There was the beginning yesterday of an event which I hope will be repeated. It was a sort of travelling party. Jane Finnis, Rebecca Jenkins, Jennifer Palmer, myself and assorted family all met up in Manchester for a very merry lunch in Bella Italia and then went for a shufti round the newly re-opened costume museum. Good friends, decent food and something interesting to look at… Good all round, yes?
Jane Finnis, of course, writes the adventures of the Roman innkeeper, Aurelia, which happen round Aurielia’s inn, The Oak Tree, on the road to York. Rebecca Jenkins’ hero is the ex-cavalry officer, Raif Jarret, is the Duke of Penrith’s agent in 1811, who discovers murder and mayhem in Durham and the surrounding countryside and I, of course, chronicle the adventures of Jack Haldean, the ex-R.F.C. pilot, in the 1920’s. So, as yesterday was a new beginning, I thought it would be a nice idea to see where Jane, Rebecca and my fictional counterparts began!
It was a beautiful August dawn, the best sort of summer weather. The only thing that spoilt it was the body.
I didn’t notice him at first. I unbolted the front door and strolled out across the forecourt and up the short track to the main road, enjoying the fresh morning air. The market day traffic was coming down the hill, heading into town. I watched three farmers leading donkeys loaded with baskets of vegetables, then a creaking ox-cart piled with sacks, and two barefoot girls carrying a cage of chickens and driving some goats. The goats scattered as one of our neighbours trotted past in a smart Roman two-wheeled gig, calling out ‘Morning, Aurelia,’ and I gave him a wave. A gang of native field-slaves shambled into view, driven uphill by a couple of mounted Roman overseers with whips. One of the natives turned and spat in my direction when the overseers weren’t looking. The low sunlight coloured everything gold, even the scruffy slaves.
Get Out Or Die by Jane Finnis.
It was early evening in late July. The vast sky was brushed with clouds. Pinks intermixed with soft blues and dim charcoal all hung against a luminous satin ground. A rider plodded along the path that ran through the wide expanse of wheat grass spreading out to the horizon. Both man and horse bore themselves with that air of detached resignation common to travellers who know it is a steady pace that goes the distance. The road crept up a broad flank of land then dropped towards a squat manor house tucked away in a dell. At the shoulder of the rise the rider checked his horse. Straightening his back and rubbing the aching muscle at his neck, he sat contemplating the scene before him.
The Duke’s Agent by Rebecca Jenkins
With a feeling of relief, Jack Haldean walked into the dim green interior of the beer-tent. My word, it was like an oven out there. A noisy oven, where the laboured thump of the Breedenbrook band mixed with the shrieks of excited children on the helter-skelter, hoarse shouts from the hoop-la and coconut shies, sharp cracks from the rifle-range and the hollow, oddly mournful music of the steam-organ on the roundabouts, all grilling under a blazing sun.
He took off his straw hat and fanned himself. It was easily as hot as Spain, the difference being that no Spaniard, and certainly none of his relations, ever expected him to do anything in the middle of the day but sleep. They certainly wouldn’t lug him out to a village fête.
Haldean found a space on a bench and wriggled his backbone into a comfortable position against a sturdy tent-pole. His cousin, Gregory Rivers, was standing at the trestle-table bar, waiting patiently to be served. Haldean relaxed, soaking up the low rumble of conversation, savouring the contrast between the muffled din outside and the slow, placid voices within. The smell of hot canvas, the smell of hot grass, the pungent reek of tobacco and the sweet smell of beer…
“Cheers,” said Greg, handing him a pewter mug. He took a long drink. “Good Lord, I needed that.” He looked at Haldean suspiciously. “You seem jolly pleased with yourself.”
A Fête Worse Than Death by Dolores Gordon-Smith
Sunday, July 17, 2011
Saturday, July 9, 2011
Frankie's Letter
I had some great news yesterday. Severn House are going to publish my First World War spy story, Frankie’s Letter. So that was two bottles of champagne and some pretty hearty celebrating chez Gordon-Smith.
Incidentally, the first chapter’s on the Books page of the website, if you’d like a preview.
