Crime Fest: Creating Believable Sleuths

The second panel of the day (on Thursday) was creating believable sleuths and the panel from left to right are: Paul Johnston, Christopher Wakling, L C Tyler , Anne Zouroudi and Zoe Sharp.


Donna over at Big Beat from Badsville has already written this panel up in enviable detail, so I suggest you toddle over and read her report if you haven't done so already.

CrimeFest - Cosies

I have shrunk these photos down somewhat so people can view them on phones etc but unfortunately they are a bit fuzzy.

The opening panel on "Cosies" featured from left to right:

Deryn Lake, Dolores Gordon-Smith, Lauren Henderson, Carola Dunn and Frances Brody.


Here are some random jottings and thoughts from the panel:

Frances Brody's third book in the series will be out in September and her books should be published in the US next year. Deryn Lake's historical novels (as Dinah Lampitt) will be reissued under the Lake name. (I first knew of this author as Dinah Lampitt and devoured her Pour the Dark Wine about the Tudor Seymours which I read in 89 or 90). The Mills of Gold is the first in a new series and there is a new John Rawlings, Death at the Wedding Feast, published in July. Carola Dunn's Anthem for Doomed Youth is the darkest in the Daisy series so far.

There was some discussion of what the term cozies/cosies mean eg between people who know each other well. Cozies more of a US term? Usually used as a pejorative term. The murder methods may not be cosy (at one point Deryn Lake rattled off her book titles and the murder methods in them) but the level of detail would be low and no forensics involved.


The panelists agreed about enjoying house hunting for their characters. Another thing that identified cosies was that the killer didn't take trophies!


Lauren Henderson (whose crime books I wouldn't describe as cosies!) is currently writing YA and bonk-busters (as Rebecca Chance). She commented that her YA (clean) was not selling in the UK as not gloomy enough.

Crime Fest Quiz 2011

We were lucky enough to have Martin Edwards join our Friend Feeders team (aka the International Bloggers) at the Crime Fest 2011 quiz last Thursday.

As well as Martin and myself from the UK the team included Danish blogger Dorte and Australian blogger Kerrie and their husbands (not shown!).

Though the questions set by Peter Guttridge were incredibly hard and/or obscure I knew that with Martin involved we had a good chance of repeating the 2010 win and he we did.

Kerrie, Dorte, Me with Martin standing-up.

The prize was 3 bags of books and audio-books which have found good homes.

CrimeFest Quiz Prize

When the team I happened to be on won the 2010 CrimeFest quiz, the prize came in the form of a large cardboard box full of books, audio books and Lewis DVDs, from which we helped ourselves. Here's what I took:



The James Patterson audio book is unabridged and will fit nicely into my teenage fiction interest. I don't normally listen to abridged books but the Kate Atkinson one is read by Jason Isaacs...

(Thinking it about it now, I have a feeling the Lee Child audio book was in my book bag...and not a prize.)

Back from CrimeFest

I had rather a lengthy journey back from CrimeFest at Bristol today (compared to the number of miles I had to go) due to Sunday engineering works and broken down trains, and I haven't unpacked everything yet and I certainly haven't touched my packets. Apparently 12 came in one day - this is rather unusual, possibly even a personal record!


Mark it in your diary - next year's CrimeFest is 19-22 May 2011.

Crime Fest Day 2.1

My first panel of the day - I Fought the Law: Authors who write both crime fact & fiction, chaired by Martin Edwards who, though he claims not to be a morning person, led an interesting and lively panel.

L-R: Alison Bruce, Dan Waddell, Martin Edwards, Diane Janes, Frances Brody:



Dan and Martin after the panel:



Of particular interest to me was the fact that Diane Janes's book, The Pull of the Moon, is partly set in Birmingham. Regular readers of this blog might be aware of how unusual this is. Alison Bruce's series has been on my radar for a while as it's set in Cambridge, another of my favourite settings. Dan Waddell has agreed to visit my library to give a talk at an unspecified date as yet but I look forward to hearing more abut his genealogy book and crime series. He introduced the panel (and audience?) to the term "psychogeograhy" when talking about how Rillington Place has been obliterated, rebuilt and renamed but without a number 10. Martin said that Crippen's house was demolished in the blitz but there are similar houses around that he could look at for his book on Crippen. Frances Brody shared a story on how she went to Headingly to find a house for her main character and how the current owner was a bit suspicious about her and didn't offer a tour inside. (Her next book is set in Harrogate). Zoe Sharp won the goody bag for the most interesting question, asking the panel what was the most unusual fact they'd found during their research. Dan said that he's read that a stupid surname shortens life expectancy but he hasn't been able to find any scientific evidence to corroborate the claim!

