A Capital Crime special featuring authors Jón Atli Jónasson, Ruth Mancini, Anna Bailey and festival organisers David Headley and Lizzie Curle.
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome, ladies and gentlemen to a very special episode of
Murder Junction, a capital crime special showcasing London's premiere Crime
and Thriller Fiction Festival. There will be thrills, there will
be spills, there will be giant babies. In this episode
you will hear short, sharp interviews with some of the
authors speaking at the festival, and later on we will
(00:23):
meet the geniuses behind the whole shabank. But first up,
Jean Atli Jonasson, author of Broken John, Welcome to the show.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
Thank you very much.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
Right, so this is a ten minute, quick and dirty interview,
so let's dive straight in. So, first of all, place
yourself for us. So where did you grow.
Speaker 3 (00:43):
Up a crew of precric Island. I'm Icelandic and I
read and write Icelandic crime fiction.
Speaker 1 (00:49):
Mainly, okay, but I also understand you from your bio
that you are Iceland's most famous or most notorious playwright.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
Ha ha yeah.
Speaker 4 (00:59):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (01:00):
I started out in theater and the largely experimental theater,
which is just another word for you know, making theater
without any money, and political theater. And so my kind
of bridge into crime fiction came through doing radio drama
based on Iceland's most famous crime case. So, having done that,
(01:26):
I kind of graduated into basically writing crime fiction.
Speaker 1 (01:31):
Okay, so tell us a bit about this case, because
now I'm intrigued.
Speaker 5 (01:34):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (01:34):
It's from the seventies and it's called the Wilminger and
get finderd Case. It's a case about two men who
have no connection whatsoever but go missing at the same time.
Speaker 2 (01:48):
Okay, and the police were.
Speaker 3 (01:51):
Kind of sure that a group of young kids eighteen nineteen,
twenty years old, a group of happy kids or somehow
responsible for either the disappearance of death or the death
of these two men.
Speaker 1 (02:07):
And the end as old.
Speaker 2 (02:10):
It's unsolved.
Speaker 3 (02:12):
But they all all received sentences which were then reducted
decades later. Were they cleared, Yeah, some of them were, Okay,
and they've never been found, these two men.
Speaker 1 (02:24):
The bodies have never been No, never been discovered. Well,
i'll tell you what so is. Does that is that
form the basis of your book Broken?
Speaker 2 (02:32):
No? No, no, it's not really.
Speaker 3 (02:34):
I'm just saying that was the bridge into crime fiction
bridge I think.
Speaker 2 (02:39):
I think, having having been an avid fan of.
Speaker 3 (02:42):
Uh crime fiction from all over the world, I never
really saw myself as a writer. Having the skill set
to to write crime fiction. So taking on writing about
a case that was really kind of kind of helped
me figure out a lot of stuff in terms of
(03:03):
you know what you need to kind of know before
you delve into writing crime fiction.
Speaker 1 (03:07):
Many famous crime writers have started off knowing next to nothing.
All you need is a dead body. You need a
couple of dodgy looking suspects, and you need you need
a policeman who's usually drunk, divorced, and who's willing to
break the rules. Do any of these things feature in
your book. Let's talk about your book. Now, let's talk
about all of it. It's all of it, all of
it's there. Give us the elevator pitch for broken.
Speaker 3 (03:30):
So the elevator pitch is that a transgender teenager goes
missing in our most famous national park, thin Quickly National Park,
which I guess most of your listeners know us a
set from Game of Thrones.
Speaker 2 (03:42):
Right, Okay, So place this for us within Iceland. Where
is it? K It's in the south, right, But it's
I mean in Iceland.
Speaker 3 (03:51):
It's it's a place everybody knows and holds us very
special significance for our country. Why because it's holy grant.
It's the first parliament.
Speaker 2 (04:04):
I guess.
Speaker 3 (04:05):
I'm not a historian, but it's one of the first
parliaments in I guess the world.
Speaker 2 (04:12):
Someone will send you an email saying that's not true.
Speaker 3 (04:14):
There's this place on Easter Island where they started before.
Speaker 2 (04:17):
So but you but you get what I'm saying.
Speaker 3 (04:20):
This is this is like a yeah, it's sacred political ground.
Speaker 2 (04:24):
Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 3 (04:26):
And so this teenager goes missing, and at the same time,
we have a.
Speaker 2 (04:33):
Female detective who.
Speaker 3 (04:36):
Is kind of bound to desk duty because of an
accident she she got into, you know, connecting. I might
start that again, the pitch I'm kind of switching into.
I've been speaking in Sweetish for a week, so so
I need to switch.
Speaker 2 (04:53):
Over a little bit.
Speaker 3 (04:54):
No, but we have a we have a female detective
who's uh, you know, been through some tron related to
a shooting incident where a bullet or a fragment from
a bullet got lodged in her brain during a corps and.
Speaker 2 (05:09):
She's kind of finding her way.
Speaker 3 (05:10):
Back to active duty and she gets kind of or
wiggles herself into that case because she suspects there's more
to the disappearance of the teenager than people think, and
she teams up with what we would call an Icelander
with a foreign background, or I mean in other Scandinavian
(05:31):
countries they would call him a second generation immigrant, which
I kind of have trouble with that terminology. So his
parents are Serbian war refugees and he's grown up in Iceland.
Speaker 2 (05:43):
His name is Rato, and he's done his best to
integrate into Icelandic society.
Speaker 3 (05:48):
He's got a police wife and they have a kid,
and his in laws they're a bit shady.
Speaker 2 (05:56):
So this kind of starts the snowball rolling. In laws
are always shade, Yeah, always shady. What was the name
of the female protagonist. Her name is Dora and his
name is Rato. Okay, fabulous? Now you right?
Speaker 1 (06:11):
Primarily in the native language, yes, When then it's translated
to English, yes?
Speaker 2 (06:18):
Correct.
Speaker 1 (06:18):
And I mentioned this because your translator is sitting across
from us, and all of those little noises that you
hear of pens clicking and papers being shuffled.
Speaker 2 (06:26):
Would you like to acknowledge it? Would you like me
to kick him out? Yeah?
Speaker 6 (06:31):
No.
Speaker 3 (06:31):
Quinin Paints has been an absolute key for us working
in such a small language.
Speaker 2 (06:38):
I don't know if that's the right phrase for it.
Niche Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, in a niche language.
Speaker 1 (06:44):
Yeah, it's not niche in Iceland obviously, No.
Speaker 3 (06:46):
I mean icelandic is a small country and has a
small language.
Speaker 2 (06:52):
I mean, you know, in terms of numbers.
Speaker 3 (06:54):
So having somebody like Quentin who can basically open.
Speaker 2 (06:58):
Doors to a white audience is white touch, absolutely.
Speaker 1 (07:02):
And I've spoken to some of your contemporaries in crime
and thriller fiction before who I know reasonably.
Speaker 2 (07:07):
Well, Rag now must know.
Speaker 1 (07:09):
And cigaread dot here is that right?
Speaker 5 (07:12):
Yes?
Speaker 1 (07:12):
Yeah, yeah, I always managed to get that name. People
often forget the little die in the middle there, don't they.
And yeah, so three hundred thousand people in the whole
of Iceland. I think I've got more people on my
street in London probably than that.
Speaker 2 (07:26):
Okay, just a few more quick questions for you as
we round off this interview.
Speaker 1 (07:34):
Where do you write? I mean people are always fascinated by
people's processes, I mean, where do you write?
Speaker 2 (07:38):
How do you write?
Speaker 3 (07:39):
I tried to write in the morning, so once the
kids are off off the school and there's this you
have a zero point there when when they've kind of gone.
I tried to make the most of that.
Speaker 2 (07:51):
Okay, fabulous, And you.
Speaker 1 (07:52):
Are one of these plotters or do you just make
it up as you go along?
Speaker 3 (07:57):
I think Stephen King, you're either Steve and King guy
or lot and Stephen King is a character guy.
Speaker 2 (08:03):
And I think.
Speaker 3 (08:06):
I guess the big lesson when when writing crime fiction
is the the case is the thing. So the case
kind of gives you the structure or the investigation in
many cases, and then you just try and to add
as many interesting things to that as possible.
Speaker 1 (08:20):
And have you brought anything of your experience from playwriting
into this dialogue?
Speaker 5 (08:26):
Mainly?
Speaker 3 (08:27):
So I think that's the kind of the biggest thing
I bring to the table in terms of past experience.
Speaker 2 (08:33):
Okay, so some quick questions for you now, favorite meal?
Favorite meal?
Speaker 3 (08:37):
I think my favorite meal is probably has something to
do with chioriso.
Speaker 2 (08:42):
Yeah, some Spanish stuff because it's not easily available in Iceland.
Speaker 1 (08:47):
No favorite book or a book that you really love
from childhood maybe or from.
Speaker 3 (08:52):
Later in life, something that sticks in your memory. I
think there are two books I kind of tend to
go back to.
Speaker 2 (08:57):
I think one is.
Speaker 3 (09:00):
Clocker Spiritual Price that's turned into a film, wasn't it. Yeah,
Spike Lee, but Richard Price, he's mainly responsible for things.
Speaker 2 (09:11):
Like the Wire. He's one of those Yeah that's amazing
TV show.
Speaker 3 (09:14):
Yeah, so I think Clockers would strike high.
Speaker 2 (09:20):
Now I'm translating in my own head.
Speaker 3 (09:22):
So a Lot of the Flies is also a wi
filming culting.
Speaker 2 (09:29):
Yeah, kind of those two books. Same question. But favorite
film or a film that you love? A favorite? A
good film I love. I like Good Fellas. I think
that's a film I can what's over and over again.
Speaker 3 (09:41):
And then to give your audience a little kind of
you know, suggestion, there's a film from the mid two
thousands by Eric Skelper called Nocus. It's about Scandinavia's most
famous bank robbery. Wow, and I I I claim it's
(10:02):
better than heat.
Speaker 2 (10:04):
Okay, that's a big claim.
Speaker 1 (10:05):
That is my favorite cops and Cops and Robbers film.
Speaker 5 (10:08):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (10:09):
I tried to get as many people as a meat.
Speaker 1 (10:11):
What is what is the translation in English?
Speaker 2 (10:13):
Nocas is the is the name of the bank. So well,
that's a big claim. And now I'm intrigued. Now I
have to watch it and see.
Speaker 3 (10:22):
If this is the I mean, the film is one thing,
and but but the criminal case, this is like the
kram Tella Creme of backroppers and criminals. It's the best
of the best. It's the eight team of criminals in Scandinavia.
But you're saying it's based on a real story.
Speaker 2 (10:40):
Yeah, yeah, and they team up and.
Speaker 1 (10:42):
Okay, and now I definitely have to commit to this.
And last, very last question for you, what are you
writing next?
Speaker 3 (10:50):
I'm writing the third installment of this featuring the two
protagonists from Broken.
Speaker 2 (10:56):
And what is it called?
Speaker 3 (10:58):
It has no kind of set title at the moment,
but I'm playing around with the calling it.
Speaker 2 (11:07):
The Good Shepherd or something like that. Okay, I mean
that's a TV show, isn't it? Is that the name
of a TV show somewhere? It's a name of a
lot of things.
Speaker 1 (11:14):
I've got a better title for ye. Yeah, even more broken, Yeah,
even more broken? Maybe smashed smashed a pulp. John, It's
been absolutely lovely.
Speaker 2 (11:23):
Talking to you. Thanks a lot, Thank you.
Speaker 1 (11:26):
So next up it's Ruth Mancini, author of The Woman
on the Ledge and now The Day I Lost You.
Speaker 2 (11:33):
Ruth, Welcome to the show.
Speaker 4 (11:35):
Hello, nice to be here.
Speaker 2 (11:37):
Ruth.
Speaker 1 (11:37):
You're far too happy, You're far too happy for this podcast, right,
So tell us, tell us, tell us. First of all,
introduce yourself, tell us where you grew up, etcetera, etcetera.
Speaker 7 (11:48):
So right, my name is Ruth Mancini. I am a
criminal defense lawyer. I started doing that back in nineteen
ninety eight.
Speaker 4 (11:57):
I grew up in London.
