Memo to self: must stop organising book launches on a Wednesday. For one thing, it means I struggle even harder than usual to fit my Dead Guy post into the day; for another, it’s probably the most blogworthy thing that happens that week, but by the time my turn comes around again it’s old news.
Tonight we launch The Fall Girl, Kaye C Hill’s delicious follow-up to Dead Woman’s Shoes. For benefit of US readers, Lexy the accidental P I and Kinky the chihuahua who thinks he’s a rotweiler are currently swimming valiantly across the Atlantic, scheduled to make landfall early in 2010. So when you’re looking for something to lighten the post-Christmas doldrums, they will be at your service. This time with magic. Or possibly not. You have to read it…
Actually this time I plead innocent. About the launch, I mean. Not my fault, m’lud. I didn’t choose the date, the venue or anything much else except what to wear. The bash is being hosted by one of nature’s gentlemen who just happens to be something pretty important in a far bigger publishing house than Crème de la Crime would ever want to be. The whys and hows aren’t really important; all I really need to say on that score is, thanks, Mike, you’re a diamond among men.
But all that is in the future – launch, US publication, everything. So what the blue blazes am I supposed to blog about today? The trouble with August is not that nothing happens – more that everything that does happen, give or take the odd badly-timed book launch, is routine and not at all interesting.
Ah, a light-bulb moment! A quandary solved, in fact. Here’s a plea for advice. In ten days I’m off to a little bit of rural France I’ve never explored before, to do absolutely nothing in the sun for a couple of weeks in the company of three of my favourite people. I plan to spend a lot of those two weeks catching up on my reading. Not that I don’t read the rest of the year – how could I not? – but holiday/vacation (delete as appropriate to the language you speak) time means I don’t have to intersperse Phil Rickman, Stephen Booth and J D Robb with manuscripts of international thrillers or gory police dramas of the kind I know some people read for pleasure – well, an adrenalin rush, anyway – but which I can only appreciate, not enjoy. And often, if I’m honest, not even that. One thing you learn, or possibly relearn, when you go into publishing to promote the brilliant new writing that’s out there is how much not very good writing is out there too.
But this year I can’t load my luggage with all the fourths-in-series I haven’t got around to yet. Usually we drive, so space and suitcase weight aren’t a major issue, but this year we’re throwing ourselves on the mercy of Easyjet, who demand three times the airfare all over again if the case is three grams over the limit.
The four of us have made a pact – sort of – to take books we can pass around. And this is the advice I need: what can I contribute? The only reading taste we all have in common is crime fiction. None of us is keen on three-inch-thick international thrillers featuring cardboard women and fantasy men, and we don’t like gratuitous violence though the odd smidgen of inventive gore is OK. We like complex, engaging characters, plots that are intricate but might actually happen, beautifully realised settings (though possibly not Scandinavia – an acquired taste we haven’t acquired)… oh, you know, just the usual best crime fiction around. And not from halfway through a series.
Just so you know, we’ve done Val McDermid. And Mark Billingham. And Julia Spencer-Fleming.
Come on, guys. Call it Lynne’s August challenge.
