On writing

Well, here I am. Always said I wouldn't have a blog but - well, if you are a writer at heart the itch is always there...

After fighting it for many years, I've come to the conclusion that writing is a kind of addiction. I read a great deal, and one of the many factors behind my enjoyment of a good book is that I want or need to emulate the artistry of the author. I want to create something that is as good or even better. Many books I have read start well and - peter out. As if the author is good at the beginning, has great ideas, and then is not good at the endgame. Or maybe is asked by the publisher to change something.

Sometimes, I read quite compulsively, one book after another. And now and then arrives a delight! One delight I discovered recently was an author called Minette Walters. I've read one of her books a few weeks ago; that was Acid Row, which greatly impressed me - as the publishers like to say, as "unputdownable". Well last week I raided my local charity shop (thrift store for Transatlantic readers) - and got The Echo.

The Echo is dense with suspicion while it still has love. Minette Walters takes topics that in the hands of another could simply shock, or produce prejudicial attitudes - murder, abuse, crimes that people commit against other people, religious belief, suicide - and deals with them sympathetically, making their perpetrators are HUMAN, lovable and needy - just as she takes other characters and makes them into unexpected monsters.

She writes for intelligent readers, brought up on Poirot, Holmes and Taggart, and many many other detective stories, and wraps their minds around a group of fully human characters, with all their hurts, losses and indignities, and builds this into a delicious tangle that slowly unravels. NONE of her characters is a stereotype, even the policeman called out on Christmas Day.

I particularly loved the character of Lawrence. An elderly solicitor, a Jew by descent, a wise man and a godly one. A Jungian stereotype in a way (the Wizard) but also an intense, lovable character in his own right.

Both Acid Row and The Echo are high drama, comedy, beautifully characterized and delicately structured, and I would highly recommend both. I'm looking forward to devouring The Breaker (in the omnibus). Watch this space!