During lockdown I had another go at reading Proust, but I’m still struggling. (The good bits are wonderful but the bad bits are like a parody of self-indulgent French intellectualism.) I’ve been given the graphic novel version of volume 1 (yes, it really exists and it’s rather wonderful) and I’m having a go at that. Meanwhile, what I’m actually reading is detective thrillers. Here are the latest (both courtesy of NetGalley)
Death comes to Bishops Well: Anna Legat
Anna Legat is already an established crime thriller writer, but my only experience of her in the past has been through her more ‘experimental’ novels, which have been interesting because of their rather edgy and sometimes nihilistic approach. I’ve seen her writing about adventures in Hell and the end of the world so I was intrigued to see what she would do in the deeply traditional ‘cosy crime’ genre.
Death comes to Bishops Well plays by all the rules. At first I was confused by having a whole heap of individuals thrown at me to sort out into potential victims, possible suspects or would-be detectives, but that more or less goes with the territory. (I enjoy Agatha Christie but I hate the obligatory dinner party at the start with ten guests who we are briefly introduced to and then have to keep track of as we try to work out which one did it.) Legat soon establishes the individual characters who are clearly drawn and interestingly three dimensional. It was the characterisation that kept me going through the initial pages while everyone was assembled together until the big party where one person ends up dead and the others are all suspects.
There’s an interesting narrative twist as chapters alternate between the point of view of a slightly fussy solicitor and his bohemian neighbour who livens up the story by seeing ghosts. The reader needn’t worry, though: the ghosts never speak or interfere with the solution of the mystery which is eventually resolved in traditional Agatha Christie style. They do add an additional layer of fun to a tale that is punctuated by regular stabs of amusement, often at the expense of twee villages like Bishops Well. (It sounds a lovely place to visit but if I had to live there I’d be desperate to be the victim in the next of what promises to be a long series.)
I’m not sure it entirely works as a crime mystery. I can’t say why without major spoilers, but I found the ending unsatisfactory. I’m not sure that Legat’s heart was entirely in finding out whodunnit. She’s much more interested in the people and the fun she can have with their situation – ghosts and all. If you go with the flow (easy enough – she writes well) you’ll have fun too.
A Slow Fire Burning: Paula Hawkins
I ‘read’ this as an audio book. I love crime thrillers on audio (how else would I get the housework done) and this definitely hit the spot.
I wasn’t sure at first. In fact I nearly gave up in the first few minutes as it started with one of those horrific ‘woman about to be raped/murdered’ prologues that linger a little too much on the misogynistic detail. I suspect Paula Hawkins may lose readers with this, which is a shame, because the book isn’t like that at all.
It’s a confusing, messy start, switching from the over-written prologue to a woman bleeding in her bathroom having been injured in some unspecified way. We quickly establish that she is a disturbed young person with unsympathetic parents and then we are away again to another woman and a detailed account of the trials of emptying the chemical toilet on her barge.
By the time we got to the murder I had almost decided not to listen to any more. I’m glad I stuck with it, though. It’s a very good (if deeply depressing) book.
It takes a while to get all the characters sorted out. What links the best-selling author and the miserable middle aged woman on the barge? And how are they linked to the alcoholic who, in turn, links us to the bloodied woman at the start of the book? And what on earth does the prologue have to do with any of it?
It is, as you may imagine, a twisted and tangled tale: twisted in both senses of the word. Almost all the characters are deeply flawed. All have some redeeming feature or, at least, some excuse for being simply awful people, but the truth is that, except for one utterly lovely person, all are very unpleasant – and one, of course, is a murderer.
To tell the truth, I didn’t really care whodunnit. I was carried along wondering how this wretched bunch of people were going to get their lives together or – more realistically – how exactly they were going to crash and burn. It’s not exactly an edifying spectacle but, like any car crash, their stories have an awful fascination.
In the end we do find out who did it. There are twists and turns along the way and the resolution is satisfying, but it’s not really crucial to the enjoyment of the book. It’s just a bloody good read – or, in my case, ‘listen’ – and Rosamund Pike’s narration is spot-on perfect.
I wasn’t sure what I was going to write about today until I woke up to see a lovely review ofBurke and the Bedouinby Berthold Gambrel. You can read it HERE.
The review contrasts it with the political intrigue of Burke in the Land of Silver and says Bedouin is “more like an old-fashioned desert adventure story” which, fortunately, is an approach he likes. He’s not the first person to say something like this about Burke and the Bedouin which delights me because ‘old fashioned adventure story’ is just what I was aiming for.
