Tag: crime

Blog Tour/Interview: The Dog Walker (The Detective’s Daughter #5) by Lesley Thomson

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I’m delighted to host today’s stop on the blog tour for The Dog Walker by Lesley Thomson, the fifth instalment in the bestselling The Detective’s Daughter series. Lesley has kindly agreed to answer some questions about the book, its inspiration and her approach to writing.

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TheDogWalkerCoverAbout the Book

A haunted house, a broken family and a body that has never been found. Stella and Jack must reawaken the secrets of the past in order to solve the mysteries of the present.

January, 1987. In the depths of winter, only joggers and dog walkers brave the Thames towpath after dark. Helen Honeysett, a young newlywed, sets off for an evening run from her riverside cottage. Only her dog returns. Twenty-nine years later, her husband has asked Stella Darnell, a private detective, and her sidekick Jack Harmon, to find out what happened all those years ago. But when the five households on that desolate stretch of towpath refuse to give up their secrets, Stella and Jack find themselves hunting a killer whose trail has long gone cold.

TheDogWalkerBook Facts

  • Format: Hardcover
  • Publisher: Head of Zeus
  • No. of pages: 400
  • Publication date: 6th April 2017
  • Genre: Crime

To purchase The Dog Walker from Amazon.co.uk, click here (link provided for convenience, not as part of any affiliate programme)

 

Q&A: Lesley Thomson, author of The Dog Walker

Without giving too much away, can you tell me a bit about The Dog Walker?

It’s a story of a place as much as of people. Five cottages near a dark lonely towpath beside the River Thames. The only people who go there at night are dog walkers and joggers. In 1987 a woman disappears and is presumed murdered. The crime is never solved. 29 years on the woman’s husband asks Jack and Stella to find out what happened to her. The story involves lots of scary scenes and a few dogs.

How did you come up with the idea for The Detective’s Daughter series and, in particular, the character of Stella?

A cleaner and a detective share something in common. Both encounter scenes of relative chaos and restore order. Both have a forensic eye for detail and get to enter a lot of different premises, legitimately. However, it struck me as interesting if the cleaner had a link to a detective yet was in contention with that role. Stella wanted to break away from her father so at eighteen refused to join the police. She struck out on her own as a cleaner. But as the series has progressed she grows closer to her dead father and accepts her ‘investigator’ heritage.

The Dog Walker is the fifth book in The Detective’s Daughter series.  What are the challenges of writing a series compared to a standalone novel?

There are not many. It’s a pleasure to revisit characters that develop with each novel. The main challenge is that previous books obviously set ‘facts’ in stone. Then again I like working within some boundaries; I have to dig deeper. Mainly though, a series gives me opportunities to develop less prominent characters, show the changes experience has wrought upon Jack and Stella over a longer story arc. One of these strands is the changing relationship between Stella and Jack and their personal journeys.

Are you a dog walker yourself?

I am. It’s how I came up with the idea. I walk my dog on dark early mornings in empty eerie places. One day it occurred to me that I assumed that the people I’d meet were other dog walkers and that therefore I was safe. But what if I was wrong?

You wrote a short story, The Runaway, about Stella’s childhood.  What was the motivation for this?

It was a chance to open a window into Stella’s past that in a novel would be a distraction from the story. I wanted to explore her early years – the seven year old Stella paid dearly for her parents’ break up – it has contributed to who she has become.

When writing, do you like to have the plot fully worked out or see where the story takes you?

Like Stella I’m a Spreadsheet Queen. I plot out the story, chapter by chapter, including who’s in each chapter, what happens and why. This plan will change as I write. I revisit the spreadsheet and add or takeaway proposed chapters. But I need to know the entire story before I start and this includes the final scene. Within the chapters things will happen that I hadn’t planned.

Do you have a special place to write or any writing rituals?

I write in a tiny study overlooking the Sussex Downs. Even when it’s grey and misty outside I have a long view and lots of light. I start at the same time every day, break for coffee at 11, lunch at 1 and a walk with the dog. Back after about an hour and then work until 5.30. I drink from a particular mug that I never use outside work time (you did ask). I could go on, but best that I don’t….

What other writers do you admire?

Many, but here’s a few: Wilkie Collins, The Brontës, Charles Dickens, Patricia Highsmith, Ruth Rendell and Ngaio Marsh. Contemporary: Elly Griffiths, Tana French, Michael Connelly, Kate Atkinson and Donna Tartt.