Speaker 7 (11:58):
I was born in London, in fact, lived a few
places Essex, Swansea and Wales. Moved around a bit as
a child, but ended up back in London, and I
now live in Oxford. I'm married with two grown up
people actually in fact, and I still practice law a
(12:20):
little bit, but I'm mostly writing now, which I started
doing started doing about twenty years ago, and at the
same time as I started getting interested in the law. Really,
so it was the two running intended to one of.
Speaker 1 (12:32):
These disgustingly talented people who know everything, just determined real
say criminal law. Yes, are you a barrister?
Speaker 4 (12:41):
I am a slister.
Speaker 7 (12:42):
We've just been talking about that, funnily enough in my panel,
about what the difference is, because.
Speaker 1 (12:46):
What is the difference, well, difference different audience.
Speaker 7 (12:50):
Yeah, particularly if you asked the two fifteen year olds
who were sitting opposite me in ealing youth court a
couple of years ago. They were sitting there, one waiting
for his barrister, and the other one said, Oh, I've
got a solicity, you've got a barrister. What's the difference.
And the one who had the barrister said, oh, barrister's
a poshure and they earn more. And I looked up
(13:11):
and I thought, no, no, no, Ruth, No, don't get involved,
don't get involved. But the upshot is that historically solicitors
prepared the plate, prepared the case, and then they passed
it to the barrister to do the advocacy on their feet,
as we call it.
Speaker 4 (13:29):
So they were on their feet in court.
Speaker 7 (13:30):
But in nineteen ninety solicitors got rights of audience, which
means that we now have the same we do advocacy
just the same as the barristers do. And so most
people who qualify as a criminal solicitor will first become
a duty solicitor, and that means that they're the person
who gets called if you get arrested, if you're on
(13:54):
the road of that night and there's a murder or anything.
It could be anything at all. You don't know what
you're getting. Is like a duty doctor. You get called
out and you're the person who has to go to
the police station and represent them, and that's what we
do that barristers don't do do. We represent people at
police stations. So really we're with the.
Speaker 4 (14:11):
Case from the beginning.
Speaker 7 (14:13):
We then prepare the case and then, as I say,
historically we couldn't stand up and for it, but now
we can.
Speaker 1 (14:19):
You can all be Johnny Cochrane, you can all be
Tom Cruise in a.
Speaker 2 (14:22):
Few good ways.
Speaker 4 (14:23):
We can. Indeed, we can be all of it.
Speaker 7 (14:25):
You still sometimes quite often and will instruct a barrister
if you you know, if it's a very important case,
so they they will.
Speaker 4 (14:33):
Then take over and run the case.
Speaker 7 (14:34):
But we were actually just talking about this, you know,
because Nikola Williams was in the same panel as me
and judge she's also a Crome Court judge, and we
were talking about just the way that the profession has
generally opened up. So and I would definitely want to say,
if you want to be a sister or a barrister,
don't worry about being posh enough.
Speaker 8 (14:53):
Just do it.
Speaker 1 (14:54):
Listen, I reckon I could be brilliant because I've learned
everything I need to know from the aforementioned movie.
Speaker 2 (14:58):
A few good men.
Speaker 1 (14:59):
We do just go in and you just you just
shout very loudly, I want the truth.
Speaker 4 (15:03):
You can't tell the truth.
Speaker 1 (15:05):
They tell you the truth, though, Yeah, if you should
shout loudly enough.
Speaker 4 (15:09):
And then so that's how to run a good day.
Speaker 1 (15:12):
And they'll just just shout loudly, I want the truth,
and then you get the truth.
Speaker 4 (15:17):
So many good quotes from that film.
Speaker 1 (15:18):
Are okay, So let's let's talk about your book. Let's
talk about the day I lost you. Let's give us
the elevator pitch for the book.
Speaker 7 (15:24):
Okay, So I mean, in short, it's a bit of
a judgment of Solomon's story, which is a biblical story,
and for those who don't know, it's about two women
arguing over a baby and both saying the baby's mine
is mine, and the Solomon, the judge, says, okay, I'll
tell you what we do. We'll chop him in half
and you can have half each, and that way we
find out who the true mother is, because she's the
(15:45):
one going no, no, she can have him.
Speaker 4 (15:46):
She can have him.
Speaker 7 (15:47):
So that's not what happens in my story. Sorry, I
should just make that very clear. No babies die in
the making of this book. But it is a story
about a baby being lost and the mother grieving deeply,
and you find another woman living in Spain and the
(16:09):
police knock on the door.
Speaker 4 (16:10):
But that's how the story starts.
Speaker 7 (16:11):
The police knock on the door and they say, we
believe you've got a child that's not yours, and she says, no, no,
it's mine, but certificate passport, yep, it's mine, and the
police go, all right, then if he goes and you know,
will you come into the police station and talk to
us on Fridays. She says, yes, we will, and of
course she doesn't turn up. She goes on the run
with the baby. And the whole story really is getting
(16:33):
down to whose baby actually is it?
Speaker 4 (16:35):
And what the hell happened? What was this tragic thing
in the past that happened.
Speaker 2 (16:40):
So just some clarifications.
Speaker 1 (16:41):
Is the action taking place in London or in Spain?
Speaker 7 (16:44):
It takes place. It starts in Spain in a fictional
town on the cost of Brother called man mart I
can see that Mantia DeMar And but then story comes
back to the Coswells, not the Cotswolds, sorry, the children's
(17:05):
and the ad Yeah, well, I am actually from Oxford.
So I'm in between the cots Swords and the children's
so yeah, and I've just done a panel.
Speaker 4 (17:14):
So you know a little bit of hyper so just
bear with me with me.
Speaker 2 (17:18):
One are the names of these two women.
Speaker 7 (17:21):
So these two women are called Hope and Lauren. And
so Lauren is the woman who's in Spain, and Hope
is the one who lives in the Chiltern's and she
is the one who's lost her baby, and we, as
you say, you go through the story.
Speaker 4 (17:37):
And her husband, Drew is also Hope's husband.
Speaker 7 (17:40):
Drew is a so Drew, Hope and Lauren are the
three sort of key characters really.
Speaker 1 (17:45):
And the police investigation presumably there's a police protagonist.
Speaker 7 (17:49):
Yes, there are police involved. But as you know, as
a criminal defense lawyer, I like to write about lawyer's
first performance. It's actually a lawyer who Sarah Kellaman. She's
my recurring character. She's in all my books.
Speaker 4 (18:03):
She comes in and advises the people in the story.
I won't say too.
Speaker 7 (18:09):
Much about who she advises and how, but yes, she's
the one really who saves the day.
Speaker 4 (18:16):
The police are in the story, but in a minor way.
We have a lot of police procedures.
Speaker 1 (18:20):
So I feel let's go back to The Woman on
the Ledge, because that was a stellar start for you,
massive success.
Speaker 2 (18:26):
You said you've been writing for twenty years.
Speaker 1 (18:28):
Was it that book that you were working office for
very long?
Speaker 7 (18:31):
It took me two years to write it, actually, what
with lockdown and various things. But no, I was writing,
trying to write and trying to write a book that
was good enough to get published for a few years
before that. And I have actually got a bit of
back list. But the Woman on the Ledge was, Yeah,
that was the one that it was sort of did
quite well.
Speaker 2 (18:50):
Give us a second pitch.
Speaker 4 (18:52):
So the Woman on the Ledge.
Speaker 7 (18:53):
Oh, so a woman has fallen from the twenty fifth
floor of an office block in the city of London.
Speaker 4 (18:59):
So this story, The Woman on the Leg is very
much faced in London.
Speaker 7 (19:02):
It's very London centric, and the central character, Tait, is
arrested for her murder because she has admitted to the
police that she was there when the woman fell. She
gets arrested, pleads her innocence and says she you know, well,
please not well she's not in court, but she yeah,
She says she's innocent at the police station and her
(19:23):
lawyer says, well, what actually happened, and and so she
takes her through the whole account of what happened and
what led to this woman falling and why she's been
arrested for it, and nothing is as it seems.
Speaker 4 (19:36):
We have an unreliable rat and your series character.
Speaker 2 (19:40):
You're sorry, your recurring So.
Speaker 7 (19:41):
My recurring character in this yes she is. Sarah Kellerman
comes in. She's she's quite central in this story. She's
never it's.
Speaker 4 (19:49):
Not a series.
Speaker 7 (19:49):
I don't write a series recurring Yeah, yeah, no, no,
you said that, but I just wanted to make it
clear that Sarah Kellerman is. She's in pretty much all
my books, but as a recurring character. So all the
stories are star alone, so you don't have to have
read one before the other.
Speaker 1 (20:02):
Are you, Sarah, She's very.
Speaker 4 (20:06):
I very much drawn on my experiences. Yeah, very much.
Speaker 1 (20:09):
So, Okay, favorite meal, favorite meal.
Speaker 7 (20:14):
I love Chinese food, and I had a lovely Chinese
yesterday actually at the Ivy Asia, which my publisher, Selina Walker,
was very kind enough to treat me.
Speaker 1 (20:22):
To favorite book or a book that stayed with you, a.
Speaker 7 (20:26):
Book that's well, my favorite book of all time is
probably To Kill a Mockingbird, which obviously was, I said,
a legal thriller, which got me probably interested.
Speaker 4 (20:35):
In the law in the first place.
Speaker 1 (20:36):
Yeah, any thoughts on go said or Watchman?
Speaker 4 (20:41):
Any thoughts on what's sorry?
Speaker 1 (20:42):
So this was the sequel that they managed to get
Harperly to sign off on a deathbed. We should never
have probably been published because it was a prequel to
to Kill a Mockingbird in't it right? I'm going to
show my savage It was savaged by the critics.
Speaker 7 (20:54):
Right, well, I'm going to show my ignorance there because
I haven't read it. That's tip a favorite film or
a film that's did you actually have a few good men?
I know, I know it's a bit cheesy in the end,
but I thought the whole story.
Speaker 1 (21:11):
I knew all lawyers how to do law from a
few good men.
Speaker 7 (21:15):
But my favorite film of all time is Thelmai is absolutely.
Speaker 1 (21:18):
The second person I've been to you today who's.
Speaker 4 (21:20):
Really really just absolutely all that film.
Speaker 2 (21:23):
That film, aside from the rather sad ending.
Speaker 7 (21:26):
Aside from the sad ending, really in a way, the
women on the Ledger was kind of like I wanted to.
Speaker 1 (21:30):
Make it, and a lot of people don't realize it's
a Ridley Scott film. Yes, he's Alien Gladiators amazingly varied.
Speaker 4 (21:39):
Yeah, absolutely, he's done a lot of different things.
Speaker 2 (21:41):
Last question, what are you working on next?
Speaker 7 (21:44):
I'm writing a book at the moment which has a
working title, so I can't tell you that the title
that maybe.
Speaker 4 (21:49):
It's the silly one and it would give the story away.
Speaker 2 (21:51):
Is that working title is working titles.
Speaker 4 (21:52):
Working title.
Speaker 7 (21:53):
Working title is the working title, and it's going to
be out next July. And it is the story another
legal storyline where Sarah comes in.
Speaker 4 (22:03):
And helps somebody who's in trouble.
Speaker 7 (22:06):
I think maybe that's enough at the moment because it's
a long time between.
Speaker 4 (22:09):
Now and then.
Speaker 2 (22:11):
So The Day I Lost You is out now or
just about.
Speaker 7 (22:14):
It just about to come out, but it's early copies
that are here at the festival, so people have just
been having a look at.
Speaker 4 (22:20):
It and buying some.
Speaker 1 (22:21):
It's been lovely chatting to you, thank you and.
Speaker 4 (22:23):
Talked a lot.
Speaker 2 (22:25):
That's what we like. That's what a podcast is for.
Speaker 1 (22:27):
It would be a very dull podcast if you came
in here and said, az, I'm not saying anything.
Speaker 2 (22:31):
I'm taking the Fifth Amendment.
Speaker 4 (22:33):
We have the Fifth amendment in the UK.
Speaker 7 (22:35):
No, well we haven't. We have the equivalent. We own
titled to say no comment. So yeah, and not give
evidence that chial.
Speaker 2 (22:42):
Well I'm glad you didn't know comment. This is thanks youth.
Speaker 1 (22:46):
Our next guest is Anna Bailey, author of Tall Bones
and Our Last Wild Days. Anna, Welcome to the show.
So much right, let's set the scene. First of all,
tell us where you grew up, where you live, all
that kind of stuff.
