Thankful for murderous minds

Hanging out with a motley and multinational crew at Harrogate in 2019: Nigerian author Leye Adenle, Professor Liam McIlvanney, Kiwi author Vanda Symon, Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, myself, and Amer Anwar

Craig every second Tuesday.

Kia ora and gidday everyone.

So over the weekend there was an hesitant-yet-exciting 'return to normalcy' for the crime writing community with one of the world's leading crime fiction gatherings, the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival in Harrogate, taking place live and in person, after going fully online in 2020 due to the global pandemic. Many precautions were in place - social distancing, masks and more - despite the Tory government in the UK pronouncing 'Freedom Day' earlier this month (against most scientific advice and common sense) and removing most protective restrictions. 

Unfortunately I was unable to attend Harrogate this year, so watched on with some degree of FOMO as many old friends I haven't seen for a couple of years all gathered together and seemed to have a really wonderful time. It seems that while lots of precautions were taken (people being double vaxxed, distancing and masks, spacious outdoor tents for events, restrictions on entry etc) and the usual, famous Harrogate vibe couldn't crack on in full force, that for everyone who went this was a really amazing event. And a bright light at the end of a long tunnel of cancelled festivals, missed book launches, Zoom-only gatherings with fellow passionate crime writers and readers. 

I'm hesitantly hopeful that in the months to come we'll be able to gather a little more, cautiously of course. While I've thoroughly enjoyed a wonderful array of online events over the past 16 months (eg our recent 'Four Critics Four Continents' review of the year's best books, which is the kind of thing unlikely to happen pre-COVID), I really miss our crime and thriller writing tribe. It's a wonderful community overall, full of creative and generous people. I always come away from events feeling invigorated and inspired. And while I certainly appreciated them 'back then', and knew I was lucky to get to the many things I did (even though I missed a lot as a stay-at-home Dad too), I think all of us may now have an even greater appreciation for the good times we get to spend in person with good people.

What a wonderful honour - this overgrown kid from New Zealand got to chair an amazing panel of New York Times bestsellers and award-winning storytellers at Bouchercon, the world mystery convention, in Toronto in October 2017. Kate White, myself, Kathy Reichs, Linwood Barclay, David Bell, and Michael Bracken

Nothing's guaranteed. None of the things that seem a usual, common part of our life will last forever, and they can be torn away unexpectedly. So in that vein, I thought I'd spend today's post just sharing my deep appreciation for the broad crime writing community and all the wonderful events, from book launches to crime panels at arts and books festivals to library events to a wide array of crime writing festivals and conventions big and small. I

I'm thankful I've got to meet and hang out with so many murderous minds. I've learned so much, had so many great conversations and 'remember for a lifetime' experiences. I'm a lucky guy. Kia ora rawa atu (thanks heaps). 

Here's a wee sprinkling, a photo essay of gratitude. 

Torchlit parade, Bloody Scotland, September 2019

So, let's start at the end, so to speak. I didn't know at the time of course, but Bloody Scotland in late September 2019 wasn't just my final book festival of an extraordinary year that kickstarted back with the first-ever Rotorua Noir in January (and included my first appearance onstage at Harrogate, great times at Newcastle Noir and Crimefest, and my first appearances at Noireland and Bute Noir, as well as getting to interview Val McDermid one-on-one on the big stage before a sold-out crowd at Edinburgh Book Festival) but would be my final festival for a long, long time. 

Here's the torchlit parade on the Friday night from historic Stirling Castle, with a front row including Denise Mina, David Baldacci, Manda Scott and 'Ambrose Parry' (Chris Brookmyre and Marisa Haetzman). I'd had the honour of walking alongside Liam McIlvanney, Denise Mina and Val McDermid at the front the year before - this time I'm tucked a row or two back (you can see my head between Denise and David). Fun times at a wonderful festival. 

Meeting the dashing Jeff Siger at Iceland Noir in late 2014

A really cool festival that I got to attend in 2014 is Iceland Noir, a wonderful smaller event that had a terrific vibe and some amazing people. It was the first time I met some of my fellow Murder is Everywhere writers, including Jeff Siger and Annamaria Alfieri. I also tried Hákarl (fermented/rotted shark), explored some of the volcanic landscapes, and had a fun chat with bestselling crime writer Peter James when we unexpectedly ran into each other while soaking in the geothermal wonders of the Blue Lagoon. I was hoping to return to Iceland Noir last year, but of course that didn't happen. One day again, it's a wonderful wee festival. Well worth a look when possible.

