Bellevue Square by Michael Redhill

Jean is an ordinary woman. She owns a bookstore, is passionate about literature, lives in Toronto. One day a regular customer swears blind he’s seen her some other place, in the local market; he tries to pull off her hair, convinced it’s a wig, that she’s playing a trick on him. Mortified when he realises that it’s not, he retreats, leaving Jean shaken. So starts a disturbing psychological quest, a tale of obsession, where Jean becomes more and more preoccupied with the notion that she has a doppelgänger.

This is a novel that starts off as a psychological thriller, but soon morphs into something more than that. Jean begins to spend more and more time in Bellevue Square, where she believes her doppelgänger frequents. This is a park that’s home to a variety of down and outs, patients of a nearby psychiatric hospital, and other drop outs. She pays them for information on sightings of her double, fully aware that some of them are leading her on. So why does she do this? As the story unfolds, we soon learn that Jean’s hold on reality has not always been as firm it might be, that she has more in common with the denizens of Bellevue Square than we might have first guessed.

Cracks soon fracture in Jean’s home life and it’s here that the novel moves from psychological thriller territory into something deeper, an examination of sanity, identity and sense of self. As Jean struggles to comprehend reality, we as readers are forced to question the nature of consciousness also, for how does one know what is real and what is fantasy? At points in the narrative this is both sinister and deeply disturbing, at other’s philosophical and almost whimsical. 

There are points in Bellevue Square where the narrative risks sliding into self-indulgence, the author straying into ontological metaphysics. He never quite surrenders to the urge however and the novel kept my interest until the ambiguous, and yet satisfying, denouement.

Bellevue Square is an engrossing study of one woman’s tenuous grip on her world and will have the reader questioning their own assumptions of reality. It is a challenging read and one that won’t be forgotten quickly.

Tom Callaghan Q&A

Tom Callaghan is the author of an excellent series of novels to feature   Akyl Borubaev of the Bishkek Murder Squad. I've followed the series from book one, An Authumn Hunting being the fourth instalment afterA Killing Winter (which I reviewed here: https://bit.ly/2Nbf2Ay;  A Spring Betrayal (see here for my review: https://bit.ly/2OTXpFM); and A Summer Revenge: (https://bit.ly/2BAjCa7). I caught up with Tom to pick his brains for one of my Q&A's. 

Where did you get the idea behind An Autumn Hunting?

Each of the Akyl Borubaev books has a loose theme - political corruption, paedophilia, trafficking - and for AN AUTUMN HUNTING, drugs were the central theme. Of course, it’s a worldwide issue, but I wanted to suggest how it might apply to Kyrgyzstan. But as always, that sounds rather more intentional and plotted than how I actually write.

I’m a big fan of your Akyl Borubaev series, they have a tremendous sense of place, as indeed does An Autumn Hunting. You clearly know the region well. How did your relationship with the area come about and what made you choose to base your novels there?

I married a Kyrgyz woman and acquired a 7-year-old stepson. He’s now 21, towers over me, and we live together in Bishkek. So naturally, I know large parts of Kyrgyzstan very well, and having family there obviously gives me insights not usually afforded to tourists.

Why Kyrgyzstan? Well, all the usual locations - NYC, LA, London, Miami and so on - have been done to death, and to try to better the masters like Chandler, Hammett and Leonard in those places would be horribly daunting.

Kyrgyzstan has had two revolutions since independence from the USSR; lots of crime and corruption; poverty… what more could a crime writer ask for? For example, only a few days ago, someone tried to kill a Russian businessman with a bomb, two streets away from where I live. They failed, but there’s a story behind that which could be very interesting.

How do you get your ideas? What’s the process and how do they go from vague inspiration to fully fleshed out notions?

My main concern, to sound rather pretentious, is to explore Akyl’s changing view of the world and himself, and his relationship with Saltanat. The crime aspects of the books serve to help bring them together, or to keep them apart. Part of my job is to be true to Akyl’s character as revealed through his thoughts and actions, so I tend to let that take me where the characters determine. I have a vague idea that I want to go from A to Z, but I don’t travel in alphabetical order, visiting every letter, if that makes sense.

Tell me about the research that goes into your writing?

Living here does a lot of the research for me. Again, family tell me about a lot of local events. And I just make the rest up.

Are you a plotter or a pantser?

Pantser, for sure. If I can surprise myself with what I write, there’s a vague hope of being able to do the same for my readers.

I’m interested in whydunnit, not whodunit; my books don’t involve murder in the library with a candlestick, and I have no interest in ‘crossword puzzle’ mysteries. I find Agatha Christie-style ‘Golden Age’ mysteries unreadable; my little grey cells are completely disinterested.

