Monday 9 September 2019

BEST OF CRIME with Andy Martin

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 

ANDY MARTIN


to share his BEST OF CRIME ...




... AUTHORS
Lee Child. He has the best sentences (short or long).


... FILMS/MOVIES
2001: A Space Odyssey. Serial murders in space.


... TV DRAMAS
Breaking Bad. Big fan of the pork pie hat. 
Big Little Lies. I’m probably in love with Celeste.


... FICTIONAL KILLERS
Jack Reacher


... FICTIONAL DETECTIVES 
Jack Reacher
It’s an interesting combination.


... MURDER WEAPONS
In Blue Moon Reacher uses a guitar, thus giving a whole new meaning to the phrase “head-banger”.
I also like the one Lee Child keeps on a shelf in his living room. He says it’s his only lethal weapon. A flint hand-axe dating from around 250,000 years ago. Possibly Neanderthal.
    

... DEATH SCENES
I always think of Jean-Paul Belmondo staggering along the street in Paris, having been shot, in A bout de souffle. So implausible, but he almost makes you believe. And he manages to get out déguelasse as he’s dying. 


... WRITING TIPS
I like Lee Child’s idea: don’t think of yourself as a writer, more as a reader. If I’m getting stuck, I find the “pomodoro” system works well: 25 mins on, 5 mins off.


... WRITING SNACKS
Sunflower seeds – just don’t get them in your keyboard. They hit the spot but they’re not too ridiculously delicious.


About ANDY MARTIN
Andy Martin is the author of Reacher Said Nothing: Lee Child and the Making of Make Me.

Find Andy Martin on his website and on Twitter - @andymartinink


About WITH CHILD



Publisher's description
With a foreword by Lee Child. Andy Martin spent a year in the company of Lee Child, creator of tough-guy hero Jack Reacher. With Child is the diary of their adventures, tracking the publication and reception of Make Me, the writing of Night School at an apartment in Manhattan, the filming of Never Go Back in New Orleans, all the agony and ecstasy of the creative process and the sheer hard work of selling a bestseller. They go on the road together, from TV studios to bookstores, from Harvard to Stockholm, amid literary conferences and gunshows, rivalries and reviews ranging from adulatory to murderous. We meet fellow writers like Stephen King and David Lagercrantz and Karin Slaughter, and dissect the latest novel from Jonathan Franzen. But Martin also reaches out to Child's legion of readers in America and around the world. He tracks down a woman in Texas whose name appears in the home invasion scene in Make Me; he goes up a mountain in Montana in search of the only reader who thinks Reacher is a "lightweight"; and he talks to obsessive fans from Europe to South Africa who find salvation or consolation in the colossal form of Jack Reacher. This compelling account of life on the road with Lee Child demonstrates that readers are just as important as writers in the making of modern fiction.

With Child: Lee Child and the Readers of Jack Reacher was published by Polity Press on 6 September 2019


Look out for more BEST OF CRIME features coming soon.

Click here to read more BEST OF CRIME features.



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