BEST OF CRIME with Alex Reeve

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 

ALEX REEVE

to share his BEST OF CRIME ...

... AUTHORS

Gosh, it’s so hard to pick just one! If you asked me tomorrow, I might have a different answer, but today I’ll say Sarah Waters for Fingersmith. She writes with huge compassion and authenticity, and was an inspiration for The House on Half Moon Street. She also shows why crime writers shouldn’t set out to write formulaic crime novels; we should create engaging characters, settings and plots that happen to involve a crime.

... FILMS/MOVIES

Fargo, directed by the Coen brothers, is a movie I can watch again and again. Marge Gunderson (Francis McDormand) is a heavily pregnant police officer in frozen Minnesota investigating a bungled homicide. The story works like clockwork and everything that happens, however awful and horrifying, is driven by the fears, desires and flaws of the characters.

... TV DRAMAS

I’m a massive fan of police procedurals, but I’m still going to pick Breaking Bad. I love the relentless descent of Walter White (Bryan Cranston) from mild and desperate to utterly ruthless. I believe that a propensity for violence was always within him, but it needed the right trigger, making him a great example of why ‘because he’s evil’ never works as character motivation. We all have the capability to do good and bad things. 

... FICTIONAL KILLERS

Steerpike from Mervyn Peake’s Gormenghast trilogy is charming, manipulative and callous. The world in which he lives is rigidly hierarchical, and no-one understands its intricacies better than Steerpike.  He is its natural product, and so feels entirely organic within the fantastical setting. He shows how crime stories can stretch into any genre or style.

... FICTIONAL DETECTIVES 

Easy Rawlins from Walter Mosley’s novels is one of the all-time greats. He shares features of other hard-boiled detectives such as Philp Marlowe and Sam Spade, but his combination of weary humour and duty to his neighbours is unique. The Los Angeles setting, social complexity and sense of time passing make the characters feel like real people. And, of course, Easy has one of literature’s most appealing (and terrifying) sidekicks in Mouse, who can insert random violence into any situation.

... MURDER WEAPONS

Spoiler alert! In Umberto Eco’s The Name of the Rose, the murder weapon is the ink in a book of Aristotle’s Poetics. Victims are killed when they lick their fingers to turn the pages – punished for their philosophical curiosity. It provides the perfect example of a weapon connecting both to the motivation of the murderer and a key theme of the novel. 

    

... DEATH SCENES

The movie Reservoir Dogs directed by Quentin Tarantino contains a killing shocking for its contrariness. In a famous scene, a police officer is tortured and doused with petrol, but at the last second, his tormentor is shot. The audience, having rooted for the police officer, is relieved and expects him to be freed, but moments later he is dismissively murdered by another character. The scene disrupts the comfort of narrative flow. It tells the audience that anything can happen.

  

... BLOGS/WEBSITES

My absolute favourite is www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk, which contains thousands of archived newspapers. It’s the best place to get contemporaneous accounts of Victorian history, and also get a feel for the phrasing and intonations of that time. Many are brilliantly written, putting much of today’s journalism to shame, and some are hilarious. It’s a wonderfully human connection, I think, to laugh out loud while reading an article written in 1880.

... WRITING TIPS

Write, write and then write some more. Write headlong and free, with no brake or throttle. And then edit brutally with your reader in mind. 

... WRITING SNACKS

A strong cup of Yorkshire Gold tea with milk – absolutely not the awful ‘Biscuit Brew’ flavour, which is a crime greater than anything I could think up.

About ALEX REEVE

Alex Reeve lives in Buckinghamshire and is a university lecturer, working on a PhD. The House on Half Moon Street is his debut, and the first in a series of books featuring Leo Stanhope.

