My first ever independent blog review and interview

 Drink with a dead man reviewed on Carol McKay's Lockdown book blog https://carolmckay.blogspot.com/2021/03/sandra-davies-drink-with-dead-man.html

'Drink with a dead man' - now available

 

Book 4 in the Love triangles with murder series featuring DI Luke Darbyshere 

Eight years ago Kit Talamantes faked his own death. When he receives notification of a wedding which cannot be allowed to proceed he has no choice but to return to England to correct mistakes made in his previous life. But who has summoned him? And why?

Similarly unexpectedly Edinburgh crime reporter Baz Rose hears of a proposed, and potentially problematic, reunion for four ex-uni friends who fled apart on graduation.

DI Luke Darbyshere receives a tip-off more interesting for its provenance than its content. In pursuing that he finds himself in professional conflict with the woman who, having given him six months to convince her they should marry, is struggling to solve a murder.

And Drew Bishop is determined on revenge.

ebook available https://www.blurb.co.uk/ebooks/p4a4655bbcf101d007e50

https://www.blurb.co.uk/b/10624440-drink-with-a-dead-man

Mercy for a Friday child

 ... is beginning to grow. 

Among the conversations which I've known Luke and Baz and Fran must have, as a result of what happened in 'Snap',  a new murder story is beginning to emerge, and make connections to what has gone on in the past. 

Very early days yet, but finding the perfect title  - which then gave impetus and focus to a rag-bag of semi thought-out scenes - and designing the cover has further helped it find a shape.

Top Ten books read for the first time in 2020

The events of 2020 weren't necessarily the reason I exceeded my Goodreads target of 165, and 179 not my highest total anyway. Several were slender but intense poetry books; the fattest an unintentional re-read of Jilly Cooper's 'Riders'.  (There were quite a lot of comforting re-reads, but that forty-four  of them were five star has to be a reason for celebration.) 

So, in no particular order, these, read for the first time, were (probably) my top Ten.

Stan Barstow A kind of loving: I am kicking myself for not having read this when it was first published. So real, so authentic, such depth of philosophy from Vic Brown, and so painful a series of events.

Jane Casey: The Cutting Edge: I cleared the day to read this. Followed the sun from the front of the house to the back and finished with a satisfied sigh after five.

James Cormac: The Surfacing: Without doubt, it was the writing - un-showy and quiet - that so superbly sustained this. All the more spectacularly for the white blankness of the landscape and the sustaining of the tedium of the days

Claire Fuller Our endless Numbered days: That, in all its oddness and its fairy-tale-for-adults atmosphere, it immediately ensnared me and kept me glued until I finished it, says much for the mesmeric quality of the writing, which maintained an the ever-present potential for evil all the way through.

Lesley Glaister: Easy Peasy:  Nuances and depths of each of the characters; the understanding the capacity for cruelty we all possess, the misunderstandings and ignorances of childhood, the later fears and inappropriate behaviours as adults.

Mary Loudon: My house is falling down: It left me reeling, wondering about what if and why and how and what.

Benjamin Myers: The Offing : I didn't anticipate this being such a smooth and sweet and easy read; another one begun at lunch and finished before tea.

Michael Ondaajte: Warlight: That, in all its oddness and its fairy-tale-for-adults atmosphere, it immediately ensnared me and kept me glued until, in the second sitting, I finished it, says much for the mesmeric quality of the writing, which maintained an the ever-present potential for evil all the way through.

Ray Robinson: The mating habits of Stags:  a book about place and relationships, regret and misunderstandings, the tension of it tight and gently ever-winding,  beautifully, mesmerisingly told

Frank Westworth’s ‘Killing sisters’ trilogy: Hell. I've just finished this and feel as if I've been mugged. 

And having come

The resting not for so long as intended since other writings either progressed or failed to ignite. So I returned to 'Snap is not a children's game, re-read it, adding needed detail in the early pages, aids to understanding in the later ones and removing duplication. Later chapters needed more and the final one might not be completed until I see where the as yet untitled Book Six looks like heading. (Characters caught me out in this one, either acting not as anticipated or returning unsummoned from another country.)

I counted the words as I dealt with each section, totted them up, and then the time it has taken to get from setting down its intended beginning to yesterday's final 'Save' - a mere thirteen months. Not that it felt that quick, the months and months I laboured over Theo's story, but it's a huge improvement on the four years of 'Drink with a dead man', and even more so on the eight years of 'Step so grave' 

'Snap is not a children's game' - cards dealt, now resting

First draft of 'Snap is not a children's game' - book 5 in the 'Love triangles with murder' series featuring DI Luke Darbyshere - today completed at ~96000 words.

