Brit Noir

The Pocket Essential Guide to British Crime Fiction, Film & TV

Barry Forshaw

• Publisher: Pocket Essentials
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781843446415
• Topic: Literatur
• Subtopic: Literaturkritik

Barry Forshaw is acknowledged as a leading expert on crime fiction from European countries, but his principal area of expertise is in the British crime arena, as demonstrated in such books as British Crime Writing, The Rough Guide to Crime Fiction and British Crime Film.

After the success of earlier entries in the series, Nordic Noir and Euro Noir, he returns to the British Isles to produce the ultimate reader's guide to modern British crime fiction (taking in the best from England, Scotland, Wales, and Ireland). The word 'Noir' is used in its loosest sense as every major living British and Irish writer is considered, often through a concentration on one or two key books, and exciting new talents are highlighted for the reader.

Forshaw's personal acquaintance with writers, editors and publishers is unparalleled, so Brit Noir features interviews with (and quotations from) the writers, editors and publishers themselves. The characteristics of the very different writing from London, the regions, Scotland, Ireland and Wales are examined and celebrated.

'Unsurprisingly Barry Forshaw's Brit Noir is a wonderful reference book that any self-respecting and serious connoisseur of crime fiction needs to have on their book-shelf' - Shots Magazine

'A must-have for crime fans: for reminding yourself about old favourites, for finding new authors, and for that "What shall we watch?" moment' - Mystery People

Look out for the other books in Barry Forshaw's Noir series, Euro Noir, Nordic Noir, American Noir and Historical Noir, and for his latest book, Crime Fiction: A Reader's Guide.

England and Wales

London

Success was something of a double-edged sword for MO HAYDER with her début novel Birdman: the book enjoyed astonishing sales, but called down a fearsome wrath on the author for unflinchingly entering the blood-boltered territory of Thomas Harris’s Hannibal Lecter books. Part of the fuss was clearly to do with the fact that a woman writer had handled scenes of horror and violence so authoritatively, and there was little surprise when the subsequent The Treatment provoked a similar furore. Actually, it’s a remarkably vivid and meticulously detailed shocker: less grimly compelling than its predecessor, perhaps, but still a world away from the cosy reassurance of much current crime fiction. In a shady south London residential street, a husband and wife are found tied up, the man near death. Both have been beaten and are suffering from acute dehydration. DI Jack Caffery of the Met’s murder squad AMIP is told to investigate the disappearance of the couple’s son, and, as he uncovers a series of dark parallels with his own life, he finds it more and more difficult to make the tough decisions necessary to crack a scarifying case. As in Birdman, Caffery is characterised with particular skill, and Hayder is able (for the most part) to make us forget the very familiar cloth he’s cut from. The personal involvement of a cop in a grim case is an over-familiar theme, but it’s rarely been dispatched with the panache and vividness on display here.

Is there anyone else in the crime genre currently writing anything as quirky and idiosyncratic as CHRISTOPHER FOWLER’s Bryant and May series? (And let’s disabuse readers of the mistaken notion that this is a historical series, as many seem to think – it wouldn’t be in this book if it were.) Fowler eschews all recognisable genres, though the cases for his detective duo have resonances of the darker corners of British Golden Age fiction. In Bryant & May and the Bleeding Heart, the Peculiar Crimes Unit is handed a typically outlandish case in which two teenagers have seen a corpse apparently stepping out of its grave – with one of them subsequently dying in a hit-and-run accident. Arthur Bryant is stimulated by the bizarreness of the case but is tasked with finding out who has made away with the ravens from the Tower of London. (Not an insignificant crime, as it is well known that when the ravens leave the Tower, Britain itself will fall.) The usual smorgasbord of grotesque incident and stygian humour is on offer, and if you aren’t already an aficionado, I suggest you find out what the fuss is about before the forthcoming television series clinically removes Fowler’s individual tone of voice.

It is both a virtue and a curse when one doesn’t require a great deal of sleep. Sometimes – when I’m wide awake in the wee small hours with only the sound of urban foxes outside my window suggesting something else is alive – I feel that I’d prefer to be like ordinary people who need eight hours’ shuteye. But here’s the virtue of this unusual state: it gives one ample time to catch up with all the writers one wants to read; sometimes they are old favourites, sometimes new discoveries. And – a real pleasure – sometimes in these nocturnal explorations I encounter the work of a writer who (while moving in familiar waters) demonstrates an innovative and quirky imagination, transforming narratives with whose accoutrements we’re familiar. Debut writer SARAH HILARY was most decidedly in that category, and even though her character DI Marnie Rome may initially appear to owe something to other female coppers (Lynda La Plante’s Tennison, for example), Marnie turns out to be very much her own woman – as is Hilary herself, with her crisp and direct style.

In Someone Else’s Skin, DI Rome is dispatched to a woman’s shelter with her partner DS Noah Jake. Lying stabbed on the floor is the husband of one of the women from the shelter. Rome finds herself opening the proverbial can of worms, and a slew of dark secrets will be exposed before a final violent confrontation in a kitchen. As well as functioning as a well-honed police procedural, this is very much a novel of character – DI Rome in particular is strikingly well realised, and even such issues as domestic abuse are responsibly incorporated into the fabric of the novel. Someone Else’s Skin is a book that hits the ground running, and readers will be keen to see more of the tenacious Marnie Rome.

With SJ WATSON’s Before I Go To Sleep, British publishing saw something of a phenomenon. Watson may have borrowed the book’s central premise from Christopher Nolan’s film Memento (memory-deprived protagonist struggling to make sense of their life), but the assurance with which he finessed his narrative belied his inexperience and rivalled that of such old hands as Robert Harris. Watson’s follow-up novel in 2015 was Second Life.

