I Did it My Way - Chris Longmuir

Now we are going to indulge in a bit of crime. Award winning author, Chris Longmuir is here all the way from Scotland! Hurray!

I often wonder how authors get into the darker side of life but am cautious about asking. However, today all is revealed :

Says Chris, 'I’ve been a reader since I started school and discovered books. I read all sorts and at one time tried to read my way through the local library. Needless to say I didn’t quite manage it.

My introduction to crime came when I was about 13 or 14 and someone gave me an Agatha Christie book which was my

introduction to Hercule Poirot. After that I read everything Christie wrote from Miss Marple through to Tuppence and Tommy – who remembers them? I also read some pretty awful thrillers written by Hank Jansen – I later discovered Jansen was a variety of writers, one of whom was Bob Monkhouse!

Then there was my horror phase – Bram Stoker, James Herbert, Stephen King, Dean Koontz, I read them

all. Funnily enough I also liked historical sagas – Catherine Cookson, Margaret Thomson Davies, and several others. However, my first love was always crime, and I progressed from the cosies of Christie through to the darker writing by Val McDermid and Mo Hayder. Mustn’t forget the American authors though. I particularly like Jeffrey Deaver, Harlan Coben, and Michael Connolly. I could go on and on. I actually think it’s my avid reading of American authors that influences my crime books because I find their style a lot pacier than British novels.

When I started writing it was with a historical saga and I entered this in the Romantic Novelist’s Association’s (RNA) New Writer’s Scheme. They liked it so much they gave it three readings and placed it with a publisher. Unfortunately my timing was off because that was the year sagas went out of fashion and publishers were getting rid of their saga writers. However, it is now published as A Salt Splashed Cradle, and doing very well, thank you.

But having been rebuffed with my saga I turned back to my first love, crime writing, and now have two crime books published and a third almost complete. The first one that was published was Dead Wood which was actually book two in my Dundee Crime Series, and it won the Scottish Association of Writers (SAW), Pitlochry Award, as well as the Dundee International Book Prize. Book one in the series, Night Watcher, which was published later won the SAW Pitlochry Award as well.

The only thing I find more enjoyable than reading crime books is writing them. Long may it continue that way.'  

 

Indeed Chris - a popular genre and probably always will be. I have just read A Salt Splashed Cradle so far, Chris's historical saga book, and I found it a really good read, with a wonderful setting. It is a book to curl up with and let it take you to another place.

Find out more about Chris and her books here:

Chris Longmuir’s website:- http://www.chrislongmuir.co.uk/

blog:-  http://chrislongmuir.blogspot.co.uk/

 Amazon UK Author’s Page

Amazon US Author’s Page

Caught Between Two Big Brains

Well! Controversy! Did you see a programme a few weeks back on Roma Gypsy children in Spain and Italy allegedly being trained to a life of crime – petty thieving? It went on to show apparent adult Roma in Romania boasting their wealth and large houses.

A Professor I know who is a leading authority, has dismissed this: ‘The whole thing was about as plausible as Sacha Baron Cohen's Kazakhstan,” he told me. “A tiny minority of thieves, easily caught, photographed, and voluble about their methods - it's usually called attention-seeking behaviour.’

But a Romany journalist, with whom I am acquainted online, who could be fairly described as an activist in support of his people, says in his blog O NEVO DROM about the programme: ‘While this program has come under attack, some rather severe, from several quarters, especially from academics in the field of Romani Studies in the West, including Romani People amongst them, and also some Romani activists, it is time that we, the Rom, the Romani People, firstly admitted to ourselves and amongst ourselves that this problem exists and then admitted it also to the outside world; and secondly that we, as a People, did something about stopping this practice.’

Such a difference of opinion from both exceedingly knowledgeable people. I watched the programme again last night and am still sitting on the fence.