As a pantser, how do you make sure you don’t go off on wild tangents? 

Who says wild tangents are a bad thing? They might be the most interesting part of the journey.

Tell me about your writing, do you write full time?

I try to, when the need to do the washing up doesn’t feel too overwhelming and urgent.

When is your most productive period of the day?

Whenever the logjam of life temporarily opens.

Is any part of your writing biographical or are any of those characters inspired by real people? 

No, but remember I tell stories for a living.

An Autumn Hunting is the fourth novel in the series and the titles are taken from the seasons, which implies it will be the final instalment. Will there be a fifth novel in the series? If so, can you tell us anything about that?

I’m just finishing a new book, but superstition forbids me saying any more about it, other than Donald Trump isn’t in it.

What other writing projects are you working on? 

For some reason, calling writing a ‘project’ seems to diminish it for me, like calling it a hobby.  (Read Basil Bunting’s poem, ‘What the Chairman told Tom’.) There’s a moment in ‘The Shining’ where Jack Nicholson says he welcomes the solitude to finish a ‘writing project’, and I knew then he was mad.

Finally, I’m going to shamelessly poach two questions the author Mark Hill (author of His First Lie and It Was Her) used to put to writers on his blog. Like me, Mark was a book blogger before he became a successful author and I like to think that the answers to these questions helped him glean valuable help for his own writing. Certainly, reading them on his blog is helping me. So here goes:

What’s the hardest lesson you ever had to learn about writing?

The washing up/ laundry/ cooking/ gazing out of the window can all wait.

Give me some advice about writing?

Read as much as you can in the genre you love, but not exclusively so. Then read some more.

Hunt down your stylistic tropes and put them to death.

Never tell people the plot of your book; you’ll lose interest in telling it on the page.

Avoid praise; seek only criticism - that’s what helps you write better (or less badly).

Just get on with it; your laptop has a delete button after all. Dreaming about the perfect sentence usually means you just end up dreaming.

Mark Hill Q&A

Mark Hill is the author of two great novels, His First Lie (which I reviewed under its previous title, The Two O’Clock Boy, see here:https://bit.ly/2KGGYig) and the recently released sequel, It Was Her (see my review here: https://bit.ly/2AJVT6R). 

Before becoming a successful novelist, Mark was a book reviewer, blogging under the guise of the Crime Thriller Fella. This was a blog that I found hugely influential, not least for the Q&A’s he hosted with other writers. Unlike many such Q&A’s, his were always focused on the craft of writing which I imagined he used to help hone his own efforts. Well, it clearly paid off and I’ve been replicating the Crime Thriller Fella Q&A style ever since in the hope that I too might learn a thing or two.

Obviously now Mark’s made it I wanted to know a bit more about his writing process, in the shameless and undisguised hope that some of his magic might rub off on me. Luckily, he was happy to oblige.

Where did you get the idea behind It Was Her? While we’re at it, where did you get the idea behind His First Lie?

I started writing His First Lie back in the distant mists of time and it evolved an awful lot. I think I wanted to write about a corrupt copper and initially there was plenty of banging heads together and fisticuffs and high-octane action with people smashing down doors and some choice language. But that wasn’t really my style, so I went in a different direction. I’ve always loved those books and shows that have two timelines – there’s a mystery in the present and it’s connected in some weird way to a mystery in the past - so I played with that, and added a conspiracy element, and over time it kind of became more of a psychological thriller. 

With It Was Her, I knew I wanted to write about someone who went into other people’s homes and made themselves comfortable, a kind of cuckoo. But I kind of wondered what would make a person do such a thing and explore the reasons for that. And, of course, I couldn’t resist my two timelines format – two mysteries! One in the past, one in the present! - which has become a big part of what I do. 

How do you get your ideas more generally? What’s the process and how do they go from vague inspiration to fully fleshed out notions?

These are really hard questions. I’m not sure I can answer this fully comprehensively, but I do think idea generation is like any other muscle. The more you do it, the more it becomes easier. Once I’ve got an idea I’ll open a new document and I’ll sit and type out ideas – flinging down as many as I can onto the page – bits of dialogue, characters, possible scenes, relationships - and, sooner or later, connections form, ideas begin to interweave, and a narrative begins to lift off the page. That document can end up being very long indeed. 

And, of course, the best ideas pop into your head as you’re washing-up or drifting off to sleep. A rather good writer once told me that you never have to write the good ideas down, and that’s absolutely true, they stay with you, but you do have to fight your way into a new book, you have to lay siege to it, until it bends to your will.

Tell me about the research that goes into your writing?

