OLD FRIENDS

It’s that time of year and a chance to catch up with old friends. Even if you haven’t seen a lot of each other, you know with a long-standing mate that the passage of time makes little difference. So it is with books, which is why I grabbed Conn Iggulden’s ‘The Death of Kings’ from his Emperor series to read on the run up to Christmas.   One of his earlier novels, it tells the story of young Julius Caesar.   Rich with authentic detail and flesh and blood characters, the story really transports you back to life in ancient Rome. As soon as I read the first page, I felt entirely in a safe pair of hands, just as I did when reading his later novels on Genghis Khan. Sometimes, especially if you’re feeling a little jaded, you simply need an author on whom you can rely to entertain and enthral without gimmicks, and he’s one of them.

So what next? As you might imagine, books are big in our household and Christmas wouldn’t be Christmas without an exchange of literary gifts. This year, I received a book penned by the great master of intrigue and storytelling, Frederick Forsyth. ‘The Outsider’ tells the tale of his adventurous life and reveals seeds sown in his childhood, which go some way to explain how he tumbled into writing.   Before you run away with the idea that he had a tragic or tricky upbringing, he didn’t, as he is pretty keen to point out.

My gift to my other half was ‘Affluenza’ by Oliver James, psychologist and broadcaster. It provides a fascinating insight into the ‘disease’ that first afflicted the States and now, by default, us. The affliction is best summed up as a cycle of wanting more, getting it, but without feeling any sense of satisfaction. Miserable, you want more and so the deadly cycle of misery is sustained. If you’re feeling under financial pressure or are driven by a crazed desire to ‘keep up with the Joneses,’ ‘Affluenza’ provides the perfect antidote.   The good news is that the simpler (and more achievable) your desires, the happier you will be. Good news if you’re hard up. Rubbish news if you set your sights on becoming a writer – I put that in!

So what connects these two books, you may ask? To answer that, I need to cut and rewind to a conversation I had with my long-suffering husband a couple of days before Christmas. For a variety of reasons, which I don’t need to bore you with, I was banging on (in a slightly Divaesque tone) about how ‘civilians’ don’t understand what it is to be a writer. How do you explain to someone who is, for example, retired, or works 9-5 that you might like to party hard one moment and then crave and demand solitude the next without seeming flaky, capricious or an insufferably pretentious ‘artiste’? How do you convey that, all the time you have that fixed grin on your face at a social gathering, you’re really taking notes or dreaming about the next scene you’re going to write? How do you put across that, actually, you’re a tad odd without causing either alarm or offence? You might think why bother to explain any of the above? Social niceties, especially at this time of year, often dictate, I’m afraid. Writers often unwittingly give false impressions that they are one kind of animal when, underneath, they are something else entirely, and I’m guilty of this as charged.

In fact, both Frederick Forsyth and Oliver James more than touch on this very subject in the opening of both their books. Aside from pointing out that anyone who desires to be a writer, and worse still, make a living from it, must be cracked, they also discuss the strangeness that is part of the DNA of any writer. James goes several steps further and, rather bravely, ‘fesses up to having a hell of a job getting ‘Affluenza’ published and describes what initial rejection did to him mentally. To top it off, the much longed for (and expected) fat advance from his existing publisher was never forthcoming, which was why his agent found him another. My God, I thought, there’s honesty and audacity.   Most writers would rather trudge chest deep through a bog than make such an admission.

So, if you’re planning on writing that novel in 2016, or you have a book that is about to be released and you’re anxious about how it will fare, may the force be with you, in true Star Wars fashion. And just remember, that should you have a wobble along the way, those old friends, both in book form and the real deal, will always stand by your side.   Best of luck to you all in 2016!

 

 

HUSH MY MOUTH!

First off, apologies for my spelling malfunction yesterday when referring to Ben Whishaw – what was I thinking?!  Clearly, not thinking at all.

Moving swiftly on, you may remember I gabbed on about the pure brilliance of London Spy and stand by my comments about superb acting and Ben Whishaw’s outstanding performance.  Masterful storytelling was a hallmark of the series until midway through the finale in which I skidded to a dirty great halt.

