A.A. Abbott

GREAT CRIME STORY WRITER

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Thriller of the Month – Trouble with Product X, by Joan Aiken

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The late British writer Joan Aiken is best known as an author of supernatural children’s stories, but her adult tales are worth seeking out too. This thriller is like a Formula 1 car, racing along at breakneck speed with many twists on the way. It’s a period piece, written about fifty years ago and set in a world my parents would recognise, when a train from London to Penzance took nine hours and you could avoid rush hour traffic jams in London.

Just as TV’s Mad Men showcased the US advertising industry in 1960s Manhattan, “Trouble with Product X” sheds light on their counterparts in London. Product X is a wonderful new perfume, expected to take the market by storm. Certainly, manufacturers Gay* Gal think so, and ad agency Salmon and Bucknell is delighted to win the account. It’s all hands to the pumps and Martha, a young copywriter, is despatched to Cornwall to produce ads for TV. She’s accompanied by colleagues, cameramen and assorted hangers-on, including a creepy client and his unpleasant chums. The trouble with Product X, as she rapidly discovers, is that the formula has been lost – or has it?

Tension rapidly mounts as the rich and beautiful are revealed to be feckless kidnappers and murderers. Luckily, Martha finds some good eggs on whom she can rely, including stalwart colleague Tom and a community of brusque monks with hearts of gold.

The book is a fun, quick read, and could almost be approached as historical fiction given that the events take place five decades ago. Joan Aiken worked as an advertising copywriter herself, and writes amusingly of the flattery employed to sell unprepossessing products. There too many twists and turns in the plot to describe, but all are believable (just!), and the book is well-written. Hats off to The Murder Room for republishing it for the Kindle. Note that old paperbacks are available for pennies on Amazon under another title, “Beware of the Bouquet”.

 

*The word “gay” is used a lot in the book in a very old-fashioned sense, basically describing a desire to go drinking and dancing.

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I’m also a writer of fun, fast thrillers – read The Gap, a “5 minute crime thriller” set in modern London, FREE, here.

Why dyslexia doesn’t stop you reading…

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My grandfather was a telecoms troubleshooter. As a young Englishman in the early 20th century, he travelled the world, supervising the laying of cables across the sea, then keeping the signal crystal-clear after that. If equipment was broken, he’d fix it himself. His work took him to New York, Odessa and Persia, in ships and steam trains and a Model T Ford.

Despite his can-do attitude and undeniable skills, he never picked up a book. My grandfather was dyslexic; reading and writing was a struggle for him. He wasn’t alone, of course. Although I dodged that bullet myself (to compensate, fate decreed I’d be rubbish at DIY), dyslexia features in every generation of my family. In fact, 10% of Britons are dyslexic.

It isn’t that hard to produce a dyslexia-friendly book, but it costs more than a traditional paperback. That’s because, with larger letters and more space between the lines, the page count zooms up dramatically. Perhaps that’s why nobody has published fiction for adults with dyslexia – until now. Perfect City Press has produced new editions of my crime thriller, The Bride’s Trail, and its sequel, The Vodka Trail. Spot the difference! 

The Vodka Trail - Page 1 in traditional and dyslexia-friendly formats
The Vodka Trail – Page 1 in traditional and dyslexia-friendly formats

They’re also an option for older readers and anyone with visual stress – we’ve used a large sized sans serif font, lots of space, and cream paper, and they’re still affordable at £16.99. That compares with £7.99 for the traditional paperbacks and £1.99 for the e-books.

E-books are a great alternative, of course. You can adjust the style and size of the font, and sometimes the colour of the background. But for me, nothing beats a good old-fashioned paperback – and I suspect dear old Grandad would finally agree!

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I’m a British crime thriller writer. I’ve written a variety of short stories, and four full-length thrillers sizzling with suspense, sex, love and death. My latest, The Bride’s Trail and The Vodka Trail, are available in e-book, traditional paperback and dyslexia-friendly paperback editions through a variety of bookstores and online retailers.

Christmas Beers & Other Festive Treats

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Real ale was a rite of passage for me, one of the pleasures of coming of age. Living in the Midlands, I discovered the delights of mild, a sweet, dark drink that’s rarely available elsewhere. I remember sinking pints of it at a job interview that went so well, it finished in the pub! Today, one of the best examples of the style is Two Towers Birmingham Mild, which Marty, Brummie hero of The Vodka Trail rather likes as well.

Luckily for dark beer fans, Christmas brings a crush of winter warmers with it. Here are my favourites – some available only in their locality, others nationwide. Bottoms up!

Let’s start with Two Towers. Their Sleighed Porter is dark as night, sweet with liquorice, and served at their Brum brewery tap from a pump decorated with a cartoon of local(ish) boy, Noddy Holder. Deceptively strong, it slips down a treat.