Now to let it rest for a bit, so I can come to it fresh and see where all the plotholes are.

Love triangles with murder - now available as ebooks

I've FINALLY got my act together and made available as ebooks my Love triangles with murder series:

Step so grave  - 440 pp - is the first: https://www.blurb.co.uk/ebooks/704104-step-so-grave

Second - 373 pp - is Longest shadows reach: https://www.blurb.co.uk/ebooks/704317-longest-shadows-reach

Third, Commission and omission - 405 pp: https://www.blurb.co.uk/eboo…/704107-commission-and-omission

At £3.99 each, that works out at a penny per page.

Brilliant Blurb!

Uploaded to Blurb Saturday afternoon - received before midday today. To-be-proofed copies of 'Drink with a dead man' plus an anthology of my favourite stories from the past nine years.

Commission & omission

When Chloë Carrington, successful but predatory gallery owner of a North Yorkshire gallery, is found dead the morning after a Private View, first to come under suspicion is Annabel, the pregnant, soon-to-be-wife of wealthy ex-criminal Ed Hetherington.
Second is publicity-shy artist Ivo Kinnersley whose exhibition it is.

Despite a multitude of motives, and many witnesses, evidence to convict either proves elusive. The discovery of a new lead coincides with Ed’s fortieth birthday, interrupting a weekend of celebrations during which DI Luke Darbyshere learns that Ivo Kinnersley has not only already escaped one murder charge, but also shares a past and a secret with the woman with whom he wants to spend the rest of his life.

(Prediction Fiction participants might be pleased to know Pettinger plays a part in this.)

Longest shadows reach

‘Step so grave’ indicated a wealth of history between Luke Darbyshere and Baz Rose. They’d been born within a week of each other; lived half mile apart, in a Hertfordshire village small enough to allow no escape.  Each came successfully  through adolescence courtesy of Susannah Elphinstone (Baz two years before Luke).

Before puberty was reached, however, Susannah, to some extent, made an already horrific situation worse, the results of which came back with a vengeance 24 years later.

‘Longest shadows reach’ reveals how nurture and nature influenced what came next.

Inspiratiion and coincidence - 'Longest shadows reach'

A huge stroke of luck kick-started ‘Longest shadows reach; the second book in the Love triangles with murder’ series.

A part-remembered house, seen from the top deck of the school bus. Turrets and chimneys, emerging from a sea of tree-tops. One day it disappeared and there were times I thought I might’ve dreamt it. I Googled it. Struck lucky. Found a photo of it on Flickr. It looked like the perfect place for a murder.

Luckier still – pure serendipity –  the photo had been taken by someone I’d sat next to in primary school. He was kind enough to give me permission to use it on the cover.

Available to buy from mid-September

'Step so grave' - at last!

and now available via Blurb

Eight years ago I signed up for NaNoWriMo 2011 with plans to write a murder mystery (a genre I then knew little of).

I had a title. An idea: a cruise ship on which brides were bumped off to order. I had back stories for a dozen honeymooning couples; for ship’s crew and owners (some good, some bad). Best of all I had DI Luke Darbyshere and crime reporter Baz Rose, whose from-the-cradle friendship had turned toxic. All I needed to do was convincingly bump off a few brides under suspicious circumstances, by person-as-yet-unguessed-at, for reasons I could not begin to imagine.

Nearly eight years later, the final, final version of ‘Step so Grave’ is available to order.

Not only did the original undergo a change of title and me commence a steep learning curve – simultaneously reading some 700 crime novels and learning how to structure a readable novel – but, thanks to fellow writers and a succession of beta readers, asking pertinent questions and pointing out self-indulgences I reached a point where Step so grave was far removed from a shitty first draft and, having undergone eleven rewrites, became something I’m confident enough about to release upon a paying public. [Click on the link via the image in the sidebar]

<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/50219754-step-so-grave" style="float: left; padding-right: 20px"><img border="0" alt="Step so grave (Love triangles with murder #1)" src="https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1563968396l/50219754._SX98_SY160_.jpg" /></a><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/50219754-step-so-grave">Step so grave</a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/1226042.Sandra_Davies">Sandra   Davies</a><br/>

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Available from: <a target="_blank" rel="noopener nofollow" href="https://www.blurb.co.uk/b/9633748-step-so-grave">https://www.blurb.co.uk/b/9633748-ste...</a>

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<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/list/8882805-sandra">View all my reviews</a>

Words paint pictures

Said so often but it really came home to me today when, having finished reading an admirably detailed police procedural, the main characters and their activities described with warmth; the progression of the plot with clarity, I returned to continue with the writing of one of mine.