Find Alex Reeve on Twitter - @storyjoy

About THE HOUSE ON HALF MOON STREET

Publisher's description

Everyone has a secret... Only some lead to murder. Introducing Leo Stanhope: a Victorian transgender coroner's assistant who must uncover a killer without risking his own future

When the body of a young woman is wheeled into the hospital where Leo Stanhope works, his life is thrown into chaos. Maria, the woman he loves, has been murdered and it is not long before the finger of suspicion is turned on him, threatening to expose his lifelong secret.

For Leo Stanhope was born Charlotte, the daughter of a respectable reverend. Knowing he was meant to be a man - despite the evidence of his body - and unable to cope with living a lie any longer, he fled his family home at just fifteen and has been living as Leo ever since: his secret known to only a few trusted people. 

Desperate to find Maria's killer and thrown into gaol, he stands to lose not just his freedom, but ultimately his life.

The House on Half Moon Street was published in paperback by Raven Books on 27 December 2018.

Look out for more BEST OF CRIME features coming soon.

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The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton

The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle
By Stuart Turton
Published by Raven Books (8 February 2018)

Publisher's description
'Somebody's going to be murdered at the ball tonight. It won't appear to be a murder and so the murderer won't be caught. Rectify that injustice and I'll show you the way out.'
It is meant to be a celebration but it ends in tragedy. As fireworks explode overhead, Evelyn Hardcastle, the young and beautiful daughter of the house, is killed.
But Evelyn will not die just once. Until Aiden – one of the guests summoned to Blackheath for the party – can solve her murder, the day will repeat itself, over and over again. Every time ending with the fateful pistol shot. 
The only way to break this cycle is to identify the killer. But each time the day begins again, Aiden wakes in the body of a different guest. And someone is determined to prevent him ever escaping Blackheath...

My verdict
I wrote so many notes while reading this book yet I’m writing this review without them, as I'm not sure they make much sense. I finished The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle with an aching head and a sense of relief, as if I'd completed a mental marathon. I read this alongside three other people and I'm so glad that I did (or rather, we did), as we had so much, possibly too much, to discuss along the way.

Evelyn Hardcastle dies at Blackheath House during a party. Not just once, but seven times, and will then do so again and again - unless Aiden can solve her murder and discover the culprit, allowing him to escape Blackheath House and his 'Groundhog Day' cycle. As each day begins, Aiden wakes up in the body of a different party guest. Each time Aiden becomes his host, he learns more about them - their beliefs, their prejudices, their emotions and more. But who is Aiden? Who is the killer? And will Aiden succeed in his task?

Many people will have read comparisons with Quantum Leap, Agatha Christie and Cluedo, and every one of these is right. This book is a combination of time travelling, body leaping and puzzle solving. A murder mystery written in Agatha Christie style that pulled me in and wouldn't let me leave (like Aiden) until I'd turned the final page. I was mesmerised by the prose and the underlying plot. Some guests were far more likeable than others and each had their own agenda, so it was difficult to know who to trust. I guessed some minor details and had suspicions about major ones, but nothing prepared me for what was in store.

I’m naturally a logical person, but trying to apply logic to this book didn't seem to work, as I was totally lost at times, trying to fathom it all out in my head - not just the murder mystery, but the whole concept. I was left with several questions, so I'm tempted to read it again from the start and think of it as a giant logic puzzle by creating a spider chart on the wall. But then part of me isn't sure I'll ever make sense of it.

The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle is a plotting masterpiece and was, I assume, a plotting headache for the author. I wouldn't call it a relaxing read if, like me, you're trying to work it out as you go. But it was an enjoyable experience overall, highly entertaining and a challenge. Be prepared to lose not only several hours of reading time, but your mind too.

BEST OF CRIME with Eva Dolan

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 

EVA DOLAN

for her This Is How It Ends blog tour

to share her BEST OF CRIME ...