I’ve got some nice policemen who help me an awful lot - they are unbelievably helpful considering I tend to ask the same questions over and over - and a really helpful paramedic. Usually, I’ll try to write the first draft and then worry about research. But sometimes, if there’s a scene I want to write and I’m not sure it would happen – cops water-skiing down the outside of The Shard, for example – I’ll check on the feasibility first.

  

Are you a plotter or a pantser?

I’m a plotter. I like to know where I’m going. The idea of just, you know, making stuff up as I go, terrifies me. I like to put in some twisty stuff and have to tend to set that up early - and the best way to do that is by plotting. A lot of people swear by it, but pantsing just doesn’t seem like a lot of fun to me, there are already thousands of micro-decisions to make in every chapter. One day I’ll pants my way through a book - I’ll see if I can do it, I promise - but it’ll probably be the most-boring book ever. It’ll be two people in a room making each other cups of tea for 100k words. 

  

Tell me about your writing, do you write full time?

Yeah, I’m lucky enough to write full-time, and I try to write every day, too. It’s taken me a long time to get to the stage where I’m doing something I love, really love, and to do it for a living, and it kind of consumes me now. I take my hat off to anybody who can hold down a full-time job, bring up a family and manage to write books. 

When is your most productive period of the day?

There is no right or wrong time. I don’t tend to write in the early hours anymore because – well, I like my sleep. I like to write in the morning and usually I’ll carry on into the afternoon. But I’m a great procrastinator so I do a lot of pointless reorganising of documents. I’m also highly inefficient and disorganised, and more than once I’ve lost great swathes of polished text by reorganising everything. Don’t be like Mark, kids. Remember to back up your files at the end of every day.

Is any part of your writing biographical? Any of the characters based on you or inspired by real people?

I’m afraid not. I’ll take the odd characteristic from people. Reviewers have often commented on how my characters are neither good nor bad, but a little bit of both, and I like that ambiguity in people. I’m fascinated by our flaws, they’re what make us all different. However, stay tuned, because Sasha Dawson is going to be new territory for me…

What other writing projects are you working on? 

I’m thrilled to be starting a new crime series for Head Of Zeus which features a new detective, the awesome DI Sasha Dawson. Sasha is the antithesis of Drake – as well as being terrific at her job, she’s a nice woman, funny, empathetic, and her team are devoted to her. Trouble is, she’s always rushed off her feet trying to sort out other people’s problems, pulled this way and that – if it’s not the investigation, it’s her big, troublesome family. I love Sasha, I’ve loved spending time with her, and I hope readers will love her, too. 

Finally, I’m going to shamelessly poach two questions from your old Crime Thriller Fella blog. I like to think that the answers to these questions helped you glean valuable help for your own writing. Certainly, reading them on your blog has been helping me. So here goes:

What’s the hardest lesson you ever had to learn about writing?

That Crime Thriller Fella knew how to write a killer question, didn’t he? Writing a novel is a long, hard slog. It takes ages to write a book. Well, it does for me. It’s a mountain to climb and there are absolutely no short cuts. And it’s like wrangling cats, too, as you struggle to pull all the threads of it together into a whole and get it into shape. There’s nothing, absolutely nothing, like that feeling when you eventually finish it, but the process can’t be rushed.

Give me some advice about writing?

To quote the great John Irving, you’ve got to get obsessed and stay obsessed.

Drug Wars by Neil Woods and JS Rafaeli

This is the second book by Neil Woods, a former undercover police officer, and JS Rafaeli, a journalist and writer with Vice. Their first title, Good Cop, Bad War, was an account of Wood’s career infiltrating drug gangs around the country and why in the end he concluded the war on drugs was futile. I reviewed that book, awarding it the full five stars (see here: https://bit.ly/2LnwTqW) not least because it takes some guts to admit that the endeavours of one’s career have in effect been a colossal waste of time.

So, to Drug Wars, their follow on. This is a more cerebral book, in that it is an historical account of how we as a society got to the situation we are in, rather than the author’s experiences as an undercover officer. Woods and Rafaeli trace the origins of the war on drugs in Britain, placing this in the wider international context, particularly the drug war’s origins in American moral crusades.

The war on drugs has clearly failed. That much is so obvious the observation seems almost superfluous, yet those who support continued prohibition – and there are many who still do – seem unable or unwilling to accept it. What Drug Wars makes tragically clear however is not just that it was a failing endeavour right from the beginning, but that it never even needed to be fought, things were fine as they were. Nowhere is this clearer than in the section of the book that touches on heroin.

