BEST OF CRIME with J G Murray

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 

J G MURRARY

for his The Bridal Party blog tour

to share his BEST OF CRIME ...

... AUTHORS

An impossible question! I’ll have to go for Boileau-Narcejac. For those who don’t know, they were a French writing duo whose partnership birthed the books of Les Diaboliques and Vertigo. There’s a claustrophobia to their writing; you’re stuck inside the minds of characters who are tortured by doubt, and you never know quite how much to trust them. Their books are gripping, taut, and very, very French. I don’t think they’re celebrated enough.

... FILMS/MOVIES

I adore the original Their Secret in their Eyes. It’s got everything I need from a thriller, with a gut-punch ending and impossibly tense sequences– but it’s also a fascinating commentary on storytelling and the history of Argentina. I love it to pieces.

... TV DRAMAS

My current obsession is with Dark. I used to hesitate to recommend it to thriller fans because of the time-travel element. But now that the world has fallen for The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle I’m not holding back! It’s like the plot of The Missing got hold of Hermione’s time-turner, and, like the title suggests, it’s about as moody as a dozen Scandinavian box sets. 

... FICTIONAL KILLERS

His Bloody Project comes to mind. When the book came out, there was this buzz over the fact that a thriller was on the Man Booker Longlist. Now that that whole thing has blown over, we really need to get back to talking about how great this book is! It’s all from the point of view of a teenage crofter called Roderick Macrae, and how his frustrations with his community leads him to murder. I’d never read about a character like him. In fact, I didn’t have a clue about what a crofter was! He’s a violent, hideous character, but he reveals so much about his community that I couldn’t stop reading about him.

... FICTIONAL DETECTIVES 

For a brief period of my life, I lived in Bangkok. It’s a mad city, and I was overwhelmed by it for a very long time. It was Sonchai Jitpleecheep, the detective in John Burdett’s Bangkok Eight series, who helped me make sense of it all. He’s an outsider due to his mixed race, but he still knows his city inside out, and his Thai Buddhist beliefs also gives him a different feel to the typical run-of-the-mill detective archetype.

... MURDER WEAPONS

It always tickles me to think that when Edgar Allan Poe wrote The Murders at the Rue Morgue, he managed to invent the detective story with an utterly deranged plot which no modern editor would accept even for a second. Who could have thought that a story of a death-by-orangutan-stuffing-you-up-a-chimney would have such a profound influence on culture? 

... DEATH SCENES

Whenever I travel, I like to read a detective story set in the local area: it’s such a good way to get the feel of a place. So when I went to Rio, I picked up Silence of the Rain. To be honest, I don’t actually remember much about the plot, and I don’t think I learnt much about the city. But the absolutely astonishing, out-of-nowhere death-by-sex-asphyxiation scene has definitely stayed with me.

  

... BLOGS/WEBSITES

It entirely depends on the project. For The Bridal Party, I had to immerse myself in folklore, so there were many hours spent on Folklore Thursday. The only problem is that there’s so much cool stuff on there that hours would pass by without a single word being written.

... WRITING TIPS

I maintain that the best way to improve is to join a writing group - they’ll give you all the tips to accept and ignore that you’ll ever need. In terms of thriller writing, I will add this, however: words that write themselves read themselves. If you’re in a flow, trust it. You may not end up with a workable draft, but there’s always something compulsive and enjoyable in what you write when the story grabs hold of you.

... WRITING SNACKS

I mean, yoghurt exists. So do nuts and berries and quinoa-salad-smoothie-quiches (probably). But why have that when you can have chocolate?

About J G MURRAY

J G Murray grew up in Cornwall and, after a spell selling chocolates in Brussels, qualified as an English teacher. Murray now lives, teaches and writes in London. 

Find J G Murray on Twitter - @JulianGylMurray

About THE BRIDAL PARTY

Publisher's description

Sometimes friendship can be murder... 

It's the weekend of Clarisse's bridal party, a trip the girls have all been looking forward to. Then, on the day of their flight, Tamsyn, the maid of honour, suddenly backs out. Upset and confused, they try to make the most of the stunning, isolated seaside house they find themselves in. 

But, there is a surprise in store - Tamsyn has organised a murder mystery, a sinister game in which they must discover a killer in their midst. As tensions quickly boil over, it becomes clear to them all that there are some secrets that won't stay buried...

The Bridal Party was published by Corvus on 7 March 2019.

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