CRIME ON MY MIND

Changing directions!

I started my writing life with novels. Reading, of course. Then attempting to write them. In grade 8 English, as it turns out. But later again, when my son was a toddler and I had temporarily left the workforce.

It started with a creative writing course through the continuing education department of the local school board. Genre writing actually. And from that, a membership in the Ottawa Romance Writers which led to a critiquing group, which led to me and Vicki Cameron attending the Romance Writers of America conference in Boston. The year was 1988 or close enough. At one point, the now legendary tale goes, we looked at each other and decided we were at the wrong conference. We ditched the rest of the sessions and headed to Kate's Mystery Books where we immersed ourselves in mystery novels and joined Sisters in Crime.

Imagine that -- we'd decided to write mysteries!

Back in the routine of an outside job, I wrote every morning for an hour or more before getting my lad ready for school. And, I wrote two novels neither of which is published. Nor will they ever be!!

The other big step was Capital Crime Writers which led to another critiquing group, which morphed through a couple of years into The Ladies' Killing Circle. More novels were worked on -- and also, not published-- and eventually short stories dominated, for me anyway. Besides, they were easier to tackle once Prime Crime Books came into the picture. (I always used to chuckle when customers would daydream about the magnificent life of owning a bookstore & being able to just sit and read or write all day. NOT!)

The Ladies were -- and still are -- dynamite in the role of critique group, inspiring and supporting. But the days of editing anthologies are over and we're proud to have put out seven of them. Most of us are writing novels these days. My earlier attempts were police procedurals but my series is a cosy set in the southern U.S. Quite a departure from where I started out many years ago.

And I love it.

There's no reason why we shouldn't evolve as writers, not only in our writing abilities, but also by trying new things. New sleuths, new genres, new setting, maybe even mainstream. That's what being a writer is...writing what moves us, intrigues us, entices us to stretch those boundaries and habits.

Linda Wiken/Erika Chase
A Killer Read coming April, 2012
from Berkley Prime Crime
www.erikachase.com

WICKED WEDNESDAYS

The Foreign Crime Scene

One thing is certain. Our crime readers are much keener to read crime fiction from other countries than before. So what is the appeal?

Of course foreign writers have been part of our past reading. Some of us remember reading Edmund Crispin, Dorothy L. Sayers, George Simenon, , G.K. Chesterton, Dashiell Hammett, and, of course, those crime classics by Edgar Allan Poe and Wilkie Collins. Our younger readers, however, may have read some Agatha Christie but are not familiar with those earlier authors. And we cannot blame them. Times have changed and crime story-telling has evolved over the years to reflect more modern societies. Modern communications (television, computers) has put foreign names and places under our noses. How can we ignore them! The fact is we don't and this has lead to a fascinating development for crime book club readers.

We may read foreign authors simply because we are "interested" or purely as "escapism". We are naturally curious about different societies and environments. Readers who do not wish to actually visit other countries can enjoy armchair travel. Our readers have been pleasantly surprised to discover a more personal kind of enlightenment than that from a travel guide. We have discussed the descriptions (scenic and social) of the countryside and small communities near Melbourne, Australia (Garry Disher) and Istanbul, Turkey (Barbara Nadel).

Lately, we seem to have been ambushed by Scandinavian authors. We have been gobbling up the likes of Henning Mankell, Jo Nesbö, Stieg Larsson and Camilla Lackberg.... "for a Scandinavian author Camilla Lackberg is surprisingly readable".... and the Icelandic writer Arnaldur Indridason as well. We have found these stories to be bleak rather than dark, realistic and thus straight-forward to read (apart from actual names) and have noted the embedded social and political commentary. The pace too is slower and the action less jarring.

Then there is the issue of translation! Can we rely on the translator to accurately report the author's intentions? We noted a slight change in style in one of Indridason's latest titles and our presenter's research informed us that his original translator, who lived in Iceland and maintained close contact with the author, had sadly died and been replaced by another from outside Iceland with less author contact. We find ourselves doing research to explain some of the facts that pop up in stories originally written for the author's own national audience and are amazed by what we learn. We discovered the frustration when translations are delayed by the publishers. This often means we are gasping for the next title in a series to appear in English, 'tho some might say the wait makes the eventual reading more enjoyable. We are even guilty of harassing our librarians in the hope that their influence will filter through the buyers to the publishers.

We have even discovered that "foreign" feeling closer to home with American authors such as James Lee Burke. A story set in Louisiana for example is an unfamiliar setting as Greece to some. Similarly, while the village "cosies" of England have been a staple in our diet, it has been a welcome change to read stories set in places such as the Shetland Islands (Ann Cleves) or the Cambridgeshire Fens (Jim Kelly).

Historical stories set overseas have a special appeal to those readers who love a side of history with their murder mystery main course. Try comparing a historical with a modern mystery setting : for example Jenny White's Istanbul in the Ottoman era with Barbara Nadel's modern-day Istanbul. Or "escape" to the Hindu Kush in the time of the British Raj (Barbara Cleverly); go back to ancient Japan (I.J. Parker) or Paris during WWII (J. Robert Janes). We can go from experiencing South African policing and prejudice (James McClure) to the policing problems caused by the Mafia in Sicily (Andrea Camilleri).

The world of crime fiction is on our doorstop - so enjoy!




Anne Jeanjean was born in the UK, has an English Lit. degree and has adored crime fiction since she was ten. It all began with Agatha Christie and now she’s into forensic, police procedurals and foreign authors.
Catherine Jeanjean, her daughter, is a Librarian and worked for nearly five years in Kansas at Kansas State University Library. She is now a Collections Management Librarian for Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada.
Together they are the coordinators for a crime fiction reading group based at the Alta Vista Public Library, called the SleuthHounds. This group has been going strong for over two years now.