Crime Fest Quiz 2010

I'm pleased to report that your erstwhile correspondent was part of the winning team, the Monkey Coalition, at the quiz tonight at Crime Fest. The team comprised readers Rik, Carol and myself and authors, Ann Cleeves, Martin Edwards and Cath Staincliffe. The prize was a large mixed box of books, talking books and DVDs which we plundered to our own personal satisfaction. I'm afraid I had little to do with our success, rather it was Martin and Rik who stole the show!

Crime Fest: Translators panel

Apologies for the murky photo. I have lightened it up a bit. Click on it for a 'better' look. From left to right, the panel members are:
Ann Cleeves, champion of translated crime fiction (especially Scandinavian), Tiina Nunnally who has translated Karin Fossum and Miss Smilla's Feeling for Snow, Don Bartlett, translator of Jo Nesbo and K O Dahl, Roz Schwarz, co-translator of Dominique Manotti and Reg Keeland (aka Steven T Murray) translator of Stieg Larsson's trilogy and many other Swedish crime novels.


(I hope I convey what was said reasonably accurately. I am paraphrasing but if I've missed anything or misconstrued something, please let me know.)

Firstly, good news for Harry Hole's many fans. The first one in the series The Snowman is to be the next one available in English and we have Don Bartlett to thank for bringing Jo Nesbo to publishers' attention and lobbying for a translation.

The panel were asked whether they ever turned anything work down. Don said possibly if it was too grisly and the panel agreed that they would turn a book down if they had no affinity for the book. Tiina said they didn't really have a lot of choice in what they were given to translate but she might turn it down if there was a child victim. She might lobby for a translation if she spots something. Roz added that she might turn down a piece of work if the deadline was too tight.

Scandinavian crime fiction is very popular in Germany so Reg said that he checked amazon.de to see what was being translated. He contacted Camilla Lackberg's agent directly about translating her books.

The panel were asked whether they read the whole book before translating. Some did and some only read fifty pages before starting. Tiina said that she wanted it to be as much a surprise as when you read it for pleasure. Roz said she read the whole book and then did a draft into English and that's when the work begins. Don said he'd read through the whole book (Devil's Star I think) but then had to work on another book so had to reread it. He said that Jo (Nesbo) has a dry wit like the British and he sees Harry as a dry northerner.

Roz said it was important to keep to the spirit and voice of the original but especially with humour you can't always translate a joke at a certain place in the book so you use another joke a few pages later. Don added that you wonder how much of the original language to leave in eg do you translate the Norwegian police ranks?

Rather than translating from the original language, often the English translations will be used as a basis for a translation into another language eg Albanian.

Don enjoyed translating the novel The Burnt-Out Town of Miracles by Roy Jacobsen and Tiina was fond of the Kristin Lavransdatter trilogy and is currently awaiting the second book from Mikkel Birkegaard. Roz's favourite was The Star of Algiers by Aziz Chouaki and Reg said the Larsson trilogy was the best project he'd worked on. (He translated all three in just ten months.)

Don commented on the out of order translation of the Harry Hole series which began with no. 5 The Devil's Star then went back to no.3 The Redbreast thus ruining the internal arc in books 3 to 5. The Devil's Star had had big sales and that's why it was chosen and technically the books will stand-alone. K O Dahl's books are getting a similar treatment.

As you can see this was a very interesting discussion, well chaired by Ann. Roz is hoping to run a workshop at next year's Crime Fest where the participants will do a bit of translating themselves.

Crime Fest: Reviewers' Gallery

I must get a better camera for next year's Crime Fest. All my photos are very dark and the zoom/wideangle button doesn't work.

Here's a subset of the Euro Crime review team:

Maxine, Michelle, Amanda B and Norman (click on the photo for a better look)

Their reviews can be found here.

Michael Connelly - Radio 5 & Crime Fest interview

Last Thursday's Simon Mayo Book Review programme reviewed Michael Connelly's The Scarecrow and John Boyne's The House of Special Purpose. You can listen to Michael Connelly being interviewed as well as the glowing reviews of the panel on this website (podcast can also be downloaded) but don't hang around as the programme doesn't seem to be archived.

Michael Connelly (MC) was the international guest of honour at Crime Fest and was interviewed by Peter Guttridge (PG) last Saturday. Here are my notes:

MC said that he never used to reveal how long it took him to write his books as people assume speed detracts from quality. With some prodding from PG he said that The Poet took 3 months, The Scarecrow 6 months and a Harry Bosch novel 10 - 11 months.

MC is now finishing off a Harry Bosch novel (and according to the website it will be out in October) - called Nine Dragons, a third of it will be set in Hong Kong and it sets up several of the next books. Harry is now in his late 50s so is unlikely to be carrying the badge much longer. Mickey Haller, from The Lincoln Lawyer, will appear in one chapter of Nine Dragons. MC also said that he had sowed some seeds in earlier books which would allow him to write a prequel at some point and he discussed a couple of sub-plots he'd written but now wished he not closed off so quickly.