Speaker 6 (22:59):
I grew up in Gloucestershire and in rural Gloucester, and
I lived there pretty much all my life, and then
moved to the States where I lived in Texas and
Colorado for a few years, and I now live in
Bordeaux in France.
Speaker 1 (23:14):
Texas quite quite a change of direction from Gloucester.
Speaker 2 (23:22):
Why why Texas?
Speaker 6 (23:24):
So actually, when I was a when I was a student,
I got married to a guy from Texas and I
moved out there and I lived on his family's cattle
ranch and it was quite a complicated experience.
Speaker 8 (23:40):
I'm gay.
Speaker 6 (23:40):
So if that sort of sets the tone a little
bit from how bizarre that was.
Speaker 8 (23:45):
And it was the first.
Speaker 6 (23:46):
Trump administration, so it was a really interesting set of circumstances.
Speaker 8 (23:51):
To be moving into.
Speaker 2 (23:53):
But I.
Speaker 6 (23:56):
Really did fall in love with that landscape out there.
I have a lot of love for the South, even
though it is a complicated place and it's I don't
think I've ever really sort of gotten over it. It
comes out in everything that I write. I think I
keep going back to.
Speaker 2 (24:11):
It to keep exploring it. Absolutely, and I think we
have very similar experiences.
Speaker 1 (24:14):
I mean, I didn't get married to somebody who moved
to Texas. No, But I've written a small town America
thriller as well. And I did that because I love
this southern part of the States, and I spent lots
of time wandering around these amazing small towns, and the
hospitality and the generosity of people and their willingness to
talk about their lives and circumstances I found just incredible.
(24:36):
And anyway, that's that's a different story. So I've got
this picture of city slickers in my mind now, with
you all dressed up with Western outfits and trying to
sort of wrote buffalo, And.
Speaker 2 (24:47):
Did you do any of that on this round?
Speaker 9 (24:50):
No?
Speaker 2 (24:50):
But I did.
Speaker 8 (24:51):
I did learn how to shoot a rifle.
Speaker 1 (24:53):
Okay, first thing, that's the first thing that all Brits
do you know what.
Speaker 2 (24:57):
I've got a friend and she's she's a Muslim with
a hyge and everything.
Speaker 1 (25:01):
She ended up for some reason in the States, in
the southern part of it, and then for some other reason,
she was convinced to go to a gun range and
she picked up the biggest gun that she could find,
and this sort of southern gentleman said, I'll teach you
how to shoot this thing, and within five minutes everybody
was crowded around her because she turned out to be
an amazing shot.
Speaker 8 (25:22):
Well, I did not turn out to be an amazing chot.
Speaker 1 (25:25):
All right, don't nobody give this woman a gun? Okay,
So let's talk about the book. Okay, So your your
current release is our last wild Day, So give us
the elevator pitch.
Speaker 6 (25:36):
So it's a Southern Gothic mystery takes place in rural Louisiana,
and it's all about a family of alligator hunters who
are sort of the outcasts of their community a little bit.
They do this very violent, dangerous job, and they're perceived
as being very violent, dangerous people, and so when one
of them turns up dead, there's not an awful lot
(25:57):
of investigation into what's happened to her. It's sort of
seen as something that was bound to happen. And it's
only her childhood friend who is a journalist who thinks
there's more than meets the eye to this story, and
in the process of investigating, inevitably turns off a lot
of secrets about everybody in this community.
Speaker 1 (26:17):
Okay, let's talk about protagonists. Who are the key protagonists
of this book.
Speaker 8 (26:21):
So the journalist that I mention her name is loyal.
Speaker 6 (26:24):
She's come back to this small town after a long
time being away to look after.
Speaker 8 (26:29):
Her mother, and she has a She had a very.
Speaker 6 (26:33):
Close relationship with the young woman who's been who's died,
and they had a falling out when they were teenagers,
but they've sort of that they never really reconciled about that,
and I think it's this guilt that she feels about
realizing she never had the chance to patch up their
friendship and now her friend is dead. It's this guilt
(26:55):
that sort of drives her to keep investigating.
Speaker 2 (26:57):
Okay, and why small town America.
Speaker 6 (27:00):
It's like you said about the hospitality and the manners
of people in the South. I think it's interesting to
me that what the South is sort of famous for
is both it's good manners and its intolerance. And there's
something about that double sidedness that I find very very compelling,
sort of from a mystery writing perspective. You've got people
(27:20):
who they're the loveliest people in the world, but they
also have this capacity for intense cruelty and rejection of
other people. And I think that that makes for a
very interesting atmosphere when you know that characters are already
sort of hiding something about themselves, that being sort of
duplicitous already, that makes for a really interesting setting.
Speaker 1 (27:42):
And I think those contrasts lie at the heart of
a lot of crime novels, you know, the juxtaposition of
good and bad, as you've very eloquently put it there.
So why Alligator People?
Speaker 8 (27:57):
I just sort of got in to it kind of randomly.
Speaker 6 (28:01):
I'm really interested in deconstructing that sort of myth about
American manhood. I suppose there's a lot of you know,
there's a lot of stereotypes about America and the South,
particularly about you know, what the sort of stereotypical person
who comes from that.
Speaker 8 (28:19):
Place is and looks like and does.
Speaker 6 (28:22):
And I alligated hunting in Louisiana is one of these
very sort of matcho jobs for men, and I was
interested to explore, I suppose, what it would be like
if somebody a bit different was doing that.
Speaker 8 (28:36):
So the girl who.
Speaker 6 (28:38):
Who's Who's dead at the beginning of our Last Wild Days,
she is an alligator hunter, but for her it's instructed
her entire personality and her entire being being a woman
doing this job, and how it's a sort of constant.
Speaker 8 (28:55):
Fight for her all the time to be.
Speaker 6 (28:57):
Taken seriously, and it's made her a very hard person.
And in a response to that, a lot of people
around her are not sympathetic to her death because they
perceive her as being a very hard and callous person,
but she's not. It's really something that she's had to skin.
She sort of had to grow, I suppose, in order
to be taken seriously. So I was just very interested
in the way that the job would impact the characters.
Speaker 1 (29:19):
I think, and writers often have to inhabit these skins
by way of research. So did you end up hunting
alligators or alligator farms or whatever they.
Speaker 6 (29:29):
Call I did visit an alligator farm when I was
when I was living in Texas and I've definitely spoken
to a lot of hunters about their experiences.
Speaker 8 (29:40):
I haven't done it myself.
Speaker 1 (29:42):
I'm well, it just so happens in my bag. I
have an alligator for you.
Speaker 2 (29:49):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (29:50):
So, as I said, these are short, sharp interviews, so
I'm going to ask you a few other questions just
to just to.
Speaker 2 (29:55):
Round off, round off, round off things. Why crime fiction?
Speaker 1 (30:00):
Am I right in thinking that you did a course
with was it Codis Brown?
Speaker 6 (30:05):
Yes, yeah, I did, And I didn't really expect to
write crime fiction. I suppose I started writing my debut
book with them Tall Bones, which is a story about
a girl who goes missing and the impact that there
has on her community, but particularly her family. And this
was also set in the States. It was set in Colorado,
(30:27):
where I also lived, and from me, it was sort
of about figuring out how I felt about coming back
from that place at a time that was quite sort
of rocky for.
Speaker 8 (30:36):
Me, I think, And.
Speaker 6 (30:39):
It ended up being a crime novel, but it wasn't
what I intended to write. And I think I suppose
I'm interested in exploring I guess for one of a
better phrase like the darker side of people, and I
think that that works best in crime fiction. It's it's
definitely a great sort of mechanism for it for exploring
(31:00):
people and how people bounce off each other.
Speaker 1 (31:02):
It is indeed, and as I was telling you earlier,
I mean I read Talk Tall Bones and it was
tremendously successful because it was a very very good book,
and it was more than certainly, my take on it
was that it was more than a crime novel. It
was an expiration of people in very difficult circumstances trying
to work out how to live and not live with
each other. And these are topics I guess there are.
(31:24):
When you look at the current rhetoric around people of
different backgrounds in communities around the world, it seems to
have taken life upon life of its own.
Speaker 8 (31:34):
All right.
Speaker 6 (31:35):
Favorite meal, Oh gosh, my wife makes a really wonderful
tortellini soup. I'm going to tell her to tune into
this so she can hear me.
Speaker 2 (31:44):
So well, at least name her.
Speaker 8 (31:47):
My wife is a very lovely or clafe.
Speaker 2 (31:50):
What a great name.
Speaker 1 (31:52):
Favorite book or a book that stayed with you over
the years.
Speaker 8 (31:55):
The Shipping News by any Prue.
Speaker 2 (31:56):
I love that book. I love that book.
Speaker 1 (32:00):
What an amazing book that was, and she also wrote
a collection of short stories said in the West, close Friends,
which are also brilliant planned We've got something in common?
Favorite or a film that you really enjoyed over the years.
Speaker 6 (32:14):
Oh gosh, I'm suddenly struggling to remember a single film
on Earth I love. One of my favorite films ever
is Filmer and Louise.
Speaker 2 (32:23):
Another lovely film, although very.
Speaker 8 (32:26):
Sad, yes, yes, but just the best road trip film ever, I.
Speaker 1 (32:30):
Think, Yeah, aside from the killing and being chased around
by cops, but other than that, God, very much warming Otherwise.
Speaker 2 (32:40):
Process what sort of writer?
Speaker 5 (32:42):
Are you?
Speaker 2 (32:42):
A plotter?
Speaker 1 (32:43):
An early morning riser?
Speaker 6 (32:46):
I think I've become more of a plotter. I think
with my first book, I was just sort of trying
to write and get a feel of all the characters
as I was going, and then I'd have to go
back and change a lot of things to make it work.
Speaker 8 (33:00):
My most recent manuscript I've just finished was a lot more.
Speaker 6 (33:06):
I sat down and plotted it out quite thoroughly and
found that that worked for me this time. So I
think the main thing I'm learning is that you probably
find this two no two novels turn out the same
in the way that the writing process goes.
Speaker 1 (33:18):
Well, yeah, well after twelve novels, You're absolutely absolutely right.
Speaker 2 (33:22):
And I was.
Speaker 1 (33:23):
Reading a book of funky questions that a friend of
mine showed me this morning, U because he bought it long.
Speaker 2 (33:27):
For this, I'm to ask you any question. When was
the last time you saw a donkey?
Speaker 8 (33:34):
Actually not that long ago.
Speaker 6 (33:37):
My wife and I traveled to the past country quite
a lot for her job, So if we saw some.
Speaker 2 (33:41):
Of that, like a month, don't blame me.
Speaker 1 (33:45):
He gave me this book, he said, look at this
amazing book of stupid questions.
Speaker 6 (33:48):
I'd be interested to know what your other question guests
have seen when.
Speaker 2 (33:53):
I didn't ask that one. I didn't ask that one
of the last guests.
Speaker 1 (33:56):
There's different ones, like you know, when's the last time
you laminated something?
Speaker 6 (33:59):
I have my own laminator, So sad, okay, you've lost
all credib whatsoever.
Speaker 2 (34:06):
I was.
Speaker 1 (34:06):
I was pitching you as a super cool person, and
you've just lost all credibility. Last question, what are you
writing next?
Speaker 9 (34:13):
So?
Speaker 6 (34:13):
I actually just finished a new novel and a short
story collection, which I'm very excited about, and I am
now working on another novel. But it's very very embryonic
at the moment, so I'm not sure.
Speaker 2 (34:28):
The title of the one.
Speaker 1 (34:29):
You've just finished Vandal and that's out when.
Speaker 6 (34:33):
So I'm not quite sure when that's coming out. For
definitely sort of doing edits at the moment, but it
is set in New Mexico, so the state I have
a lot of love for.
Speaker 8 (34:43):
Us, So I'm very excited about that.
Speaker 1 (34:45):
And our Last Wild Days is out now, yes, and
it's been lovely chatting to you.
Speaker 8 (34:49):
Lovely talking to you too.
Speaker 1 (34:51):
And now having spoken with the puppets, we meet the
puppet masters, the organizers of Capital Crime, Lizzy Curl, Festival Director,
and the man the myth that is David Headley, Managing
director of d h H Literary Agency Limited and co
owner of Goldbrough Books, the premiere first editions bookshop in
the country. So guys, welcome, Thank you, thank you for
(35:12):
having us, well, thank you for taking ten minutes out
from your being.
