Julie Anderson

Zemiology

No, I didn’t know either. At least I knew nothing of it until I looked it up.

Zemiology is the study of social harms, from the Greek zemia, or harm. It’s a relatively new academic discipline, which grew out of critical criminology and it seeks to generate real world action in pursuit of justice.

That’s where I come in, as justice is the theme of Oracle. I found out more when I had a chat with Sharon Hartles, of the Open University’s Harm & Evidence Research Collaborative (HERC). She is also a member of the British Society of Criminology (BSC) and a researcher and postgraduate with the University of Strathclyde. A published critical criminologist, Sharon is currently conducting research on Primodos.

As I understand it, too often the crimes of the powerful are difficult to address under our current law and legal system, referred to as ‘black letter law’. Actions which have a harmful impact on others in society, like ignoring safety regulations ( or watering them down ) in pursuit of profit, or despoiling the planet, are not ‘crimes’ in law ( though they may breach certain regulations ). As an example, even after the appalling events at Grenfell Tower there are still no prosecutions and, indeed, it is becoming difficult to find a ‘crime’ with which to prosecute anyone, individually or as representing an institution or corporation. Yet facts were known, the wishes of the residents were ignored and the likelihood of fire foreseen.

Thus, events like Grenfell become referred to as a ‘tragedy’ or a ‘tragic accident’, yet they were foreseeable and avoidable and these events and others like them will continue to occur until the law adapts to make punishment of those who enable such events both possible and direct. Zemiology presupposes that isn’t likely to happen, as the powerful have co-opted the law and the legal system to protect their power and interests. An idea not unfamiliar to readers of Plague.

Sharon was a mine of information about this new discipline. I think it’s going to have to feature somewhere in Oracle, probably among the young idealists protesting against environmental damage who Cassie encounters at Delphi. Perhaps the charismatic protest leader is a zemiologist? We shall see.

I await the return of the final edit of Oracle, which has to be fully revised and returned to Claret Press by 31st January, complete with drawn image. I sketched the Palace of Westminster for the pages showing the start of each ‘daily’ section in Plague and I have undertaken to do something similar for Oracle, as that too is organised over a small number of days. Something I’ll be thinking about over the Christmas period.

Good news from elsewhere, however, as I learn that the recording of the audiobook of Plague has begun. I will write separately about this as it nears completion, suffice to say for now that Essential Audiobooks of New York are producing the audio book which is being read by actress, voice coach and associate of the Royal Shakespeare Company, Alison Bomber. Alison has just moved to the Czech Republic, but is already working on the recording. More on this later.

For now, may I wish everyone reading this a happy and peaceful Christmastide, where ever and with whomever, you are managing to keep it. Here’s hoping for a much better 2021.

And rest…

Books, History, Plague

Phew! I finally get to look forward to Christmas after the whirlwind of activity – talks, discussions, events, giveaways – which has accompanied the publication of my first crime thriller back in September. All something of an eye-opener to this writer, whose adventure books set in 13th century Spain never generated this much activity and interest. Even in a world reduced by COVID I’ve been very, very busy, almost always online. It’s been tremendous fun, by and large, and I’ve worked with and met some great people, online, on social media and, not least, the readers of my book.

I’ve learned what to avoid – the number of ‘umms’ and ‘ers’ in my delivery when I was talking to my own slides, unable to see myself or others last Wednesday for the Libraries, was excruciatingly embarrassing. Nonetheless, it prompted contact from a U3A crime fiction reading book group who have chosen Plague as their book for March and want me to do a talk for them, which I’m happy to do. The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea and Westminster people also seemed pleased, they have asked me to do another talk in January, this time about ‘Politics and Prose’ – political fiction in a time of increasing citizen journalism and social media commentary. That’s something I’ve blogged about in the past ( see Stories of Democracy on The Story Bazaar web-site ). The more one does, the more one is asked to do.

I’m beginning to realise that what works well is behaving naturally, and letting my genuine enthusiasm shine through. I’m definitely more comfortable when interacting, either with other speakers or with questioners. That is, in part, why the Secrets of Subterranean London discussion worked so well. If you haven’t watched it, you can find a link here and on the Events page.