MC says he writes in the journalistic style ie succinct and to the point. A good day involves writing between 4 am and noon and he ensures that the story moves along by a minimum of one step a day. He will be writing Harry Bosch until he dies/stops writing.

MC's sister runs his website and there is some bonus material for The Scarecrow: twelve websites in the book can be accessed and also a bonus video. Rachel Walling does not appear in The Scarecrow for some pages, so the video shows what she was doing for that time. Two parts are now available and the last part will follow on 26th May. Each part is about 25 minutes long. MC did say that if you don't want to get a picture in your head of Rachel Walling then best to not watch the video.

In both interviews he also discussed the terminal state of the newspaper industry.

Crime Fest Quiz Winners

Here are the euromonkeys, winners of the Quiz at Crime Fest last week, click on the photo to enlarge:

Rik, Carol and Ann Cleeves (and Mr Monkey):


Ann, Rafe McGregor and Martin Edwards (Donna is in the background):



Martin and Maxine:

Crime Fest 2010 - special guests

Mark it in your calendar now: 20-23 May 2010 for Crime Fest 2010.

Authors already confirmed include...

M C Beaton
Natasha Cooper
Colin Dexter
Ariana Franklin
and Gyles Brandreth as toastmaster...

as well as John Curran, author of Agatha Christe and the Mystery of the Secret Notebooks which will include two previously unpublished Poirot short stories. It will be published in September. Read more about it here.

Martin Edwards should be back to defend his Mastermind title.

Some extra excursions/night events are being planned as well but they are hush hush at the moment...

Crime Fest Awards - the winners are...

The Crime Fest Awards winners have been announced:

The Last Laugh

Christopher Fowler/The Victoria Vanishes

Audible Sounds of Crime

a) Abridged
tie between Stieg Larsson/The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo & Ian Rankin/Doors Open

b)Unabridged
Kate Atkinson/When Will There be Good News

The shortlists can be found here.

News from Crime Fest - quiz, Colin Dexter

If you read the Friend Feed Crime and Mystery fiction room then you'll already know that several familiar bloggers and euro crime reviewers were part of the winning quiz team on Thursday night. The "euromonkeys" were: Authors - Ann Cleeves, Martin Edwards and Rafe McGregor, Bloggers - Maxine (Petrona), Me and Euro Crime reviewers - Rik and Carol. Photos to follow.

Also, overheard at Crime Fest is the good news that the next volume of the anthology, Best British Mysteries, edited by Maxim Jakubowski and due for publication in 2010 will contain a new short story by Colin Dexter featuring Inspector Morse. Other contributors include P D James and John Harvey.

Crime Fest - Authors

The UK crime fiction convention season begins tomorrow, with Crime Fest 2009, in Bristol. Weekend tickets, daily tickets and also individual tickets for the guest of honour interviews can be bought. Several of the Euro Crime review team will be there (and me).

There are 73 authors and translators attending. I have read books by 25 of them plus I am currently reading or about to start books by two more of them. I own (as yet) unread books by a further 18 of them. Which means 28 of them, I've neither read nor own.

The hyper-links take you to the author's page on the Euro Crime website which lists the bibliography with links to reviews and the author's homepage (if available).

Don Bartlett (translator of eg Jo Nesbo)
M.C. Beaton
Cara Black
Stephen Booth
Gyles Brandreth
Simon Brett
Alison Bruce
Declan Burke
Colin Campbell
Cassandra Clark
Mary Andrea Clarke
Ann Cleeves
Michael Connelly
Judith Cutler
David Stuart Davies
Ruth Downie
Marjorie Eccles
Martin Edwards
Ruth Dudley Edwards
Kate Ellis
Chris Ewan
Jane Finnis
Meg Gardiner
Dolores Gordon-Smith
Ann Granger
Peter Guttridge
Steven Hague
M.R. Hall
John Harvey
Kaye C. Hill
Suzette A. Hill
Matt Hilton
Roger Hudson
Declan Hughes
Maxim Jakubowski
Bill James
Paul Johnston
Alison Joseph
Reg Keeland (translator eg Stieg Larsson)
Janet Laurence
Adrian Magson
Edward Marston
Andrew Martin
Priscilla Masters
Keith McCarthy
Brian McGilloway
Pat McIntosh
Jenni Mills
Aly Monroe
Donna Moore
R.N. Morris
Steve Mosby
Helen Mulgray & Morna Mulgray
Margaret Murphy
Håkan Nesser
Tiina Nunnally (translator of eg Karin Fossum as Felicity David)
Andrew Pepper
Sheila Quigley
Caro Ramsay
Sarah Rayne
Linda Regan
Pauline Rowson
Ros Schwartz (translator of eg Dominique Manotti)
Claire Seeber
E.V. Seymour
Zoë Sharp
Yrsa Sigurðardóttir
Andrew Taylor
L.C. Tyler
Sue Walker
Michael Walters
Kevin Wignall
Anne Zouroudi