Review - Girl 4 by Will Carver

Product description

Detective Inspector January David has always put his professional before his private life, but the two worlds are about to clash horrifically as he visits his latest crime scene. He is confronted by a lifeless figure suspended ten feet above a theatre stage, blood pouring from her face into a coffin below. This gruesome execution is the work of an elusive serial killer.

Three women from three different London suburbs, each murdered with elaborate and chilling precision. And as January stares at the most beautiful corpse he’s ever seen, he detects the killer’s hallmark.

But Girl 4 is different: she is alive – barely. And January recognises her…

Review

This book is written from the viewpoint of several people. Each person having their time to talk. Murder victims talk about what it was like for them before their death and Detective Inspector January David tells the story from his viewpoint, on the trail of a serial killer. This very serial killer even gets a voice.

The chapters are kept short to accommodate this style and it keeps things fairly fast paced.

It took me a few chapters to get used to the chopping and changing of viewpoints on such a regular basis, but once I had, I found I really enjoyed the different style I was reading.

The climax is lengthy and I couldn't put the book down for the last 100 pages. I'm not sure how I felt when it ended as it wasn't what I expected, but I will definitely buy another January David book.

If you're a crime reader and you want to try a different style, I'd recommend giving this a try and pushing past the first few chapters if you struggle with the style - though you could easily take to it straight away. It's a great read.

Inspiration

Todays post is part of a blog hop created on a writers group I use on Facebook. You can find the details and the link on Gladiators Pen.

It's a monthly blog hop, on the second Tuesday, where a different topic is suggested each month and participants can write a post, however they see fit, on that particular subject. This months subject is inspiration.

So, what do I have to say about inspiration? I suppose it is something that is personal to all of us. We as people, tend to be pretty different to each other and we work in completely different ways.

We learn in different ways and this is shown by the Flemings VAK/VARK model which suggests there are four ways of learning;

1. Visual Learners who prefer to see images and diagrams
2. Auditory learners, who prefer to be told how to do something 
3. Read/Write learners who does what it says on the tin and,
4. Kinesthetic /Tactile learners who need to learn hands on. 

For me, I feel that these two things can be linked learning and inspiration. 

I for instance am a visual and auditory learner so I find my inspiration tends to come from watching people and situations, and listening to the interactions. Seeing how people genuinely interact with each other and not how we expect them to act. 

For example in a crime scenario, how you expect someone to act, isn't usually the way you are going to get it. Humans are unique and you need to remember this when writing. 

There is a very good video clip out there in the World wide web somewhere of a couple of police officers interrogating a victim of rape and because she wasn't crying and getting upset as they expected, they really grilled her and called her a liar. Now this was many many many years ago and things have changed drastically since them, but it's a good example of how people don't do what you think they might. So whatever your learning style, employ it for inspiration. 

Look at people if you are visual, interact with them if you are kinethsetic, listen to them if you are auditory. But you're writing about people and if you want real in your writing, then employ your learning style to get that realism and find out who people really are for your inspiration. Use what you have to your advantage and all that; watching, listening and interacting will bring you some real life characters you can work with.

Theakstons Old Peculiar Crime Writing Festival

A couple of weeks ago, I booked to attend the Theakstons Crime Writing Festival at the end of July. A four day festival held in Harrogate filled with some amazing names. The likes of David Baldacci and Tess Gerritson will be there, as well as Martina Cole, Lee Child and Val Mcdermid to name but a few.


The event is filled with guest speakers and panels and you can either book the individual sessions you are interested in or buy rover tickets which mean you can go to any on the particular day you have purchased for. I have bought a rover ticket for the entire event which means I can go to all the sessions. It will be a long weekend. The events start about 10.00 am in a morning and go on into the evening. The last speakers doing a 10.00 pm slot. I've booked the time off work and the following day as well so I can recover. I intend to see all that I can.

I'm so excited, but in equal measure I'm anxious. I've never been to an event like this before. Crowds of people who all know each other from previous festivals and book events. This is my first step into this world and it's with trepidation as I don't feel I really belong.

What will be great though, is the opportunity to meet people with shared interests. People with an interest in crime thrillers. I talk to many writers through twitter, blogging and Facebook but there are only a handful who are writing crime. I love it with a passion and a whole weekend filled with wonderful guest speakers will really drive me forward in my own work with fire in my belly.

I wanted to stay in the accommodation where they were hosting the event but I was a little late booking so I have an equally nice hotel a five minute walk away.

Expect a blog post filled with photographs following the event!

Do you attend writers events and if so which ones have you attended, or what is on your wish list?

Plotting

I realised yesterday, after making a difficult mistake, that I haven't discussed my work in process on the blog. The first drafting of my crime novel.

The mistake I made I imagine, is a pretty common one to writers. Especially pantsers. Those writers like me who don't make reams of plot notes before writing and just sit down and write organically letting the story unfold of it's own free will.