The fact is that for years the Britain had a small, yet stable, population of heroin addicts. In 1959 there were just 62 known heroin addicts in the UK. By 1964 there were 342. These were medics who started dipping into the medicine cabinet only to become addicted, ex-military and sailors who discovered the drug abroad, romantics who went looking after reading Cocteau, De Quincy, Kerouac and Burroughs. This is an important point, they weren’t kids off council estates lured by horrible dealers, because there weren’t any dealers. Why? Because once someone was an addict, they could just go to a GP and get heroin for free. This might sound like madness but giving addicts heroin was a pragmatic and entirely rational policy. It meant they had no need to steal to support their addiction, no need to sell their bodies, and crucially, no need to sell heroin to others to fund their habits. Prior to the Misuse of Drugs Act of 1971 – possibly one of the most catastrophic pieces of legislation ever to enter the statute book – the UK heroin population had grown to approximately 1000 addicts, but this was a slow and gradual growth, nothing like the explosion of addiction that would follow. 

Even after the passage of the Act, this British System survived for a while, but eventually, after years of relentless pressure from the Americans it was to end. The result? The instant creation of a lucrative criminal marketplace. Where before there was no point in drug cartels smuggling heroin into the UK – a lot of risk for little reward, when one’s customer base would abandon you for the NHS as soon as they got hooked – now, the business case for doing so was obvious. The resulting explosion in addiction, the violence, was inevitable. There were later attempts to recapture sanity, notably in Liverpool where the British system was brought back to life with marked success. But once again it was destined to be destroyed by the cant and faux moralising of War on Drugs brigade and the tabloid press

Other parts of the book tell the story of Operation Julie – a comical exercise in persecuting harmless hippies, which would be funny if it hadn’t ruined lives and the rave scene of the 1990’s when MDMA made teenagers loved up and gangsters extremely rich. But for sheer vividness of all that is wrong with the war on drugs, it was the section on heroin that was most powerful to me.

Finally, the authors demonstrate how the war on drugs has perverted and undermined the very criminal justice system tasked with tackling it. Here we meet Frank Matthews, the pseudonym of a former Met police detective and undercover officer turned whistle-blower. Frank served in some of the Met’s most sensitive units, not least that responsible for witness protection. He describes in graphic detail the corruption and ineptitude he saw there, wrongdoing that aided criminals and endangered those they were charged to protect. Indeed, the details are so shocking that it’s difficult to believe, for if they are even half true, UK policing is rotten to the core. Just how could it be possible, what’s caused this rot? The answer is clear: the drug market is so lucrative, the profits so great, that organised crime has corrupted the very institutions who’s task it is to control them.

Drug Wars is a powerful and depressing read, but it’s also a hopeful one. All over the world the signs are that people and societies are finally starting to see sense. From Portugal, to Latin America, people are saying that enough is enough, that prohibition has failed. Even states in the United States, that bastion of moralising conservatism, have legalised cannabis. For so long, the UK has refused to budge, despite our history of trying to do things differently, but just this week the government has reluctantly agreed to medical marijuana. Things can change, we can do things differently, we don’t have to fight this pointless, utterly pointless, war. 

This is an important book, essential reading, and I really can’t recommend it enough.

5 out of 5 stars

The Break Line by James Brabazon

As a former current affairs journalist, I spent the bulk of my career working on documentaries for Channel 4. I primarily worked as a researcher, then Assistant Producer, on Dispatches – Channel 4’s flagship current affairs strand – employed by various independent television production companies. The world of current affairs television is a relatively small one and the same names and faces tend to crop up all over the place. Some gain stellar reputations, becoming legends in their own rite. One such person was James Brabazon. While I never had the honour of working with him myself, he was someone who’s work I was well aware of, so when I discovered that he had written a thriller I was keen to read and review it.  

The Break Line follows Max Mclean, a British special forces soldier employed as a deniable asset by MI6 as an assassin. After a botched operation in Caracus, Max is hauled back to London to explain himself. He’s then sent on another mission, to take out the Russian leader of a guerrilla outfit threatening the stability of Sierra Leone. But things aren’t all they seem and right from the start there’s something very odd about this mission.

I have to confess to starting this novel with some trepidation after my initial excitement. I had imagined the author would write a thriller about a journalist or film maker, when I realised that instead his main character was a special forces soldier, I worried that this would be yet another clone of Andy McNab. Neither, once I started reading, did the first-person narrative gel for me. I don’t have a problem with first-person narrative normally, but for some reason I felt that this would have been better written in third-person. Perhaps, knowing that the author isn’t former military, the first-person narrative just seemed like he was trying too hard. That all said, I soon got into the story and left these reservations behind, not least because to his credit the author carves out a different route to that of other stories of this ilk. Rather than a military/espionage thriller the story swiftly becomes a sci-fi/horror tale. I won’t divulge spoilers, but needless to say what’s waiting for Max in the sweltering Sierra Leonean jungle is a lot more sinister than a ragtag guerrilla army. 