Frankie’s Letter was a real labour of love. First and foremost a spy thriller, yes, and, I hope, a cracking good story, but also the result of a ridiculous amount of thought and research about the First World War. For instance, I was lucky enough to attend a two-day conference at the University of Birmingham run by Professor Gary Sheffield, one of the foremost historians of WW1, and, over an absorbing couple of days, got some real historical insights that were reflected in the book.
One point I did want to make (and this fitted very nicely with the story) was that the people who actually fought the war didn’t think it was a futile struggle. They thought it was an essential fight for survival that couldn’t be avoided, anymore than the Second World War could have been sidestepped. After the war was over, you’d expect, wouldn’t you, to have a flood of memoirs and war-based fiction. In fact, there was a curious silence for about ten years. Oddly enough, the same thing happened with the Americans and Vietnam. That also took about ten years for the floodgates of war memoirs to open.
Maybe that length of time is needed to put such a massive event in perspective. Anyway, ten years on from 1918 brings us very neatly to the start of the Great Depression and, as the Thirties progressed, it isn’t surprising, in view of the horrific casualties, that people wondered what it had all been for. We’re still influenced by that view, but if you want to find out what it really was all for, I can heartily recommend Richard Holmes’ books Tommy and The Western Front, Gordon Corrigan’s Mud, Blood and Poppycock and Gary Sheffield’s Forgotten Victory.
Incidentally, the first chapter’s on the Books page of the website, if you’d like a preview.
Frankie’s Letter was a real labour of love. First and foremost a spy thriller, yes, and, I hope, a cracking good story, but also the result of a ridiculous amount of thought and research about the First World War. For instance, I was lucky enough to attend a two-day conference at the University of Birmingham run by Professor Gary Sheffield, one of the foremost historians of WW1, and, over an absorbing couple of days, got some real historical insights that were reflected in the book.
One point I did want to make (and this fitted very nicely with the story) was that the people who actually fought the war didn’t think it was a futile struggle. They thought it was an essential fight for survival that couldn’t be avoided, anymore than the Second World War could have been sidestepped. After the war was over, you’d expect, wouldn’t you, to have a flood of memoirs and war-based fiction. In fact, there was a curious silence for about ten years. Oddly enough, the same thing happened with the Americans and Vietnam. That also took about ten years for the floodgates of war memoirs to open.
Maybe that length of time is needed to put such a massive event in perspective. Anyway, ten years on from 1918 brings us very neatly to the start of the Great Depression and, as the Thirties progressed, it isn’t surprising, in view of the horrific casualties, that people wondered what it had all been for. We’re still influenced by that view, but if you want to find out what it really was all for, I can heartily recommend Richard Holmes’ books Tommy and The Western Front, Gordon Corrigan’s Mud, Blood and Poppycock and Gary Sheffield’s Forgotten Victory.
Saturday, July 2, 2011
E Book, anyone?
Have you got a Kindle or e-reader? The reason I’m asking is that Off The Record, Jack’s fifth adventure was published as an e-book on 1st July. Here’s a picture of Jack looking all suave on the cover. 
I wish this was Harry Potter land (I wish it was anyway!) because then the cover would move and show Jack doing all sorts of exciting things, like jumping off roofs, tackling villains, dodging bullets and thinking furiously. I’m not sure how you depict someone thinking furiously, as a matter of fact. Rodin, of course, sculpted The Thinker in the nude (maybe he’d just got out of the bath) and Sherlock Holmes always put on a dressing-gown to think, but Jack remains fully clothed with his brain buzzing.
Anyway, Off The Record got a cracking review from the Historical Novels Society. I’m not sure about the use of the word MacGuffin because, as I understand it, it was a term coined by Alfred Hitchcock to describe a fairly arbitrary object that the characters in a film charge round after, such as the diamond necklace or the secret cipher. It’s desperately important but doesn’t, in itself change things. Now I made my brain fizz with the all-singing, all-dancing recording machine in the book. I’ve invented strings of fabulous emeralds without any bother, but I had to work at this ruddy gramophone! I even (yes, I know, this is verging on the obsessive!) built myself a cat’s whiskers wireless just to see if I could. Anyway, these are mere straws and I won’t pick them, so to speak with a really great review. E book anyone?