Fifteen minutes later, I was onstage, chairing a crime panel... 

While there's always lots to look forward to in a festival programme, things planned well in advance, some of the fun is the spontaneous events that occur, and live long in the memory. I may have taken that slightly too far at the Hamilton Garden Arts Festival back in February 2012, where I'd been asked to chair the crime writing panel (Kiwi crime novelists Paul Cleave, Ben Sanders, and Vanda Symon, true crime writer Scott Bainbridge). Relaxing with some frisbee beforehand, I threw a little hard, and high, for Vanda, who'd be tall if she were a hobbit. Paul's favourite frisbee that'd been thrown in several countries, slowly floating further and further into the lake. Oops. 

A quick dip, drying myself with the festival director's dog-hair-covered towel from the back of their station wagon, and we were away racing for what turned out to be a really fun panel. And a festival none of us would ever forget - I know, the others keep reminding me now and then, years later. Oh well. Fun times with great people. 

Chairing the 'Land Down Under' panel at Newcastle Noir in 2019

Hmm... you may be starting to think all I do at festivals is get up to hijinks. And yes, the frisbee and torchlit parades and thermal pools (not to mention the late-night conversations, midnight swims, backup singing for Fun Lovin' Crime Writers and other such things) are all tonnes of fun. But I do sometimes 'work', though can we really call it work when it's so much fun? I've been blessed to chair crime writing panels at many amazing festivals and crime conventions in a few countries. Here's one with some fellow Kiwis and Aussies at Newcastle Noir in May 2019: Vanda Symon, Nathan Blackwell, Rachel Amphlett, Helen Fitzgetald, and myself. It was raucous, full of laughter, sweary, tonnes of fun, and we gave out antipodean chocolate biscuits to the audience. What more could you want?

First of its kind: Rotorua Noir opened with a pohiri at Te Papaiouru marae in Ohinemutu

Having experienced so many wonderful crime writing festivals in the UK and beyond, I'd been keen for a while to create something like that for my home country, where there were often crime writing panels as part of big literary festivals, but there was nothing like Harrogate, Bloody Scotland, Iceland Noir, Crimefest, Noireland, Bouchercon, Newcastle Noir, Deal Noir,  Left Coast Crime, Malice Domestic and all the other wonderful events specifically celebrating our wonderful crime & thriller genre, and bringing together the 'crime tribe' for a (long) weekend.

Once again, I was lucky, getting to join forces with fellow Kiwi Grant Nicol, who I'd also met at Iceland Noir in 2014 (Grant was living in Reykjavik then), to create Rotorua Noir, New Zealand's first-ever crime & thriller writing festival. We aimed for 'small but awesome', akin to Iceland Noir or Bute Noir etc, and it was brilliant. We sold out months in advance, and despite a few things going wrong on the weekend (authors getting sick and not being able to show up on the day, internet difficulties creating a very stressful afternoon for me ahead of the Saturday Night Quiz, etc), it went better than we ever could have hoped. We combined that wonderful 'crime tribe' vibe with Aotearoa stylings to create something I think everyone who attended will remember for a long time. 

A multi-national crew or mystery lovers: Sibylle (Germany, lives in USA), Craig (Kiwi lives in UK), Jacky (UK), Alan (Australia), Kati (Finland) and Kiwis Vanda Symon and Michael Bennett

It was a real privilege and honour to be able to share something like this with Kiwi authors and readers, and with several visiting guests from overseas (Finland, Iceland, Scotland, England, Switzerland, Australia, the USA etc). 

And for those who've asked off and on since, yes, post-pandemic, Rotorua Noir will be back (I also didn't realise at the time that would be my last visit home for two and a half years and counting. Life turns unexpectedly). 

Realising that my 'photo essay' is becoming more wordy than I intended as I reflect in gratitude, a few quick hits: 

Strangers on a train - bumping into Laura Lippman as we disembarked, after I'd been reading Laura Lippman from London to Harrogate in 2016 with no idea she was a few seats behind me.