I’m just finishing the sixth of the James Burke books and it’s made me look back at the series and see how different they are. This may or may not be a good thing commercially, but I’ve deliberately tried to change the mood between books. After a lifetime of hack writing (non-fiction) I am writing now for my own pleasure and playing with different approaches is something I enjoy. I hope it also keeps the books fresh for readers.
So how has this worked out in practice?
Burke in the Land of Silver
The first book in the series is a straightforward historical novel which sticks quite closely to the facts of Burke’s involvement with British adventures in South America in the early 19th century. Even the implausible bits (like his brief affair with the Queen of Spain) are solidly historically based. It’s an amazing story and a lot of fun, although it does have something to say about how ‘wars of liberation’ can go quite badly wrong. (Britain was busy ‘liberating’ Iraq when I wrote it.)
Burke and the Bedouin
Burke was always intended to be the hero of a series of books and the second was always supposed to be an old fashioned bit of fun. It’s not something that garners reviews, but it does seem popular with readers.
Burke at Waterloo
Burke at Waterloo was first published in 2015 on the 200th anniversary of the battle (because that was practically a legal obligation if you wrote Napoleonic history stories). It offers, I like to think, quite a good account of Waterloo and of the very important, but often forgotten, battle at Quatre Bras that preceded it. Burke, though, isn’t Sharpe, so the battle is the climax of what is essentially a spy story based around an attempted assassination of the Duke of Wellington in Paris. There was such an attempt and I’m surprised that it seems to be overlooked by both historians and novelists. Burke is very much a Napoleonic James Bond and this story makes a definite nod in the direction of On Her Majesty’s Secret Service.
Burke in the Peninsula
Having once moved into Sharpe territory, it was almost inevitable that Burke would end up in Spain. Burke in the Peninsula is the most straightforwardly military of the Burke series. He even gets to wear the uniform of a soldier of the Crown, which delights him because he spends the whole series trying to get away from spying so he can become what he thinks of as an honest soldier. The story features the battle of Talavera, which is officially a great British victory. In reality it was nothing of the sort and the story does show some of the reality of Napoleonic warfare. It also gave me the chance to revisit one of the people from an earlier book, who was one of my favourite characters and who I was excited to see again.
Burke in Ireland
Burke in Irelandmarks another change of gear in the series as we return to Burke’s earliest experiences as a spy. He’s just one of an army of British agents propping up English rule in Ireland. A friend suggested the plot (based around a famous prison escape at the time) and I started out cheerfully enough, but the more research I did, the more shocked I was by the details of what was effectively the British occupation of Ireland. The result is a much darker book than the others and one which goes a long way to explain Burke’s cynicism in many of the other stories. It’s a more serious story, but it has its share of fights and thrills and, inevitably, Burke finds himself in love. (This being his earliest adventure, it’s his first serious love interest and he’s surprisingly sweet.)
And finally …
So to the latest: I’m almost finished the first draft, but I think there’s still a lot to do. Like Burke and the Bedouin, this is a very old-fashioned adventure story. It’s so old-fashioned I’m referencing Baroness Orczy’s Scarlet Pimpernel in the title: Burke and the Pimpernel Affair. It’s a full-on spy story and very light-hearted as Burke has to free prisoners from a Paris gaol and escape with them across France. Expect the usual murder and mayhem and a guest appearance from the Empress Josephine.
Despite the research (even for Pimpernel which turns out to involve an awful lot more real history than I had expected), I do enjoy writing the Burke books, from the light-heartedly silly to the actually quite serious. The only things you can really be sure of are that there will be daring deeds, there will be a woman and Burke will in the end, however reluctantly, Do the Right Thing.
I don’t have a whole lot to say about books or writing or history this week. I’m still revelling in the opportunity to do things that we once took for granted.
We’ve been allowed back into Wales for a few months now, so we took advantage of the heatwave to get out of London and enjoy somewhere cool.
And, yes, that little orange blur on the right-hand picture is a dragonfly! They grow big in this heat. (As with all the images, you can right click to open a larger version.)
Speaking of heat, water levels are again very low. It’s a concern in an area where most of the farms have no mains water and rely on natural springs. For now, though, it’s a time to enjoy the summer.
And get in the hay.
For us, though, it was mainly about staying in the shade.
Back from Wales, we discovered that the tango scene is returning to life.
Yes, there were fewer people than usual so we had more space, but clubs are already getting more like normal – or at least the “new normal”. Fingers crossed things can stay that way.
As life opens up, it’s a wonder I still find time to write, but the next Burke book is coming along nicely and a week away has given me ideas for a new Urban Fantasy novel.