Speaker 5 (35:15):
Called a puppet master associate trop.
Speaker 2 (35:18):
I feel like that I can practice these the strings
out of your hands, David. Look, another incredible year for
Capital Crime. How many are we up to now?
Speaker 5 (35:28):
This is our fifth year.
Speaker 10 (35:30):
It feels longer because we had two years of a
pandemic where we couldn't do one of course.
Speaker 2 (35:35):
So is this the biggliest capital crime ever?
Speaker 8 (35:39):
Let it's the biggiest largely.
Speaker 2 (35:42):
Yeah.
Speaker 10 (35:43):
We have the most amount of tickets sells this year.
We have brilliant panels put together by this brilliant woman.
Speaker 8 (35:52):
It's so excited. We're welcoming over two thousand readers this
week to say, that's really exciting for us.
Speaker 9 (35:57):
Goodness, and we're just delighted that every one's coming to London.
Speaker 8 (36:01):
As you say, London's an amazing place.
Speaker 9 (36:03):
That's wonderful that it's a book festival here to celebrate.
Speaker 10 (36:05):
But anyone thinks that London's a really expensive place to
come to, but we're trying to keep it so that
it's not the most expensive place to come to, and.
Speaker 2 (36:13):
It isn't it.
Speaker 1 (36:14):
It's a reasonably price festival and for the amount of
things that.
Speaker 2 (36:17):
You get to see and the authors that you get
to meet, it's it's fabulous.
Speaker 1 (36:21):
But it is a lot of work and you do
have a lot of other things to do daily.
Speaker 10 (36:26):
Well, we're surrounded by brilliant people and I couldn't do
it without Lizzie, and I wouldn't want to do it without Lizzie.
Lizzie is an exceptional festival director. She gets it and
she doesn't honestly look at you and I think, how
are you not ruffle or stressed?
Speaker 5 (36:42):
And I just look at it and I think, if.
Speaker 10 (36:43):
She's not ruffled of stress, then why am I? So
I just stop worrying, because until she comes to me worrying,
I think there's.
Speaker 2 (36:51):
Nothing to me. Why are you not ruffled? How can
we ruffle you?
Speaker 9 (36:55):
Obviously you have a very good poke effect, I joke.
It's just an amazing environment to be working in. And
I think you know fast. I know you've touched upon
it before. The crime community is just such a wonderful
community to be a part of. All of the authors
are wonderful, but also all the readers. They're just so
excited to be here.
Speaker 8 (37:11):
They're all lovely. They make being unflappable very easy.
Speaker 1 (37:16):
And you've also been occupied with other duties as well.
In fact, I touched upon this in the intro to
this podcast. I promised our readers that we might hear
about a giant baby.
Speaker 8 (37:27):
Giant six month old prayer. Yes, she is in the
ninetieth percentile.
Speaker 9 (37:34):
And now anyone that doesn't know me I'm five foot three,
my husband six or four, and the baby takes after him.
Speaker 2 (37:41):
However, I do have a bone.
Speaker 1 (37:43):
I do have a bone to pick because we did agree,
we did agree during the pre birth phase of this
that the baby baby would be named Budica. For some reason,
you've gone back on your word.
Speaker 9 (37:54):
I thought really hard for it as but after five
days of labor, I sort of couldn't e fit.
Speaker 1 (37:58):
My husband against it.
Speaker 2 (38:01):
It's a red flag. I get it, I get it,
all right.
Speaker 1 (38:04):
Highlights of the festival this year's first of all, one
of you have been particularly pleased at being able to
program other than me.
Speaker 10 (38:10):
Of course, of course you We get to see you
twice in fact, don't we.
Speaker 2 (38:14):
We do, and I'm very appreciative, and as are my publisher.
Speaker 10 (38:16):
We're excited about Quantum of Menace, and so it'll be
interesting to hear you talk about how it is working
with the infleming people and how you've found writing about
the Bond world.
Speaker 5 (38:27):
So that'll be interesting.
Speaker 2 (38:30):
It will be very interesting. I'll save the secrets for
the panel.
Speaker 10 (38:33):
Yeah, Mike, No, no, no, absolutely, But that's one of
the great things I'm looking forward to. I think we're
looking forward to everything just because that sounds trite, but
I mean because you have created brilliant panels with very
diverse authors, and I mean that across the spectrum.
Speaker 5 (38:49):
You've really thought about how can we.
Speaker 10 (38:51):
Bring very interesting authors together and get them to talk
about because, for example, one of the panels that we've
put together is Class of twenty twenty five, which is
I've brought four authors together, Sev McGown, Amit, Dan, BETHA.
Lewis and Sarah Pinbrook. And on paper, it doesn't look
like that they've written books that are very similar, but
(39:11):
actually there's lots of themes in their books that do
work together.
Speaker 5 (39:15):
So I'm interested in talking to them.
Speaker 10 (39:16):
And I'm interested talking to Adele Parks because she's being
in the industry for twenty five years, and Mark Billingham
and Karen Slaughter twenty five books, and in Adele Parks
is twenty five books too.
Speaker 5 (39:29):
I think that's a massive achievement.
Speaker 10 (39:30):
And Goals book celebrates twenty five years this year, so
that's lucky number one.
Speaker 2 (39:34):
Yeah.
Speaker 10 (39:34):
Yeah, So in twenty twenty five, it feels like it's
all come together brilliantly.
Speaker 9 (39:38):
Absolutely, and I'm really excited for all of the events
you know, David and I read every author that's on
a panel here. We've read the books, We've thought about
this schedule, and we hope everyone just has a really
good time, because I think if the authors are having
fun on stage, then the audience have founty.
Speaker 1 (39:51):
Yeah, and it is a very fun community, as we
touched upon absolutely yesterday. So, David, you are a man
of many talent, you're Smarster of none, You're a well
you're being too modest, you're a superagent. Your bookshop is
obviously unbelievably popular, and now you've got this festival.
Speaker 5 (40:08):
You know.
Speaker 1 (40:08):
I remember this scene from Die Hard when Alan Rickman
is talking about Alexander. Alexander wept because there were no
more worlds to conquer. As a bullshit story, by the way,
the actual plute arch, the actual thing is that Alexander
was told some theory about infinite world and he was
crying because he hadn't conquered any so he was.
Speaker 2 (40:28):
Actually a loser. But that's not you.
Speaker 1 (40:30):
You've conquered all these different worlds. Is there anything else
that you've got your mind your heart's set on conquering?
Speaker 10 (40:38):
No, I don't, and actually I don't think I've got
capacity to do anything else. And that's shameful to admit,
because I have always been ambitious. I think I'm again.
It sounds try, but I'm ambitious for my clients. So
all of the clients that I represent, I'm ambitious for
their growth. I'm ambitious for them to achieve greater things things.
(41:00):
I want to sell their books around the world. I
want them to reach readers more readers. So I'm ambitious
for them. But for me, I think if I want
to remain married, I think i'd better just stick with
what I'm doing because I think that my husband might
leave me and I don't want that to happen.
Speaker 2 (41:17):
I think you take up cricket. Both of you enjoy
my cricket team.
Speaker 8 (41:20):
I'm all right with a bath. I'll have a good bath.
Speaker 10 (41:22):
Oh my god, I'm not going anywhere with you with this, would.
Speaker 1 (41:26):
Be all right. Just a couple more questions, because I
know you've got lots and lots to do today and
you've got to be running around like blue ass flies,
as my old boss used to used to say.
Speaker 2 (41:38):
And these are some just some funny, easy questions.
Speaker 1 (41:39):
So favorite meal, favorite meal? Don't you like eating? I'll
last meal that you ever have. If you, let's say
you're a pair of condemned prisoners and it's like one
hour till you're going to be taken to the chair,
what you're going to ask for?
Speaker 10 (41:54):
I'm probably gonna have a butchered chicken because I love curry.
I absolutely I cook all the time. I absolutely love it,
and buttered chicken is my favorite.
Speaker 2 (42:02):
Do you know what I get?
Speaker 1 (42:03):
I bet nobody on death row in the States has
ever asked for a butter chickens.
Speaker 10 (42:08):
But it is if you marinate those chicken pieces deliciously
in a tan dorry for twenty four hours and then
you put it in a butter sauce, missile sauce, then
it's just, oh my.
Speaker 2 (42:19):
God, there's any it's any prisoners on death row.
Speaker 1 (42:22):
There you go, that's your that's your hot tastes amazing.
Speaker 9 (42:26):
I think I would have My Mum's like Getty Bolonaise
and a giant folk a tonic.
Speaker 1 (42:34):
Probably you've got to say that because your mum is
wandering around in god shoes. She's incredibly lovely but also
very intimidating. If you if you get on the wrong side,
if you get on the wrong side of a secret
weapon it's amazing favorite or favorite book or a book
that stayed with you throughout your life.
Speaker 9 (42:51):
So I'm going to say I have a favorite book.
It's a book I read as a child. It's it's
actually a series. It's a series of a Fonsted events
by a Lemony Sicket. It's a book the first book
I ever read that kind of introduced me to the
charcolorld crime fiction, and it sort of stuck with me
ever since. I think the characters amazing and it's just
Jim Carrey feel it was. The films don't touch for this.
(43:14):
I'm one of those people. I'm not usually on many things.
Speaker 1 (43:16):
But yeah you heard, Hey Lizzie Kirl thinks that Jim
Carrey is shit.
Speaker 8 (43:21):
Yeah, Jim Carrey, come over and take up with me.
Speaker 4 (43:23):
If chat.
Speaker 10 (43:24):
I've got notes, David and I always say this in
every interview, and it is Danny Champion of the World
by Rolled Alt.
Speaker 5 (43:31):
It was. It was the one that changed my life.
Speaker 10 (43:34):
It changed, it changed what I This is what I
want to achieve every child, that they discover a book
when they read it, that it means so much to them,
it viscerally makes them want to read more.
Speaker 5 (43:46):
And that's every day. What I tried to do is
a book sell.
Speaker 10 (43:49):
I want someone to discover a book and go, oh god,
this is this is amazing. I want to read more.
And Danny champ in the world did that to me.
It's that book that I don't I've read it a
couple of times since and it didn't have the same appeal.
But it's still an amazing book.
Speaker 5 (44:04):
But it was. I'm so grateful for role Dora, and it.
Speaker 1 (44:07):
Has such a wonderful payoff at the end when they
achieve with the pheasants they set out to achieve. Okay, guys,
last question for you guys, what for next year is
Capital Crime coming back?
Speaker 2 (44:22):
Is it here? Is it similar to we've booked it.
Speaker 9 (44:25):
We've confirmed it is the eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth of
June twenty twenty six. We're coming back to our wonderful
hotel at the Leonardo Royals and Paul's. We will be
here with a bigger, better line up than ever before.
We've already started plunning some one of the things we.
Speaker 1 (44:41):
Have the scenes for you so and you guys are
very very glamorous, as we discovered at last night's award ceremony.
Speaker 5 (44:47):
Well, somebody has to make in that.
Speaker 2 (44:50):
And to be fair, I think you outlanmmed.
Speaker 10 (44:52):
Lizzie and I never no, no, no, no, no, that's
that's not true. I always I always don't because the
s Fingerprinter was really are. As we said at the
very beginning of this, they are voted by readers, and
they they matter because it's readers that decide what books
that they they're championing the authors that they love. So
that and you won't and congratulations again, Well I.
Speaker 2 (45:14):
Wasn't going to mention that anywhere on.
Speaker 5 (45:16):
I am so happy that you weren't, and you deserved it.
It's such a brilliant book.
Speaker 10 (45:21):
But readers, readers vote passionately for the authors that they love,
and so that makes me as a bookseller, excited and.
Speaker 5 (45:31):
Well, and I always try and glam up because why.
Speaker 1 (45:33):
Not, Well I did say this yesterday, but the whole
team at Goldborough as such, it's an industry where it
can be a very tough place, a tough environment, and
I think authors greatly appreciate people who understand that and
who are sympathetic to that and do their best. As
you said earlier, you know your ambitions for your writers
are paramount in your mind, and.
Speaker 5 (45:54):
I think my writer's book for everything in general, which
is what.
Speaker 2 (45:58):
This festival is about.
Speaker 1 (45:59):
So thank you on behalf of the writing community and
stay well until next year.
