A Crime Novel with a Difference - Frances di Plino on her latest Paolo Storey novel

 Frances di Plino talks about victims' gender in crime novels and why she has chosen to break the mould. Her latest Paolo Storey novel sounds like a corker and is one I will certainly be reading very soon.

 

A Crime Novel with a Difference
by Frances di Plino

There has been a lot published recently on the prevalence of violence against women in crime novels. It does seem that the culture of women as victims helps to sell books. I’m not sure why that should be, but I have been guilty of writing a couple of such novels myself.

Certainly, in the first two of my D.I. Paolo Storey series, BAD MOON RISING and SOMEDAY NEVER COMES, females are the victims and men control their lives.

However, in book three, CALL IT PRETENDING, the killer had a motive for picking his targets and gender didn’t have a part to play.

In the latest, LOOKING FOR A REASON, which is out today, the notion of female victims has been turned on its head. The targets are all male – and with good reason.

 

LOOKING FOR A REASON

Someone is subjecting men to systematic rape and torture, but who? More to the point - why? 

After three days of cruelty, starvation and water deprivation, they are released. Detective Inspector Paolo Storey has many questions, but the biggest one of all is this: why, to a man, do they refuse even to admit they were held captive? 

As if the hunt for the elusive abductor wasn't enough, Paolo has to spend time finding out if money has been pilfered from public funds poured into a new youth centre.

He upsets a few local bigwigs in the process, but ruffling feathers is the least of his worries. His most important task is to work out why the attacks take place. 

If he can do that, he'll be a step closer to knowing who is behind them; but can he uncover the answers in time to save someone close to him? It isn't easy Looking for a Reason.

Frances di Plino is the pen name of Lorraine Mace, children’s author, humour columnist for Writing Magazine and a competition judge for Writers’ Forum. She is a former tutor for the Writers Bureau, and now runs a private critique and mentoring service for writers.

Writing as Frances di Plino, she is the author of the crime/thriller series featuring D.I. Paolo Storey: Bad Moon Rising, Someday Never Comes, Call It Pretending and Looking for a Reason

www.francesdiplino.com

www.lorrainemace.com

Writing Critique Service

www.flash500.com

Awesome Indies New Website

Today Awesome Indies Coordinator Tahlia Newland explains what is happening with the Awesome Indies website: 

The animated giff really says it all, but I'll write it a little more conversationally and give you some background:

The Awesome Indies is getting a brand new website. Tahlia Newland (coordinator), Ruthanne Reid (designer), and a team of volunteers have been working hard this past month to get ready for the opening on the 1^st of November. 

The new look site will be set up as a shop with purchase buttons linking to all the major ebook sales outlets as well as the Book Depository (free shipping worldwide) for those who like paperbacks. Our Amazon and iTunes links will be global links that will automatically send customers to their local store – no more ending up in the wrong store. 

And those with reading devices that take epub files will find plenty of books for their devices on the new site. Books to suit your taste will be easy to find by searching categories and tags. And books can be listed in more than one category, making it easy to see exactly what mix of genres you’ll find inside. This is particularly important for our books because most of them cross genres. 

Books will have their own product page with a great deal more information about them than on the present site, so you won’t have to leave the site to find the information you need to make your decision. Reduced books will appear on a sale page and in a featured spot on the front page, making the bargains easy to find, and a streamlined menu will make negotiating the site a lot easier. 

This new focus on selling the books is because these are the books from the independent publishing industry that readers should be buying. These are the books that will not disappoint with poor editing and under developed story lines. And if you’re looking for something different, the Awesome Indies is the place to find it. 

And, to mark the opening of the new site, we’re having a sale. Over 50 books priced at less than $3, many of which are rarely discounted, will be on sale for November 1^st and 2^nd. 

We’re also giving away a Kindle Paperwhite ereader to the lucky winner. The giveaway closes at the end of the weekend. Visit Awesome Indies Books next weekend to see the new site, show your support and pick up a bargain.


Thanks, Tahlia. 


My novels Delirium: The Rimbaud Delusion and The Land Beyond Goodbye will both be on sale as part of the Awesome Indies promotion.

 

France Book Tours

Charleville and Rimbaud – the uneasy relationship

 of a town and its most famous son

by

Barbara Scott Emmett

Jean-Nicolas-Arthur Rimbaud was born on 20^th October 1854 in a flat above a bookshop in the Rue Napoléon, Charleville. 

Now called Charleville-Mézières, the poet’s birthplace is a provincial town in northern France and is the setting for my novel Delirium: The Rimbaud Delusion. 