The refreshingly forthright STELLA DUFFY has made a success of several careers: in the theatre, in broadcasting and as the creator of a variety of books in different genres (including the historical field). As with the earlier work of Val McDermid, Duffy’s protagonist is a lesbian, the private investigator Saz Martin, who has been put through her paces in such tautly written, quirky novels as Fresh Flesh. There is a social agenda behind the books, but never at the expense of the exigencies of strong, persuasive storytelling.

For some time now, MARK BILLINGHAM’s lean and gritty urban thrillers featuring DI Tom Thorne have been massive commercial successes. And such books as In the Dark, a standalone novel in which Thorne makes only a cameo appearance, demonstrate that Billingham can make trenchant comments about British society while never neglecting his ironclad narrative skills. Billingham, who has a background in stand-up comedy, has quoted some interesting statistical findings in his talks to book groups: many women would rather spend time reading a thriller than having sex. Billingham appears to be bemused by this statistic, but (if the truth were told) the author himself is part of the problem: his crime novels are undoubtedly a source of pure enjoyment (without the bother of having to take off one’s clothes), although thrillers such as Lifeless are journeys into the most disturbing aspects of the human psyche. It’s interesting that Billingham’s books have a reputation for extreme violence, because they deal more in atmosphere – a real sense of dread is quietly conveyed to the reader.

In Buried, ex-DCI Mullen, a retired police officer, is distressed when his son disappears. Is he the victim of a kidnapping? Tom Thorne begins his inquiry by seeking everyone who might have a score to settle with the boy’s father. And he discovers something intriguing: Mullen has not mentioned the person who would appear to be the prime suspect – a man who had once made threats against Mullen and his family and who, moreover, is under suspicion for another killing. Billingham always does considerable research for his books to ensure the authenticity of his police detail, but he was obliged to make up some of the procedural aspects here as the Met is particularly secretive on the issue of kidnapping. Billingham avoids the obvious set pieces that can instantly pique the reader’s attention, and ensures that Thorne’s encounter with evil is handled in a dispassionate fashion, even though Thorne himself is less strongly characterised than usual in this, his sixth outing. The recent Time of Death (the thirteenth Thorne) is Billingham on top form.

LAURA WILSON’s work bristles with some of the best crime writing in the UK – she is one of the country’s most searching psychological novelists working in the genre. There are also ghosts of one of Wilson’s favourite novelists, Patrick Hamilton, in the luminous and richly detailed conjuring of the London of various eras in her books. Wilson has never been happy staying within the parameters of the conventional crime novel, and in My Best Friend she deploys a device whereby the novel is narrated by three strongly delineated protagonists. Her most recent work features her sympathetic copper Ted Stratton, while one of her most accomplished books is 2015’s contemporary (non-Stratton) The Wrong Girl.

Many well-heeled TV presenters face a variety of pitfalls that could sabotage their comfortable lives: a messy divorce, inconvenient revelations about their private life. But Gaby Mortimer, heroine of SABINE DURRANT’s Under Your Skin, finds something more sinister to threaten her equilibrium. When running on the common near her London house, she discovers the body of a woman lying in the brambles, the victim of a savage strangling. But what Gaby is not expecting is the fact that she is to become the principal suspect for the crime. (The murder victim was wearing Gaby’s T-shirt, and ever more damning evidence begins to point in her direction.) The police appear to be convinced of Gaby’s guilt, but despite this, she tries to keep her life on track. But as many a TV personality (and politician) has found, it’s virtually impossible to carry on with the day job when you are under scrutiny by reporters, and all around people regard you with suspicion. Things can only get worse – and they do, to the extent that Gaby begins to doubt her own sanity. But then an attractive journalist called Jack appears, apparently believing in Gaby’s innocence and ready to help. Gaby’s troubles, however, are only just beginning. Durrant has written for teenage girls, but there is absolutely nothing adolescent about this strikingly constructed and economically written thriller, a book that steadily draws the reader into the plight of its besieged heroine and springs a variety of surprises – surprises we are unable to second-guess. And both male and female readers find it easy to identify with Gaby, with the underpinnings of her life relentlessly pulled away. In fact, she is the kind of woman in extreme situations that Nicci French used to write about before turning to a series character, and Under Your Skin has all the authority of the best novels by French. Durrant’s treatment of the characters’ psychology is, admittedly, straightforward rather than nuanced, but that strategy ensures that the inexorable grip never slackens. Let’s hope that she continues to spend her time writing for adults: we need thriller writers who can reinvigorate the genre – and it looks like Durrant may be able to do just that.

The amazing – and immediate – success of MARTINA COLE’s crime novels must be a source of despair to those writers who have struggled for years. Right from the start, she has enjoyed reader approval for her distinctive, gritty fiction. Even the workaday TV adaptations of Dangerous Lady and The Jump merely brought more kudos her way (she’s been less lucky than Colin Dexter in her transfer to the screen – but with her sales, she should worry). In Broken, a child is abandoned in a deserted stretch of woodland and another on the top of a derelict building. DI Kate Burrows makes the inevitable connections, and when one child dies, she finds herself up against a killer utterly without scruples. Her lover Patrick offers support in this troubling case, but he is under pressure himself. A body is found in his Soho club, and Patrick is on the line as a suspect. And Kate begins to doubt him… In prose that is always trenchant, Cole delivers the goods throughout this lengthy and ambitious narrative. Kate is an exuberantly characterised heroine, and the sardonic Patrick enjoys equally persuasive handling from the author. The Good Life – which Cole has certainly earned the right to enjoy – continued her run of bestsellers (as did, most recently, Get Even).

Speaking to MICK HERRON, I learned about his adept use of London locations. ‘I rarely choose locations: research averse, I’ve found tha...