SHOTSMAG CONFIDENTIAL |
| J M Hall on the idea for A Spoonful of Murder Posted: 17 Mar 2022 12:00 AM PDT  Then I was the victim of crime. Or rather my father was. Following the death of my mother it became increasingly apparent that Dad was in the early stages of dementia; the focus of our family became dealing with his daily muddles and confusions. His vague comments about phone calls from the bank were easily lost in amongst all the other day to day mistakes. The fact that he was subsequently defrauded out of a life-changing sum of money wasn't actually the most shocking thing to. It was the response of the bank. Confused, inefficient, cheerfully unsympathetic- coupled with a bland, blanket assurance that they were in no way responsible. Hours were spent in communication on our part- calls, emails, letters, reports- all effortlessly disregarded by them. But what emerged, for me as a writer, was a narrative. Events- exchanges- mistakes…cover ups. A mundane, almost humdrum reality of evil that felt a lot closer to my world than those high-octane incident rooms I'd read avidly about. And on top of this emerged other examples of wrongdoing, of other people taking advantage of Dad. The solar panel firm pestering him on a daily basis. The mobile phone company who trapped him into some ludicrous contract. The sackfuls of junk mail promising Dad life-changing wins. It was almost as shocking as the fraud, to realise just how very vulnerable the elderly are, and how many many people are routinely prepared to exploit that vulnerability. To say I sat down and turned this all into my first novel is an oversimplification. For a start I've been writing all my adult life, so in many ways, it was a case of 'same old, same old'… But there were three factors in my life at this time that really fired up the writing of the story that became 'A spoonful of Murder'. Firstly, it was a great feeling to be taking all that awful experience and using it. In all probability I'll never have that sense of redress from knowing the fraudster has been brought to book for his actions- but in my mind, my world- they have. The things I wanted to say to him- and to the bank, the junk mail people, the man selling solar panels… I've managed to say. Then there was the world I work in, the primary school. Working full-time would seem to be a massive hindrance to writing a novel- but it was actually the opposite. There's that massively comforting truism that's gained when working with 200 plus children- life really does go on. And then working with the people in that environment- predominantly women- afforded me as a person (and a writer) a wonderful sense of context and perspective. However awful my family's story- it's just one of many. And whatever the events, whatever the ups and downs- they can be shared, over the photocopier or during playground duty, with people who've been there, done that or at the very least know people who have. To make my sleuths retired lady primary school teachers was the ultimate of no-brainers. And then there was the act of writing itself. Early, early morning, before work, often dark outside, sitting at the dining room table… I was in a world I had complete control over. All the shocks and sadness's, twists and upsets- were all of my own doing. My creation. For that brief time, I was in a place I couldn't be touched. My world is still the staff room rather than the incident room. I still don't really follow the ins and outs of police procedure. But having seen how mundane and ordinary evil can be- I've found of way of addressing that, and making stories about it through the world that I live in.  A Spoonful of Murder by J M Hall (HarperCollins Publisher) Out Now. Introducing the three unlikeliest sleuths you'll ever meet... Every Thursday, three retired school teachers have their 'coffee o'clock' sessions at the Thirsk Garden Centre cafe. But one fateful week, as they are catching up with a slice of cake, they bump into their ex-colleague, Topsy. By the next Thursday, Topsy's dead. The last thing Liz, Thelma and Pat imagined was that they would become involved in a murder. But they know there's more to Topsy's death than meets the eye - and it's down to them to prove it... |
| The Pain at the Heart of the Story by Paul Finch Posted: 16 Mar 2022 11:00 PM PDT  Surprise is often the response when I mention that my new novel, NEVER SEEN AGAIN, is about an investigative journalist rather than a police officer. That's because I'm probably best known as an ex-cop. But not many are aware that when my cop days had ended I became a journalist, plying my trade on newspapers across Northwest England. "You moved from gamekeeper to poacher," is a viewpoint I often hear. It's an oft-used term, of course, but it's also an oversimplification. It's easy to think of the average cop as a law-enforcement robot who does the right thing because he or she is duty-bound, while the average journalist is a freebooter working both sides of the fence, driven by a moral compass that isn't always consistent with everyone else's. I wouldn't deny that in recent times we've seen some glaringly unprofessional journalism. We're a politically divided nation, and many of our media outlets reflect this. But I'd contend that the basic journalistic instinct remains: report the news, present factual analysis, and if you must insist on taking sides, at least give the other side a right of reply. Ultimately, certainly in Britain, I'd argue that most investigative journalists, like most cops, seek an orderly and happy society, and set out to be the bane of the bad guys. But there the similarities end. To start with, and perhaps most obviously, journalists have no back-up. They possess no power of arrest, they can't draw firearms, they don't wield the might of Government. So, if they're on the trail of belligerent people, it might turn risky. From Elijah Parish Lovejoy back in 1837, to more recent heroes like Fritz Gerlich and Anna Politkovskaya, journalists have died on the job; Lovejoy at the hands of a pro-slavery mob who objected to his newspaper's abolitionist stance, Gerlich on the Night of the Long Knives for exposing the realities of Nazi violence, Politkovskaya in 2006 when a contract killer cornered her in a Moscow lift after a career spent uncovering the wrongdoings of Putin's government. But perhaps the most palpable contrast between cop and journo is that, while both may seek to drive the cause of right, the cop works for the public sector, the journalist for the private. Even the most crusader-like reporting will have no impact if nobody reads it. And today, that news market is more crowded than ever, so the temptation to be sensational increases, the drive is on to get ever better stories, ever bigger headlines. And this is the point at which people may decide they have a problem with journalism. At what stage does it become too scavenger-like? How can you respect a profession, which, though it produced such world-changing scoops as Woodward and Bernstein's Watergate exposure can also show such shocking lapses of judgement as the News International phone-hacking scandal? Don't get me wrong. Cops face dilemmas too. In many of my police novels, my heroes and heroines stray into and beyond ethical grey areas, but in those cases you could argue they are trying to remove some heinous and destructive elment from society. As a journalist, it's harder to put such a positive spin on your indiscretions. Especially when, as the man in the street might say, "you're trying to sell newspapers, mate". And this was the personal drama I sought to create at the heart of NEVER SEEN AGAIN. Where does it leave you when, in your efforts to expose villainy, but also to bump your sales and make yourself a star, the wheels come off so badly that it costs lives? Where do you go when you're used to being adored but now find yourself deservedly reviled? When the one thing you're really good at is closed to you because no one will pay you to do it anymore? It's not too much of a spoiler to reveal that, in NEVER SEEN AGAIN, disgraced journo, David Kelman, gets a glimpse of redemption (though it'll be the hardest road he's ever taken). But it was his inner pain that I became most fascinated by. How did I end up with such tunnel vision? How did I not see the damage I was doing? How did I become one of those callous monsters that I so enjoyed exposing? I love a rollicking good thriller full of blood and thunder. But the human story is often equally (if not more) interesting. Whether I've managed to balance the two in NEVER SEEN AGAIN, only my readers can judge.  Never Seen Again by Paul Finch is published by Orion on 17 March in paperback, £7.99 A message no one was supposed to hear. Jodie Martindale's disappearance remains a mystery, unsolved to this day. A message that will change everything. David Kelman covered the story. But he made a huge mistake, which cost someone their life. A message from the missing. Now, he has evidence he shouldn't have. It's a message from Jodie - who has been missing for six years - but sent just two weeks ago... More information about Paul Finch can be found on his website. You can also find him on Facebook and follow him on Twitter @paulfinchauthor |
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