It is the first in a series which Claret Press hopes to produce and Claret’s number of subscribers increased after the broadcast. The second, on Crony Capitalism, is scheduled for January and I’ll be taking part, with a well-known economist and an activist ( names cannot yet be revealed but I’ll be writing about them and it nearer to the event ). Siphoning public funds into the pockets of allies and associates is, of course, one of the corruptions taking place in Plague, as Cassie says to the villain on page 246 ‘You’re ensuring the contracts go to the right companies so you can reward your friends and allies…’ Its topicality astonishes me still.

Yet now I’m looking forward to relaxing over the holiday, I need a break and January is already filling up fast. Aside from anything else, I have to completely sign off on Oracle by 31st January and there’s all the work associated with the preparation of a book for publishing – meta data, Netgalley etc. and a whole new round of promotion and publicity to agree.

One piece of encouraging news is that I now have an Italian literary agent. Factotum, or Zecchin, Bellaciccio & Aragno have signed me, and other Claret authors, with a view to selling the Italian publication rights and having Plague ( and the next two Cassandra Fortune books ) translated into Italian. Katie, from Claret Press, told me half an hour before the live broadcast of Secrets, that a representative from Factotum would be watching, in order to decide whether or not they wanted to sign me up. No pressure there then. Fortunately, it worked out well.

But – bring on the mulled wine!

Wishing everyone a joyous and safe Christmastide – the year turns on Monday, as Saturn and Jupiter conjoin closer than for almost 400 years and Spring – Spring! – is on its way. Here’s hoping for a better year in 2021.

Going underground

Books, History, Plague

Like any place inhabited by humans for centuries, London is a multi-layered city, its history piled up beneath the feet of the people who walk its streets. This was the subject of last night’s tremendous discussion with Dr Tom Ardill of the Museum of London and award-winning Blue Badge Guide Fiona Lukas.

Tom showed us just how Londoners from the Romans onwards had utilised the natural tributaries of the Thames. First the Walbrook in the Roman city, which soon became clogged with waste, then, later, the Fleet, which met the same fate, becoming notorious for its floating bodies of dead cats and dogs ( and sometimes humans, falling into the noxious Fleet was a death sentence ). It wasn’t surprising that, by the thirteenth century Londoners of the City were seeking for a fresh water supply further afield and they lighted upon the Tyburn. In order to bring its waters to the City they constructed the Great Conduit which ran south then east across London.

Engineers installing gas pipes along Oxford Street in the 19th century stumbled upon the remains of this and, in the 21st century, Crossrail again unearthed it. The Tyburn also supplied water, supposedly, to a set of Roman baths near North Audley Street and Oxford Street. There are references to these baths in a number of sources and a detailed description, but no physical evidence has yet been found. It is here, in ‘Plague’ where crime is committed and where the detectives first meet George Bindel London sewer man extraordinaire.

Another fascinating element last night was Tom’s explanation about the plans of the Tyburn Angling Society, a quixotic enterprise which seeks to ‘daylight’ the River, bringing it back to the surface ( and destroying millions of pounds of Mayfair real estate, including Buckingham Palace, in the process ). As he pointed out, there are cities elsewhere in the world where this has been done, like Seoul in Korea and it is being done, on a much smaller scale, with the River Quaggy in London.

Fiona’s description of the modern travails of London Transport with new London Underground stations was very interesting, especially the example of the new, very deep and very modern, Westminster station . I never knew that the two District line tube tunnels were on top of one another not along side, but, when I thought about it, this made sense of the way the inside of the station was designed. I certainly wasn’t aware of the difficulties encountered because of the proximity of the station to the Houses of Parliament, not least the secrecy about why designs for the new station were repeatedly vetoed.

Learning about the ghost stations, often abandoned because too many stations had originally been built ( which meant that the tube journeys were taking too long, so often were the trains stopping and starting ) was also fascinating. Down Street, where Churchill’s wartime cabinet used to meet when the Cabinet Office War Rooms were unavailable, or Brompton Road. There is also Aldwych, formerly Strand, a station I used to walk past every day on my way to work in Bush House, close to, yes, a bona fide Roman Baths.

