Ye Cannae Whack it!

A few weeks ago there was a street fair in Glasgow.

                                

 As we milled around we saw a puppeteer  complete with his marionette. The wee puppet was dancing, moonwalking, breakdancing, highland dancing, Irish dancing and generally doing stuff that is really clever when you consider the risk of entanglement.  

 He (the marionette, I think it was a ‘he’ but he was anatomically ambiguous) started to engage a wee girl in the audience. She was about three years old. They did a wee dance, had a wee bit of to and fro. The puppet pretended to chase her. She pretended to be scared and ran behind her buggy. The marionette then stalked the buggy, pausing every so often for comedic effect, his finger to his mouth- warning to audience to be quiet.

As he advanced towards the buggy, the girl peeked out from behind it, more thrilled than scared. She hid again, the marionette advanced further. Then made a dash for it, neatly hopped into the buggy and sat there, rather pleased with himself, legs crossed, looking smug.

Then the wee lassie came out punched him right in the kisser.

There was a round of applause from the audience.

Somehow if that had happened in LA, I just know it would have ended differently. The wee lassie would have been sent for counselling or incarceration. The marionette would have sued her, her parents and the makers of the buggy. The parents would have countersued for emotional trauma to their daughter. The marionette would then have sued the puppeteer for pulling his strings… where would it end.

                                                

Simple, when in Glasgow, don’t nick anybody chips, don’t drink their Irn Bru and most of all, don’t sit in anyone’s buggy without asking permission first.

Simples.

Caro

the book trust pod cast!

Those nice folk at the Book Trust have been in touch again, trying to promote their podcasts and asking the authors who have been recorded to blog of their experience. I was ahead of the game there! I have already blogged about my experiences in the cupboard with the wonderful Mr Von Winkle. No I didn’t make up that name – he is actually called that.

I’ve included the link to my podcast – The intro to Blood Of Crows – don’t listen to it while you are eating. I’m planning to dip in and out the podcast site over the next few days, listening to a bit here and there- great while doing the ironing.

Here is an excerpt of the blog I wrote for the MIE website.

Sometimes life is a bit strange as a crime writer, this thought was sifting through my mind as I sat in a cold cupboard, lit by a single bulb with a beardy weirdy American by the name of Ryan Von Winkle. He was holding a dead hamster to my mouth and asking me about dried ice cream. All that is perfectly true, the hamster being the sound recording type. 

Frequently a wind-dampening cover called a mic-blimp is used to enclose the microphone. A mic-blimp covered with sound-absorbing fuzzy fabric is usually nicknamed a wind muff or a "dead cat." So I am told.

It was all for a podcast at the Mitchell Library which was old and stuffy but now is all whistles, bells and technical stuff with silent carrels where students can play the piano and sing to their hearts content with no noise pollution to the carrel next door.

So we got up to some serial killing talk in our sound proofed booth.  Mr Von Winkle was very nice but had made the mistake of thinking that I was. When I started reading the start of The Blood of Crows, I saw his eyes shift, looking for the door, making sure the key was in the lock. This was a scared man.

But funnily enough, he had one of those voices like melting chocolate. He carried a  small brown case that you could tell had travelled round the world with him and bore the scars of nearly missed trains, every quick visit to the loo after eating something inedible and indigestible.

I was  talking about Murder Is Everywhere and my writers group. He was telling about his friend wanting to be an astronaut and climbing a ladder 30 000 times as by then he had shown that he could get to the moon. Ryan was then telling me about Nassau ice cream... dry ice cream. Gone too far. A man on the moon I will accept. Folk on Big Brother have an IQ in double figures I can just about accept. But dry ice cream is the end of civilisation as we know it!!

Caro

A good night out!

honestly, with friends like this!!

anyway this should be a good night at Waterstones, come along if you can....

Hi Caro, Michael J. tagged you in a post. Michael J. wrote: "If you're anywhere near Glasgow city centre this coming Wednesday (7th Aug) I'm doing an event in Waterstones, Sauchiehall Street with the fragrant Ms Caro Ramsay and the equally smelly Craig Robertson andFrank Muir. Kick off at 6pm. Why don't you pop in? http://www.list.co.uk/place/425-waterstones/"

Just a wee blog that I have shamelessly stolen from my mate Stan. He is the Stan of Stanley Trollip who is the Stanley of Michael Stanley... did you follow that? All you really need to know is that he is 50% of a number one best selling crime writing duo- the creators of the Detective Kubu novels. Funnily enough I was talking to a gem cutting expert - no doubt there is a proper name for such an occupation-  this man is sometimes called in by De Beers in South Africa  to advise them on how to cut a certain stone.  He travels the world lecturing, consulting,  going down holes in the ground and analyzing what he finds there. Or more often looking down a microscope and devaluing what he finds there! He is a huge Kubu fan - saying that the writers really capture what life is like in Botswana.

