Material Witness

On the stand: Marcia Clark

A few years back, I used to run a series of small interviews with writers called 10 Questions aimed at just giving a little bit of insight some of the authors reviewed here (and some who are not). For no very good reason it stopped but I've decided to revive it to try and mix the blog up a little and vary the content from the usual reviews. I've renamed it On the Stand, to accommodate those who answer fewer (or indeed more) than the standard 10 questions.

For this relaunch I am delighted to welcome Marcia Clark to the site. Her debut novel, Guilt by Association, has been chosen to launch the new Mulholland Books imprint for Hodder here in the UK in May. Marcia is currently best known for being the lead prosecutor for Los Angeles County in the OJ Simpson murder trial, but the positive reviews being earned by Guilt by Association may be about to change that.

The aim of the Mulholland imprint - which is shared by Hodder with Little, Brown in the US - is to bring the best of US fiction to UK audiences, focusing on suspense, crime, police procedurals, spies and supernatural suspense. It is named after the stretch of road in Los Angeles that has played host to the mysteries of some of American crime fiction's most famous writers including James M Cain, Michael Connelly and James Ellroy.

Marcia Clark

Favourite author: Many of them, here are a few - Raymond Chandler, Robert Parker, James Ellroy, PD James, Ruth Rendell, Sarah Waters, Laura Lippman, David Baldacci, Armistead Maupin

Favourite book: It's impossible to single out just one

Favourite character: Spenser, the private detective in Robert Parker's series

Best book read in 2011: It's too early in the year. Too many books, too little time...

Best crime city: LA - lots of ironic juxtaposition of great wealth and crushing poverty, glamour and grime

Best Film Adaptation: Primal Fear, based on the brilliant book by William Diehl, another of my favourite authors

Book that gave you the thriller bug: The Nancy Drew series, when I was five years old

What do you snack on while writing: Raw almonds and red licorice

Who would play you in a film of your life: I have no idea who'd really play me, but if given the chance to pick, I'd choose Scarlett Johansson (laughing)

My thanks to Marcia Clark for participating and Kerry Hood of Hodder for facilitating. Next up On the Stand, later this week, will be legendary crime writer Sara Paretsky.

10 Questions archive: John Connor, Alex Scarrow, RJ Ellory, Martin Edwards, Peter James, Ed Lynskey, Steve Mosby,  

World Book Night - A wonderful celebration of reading

Yesterday afternoon I picked up 48 copies of Kate Atkinson's marvellous crime novel, Case Histories, the first in the best-selling Jackson Brodie series. Until I picked up the two boxes from Debbie at her lovely store - The Bookshop in Kibworth Beauchamp in Leicestershire - it hadn't quite occurred to me what being a "giver" was all about.

But seeing the books has made me realise what a privilege it is to be able to participate in World Book Night, an event which will see one million books being given away to promote the joy of reading. Case Histories is one of 25 books chosen, with 40,000 copies of each printed up. 20,000 givers will start handing those books out tomorrow.

The back cover of the books I have reads: "World Book Night is a celebration of great writing and the power of books and the pleasures of reading".

The timing seems perfect. Reading seems to be under assualt. First the news that the government is to cut Bookstart funding, then cuts in library services are announced all over the country. So this initiative - supported by more enlightened institutions than the barbarians implementing ill-thought out and damaging cuts - comes at a good time. Tonight in Trafalgar Square - as I write in fact - writers such as Philip Pullman, Allan Bennett and Sarah Waters along with celebrities like Suggs and Rupert Everett - are celebrating the written word. I hope that the books I give out - in our local church, at a youth group, at Oakham Rugby Club - allow others to join the celebration.

I feel incredibly strongly about this, and find myself almost surprised at the strenghth of those feelings; that we would all live in a kinder, more generous and more civilised world if more people chose to read, rather than watch X-Factor, play computer games or surfed the internet. There is so much to learn from books: about ourselves, about each other, about the world we live in. And there's so much entertainment. There's nothing quite like that moment where the book takes you away.