My own contribution was limited compared to the experts’ but I was able to talk about Whitehall, the formation of Thorney Island and its development into Westminster and cite a quote from Cassandra in ‘Plague’ about the concentration of power. My favourite contribution, however, related to a different exhumation, that of the remains in Old St Pancras Churchyard, removed to allow for construction of the London Midland Railway. A young Thomas Hardy oversaw the works and composed this piece of jolly doggerel ( which parodies, I think, the first of Wordsworth’s Lucy poems – any Hardy scholars reading this please tell ).

‘We late-lamented, resting here, Are mixed to human jam, And each to each exclaims in fear, ‘I know not which I am!”

The whole of ‘Secrets of Subterranean London’ will be posted on Youtube next week and I will post the link to it here when it is. In the meanwhile I’ll be talking about ‘Plague – A Novel of London’ for the Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea and Westminster Libraries at 6.30 p.m. GMT on Wednesday 16th December, if anyone is interested in hearing more. It’s another FREE event, but to attend you must register on Eventbrite.

And the lucky winner is…

Books, Plague

Actually, there were twelve of them, all members of the UK Crime Book Club, from Perth to Hampshire, Denbighshire to London and many points in between. Twelve signed copies of Plague have been parcelled up and despatched.

I announced the Giveaway over a week ago and promoted it during my live streamed Author Chat with Caroline Maston, one of the co-founders of the Book Club last Sunday. Our discussion ranged from whether or not ‘Plague’ could be turned into a graphic novel – answer ‘Yes, but I’m not sure I’d want it to be’ – to what I considered to be the most important element when starting to plan out a novel – my answer was the theme or idea behind it.

Two major surprises during the interview. The first was a failure of technology, which left me on screen on my own, sans interviewer. Caroline had just asked me a question, about the underground aspects of the novel, when her image disappeared. I was able, fortunately, to carry on, there’s a lot to cover – the Tyburn, the War Rooms, mediaeval London, the Underground – and Sam, another administrator, slotted another question up on screen when I was obviously coming to a close. I’d only just begun to answer that when Caroline reappeared (phew).

The second surprise was a question from Mike Craven, better known as M.W. Craven, former CWA Dagger winner, who is currently sitting atop the Best Seller lists with his latest crime thriller ‘The Curator’. A darling of the UK Crime Book Club, ‘The Curator’ has just been voted the Club’s Book of 2020. Good fortune again that it was an easy question for me to answer ( so not about writing best sellers then ) and something of an honour for this crime writing debutante. The whole hour whizzed by, with people sending in questions via Facebook – and telling me that they’d bought the book, which was very good news.

The Author Chat prompted a few more entries in the Giveaway, but, on Tuesday morning I put the names – approximately two hundred of them – into a hat, closed my eyes and chose. The nicest bit of the whole exercise followed, telling the winners that they had won. I know, it’s only a book, but who doesn’t like to get a pleasant surprise?

There was one small problem, one individual, a gentleman from Wales, didn’t respond to my messages of congratulation, indeed, didn’t respond at all. I left it a couple of days and then contacted the Facebook site administrator and said that I would try once more but might need their help. Fortunately, my message yielded a result, though not the expected one. A few minutes after I put up my plea I received a reply from a woman – ‘Dad! You won!’.

Needless to add, she prompted her father and the book is, even now, on its way.

Caroline asked me, during the interview, what was my most memorable moment as an author. She had told me in advance that she would ask this question and I had given it some thought. My answer surprised her, I think, because I said that my most memorable moments are happening now. Like getting the surprised and pleased message from the daughter of the man from Caerphilly, or the question from an eminent crime writer, or a review in the Literary Review, or supportive responses from a book club that’s reading my book.

Right now, the lucky winner is me.

Secrets of Subterranean London

Books, History, Plague

Claret Press is organising an online event which may be of interest to readers of this website. On 11th December, from 7 – 8 in the evening, I will be speaking with Tom Ardill, Curator at the Museum of London and Fiona Lukas, award-winning Blue Badge guide and expert on the London Underground.