Historical Novels Review, published by the Historical Novel Society (USA and UK) Issue 56, May 2011
Off The Record was Editor’s Choice
Recording tape and gramophones probably don’t sound like promising grounds for a novel, but in Off The Record the technology is the MacGuffin for a splendid mystery, a story so deftly put together I read it a second time to see how it worked.
The setting is 1920’s England. The First World War still haunts people who are now enduring the fading of the British Empire, the crumbling of social tradition.
In the village of Stoke Horam, opinionated baronial Charles Otterbourne has a gramophone factory. Nutty genius Alan Carrington comes to him with a revolutionary new idea for recording sound. They meet but don’t mesh. Soon bodies are showing up all over the place and detective story writer, Jack Haldean, who has captained several other novels by Gordon-Smith, comes in to make sense of it all.
Gordon-Smith’s writing is quick and sure; her characters emerge as real people within a few lines. The period dialog is especially good, colloquial with affectation and the historical detail, unobtrusive and precise, coveys a beautiful sense of the time before instant communication collapsed all our lives into a single moment.
Rereading the novel was a thorough pleasure. The plot is seamlessly assembled; Gordon-Smith, a devotee of Agatha Christie, puts the truth always there in front of you, manipulating emphasis and expectations to keep it all a surprise. The solution to the mystery, incorporating the technology that started everything off, ties up the whole story in a single satisfying knot. Off The Record should appeal equally to lovers of historical fiction and detective novels and doubly to fans of both.
Cecelia Holland
I wish this was Harry Potter land (I wish it was anyway!) because then the cover would move and show Jack doing all sorts of exciting things, like jumping off roofs, tackling villains, dodging bullets and thinking furiously. I’m not sure how you depict someone thinking furiously, as a matter of fact. Rodin, of course, sculpted The Thinker in the nude (maybe he’d just got out of the bath) and Sherlock Holmes always put on a dressing-gown to think, but Jack remains fully clothed with his brain buzzing.Anyway, Off The Record got a cracking review from the Historical Novels Society. I’m not sure about the use of the word MacGuffin because, as I understand it, it was a term coined by Alfred Hitchcock to describe a fairly arbitrary object that the characters in a film charge round after, such as the diamond necklace or the secret cipher. It’s desperately important but doesn’t, in itself change things. Now I made my brain fizz with the all-singing, all-dancing recording machine in the book. I’ve invented strings of fabulous emeralds without any bother, but I had to work at this ruddy gramophone! I even (yes, I know, this is verging on the obsessive!) built myself a cat’s whiskers wireless just to see if I could. Anyway, these are mere straws and I won’t pick them, so to speak with a really great review. E book anyone?
Historical Novels Review, published by the Historical Novel Society (USA and UK) Issue 56, May 2011
Off The Record was Editor’s Choice
Recording tape and gramophones probably don’t sound like promising grounds for a novel, but in Off The Record the technology is the MacGuffin for a splendid mystery, a story so deftly put together I read it a second time to see how it worked.
The setting is 1920’s England. The First World War still haunts people who are now enduring the fading of the British Empire, the crumbling of social tradition.
In the village of Stoke Horam, opinionated baronial Charles Otterbourne has a gramophone factory. Nutty genius Alan Carrington comes to him with a revolutionary new idea for recording sound. They meet but don’t mesh. Soon bodies are showing up all over the place and detective story writer, Jack Haldean, who has captained several other novels by Gordon-Smith, comes in to make sense of it all.
Gordon-Smith’s writing is quick and sure; her characters emerge as real people within a few lines. The period dialog is especially good, colloquial with affectation and the historical detail, unobtrusive and precise, coveys a beautiful sense of the time before instant communication collapsed all our lives into a single moment.
Rereading the novel was a thorough pleasure. The plot is seamlessly assembled; Gordon-Smith, a devotee of Agatha Christie, puts the truth always there in front of you, manipulating emphasis and expectations to keep it all a surprise. The solution to the mystery, incorporating the technology that started everything off, ties up the whole story in a single satisfying knot. Off The Record should appeal equally to lovers of historical fiction and detective novels and doubly to fans of both.
Cecelia Holland
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