SHOTSMAG CONFIDENTIAL |
| Nicci French at Write Festival 2021 Posted: 13 Aug 2021 10:00 PM PDT
  Bestselling crime author Nicci French will be at The Word and will be discussing their career and their new thriller The Unheard, coming this September. Nicci French will be interviewed by Doctor Rosie White from Northumbria University. Please follow any Covid guidelines in place at the time of the event. Full details and tickets here.  The Unheard by Nicci French (Simon & Schuster) published September 2021. 'He did kill. Kill and kill and kill.'Tess's number one priority has always been her three-year-old daughter Poppy. But splitting up with Poppy's father Jason means that she cannot always be there to keep her daughter safe. When she finds a disturbing drawing, dark and menacing, among her daughter's brightly coloured paintings, Tess is convinced that Poppy has witnessed something terrible. Something that her young mind is struggling to put into words. But no one will listen. It's only a child's drawing, isn't it? Tess will protect Poppy, whatever the price. But when she doesn't know what, or who, she is protecting her from, how can she possibly know who to trust ...?  |
| The Olympics and me…in with the new by Abi Silver Posted: 13 Aug 2021 05:59 AM PDT  As the Tokyo Olympics draws to a close, I can only reflect on how, quite apart from entertaining me every evening between 7.30 and 9, it's provided much food for thought where my writing is concerned. First, members of a fictional Olympic Committee feature in my latest book, The Midas Game. They're mulling over whether to include online gaming (or 'Esports' to give it its shiny, new and more respectable title) in future Olympic Games. And their decision has to be taken against the background of the trial of a young celebrity gamer, JD Dodds, accused of raping and murdering Dr Liz Sullivan, a psychiatrist who treated patients with severe addiction to online gaming. Of course, I didn't pluck my idea from the air. Esports is striving to achieve legitimacy in the real world and it certainly has oodles of supporters. Its tournaments, with their million dollar rewards, already attract enormous audiences and, although the Olympic Committee has refused to give it the nod, so far, that hasn't stopped its inclusion in the 2022 Asian Olympics or a half-way house 'Virtual Olympic Series' having taken place earlier this year. One of the hurdles gaming has to overcome (and this, I believe, is where chess failed, despite valiant efforts) is that the Olympics is all about achieving excellence in sport and (excuse the pedantry) a sport, in my book, must involve physical exertion, in addition to skill. It's no coincidence then that David Beckham (and other sports personalities) have been welcomed in, to share their expertise and set up gaming academies, where players' regimes include physical training to prepare them for the stamina required for competitive gaming. But the parallels with the Olympic Games run much deeper than the plot of my most recent offering. The five new sports introduced this year; skateboarding, surfing, climbing, softball/baseball and karate have been largely well received. Their inclusion came after much lobbying and a nail-biting decision made in Rio in 2016, with the aim of bringing the Games to a younger generation and generally broadening its appeal. Of course, many sports have been eased out over the years; rope climbing, poodle clipping (a 'test event' in 1900 Paris), fire-fighting, live pigeon shooting and tug of war, to name but a few. In this sense, at least, the Games holds a mirror up to the old adage – out with the old, in with the new. This is also the thread linking my Burton & Lamb stories; courtroom dramas based on topical, controversial themes; lie detecting software, robots dispensing medicine, driverless cars, cameras in our courts and now, the thrills and spills of online gaming. Why follow old-fashioned tried and tested processes, when a faster, slicker way of doing things is available? Even if it might involve the odd sacrificial lamb along the way. Then there was the BBC's choice of presenters for its Olympic coverage this time around; the facts at her fingertips, highly experienced Clare Balding and enthusiastic, relative newbie Alex Scott. What a sublime pairing! When Alex described the skateboarding action as 'sick' and announced 'let's get down with the kids' and Clare replied 'I don't know that means' I knew I had found two perfect candidates to play the roles of Judith and Constance (my equal but opposite legal eagles and main protagonists) in a future TV series. And last but not least, the evolution of the Olympic Games is a neat metaphor for the crime fiction genre as a whole. Just like the Olympics, it's moved with the times, maintaining and developing the traditional police procedural/detective yarns we grew up on, and adding in spy novels, domestic noir, cosies, unreliable narrators and psychological thrillers, political and technology-based stories and more period, historical crime. And those solving the crimes now come from a range of backgrounds: police, private investigators, secret services, lawyers, forensic pathologists, journalists, amateur sleuths and savvy members of the public. Certainly in crime fiction, this expansion is welcome and has made it the best selling fiction genre of recent years, helping to raise the bar on the quality of writing to truly Olympic Record heights. I have no doubt that the inevitable inclusion of Esports in future Games will make it more popular. Whether it will allow the Games to sustain the level of excellence it strives to stand for, is yet to be seen.  Abi's latest novel, The Midas Game, is published by Eye and Lightning Books in paperback original on 5 August, available to purchase from Eye-Books and Amazon. When eminent psychiatrist Dr Liz Sullivan is found dead in her bed, suspicion falls on local gamer and YouTube celebrity Jaden 'JD' Dodds. Did he target her because of her anti-gaming views and the work she undertook to expose the dangers of playing online games? And what was her connection with Valiant, an independent game manufacturer about to hit the big time, and its volatile boss? Judith Burton and Constance Lamb team up once more to defend JD when no one else is on his side. But just because he makes a living killing people on screen doesn't mean he'd do it in real life. Or does it? More about Abi and her writing can be found on her website. you can also find her on Facebook and on Twitter @abisilver16  |
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