In about the last 10 weeks I have read 11 books all the way through (that's read and not listen to via audio format) and am currently on my 12th! This is amazing for me, as just 5 years ago you could count the total amount of books I had read in my adult life on just one hand.
Crime thrillers is my buzz at the moment. It started when I listened to a Minette Walters audio book called 'Acid Row', I enjoyed it so much I wanted to listen to another. Then I found an offer of 3 of her books for just a few quid, so I decided to have a go at actually reading and it was fine. In fact the more I do it the easier it gets and now I can read without the need to have total and absolute silence around me.
The online book store also had offers on Agatha Christie's Poirot (10 books for about £10) and R D Wingfield Inspector Frost books (3 of). So I have them and am plughing my way through then all - and not doing too badly I have to admit.
Then one day I went up to London on the train and was so involved in the Frost book I was already reading I managed to finish it on the way there. This left me with nothing to do on the hour long journey home, so I decided to pop into Smiths for inspiration. Initially I was looking for another Frost book, but they didn't have any, so then it was anything that looked good and was cheap. Ian Rankin's Rebus novel 'Exit Music' was number 1 in the fiction chart and half price, so I decided on that and did not regret it.
I have been lucky as ITV3 is currently doing a Crime Thriller season, so I have been able to watch some Rebus episodes, having never been interested in it before, and background on Crime Thriller writers and characters. It's been really useful as I have also been planning a crime thriller of my own - although Rob says it just sounds like a Frost book :-(, but that's because I am having problems with the character theme.
Think about it. Jack Frost, Inspector Morse, Rebus; all miserable old men, who buck the police system, argue with their superiors, go about solving crime in a unconventional way and normally have personal problems/women problems/lonley. If you take these charater types out of the crime thriller genre what are you left with; charaters like Miss Marple, Jessica Fletcher and Poirot, who are all loners, not directly linked with the police and always seem to be in the wrong place at the wrong time - I mean if you lived anywhere near Jessica Fletcher you'd move, wouldn't you! You can't really have a young detective, because they would not have the experience or character credibility of someone older and by rights if the charater is older then they need to be grumpy, having been in the police force for many years and seen both the top and bottom of life - I mean crime and murder is their daily bread, you'd get fed up with society too. So do you make the main character a female? By rights she should be middle aged, no children because they would have got in the way of her path on the career ladder, and probably single or divorced due to the time she dedicates to the job. If this not just a female version of Frost or Rebus? How would that sit? She'd be a bitch wouldn't she, she'd have to be to have become a Detective Inspector and that would be the minimum status require to be a main character in a crome thriller novel. And face it a hard nose middle age bitch of a female has little or no redeaming qualities as a charater. There is nothing there for older women to want to mother, nothing young ans sexy for men to fantisise about, well nothing really, except insiration for other high fliying hard nose women, but then they wouldn't have to time to read!! So there is no real market for this sort of character.
Hence my quest continues. I have the plot, I just need the characters. Any ideas?
PS Rob & boys - not it can't be a weasel or a badger or anything daft like that, but thank you anyway for your thoughts
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