The author does a great job of cranking up the tension throughout and as he gets nearer to his target there’s a real sense of foreboding in the air. Another reviewer observed that the novel is very filmic and that perhaps this reflects the author’s pedigree. I agree with this and can easily imagine The Break Line being transferred to the silver screen. 

The novel reads like the start of a series, certainly I can imagine Max returning in the pages of another title. If he does, it will be interesting to see where the author takes him, does he turn to more traditional military/espionage fare or does he stick to sci-fi/horror storylines? 

4 out of 5 stars

Sins As Scarlet by Nicolás Obregón

This is the author’s second novel, a sequel to his debut Blue Light Yokohama (a title which I reviewed, see here: https://bit.ly/2AdaQOz). Once again, we’re with Kosuke Iwata, though post the events of Blue Light Yokohama he’s no longer with Tokyo’s homicide division, but instead has returned to California where he works as private eye, surveilling unfaithful husbands. But when his late wife’s mother approaches him and demands his help solving the murder of Meredith, her transgender daughter and the sister of Kosuke’s wife, he has no choice but to acquiesce. He soon finds that Meredith’s death isn’t the first, that there’s been a string of transgender women murdered. As his investigation unfolds, Kosuke soon finds himself embroiled in a malevolent conspiracy.

One of the selling points of the original book was that it gave the reader an insight into both Japanese culture and Japanese policing, worlds that are not very understood by many in the West. I have to admit to being a little disappointed that the author has chosen to move away from that and relocate his hero to LA. In an already very crowded marketplace – crime fiction is the most popular genre in the UK, hugely popular throughout the world, and consequently many crime novels are published each year – it felt like he had sacrificed his USP. That said, the first novel established Kosuke as a character and I was keen to see how he progressed, while the book is well written and so I soon forgot these minor reservations.

In some ways Sins As Scarlet harks back to the great PI novels of old, there was something a little Philip Marlowe about the lonely character Kosuke cut as he traipsed around the seedier side of LA working his case. This is obviously a grittier read than such titles though, more Chandler meets James Elroy. Sins As Scarlet also touches on some sensitive and current themes: illegal immigration, transgender issues, the violence and discrimination both communities face. As well as the main plot, the author takes the time to flesh out Kosuke and his tortured family background somewhat more and we get a deeper understanding of what makes the character tick. This bodes well for the continuation of the series. 

Sins As Scarlet is an accomplished novel and a great read. I enjoyed it as much as the author’s debut, albeit on a different level. It’s a very different book to the Blue Light Yokohama, the move away from Japan and back to the States giving Sins As Scarlet a very different vibe. This isn’t a bad thing, both books are enjoyable, but it is worth mentioning. It will be interesting to see where book three takes us and I look forward to reading it.

4 out of 5 stars  

Cover reveal! Brother In Blood by Amer Anwar

Winner of the CWA Debut Dagger.

A Sikh girl on the run. 

A Muslim ex-con who has to find her. 

A whole heap of trouble Southall, West London. 

After being released from prison, Zaq Khan is lucky to land a dead-end job at a builders' yard. All he wants to do is keep his head down and put the past behind him. But when Zaq is forced to search for his boss's runaway daughter, he quickly finds himself caught up in a deadly web of deception, murder and revenge. With time running out and pressure mounting, can Zaq find the missing girl before it's too late? And if he does, can he keep her - and himself - alive long enough to deal with the people who want them both dead? 

"An engaging hero, a cunning plot, and a fascinating journey into Southall’s underworld. We’ll be hearing a lot more from Amer Anwar." – Mick Herron

"A fine debut novel. With his engaging characters and skilful plotting, Anwar brings a fresh and exciting new voice to the genre." – Ann Cleeves

Published by: Dialogue Books Release date: 6th September 2018 

Also available as ebook and audiobook. 

Author Bio:

Amer Anwar grew up in West London. After leaving college he had a variety of jobs, including; warehouse assistant, comic book lettering artist, a driver for emergency doctors and chalet rep in the French Alps. He eventually landed a job as a creative artworker/graphic designer and spent the next decade and a half producing artwork, mainly for the home entertainment industry. He has an MA in Creative Writing from Birkbeck, University of London and is a winner of the Crime Writers’ Association Debut Dagger Award. Western Fringes is his first novel. For everything else, he has an alibi. It wasn’t him. He was never there.