So here is what Stanley has to say this week on the blog site.  You can click on the link and leave your comments- it will be interesting to see what people say so feel free to join in, even if you are not a follower of MIE.....

The MURDER IS EVERYWHERE blog has been appearing for nearly four years.  There have been 1253 blogs, including this one, and about 1,200,000 page views.  The blog now enjoys over 30,000 page views a month.

For this, we all thank you, the readers.

Maintaining a blog for this long is hard work, but we all enjoy it very much, although there are times when we cuss the blog deadline because of other life events.

Now we think it is time to ask you to tell us what you think.  Please take a few minutes and give us some feedback.

http://murderiseverywhere.blogspot.co.uk/2013/07/we-would-like-your-feedback.html#comment-form


I blog on Fridays, tomorrow I am talking about Jimmy Page, Aleister Crowley and the scary goings on at Boleskin house. But maybe not in that order!

Sneak a peek at the MIE website... but be warned, it's habit forming.

Caro

Craig Robertson- The black pudding man!

                                           

                                                  Craig contemplating black pudding

Just come back from a great book launch. Wine AND beer!  Craig Robertson’s launching his latest book........

                                                                      The new book

  Craig is a black pudding fetishist! He is the black pudding from human blood guy in The Killer Cookbook. Nice bloke, always knows your name, always says hello... even when so drunk he’s hanging off his bar stool and can barely focus.

He was joined at the launch, in a channel four chat show kind of way, by an ex detective - a man who when he says "I have been everywhere, seen it, done it, arrested it", you can probably believe him because he probably has. He was there with his book Crimestoppers, being one of the cops in charge of that initiative.

So he and Craig had a bit of a chat back and forth. I did ask Bryan if he read any crime fiction, but he said no, it would be like a hairdresser reading a book about hair dressers!

                                                    

                                                Bryan looking  like Regan's driver in the Sweeney!

  My pal is a cop. She likes reading my stuff, acknowledging that there are untruths that the reader has to buy into to make the plot work- cops never go off duty, never go to the toilet and they always have plenty of staff unless it suits the plot to be short staffed of course.  However my pal says that the internecine fighting, the gossip and the rivalry are exactly right...  but then people are people, offices are offices no matter what the job. Somebody makes the tea, somebody eats somebody else's Hon Nobs and only one person can ever persuade the photocopier to work.  

Craig’s book has two parallel plots, one set in the present day...  with a killer similar to but not Bible John, and another plot running back in 1972, again a killer similar to but not Bible John.

If you have read my Murder is Everywhere blog about Bible John and Peter Tobin, you can read the arguments for and against.
http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1990338437877873686#editor/target=post;postID=1730822613955491234;onPublishedMenu=overview;onClosedMenu=overview;postNum=20;src=postname

 But I think they both (Craig and Bryan, not  Bible John and Peter Tobin!) made it subtly clear... if something can be subtly clear- that neither of them thought Bible John had been caught yet and they doubted that he ever would.

I asked them, having seen what they have seen, Brian as a very senior detective, Craig as an award winning journalist, if they would bring back the death penalty. Brian said yes in some cases. Craig said never... maybe more life incarceration but not the death penalty. My blog this week on Murder is Everywhere on Friday is about Ian Brady and while, deep inside, I am opposed to the death penalty I think I might make an exception for him.  The chit chat after the launch was in a similar vein, even those opposed to capital punishment just have a wee minute's pause to reflect when Brady is mentioned.

Interesting.

I think the death penalty should be reintroduced  for mothers in law who nick your crime books before you have the chance to read them and they get passed round Auntie Betty and all her mates at the knitting bee and the bowling club before you get it back..... I mean what can you do! To quote Billy Connolly hanging is too good for them - its a damn good kick up the arse they need! These are three books that have gone from my book case.....

Caro

Another fine mess I got me into!

So it was a new experience to add to the litany of near disasters last week. But I am getting rather nifty at pulling a weird kind of success out of the jaws of despair. It was the end of a very long and tiring month that started in Bristol, finished in Wishaw and seemed to be everywhere in between. Writing events all over the place, Penguin’s PR having difficulty spelling my name right. At work some members of staff were breaking limbs or being caught up in the French traffic controllers’ strike. Nobody was where they should have been, or doing what they supposed to be doing. Me included.
                                       

                                                                    Aline, Lin and Moi

And I was trying my hand - my single hand - at a kind of stand up type gig at Cottiers Theatre as part of the West End Festival.  It wasn't a big audience. Indeed, I am sure that only four of them were my audience, most of them were just sitting  enjoying their drinks after the folk band had finished, soaking up the ambiance when this mad blonde climbed up on the stage and started talking about serial killing...

