Grace

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Contributor: Rosalind Esche

At the beginning of lockdown in the spring of 2020 I thought I would make use of the extra time at home to catch up on my ever growing, and increasingly daunting, ‘to be read’ pile, which in my imagination had assumed an accusatory air, with each new tome added increasing my sense of failure. However, I found myself unable to pick up a book, my concentration was in shreds, my motivation non existent. This ‘reader’s block’ lasted for several months, during which I turned to the uplifting and life affirming drama series Life on Mars, which became my lifeline, as it did for so many others. And it was a tv drama which finally kickstarted me into reading again – the ITV adaptation of Peter James’s Roy Grace novel Dead Simple, starring John Simm as Detective Superintendent Grace. I enjoyed the dramatisation so much I decided to read the book, and that was it – I was hooked, and have been powering through the Roy Grace series ever since.

I like the cumulative effect of binge reading these books, I feel immersed in Detective Superintendent Roy Grace’s world, his thought processes, his working methods, his relationships and his city, Brighton. I am completely absorbed by the authenticity for which Peter James is known and respected. I am learning things about police investigation methods I didn’t know I even wanted to know! Have I always been a closet police procedural nerd without realising it? Or have these compelling books turned me into one? I don’t know, but I’m so glad I discovered this series.

The author steadily builds an atmosphere of deep concentration, absolute dedication and quiet reflection, creating an aura of resolute professionalism around his Detective Superintendent Roy Grace as he takes control of a major crime investigation. Grace exudes calm authority, and is liked and respected by his team of trusted officers, which expands into a cast of dozens as an investigation gains momentum and the field of enquiry grows ever wider. 

However, Detective Superintendent Roy Grace, consummate professional that he is, is also capable of pursuing his own lines of enquiry outside the normal investigative framework when he thinks it will help solve a case. And that can lead him into some most unusual territory. Grace uses the paranormal if he thinks it will help his investigation (openly admitting that sometimes it does, and sometimes it doesn’t), consulting mediums and pendulum dowsers. James has said that the police do this more than we might think, simply viewing them as another resource in the pursuit of information, which intrigued me.

In the first Grace book, Dead Simple, the detective faces a hostile QC who tries to undermine his authority in court by ridiculing his use of a medium during the course of an investigation (which led to a conviction). The silk taunts Grace with his line of questioning:

‘”So you regularly turn to the dark arts in your work as a senior police officer, do you Detective Superintendent Grace?” An audible snigger rippled round the courtroom. “I wouldn’t call it the dark arts,” Grace said. “I would call it an alternative resource. The police have a duty to use everything at their disposal in trying to solve crimes.” “So would it be fair to say you are a man of the occult? A believer in the supernatural?” the silk asked.’

In one of my favourite moments of the book, Peter James supplies his beleagured Detective Superintendent with an inspired response to his interrogator:

‘”What is the first thing this court required me to do when I entered the witness stand?” he asked. Before the silk could respond, Grace answered for him. “To swear on the Holy Bible.” He paused for it to sink in. “God is a supernatural being – the supreme supernatural being. In a court that accepts witnesses taking an oath to a supernatural being, it would be strange if I and everyone else in this room did not believe in the supernatural.”’

The silk sits down.

There is another reason for Grace consulting mediums and the paranormal, but that will have to wait …

I know I have books that I will never open, and on a few occasions I’ve bought them just because they are beautiful to look at!

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Contributor: Alison Bruce

Have you read more or less during lockdown, or much the same as usual?

I don’t think I have read more, but on balance the books are slightly changed and I think I have read more audiobooks, a similar amount of physical books but less e-books.

Has lockdown affected your choice of reading material?

No, I still choose crime.

Have you been using reading in a particular way – for example for comfort, raising your spirits, escapism, distraction?

I have at times used audiobooks as company in the middle of the night, but apart from that, I have just picked the books that look like an interesting mystery.

Have you been finding it harder to concentrate during lockdown?

I have had an unusual lockdown in that I have started a new job and moved house and got divorced all in the space of a few months, all of that while trying to write a book has made it difficult to concentrate at times, but I can’t really blame any of it on lockdown or Covid.