The opposite of a pantser would be a plotter. A writer who plots the story as they go. They know what each chapter should look like before they write it and have lots of notes to keep track of where the story is going.

Being a pantser has been going quite well for me, until now. I have a full synopsis written so have general directions but I don't plot each chapter or blocks or chapters. I sit and I write. I know there is no right and wrong way, but as I explain the mistake, it could appear I maybe shouldn't be working this way. Now corrected, I will continue to write as I have been doing, because this is what I'm comfortable with. It's what, most of the time, works for me.

The mistake? - I wrote a couple of short chapters and when finished I realised that the girl I had just had arrive from school at the time of the incident had actually been discussed as a missing child earlier in the work.

I was so frustrated with myself. Things were going well and I was in a flow with my word count and the direction I was heading in. I then felt as though I'd just put a great big flashing STOp sign in the way.

The solution - I had to walk away from the work for an hour and do other things, letting my brain process what had happened and attempt to figure the right direction to go in, for this to be resolved. Eventually I sat back down at my laptop and worked the girl into the right place.

I know I need to write a chapter list of who is doing what and where, for what I have written so far. If I do this then I can keep track of where everyone is and still sit and write freely as I forge ahead.

It was a difficult, but luckily short, learning curve and one I hope to not have to repeat again.

One more thing about this first draft I haven't yet said - I have set myself a target date to complete it of 21st July. Then starts the next stage. Second drafting.

Are you a plotter or a pantser and how do you deal with plot errors?

Tagged

Kate tagged me in blog post. A set of questions made to learn something about the poster. These are my answers;

Do you think you're hot?
I know how this question is supposed to be interpreted, but does anyone actually think they are hot, in that way?

Upload a picture or wallpaper that you are using at the moment.
This photo was taken during a visit to the Natural History Museum for my little mans birthday.

When was the last time you ate chicken?
Last night. Chicken fajitas. Yummy!

The songs you listened to recently?
I generally listen to the radio in the car, so all the usual stuff that is played on there.

What were you thinking of as you were doing this?

I do a lot of thinking on my drive to and from work. It takes me an hour each way, so it's plenty of time to do this. Currently a lot of my thought time is on my novel and I get a little frustrated that I can't make notes of what I'm thinking because I'm driving.

Do you have nicknames? What are they?

Sorry, no nicknames. Boring I know.

Tag 5 (It did say 8 but I shrank it a bit) blogger friends:

Lindsay at Tiptoe Kisses

Sarah at Empty White Pages

J.L Campbell at The Character Depot

Linda at Excuse me While I Write That Down

Patricia at Journey Through the Pages

My New Home Office

Following the post about making my own writing space at home, I thought I'd share a photo of the new desk in the freshly cleared out spare room. I'm loving the peace of my own office and I'm loving the space the desk gives me to spread my notes out around me, as well as the drawers to shove them all in, to give the impression of tidiness and calm.

I give to you, my shiny new home office!





Now let's see if it can help me weave some magic.

Book Review - Broken by Karin Slaughter

Good reads blurb - 

A woman's corpse is discovered in the waters of Lake Grant, and a note is found which seems to point to suicide – but Sara Linton has never been a woman to settle for obvious solutions. The principal suspect in the case has requested – desperately -- to be able to speak to Sara -- but when she turns up at his cell in the local police station, the suspect, Tommy Braham (whom she had known as a boy), is unable to speak to her. Tommy is dead; he has been savagely beaten, and his wrists have been cut. Scrawled in blood on the cell wall is a poignant message: ‘Not me’. Sara, personally involved now, is distrustful of Lena Adams the detective in charge, so she gets in touch with the Georgia Bureau of Investigation and asks (as she has done before) for the help of Special Agent Will Trent (Karin Slaughter readers will be well aware of the intriguing relationship between these two). The duo begins to suspect that a murderer enjoys the covert protection of the close-mouthed inhabitants of Grant County, who have fashioned a skein of non-communication. But, as the Bard observed, murder will out...

Review -


I've read the Karin Slaughter series since her debut with Blindsighted, which I loved and I've loved every day since. There are usually multiple gruesome murders to resolve and always something a bit iffy running around behind everything and I love this.

What I really love about Karins book are they are well written and character based as well as following the plot, the crime and all the procedural stuff but through the eyes of the very real people with very real flaws or ghosts that effect them. Its not just a matter of having a murder and watching the procedural stuff work through it, having characters with histories and failings you feel closer to them and in return to the book.

I loved this book and if you have read any of the previous in the series you will love this, but if this is your first Karin Slaughter, it may be a little confusing because past events are big drivers. I could see where newcomers may become a little disorientated. It's written so well, a new reader could go and read it, and enjoy it, but I love this author so much, I'm actually advocating you go and read the previous books in the series!

Great crime, great people and people you cared about or at least had an opinion about, what else do you need. Get yourselves into Karin Slaughter if you haven't already.