But they stayed and listened, and laughed and bought books.

I was tired, even more than usual due to extra hours at work and the fat free diet now being in week ten ... Feeling ok with that but before the gig PR mad Moira (the local PR who CAN spell my name right) and Lord Lushfield (my personal photographer!)) hurried over from the Chris Brookmyre, Mark Billingham gig and then realised they hadn't had anything to eat. So they sat in front of me (baked potato, no cheese, no butter, just a green salad no dressing thank you, yes that’s fine), munching their way through a fish and chip platter with extra side salad drizzling in vinegar and olive oil dressing... the smell of the batter wafting its way across the table to my nostrils... my thoughts really did turn to serial killing.

Cottiers is a fantastic venue, I hope that they really get the literary events onto the West End Festival map... they will miss out if they don't. I can see a great event in there next year, me, Alex, Craig and Michael Malone fighting over the chips.... what could be better.

Reading Gordon Brown Catalyst, very different from his other two books. It feels like he has settled into his voice with this one. A great book!

Crimefest Homework

                                     

Well the serial killing panel went really well, I thought you might be interested to see the notes I had in front  of me.... 

                                  

Hi, welcome, thank you for attending and not being too desperate to get to the bar.

Our topic is serial killers.. why do we love them?

The most common definition, the 'gold standard',  used in the UK is a killer with three or more victims  in a period of not less than 30 days.... with the  slight caveat that there should be no connection between the victims apart from the person who brought about their demise. So if you kill every  member of your family over a ten year period you might inherit their dosh but you will not get the serial killer  'blue peter' badge.

So on this deadliest of topic, I have four lovely and scary men...

 

I'm sure Matt Hilton needs no introduction, creator of the fantastic Joe Hunter novels. In Blood  and Ashes, I stopped counting the bodies at 38..... and  they were all killed by the hero!    But he saves the cat....'The pace rattles along with the intensity of a disgruntled rattlesnake.'

 

Xavier Marie Bonnot,  a new author to me and a very pleasing discovery, very academic sophisticated crime thrillers...then somebody gets an arrow through the head.  Gripping fast paced and intelligent. The protagonist, Michel De Palma has been compared to Harry Bosch but I thought he was more like Morse... but with much better luck with the ladies....

  

David Marks.  His first novel Dark Winter a Richard and Judy pick, and followed by the best seller Original Skin. And he has a totally original detective, Aector McAvoy. The big friendly giant of crime fiction.

And indeed, another original detective is  Damon Brook, written by the scariest person on the panel ... Steve Dunn,  writer of The Deity  The Reaper and The Disciple. The Deity has one of the most unsettling first chapters I have ever read. His writing has often been  compared to that of  Thomas Harris.

We then chatted about the fascination of the serial killer and agreed with Prof David Wilson- it's not that they are the epitome of evil but that they are the banality of evil.

Have any of you met any real serial killers?  Xavier told us that he had filmed a documentary about a French serial killer, interviewing him in prison many times. He was deeply manipulative, Xavier admitted he had to keep reminding himself that this man had killed seven children. 

Lifting the mood slightly ..... 

Now interestingly Scotland has produced  more serial killers per capita than any other country in the developed world (United Nations). Scotland also has the highest percentage 40% , of the population carrying the melocortin 1 receptor gene (the recessive gene for being a redhead)

We had a bit of light hearted banter about that - one of the panel had a redheaded wife, I have a redhead for both agent and editor- we were on dangerous ground.

Looking around,  films from  1974 to 2006 about serial killers were typically somebody killing a lot of other people and somebody trying to catch them. But from 2006 onward for every traditional one there is another where the serial killer is the avenger of a greater atrocity....

We chatted about this for a while... the Dexter effect... indeed all of us on the panel had a baddie who was in some ways  more worthy than the victims. 

Which serial killer - real or fictional - would you like to invite for dinner, a 'come die with me...' I choose  Jack The Ripper so I could make a fortune by writing the story of his life. Then maybe Harold Shipman... as many thought he was a good doctor, a kind and decent man until the truth came out. A real Jekyll and Hyde. Inviting Ted Bundy round seemed to be popular... just to ask him... why?

We chatted about setting -Hull, Glasgow, Arizona, Marseilles, Derby.

And if psychological  profiling was a load of tosh!

I never did get round to asking who would win in a fight between Joe Hunter and Jack Reacher?

                              

Caro