Phenomenally good, if rather disturbing at times. Really, most of the time. Donna Moore’s third novel is nothing like her first two, by which I mean it is deadly serious.
It starts quietly and quite conventionally, with a young girl in the 1870s confiding in her diary. And it finishes in, yes, well, I can’t tell you. (Somewhere I quite like to go myself, let’s say, except not in the same circumstances.)
Donna has been looking into the – often sad and terrible – lives of women, and has fashioned a story to show the different lives of three women, in the 1870s, 1890s and in 1919. Rich or poor, educated or not, because they are female they are treated badly and they are at risk from the men around them. Even if you have rights, it seems you can’t use them.
The three characters are strong and brave, for the situations they find themselves in. They use all their energy on trying to make things better; staying alive; but the world isn’t cooperating with them. There are some wonderful supporting characters too, which left me with some hope (except here I am today, and the advantages won seem to be disappearing again).
Set in and around Glasgow you witness the strength women have. It’s just not enough. Preying men, teen pregnancies and powerful and long-lived villains can make you despair. But working together, women can do a lot. Just not always all that needs doing. And that’s not our fault.
I simply couldn’t resist the opportunity of saying ‘Fletcher Moss, I presume?’ so had to start off this year’s Bloody Scotland with Alex Gray’s New Crimes, where she talks to new crime writers. She receives so many proofs every year that her house is in danger of collapsing. This year Alex – who apparently is the daughter of a seventh daughter – talked to Fulton Ross, who might be some sort of elf, to Jo Callaghan who knows about AI, and to Alex Hay (I like the rhyming!) who’s into historical heists. And then there’s the ‘thuggish looking deputy headteacher’ who was previously Fletcher Moss, but now writes as Martin Griffin, his real name. I think, anyway. He recognised me and we shook hands and we laughed about his long ago lack of book signing capabilities. It went better this time.
Next I trotted over to the Albert Halls where I denied all interest in Alex Gray several times, on the grounds I’d just seen her. But once I looked at the programme, and also discovered I didn’t seem to have the tickets I needed for my next event, I realised their eagerness in wanting to offer up Alex was that she was the one chatting to James Oswald, with a bit of help from Jonathan Whitelaw.
Unfortunately someone was sitting on my chair when I entered, but I sent witchy thoughts and eventually he moved. Before Alex and James were let loose, it was time for the two minutes in the spotlight from a new writer, reading from their first crime novel. In this case Axl Malton with Cries of Joy. (Took me a while to get his name right…)
You don’t want to watch television with James. He sits there with his notebook, ‘writing is a compulsion, it’s a terrible thing.’ According to James, if you plot, then that’s already been written and no good for when he wants to write. He has a whiteboard in his study, and he forgets his characters’ names. He’s less keen on swearing, but doesn’t mind violent murders. He gets depressed by the news and doesn’t read true crime. If it weren’t for copy editors he’d keep repeating the same clichés over and over.
Alex believes the police – especially in Scotland, who are different – are fine people. All large organisations, including the police, have rogues. And having chatted to lifers in prison, they do not look for inspiration for crime in fiction; reading is purely entertainment.
At the signing after, I was pleased to see that Axl got to sit with James and Alex. And I was glad I caught James before the queues took over, so I could say hello before I was driven home for dinner and a rest, before returning to the Albert Halls for more.
Val McDermid and Abir Mukherjee chatted and joked for an hour, and we all had fun. In fact, it was such fun and the hour was perhaps a little longer than they ordinarily are. Luckily the very determined Ann Landmann was on door duty and let Abir know it was time to stop. Eventually he heeded her, giving everyone enough time to prepare for the next event. I occasionally struggle with hearing things, and had they not handed out the first two chapters of Val’s new book, I’d have come away under the impression the title is Past Lines. It’s not. It is Past Lying. (I have an appointment at the Hearing Clinic this week…) But, as always, great fun to listen to these two talk.
The evening ended with the only slightly delayed event of CrimeMaster, very ably run by C L Taylor and ‘Little’ Luca Veste. (Because Vaseem [Khan] wasn’t there.) The five contestants were Abir Mukherjee, Gytha Lodge, Mark Billingham, Mark Edwards and Susi Holliday. They all brought bribes; some better than others. Then we were treated to the sight of them competing on a sunny Stirling square (last year), proving it’s not really possible to write a – very – short story while running. As for the running in general and crawling through tunnels and jumping over obstacles; well that didn’t go well either.
But the worst came at the end. They had to spell the title of a book with the help of alphabet pasta in tomato sauce, without using their hands. It was disgusting but they all lowered their little faces into the troughs, I mean plates, of pasta. A couple cheated by using each others’ hands. Yeah, I know. It was fun. Even without Vaseem. At least for the audience. I think there was a winner. Possibly Mark Billingham.
This kind of thing is not terribly literary. But it has entertainment value.
Let’s hope Vaseem will be back next year.