Tom curated, with Kate Sumnall, the fascinating 2019 exhibition on London’s ‘Secret Rivers’ at the Museum of London in Docklands, which I blogged about at the time. Did you know, for example, that there is a Tyburn Angling Society, set up to try and ‘restore’ the river so as to fish in it ( an almost impossible task since it has been subsumed into Bazalgette’s wonderful London sewer system, but a charming, if quixotic, idea )? He is also a fellow river traveller, having followed the course of the Tyburn, as I did, but taking the southernmost arm, down to Pimlico and he ran it, rather than walked. You can read about his run here. Tom is curator for Paintings, Drawings and other artworks held by the Museum too. Of course, as readers of Plague will know, a Museum of London archaeologist appears at the beginning of the book. He bears no relation to Tom.

The other contributor is Fiona Lukas, an award-winning Blue Badge Guide, ( she was Guide of the Year for the City of Westminster and City of London ) whose speciality is London Underground. She regularly hosts the popular tour The Lure of the Underground ( listen to her podcast about it here ) and is coming with interesting facts aplenty, including about the ghost lines and stations no longer in use. I had used to walk passed the old Aldwych station everyday on my way to work and have come across others, like that at Marble Arch. There are many other little known LU-owned places, like the Bakerloo Line depot at London Road, south of the river, which features in Plague.

My contribution will be about those bits of subterranean London which feature in the novel, although I expect Tom to have far more knowledge than I about the Tyburn itself. I’ll be touching on Plague Pits, Roman Remains – like the baths at North Audley Street, completely unmarked on the surface, the Great Conduit which runs along Oxford Street and, of course, the Palace of Westminster, with all its idiosyncrasies.

I can’t wait to ask Tom about some of the historical sites and Fiona knows all about the engineering, which is of particular interest to me. We will, doubtless, touch on the brilliant Bazalgette and his sewers. By the way, those who have read Plague will understand the reference to sewers and the ‘sewer walk’ undertaken by some of the main characters, but they may not know that the book contains a small homage to another book in which sewer scenes appear, which was made into an even more famous, not to say iconic, feature film. To find out what this homage is, or make your guess at it, come along and join us on 11th December.

Tickets are, astonishingly, FREE on Eventbrite HERE. It’s already proving very popular. See you there.

For more on Plague and the River Tyburn try Walking a Book, Walking a River or The Book Walk Continues

Crime Fiction

Books, Plague

Since Plague was published in September I have been working hard to promote it and it is only now, two months later, that I think I begin to realise that I am actually now considered to be a ‘crime writer’. Although I knew that crime was the most popular genre in the UK ( in the States it’s romance, apparently ) I was unprepared for the number of websites, festivals, clubs, societies and sub-sets of same devoted to crime fiction. I am just beginning to appreciate how many fans of crime writing there are ( for whom I am most grateful ) and just how knowledgeable and how much fun they are.

There are any number of crime fiction book clubs and I’ve joined several. I regularly engage with and post items on the Facebook page of one of the largest, the UK Crime Book Club, which has fourteen thousand members!

Next week I will be running a giveaway of a dozen signed, pre-publication copies of Plague exclusively for UKCFBC members in conjunction with an Author Chat, one of the regular features on that Facebook page in which crime fiction authors are interviewed and take live questions from members. ( You can find a link on the Events page of this website. )

Last Tuesday I was intrigued by the technology ( something called Be.Live ) when I recorded a short promo for that event and got familiar with how everything worked in preparation for my Chat. Past UKCFBC events include interviews with Ian Rankin, William Shaw and Elly Griffiths, so I’m in elevated company. I’m also looking forward to participating in the UKCFBC Pub Quiz ( Just Not In A Pub ).

UKCBC has also furnished me with a number of volunteers to test out the leaflet of the Book Walk for Plague, starting at Bond Street Tube Station and ending at the River Thames. Once its been tested I will make it available on this website for anyone who wants it. Unfortunately because of COVID any book walking is delayed.

I’ve also learned all sorts of interesting things. There is a current debate about the length of crime books, or example, many UKCBC members saying that they wouldn’t consider buying a book of less than 300 pages, which was a bit of a surprise, especially as Plague is only 288 pages! The good news, however, is that crime fiction lovers adore a series and Cassandra is scheduled to appear in at least two more books ( and possibly more ). I am pleased to say that readers are already asking me when the second is due out ( which keeps my publisher happy ).