I was immediately struck with the comparative stark sketchiness of my version of a police briefing. Perhaps because the book just finished* dealt with painting, I realised that my paintings and prints similarly outline; drawn with the minimum of detail for the viewer to get the gist.

In part, with writing, my knowledge of police briefings is scant enough to provide a reason for lack of detail, yet I am reluctant to go seek it, believing readers deserve to exercise their imagination.

 The degree to which they wish to has, of course, an impact on how much they are likely to enjoy my books. When I finally get them published (and this one I'm only 80% through writing.)

*Jackie Baldwin's 'Perfect Dead', set in Dumfries & Galloway, much of the action in 'art town' Kirkcudbright.

Just signed up for this

http://www.crimeandpublishment.co.uk

- I so missed it last year. One of the friendliest writing groups you could wish to meet.

Temptation

Sun through the cracks between the barn’s roof timbers created stripes alive with husk-freed motes, dancing witless as dervishes and spot-lighting his discarded trousers, their corduroy putting me in mind not only of Oliver Mellors but also a September-ploughed field. 

Similarly post-harvest, the blond stubble of his beard had brought my skin to cherry-ripe.

His voice, husky as a post-gig Springsteen, had murmured hot encouragement, his fingers skilfully tickled my fancy, but ultimately everything he offered failed to match the pull of  new scarlet, liquid scatter-patterning the polished silver curve of a sickle.

Stand-out books of 2018

Dirt Road - James Kelman,          

This another of those books - told from a single point of view - that requires a change of mindset, of mental pace, to read but it was so very worthwhile for the thought-provoking depths of it. Murdo's struggling to cope with grief and the adolescent bursting for independence, in America rather than Scotland (so all the more dislocating) - plus the insight into experiencing the joys of playing music were impressively told and made for a very satisfying read.

The Lesser Bohemians Eimear McBride

This is more than reading a story. It is the absorption into another's head, another's life and experiences and so intense, and so throat-aching, it could only be absorbed in relatively short doses - I needed to stop for a breather. The writing - "stream of existence rather than consciousness" - is what sets it above and beyond much writing of relationships, and sets a new standard for would-be writers about sex and being with another, about honesty and what happens when one lies.

The Handless Maiden – Vicki Feaver

This contains 'Judith' which blew my breath away and introduced me to the gut-wrenching, mind-blowing use of words, creation of new imagery to be enjoyed and enjoyed again and again in Vicki Feaver's poetry,.

A Natural – Ross Raisin

Amazing for more than holding my interest throughout, despite my considerable scorn for all that is football. This was a weightily emotion-packed novel, full of well-drawn characters. The sense of doom inescapable, my involvement total. And yet so much, so many of the turning points were feather-light.,

Unexploded – Alison MacLeod

Sense of place and time wonderfully evoked. The treatment of aliens and prisoners, the suspicions of Brighton's residents, the inexperienced lack of thought and brutality of those in authority make this a rich experience. The tension, so gradual and so pessimistic, and the collision of several dreadful possibilities perfectly executed. And above all the relationships, the push-pull of marriage, the betrayals small and large, the compromises, painfully true to life. 

The Rules of Backyard Cricket – Jock Serong

The pace of this, the delivery and impact of the telling mimics that of a bowled cricket ball and, to continue the obvious parallel, hits the wicket every time. Or the bat, sweet enough to soar, along with the reader's admiration and heart-broken attention every time. Heartbreaking it is, and you don't need to know anything about cricket to fully appreciate the skill with which this tale is told.

 London Rules/ Smoke and Whispers –  Mick Herron

I really cannot praise London Rules highly enough. Like all of Mick Herron's Slough House series the protagonists are an endless source of entertainment, the pace is lunatic and the observations so incredibly sharp they tingle one's brain.

I came away from Smoke and Mirrors thonking what a clever brain Sarah Tucker has. As does her creator. And what a wonderful, exhilarating book this was.

Cairo -  Chris Womersley

Read on a plane in one single sitting, absorbed and admiring of the way the tale was built to hold so much tension and the insight into the mind and emotions of Tom Button. Manipulation par excellence

Bone Deep – Sandra Ireland

 Very slightly less amazing than 'Beneath the Skin', but nevertheless un-put-downable and read in virtually one sitting. The writing so lucid, the tales told with clarity, the tension slow-paced but no less taut and the brooding sense of place over-arching.