The next day was ladies’ day. As chair Jenny Brown pointed out, there were more of us in the audience. On stage we had three ladies; her and Karin Smirnoff and Denise Mina. Both Karin and Denise have recently written books featuring detectives originally invented by men, Stieg Larsson and Raymond Chandler. Similar idea, but they came at it quite differently. Denise of the weird clothes (they are glorious!) likes research and has looked very carefully into LA and all that she needs to know. She also mentioned a Nordic coach trip ( sounds unlikely, I know) where people were told to get off to admire the views and engage in small talk. In Glasgow everyone talks to everyone.
Karin, on the other hand, did no research. She paid someone to do it for her. Although that might have backfired. Being a Swede and from the north of the country as well, she doesn’t like chatting. In her own quiet, non-assuming ways, Karin was actually quite funny. I’d been intending to introduce myself to her at the signing, but felt disinclined to disturb Karin’s Swedish silence, and left her to her queue of fans. After all, why would two Swedes chitchat such a long way from home?
The last day, Sunday, we went to the last panel of the weekend. The ballroom at the Golden Lion was packed to the rafters; a complete sellout. Barry Hutchison, aka J D Kirk, appeared with Marion Todd and Colin MacIntyre, chaired by Caro Ramsay. I’ve never seen quite so many seats in there, and was grateful for my chair in the far corner next to the marble column. I may have rested my head on it when things got a little too ‘Jo Nesbø-ish’ at times.
Marion was a fun new acquaintance for us, who seems to like murdering people in St Andrews. And Barry – aka J D – was pretty relaxed about his writing. He does no research, which is why he murders on home ground where he knows what’s what. He writes 4000 words doing 12,000 steps (he writes on a treadmill thingy). Or some such numbers.
It was clear quite a few people were there for him, issuing stern instructions on not killing any [more] dogs. After some parting words from Gordon Brown, we went to queue outside. The first man in line for Barry hauled six paperbacks out of his rucksack. That’s proper dedication, that is. The queue was long, so I had to wait for my hug, but I got it in the end.
So that was a pretty good Bloody weekend in Scotland, and with some luck Vaseem will be back next year…
At first I didn’t. Like him, that is. He turned up as a side character in J D Kirk’s DCI Logan books (of which I have only read four, so far…) and he confused me. I never like that. It was as if I should have known who he was, but it has struck me that I couldn’t very well have, as the Jack Logan books I was reading were the first ones. He went round being unpleasant and the other characters didn’t much care for him.
When I heard he was getting his own series of books I felt it was one way to get rid of the man.
Always – well, almost always – willing to learn something new though, I downloaded Northwind, the first Hoon thriller. I discovered I liked him. His take on shoplifting was a novel one. Always get a birthday card too. There is too much effing, but it’s what makes Hoon Hoon. He drinks too much. Also Hoon. But he can control his needs if he must. Mostly.
Former Detective Superintendent Robert Hoon is both a former police officer and a former soldier. He’s not much liked by his old colleagues. No longer officially with the police, he clearly can’t go round solving crime the traditional way, which leaves him with a favour for a friend, and he goes about it in his own inimitable style.
I don’t usually go straight on to the next book when coming to the end, but both J D Kirk and Bob Hoon are quite persuasive, and luckily I had already bought the second book*, Southpaw, meaning there was nothing stopping me from continuing reading. (*It was on offer.)
DCI Logan will have to be careful. I just might like Hoon better.
Today I thought we would think back to that other 11th September. The one we don’t mention as much, because there was another one 28 years later. Today it’s been fifty years since the coup in Chile in 1973, killing not just President Allende, but many Chileans and others who had taken refuge in what was a democratic and just country.
I didn’t know much about Chile before Allende came to power, and then after the coup it became ‘my’ cause for protest. I was the right age, and I was learning Spanish at school, and before long that came in useful when the wave of refugees arrived.
Being of an age when it seemed important to keep up with current books I made sure to read Pablo Neruda who had been awarded the Nobel prize two years earlier, and who died soon after the coup, apparently poisoned by the junta. I may have been on the young side for his biography. I found it easier to understand the lyrics of Víctor Jara, the singer and songwriter who was murdered in the stadium. Violeta Parra who wrote and performed songs earlier still was also important. There was much music coming from Chile at the time, and luckily many af the artists were abroad on September 11th, so were able to continue sharing their music with us.
And then, after I touched on this as CultureWitch ten years ago, Chile has been brought closer to the Bookwitch family than I could ever have imagined. For astronomers it’s the place to go to for telescope time, and Daughter travelled there three times, and we learned about killer spiders, guanacos, llamas, alpacas, and vicuñas, not to mention snow during the emergency grade two in August. And there is Rosetta Girl, her Chilean astronomer friend who is now back living there. She visited once, before Covid took over the world and our movements.
But as I said, when I was seventeen I couldn’t have imagined anything like it.
The Occasional Bookwitch 