The novel’s protagonist, Andrea, visits Rimbaud’s old haunts and sits, as she says ‘in the exact space Rimbaud once sat in, the molecules of my body mingling with the memory of his.’

Read more at France Book Tours. 


Read Emma's insightful review of Delirium here.


Thanks to Emma for hosting this blog hop. It's much appreciated.



Find out more about Delirium: The Rimbaud Delusion
on the dedicated page on this blog.

Purchase Links for Delirium: The Rimbaud Delusion


Easy tweet: 
Find out more about flamboyant poet #Rimbaud - the first punk. http://barbarascottemmett.blogspot.co.uk/p/delirium-anovel-by-barbara-scott-emmett.html @BSE_Writer

  The winners of the blog hop giveaway have now been chosen. Congratulations to Denise and Rhonda - I hope you enjoy Delirium.

Sale On - Delirium: The Rimbaud Delusion

On sale everywhere for a few days. 

99c / 77p (or less)

DELIRIUM: The Rimbaud Delusion

 

KINDLE

BARNES & NOBLE

NOOK

KOBO

iBOOKSTORE

SMASHWORDS

In honour of Rimbaud's birthday and 

the launch of the paperback version. 

Paperback available at AMAZON.

October 1854 - births of Wilde and Rimbaud

October 1854 was a good month for literature – and for future scandal. 

On the 16^th one Oscar Fingal O’Flaherty Wilde entered the world at 21 Westland Row, Dublin; four days later, on the 20^th October, Jean-Nicolas-Arthur Rimbaud was born above a bookshop in the Rue Napoleon, Charleville, northern France.

Oscar & Bosie

Both were to have explosive love affaires which were distorted mirror images of each other. Maybe there was something in the stars that October.

Everyone knows about Oscar and Bosie – Lord Alfred Douglas. He was a poet in his own right, Bosie, though not a writer of the magnitude of either Oscar or Rimbaud; he did however coin the phrase ‘The love that dare not speak its name’, which comes from his poem Two Loves. History remembers Douglas as the man who helped ruin Oscar Wilde.

The story of Rimbaud and Verlaine is perhaps not so well-known. Rimbaud, the almost exact contemporary of Wilde was the one who did the ruining in their relationship. 

Paul Verlaine was a respected poet and a married man when the 17-year-old Rimbaud got his claws in him. 

 

Not that Verlaine did much to resist his degradation at the hands of his protégé; he entered into the spirit of things by setting fire to his wife and throwing his infant son against the wall.

Rimbaud matured earlier than Wilde. While Oscar was amusing his friends at Trinity College, Dublin, Rimbaud was well on in his career as a ne’er-do-well. He wrote most of his unique brand of poetry between the ages of 16 and 20. 

By the time Wilde went up to Oxford in 1874, Rimbaud was becoming disgusted with his way of life. He stopped writing poetry when he was about 21, before Wilde really got started.

Rimbaud’s relationship with Verlaine was probably more violent than Oscar and Bosie’s. Bosie was a spoilt pretty boy; Rimbaud was a devil in angel’s form according to those who knew him in Paris. He found it entertaining to stab his lover in the palms and jump out at him in alleyways on dark nights. 

Plaque at Royal College Street

The insults culminated in an episode involving a herring – Rimbaud spotting Verlaine coming up Royal College Street (formerly Great College Street), London carrying the aforesaid fish shouted out that he looked ridiculous (only in choicer words). Verlaine took the huff, as well he might, and left.

Rimbaud followed him to Brussels where further altercations took place and this time the boy wonder threatened to leave. Armed with a revolver purchased at the Galeries Hubert, Verlaine took a couple of pot shots at him to prevent his getaway. One bullet hit Rimbaud in the wrist.

Verlaine was sentenced to two years in prison – after suffering various indignities to his person as the authorities investigated the relationship between the pair.

Mathilde Verlaine

Constance Wilde

Oscar also did two years – with hard labour – and his losses were probably more heartfelt than Verlaine’s. Verlaine’s wife had already given up on him and refused to allow him to see his son again, whereas Constance, I think, may have stayed with Oscar if the pressures of society had not been so great.

Two sad tales with similar outcomes – though Rimbaud and Verlaine’s version had more than a touch of farce to it. 

Well, Rimbaud did say Life is a farce we are all forced to endure.

~

Delirium: The Rimbaud Delusion is available as an ebook from various online stores and the paperback will be launched on Rimbaud's birthday, 20th October 2014.

Now Available

 

Rimbaud

To see more images of Rimbaud and places mentioned in Delirium: The Rimbaud Delusion :- 


Follow Triskele's board Delirium: The Rimbaud Delusion on Pinterest.