Speaker 2 (46:05):
Thank you so much
Welcome, ladies and gentlemen to a very special episode of
Murder Junction, a capital crime special showcasing London's premiere Crime
and Thriller Fiction Festival. There will be thrills, there will
be spills, there will be giant babies. In this episode
you will hear short, sharp interviews with some of the
authors speaking at the festival, and later on we will
(00:23):
meet the geniuses behind the whole shabank. But first up,
Jean Atli Jonasson, author of Broken John, Welcome to the show.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
Thank you very much.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
Right, so this is a ten minute, quick and dirty interview,
so let's dive straight in. So, first of all, place
yourself for us. So where did you grow.
Speaker 3 (00:43):
Up a crew of precric Island. I'm Icelandic and I
read and write Icelandic crime fiction.
Speaker 1 (00:49):
Mainly, okay, but I also understand you from your bio
that you are Iceland's most famous or most notorious playwright.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
Ha ha yeah.
Speaker 4 (00:59):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (01:00):
I started out in theater and the largely experimental theater,
which is just another word for you know, making theater
without any money, and political theater. And so my kind
of bridge into crime fiction came through doing radio drama
based on Iceland's most famous crime case. So, having done that,
(01:26):
I kind of graduated into basically writing crime fiction.
Speaker 1 (01:31):
Okay, so tell us a bit about this case, because
now I'm intrigued.
Speaker 5 (01:34):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (01:34):
It's from the seventies and it's called the Wilminger and
get finderd Case. It's a case about two men who
have no connection whatsoever but go missing at the same time.
Speaker 2 (01:48):
Okay, and the police were.
Speaker 3 (01:51):
Kind of sure that a group of young kids eighteen nineteen,
twenty years old, a group of happy kids or somehow
responsible for either the disappearance of death or the death
of these two men.
Speaker 1 (02:07):
And the end as old.
Speaker 2 (02:10):
It's unsolved.
Speaker 3 (02:12):
But they all all received sentences which were then reducted
decades later. Were they cleared, Yeah, some of them were, Okay,
and they've never been found, these two men.
Speaker 1 (02:24):
The bodies have never been No, never been discovered. Well,
i'll tell you what so is. Does that is that
form the basis of your book Broken?
Speaker 2 (02:32):
No? No, no, it's not really.
Speaker 3 (02:34):
I'm just saying that was the bridge into crime fiction
bridge I think.
Speaker 2 (02:39):
I think, having having been an avid fan of.
Speaker 3 (02:42):
Uh crime fiction from all over the world, I never
really saw myself as a writer. Having the skill set
to to write crime fiction. So taking on writing about
a case that was really kind of kind of helped
me figure out a lot of stuff in terms of
(03:03):
you know what you need to kind of know before
you delve into writing crime fiction.
Speaker 1 (03:07):
Many famous crime writers have started off knowing next to nothing.
All you need is a dead body. You need a
couple of dodgy looking suspects, and you need you need
a policeman who's usually drunk, divorced, and who's willing to
break the rules. Do any of these things feature in
your book. Let's talk about your book. Now, let's talk
about all of it. It's all of it, all of
it's there. Give us the elevator pitch for broken.
Speaker 3 (03:30):
So the elevator pitch is that a transgender teenager goes
missing in our most famous national park, thin Quickly National Park,
which I guess most of your listeners know us a
set from Game of Thrones.
Speaker 2 (03:42):
Right, Okay, So place this for us within Iceland. Where
is it? K It's in the south, right, But it's
I mean in Iceland.
Speaker 3 (03:51):
It's it's a place everybody knows and holds us very
special significance for our country. Why because it's holy grant.
It's the first parliament.
Speaker 2 (04:04):
I guess.
Speaker 3 (04:05):
I'm not a historian, but it's one of the first
parliaments in I guess the world.
Speaker 2 (04:12):
Someone will send you an email saying that's not true.
Speaker 3 (04:14):
There's this place on Easter Island where they started before.
Speaker 2 (04:17):
So but you but you get what I'm saying.
Speaker 3 (04:20):
This is this is like a yeah, it's sacred political ground.
Speaker 2 (04:24):
Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 3 (04:26):
And so this teenager goes missing, and at the same time,
we have a.
Speaker 2 (04:33):
Female detective who.
Speaker 3 (04:36):
Is kind of bound to desk duty because of an
accident she she got into, you know, connecting. I might
start that again, the pitch I'm kind of switching into.
I've been speaking in Sweetish for a week, so so
I need to switch.
Speaker 2 (04:53):
Over a little bit.
Speaker 3 (04:54):
No, but we have a we have a female detective
who's uh, you know, been through some tron related to
a shooting incident where a bullet or a fragment from
a bullet got lodged in her brain during a corps and.
Speaker 2 (05:09):
She's kind of finding her way.
Speaker 3 (05:10):
Back to active duty and she gets kind of or
wiggles herself into that case because she suspects there's more
to the disappearance of the teenager than people think, and
she teams up with what we would call an Icelander
with a foreign background, or I mean in other Scandinavian
(05:31):
countries they would call him a second generation immigrant, which
I kind of have trouble with that terminology. So his
parents are Serbian war refugees and he's grown up in Iceland.
Speaker 2 (05:43):
His name is Rato, and he's done his best to
integrate into Icelandic society.
Speaker 3 (05:48):
He's got a police wife and they have a kid,
and his in laws they're a bit shady.
Speaker 2 (05:56):
So this kind of starts the snowball rolling. In laws
are always shade, Yeah, always shady. What was the name
of the female protagonist. Her name is Dora and his
name is Rato. Okay, fabulous? Now you right?
Speaker 1 (06:11):
Primarily in the native language, yes, When then it's translated
to English, yes?
Speaker 2 (06:18):
Correct.
Speaker 1 (06:18):
And I mentioned this because your translator is sitting across
from us, and all of those little noises that you
hear of pens clicking and papers being shuffled.
Speaker 2 (06:26):
Would you like to acknowledge it? Would you like me
to kick him out? Yeah?
Speaker 6 (06:31):
No.
Speaker 3 (06:31):
Quinin Paints has been an absolute key for us working
in such a small language.
Speaker 2 (06:38):
I don't know if that's the right phrase for it.
Niche Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, in a niche language.
Speaker 1 (06:44):
Yeah, it's not niche in Iceland obviously, No.
Speaker 3 (06:46):
I mean icelandic is a small country and has a
small language.
Speaker 2 (06:52):
I mean, you know, in terms of numbers.
Speaker 3 (06:54):
So having somebody like Quentin who can basically open.
Speaker 2 (06:58):
Doors to a white audience is white touch, absolutely.
Speaker 1 (07:02):
And I've spoken to some of your contemporaries in crime
and thriller fiction before who I know reasonably.
Speaker 2 (07:07):
Well, Rag now must know.
Speaker 1 (07:09):
And cigaread dot here is that right?
Speaker 5 (07:12):
Yes?
Speaker 1 (07:12):
Yeah, yeah, I always managed to get that name. People
often forget the little die in the middle there, don't they.
And yeah, so three hundred thousand people in the whole
of Iceland. I think I've got more people on my
street in London probably than that.
Speaker 2 (07:26):
Okay, just a few more quick questions for you as
we round off this interview.
Speaker 1 (07:34):
Where do you write? I mean people are always fascinated by
people's processes, I mean, where do you write?
Speaker 2 (07:38):
How do you write?
Speaker 3 (07:39):
I tried to write in the morning, so once the
kids are off off the school and there's this you
have a zero point there when when they've kind of gone.
I tried to make the most of that.
Speaker 2 (07:51):
Okay, fabulous, And you.
Speaker 1 (07:52):
Are one of these plotters or do you just make
it up as you go along?
Speaker 3 (07:57):
I think Stephen King, you're either Steve and King guy
or lot and Stephen King is a character guy.
Speaker 2 (08:03):
And I think.
Speaker 3 (08:06):
I guess the big lesson when when writing crime fiction
is the the case is the thing. So the case
kind of gives you the structure or the investigation in
many cases, and then you just try and to add
as many interesting things to that as possible.
Speaker 1 (08:20):
And have you brought anything of your experience from playwriting
into this dialogue?
Speaker 5 (08:26):
Mainly?
Speaker 3 (08:27):
So I think that's the kind of the biggest thing
I bring to the table in terms of past experience.
Speaker 2 (08:33):
Okay, so some quick questions for you now, favorite meal?
Favorite meal?
Speaker 3 (08:37):
I think my favorite meal is probably has something to
do with chioriso.
Speaker 2 (08:42):
Yeah, some Spanish stuff because it's not easily available in Iceland.
Speaker 1 (08:47):
No favorite book or a book that you really love
from childhood maybe or from.
Speaker 3 (08:52):
Later in life, something that sticks in your memory. I
think there are two books I kind of tend to
go back to.
Speaker 2 (08:57):
I think one is.
Speaker 3 (09:00):
Clocker Spiritual Price that's turned into a film, wasn't it. Yeah,
Spike Lee, but Richard Price, he's mainly responsible for things.
Speaker 2 (09:11):
Like the Wire. He's one of those Yeah that's amazing
TV show.
Speaker 3 (09:14):
Yeah, so I think Clockers would strike high.
Speaker 2 (09:20):
Now I'm translating in my own head.
Speaker 3 (09:22):
So a Lot of the Flies is also a wi
filming culting.
Speaker 2 (09:29):
Yeah, kind of those two books. Same question. But favorite
film or a film that you love? A favorite? A
good film I love. I like Good Fellas. I think
that's a film I can what's over and over again.
Speaker 3 (09:41):
And then to give your audience a little kind of
you know, suggestion, there's a film from the mid two
thousands by Eric Skelper called Nocus. It's about Scandinavia's most
famous bank robbery. Wow, and I I I claim it's
(10:02):
better than heat.
Speaker 2 (10:04):
Okay, that's a big claim.
Speaker 1 (10:05):
That is my favorite cops and Cops and Robbers film.
Speaker 5 (10:08):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (10:09):
I tried to get as many people as a meat.
Speaker 1 (10:11):
What is what is the translation in English?
Speaker 2 (10:13):
Nocas is the is the name of the bank. So well,
that's a big claim. And now I'm intrigued. Now I
have to watch it and see.
Speaker 3 (10:22):
If this is the I mean, the film is one thing,
and but but the criminal case, this is like the
kram Tella Creme of backroppers and criminals. It's the best
of the best. It's the eight team of criminals in Scandinavia.
But you're saying it's based on a real story.
Speaker 2 (10:40):
Yeah, yeah, and they team up and.
Speaker 1 (10:42):
Okay, and now I definitely have to commit to this.
And last, very last question for you, what are you
writing next?
Speaker 3 (10:50):
I'm writing the third installment of this featuring the two
protagonists from Broken.
Speaker 2 (10:56):
And what is it called?
Speaker 3 (10:58):
It has no kind of set title at the moment,
but I'm playing around with the calling it.
Speaker 2 (11:07):
The Good Shepherd or something like that. Okay, I mean
that's a TV show, isn't it? Is that the name
of a TV show somewhere? It's a name of a
lot of things.
Speaker 1 (11:14):
I've got a better title for ye. Yeah, even more broken, Yeah,
even more broken? Maybe smashed smashed a pulp. John, It's
been absolutely lovely.
Speaker 2 (11:23):
Talking to you. Thanks a lot, Thank you.
Speaker 1 (11:26):
So next up it's Ruth Mancini, author of The Woman
on the Ledge and now The Day I Lost You.
Speaker 2 (11:33):
Ruth, Welcome to the show.
Speaker 4 (11:35):
Hello, nice to be here.
Speaker 2 (11:37):
Ruth.
Speaker 1 (11:37):
You're far too happy, You're far too happy for this podcast, right,
So tell us, tell us, tell us. First of all,
introduce yourself, tell us where you grew up, etcetera, etcetera.
Speaker 7 (11:48):
So right, my name is Ruth Mancini. I am a
criminal defense lawyer. I started doing that back in nineteen
ninety eight.
Speaker 4 (11:57):
I grew up in London.
Speaker 7 (11:58):
I was born in London, in fact, lived a few
places Essex, Swansea and Wales. Moved around a bit as
a child, but ended up back in London, and I
now live in Oxford. I'm married with two grown up
people actually in fact, and I still practice law a
(12:20):
little bit, but I'm mostly writing now, which I started
doing started doing about twenty years ago, and at the
same time as I started getting interested in the law. Really,
so it was the two running intended to one of.