As delightful as our first meeting on the train was, this is one of Laura's favourite photos. We decided to use the 'big green chair' when I interviewed Laura, and thereafter it became a thing. I conducted several author interviews there in 2016, 2018, and 2019

After chairing panels on lots of assorted topics (legal thrillers, screen crime, European crime, etc) and author mixtures, and doing some cool one-on-one onstage sessions too, it was a real privilege to get to showcase Aussie & Kiwi crime writers a bit at several UK festivals in 2018 and 2019, including here at Harrogate: me, Vanda Symon, Jane Harper, Christian White, Stella Duffy

In recent years the Fun Lovin' Crime Writers band has become a welcome fixture at UK crime writing festivals, and they've dragged a host of people onstage for backing vocals. At Bloody Scotland in 2018 it was my turn along with Stella Duffy, Simone Buchholz, and Lilja Sigurdardottir, among others. 

A criminally inclined crew at the London premiere of season 1 of Bosch: Ali Karim, Michael Connelly, Ayo Onatade, Mike Stotter, and myself. 

Early days: onstage at the Christchurch Writers Festival in 2012 following a crime debate event then the presentation of the Ngaio Marsh Award to Neil Cross (Graham Beattie, Paul Cleave, myself, Neil, Ben Sanders, Ruth Todd, Michael Robotham, and Vanda Symon) 

Playing with fire: with Val McDermid, Liam McIlvanney, and Denise Mina at Bloody Scotland in 2018

Barely scratches the surface, but I think that'll do. It's strange times we're living through, where so much is unavailable to us, yet at the same time I'm finding myself profoundly grateful for many things, and perhaps even more appreciative for some of  the things - like crime festivals and book events - that I've been blessed to experience and enjoy over my years. An interest turned passion that's opened so many doors and brought me so much. I hope I've given plenty too, and will keep working to do so. 

Thanks for reading. Sorry if it got a little indulgent today. I'm just feeling reflective and oh-so-grateful after all the updates from friends and fellow crime-lovers at Harrogate over the weekend. 

What are some of your favourite memories or stories from crime and mystery events? 

Until next time. Ka kite anō.

Whakataukī of the fortnight: 

Inspired by Zoe and her 'word of the week', I'll be ending my fortnightly posts by sharing a whakataukī (Māori proverb), a pithy and poetic thought to mull on as we go through life.

He hono tangata e kore e motu; ka pa he taura waka e motu

(Unlike a canoe rope, a human bond cannot be severed)

Presenting Guest Author Angie Kim

Angie Kim

Instead of Sujata's usual blogpost, here is something special from first-time author Angie Kim, who emigrated from Seoul to the Mid-Atlantic region as a child. Angie's bestselling first novel, Miracle Creek, has been named an Indie Next and Library Reads Pick, a Washington Post Summer Reads selection, a Top 10 AppleBooks Debut, and "one of the best books of 2019 so far" by both Amazon and Time Magazine. Angie went to Stanford University for undergraduate studies and studied law at Harvard University. She practiced as a trial lawyer before turning to writing fiction. Angie currently lives in Northern Virginia with her husband and three sons. 

When people ask me what my debut novel, Miracle Creek, is about, I have a standard elevator pitch ready to go: it’s a literary courtroom drama about a Korean immigrant family and a young, single mother on trial for murdering her 8-year old autistic son. The genre is a little harder to describe, as it doesn’t neatly fit into a standard category. It’s part murder mystery, part legal thriller, part immigrant story, part family drama. It opens with “The Incident” one summer night in rural Virginia (the titular town of Miracle Creek) when someone sets fire by the oxygen tanks outside a hyperbaric oxygen therapy chamber with four patients sealed inside for treatments of conditions ranging from infertility to autism and cerebral palsy. There’s an explosion. Multiple deaths and severe injuries. We fast forward a year to a murder trial where, over four days, we hear from seven POV characters and learn not only what happened that fateful night, but how the tragedy has affected their lives since then.

Angie and her parents in Korea before they emigrated

            Miracle Creek is my first novel—not only the first novel I’ve published, but the first I’ve ever even attempted to write—and, as such, I’ve put a lot of myself into it. The first, and most elemental, strand of my life in my novel is my childhood as a Korean immigrant. When I was eleven, my parents and I moved from Seoul, South Korea, to Baltimore, where I lived with my aunt and uncle while my parents ran and lived in a grocery store in a dangerous part of downtown Baltimore. I went from feeling like a smart girl with many friends in Korea to being a foreigner in an American middle school, not speaking or understanding the language, not wearing the right clothes, not knowing anyone. I lost my voice. There’s a lot of that formative experience in the story I tell about the teenage immigrant character Mary Yoo and her family’s struggle to adjust to America and the way they lost their closeness with each other along the way. 

