This month Russel goes on a roadtrip, the CWA gets a very influential houseplant, and a vigilante with a strong sense of justice goes back to school.
MOST PECULIERYes, the year is half over, and as ever the crime and mystery world has celebrated in typical fashion - - with a ruddy good knees up in a small Yorkshire town famed for tea rooms and the disappearance of Agatha Christie. But fret not, dear readers, for it wasn't all locked rooms and crumpets, but beer and mayhem that held the city in its grip for several days.
As ever, your intrepid ITW correspondent was in attendance, although not at quite as many panels as usual, although those he attended he did enjoy and some of those he missed upset him greatly.
Of course, the important news, as ever, is the winner of the (deep breath) Theakston's Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year. With a "short" list of 14 authors, the award ceremony was a chatter with speculation as each of the authors was interviewed, albeit briefly, by the festival's new good luck charm, Mr Mark Lawson.
In the end, after a few people had passed out from holding their breath in anticipation during every interview (there were only 12 as two nominees were not in attendance), the winner was announced as Mark Billingham for his excellent novel Death Message. This is the second time Billingham has won the Theakstons, the first being for his excellent third novel Lazy Bones.
After this, the festival descended into the usual anarchy, but I'm very pleased to say that this is the first year I have noticed so many actual readers hanging around after hours. The panels were the usual mix of fun, serious and
in-between, but most importantly your intrepid columnist's team came fourth in the now traditional Saturday night quiz, mainly thanks to my sadly encyclopaedic knowledge of the works of James Lee Burke and a lucky question about The Long Good Friday. However, it was very worrying that the team sitting beside us gave every answer as a variation name of top notch Newcastle thriller writer Martyn Waites. Name of James Bond film with George Lazenby? On Martyn Waites' Secret Service. There isn't much one can say. Except that his latest novel, Speak No Evil is worth a read for any fan of UK thrillers.
Next year's festival is to be chaired by fellow Scot and beard wearer, Stuart MacBride, author of the absolutely excellent Blind Eye, while 2011 will be chaired by Dreda Say Mitchell, whose Running Hot is a fine example of London noir that confronts contemporary issues, and whose latest, Geezer Girls, has just gone on release.
BLITZ AND PIECES
Ken Bruen, Irish author beloved here at ITW (Scotland branch) for his brutal and lyrical take on contemporary noir seems to be getting all the good movie deals. While we erroneously believed that the role of Inspector Brant in Blitz was to be taken by Jude Law, it turns out that on screen hardman Jason Statham will be filling the Inspector's not inconsiderable shoes.
But not only that, he'll be joined on the screen by a silver-tongued Irish devil. No, Colin Farrell's not quitting filming on London Boulevard to join the Statham. Rather, Bruen himself will be on screen playing a priest. Rumours that he will be playing the part in the style of alcoholic "Father Jack" from cult Irish sitcom Father Ted currently remain... dubious.
CACTUS IF YOU CAN
Cactus TV have already brought to the UK Richard and Judy's Book Club (For our US friends, think Oprah if she was an unsettling and middle-aged white couple) and the ITV4 Thriller awards. Well now they're bringing the UK Daggers to a screen near you. Following the first round of awards (including a deserved short story dagger for Chicago PI author Sean Chercover - now where's that man's UK book deal?) the announcement was made that in October Cactus will be filming and broadcasting the big daggers for the year including the Gold and the Steel.
COVER UP
Unless you've been under a stone for the last half of of the month, you'll have seen the furore over Simon Kernick's last-but-one novel - Deadline - being given away with pre-orders of Dan Brown's The Lost Symbol at UK stationer/bookseller WH Smith. The main argument seems to be a "misleading" jacket that has Brown's name prominent over Kernick's. But I personally don't get why people are complaining so vehemently when they're not paying for Kernick's book but rather getting it free to tide them over until the Brown is released? Sarah Weinman mentions the debacle at her blog, where the comments section shows an interesting cross section of opinion from outright rage to pragmatic praise.
Its worth pointing out that this offer is exclusive to WH Smith (the "offending" edition is not available anywhere else) and no one is duped into buying the book - they are given it for free. So yes, its an ugly cover in my opinion, but in the end no one has been fooled, no one has been duped and, let's face it, riding off the back of Dan Brown's gonna get you in touch with a whole lot of "non readers" who might just be converted. And isn't that a good thing?
JACK REACHER, PHD
It's a story with particular relevance to myself - I ended up not continuing my studies because of the difficulty of funding - so its good to see that superstar (and if you saw the queues for him and his brother at Harrogate, you'd be hard pressed to disagree with the description) thriller author Lee Child is offering scholarships worth £104,000 total to fund 52 students through their studies at Sheffield University. The awards, worth £2000 each are - and who's surprised at this? - named after Child's protagonist - the Jack Reacher Scholarships.