... AUTHORS
Patricia Highsmith is the author I keep returning to for the psychological precision of her work and the confidence of her prose. There might not be better for explorations of obsession and envy, the proximity of love and hate and just how devastating that proximity can be. I reread the Ripley novels every couple of years but her non-Ripley books contain some gems too. The Tremor of Forgery is oddly underrated and deserves a look, also her non-crime novel Edith’s Diary which is perfect for fans of domestic noir.

... FILMS/MOVIES
Die Hard. All of them, except the last one, even Die Hard 4 has plenty to recommend it. ‘You just killed a helicopter with a car!’ – that’s the kind of line I want in a crime film. Though they’re maybe more action than crime by that point the original stands as a great example of what a cop can do with no shoes, a sweaty vest and a really smart mouth.

... TV DRAMAS
Sneaky Pete is one of those shows that I totally loved but nobody I mention it to has seen. Marius is a con man who, on being released from prison, needs a place to lie low so assumes the identity of his former cellmate and insinuates himself into the man’s long estranged family. Little does he know that they have a few rackets of their own on the go. Bryan Cranston – who also co-wrote it – is an oily casino owner, Margo Martindale is a star as a savvy bailbondswoman, and Giovanni Ribissi turns in a brilliantly twitchy and often surprisingly emotional performance. It’s at the lighter end of the crime spectrum, warm hearted and very funny, but that only makes the moments of brutality even more effective. One to binge.

... FICTIONAL KILLERS
Clytemnestra in Colm Toibin’s The House of Names is the killer who stayed with me from 2017’s reading. Based on an ancient Greek tragedy it’s the story of a king, Agamemnon, who lures his family away from their safe home with the promise of a good marriage for his daughter Iphigenia, only to sacrifice her to the gods, in hopes that they’ll reward him by improving the weather and allowing him to sail into battle. Toibin flips the classic narrative by telling the story from the remaining family member’s points of view, rather than the triumphant king's and in so doing creates a devastating portrait of a grieving mother who doesn’t share her husband’s belief in the gods and realises that the sacrifice was to appease his army and maintain his position of power. We see Clytemnestra slowly and determinedly plotting her revenge, one it’s very easy to understand and support and for that reason she is a fascinating fictional killer, one of the very few I’ve found myself rooting for. While this isn’t strictly a crime novel it springs from a tradition which laid down many of the narratives writers are still riffing on thousands of years later. Definitely a book for crime readers to try. 

... FICTIONAL DETECTIVES 
It’s always going to be Rebus. They were the first detective novels I read and the ones which made me want to be a crime writer. Here’s a bolshy, gobby, fighty bloke a million miles away from Miss Marple and all the genteel English crime novels I couldn’t get into at the time. Ian Rankin’s books laid down a template that a working class crime writer could follow.

... MURDER WEAPONS
The one I can’t forget and which makes me eye the author with suspicion even now, is the newspaper used in Craig Robertson’s debut, Random. What kind of sick mind would consider rolling up a paper and shoving it down someone’s throat to choke them to death? I’m gagging just thinking about it.

    

... DEATH SCENES
It’s near impossible to do this without giving away a massive spoiler and the film is far too good for me to risk ruining it for anyone who hasn’t seen it yet. But Martin Sheen’s character in The Departed dies a death which flips everything we’ve seen up until that point and made me full on gasp. Brilliant writing.

  

... BLOGS/WEBSITES
Is any website more useful that Wikipedia? Google maps

... WRITING TIPS
Read bad books. You’ll learn as much by seeing what not to do as you will by studying the very best writing looking for tips. You’ll also feel a lot better about your own work. This one is particularly useful when suffering from writer’s block. Just don’t try it with wildly successful but badly written novels, because that’s depressing.

... WRITING SNACKS
I’m pretty much cigarettes and espresso when I’m writing but the one bit of food I’ll eat is this amazing Indian chocolate with coconut from Waitrose 1 range. It tastes like Bounty bars if they were made by angels.