A rural area in Great Falls, VA, that partly inspired the book's setting

            The second important strand of my novel comes from the last 15 years of my life, as the mother of three children with wide-ranging medical issues that required, among other things, hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBOT). My son was four years old when he was diagnosed with celiac disease and ulcerative colitis. The standard treatments didn’t work—he was crying that his stomach hurt and throwing up and losing weight, the outlines of his ribs protruding through his skin—so we decided to try an experimental treatment I’d heard about, involving breathing pure oxygen inside a pressurized chamber. We did 40 hour-long sessions that summer, sealed inside the group chamber with three other families. Because of the presence of pure oxygen and the risk of fire that entailed, we couldn’t bring anything in—no phones, toys, electronics, magazines—leaving us with nothing to do but talk. We shared life stories and traded information about the various illnesses our kids were contending with. It was a wholly immersive and intense experience, and later, when I started thinking about writing a novel, I thought immediately of the submarine, the intimacy and confessional honesty that developed in that dark, sealed environment, a crucible in more ways than one.

            The third and final strand that brought all the threads and characters into a coherent whole was my experience as a trial lawyer, which gave me the tools to structure Miracle Creek around four days of a murder trial. As a foundational matter, once I decided to explore the aftermath of a horrific tragedy, it seemed natural to have a criminal trial anchor the story, given my familiarity with courtroom procedures and what I’ve seen of the heightened interpersonal conflicts that setting can produce. The courtroom’s demand for “the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth” can rattle even the most confident witness and have them questioning their own memories and the blurry line between insignificant omissions and outright lies. And although I considered advancing the mystery element of the plot through other vehicles (such as private-eye or police investigations), the inherent drama of the courtroom—the witness on a raised platform telling their stories to an audience—and the couldn’t-be-higher stakes of the death penalty ultimately convinced me that the courtroom would be the best setting to maximize the suspense and tension.

Zhang Chun Hong's My Life Strands, courtesy of Smithsonian Institutions

            Right around the time I started working on my novel, I attended the first-ever Asian American exhibition at the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery and was mesmerized by My Life Strands, a charcoal drawing on a paper scroll—a long braid of coarse black hair, coming together tighter and tighter until the three strands became one and flowed onto the ground like a winding river. This image created by Zhang Chun Hong, a Chinese-born, U.S. based artist, stayed with me as I wrote, until ultimately, my novel became the literary equivalent of that drawing: a story woven from three of my life strands that are elemental to who I am today. By braiding these life strands into one narrative, I hope that I’ve been able to create not only an exciting who-/how-/why-dunit with all the theatrics and surprising twists inherent to courtroom dramas, but something more: a deep dive into the lives of immigrant families and of parents of children with special needs and illnesses, both groups isolated and exhausted by the sacrifices they’ve had to make, desperate for connection. These are two groups that are growing and especially pressured in today’s climate, and I hope that my novel can help to make readers aware of those challenges and to build empathy for them, even a little bit.

Angie Kim

Fact and Fiction. The Crime Writers' Responsibility?

I recall being at a forensics event where my good pal the crime writer Alex Gray was speaking.  It was a few days after the spree killing in Cumbria where Derrick Bird had killed 12 people. Bird had shot his twin brother eleven times then drove to the office of the family solicitor and killed him also.  Derrick was a taxi driver himself when he opened fire on four other taxi drivers, killing the only one he actually knew. The police considered them targeted shootings, but Bird then went on a random spree killing another nine people.

Alex

Bird was a granddad, described as a popular and quiet man.  There have been many reasons speculated, a family feud over  money, he had just been  rejected by a Thai girl he had met on holiday and three of the dead had worked at the  Sellafield power plant where Bird had been  accused of stealing wood, found guilty and received a twelve month suspended sentence.

                                       

                                                       Derrick Bird

Against that background, Alex had to stand up and promote crime fiction to the police and forensic staff who deal with these tragedies day in and day out. It was a tough call.

She started her speech by saying that she wasn't that proud to be a crime writer on that particular day. I understood what she meant but it's not something that has ever troubled me in particular.  Real people commit real crimes. We write stories that amuse people waiting in airports and in dentists' waiting rooms. We set puzzles for people to solve. The two things are miles apart.