I was also very surprised and extremely pleased to find Plague featured in this month’s edition of the Literary Review Crime Round-Up, even the literary establishment has to recognise the popularity of the genre. It has also been reviewed in The Yorkshire Times, Time & Leisure magazine and a number of other regional newspapers and regional radio stations ( you can find links to interviews and reviews on the Events page of this web-site ). No nationals so far, but I’m not complaining.

For more on Plague take a look at my earlier blogs, or follow the events coming up, which you can find on the Events page.

Being Afraid

General

A personal piece this week, I hope it’s not too depressing.

Thus far, into its eleventh month, and 2020 is the year of fear. It began well enough for the UK. The out-break of an unknown ‘flu-like virus in faraway China making only the end of the foreign news. After all, we’d had bird-flu SARs and MERs and it seemed that the ebola outbreak in West Africa was now under control. Nothing to worry about in Europe. Our concerns were of a different kind, for many just dealing with the daily grind in an society increasingly uncaring and nastily polarised, for others the approaching exit from the EU.

Of course this was a fatal miscalculation, with the UK currently recording over 50,000 COVID related deaths and who knows how many more as an indirect result of the pandemic. It is a small and interconnected world and no amount of fulminating about maintaining borders can keep out a virus for long. Our response cannot be isolationist and self-centred, as Albert Camus said, ‘…the only way to fight the plague is with common decency.’

People were, and still are, afraid, though not with the uninformed fear of March and April. We know a lot more about the virus than we did and, it seems, there is a vaccine coming over the horizon sooner than was at first thought possible. With the defeat of Donald Trump in the recent US Presidential election it seems that those who deny reality, thereby both belittling and increasing the suffering and death of many, are in retreat. There was much rejoicing (and some relief) in this house when Pennsylvania declared for Biden.

The winter of 20/21 will be hard, without the escape and solace available outdoors in the Spring/Summer lockdown. We will be unable to celebrate as usual the traditional, often family-centred, festivals, Christmas, Hannukah, Eid and Diwali. Yet by Spring there may be a vaccine, a game changer, and the US will again take its place in the international community. Reason may again determine actions, not populist rhetoric. Science will, it seems, prevail.

So, where is my optimism? Shouldn’t this sustain me? I am cautious and doubting. Conversations with friends and neighbours suggests that this attitude is shared. In part this could be sensible, why count one’s chickens? Trump and the husk of the Republican Party may yet disrupt the electoral college and defer the transfer of power, he is already refusing to share vital information with his successor. We have what looks like a hard exit from the EU to come with all the chaos that will bring and we are without meaningful leadership during a pandemic. In part my caution could also be a corrective to the complacency of January.

But this doesn’t sit well, I am a glass half full sort of person. On a personal level this year has been good. My first crime thriller was published and well received. I have almost completed the revision of the second. My life, albeit indoors at home, is full and, generally, rewarding. There are many worse off than me.

Yet being afraid isn’t easily abandoned, the niggling restlessness and the anger close to the surface. Life is still restricted ( watching the southern hemisphere TriNations Rugby yesterday was poignant, it had a stadium crowd, unmasked and happy, like it used to be here ). That sensible inner voice reminds about the touching and the distance, the confined spaces and so on. We’ve done this all before, now we have to do it again.

So what to do? Hunker down and enjoy the little things. The wit and kindness of friends, via zoom if not in person. Carry on with work as best one can, taking as few risks as possible. It really is ‘Keep Calm and Carry On’, maintain one’s human decency and not give in to fear. That’s all one can do.

And there’s always schadenfreude.

I’ll be back to writing about books next week. Promise.

The mock-up of the government poster is by the brilliant Dan Mogford, graphic artist and book cover designer extraordinaire.

Book Shops and other excellent things

Books

It’s November – remember, remember – and the next lockdown has started in England. Not that it’s too draconian a lockdown, with schools and colleges continuing to function, as well as manufacturing industry and construction. Restaurants and other shops are allowed to open for takeaway only. This includes book shops and my local independent, Clapham Books (logo left), remains open for collection of orders, though not for browsing ( additional copies of Plague were delivered to them this morning, to replenish stocks ).