About EVA DOLAN

Eva Dolan was shortlisted for the CWA Dagger for unpublished authors when only a teenager. The four novels in her Zigic and Ferreira series have been published to widespread critical acclaim: Tell No Tales and After You Die were shortlisted for the Theakston’s Crime Novel of the Year Award and After You Die was also longlisted for the CWA Gold Dagger. She lives in Cambridge.

Find Eva Dolan on her Facebook page and on Twitter - @eva_dolan

About THIS IS HOW IT ENDS

Publisher's description

This is how it begins.

With a near-empty building, the inhabitants forced out of their homes by property developers.

With two women: idealistic, impassioned blogger Ella and seasoned campaigner, Molly.

With a body hidden in a lift shaft.

But how will it end?

Read a snippet of my review

'Eva Dolan is a force to be reckoned with. This is How it Ends is her best novel yet - a book that will challenge you and leave you reeling.'

To read the rest of my review, click here.

This Is How It Ends was published by Raven Books on 25 January 2018.

Look out for more BEST OF CRIME features coming soon.

Click here to read more BEST OF CRIME features.

Did you follow the Blog Tour?

This is How It Ends by Eva Dolan - republished review

This is How it Ends
By Eva Dolan
Published by Raven Books (25 January 2018)
I received an Advance Reader Copy from the publisher

Publisher's description

This is how it begins.

With a near-empty building, the inhabitants forced out of their homes by property developers.

With two women: idealistic, impassioned blogger Ella and seasoned campaigner, Molly

With a body hidden in a lift shaft.

But how will it end?

My verdict
When I finished This is How it Ends, I sat for a while gazing into nothing, surrounded by silence. I wanted to shout about the issues it raised and share my enjoyment of the book and my admiration for the author. Yet first of all I needed some time to think and process everything I had read.

While this is a psychological thriller, it's also so much more than this. I can't say much about the plot without giving anything away. But it is complex and intelligent, filled with social and political conscience and some highly topical and ethical contemporary themes. It is bang up to date, focusing on the plight of the underdog against the big property developers. The writing is stunning, drawing the reader in. This is a masterclass with its multi-layered plotting, realistic characters and twists that actually work.

I don't think I've ever been so invested in a book's characters before, shaken and shocked by events as they unfolded right until the bitter end. This is a powerful twisty thought-provoking read and one I won't forget easily - if at all. It's also a book that people will be talking about for a long time, as anger, compassion and frustration ooze off every page.

Eva Dolan is a force to be reckoned with. This is How it Ends is her best novel yet - a book that will challenge you and leave you reeling.

This Is How It Ends by Eva Dolan

This is How it Ends
By Eva Dolan
Published by Raven Books (25 January 2018)
I received an Advance Reader Copy from the publisher

Publisher's description

This is how it begins.

With a near-empty building, the inhabitants forced out of their homes by property developers.

With two women: idealistic, impassioned blogger Ella and seasoned campaigner, Molly

With a body hidden in a lift shaft.

But how will it end?

My verdict
When I finished This is How it Ends, I sat for a while gazing into nothing, surrounded by silence. I wanted to shout about the issues it raised and share my enjoyment of the book and my admiration for the author. Yet first of all I needed some time to think and process everything I had read.

While this is a psychological thriller, it's also so much more than this. I can't say much about the plot without giving anything away. But it is complex and intelligent, filled with social and political conscience and some highly topical and ethical contemporary themes. It is bang up to date, focusing on the plight of the underdog against the big property developers. The writing is stunning, drawing the reader in. This is a masterclass with its multi-layered plotting, realistic characters and twists that actually work.

I don't think I've ever been so invested in a book's characters before, shaken and shocked by events as they unfolded right until the bitter end. This is a powerful twisty thought-provoking read and one I won't forget easily - if at all. It's also a book that people will be talking about for a long time, as anger, compassion and frustration ooze off every page.

Eva Dolan is a force to be reckoned with. This is How it Ends is her best novel yet - a book that will challenge you and leave you reeling.