Moving south west, Bath Ales Festivity is widely on sale in supermarkets, so buy a few bottles to crack open on Christmas Day. It’s a quaffable porter with a hint of coffee.

Even better, if you can find it, is the Bristol Beer Factory’s Bristletoe. An oatmeal porter, it’s chocolatey and moreish. If the lady loves Milk Tray, give her this tall, dark handsome stranger to try.

Twisted Ales, in the shadow of the White Horse of Westbury, has concocted a festive beer that would drink well in summertime too. Crafty Santa is a well-balanced amber ale with a clean malt and a hoppy background. Extremely refreshing, it’s a great beer to knock back after Christmas shopping.

Deepest Oxfordshire has produced some fine brews too. Hook Norton Twelve Days is fruity like a barley wine, although not quite as strong – ideal for melting your icicles in the darkest depths of winter. Bah Humbug from Wychwood is another Oxfordshire winter warmer. Widely available in bottles, it’s golden and spicy.

Finally, slip across to Rudgwick in Sussex, where the Firebird Brewing Company unashamedly calls its Old Ale XXXX a “warming winter beer”.  It’s black, smooth and slightly smoky, and totally delivers on Firebird’s promise.

This winter, my hero will be spoiled for choice!

What’s your favourite? Drop me a line at aaabbottstories[at]gmail.com

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As well as drinking craft beers, I write crime thrillers and short stories. There’s a rather sweet Christmassy tale in short story collection Festive Treats, an Amazon No 1 with contributions from 15 writers. You can get it FREE here.

Thriller of the Month – The Woodcutter, by Reginald Hill

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“I lived in a fairytale,” Wolf Hadda tells his psychiatrist from his prison cell. As far as he’s concerned, he achieved the impossible and won his fair lady.

Trouble is, they’re no longer together. In fact, Wolf, a former financial whizzkid, is now a convicted paedophile and fraudster. He’s penniless and his youthful good looks are gone, ravaged by an accident during an unsuccessful escape bid. Needless to say, he’s been abandoned by family and friends.

Elf, his psychiatrist, finally achieves the breakthrough that at first seems impossible. Wolf admits the crimes he’s been denying for seven years. He’s released on parole. Elf congratulates herself on a job well done. She visits his remote country cottage and even begins to acknowledge that she feels attracted to this reformed character. Then, as bad things begin to happen to those who have crossed Wolf Hadda, she starts to question her own judgement.

This isn’t so much a fairytale gone wrong as an allegory, especially as it features the shadowy JC, a spymaster with the power to put wrongs right. In a tale with many twists, it’s not always easy to tell who the good guys are, but at least we know by the end.

Reginald Hill sold millions of his Dalziel and Pascoe detective mysteries. The Woodcutter is another type of book altogether. With dodgy Russians, bent coppers, cokeheads and toffs, there are enough crazy characters and action scenes in The Woodcutter to please any thriller fan, but a heart-warming seasoning of humour and romance too.

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Like Reginald Hill, I’m a British crime thriller writer (my most recent book is The Vodka Trail), but I have other strings to my bow too. Get a free e-book of short stories – including crime, horror and romance! – by signing up here for my short and sweet newsletter.

Thriller of the Month – Flowers for the Dead, by Barbara Copperthwaite

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After taking time out to finish my latest crime thriller, The Vodka Trail, I’m reading lots of fabulous fiction again, and Thriller of the Month is back! Barbara Copperthwaite’s Flowers for the Dead is a psychological thriller on a par with Ruth Rendell’s darker works – an all too believable story of the harvest reaped from a dysfunctional childhood.

Anti-hero Adam is rich, young, athletic and alone in the world. He’s also painfully shy and can’t communicate easily with women. Although he knows the meaning of different flowers, having taught himself from an old book, even his hand-tied bouquets are misunderstood by the girls he fancies.

Orphaned in his late teens (and we learn more about that as the tale unfolds), Adam lives in a Victorian mansion in a swanky area of Birmingham. He travels far and wide in pursuit of young women – London, Colchester, Reading and inverness. It takes years for the police to realise they’re looking for a serial killer. Segueing between past and present to show us how a killer was made rather than born, Barbara Copperthwaite draws us skilfully into the minds of Adam, his victims and the policeman who’s racing against time to rescue the latest object of the killer’s fixation.

There’s just enough police procedural detail in the book to satisfy crime fiction fans, but this novel is all about the serial killer’s psychology, the warped logic that allows Adam to justify his acts to himself. Emotionally, nothing is black and white. It is possible to pity Adam, while still being repulsed by his crimes and rooting for DS Mike Bishop to save the day. The final suspense-filled finish is a real nail-biter.

This is journalist Barbara Copperthwaite’s second book and a third is expected soon – definitely one to watch!

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I’m a British thriller writer who’s just released The Vodka Trail – a suspense thriller. Just like Flowers for the Dead, the conflicts in the story have their roots in the past…