Have you started books and been unable to finish them?

Yes, now that you have asked I have to admit that I think I have given up on more books than usual.

Where do you get inspiration for the titles of your books?

I find that book titles either come when I am writing the synopsis and can visualise the complete book, or when I’m in the middle of writing it. I don’t think titles are necessarily hard to come up with, but that doesn’t mean that they are the best they can be. I often have some ideas, but discussing them with other people can either lead to a better idea, or a better version of the current one.

Where are you sourcing your books from?

I ordered some books from my local bookshop (Toppings of Ely) who were taking telephone orders, and went to collect them. I donated some books to the local drop off point. Other books I ordered from Amazon, and my audio books always come from Audible.com.

Have you embarked on reading all the books you already own but have never read?

No, I know I have books that I will never open, and on a few occasions I’ve bought them just because they are beautiful to look at!

Have you been listening to audiobooks rather than reading? If so, does listening add something to your experience of the book that you wouldn’t get by reading it yourself?

I really enjoy audiobooks, I enjoy listening to them while I am walking or on a long car journey, I also enjoy listening to them if I can’t sleep in the middle of the night. I spend a lot of time working on the computer and to be able to rest my eyes is important too. There are times when the narrator improves the experience, but there are also times when a narrator can ruin a book.

Have you been reading books about pandemics? eg The Plague by Albert Camus, Journal of the Plague Year by Daniel Defoe, Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, The Roses of Eyam by Don Taylor etc?

No, I haven’t read anything about pandemics!

Can you recommend any books/audiobooks that you have enjoyed during lockdown?

This may sound like a surprising recommendation, but “the Science of Storytelling“ by Will Storr is absolutely fantastic and I would recommend it to anybody who reads, or to anyone who is interested in what makes people tick – it’s fascinating and not just for would-be writers. Another one to look out for is “The Russian Doll“ by Marina Palmer. It isn’t due out until the autumn, but I had the opportunity to read it and really enjoyed it.

Alison Bruce
Alison Bruce has long been one of the most
adroit crime fiction practitioners in the UK.
Barry Forshaw, Financial Times
Alison Bruce is the author of nine crime novels and two non-fiction titles. Her first novel, Cambridge Blue (2008), was described by Publishers Weekly as an ‘assured debut’ and introduced both detective DC Gary Goodhew, and her trademark Cambridge setting. She went on to write six further novels in the DC Goodhew series before writing the psychological thriller I Did It for Us (2018). Her latest novel, The Moment Before Impact, is described by Ian Rankin as ‘tense, twisty, terrific’.
The other books in the DC Goodhew series are The Siren (2010), The Calling (2011), The Silence (2012), The Backs (2013), The Promise (2016) and Cambridge Black (2017). Other works include two true crime books and a selection of short stories. Her work has attracted both critical acclaim and a loyal readership. In 2013 and 2016 Alison was short-listed for the Crime Writers’ Association Dagger in the Library Award.
Alison was awarded a first in BSc (Hons) in Crime and Investigation at Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge which included subject areas such as: crime scene investigation, policing practice, major investigations, mass fatality incidents, fire investigation, forensic pathology and forensic anthropology. This included practical skills such as: lifting fingermarks, bone identification, testing for bodily fluids and recovering trace evidence.
Alison is currently working on the UK’s largest policing professionalism contract which is delivering policing degrees to the Metropolitan Police and to 7 police forces including Cambridgeshire.
Alison never underestimates her readers and aims to challenge them with expertly crafted plots, vivid characters and the kind of realism which will put them in the front row of an investigation.

 

Why Do We Read Detective Novels?