November is one of the busiest periods in the year for the book buying public, with Christmas close on the horizon and this is when book shops make a good proportion of their annual sales. This year many are struggling with the second lockdown, even if it isn’t as tight as the first one. So the estimable Holly Bourne, writer of YA fiction, has joined with Chris Riddell, political cartoonist for the Observer newspaper and author, to launch #SignforourBookshops an initiative designed to encourage people to buy books via their local book shop rather than through the corporate giants.

Authors (including me) agree to provide signed templates, designed by Chris Riddell, to their local book shop to paste inside that author’s books when they are sold. They also agree to post signed templates, with a message of the reader’s choice, to folk who email proof of purchase of a work by that author from an independent, physical book shop. I have set up the email account julieandersonbookplate@gmail.com specifically for this purpose. So if anyone reading this piece buys one of my books from an independent book shop, email me with proof of purchase, your address and chosen message and I’ll sign and supply a template (UK only I’m afraid, the cost of postage prohibits going international ). It is to be hoped that this nudges folk towards buying at their local independent, or even high street but physical, book shop. Mr Besos has a large enough fortune already and many of our small independents run on a shoestring. The initiative runs until the end of lockdown or 2nd December, whichever is later.

November also sees the recent launch of bookshop.org another attempt to challenge the overwhelming power of the big virtual sellers, which was reported upon in The Guardian newspaper and others. My publishers, Claret Press and Plague can be found thereon, as can I, under my old pen name J J Anderson, for my Al Andalus books and The Village.

Another excellent authorial initiative, one which I missed, is the Children in Need Book Auction. There are hundreds of books, of all types and genres, signed and donated by their authors ( some of them very famous indeed ). About £14,000 has already been raised already and the auction runs until next Friday, 13th November.

Also in November I’ll be chatting about Plague with Caroline Maston of the UK Crime Book Club, on Facebook at 7 p.m. on Sunday 29th November. This is in conjunction with a giveaway of a dozen signed pre-publication copies of Plague ( I still have some, thanks to Claret Press ). In return I ask that readers post a review on Goodreads, Amazon and/or social media. I hope that we get a good conversation going with UKCBC members. You can find more details and a link on the Events page of this website.

Then, of course, there’s always the writing. Oracle is with Claret Press at the moment so I’m taking the opportunity to think about the next book, Opera. I like this phase of a book, it’s so full of possibilities. In this one Cassandra returns to London, where she meets with some old friends. Of this, more later…

You can find the UK Crime Book Club on Facebook HERE

Myths and Legends

Books, Oracle

Oracle, the next book in the series following the adventures of Cassandra Fortune, is set in Delphi, Greece near the Temple of Apollo. When revising it recently I revisited some old favourites, the gods and goddesses of ancient Greece.

Like many children of my era, I absorbed details about Zeus and Hera, Athena and Apollo fairly early in life, along with the heroes, Heracles, Jason (with fleece) and all those at Troy ( thank you, Roger Lancelyn Green and, later, Ray Harryhausen ). I was briefly confused by the Roman equivalents, Venus usurping Aphrodite in my mind (mainly because I didn’t understand what both really signified i.e. sex, and Venus was an easier name ). Yet Jupiter and Juno remained in distinct second place to the Olympians, as being too pinkly domestic and toga-clad. Gods were supposed to be wild and strange. Narnia cemented my early classical training, with its fauns and dryads, satyrs and Bacchus, and it was the Greek version which remained forever dominant.

I subsequently went on to Odin and Thor, Osiris and Anubis and the Irish heroes ( courtesy of Rosemary Sutcliff ) like Cuchulain and Finn MacCool. Other characters from Celtic folklore, Beddgelert of Wales, the Scottish Kelpie and St Piran of Cornwall supplemented but didn’t detract from my own existing pantheon, which was further nourished by Mary Renault. I never lost the love of them and they led to Homer, Hesiod, Beowolf, the Icelandic Sagas and the Mabinogion.

