A.A. Abbott

GREAT CRIME STORY WRITER

up in smoke

Characters I Hate, and Why

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Some fictional characters are a joy to write about. I paid tribute to them in my blog last week. There are others, by contrast, that I hate. Every word added to the page is a triumph of willpower. Because I immerse myself in each character’s mind and thoughts, that’s a big challenge when his or her values are very different from mine.

Nowhere was that more evident than the chapters devoted to Jeb in my latest crime thriller, The Bride’s Trail. Apart from loving his mother, he has no redeeming features. Jeb is an East End villain, selling Class A drugs and running a string of prostitutes whom he’s hooked on his wares. Greed is his sole motivator. He lies, steals and kills without a second thought. The mind of a psychopath is a depressing place indeed. You can meet Jeb, and Kat, who gets the better of him – just – in short story The Gap, a “5 minute crime thriller”.

After The Interview brought Boris, a coward, womaniser and murderer. While I hoped to make his emotions and actions understandable to readers, I doubt that he was loveable. I couldn’t love him myself. His infidelity, the bullying treatment of the Polish concierge and the paranoid execution of his best friend were almost enough to drive a writer to drink. Boris hit the bottle instead…

By comparison, I said last week that autistic Jed Gardner was my favourite character in After The Interview. That’s not the whole story. His episodes of anger and misery cast a grey cloud over my life, and a huge sigh of relief when he finally found peace of mind. I was challenged by outrageous Tony, the womanising tobacco chief executive of Up In Smoke, too. An unreconstructed chauvinist and Big Tobacco poster boy, he was fun – but I still gritted my teeth as he sold tobacco to smugglers and treated attractive women as every bit as disposable as a piece of Kleenex. Interestingly, Tony wasn’t based on a real person, but several readers thought they knew him! A case of truth being stranger than fiction?

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Which fictional character do you love to hate, and why? Please drop me a line at aaabbottstories[at]gmail.com and let me know! As a British crime thriller writer, I’m open to feedback and suggestions for new angles. In fact, reader feedback is so important to me that every draft crime thriller is read by a panel of 20 beta readers before a final rewrite!

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!

Thriller of the Month – The Firm, by John Grisham

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John Grisham, crime thriller writer extraordinaire, describes himself as “America’s favourite writer”. His British sales aren’t exactly small either. His classic, The Firm, illustrates why his books sell by the million.

For a thriller, it has a slow and gentle start. Mitch McDeere, about to graduate from law school, is offered the job of his dreams at Bendini, Lambert & Locke. The law firm lures him with a fantastic salary, a BMW and a swanky house. His young bride is unimpressed that she’s expected to transform into a Stepford wife, but Mitch throws himself heart and soul into his work. Grateful for the riches heaped upon him and ambitious for more, he works a hundred hours a week. Sometimes, he slaves at his desk all night, popping home for breakfast and a quick shower at the crack of dawn.

I can assure you, having worked with many lawyers in my corporate career, that this is horribly realistic. Indeed, there appears to be a macho culture that prizes the ability to pull “all-nighters”. So far, so normal, then. But, just as Mitch settles into his new position, he’s approached by the FBI. Suddenly, the tension mounts and Grisham’s pace escalates to a breakneck speed, keeping the pages turning once Mitch realises he’s becoming trapped in a web of crime. He faces a race against time as he tries to escape with his life.

Mitch is by no means the perfect hero – he’s swayed by hard cash, and he hates his in-laws – but Grisham still makes him a sympathetic, and credible, character. His world and his troubles easily hold the reader’s interest. Do give John Grisham a go, if you haven’t already!

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Although proudly British, I’m also a crime thriller writer. Corporate skulduggery features in my books The Bride’s Trail, After The Interview and Up In Smoke, along with heady emotions, crime and suspense…

 

Thank You!

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Happy New Year! As we race into 2016, it’s time to thank everyone who’s made 2015 great for me. Most of all, I owe a debt of gratitude to the readers who bought my latest crime thriller, The Bride’s Trail. From your reviews, it seems you liked it! Please tell your friends!

Thanks also to…

…the 20 readers who gave me feedback on the draft book. It’s a much tighter, colourful and interesting read because of you. Special thanks to Liz Ascott, RIP and much missed.

…Katharine D’Souza for her skilful and diplomatic editing.

…Pete Sutton for his fantastic Bristol Litfest events – it was a pleasure to take part in two of them.

…Foyles Bookshop, Brewsmiths, the Grosvenor casino, the Haggerston Tearoom, the Happy Heart Café, Waterstones and others who hosted live fiction events and book launches – they were brilliant.

…Donna Marie Finn of Twitter’s #TheCultureHour and Dave Massey of #BrumHour for their faith, support and inspired ideas. Teamwork is dreamwork after all (take a look at this guest blog I wrote for authorpreneur Amy Morse).

…Glenn Richardson, who suggested the secret tunnels under Birmingham’s Jewellery Quarter as the setting for action scenes in The Bride’s Trail – and local librarian Jackie Molloy, who took a cameo role in the book.

…New St Authors, Pigeon Park Press, Simon Fairbanks, Suzanna Stanbury and other writers who helped me out. I love your work too!

…all the authors whose fabulous fiction I enjoyed in 2015 – too many to mention!

…my newsletter subscribers. I hope you liked your free e-book, Something In The City.

Wishing you all great things in 2016!

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I’m a British crime thriller writer, author of full-length crime thrillers The Bride’s Trail, After The Interview and Up In Smoke. My New Year’s Resolutions boil down to read, write and be nice! More in my last but one blog.

Gunpowder, treason and plot! They’re still with us…

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While we British remember the 5th of November, it’s easy to forget it’s a local tradition. The rest of the world don’t care that Guy Fawkes tried to blow up the Houses of Parliament in 1606. Who knows what Britain might have looked like today if the plotters hadn’t been betrayed by a spy? Other coups of the past have had a massive impact on the shape of the world today – the American War of Independence, and the overthrow of monarchies in Russia, China and France, for example.

Intrigue simmers below the surface of big business too. While the Volkswagen emissions cover-up is in the news right now, the company’s been caught up in scandal before. In 1993, General Motors accused the German car maker of stealing its secrets. It cost VW over $1bn to settle, although it never admitted any liability.

The Matt Damon film, The Informant, was actually based on a true story of industrial espionage. The FBI used an inside man within the food industry to prove that an illegal cartel was fixing prices. The Insider, starred Russell Crowe in a similar role, as a whistleblower uncomfortable with his cushy executive job in Big Tobacco. It’s even harder, of course, to keep secrets in the digital age. They can be stolen at the touch of a button. Hackers recently attempted to blackmail British company Talk Talk – how many other companies have been clandestinely held to ransom?

Plotters and spies will always be with us. On Bonfire Night, we celebrate their failure. How very British – and what a great excuse for a fireworks party!

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I’m a British writer of short stories and crime thrillers. My first full-length book, Up In Smoke, features two corporate spies with totally different goals – one driven by money, the other by revenge. With counterfeiters, murderers, drug smugglers and a letter bomb or two, there are enough twists to rival the original Gunpowder Plot!