The article in The Guardian, explains more, and also includes the titbit about a Reacher Ale being brewed especially to mark the occasion. Naturally, it also mentions the Rebus Ale (while omitting the Rebus Whisky) but fails to note that another Scots crime writer also had an ale created especially in his honour - clearly the columnist hadn't heard of the delightful sounding Flesh House, named for Stuart MacBride's cannibalistic 2006 novel.
And that's it for this month. A little longer than usual, but then I did miss last month, too. If you want to see me really struggle with deadlines, check out www.dosomedamage.com where I'll be blogging weekly on a variety of topics along with a ragged band of fellow crime writers all at various stages of their career. Trust me, we're gonna tear the joint apart.
Until next time, my friends.
Russel
After this, the festival descended into the usual anarchy, but I'm very pleased to say that this is the first year I have noticed so many actual readers hanging around after hours. The panels were the usual mix of fun, serious and
in-between, but most importantly your intrepid columnist's team came fourth in the now traditional Saturday night quiz, mainly thanks to my sadly encyclopaedic knowledge of the works of James Lee Burke and a lucky question about The Long Good Friday. However, it was very worrying that the team sitting beside us gave every answer as a variation name of top notch Newcastle thriller writer Martyn Waites. Name of James Bond film with George Lazenby? On Martyn Waites' Secret Service. There isn't much one can say. Except that his latest novel, Speak No Evil is worth a read for any fan of UK thrillers.Next year's festival is to be chaired by fellow Scot and beard wearer, Stuart MacBride, author of the absolutely excellent Blind Eye, while 2011 will be chaired by Dreda Say Mitchell, whose Running Hot is a fine example of London noir that confronts contemporary issues, and whose latest, Geezer Girls, has just gone on release.
BLITZ AND PIECES
Ken Bruen, Irish author beloved here at ITW (Scotland branch) for his brutal and lyrical take on contemporary noir seems to be getting all the good movie deals. While we erroneously believed that the role of Inspector Brant in Blitz was to be taken by Jude Law, it turns out that on screen hardman Jason Statham will be filling the Inspector's not inconsiderable shoes.
But not only that, he'll be joined on the screen by a silver-tongued Irish devil. No, Colin Farrell's not quitting filming on London Boulevard to join the Statham. Rather, Bruen himself will be on screen playing a priest. Rumours that he will be playing the part in the style of alcoholic "Father Jack" from cult Irish sitcom Father Ted currently remain... dubious.
CACTUS IF YOU CAN
Cactus TV have already brought to the UK Richard and Judy's Book Club (For our US friends, think Oprah if she was an unsettling and middle-aged white couple) and the ITV4 Thriller awards. Well now they're bringing the UK Daggers to a screen near you. Following the first round of awards (including a deserved short story dagger for Chicago PI author Sean Chercover - now where's that man's UK book deal?) the announcement was made that in October Cactus will be filming and broadcasting the big daggers for the year including the Gold and the Steel.
COVER UP
Unless you've been under a stone for the last half of of the month, you'll have seen the furore over Simon Kernick's last-but-one novel - Deadline - being given away with pre-orders of Dan Brown's The Lost Symbol at UK stationer/bookseller WH Smith. The main argument seems to be a "misleading" jacket that has Brown's name prominent over Kernick's. But I personally don't get why people are complaining so vehemently when they're not paying for Kernick's book but rather getting it free to tide them over until the Brown is released? Sarah Weinman mentions the debacle at her blog, where the comments section shows an interesting cross section of opinion from outright rage to pragmatic praise. Its worth pointing out that this offer is exclusive to WH Smith (the "offending" edition is not available anywhere else) and no one is duped into buying the book - they are given it for free. So yes, its an ugly cover in my opinion, but in the end no one has been fooled, no one has been duped and, let's face it, riding off the back of Dan Brown's gonna get you in touch with a whole lot of "non readers" who might just be converted. And isn't that a good thing?
JACK REACHER, PHD
It's a story with particular relevance to myself - I ended up not continuing my studies because of the difficulty of funding - so its good to see that superstar (and if you saw the queues for him and his brother at Harrogate, you'd be hard pressed to disagree with the description) thriller author Lee Child is offering scholarships worth £104,000 total to fund 52 students through their studies at Sheffield University. The awards, worth £2000 each are - and who's surprised at this? - named after Child's protagonist - the Jack Reacher Scholarships.The article in The Guardian, explains more, and also includes the titbit about a Reacher Ale being brewed especially to mark the occasion. Naturally, it also mentions the Rebus Ale (while omitting the Rebus Whisky) but fails to note that another Scots crime writer also had an ale created especially in his honour - clearly the columnist hadn't heard of the delightful sounding Flesh House, named for Stuart MacBride's cannibalistic 2006 novel.
And that's it for this month. A little longer than usual, but then I did miss last month, too. If you want to see me really struggle with deadlines, check out www.dosomedamage.com where I'll be blogging weekly on a variety of topics along with a ragged band of fellow crime writers all at various stages of their career. Trust me, we're gonna tear the joint apart.
Until next time, my friends.
Russel