Enjoy the summer. Remember to buy some books to read on the beach/in the caravan/hiding in a forest. Have fun.
I’m sitting in Wales looking out the window at a landscape hazy in the heat of a July day. It’s a wonderful, lazy place where we walk and read and chat aimlessly about all sorts of things, usually pointless (Can analysis be worthwhile? Is the theatre really dead?) but sometimes a little more down-to-earth, like am I going to keep writing about James Burke and how am I going to persuade more people to buy the books?
I’m definitely writing one more, because I’m already well into it. Burke and the Pimpernel Affair is going to be an escapist bit of fun after the seriousness of Burke in Ireland, featuring the Empress Josephine, daring escapes from prison, secret agents and a very good tailor. But after that? I’m not sure. I’d like to write about the Lines of Torres Vedras because, back in the days when international travel was practicable, I visited Portugal and I’d love to feature the fortifications there in one of Burke’s adventures. But even here in Wales, with my very limited internet access, I’m getting Twitter messages suggesting that there is more to historical fiction than the Napoleonic Wars.
The Lines of Torres Vedras. So good I want to write a book about them.
The trouble is that people really enjoy reading about the Napoleonic Wars. I love all my books, but every parent has a secret favourite child and I think John Williamson (from my John Williamson Papers) is a more interesting fellow than James Burke. But Williamson – solid, reliable Williamson who agonises about the right thing to do and ends up trapped in one moral quagmire after another – he’s never going to sell like James Burke. Not only is the market for moral ambiguity more limited than the potential readership of books with gallant strapping heroes who slay the villain, win the girl and ride off into the sunset (though that’s a cruel over-simplification of Burke’s character because he has his demons too) but Williamson is having his adventures in the mid-19th century. The Williamson books are all about the age of Empire and as we re-evaluate what Empire meant, it’s become a period that people don’t seek out for easy reading. It’s a shame but (as the kids say) it is what it is.
There are three John Williamson books. I’ve just republished the first, The White Rajah with the other two to come. It’s a trilogy that starts in England, travels to Borneo (The White Rajah) and India (Cawnpore) before returning to England (Back Home). I am not planning any more, but I do hope to pick up new readers this year. (I really do recommend The White Rajah. I hope you read it.)
So where to next? Should I send Burke to America to fight the damn Yankees? Or start off with a completely different hero?
I am tempted to write more Urban Fantasy like Something Wicked. Urban Fantasy does not require weeks spent reading dusty volumes of history or visiting old forts in Portugal (however much fun that was) or checking fashion details in the V&A. And people read it. They read it enthusiastically and write about it and tell their friends. Urban Fantasy is, not to put too fine a point on it, just more profitable than historical fiction.
The sad truth is that the market does decide what people write. Even if, like me and most authors I know, you don’t write for money, it is dispiriting (utterly, hideously dispiriting) to write books that don’t get read. And the best measure of how many people are reading them is sales.
So if you like books of a certain type (by me or anyone else) do get onto Amazon (other booksellers are also available) and buy them. And tell your friends. Or, better yet, buy them for your friends. (Amazon now allows you to gift e-books.)
If you don’t, slowly but surely, writers will stop writing the books you enjoy.
It was Paul Simon who asked if the theatre was really dead. (Ten house points if you picked up the reference.) He didn’t ask if literature (or historical fiction, or space opera, or magical realism) was dead because he wrote the song before the publishing revolution that means the world has never had so many books and never had so many without sales. Books are now so cheap that many people see them as something they shouldn’t have to pay for at all. But authors need sales. They are the easiest way to show book love.
Ever since I discovered that about half my Twitter followers seem unaware of my blog, I’ve been telling everyone that I blog every Friday (and occasional Tuesdays). So it’s a bit embarrassing to admit that I don’t really have anything to say this Friday. That’s because I’m away in Wales again, fleeing what seems likely to be an unpleasantly hot weekend in London. So while my neighbours are fanning themselves and drenching their clothes in cold water, we’ll be here:
I did do an extra blog post on Tuesday. I could have held that over until today, but I wanted to get it out in the world because I was hoping someone out there was going to help me write my next book. It’s going quite well so far, but feel free to jump in with your own suggestions. (A detailed knowledge of the Parisian prison system in 1809 is helpful but not essential.)
Sometimes people say that they are interested in how writers like me come up with the stuff that you (hopefully) buy and read. Here’s your chance to find out. It’s at https://tomwilliamsauthor.co.uk/the-joys-of-historical-research-125-in-a-continuing-series/. I may not read any of your replies for a few days (internet in mid-Wales is not the best) but if you do have any thoughts, I’d love to hear them.