It’s common knowledge that, if the big climactic scene, the one the audience has waited hours for doesn’t deliver, the preceding story is screwed.  I wouldn’t go this far because it would be grossly unfair.  There were plenty of big revelations to sustain attention, and the way in which Danny’s every effort to reveal the truth was thwarted with chilling ease ratcheted tension to fever pitch, but the fact that, in the final analysis, there were more questions than answers says a lot.

Who were all those people holed up in Alex’s attic with listening devices and cameras?  I assumed that they were intelligence officers carrying out a dastardly form of torture that would give the most deranged terrorist a run for his or her money.  (As a claustrophobe, there was one point when I almost ran out of the room screaming).  Why, instead, wasn’t Alex offered a deal from the lonely bowels of an interrogation room in SIS HQ?  If he refused, why wasn’t he let go and left to the tender mercies of a ‘Wet’ team?  Why was Charlotte Rampling, Alex’s alleged mother, dragged in to reason with Alex in his dying moments when the intelligence service thought so little of her?  Why on earth did she throw her hand in with Danny in a doomed endeavour in the final seconds of the episode when previously she had so stoutly defended her position?

If I were Tom Rob Smith, I’d be tempted to respond with the ultimate put-down:  his novels have sold in millions and been made into a film.  Precisely, but that’s why I expected so much more.

 

 

LONDON SPY

Almost eight years ago, I was at a lunch in Smithfield. It was part of a promotion organised by my publisher for my novel, ‘The Last Exile’.   I had the pleasure of sitting between the lovely Chris Simmons (Crimesquad) and Maxim Jakubowsi, renowned bookshop owner of Murder One in Charing Cross. The big buzz was neither my novel, nor me, but one Tom Rob Smith. ‘Had I read his stunning debut, Child 44?’ they both asked. No, I hadn’t, but I soon did.

As I said in my last post, I love a great tip-off. Set in Russia during the 1950’s, Child 44 is based on the Rostov child serial killer, Andrei Chikatlo.   I love novels based on true-life events and, to say I was blown away with it, is an understatement. A few months later, I wound up on a BBC Radio programme with Kate Saunders arguing why Child 44 would make a good inclusion on the Booker Prize list. But that was then. I read Tom Rob Smith’s follow-up novels, but I’d no idea he’d made the transition to screenplay writing until recently. As soon as we had our aerial sorted last week, we ‘binge-watched’ four episodes of ‘London Spy.’ I’m thrilled I did.

Again, Rob Smith weaves a compelling story from a real life event, the mysterious case of the ‘Spy in the Bag’ about which all kinds of theories were trotted out in the grim aftermath, including the fact that the MI6 officer was into sadomasochistic gay sex, a theme explored in the series. But the screenplay is so much more than this.

In true spy fashion, there are codes and mathematical formulae – the only part where I got slightly lost, possibly because numbers is not my strong suit. Performances are fabulous, particularly from Jim Broadbent in a role that is not his usual (no pun intended) bag, and Edward Holcroft is superb as Alex, the contained, strange and offbeat spy and mathematical genius.

As for Ben Wishart…

He is simply mesmerising as bewildered Danny, fitting the part so well it honestly feels as if he isn’t acting at all. His grief at the death of his lover is as searing as his fearlessness for finding the truth at whatever cost. It’s his quest to go into all the darkest corners of the establishment and beyond that drives the narrative.

There are many memorable scenes in this drama but one sticks in my mind.  Danny comes face to face with Alex’s mother, played by a very sinister Charlotte Rampling. Towing the party line that her son was into sadomasochism, ticking off all the reasons why she believes it to be so, and arguing that his death was an unfortunate accident, Danny puts her down with one ‘take that’ sentence. I won’t spoil it for those who haven’t watched the series. Safe to say, I’ll be tuning in for the finale tonight. I’m not a fan of hyperbole, but this drama is genuinely pure brilliance.