Speaker 1 (12:32):
These disgustingly talented people who know everything, just determined real
say criminal law. Yes, are you a barrister?
Speaker 4 (12:41):
I am a slister.
Speaker 7 (12:42):
We've just been talking about that, funnily enough in my panel,
about what the difference is, because.
Speaker 1 (12:46):
What is the difference, well, difference different audience.
Speaker 7 (12:50):
Yeah, particularly if you asked the two fifteen year olds
who were sitting opposite me in ealing youth court a
couple of years ago. They were sitting there, one waiting
for his barrister, and the other one said, Oh, I've
got a solicity, you've got a barrister. What's the difference.
And the one who had the barrister said, oh, barrister's
a poshure and they earn more. And I looked up
(13:11):
and I thought, no, no, no, Ruth, No, don't get involved,
don't get involved. But the upshot is that historically solicitors
prepared the plate, prepared the case, and then they passed
it to the barrister to do the advocacy on their feet,
as we call it.
Speaker 4 (13:29):
So they were on their feet in court.
Speaker 7 (13:30):
But in nineteen ninety solicitors got rights of audience, which
means that we now have the same we do advocacy
just the same as the barristers do. And so most
people who qualify as a criminal solicitor will first become
a duty solicitor, and that means that they're the person
who gets called if you get arrested, if you're on
(13:54):
the road of that night and there's a murder or anything.
It could be anything at all. You don't know what
you're getting. Is like a duty doctor. You get called
out and you're the person who has to go to
the police station and represent them, and that's what we
do that barristers don't do do. We represent people at
police stations. So really we're with the.
Speaker 4 (14:11):
Case from the beginning.
Speaker 7 (14:13):
We then prepare the case and then, as I say,
historically we couldn't stand up and for it, but now
we can.
Speaker 1 (14:19):
You can all be Johnny Cochrane, you can all be
Tom Cruise in a.
Speaker 2 (14:22):
Few good ways.
Speaker 4 (14:23):
We can. Indeed, we can be all of it.
Speaker 7 (14:25):
You still sometimes quite often and will instruct a barrister
if you you know, if it's a very important case,
so they they will.
Speaker 4 (14:33):
Then take over and run the case.
Speaker 7 (14:34):
But we were actually just talking about this, you know,
because Nikola Williams was in the same panel as me
and judge she's also a Crome Court judge, and we
were talking about just the way that the profession has
generally opened up. So and I would definitely want to say,
if you want to be a sister or a barrister,
don't worry about being posh enough.
Speaker 8 (14:53):
Just do it.
Speaker 1 (14:54):
Listen, I reckon I could be brilliant because I've learned
everything I need to know from the aforementioned movie.
Speaker 2 (14:58):
A few good men.
Speaker 1 (14:59):
We do just go in and you just you just
shout very loudly, I want the truth.
Speaker 4 (15:03):
You can't tell the truth.
Speaker 1 (15:05):
They tell you the truth, though, Yeah, if you should
shout loudly enough.
Speaker 4 (15:09):
And then so that's how to run a good day.
Speaker 1 (15:12):
And they'll just just shout loudly, I want the truth,
and then you get the truth.
Speaker 4 (15:17):
So many good quotes from that film.
Speaker 1 (15:18):
Are okay, So let's let's talk about your book. Let's
talk about the day I lost you. Let's give us
the elevator pitch for the book.
Speaker 7 (15:24):
Okay, So I mean, in short, it's a bit of
a judgment of Solomon's story, which is a biblical story,
and for those who don't know, it's about two women
arguing over a baby and both saying the baby's mine
is mine, and the Solomon, the judge, says, okay, I'll
tell you what we do. We'll chop him in half
and you can have half each, and that way we
find out who the true mother is, because she's the
(15:45):
one going no, no, she can have him.
Speaker 4 (15:46):
She can have him.
Speaker 7 (15:47):
So that's not what happens in my story. Sorry, I
should just make that very clear. No babies die in
the making of this book. But it is a story
about a baby being lost and the mother grieving deeply,
and you find another woman living in Spain and the
(16:09):
police knock on the door.
Speaker 4 (16:10):
But that's how the story starts.
Speaker 7 (16:11):
The police knock on the door and they say, we
believe you've got a child that's not yours, and she says, no, no,
it's mine, but certificate passport, yep, it's mine, and the
police go, all right, then if he goes and you know,
will you come into the police station and talk to
us on Fridays. She says, yes, we will, and of
course she doesn't turn up. She goes on the run
with the baby. And the whole story really is getting
(16:33):
down to whose baby actually is it?
Speaker 4 (16:35):
And what the hell happened? What was this tragic thing
in the past that happened.
Speaker 2 (16:40):
So just some clarifications.
Speaker 1 (16:41):
Is the action taking place in London or in Spain?
Speaker 7 (16:44):
It takes place. It starts in Spain in a fictional
town on the cost of Brother called man mart I
can see that Mantia DeMar And but then story comes
back to the Coswells, not the Cotswolds, sorry, the children's
(17:05):
and the ad Yeah, well, I am actually from Oxford.
So I'm in between the cots Swords and the children's
so yeah, and I've just done a panel.
Speaker 4 (17:14):
So you know a little bit of hyper so just
bear with me with me.
Speaker 2 (17:18):
One are the names of these two women.
Speaker 7 (17:21):
So these two women are called Hope and Lauren. And
so Lauren is the woman who's in Spain, and Hope
is the one who lives in the Chiltern's and she
is the one who's lost her baby, and we, as
you say, you go through the story.
Speaker 4 (17:37):
And her husband, Drew is also Hope's husband.
Speaker 7 (17:40):
Drew is a so Drew, Hope and Lauren are the
three sort of key characters really.
Speaker 1 (17:45):
And the police investigation presumably there's a police protagonist.
Speaker 7 (17:49):
Yes, there are police involved. But as you know, as
a criminal defense lawyer, I like to write about lawyer's
first performance. It's actually a lawyer who Sarah Kellaman. She's
my recurring character. She's in all my books.
Speaker 4 (18:03):
She comes in and advises the people in the story.
I won't say too.
Speaker 7 (18:09):
Much about who she advises and how, but yes, she's
the one really who saves the day.
Speaker 4 (18:16):
The police are in the story, but in a minor way.
We have a lot of police procedures.
Speaker 1 (18:20):
So I feel let's go back to The Woman on
the Ledge, because that was a stellar start for you,
massive success.
Speaker 2 (18:26):
You said you've been writing for twenty years.
Speaker 1 (18:28):
Was it that book that you were working office for
very long?
Speaker 7 (18:31):
It took me two years to write it, actually, what
with lockdown and various things. But no, I was writing,
trying to write and trying to write a book that
was good enough to get published for a few years
before that. And I have actually got a bit of
back list. But the Woman on the Ledge was, Yeah,
that was the one that it was sort of did
quite well.
Speaker 2 (18:50):
Give us a second pitch.
Speaker 4 (18:52):
So the Woman on the Ledge.
Speaker 7 (18:53):
Oh, so a woman has fallen from the twenty fifth
floor of an office block in the city of London.
Speaker 4 (18:59):
So this story, The Woman on the Leg is very
much faced in London.
Speaker 7 (19:02):
It's very London centric, and the central character, Tait, is
arrested for her murder because she has admitted to the
police that she was there when the woman fell. She
gets arrested, pleads her innocence and says she you know, well,
please not well she's not in court, but she yeah,
She says she's innocent at the police station and her
(19:23):
lawyer says, well, what actually happened, and and so she
takes her through the whole account of what happened and
what led to this woman falling and why she's been
arrested for it, and nothing is as it seems.
Speaker 4 (19:36):
We have an unreliable rat and your series character.
Speaker 2 (19:40):
You're sorry, your recurring So.
Speaker 7 (19:41):
My recurring character in this yes she is. Sarah Kellerman
comes in. She's she's quite central in this story. She's
never it's.
Speaker 4 (19:49):
Not a series.
Speaker 7 (19:49):
I don't write a series recurring Yeah, yeah, no, no,
you said that, but I just wanted to make it
clear that Sarah Kellerman is. She's in pretty much all
my books, but as a recurring character. So all the
stories are star alone, so you don't have to have
read one before the other.
Speaker 1 (20:02):
Are you, Sarah, She's very.
Speaker 4 (20:06):
I very much drawn on my experiences. Yeah, very much.
Speaker 1 (20:09):
So, Okay, favorite meal, favorite meal.
Speaker 7 (20:14):
I love Chinese food, and I had a lovely Chinese
yesterday actually at the Ivy Asia, which my publisher, Selina Walker,
was very kind enough to treat me.
Speaker 1 (20:22):
To favorite book or a book that stayed with you, a.
Speaker 7 (20:26):
Book that's well, my favorite book of all time is
probably To Kill a Mockingbird, which obviously was, I said,
a legal thriller, which got me probably interested.
Speaker 4 (20:35):
In the law in the first place.
Speaker 1 (20:36):
Yeah, any thoughts on go said or Watchman?
Speaker 4 (20:41):
Any thoughts on what's sorry?
Speaker 1 (20:42):
So this was the sequel that they managed to get
Harperly to sign off on a deathbed. We should never
have probably been published because it was a prequel to
to Kill a Mockingbird in't it right? I'm going to
show my savage It was savaged by the critics.
Speaker 7 (20:54):
Right, well, I'm going to show my ignorance there because
I haven't read it. That's tip a favorite film or
a film that's did you actually have a few good men?
I know, I know it's a bit cheesy in the end,
but I thought the whole story.
Speaker 1 (21:11):
I knew all lawyers how to do law from a
few good men.
Speaker 7 (21:15):
But my favorite film of all time is Thelmai is absolutely.
Speaker 1 (21:18):
The second person I've been to you today who's.
Speaker 4 (21:20):
Really really just absolutely all that film.
Speaker 2 (21:23):
That film, aside from the rather sad ending.
Speaker 7 (21:26):
Aside from the sad ending, really in a way, the
women on the Ledger was kind of like I wanted to.
Speaker 1 (21:30):
Make it, and a lot of people don't realize it's
a Ridley Scott film. Yes, he's Alien Gladiators amazingly varied.
Speaker 4 (21:39):
Yeah, absolutely, he's done a lot of different things.
Speaker 2 (21:41):
Last question, what are you working on next?
Speaker 7 (21:44):
I'm writing a book at the moment which has a
working title, so I can't tell you that the title
that maybe.
Speaker 4 (21:49):
It's the silly one and it would give the story away.
Speaker 2 (21:51):
Is that working title is working titles.
Speaker 4 (21:52):
Working title.
Speaker 7 (21:53):
Working title is the working title, and it's going to
be out next July. And it is the story another
legal storyline where Sarah comes in.
Speaker 4 (22:03):
And helps somebody who's in trouble.
Speaker 7 (22:06):
I think maybe that's enough at the moment because it's
a long time between.
Speaker 4 (22:09):
Now and then.
Speaker 2 (22:11):
So The Day I Lost You is out now or
just about.
Speaker 7 (22:14):
It just about to come out, but it's early copies
that are here at the festival, so people have just
been having a look at.
Speaker 4 (22:20):
It and buying some.
Speaker 1 (22:21):
It's been lovely chatting to you, thank you and.
Speaker 4 (22:23):
Talked a lot.
Speaker 2 (22:25):
That's what we like. That's what a podcast is for.
Speaker 1 (22:27):
It would be a very dull podcast if you came
in here and said, az, I'm not saying anything.
Speaker 2 (22:31):
I'm taking the Fifth Amendment.
Speaker 4 (22:33):
We have the Fifth amendment in the UK.
Speaker 7 (22:35):
No, well we haven't. We have the equivalent. We own
titled to say no comment. So yeah, and not give
evidence that chial.
Speaker 2 (22:42):
Well I'm glad you didn't know comment. This is thanks youth.
Speaker 1 (22:46):
Our next guest is Anna Bailey, author of Tall Bones
and Our Last Wild Days. Anna, Welcome to the show.
So much right, let's set the scene. First of all,
tell us where you grew up, where you live, all
that kind of stuff.
