The November guest speaker was author James Ellson.

James began his presentation by telling us why and how he became an author. His first main career was as a police officer, initially joining the Metropolitan Police in London, before transferring to Greater Manchester Police. He became a Detective Inspector in that force and worked in one of the busiest, and well known, areas – Moss Side. He dealt with, and took charge of, a range of crimes and issues at that rank. His hobbies around this time included walking and climbing in the Himalayas. He retired from the police service around ten years ago. Nowadays, he is a smallholder, author and speaker.

James kept diaries during his police service and, after leaving the force, started to write each day. This culminated in him submitting his work to a number of agents., one of which sent his work to several publishers, but without success. He then had a long road to publication, five or six years during which he wrote his first book; ‘The Trail’. He sent the draft to a number of agents without success, before deciding to start again ‘from scratch’. He achieved an MA in Creative Writing as part of this process, and completely re-wrote ‘The Trail’.

James said that Crime Fiction was about the biggest, and most popular genre of this country, before describing the process of actually writing a book on that subject. He started with a brief plotline: A body is discovered, or someone goes missing, we accompany the investigator as he or she follow the clues, and eventually find out who did it, and why. James described how different, successful, crime writers bring the story to life, by drip feeding information, and possible clues to make the reader feel they are with the police officer, or private detective, each step of the way.

There could be a ‘chase’ as part of the story, as in John Buchan’s novel, The 39 Steps. ‘Time running out’ is also a way of keeping the pages turning – can they rescue the missing person, or can the investigator prevent another person being harmed? The desired result is the reader becoming engaged with the story, perhaps being able to spot the clues or being surprised when they find out ‘whodunnit?’.

One of his slides illustrated the way that a crime story was framed, from a book entitled The Burglar, by Thomas Perry; some of the stages being:

Ordinary World - The first step, where the reader is introduced to the world where the story takes place.

Call to Adventure - The hero leaves their ordinary world for a special one, often after receiving a challenge, threat, or opportunity.

Refusal of the Call - The hero may refuse the journey due to fears or insecurities

Tests, Allies, and Enemies -The hero faces challenges from their enemies, and must decide who to trust.

Crossing the Threshold -The hero crosses the threshold between the familiar and unfamiliar worlds and begins their quest.

The Approach -The hero reflects, reviews, and plans for the conflict.

Ordeal: The hero faces their biggest challenge.

This framework, or journey, through a crime filler was used by James for re-writing The Trail, using some parts of his own back story. An ex-detective inspector, the ‘hero’, who now is a beekeeper receives a request to try and trace a small-time cannabis dealer who has disappeared. The missing person was last seen in Nepal. The hero initially refuses the request but hears that the dealer’s father had fought in the Falklands conflict. The hero is persuaded that the father’s family deserves to get something back after serving the country and takes on the enquiry.

James had this idea after remembering being involved in a missing from home enquiry, where the subject was last seen in Pakistan, leading to Greater Manchester Police becoming involved. The hero ‘crosses the threshold’, and starts enquiries in Nepal, an unfamiliar world for the hero, but quite familiar to James himself. The ‘ordeal’ in this case involves the struggle on a bridge from one mountain to another. Surviving, and overcoming this, the ex-detective gets the reward of marrying a police analyst that appeared as one of his allies earlier in the story.

James said that traditionally the hero would be a male, but of course there are several series of books to reflect more modern times, which led to audience participation when encouraged to call out their favourites – again our speaker showed his wide knowledge of every character named.

Our members who enjoy reading detective thrillers will have noticed that the vast majority, are set in either Britain or the USA. James illustrated this by mentioning that 80% of the publishers he approached rejected ‘The Trail’ because the action took place in Nepal.

He went on to describe some other challenges for the would-be crime thriller writer, starting with the time period when the action takes place. Should it be in modern times or not? If the action takes place in say, Elizabethan times, the writer would need to fill in the background for all readers to engage with people who ‘know’ their history, and others who might not.

Should the story be told by the main character, the protagonist? Some crime novels have more than one protagonist – an example being the author Mick Herron, who has written a number of books with a powerful main character, Jackson Lamb, but adding the views of the people he outranks and gives orders to. The reader gets to know what each one is thinking as the stories progress, along with keeping up with the plot. James told us that characters are recognised and understood by readers to a great extent – far in excess of the actual stories.

Whether or not the crime novel is something we witness ‘god like’, or if viewed from the protagonist, there should always be a back story. This is something else that shows us how the hero works, along with some their flaws and weaknesses. Author Ian Rankin’s lead character is DI John Rebus, who seems to have a number of frailties, and skeletons in the cupboard.

But there should also be a ‘front story’ to further help the reader to engage with the novel. Characters have other things going on in their life, a divorce or an affair, some kind of illness or whatever that will engage the reader even more. The approach of the hero, perhaps unethical, might not be what the reader expected. James reminded us that some protagonists are definitely anti-hero, but still popular with readers.

He reminded us, via more audience participation, of the names of police officers and investigators – including Sam Spade, Heronimous Bosch, Dasheill Hammet and Inspector Bucket. His own favourite is Jack Reacher who features in books by Lee Child

An author should ideally have their own style, and stance, when telling the story. He or she must decide what’s right. The author must name the hero, add some humour along the way and keep their hero’s bedroom activity to a minimum.

With this in mind, and after a Q and A session, the audience applauded an interesting and absorbing talk.