But thinking about it, I realise that I do have some reservations about a crime writing friend of mine who openly admits that all her fiction is based on fact. She cuts stories out of newspapers, changes the name, sexes them up a bit and hey presto there's a new novel. So much that the real people involved are recognisable in the fiction. I also remember listening to a TV scriptwriter who said that she bought stories from victims of crime to use in her TV series.  Big ones to base the series on and smaller stories to act as background.  (I think she called the little ones stringers). I then watched the TV show, the story was based on the murder of a four year old child who had been killed and put in a drain pipe. I knew it was based on a true story - and I couldn't watch it.

 I can watch true documentary of crime as long as they are well made, but not drama based on fact...because at the end of the day it is entertainment based on the tragic death of somebody's son, somebody's daughter.  Even in fiction, I think it is a big turn off for the reader when the murder becomes a technical exercise, with it having no emotional effect on anybody, especially the investigative team.

It's a line I think we all have to draw somewhere.

However to balance that I do believe that crime writers have a chip of ice in their heart, as do most medics. You need to have an investigative mind. As soon as the empathy is over, the investigation begins - the what if's, and the why's, and all the other questions.

I've thought a fair bit about including this case in this blog, as it is close to the bone. If I had read it in a fictional novel, it is fascinating, reading a factual account would be interesting

 but as it happened  in the last week, not to somebody that I know, but somebody who is a friend of a good friend it's a bit raw but also serves as an example that we should be aware of the tight rope that we walk sometimes.

                                    

                                                               Margaret and Nicola

This case raises all kinds of questions, something that we might never get to the bottom of. It is a tragedy in every sense of the word.

It concerns a mother and daughter, two very normal people from Paisley. Margaret was 52, a nice, happy woman, committed politically - she had stood for the Lib Dems in two local elections - a hard working woman, mother of five grown up kids, foster mother to another two. She was divorced but on very good terms with her ex husband.

Her daughter Nicola was 23, a graduate in social work and was working for a local charity.

Then last week something went drastically and horribly wrong.

On Thursday at 9am, Margaret dropped off one of the children at nursery in Paisley. She is then seen with Nicola in Balloch at about 11am. The 17 hours after that are confusing. At 2pm Margaret fails to pick up the child from the nursery, the staff alert the family, the police pay a  visit to the family home at night as a routine call. But it's not in Margaret character to fail to turn up where she was expected.  There are now concerns about their welfare.

                                     

                                             Premier Inn, Courtesy of The Daily Record

Later it was discovered they had driven to Greenock and checked into the Premier Inn (which is a respectable motel type of place ideal for short stays for business men, overnight stays for early morning flights etc)

On Thursday night, they are both spotted in Linwood and Paisley, before returning to the Premier Inn somewhere between 12.30 and 1 am.

                                    

                                                      The last known movements- courtesy of the Scotsman

The tragedy unfolds at 7am the next morning, when a guest of the inn walking along the corridor discovers Nicola, lying badly injured in the hall. Her mother is found in a nearby room. The wounds have been described as slash wounds.

Both are rushed to hospital, the mother is critical, the daughter is serious. Margaret died later in hospital. Nicola held onto life for two more days, her dad holding a vigil at her bedside. Then she too passed away from her injuries.

The local papers are all screaming blood bath.

But it has to be noted that the police, very early on said that they were not looking for any third party. Vague sources (who refuse to be named) say that there may have been a suicide pact between mother and daughter and that an amount of paracetamol was found in the room. As yet the police do not have the results of any tox screen.

The police are still very keen to find out why they were driving around the area back tracking on themselves, why book an inn less than twenty miles from where they lived?  And so the questions go on, so the chip of ice eats away. And I'm sure it is eating away at their family and friends more than anyone.

The police as yet have given no indication as to cause of death, but they have confirmed that the family was not known to them.

The whys and the what ifs - the strange drive, the last few hours,  what was going on in that room, why did nobody hear, why did nobody help, could anybody have helped... we just don't know... and we may never know.

Maybe at the end of the day it is none of our business.

It's all very sobering and a reminder that we do have some responsibility in what we write, and that we shrug off that responsibility at our peril. But I'm sure that some crime writers take comfort in trying to make sense of such heartbreak.

                                       

Here's Nicola in happier terms, a clever, bonnie lassie with everything in life ahead of her.   Like I said, a huge tragedy.

Caro GB 17/05/2013