Harrogate - Drawing the Line

My third panel and this time I took notes by hand. Drawing the Line featured Tim Weaver, Margie Orford, Penny Hancock, Gregg Hurwitz and N J Cooper moderating.

Panel blurb: When it comes to making moral choices, how far should a writer go? Do they worry about titillating those who may be tempted to emulate the terrible crimes they read about? And do writers ever fear for their own psyches when coming up with ideas which push the envelope of acceptability?

My notes:

NC commented that kidnap featured in novels by all 4 of them.

MO said that South Africa is much more dangerous than England, children, people do disappear. [I'm not sure if she was joking] said that she had morgue on speed dial as she has 3 daughters. South Africa is rape capital of the world. It's more fun to write emotional torture than physical.

GH said that he would sometimes leave an important bit out of a description eg if he was describing making a bomb.

MO came to write crime to try and understand why there is so much violence in South Africa.

PH wanted to explore the psychology of a woman (who'd kidnap a teenage boy) - wouldn't be interested in the scenario if the genders were reversed. Hasn't found any examples of a female kidnapping a boy.

TW said that 25% readers found his first book too violent and said he was hurt by that as it it implied that he had no control over his writing. There was going to be a scene with dog cruelty but he was advised (and did) to take it out.

MO was going to have the cat killed off - as didn't fit her character's life but she received an email from a fan saying whatever you do don't harm the cat. The cat was reprieved and she has to re-edit book and put cat care routines in!

MO - fear of fear, moved back to South Africa in 2001 with her 3 daughters and was scared but the mortuary on a Monday morning would show bodies of young men, not women. Said that dead women are often passed to women pathologists as men get too upset. Superstition that if you write about something you are warding it off.

Both GH and MO are reported to be more pleasant when working on a book.

There is a poison line you can ring in US and GH rang to ask about the poisonous nature of oleander and there was a pause and the recipient of the call asked "Sir, may I ask what number you're calling from"!

MO wrote journalist pieces but needed more space to explore true crime. Cops - fluke if they catch someone - only chiefs of police going to jail at the moment. Most people in South Africa experience violence themselves or a close family/friend has.

New Reviews: Bass, Bates, Casey, Dean, Gillies, Hauxwell, Henry, Orford, Staincliffe

There were no reviews last weekend as I was away at CrimeFest and I've written up a few of the panels here.

Don't forget to vote in the International Dagger Polls.

Here are this week's 9 new reviews:

Amanda Gillies reviews Jefferson Bass's, The Bones of Avignon, published in the US as The Inquisitor's Key;

Maxine Clarke reviews Quentin Bates's Cold Comfort the second in his Icelandic series;

Michelle Peckham reviews Jane Casey's The Last Girl the third in the DC Maeve Kerrigan series;

Terry Halligan is very impressed with Jason Dean's debut The Wrong Man set in the US;

I recently reviewed, on the blog, Andrea Gillies's, The White Lie a tale of family secrets, set in Scotland;

Susan Hilary reviews Annie Hauxwell's debut In Her Blood;

Susan White reviews James Henry's Fatal Frost the second prequel to R D Wingfield's beloved series;

Lynn Harvey reviews Margie Orford's, Daddy's Girl, the third in her Cape Town series which has just been released in paperback

and Rich Westwood reviews Cath Staincliffe's prequel to the Scott & Bailey tv series, Dead to Me and he hopes there will be more.

Previous reviews can be found in the review archive.

Forthcoming titles can be found by author or date or by category, here along with releases by year.

More African crime fiction - Margie Orford

I recently mentioned some African crime fiction titles coming up and a few more were suggested in the comments, well today a review copy of Margie Orford's Like Clockwork arrived from Atlantic Books. Like Clockwork is getting its UK publication next month and is the first in the Clare Hart series. The follow-up, Blood Rose, will be published in 2010.

Publisher's Synopsis: When a beautiful young woman is found murdered on Cape Town's Seapoint promenade, journalist and part-time police profiler, Dr Clare Hart is drawn into the web of a brutal serial killer. As more bodies are discovered, Clare is forced to re-visit the brutal rape of her twin sister and the gang ties that bind Cape Town’s dark crime rings. Is her investigation into human trafficking linked to the murders or is the killer just playing a sick game with her?

Like Clockwork is a dark and compelling crime story which exposes the underbelly of porn and prostitution in the Mother City.

You can read an extract at the author's website.

Publishing Deals - Margie Orford, Elly Griffiths

From Publishing News:

Isobel Dixon of Blake Friedmann has sold a three-book thriller series by Cape Town-based crime novelist Margie Orford to Ravi Mirchandani at Atlantic. London-born and raised in Namibia and South Africa, Orford was detained during the State of Emergency in 1985 and took her final Uni exams in prison. She studied under J M Coetzee and worked in publishing in Namibia, including the African Publishers Network. The series features journalist and part-time police profiler Dr Clare Hart. The first title, Like Clockwork, is already published in Germany with a 100,000 first print.

and

Janklow & Nesbit UK was kept busy in the run-up to LBF with a series of auctions for a bright new talent, Elly Griffiths, whose debut The Crossing Places introduces forensic archaeologist Dr Ruth Galloway and DCI Harry Nelson. UK rights have been snapped up by Jane Wood at Quercus, who is charmed by the author's “fresh and engaging writing; her quirky heroine; her wild East Anglian setting; her strong sense of history of how the past informs the present”. Dutch rights went to De Fontein, Norwegian were pre-empted by Aschehoug in sales by Rebecca Folland in London. J&N New York is handling US rights.

I'm looking forward to both these new series, especially the books set in my native (wild?) East Anglia.