That's why I chose Kate Atkinson. I have put a note in each of the books I will be giving away: "I have chosen Case Histories for the power of its story-telling and the insight, wit and human warmth that fills the book. Kate Atkinson makes it very easy for the reader to get completely lost in her narrative, and that's my greatest pleasure in reading: reaching that untouchable place that a great book can take you to, where nothing else matters..."

Case Histories is actually a rather bleak book in many ways, based as it is on the mystery of three tragedies. It takes some of the worst of human behaviour and finds people at their very lowest - after the death of a child. But in Jackson Brodie, Atkinson's singular PI, it has a hero with humility, humanity and humour and that sort of hero can take you a long way. (Guardian review)

It starts a wonderful series of four books, the most recent of which is Started Early, Took My Dog (my review). But the best of the series is When Will There be Good News? an absolute tour de force featuring one of my literary heroines, Reggie, a 16-year-old nanny, and the sort of brave and loyal soul I'd want on my side if I was ever in trouble. (Her character is picked out nicely on this blog: Lyss on Something)

Finally, I'd just like to offer my thanks to the organisers, partners and publishers of World Book Night and I applaud the vision of those who made it happen.

Happy Reading.

REVIEW: The Dead by Charlie Higson

Charlie Higson has gone all George Lucas in the second installment of his marvellous young adult zombie series and written a prequel to the hugely entertaining first book, The Enemy.

The Dead takes the action back about 12 months to the days just after the spread of the disease that wipes out the vast majority of the over-14 population and leaves the rest as flesh-eating zombies. The children that are left, who are locked in a gruesome battle for survival, are still suffering the shock of their new circumstances. (By a year later, in The Enemy, the battle for survival is no less difficult, but the children are organised and wearily adjusted to their plight). 

The action starts with a nice modern touch with the description of the viral Scared Kid video that becomes an internet phenomenon as the disease takes its hold: webcasting his terror even as the first zombies are gathering outside his window.  

Not long after we first meet Ed and Jack. They, along with a number of their schoolmates, are holed up in a dormitory in their Kent boarding school fighting a nightly battle against marauding zombie teachers and desperately trying to find a way to survive. Eventually they decide that flight not fight would offer their best chance and they make a break for freedom leading a strange bunch of kids that includes a couple of nerds, a handful of rugby players (useful in a fight) and a group of kids that have found a strange messianic religion while being holed up in the school chapel. The group does not get far and is quickly caught up in an ambush in an out-of-town shopping area.

They are rescued from an annihilation by the arrival of a coach driven by an apparently uninfected adult, Greg, who already has on board another group of child refugees, including an entertaining gaggle of girls who have managed to make it back from a school trip to France. ("France is a dump," says Courtney, one of their number).

With very few options available to them Jack and Ed's gang join Greg's coach trip to London, a destination that pleases Jack in particular, as he has decided he wants to see his Clapham home once more.

There's not much more to say about the plot that wouldn't be a spoiler, but suffice to say the kids end up holed up in the Imperial War Museum fighting a similar battle for survival that the supermarket kids faced in The Enemy.

In addition, Higson begins to peel away some of the layers of mystery surrounding the disease and the hordes of flesh-eating adults threatening the children, as the nerd group decides that understanding the enemy will be a key to beating it. Some of the back story to characters first met in The Enemy is filled in.

He also ventures a little further into the pyschology that grips the kids than he did in the The Enemy, and to an audlt reader - one reading it aloud to an 8-year-old, that made the story all the more interesting.

For the young adult - and indeed 8-year-old - audience, the book has a bit of everything: a fast-moving plot filled with suspense and drama; strong, easily identifiable characters; rip-roaring action scenes; witty dialogue; and even a hint of romance. Despute the nature of much of the story, it is hugely entertaining and I enjoyed it, as did my 8-year-old son.

Once again this is not a book for the faint-hearted. Kids kill and kids die (even the cool, popular and handsome ones), often in fairly gruesome circumstances. But for those with the stomach for the cannibal run, it's a great read.