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Contributor: Rosalind Esche

‘Crime fiction confirms our belief, despite some evidence to the contrary, that we live in a rational, comprehensible, and moral universe.’ – P. D. James

For those who don’t read them, it would be tempting to think that those who do are sick people who enjoy indulging vicariously in violence. This may be true of some readers, but I would hazard a guess that for the vast majority the murder itself is secondary to the intricacies of the plot, the complexity of the puzzle, strong characterisation and an evocative setting. Of course we may enjoy a frisson of pleasurable fear at a safe distance, while curled up cosily at home with a book, safe in the knowledge that however frightening the story, it isn’t happening to us. Many argue that dark fairy tales serve the same purpose for children. The fact that there are so many crime novelists, and millions around the world reading them, demonstrates a universal need for what they provide.

When Alison Bruce, author of the Gary Goodhew detective novels, answered our Lockdown Reading questionnaire, she  recommended The Science of Storytelling by Will Storr for both readers and writers. This book explores storytelling from a scientific point of view, looking at research from the realms of psychology and neuroscience to explain why we humans seem to be hard wired to need stories in order to function.  Storr doesn’t share P.D. James’s belief in a moral universe, he thinks that the world is chaotic and our lives meaningless, and argues that our brains trick us into thinking otherwise through creating our own personal story, so that we can deceive ourselves that the world makes sense and that our lives have meaning. But he does agree with her on the fundamental point that we humans have a need to make sense of our experience, whether we believe in a world of nihilistic chaos or a moral universe, and that we do this through storytelling.

All of us are storytellers, constructing stories about ourselves and our experiences on a daily basis, but some people go one step further  – they tell stories for a living. How extraordinary that we human beings not only turn our own personal experiences into a continuous narrative, but we need to hear/read/watch other people’s narratives, which we then relate back to our own circumstances and experience. So we buy books, go to the theatre, watch tv dramas and films. Even the songs we listen to are stories.

Whether or not we agree with Storr’s philosophical position, we can accept his analysis of the essential components of good storytelling, including unexpected change and information gaps, which create ‘gnawing levels of curiosity’ in readers. This applies to all storytelling, but for those of us who read crime fiction it rings particularly true. ‘The place of maximum curiosity – the zone in which storytellers play – is when people think they have some idea but aren’t quite sure’ he tells us.

Storr quotes Professor George Loewenstein who, in his paper The Psychology of Curiosity, based on psychological tests and brain scans, lists four ways of involuntarily inducing curiosity in humans:

  1. The ‘posing of a question or presentation of a puzzle’
  2. ‘exposure to a sequence of events with an anticipated but unknown resolution’
  3. ‘the violation of expectations that triggers a search for an explanation’
  4. knowledge of ‘possession of information by someone else’

Storr points out that readers of detective fiction will immediately recognise the familiar components of the detective novel in which the reader is:

  1. ‘posed a puzzle’
  2. ‘exposed to a sequence of events with an anticipated but unknown resolution’
  3. ‘surprised by red herrings’
  4. ‘tantalised by the fact that someone knows whodunnit, and how, but we don’t.’

and admits that ‘Storytellers have long known these principles, having discovered them by practice and instinct.’ He goes on to remark that ‘Without realising it, deep in the detail of his dry, academic paper, Loewenstein has written a perfect description of police-procedural drama.’

However, as we readers know, police procedure without well drawn characters is ultimately limited, satisfying in the way that completing a crossword puzzle is satisfying, but lacking emotional depth and of no lasting impact. While the mystery at the heart of a detective story compels our immediate attention, there is no doubt that the detective’s relationships, be they romantic, familial or working, are an essential weapon in the author’s armoury for sustaining our interest, particularly in crime fiction series, in which we can follow personal storylines as they develop in each succeeding book. We gradually get to know John Rebus, Cormoran Strike, Roy Grace, Harry Nelson, as their personal stories unfold within the framework of each successive plot, returning to them like old friends with each new book.

In the end, for me,  it’s simple psychology – detective fiction deals with light versus dark, good versus evil, it provides the feeling of security that comes from a puzzle solved, loose ends tied up, bad people getting their comeuppance and order and safety being restored. On top of all that you get interesting characters and as often as not some humour thrown in. The crime novel provides a framework within which the author can explore human nature, morality, psychology, social issues, human relationships and more besides. As Ian Rankin said “I discovered that everything I wanted to say about the world could be said in a crime novel.”