Speaker 6 (22:59):
I grew up in Gloucestershire and in rural Gloucester, and
I lived there pretty much all my life, and then
moved to the States where I lived in Texas and
Colorado for a few years, and I now live in
Bordeaux in France.
Speaker 1 (23:14):
Texas quite quite a change of direction from Gloucester.
Speaker 2 (23:22):
Why why Texas?
Speaker 6 (23:24):
So actually, when I was a when I was a student,
I got married to a guy from Texas and I
moved out there and I lived on his family's cattle
ranch and it was quite a complicated experience.
Speaker 8 (23:40):
I'm gay.
Speaker 6 (23:40):
So if that sort of sets the tone a little
bit from how bizarre that was.
Speaker 8 (23:45):
And it was the first.
Speaker 6 (23:46):
Trump administration, so it was a really interesting set of circumstances.
Speaker 8 (23:51):
To be moving into.
Speaker 2 (23:53):
But I.
Speaker 6 (23:56):
Really did fall in love with that landscape out there.
I have a lot of love for the South, even
though it is a complicated place and it's I don't
think I've ever really sort of gotten over it. It
comes out in everything that I write. I think I
keep going back to.
Speaker 2 (24:11):
It to keep exploring it. Absolutely, and I think we
have very similar experiences.
Speaker 1 (24:14):
I mean, I didn't get married to somebody who moved
to Texas. No, But I've written a small town America
thriller as well. And I did that because I love
this southern part of the States, and I spent lots
of time wandering around these amazing small towns, and the
hospitality and the generosity of people and their willingness to
talk about their lives and circumstances I found just incredible.
(24:36):
And anyway, that's that's a different story. So I've got
this picture of city slickers in my mind now, with
you all dressed up with Western outfits and trying to
sort of wrote buffalo, And.
Speaker 2 (24:47):
Did you do any of that on this round?
Speaker 9 (24:50):
No?
Speaker 2 (24:50):
But I did.
Speaker 8 (24:51):
I did learn how to shoot a rifle.
Speaker 1 (24:53):
Okay, first thing, that's the first thing that all Brits
do you know what.
Speaker 2 (24:57):
I've got a friend and she's she's a Muslim with
a hyge and everything.
Speaker 1 (25:01):
She ended up for some reason in the States, in
the southern part of it, and then for some other reason,
she was convinced to go to a gun range and
she picked up the biggest gun that she could find,
and this sort of southern gentleman said, I'll teach you
how to shoot this thing, and within five minutes everybody
was crowded around her because she turned out to be
an amazing shot.
Speaker 8 (25:22):
Well, I did not turn out to be an amazing chot.
Speaker 1 (25:25):
All right, don't nobody give this woman a gun? Okay,
So let's talk about the book. Okay, So your your
current release is our last wild Day, So give us
the elevator pitch.
Speaker 6 (25:36):
So it's a Southern Gothic mystery takes place in rural Louisiana,
and it's all about a family of alligator hunters who
are sort of the outcasts of their community a little bit.
They do this very violent, dangerous job, and they're perceived
as being very violent, dangerous people, and so when one
of them turns up dead, there's not an awful lot
(25:57):
of investigation into what's happened to her. It's sort of
seen as something that was bound to happen. And it's
only her childhood friend who is a journalist who thinks
there's more than meets the eye to this story, and
in the process of investigating, inevitably turns off a lot
of secrets about everybody in this community.
Speaker 1 (26:17):
Okay, let's talk about protagonists. Who are the key protagonists
of this book.
Speaker 8 (26:21):
So the journalist that I mention her name is loyal.
Speaker 6 (26:24):
She's come back to this small town after a long
time being away to look after.
Speaker 8 (26:29):
Her mother, and she has a She had a very.
Speaker 6 (26:33):
Close relationship with the young woman who's been who's died,
and they had a falling out when they were teenagers,
but they've sort of that they never really reconciled about that,
and I think it's this guilt that she feels about
realizing she never had the chance to patch up their
friendship and now her friend is dead. It's this guilt
(26:55):
that sort of drives her to keep investigating.
Speaker 2 (26:57):
Okay, and why small town America.
Speaker 6 (27:00):
It's like you said about the hospitality and the manners
of people in the South. I think it's interesting to
me that what the South is sort of famous for
is both it's good manners and its intolerance. And there's
something about that double sidedness that I find very very compelling,
sort of from a mystery writing perspective. You've got people
(27:20):
who they're the loveliest people in the world, but they
also have this capacity for intense cruelty and rejection of
other people. And I think that that makes for a
very interesting atmosphere when you know that characters are already
sort of hiding something about themselves, that being sort of
duplicitous already, that makes for a really interesting setting.
Speaker 1 (27:42):
And I think those contrasts lie at the heart of
a lot of crime novels, you know, the juxtaposition of
good and bad, as you've very eloquently put it there.
So why Alligator People?
Speaker 8 (27:57):
I just sort of got in to it kind of randomly.
Speaker 6 (28:01):
I'm really interested in deconstructing that sort of myth about
American manhood. I suppose there's a lot of you know,
there's a lot of stereotypes about America and the South,
particularly about you know, what the sort of stereotypical person
who comes from that.
Speaker 8 (28:19):
Place is and looks like and does.
Speaker 6 (28:22):
And I alligated hunting in Louisiana is one of these
very sort of matcho jobs for men, and I was
interested to explore, I suppose, what it would be like
if somebody a bit different was doing that.
Speaker 8 (28:36):
So the girl who.
Speaker 6 (28:38):
Who's Who's dead at the beginning of our Last Wild Days,
she is an alligator hunter, but for her it's instructed
her entire personality and her entire being being a woman
doing this job, and how it's a sort of constant.
Speaker 8 (28:55):
Fight for her all the time to be.
Speaker 6 (28:57):
Taken seriously, and it's made her a very hard person.
And in a response to that, a lot of people
around her are not sympathetic to her death because they
perceive her as being a very hard and callous person,
but she's not. It's really something that she's had to skin.
She sort of had to grow, I suppose, in order
to be taken seriously. So I was just very interested
in the way that the job would impact the characters.
Speaker 1 (29:19):
I think, and writers often have to inhabit these skins
by way of research. So did you end up hunting
alligators or alligator farms or whatever they.
Speaker 6 (29:29):
Call I did visit an alligator farm when I was
when I was living in Texas and I've definitely spoken
to a lot of hunters about their experiences.
Speaker 8 (29:40):
I haven't done it myself.
Speaker 1 (29:42):
I'm well, it just so happens in my bag. I
have an alligator for you.
Speaker 2 (29:49):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (29:50):
So, as I said, these are short, sharp interviews, so
I'm going to ask you a few other questions just
to just to.
Speaker 2 (29:55):
Round off, round off, round off things. Why crime fiction?
Speaker 1 (30:00):
Am I right in thinking that you did a course
with was it Codis Brown?
Speaker 6 (30:05):
Yes, yeah, I did, And I didn't really expect to
write crime fiction. I suppose I started writing my debut
book with them Tall Bones, which is a story about
a girl who goes missing and the impact that there
has on her community, but particularly her family. And this
was also set in the States. It was set in Colorado,
(30:27):
where I also lived, and from me, it was sort
of about figuring out how I felt about coming back
from that place at a time that was quite sort
of rocky for.
Speaker 8 (30:36):
Me, I think, And.
Speaker 6 (30:39):
It ended up being a crime novel, but it wasn't
what I intended to write. And I think I suppose
I'm interested in exploring I guess for one of a
better phrase like the darker side of people, and I
think that that works best in crime fiction. It's it's
definitely a great sort of mechanism for it for exploring
(31:00):
people and how people bounce off each other.
Speaker 1 (31:02):
It is indeed, and as I was telling you earlier,
I mean I read Talk Tall Bones and it was
tremendously successful because it was a very very good book,
and it was more than certainly, my take on it
was that it was more than a crime novel. It
was an expiration of people in very difficult circumstances trying
to work out how to live and not live with
each other. And these are topics I guess there are.
(31:24):
When you look at the current rhetoric around people of
different backgrounds in communities around the world, it seems to
have taken life upon life of its own.
Speaker 8 (31:34):
All right.
Speaker 6 (31:35):
Favorite meal, Oh gosh, my wife makes a really wonderful
tortellini soup. I'm going to tell her to tune into
this so she can hear me.
Speaker 2 (31:44):
So well, at least name her.
Speaker 8 (31:47):
My wife is a very lovely or clafe.
Speaker 2 (31:50):
What a great name.
Speaker 1 (31:52):
Favorite book or a book that stayed with you over
the years.
Speaker 8 (31:55):
The Shipping News by any Prue.
Speaker 2 (31:56):
I love that book. I love that book.
Speaker 1 (32:00):
What an amazing book that was, and she also wrote
a collection of short stories said in the West, close Friends,
which are also brilliant planned We've got something in common?
Favorite or a film that you really enjoyed over the years.
Speaker 6 (32:14):
Oh gosh, I'm suddenly struggling to remember a single film
on Earth I love. One of my favorite films ever
is Filmer and Louise.
Speaker 2 (32:23):
Another lovely film, although very.
Speaker 8 (32:26):
Sad, yes, yes, but just the best road trip film ever, I.
Speaker 1 (32:30):
Think, Yeah, aside from the killing and being chased around
by cops, but other than that, God, very much warming Otherwise.
Speaker 2 (32:40):
Process what sort of writer?
Speaker 5 (32:42):
Are you?
Speaker 2 (32:42):
A plotter?
Speaker 1 (32:43):
An early morning riser?
Speaker 6 (32:46):
I think I've become more of a plotter. I think
with my first book, I was just sort of trying
to write and get a feel of all the characters
as I was going, and then I'd have to go
back and change a lot of things to make it work.
Speaker 8 (33:00):
My most recent manuscript I've just finished was a lot more.
Speaker 6 (33:06):
I sat down and plotted it out quite thoroughly and
found that that worked for me this time. So I
think the main thing I'm learning is that you probably
find this two no two novels turn out the same
in the way that the writing process goes.
Speaker 1 (33:18):
Well, yeah, well after twelve novels, You're absolutely absolutely right.
Speaker 2 (33:22):
And I was.
Speaker 1 (33:23):
Reading a book of funky questions that a friend of
mine showed me this morning, U because he bought it long.
Speaker 2 (33:27):
For this, I'm to ask you any question. When was
the last time you saw a donkey?
Speaker 8 (33:34):
Actually not that long ago.
Speaker 6 (33:37):
My wife and I traveled to the past country quite
a lot for her job, So if we saw some.
Speaker 2 (33:41):
Of that, like a month, don't blame me.
Speaker 1 (33:45):
He gave me this book, he said, look at this
amazing book of stupid questions.
Speaker 6 (33:48):
I'd be interested to know what your other question guests
have seen when.
Speaker 2 (33:53):
I didn't ask that one. I didn't ask that one
of the last guests.
Speaker 1 (33:56):
There's different ones, like you know, when's the last time
you laminated something?
Speaker 6 (33:59):
I have my own laminator, So sad, okay, you've lost
all credib whatsoever.
Speaker 2 (34:06):
I was.
Speaker 1 (34:06):
I was pitching you as a super cool person, and
you've just lost all credibility. Last question, what are you
writing next?
Speaker 9 (34:13):
So?
Speaker 6 (34:13):
I actually just finished a new novel and a short
story collection, which I'm very excited about, and I am
now working on another novel. But it's very very embryonic
at the moment, so I'm not sure.
Speaker 2 (34:28):
The title of the one.
Speaker 1 (34:29):
You've just finished Vandal and that's out when.
Speaker 6 (34:33):
So I'm not quite sure when that's coming out. For
definitely sort of doing edits at the moment, but it
is set in New Mexico, so the state I have
a lot of love for.
Speaker 8 (34:43):
Us, So I'm very excited about that.
Speaker 1 (34:45):
And our Last Wild Days is out now, yes, and
it's been lovely chatting to you.
Speaker 8 (34:49):
Lovely talking to you too.
Speaker 1 (34:51):
And now having spoken with the puppets, we meet the
puppet masters, the organizers of Capital Crime, Lizzy Curl, Festival Director,
and the man the myth that is David Headley, Managing
director of d h H Literary Agency Limited and co
owner of Goldbrough Books, the premiere first editions bookshop in
the country. So guys, welcome, Thank you, thank you for
(35:12):
having us, well, thank you for taking ten minutes out
from your being.
