Monday 22 October 2018

BEST OF CRIME with Stav Sherez

Welcome to my latest BEST OF CRIME feature, looking at crime writers' top picks, from their favourite author and fictional detective to their best writing tip. 




Today I'm delighted to welcome 

STAV SHEREZ


to share his BEST OF CRIME ...



... AUTHORS
My current favourite is Sara Gran. Her third Claire DeWitt novel (The Infinite Blacktop) is out this month and it's stunning. James Ellroy is the author I keep coming back to - there's such an intensity of focus and history in his best novels, an electric underpulse running through his language.


... FILMS/MOVIES
Zodiac by David Fincher. I came out of the cinema wanting to give up my job as a writer and become a detective after watching this! Perhaps the best police procedural movie ever, Zodiac slowly winds you in only to leave you hanging at the brink of a solution.


... TV DRAMAS
The Shield. One of the most-underrated shows out there. One of the few where, each week, I had no idea in which direction it would twist. Jaw-dropping reversals and revelations and truly Shakespearean characters arcs.


... FICTIONAL KILLERS
I'm sure everyone says this but Dexter is a brilliant creation. A serial-killer who's managed to sublimate his compulsions into killing other serial killers. He's also funny, wry and self-perceptive; things we don't often see in fictional serial killers. Otherwise, Patrick Bateman from Bret Easton Ellis's American Psycho – the alpha-male stripped to the bare forked thing he really is.


... FICTIONAL DETECTIVES 
Harry Bosch and Jack Reacher and Claire DeWitt. Each uses deductive logic with an alacrity that William of Ockham would be proud of.


... MURDER WEAPONS
Guilt is the most deadly weapon.
    

... DEATH SCENES
Not a book, but the moment in the Coen Brothers' Barton Fink where Barton wakes up next to the woman he's slept with, swats a mosquito on her skin, only to realise she's dead. It totally blew my mind when I first saw it, and is the moment where the film begins its true descent into hell.
  

... BLOGS/WEBSITES
Twitter is where I go for sanity (and, unfortunately, insanity). The crime writing community is well represented on there and everyone chats about books and movies and you can almost avoid the outside world.


... WRITING TIPS
Write what you don't know you know. Let your subconscious find new ways to tell old stories. 


... WRITING SNACKS
Used to be coffee and cigarettes. Now, being older and (hopefully) wiser, it's coffee and vape.


About STAV SHEREZ
Stav Sherez is the author of two standalone novels, "The Devil's Playground" and "The Black Monastery", as well as the Carrigan and Miller series, the most recent of which, "The Intrusions" won the 2018 Theakston's Old Peculier crime Novel of the Year. He is also co-author, with Mark Bllingham, Martyn Waites and David Quantick, of "Great Lost Albums". He is published by Faber and Faber.

Find Stav Sherez on Twitter - @stavsherez


About THE INTRUSIONS



Publisher's description
Detectives Carrigan and Miller are thrust into the terrifying world of stalking and obsession when a drugged and distressed young woman arrives at their station claiming her friend has been abducted. Taking them from a backpackers' hostel in west London, to the world of online intimidation, hacking and control, The Intrusions explores themes of dark psychology as Carrigan and Miller hunt for the shadowy figure behind a frightening and spiralling campaign of intrusion . . .

The Intrusions was published by Faber & Faber on 1 February 2018.

Look out for more BEST OF CRIME features coming soon.

Click here to read more BEST OF CRIME features.

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