and published by Five Leaves Press.
Len Deighton is one of those authors who I remember seeing on my dad's bookshelves, but whom I never actually read. Not a slight on Deighton, of course, but merely a mark of the fact that there are so many books out there, you always have one or two you seem to know about but have never actually opened. Anyway, a whole new generation of readers will be re-introduced to Deighton's earlier work with the repackaging of eight early titles by Harpercollins replete with introductions by the author and some very intriguing new covers that caught your correspondent's eye on the press release. Deighton will also be going to e-book and, perhaps more importantly, will be turning 80 this year.
"Ahhhh... Venice."
Italy has proved a popular location for many modern thriller writers including David Hewson and Donna Leon. But now there's a new kid on the plaza, and his name is Jon Trace. Sphere books will be publishing this new serial killer thriller series from Trace which, according to the publicity machine will appeal to fans of some relatively unknown thriller writer called Dan Brown, author of that mildly successful thriller called The Da Vinci Code. Bonus geek points are available (but not too many because its not that tough) if you can tell me which archaeological-thriller movie the headline for this article was stolen - uhhhh, I mean homaged - from.
"Gee, what'll we do tonight Mr Patterson?" "Same thing we do every night... try to take over the world!"
The most borrowed author in UK libraries?
I'll give you a clue. It isn't your humble host. Nor is it JK Rowling, even though her latest book did have the most lendings in 2008.
No, just pipping Nora Roberts (who also writes near future thrillers as JD Robb) to the post is the writing machine also known as James Patterson, who also gets four entries into the top ten most borrowed fiction titles for the year 2008. A whopping 1.5 million Patterson titles were taken out over the last year. Of course, the odds are stacked in his favour given that he releases a new title every three or four months. But what is clear is that readers are always coming back for more.
However, before we swell Patterson's head too far, in terms of the most borrowed fiction titles of the year, his four entries do come in the latter half of the top ten, starting at number five with The Quickie.
Beating him in third place is UK author Simon Kernick, whose Relentless seems to be solidifying his new position as a deserving household name in British thrillers.
Ripper. Yorkshire Ripper.
David Peace's incredible Red Riding Quartet is getting the telly treatment from Channel 4. The first trails ran a couple weeks ago with barely any fanfare and having seen them (they include interviews with the cast), I have to say I'm very excited. Peace's vision of Yorkshire in the 70's and 80's is bleak and unremitting and the closest we get to a UK version of James Ellroy. With a top notch cast including Paddy Considine (from the incredible UK thriller, Dead Man's Shoes), this three-part adaptation (I believe two of the books are condensed into one which probably makes sense when you compare TV storytelling to novelistic storytelling) looks set to return to the glory days of Channel 4 when it produced dramas that pushed the envelope to bursting point and beyond. Below, you'll find a trailer, but sensitive souls be warned as there is a fair amount of swearing even in this thirty second teaser.
"...such a great word..."
Dennis Lehane - author of the excellent Mystic River, and whose latest tome, The Given Day is now sitting temptingly on my shelves - loves UK swear words. And who can blame him? His response on the Simon Mayo show after Scottish thriller writer Quintin Jardine's assertion on a right wing dutch politician that "wankers like him need to be given air time so people can hear what they are" was the rather excellent, "wankers is such a great word." And this after Simon Mayo had made a rushed apology for Jardine having used the word once already. You could almost hear BBC bosses go into meltdown after having spent their last few months dealing with complaints about the content of live broadcasts and leaked recordings including their accidental airing of actor Christian Bale's expletive-filled rant at a lighting guy on the set of the new Terminator movie.
Of course, in the UK "Wankers" a word that certain people think carries a bit of weight so inevitably our conservative daily, The Daily Mail blasted the show for letting the two writers use the word. Frankly, I think they should just be glad that it was as mild as "wanker".
But clearly the controversy has done Jardine some good: a scant two or three weeks later, Hodder Headline announced a seven book deal which will continue Jardine's literary career with a promise to promote his work more heavily outside of his native Scotland.
Until next month, my friends...
Russel
UK contributing editor Russel D McLean is a Scottish bookseller working for a national chain. He has run webzines, agonized over reviews for various publications both in print and online, and written several short stories, several of which have been published in Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine as well as various other crime and noir markets. His debut noir novel, THE GOOD SON, is available in the UK and published by Five Leaves Press.
