Off to Crimefest: Anne Zouroudi's languid island crime

I'm off to Crimefest 2013  in Bristol this week. While I pack my passport and toothbrush, I'm revisiting a few posts about some of the authors whom I'll join there. I might not have read Anne Zouroudi's Messenger of Athens had she not been on one of my panels at Bouchercon in 2011, but let me tell you: I'm glad Zouroudi made it to Bouchercon that year. She is a master of slow, languid pace, of lives stoically lived, and of wrongs righted without sentimentality. What a sense of phsyical and human place. For today's Crimefest blog post, give a big, fat γειά σου to Anne Zouroudi.

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Anne Zouroudi reminds me of Pierre Magnan.  In Magnan's novels, I wrote:

"Consequences unfold slowly, if at all, and characters accept them stoically or with good-humored resignation or silent suffering or secret relief."

Magnan set his novels in rural France; Zouroudi sets The Messenger of Athens on a small Greek island. Her languid storytelling suggests a languid pace of rural life, with dark secrets emerging only slowly, and everyone getting the chance to relate events as he or she saw them.

Into this slow boil comes an investigator from Athens by the name of Hermes Diaktoros (the same name as the messenger of the Olympian gods), sent to investigate a death the locals insist was a suicide. The ancient Hermes was supernaturally strong and wore winged shoes; this one's epithet is "the fat man" and, though he stirs things up in ways some residents don't like, he's content to adopt the leisurely local pace, albeit with the occasional sly joke at which only he smiles.

I'll see how the mystery unfolds. In the meantime, I like this protagonist.

© Peter Rozovsky 2011

DBB slips into some shorts

Spring is a good time for shorts, and that's what I've been reading a lot of these days, a f*ckload of shorts, in one case. The list has included:

1. Mr. Calder and Mr. Behrens by Michael Gilbert
2. Erased and Other Stories by author, cameraman, and Detectives Beyond Borders friend Thomas Kaufman
3. A F*ckload of Shorts by cozy writer Jedidiah Ayres
4. Short Sentence by miscellaneous and, saving the best for last,
5. "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge," by Ambrose Bierce

I suspect I'll have something to say about several of these items, whether about Gilbert's deadpan hard-boiled humor, Ayres' multiple points of view and general degeneracy, or artful, surprising but non-gimmicky endings by Kaufman and in Anne Zouroudi's contribution to Short Sentence.

Click on the the Bierce title above and read the story free online. When you get your breath back, see if you can guess how I think Bierce addresses the great philosophical problem of almost all crime fiction.

In the meantime, what are your favorite stories, crime or otherwise, and why do you like them?

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A kind DBB reader sends a link to this Oscar-winning 1962 film adaptation of "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge."

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A commenter informs me that May is Short Story Month. Thanks, Paul.

© Peter Rozovsky 2013

Crimefest 2012: Author says she'll give up sin

(Photos by your
humble blogkeeper)

Anne Zouroudi, Detectives Beyond Borders' favorite surprise of 2011, writes a series in which one of the seven deadly sins (and its consequences) features prominently in each book. Naturally she gets asked what she'll do for Book Eight.

(Little Shambles, York))

Zouroudi was part of my "Passport to Murder" panel at Bouchercon 2011, and I suggested that if she wanted to use Jewish tradition, she could write about the 613 mitzvot, which would leave Sue "L is for Long-Running Series" Grafton in the dust. (Yes, Grafton was also at the just-completed Crimefest in balmy Bristol.)

But Zouroudi told a Crimefest questioner that she'll likely take up the easier theme of the Ten Commandments next, which means more adultery, murder, covetousness, and dishonoring of parents for her protagonist, Hermes Diaktoros (the same name as the messenger of the Olympian gods) to negotiate.

It will be interesting to see what Zouroudi gets up to with graven images.

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In other news — and excellent news it is — Adrian McKinty's The Cold Cold Ground is on its way to America from Seventh Street Books (the name is a tribute to the site of the Edgar Allan Poe house in Philadelphia.)

The book is hard-hitting and funny and very human, and it paints a plausible picture of what it must really be like for ordinary folks to live through Northern Ireland's Troubles. Highly recommended to Irish Americans and non-Irish Americans (NIAs) alike.

© Peter Rozovsky 2012

P.D. James at Crimefest

(P.D. James in conversation with Barry Forshaw at Crimefest 2012)

I've read very little of P.D. James' work, but I should only be that cheerful, alert, productive, and optimistic when I'm nearing 92 years of age.

"I'm trying to tell the truth about men and women," she said in a guest-of-honor interview at Crimefest 2012. "I try to write well with respect for what I think is the most beautiful and versatile language in the world."

If James' declaration that "The thing about (the Golden Age of crime fiction) is that everyone knew how to write English" sounds stodgy (though I find her sentiment admirable), consider her views on the liberalization of divorce laws in the United Kingdom to benefit women since James' writing career began: "Divorce happens, and it is necessary," she said, "but there is a price." I'd call that an admirably clear-headed, non-Utopian view. Changes in sexual mores can also make life difficult for mystery writers, the Baroness James said:

"In the Golden Age you could consider murder if you were having an affair with your secretary and wanted to avoid exposing it. Nowadays if you have an affair you write about it in the Sunday papers. Motive is very difficult for a modern crime writer."

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Other revelations of the day included Anne Zouroudi's that the somber, grand, handsome appearance of her mysterious protagonist, Hermes Diaktoros, is based on that of a local bank manager and Peter James' that he was once Orson Welles' housekeeper.

 © Peter Rozovsky 2012

Juicy bits at Crimefest

Sounds better than "pulp."

"Juicy bits" is what they call citrus pulp here in the UK, and I'm probably not the first North American who has enjoyed a salacious snicker at the breakfast table over the expression.

Crimefest 2012 begins this afternoon, and this young crime fiction festival must have arrived. This years's lineup includes Frederick Forsyth, P.D. James, and Sue Grafton, plus more Scandinavians than you could shake a plate of lutefisk at and a passel of old Detectives Beyond Friends, including Declan Burke, Anne Zouroudi, Anders Roslund and Börge Hellström, Chris Ewan, and Michael Stanley.

It was the latter two ("Michael Stanley" is the nom de publication of the writing team of Stanley Trollip and Michael Sears) who suggested a hair dryer and a tiny Phillips screw driver might salvage my camera from a minor aquatic accident suffered on the train yesterday.

Here the Crimefest program, complete with juicy bits. More to come.

© Peter Rozovsky 2012

When authors leave home

My third panel at Bouchercon 2011 will consist of three British and two American authors who set their mysteries abroad. This brings to mind some questions from the early days here at Detectives Beyond Borders, so I'll ask them again:  What are the advantages of writing about a country other than one's own? What are the disadvantages? What will a visitor or short-term resident see that a native might miss? And vice-versa?

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Lisa Brackmann, R.J. Ellory, Anne Zouroudi, David Hewson and Martin Limón will be part of “NEVER LET ME GO: PASSPORT TO MURDER,” with your humble blogkeeper as moderator, Saturday, Sept. 17, 1 p.m., at Bouchercon 2011.

© Peter Rozovsky 2011