Lynne Patrick
It’s not really his birthday, at least not as far as I know, though I’m not party to such intimate details of Mr Obama’s personal life. You have to imagine that headline sung in a pouty, breathy, seductive voice by a beautiful blonde in a long satin dress. A little like Michelle Pfeiffer in The Fabulous Baker Boys, and we all know who she got the idea from.
Because Monday, ladies and gentlemen, would have been Marilyn Monroe’s 83rd birthday if she had stayed around long enough to celebrate it. And since she didn’t, we celebrated for her.
With wine. And cake. And beautiful soft early evening sunshine. In (and around) a tiny but atmosphere-laden bookshop in the middle of London, located in an arcade which probably looked exactly the same over a century ago when Dickens had books to launch. Except maybe there was no tarot reader. Then again, maybe there was.
There were familiar faces from television. There was the most spectacular scarlet and black satin corset I’ve ever seen. My only tiny disappointment, and it really was very tiny, was that there were no Marilyn Monroe lookalikes. We made it plain on the invitation that such hommage would be very welcome indeed.
The occasion, aside from Marilyn’s birthday, was the launch of Dead Like Her, the third in Linda Regan’s dark and dangerous police procedural series which is shaping up to be kind of like Martina Cole with a showbiz theme.
The series started out backstage at the pantomime, then went downmarket to the seediest strip joints and sex shops of Soho. This time it explores the murky world of lookalike clubs: one in particular, which is not all it seems (well, it is a crime novel after all). Marilyn lookalikes are being targeted (hey, maybe that’s why none turned up – they’d read the blurb on our website…) and it’s down to our trusty series heroes of the south London police to track down the culprit. And let me tell you, it is not who you’re expecting. Quite a few things took me by surprise, and these days that’s not easy.
Enough with the shameless plugging, at least for the book, and for the time being.
It really was a lovely evening. I talked to that quintessential English gentleman Simon Brett, author of three wonderful cosy crime series, who actually remembered me after our very brief introduction at CrimeFest last month. I made the acquaintance of a couple of crime writers who had previously only been names on book covers. I watched an impromptu photo-shoot involving that afore-mentioned spectacular corset and a couple of unsuspecting police people, real ones, not fictional, who just happened to be passing and got co-opted.
And I touched the hem of the garment of an actress who appeared in my favourite TV drama series ever, Judge John Deed, alongside my even more favourite actor, the knee-meltingly gorgeous Martin Shaw. Realising she was only a surrogate for him, she said with plaintive irony, “I get a lot of that.”
Afterwards we repaired to the Italian at the end of the arcade and enjoyed delicious pasta in the company of two Crème authors whose new titles are coming up later in the year: Kaye C Hill and Mary Andrea Clarke, both pretty popular among our growing legion of American fans. Though I’m afraid you’ll have to wait till next year, unless you get them from our website.
A brief, completely unconnected PS: Dufour Editions’ autumn catalogue is now out – and Crème de la Crime is strongly featured. Thank you, Chris, Brad, Larisa and anyone else at Dufour who I don’t know about. You’re wonderful people.
Sounds a fab event, Lynne!
And nice to see another Martin Shaw fan. I'd listen to him read the phonebook!
Posted by: Lartonmedia | June 03, 2009 at 12:18 PM
TypePadYou can touch the hem of my garment if you like, Shaz. The actress played Coope. Not many people have got closer to him...
Posted by: Lynne Patrick | June 03, 2009 at 12:26 PM
Hee hee! I liked her in the show -- she was very non-bullshit!
Posted by: Lartonmedia | June 03, 2009 at 12:33 PM