I know you teach creative writing.  What is the main piece of advice you give your students?

To get inside the story you’re telling, live and breathe it; believe in its truth. Write the story you want to read, not one you think others would like because how can you cover everyone’s tastes? Above all: keep writing.

What are you working on next?  Are there further cases waiting for Stella?

Yes there are. Stella and Jack move to the countryside to try to solve the murder of a young woman forty years ago. Living in a large old house in the middle of nowhere gradually, as the clues fall into place, they see that the murderer is still out there.

Thank you, Lesley, for those fascinating answers – especially the clues about the next The Detective’s Daughter book!

LesleyThomsonAbout the Author

Lesley Thomson grew up in west London. Her first novel, A Kind of Vanishing, won the People’s Book Prize in 2010. Her second novel, The Detective’s Daughter, was a #1 bestseller and sold over 500,000 copies. Lesley combines writing with teaching creative writing. She lives in Lewes with her partner.

Connect with Lesley

Website http://lesleythomson.co.uk/
Facebook https://www.facebook.com/LesleyThomsonNovelist?ref=tn_tnmn

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Blog Tour: Faithless by Kjell Ola Dahl

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FaithlessBlogTour

I’m delighted to be today’s stop on the blog tour for Faithless by Kjell Ola Dahl. You can read my review of this dark, brooding Nordic Noir thriller below.

FaithlessAbout the Book

When the body of a woman turns up in a dumpster, scalded and wrapped in plastic, Inspector Frank Frølich is shocked to discover that he knows her—and their recent meetings may hold the clue to her murder. As he begins to look deeper into the tragic events surrounding her death, Frølich’s colleague Gunnarstranda finds another body, and things take a more sinister turn. With a cold case involving the murder of a young girl in northern Norway casting a shadow, and an unsettling number of coincidences clouding the plot, Frølich is forced to look into his own past to find the answers – and the killer – before he strikes again. Dark, brooding and utterly chilling, atmospheric page-turner marks the return of an internationally renowned and award-winning series, from one of the fathers of Nordic Noir.

To purchase Faithless from Amazon.co.uk, click here (link provided for convenience, not as part of any affiliate programme)

My Review (4 out of 5)

I really enjoyed this book and I particularly liked the different characters making up the police team. It took me a while to figure out their professional relationships – who was the boss of who, and so on – and I guess I missed knowing more of their back story that must have been played out in earlier books in the series.    Frølich is an interesting character who comes across as rather solitary, lonely even with no current relationship. In that respect, he reminded me of Colin Dexter’s Inspector Morse.   In this case, Frølich feels conflicted and compromised by an old friend’s connection with the victim, particularly since it reawakens troubling memories from his childhood.

I liked the way that various attitudes to modern day policing were covered. There is Gunnarstranda, suspicious of the “new ways” – data analysis, sifting through CCTV footage, etc – instead clinging to a belief in the value of face-to-face conversations to get to the truth. He also has a strong “sixth sense” when danger lurks. Lena is more into action, whatever it takes to nail a suspect, with sometimes a seemingly casual regard for her own safety. And there is the boss, Rindal, focused on the need to use resources effectively.

The author deftly manages a number of different plot strands – a missing Nigerian woman, a spate of burglaries and the discovery of a dead body that has chilling echoes of an earlier murder.   Dahl constantly plays with the reader’s expectations of how these different strands might come together and introduces a number of plausible suspects to keep one guessing right up to the end. I was certainly led up a few garden paths to some red herrings!

I really enjoyed reading Faithless and I will certainly look out for other titles by the author.

I received an advance reader copy courtesy of publishers, Orenda Books, in return for an honest review.

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In three words: Dark, suspenseful, page-turner

DahlKjellOlaAbout the Author

One of the fathers of the Nordic Noir genre, Kjell Ola Dahl was born in 1958 in Gjøvik. He made his debut in 1993, and has since published eleven novels, the most prominent of which is a series of police procedurals cum psychological thrillers featuring investigators Gunnarstranda and Frølich. In 2000 he won the Riverton Prize for The Last Fix and he won both the prestigious Brage and Riverton Prizes for The Courier in 2015. His work has been published in 14 countries, and he lives in Oslo.