Yet there are older gods of Greece – Gaia, Uranus and the Titans, twelve male and twelve female, including Chronos, Rhea and Oceanus. Votive offerings to Gaia, the primordial mother, have been found in Delphi, in the Corycian Cave above the Temple to Apollo from the Neolithic period (about 12,000 years ago). Gaia and her daughter, Themis, ruled at Delphi and there was a chapel to her there, though it was long ago absorbed into the larger Temple complex. As Nico, the museum employee in the novel, explains, in legend, the god Apollo arrived at Delphi to wrestle with the Python, the giant snake belonging to Gaia, and won; so he became the ruler of Delphi. It is thought that this represents a change of dominant culture as migrants, whom we now know as the Hellenes, came into Greece from the north. They eventually settled all of Greece and their gods were the Olympians.

Nonetheless the older gods continued to exist along side the new, as did their off-spring (unless they were thrown into the pit of Tartarus). These included some groups, or sets, of minor deities, like the Fates and the Furies. The latter trio, called the Erinye, were three women, often, especially in more modern times, portrayed with snakes for hair and flashing eyes, their hands dripping blood. The image, right, is of Clytemnestra attempting to wake the slumbering Furies to chase down Orestes in the Orestaia on a vase dating c.350 BCE. Delphi, it was believed, was the centre of the world and it is to the Temple of Apollo there that Orestes flees, calling upon the god to save him from the Furies.

I don’t know if the books which I read are still read today, I hope so, even as new games and films bring the ancient heroes and deities to life for another generation. This Pantheon is firmly anchored within western sensibilities. So much so that we even replicate the old jokes in new ways ( see image left ).

Oracle will be published in Spring 2021.

Location, location, location

Books, Plague

There are so many ways in which place is important to writers – we explored the subject in the first Clapham Book Festival back in 2016 ( see Place and the Writer ). One of the most common comments about Plague is that it is very much a London book, including as it does much about the city’s landscape, history and the forgotten subterranean world beneath it. The book certainly reminds those who have lived in or regularly visited London of a city they once knew ( I’ve received comments to this effect from other parts of the UK, from the US, from Australia and Malaysia, from Austria and from South Africa ). So it must be evocative.

The locations in the book range from an elegant Mayfair townhouse to an Elephant & Castle tower block. The Victorian streets of Clapham are home to my protagonist, while homeless character, Spikey Fullman haunts Shepherd’s Market, but bemoans the recent changes there as not conducive to a good night’s sleep. The venerable Palace of Westminster is a focal point, as are the streets close by – the Georgian terraces as well as the concrete civil service buildings. There are vistas from and of towers and high rises as well as the scenes beneath the earth and the main players walk all the major Westminster thoroughfares between Whitehall, the Embankment and St James, Bond Street and Pimlico.

One point to make about Plague is how far it has travelled, only six weeks into its published life. I have received snapshots of it on the Isle of Skye, in deepest Dorset, in the flatlands of East Anglia and in various parts of the north of England. I have yet to see it in Wales, Scotland or Northern Ireland (though I know it has been read there, because I have seen reviews on Goodreads and Amazon from readers who live there). Plague has also travelled internationally, from the lawn of a Normandy chateau (left) to a Californian balcony over-looking San Francisco Bay (above), from an American Naval Base to a tapas bar in Jerez (admittedly, that one, below, was with me).

Nonetheless, I was surprised to learn that my publishers, Claret Press, has entered the novel for the Ondaatje Prize. This award from the Royal Society of Literature is for a work of fiction, non-fiction or poetry, evoking the spirit of a place. The 2019 winner, Aida Edemariam, who wrote The Wife’s Tale, appeared at the Clapham Book Festival that year in conversation with Michele Roberts. My book is commercial fiction and, while there’s nothing wrong with that, it is, after all, what Dickens would have claimed to write, I wonder if it’s really the sort of book the prize judges will be looking for. More promising, maybe, are entries in the Crime Writers Association Daggers, including the John Creasy (New Blood) Dagger and the Ian Fleming Steel Dagger. Watch this space, as they say in cliche-land.

I, meanwhile, am busy writing the sequel (earlier this week while awaiting a late flight at Sevilla airport, see left, which prompted the thoughts for this article ). Oracle takes place in a very different location to London, at an isolated cultural centre half-way up Mount Parnassus in Greece, close to the ancient site of the Temple of Apollo at Delphi. It is a place both very dramatic and beautiful and is timeless. Its location is central to the novel, not just to the plot, but that’s because place is very important to me as a writer.