If I Should Die – Matthew Frank

I'm very grateful to the assistant in Glasgow's Argyle Street Waterstones who recommended Matthew Frank to me then gently insisted I begin with this rather than 'Between Crosses', which he had on the shelf. More than lived up to its promise, for characters - physically flawed, war-damaged trainee detective, anti-bullshit female Caribbean DS, plus more - plot, setting and 100% enjoyment. An extremely satisfying read.

Blue Night –  Simone Buchholz

This was superb - a female character with an initially off-putting, chick-lit type name, who was one of the most believable and appealing protagonists I've read in a long time: ballsy but suffers doubts, and has a strong moral streak. But above all it was the quality of the writing - and the translation - which shot it up to a five star rating almost from the first page. Pity it is the tenth in the series but only the first to have been translated into English

49 of the 175 books read this year were five-star, of which 18 were binge re-reads of previously much-enjoyed books - Peter Temple and Andrew Greig to name but two. Six of the above were new discoveries - long may that keep happening!

Poems of the decade 1992-2001

I have no recollection of buying or otherwise obtaining this book - it has been on the shelf for a decade or more and, from the pristineness of its pages, never opened. Taking it into the toilet, reading a poem or more on each visit - and several re-read several times - has given me a great deal of pleasure.

127 poems, written in the 1990s. Only two did I find unreadable. A dozen I noted as especially impactful, for reasons of thought-provoking, memory-reviving or the simple enjoyment of the choosing and putting together  words and how they told the intentions of the poet. One such was Vicki Feaver's 'Judith', on the strength of which I bought two more of her books. And intend to look out for more of other poets.

Those I pink-stickered include Thom Gunn, Stuart Henson, Mimi Khalvati, Roddy Lumsden, Les Murray, Stephanie Norgate, Evangeline Paterson, Robin Robertson,  Vernon Scannell and Jean Sprackand.

Delivery of a secret fantasy

‘It’s a smallish nuisance, yes.’

In her world that meant catastrophic. Instant dismissal for the culprit. For some crime as heinous as the wrong choice of cup for her afternoon tea.

But she wasn’t in her world. And those five words, hinting at an unspeakable problem, confirming an unavoidable and regrettably indefinable absence, the last she’d say.

Smut-dusted fingers seized her phone. Scarlet mouth, in a face the more barbaric for its creases being grimed with black smiled wetly.

‘Sweetling, you should’ve known the best place to come for more than fifty shades of grey would be a charcoal-burner’s hut.’ 

Heightened awareness

As with a daylight visit to a nightclub, when the morning-after, melancholic echo of late-night jazz brings only sour emptiness and headache, the reality of spunk-starched sheets and stickiness, stale breath and stubble rash, rarely failed to deduct pleasure from the memory of the night.

Not until my eyes alighted on the tawdry apparatus for the drugs we’d taken, until I heard the crackle of the plastic as I turned, saw your tethered wrists, your staring, sightless eyes, did I understand why the ecstasy of last night’s orgasm was so vividly recalled.

Going out tonight?

I checked my watch. Asked my brother, ‘She ready yet?’

‘Nah. Bet you a pound to a penny she’s on the phone to her sister. Waffles on for hours, saying sweet FA.’

Impatient – we were already twenty minutes late – I went upstairs, with the intention of knocking on the bedroom door; geeing her up. Came down without doing so.

‘Told you so –‘

I looked at him. Obdurate old sod but heart in the right place. As was hers. After I told him what I’d overheard – no sisterly conversation necessitates those sort of responses! – he knew exactly where to strike.

Duplicity

Summer mornings, spine unwilling to support me, knuckles galled but brain bright as ever I dictate my novels from the chaise longue beside the French windows. (Wintertime I transfer to its twin, beside the fireplace.)

‘A cat!’ you cry, occasioning a hiatus in my concentration. Together we watched it stalk and fail to catch its quarry. My next sentence lacks precision.

‘Scrub that,’ (an ugly phrase I learned from you). I watch as you apparently obey, unaware you expect me to die before your perfidy becomes known.

Before this latest book is published. My words. Your name upon the cover.

Caveat emptor

Even before I introduced myself I scored her ten out of ten for truthfulness: “5’9”, dark hair and classy” exactly as advertised. Mesmerised by fingernails the exact same shade as the chillies inserted into each green olive, by lips glistening as she placed them, one by one into her mouth I contemplated challenging her claim of “celibate”, imagining her straddling me; those nails scoring scarlet across my chest.

I ordered a second bottle, to be delivered to my room.

There, conversation turned to what I assumed was consent. Until fingers turned guardian, became portcullis. When I further demurred, to scalpel.

The necessity of cosmetic

From her bedroom a flare of conversation through a just-opened door; cut-off laughter. Her reflection grimaced back at her, picturing guilt; laughter was for post-burial, after whisky had begun to flow. 

