A.A. Abbott

GREAT CRIME STORY WRITER

strong women

Characters I Love, and Why

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As it’s St Valentine’s Day (read my thoughts in last year’s blog about it), I’m penning a tribute to the characters I really love. They may not share my values, but boy, these people were fun to write about. Here are the ones I love – and why:

Alicia, the amoral merchant banker in Up In Smoke. She has two aims in life – climbing the corporate ladder, and having fun. If a fling ticks both boxes, she’ll go for it. Never self-pitying, always resourceful, she’s hardly a role model, but she’s always interesting.

Tony, also from Up In Smoke (hear a chapter from the crime thriller here) is a textbook villain. A womaniser and a homophobe, he runs a tobacco company and uses his power to seduce every woman who catches his eye. Bad boys are just so entertaining…

…but the good guys are too. Jed Gardner, the autistic hero of After The Interview is my favourite character ever. Deeply flawed, struggling to understand and be understood, he makes mistakes and loses everything – but bounces back. As does Andrew Aycliffe, who would be my ideal boss.

Crime thriller The Bride’s Trail, on the other hand, stars strong women – orphaned Kat and her loyal flatmate, Amy. Both have a dry sense of humour, an excellent foil to the arrogant men they meet. I deliberately chose to keep Kat’s point of view hidden and reveal her personality through the eyes of others. That will change in the sequel planned for release this summer…

Although hardly characters in the conventional sense, buzzy Birmingham and frenetic London feature in all three crime thrillers – and many of my short stories, available free on this website.

I aim to build empathy for all my characters, but I don’t love them all. Some are simply too challenging. Find out more next week, when I tell you which characters I hate – and why!

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I’ve been a British crime thriller writer for several years, and an occasional writer of short stories for many more. If you like my blog, why not invite me to speak at your book group, social circle or business network? Please drop me a line at aaabbottstories[at]gmail.com!

Strong Women in Fiction

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I’ve been invited to the Midlands Women of the Year lunch this Friday, 9th October. Men and women alike are welcome should you care to join me! As well as meeting strong women in real life, I adore reading about them in fiction. While heroines abound, not all have a core of steel. I’d happily share a cup of tea with Jane Austen’s Lizzie Bennett, but I wouldn’t rely on her to save me from a tight spot. Here are a few fictional characters who really kick ass, though…

#1. Brienne of Tarth and #2. Arya Stark from George RR Martin’s fantasy series, Game of Thrones. Famously gory, bad things happen to practically everyone in Martin’s books. Misfortune is the making of some characters and the breaking of others, while for a few, it is simply endured. Unlike a conventional heroine, Brienne is no beauty, but her determination, physical strength and skill as a fighter enable her to hold her own among the knights of the land. Arya trains as an assassin to avenge her father’s death. Both are women you’d want firmly on your side. The alternative is too scary to contemplate.

#3. Dr Joanna Hunter in Kate Atkinson’s third Jackson Brodie detective story, When Will There Be Good News? Resourceful Dr Hunter may be the target of crime, but she’s definitely not a victim.

#4. Dagny Taggart in Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged is a businesswoman who runs a railroad and takes lovers on her own terms. While I find Ayn Rand’s novels lack subtlety (the heroes are intelligent and capable, the villains spineless), she firmly believed a woman could do anything a man could, and reflected that in her fiction.

#5. Terry Pratchett’s Granny Weatherwax. A beacon of common sense, guile and barefaced cheek, the old witch can take care of herself and others. There’s a fabulous chapter in Witches Abroad where she turns the tables on a bunch of conmen, robbing them blind in a card game. On another occasion, she cheats Death at the same game.

#6. Lisbeth Salander in Stieg Larsson’s thriller, The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo. Salander’s tribulations, and her reaction to them, are every bit as extreme as anything George RR Martin could concoct. Although she lacks social skills after her troubled childhood, she’s a computer hacking genius. Evildoers can’t hide from her, and nor can their money.

Should you be celebrating great real-life role models at the Midlands Women of the Year lunch this Friday, do drop by to say Hi. I’ll be signing copies of my latest crime thriller, The Bride’s Trail – featuring an enigmatic heroine whose disappearance sparks off a trail across two British cities…

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AA Abbott’s crime thrillers, Up In Smoke, After The Interview and The Bride’s Trail, are described by readers as “racy and pacy”, “stylish” and “funny and fast”. Grab one at a bookshop, peek inside each book on Amazon or read tasters here.