Speaker 5 (35:15):
Called a puppet master associate trop.
Speaker 2 (35:18):
I feel like that I can practice these the strings
out of your hands, David. Look, another incredible year for
Capital Crime. How many are we up to now?
Speaker 5 (35:28):
This is our fifth year.
Speaker 10 (35:30):
It feels longer because we had two years of a
pandemic where we couldn't do one of course.
Speaker 2 (35:35):
So is this the biggliest capital crime ever?
Speaker 8 (35:39):
Let it's the biggiest largely.
Speaker 2 (35:42):
Yeah.
Speaker 10 (35:43):
We have the most amount of tickets sells this year.
We have brilliant panels put together by this brilliant woman.
Speaker 8 (35:52):
It's so excited. We're welcoming over two thousand readers this
week to say, that's really exciting for us.
Speaker 9 (35:57):
Goodness, and we're just delighted that every one's coming to London.
Speaker 8 (36:01):
As you say, London's an amazing place.
Speaker 9 (36:03):
That's wonderful that it's a book festival here to celebrate.
Speaker 10 (36:05):
But anyone thinks that London's a really expensive place to
come to, but we're trying to keep it so that
it's not the most expensive place to come to, and.
Speaker 2 (36:13):
It isn't it.
Speaker 1 (36:14):
It's a reasonably price festival and for the amount of
things that.
Speaker 2 (36:17):
You get to see and the authors that you get
to meet, it's it's fabulous.
Speaker 1 (36:21):
But it is a lot of work and you do
have a lot of other things to do daily.
Speaker 10 (36:26):
Well, we're surrounded by brilliant people and I couldn't do
it without Lizzie, and I wouldn't want to do it without Lizzie.
Lizzie is an exceptional festival director. She gets it and
she doesn't honestly look at you and I think, how
are you not ruffle or stressed?
Speaker 5 (36:42):
And I just look at it and I think, if.
Speaker 10 (36:43):
She's not ruffled of stress, then why am I? So
I just stop worrying, because until she comes to me worrying,
I think there's.
Speaker 2 (36:51):
Nothing to me. Why are you not ruffled? How can
we ruffle you?
Speaker 9 (36:55):
Obviously you have a very good poke effect, I joke.
It's just an amazing environment to be working in. And
I think you know fast. I know you've touched upon
it before. The crime community is just such a wonderful
community to be a part of. All of the authors
are wonderful, but also all the readers. They're just so
excited to be here.
Speaker 8 (37:11):
They're all lovely. They make being unflappable very easy.
Speaker 1 (37:16):
And you've also been occupied with other duties as well.
In fact, I touched upon this in the intro to
this podcast. I promised our readers that we might hear
about a giant baby.
Speaker 8 (37:27):
Giant six month old prayer. Yes, she is in the
ninetieth percentile.
Speaker 9 (37:34):
And now anyone that doesn't know me I'm five foot three,
my husband six or four, and the baby takes after him.
Speaker 2 (37:41):
However, I do have a bone.
Speaker 1 (37:43):
I do have a bone to pick because we did agree,
we did agree during the pre birth phase of this
that the baby baby would be named Budica. For some reason,
you've gone back on your word.
Speaker 9 (37:54):
I thought really hard for it as but after five
days of labor, I sort of couldn't e fit.
Speaker 1 (37:58):
My husband against it.
Speaker 2 (38:01):
It's a red flag. I get it, I get it,
all right.
Speaker 1 (38:04):
Highlights of the festival this year's first of all, one
of you have been particularly pleased at being able to
program other than me.
Speaker 10 (38:10):
Of course, of course you We get to see you
twice in fact, don't we.
Speaker 2 (38:14):
We do, and I'm very appreciative, and as are my publisher.
Speaker 10 (38:16):
We're excited about Quantum of Menace, and so it'll be
interesting to hear you talk about how it is working
with the infleming people and how you've found writing about
the Bond world.
Speaker 5 (38:27):
So that'll be interesting.
Speaker 2 (38:30):
It will be very interesting. I'll save the secrets for
the panel.
Speaker 10 (38:33):
Yeah, Mike, No, no, no, absolutely, But that's one of
the great things I'm looking forward to. I think we're
looking forward to everything just because that sounds trite, but
I mean because you have created brilliant panels with very
diverse authors, and I mean that across the spectrum.
Speaker 5 (38:49):
You've really thought about how can we.
Speaker 10 (38:51):
Bring very interesting authors together and get them to talk
about because, for example, one of the panels that we've
put together is Class of twenty twenty five, which is
I've brought four authors together, Sev McGown, Amit, Dan, BETHA.
Lewis and Sarah Pinbrook. And on paper, it doesn't look
like that they've written books that are very similar, but
(39:11):
actually there's lots of themes in their books that do
work together.
Speaker 5 (39:15):
So I'm interested in talking to them.
Speaker 10 (39:16):
And I'm interested talking to Adele Parks because she's being
in the industry for twenty five years, and Mark Billingham
and Karen Slaughter twenty five books, and in Adele Parks
is twenty five books too.
Speaker 5 (39:29):
I think that's a massive achievement.
Speaker 10 (39:30):
And Goals book celebrates twenty five years this year, so
that's lucky number one.
Speaker 2 (39:34):
Yeah.
Speaker 10 (39:34):
Yeah, So in twenty twenty five, it feels like it's
all come together brilliantly.
Speaker 9 (39:38):
Absolutely, and I'm really excited for all of the events
you know, David and I read every author that's on
a panel here. We've read the books, We've thought about
this schedule, and we hope everyone just has a really
good time, because I think if the authors are having
fun on stage, then the audience have founty.
Speaker 1 (39:51):
Yeah, and it is a very fun community, as we
touched upon absolutely yesterday. So, David, you are a man
of many talent, you're Smarster of none, You're a well
you're being too modest, you're a superagent. Your bookshop is
obviously unbelievably popular, and now you've got this festival.
Speaker 5 (40:08):
You know.
Speaker 1 (40:08):
I remember this scene from Die Hard when Alan Rickman
is talking about Alexander. Alexander wept because there were no
more worlds to conquer. As a bullshit story, by the way,
the actual plute arch, the actual thing is that Alexander
was told some theory about infinite world and he was
crying because he hadn't conquered any so he was.
Speaker 2 (40:28):
Actually a loser. But that's not you.
Speaker 1 (40:30):
You've conquered all these different worlds. Is there anything else
that you've got your mind your heart's set on conquering?
Speaker 10 (40:38):
No, I don't, and actually I don't think I've got
capacity to do anything else. And that's shameful to admit,
because I have always been ambitious. I think I'm again.
It sounds try, but I'm ambitious for my clients. So
all of the clients that I represent, I'm ambitious for
their growth. I'm ambitious for them to achieve greater things things.
(41:00):
I want to sell their books around the world. I
want them to reach readers more readers. So I'm ambitious
for them. But for me, I think if I want
to remain married, I think i'd better just stick with
what I'm doing because I think that my husband might
leave me and I don't want that to happen.
Speaker 2 (41:17):
I think you take up cricket. Both of you enjoy
my cricket team.
Speaker 8 (41:20):
I'm all right with a bath. I'll have a good bath.
Speaker 10 (41:22):
Oh my god, I'm not going anywhere with you with this, would.
Speaker 1 (41:26):
Be all right. Just a couple more questions, because I
know you've got lots and lots to do today and
you've got to be running around like blue ass flies,
as my old boss used to used to say.
Speaker 2 (41:38):
And these are some just some funny, easy questions.
Speaker 1 (41:39):
So favorite meal, favorite meal? Don't you like eating? I'll
last meal that you ever have. If you, let's say
you're a pair of condemned prisoners and it's like one
hour till you're going to be taken to the chair,
what you're going to ask for?
Speaker 10 (41:54):
I'm probably gonna have a butchered chicken because I love curry.
I absolutely I cook all the time. I absolutely love it,
and buttered chicken is my favorite.
Speaker 2 (42:02):
Do you know what I get?
Speaker 1 (42:03):
I bet nobody on death row in the States has
ever asked for a butter chickens.
Speaker 10 (42:08):
But it is if you marinate those chicken pieces deliciously
in a tan dorry for twenty four hours and then
you put it in a butter sauce, missile sauce, then
it's just, oh my.
Speaker 2 (42:19):
God, there's any it's any prisoners on death row.
Speaker 1 (42:22):
There you go, that's your that's your hot tastes amazing.
Speaker 9 (42:26):
I think I would have My Mum's like Getty Bolonaise
and a giant folk a tonic.
Speaker 1 (42:34):
Probably you've got to say that because your mum is
wandering around in god shoes. She's incredibly lovely but also
very intimidating. If you if you get on the wrong side,
if you get on the wrong side of a secret
weapon it's amazing favorite or favorite book or a book
that stayed with you throughout your life.
Speaker 9 (42:51):
So I'm going to say I have a favorite book.
It's a book I read as a child. It's it's
actually a series. It's a series of a Fonsted events
by a Lemony Sicket. It's a book the first book
I ever read that kind of introduced me to the
charcolorld crime fiction, and it sort of stuck with me
ever since. I think the characters amazing and it's just
Jim Carrey feel it was. The films don't touch for this.
(43:14):
I'm one of those people. I'm not usually on many things.
Speaker 1 (43:16):
But yeah you heard, Hey Lizzie Kirl thinks that Jim
Carrey is shit.
Speaker 8 (43:21):
Yeah, Jim Carrey, come over and take up with me.
Speaker 4 (43:23):
If chat.
Speaker 10 (43:24):
I've got notes, David and I always say this in
every interview, and it is Danny Champion of the World
by Rolled Alt.
Speaker 5 (43:31):
It was. It was the one that changed my life.
Speaker 10 (43:34):
It changed, it changed what I This is what I
want to achieve every child, that they discover a book
when they read it, that it means so much to them,
it viscerally makes them want to read more.
Speaker 5 (43:46):
And that's every day. What I tried to do is
a book sell.
Speaker 10 (43:49):
I want someone to discover a book and go, oh god,
this is this is amazing. I want to read more.
And Danny champ in the world did that to me.
It's that book that I don't I've read it a
couple of times since and it didn't have the same appeal.
But it's still an amazing book.
Speaker 5 (44:04):
But it was. I'm so grateful for role Dora, and it.
Speaker 1 (44:07):
Has such a wonderful payoff at the end when they
achieve with the pheasants they set out to achieve. Okay, guys,
last question for you guys, what for next year is
Capital Crime coming back?
Speaker 2 (44:22):
Is it here? Is it similar to we've booked it.
Speaker 9 (44:25):
We've confirmed it is the eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth of
June twenty twenty six. We're coming back to our wonderful
hotel at the Leonardo Royals and Paul's. We will be
here with a bigger, better line up than ever before.
We've already started plunning some one of the things we.
Speaker 1 (44:41):
Have the scenes for you so and you guys are
very very glamorous, as we discovered at last night's award ceremony.
Speaker 5 (44:47):
Well, somebody has to make in that.
Speaker 2 (44:50):
And to be fair, I think you outlanmmed.
Speaker 10 (44:52):
Lizzie and I never no, no, no, no, no, that's
that's not true. I always I always don't because the
s Fingerprinter was really are. As we said at the
very beginning of this, they are voted by readers, and
they they matter because it's readers that decide what books
that they they're championing the authors that they love. So
that and you won't and congratulations again, Well I.
Speaker 2 (45:14):
Wasn't going to mention that anywhere on.
Speaker 5 (45:16):
I am so happy that you weren't, and you deserved it.
It's such a brilliant book.
Speaker 10 (45:21):
But readers, readers vote passionately for the authors that they love,
and so that makes me as a bookseller, excited and.
Speaker 5 (45:31):
Well, and I always try and glam up because why.
Speaker 1 (45:33):
Not, Well I did say this yesterday, but the whole
team at Goldborough as such, it's an industry where it
can be a very tough place, a tough environment, and
I think authors greatly appreciate people who understand that and
who are sympathetic to that and do their best. As
you said earlier, you know your ambitions for your writers
are paramount in your mind, and.
Speaker 5 (45:54):
I think my writer's book for everything in general, which
is what.
Speaker 2 (45:58):
This festival is about.
Speaker 1 (45:59):
So thank you on behalf of the writing community and
stay well until next year.
Speaker 2 (46:05):
Thank you so much
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