Carefully she applied paler-than-customary lipstick; a sleepless smudge of eye-shadow beneath her eyes. Brushed cheap mascara to which she was allergic: that would ensure she cried.

The flimsy black silk, insufficient for the frosty temperature would set her shivering even as she imagined the heat at the core of the crematorium furnace.

It would not do to abnegate grieving widow until the evidence had been well and truly incinerated.

Proposal

A monochrome mooring of black barges edged the bank of a silver-sheened canal, mercury disturbed only by the slow-unfurling wake from a stately swan, unveering even when it lifted and readjusted its wing, smoothly efficient as royalty exiting a carriage.

We paused to watch. I slid my arm around you, refraining from breaking the silence, recalling what you’d said about swans mating for life. Emulating its elegant efficiency I slid my hand into my pocket, fingered the smoothness of what lay within. 

The only alteration I wanted to my life was to add a splash of scarlet to the scene. 

What Elsie would’ve told them if she could

Last week Michael waited ‘til I’d bought an orange one then asked for spearmint. I’d never heard of them. Pale bluey-green colour and thick because, he said, of being made of milk. Wouldn’t even give me a lick.

I heard the chimes, watched the pretty painted van park across the road. Mummy’d said no pocket money for being naughty so I took my silver threepence out my money-box.

The smiley ice-cream man had a pirate scarf and earrings. Said it’d be a shame and I could earn threepence by coming on board and tidying the lolly sticks.

So I did. 

Godfather

He preferred her face soap-scrubbed. Hair tied back with velvet ribbons; mouth unsmiling, eyes lowered in imitation of a purged and penitent Benedictine nun.

The first time he asked, and every time thereafter, he quoted Tennyson’s hackneyed invitation. Obtained parental permission to stroll with her to where there were trees enough to render the fleeing of the poet’s ‘black bat ‘ of night unnecessary. Distant enough for cries of passion to go unheard.

She had long ceased wondering if he’d had this in mind when, twelve years ago, he held her at the baptismal font and named her Maud.

Holiday reading

Even this far north ‘Midnight sun’ a misnomer, its vermilion orb already dipped below the horizon as the haar comes in on the tide, thickening a silence broken only by the gentle huff of foam rearranging stones; the melancholy piping of invisible oyster-catchers.

Then your voice, inappropriate as a cockatoo, ‘Wanna halfa orange?’ You divide one then hand me both knife and dripping semi-sphere, turn your half inside-out and begin slurping at its pulp.

The knife is sharper than the orange flesh, but sweeter still the thought that Ann Cleeve’s Jimmy Perez is about to have another murder to solve. 

Perusing the small print

DISENCHANTED-BY-PEDIGREE DIVORCÉE, 39, SEEKS MONGREL HUNGRY FOR ADVENTURE.

‘She saying she’s a dog?’

‘Nah. Posh bitch wanting a bit of rough –‘

Grin widened as he brought his pint glass to his mouth, ‘Rough I can do –‘

‘She don’t necessarily mean use your fists –‘

‘What then? Tie ‘er up and suchlike? Whips and kinky boots?’

‘You got any kinky boots?’

‘Only what I wear for work. And they’d need cleaning –‘

‘Get her to clean them. Use her tongue –‘

‘Then stick it into me mouth? Not bloody likely!’

‘S’pose not. Same again? ’

‘Victoria Bitter. Ta, mate.

’

Acquiescence

In a voice soft as a lullaby, sung by a mother tip-toeing  from the pastel-painted room wherein, spread-eagled, lay her sleeping babe, tiny fingers folded and sucking blister still anointed with a gleaming drop of bluish milk, he said, ‘You will.’

I too spread-eagled, but not from choice: wrists and ankles tethered with coarse strips of chemical-impregnated sacking which irritated my already-chafed-to-rawness tender skin.

My voice just as muted. My screams had been silenced with breath-taking brutality, as evidenced from the grape-sized bruises to my throat, if not my now fear-flaccid lungs.

And because I knew I had no choice.

Takes two to tango

Garlic breath and vindaloo-derived stomach-gurgles undoubtedly a counter-indicator to a night of passion, even had I believed his claim of a magnificence of other attributes. (Such claims, from experience, I had learnt to divide by two or even three to come somewhere near the truth.)  

Yet his conversation was stimulating, his sense of humour (from whence derived his self-promotion) on a par with mine. So we had reached the door of my apartment before I finally decided ‘No’. Whereupon he proved himself much the faster at bundling fake civility out of sight. To reveal a knife more magnificent than mine.