The crime writer wrote the book which the weary traveller picked up the airport. It was bog standard stuff, some serial killer was going around the place, killing women and tying ribbons on them. ‘How’, thought the Crime Writer, ‘can I make this book different from all the other serial killer books out there?’ He pondered long and hard, thought through the night, cracked it, rejected it, cracked it again, dismissed that idea, then, just as dawn was breaking it came to him.
I’ll do little short chapters of about one or one and a half pages from the point of view of the serial killer! Hurrah. Nobody’s ever thought of that before. No. When they read this they shall bow before me. For I am mighty. And the best part is I’ll put it in italics.
The Crime Writer worked hard, diligently even, and soon produced his book which the weary traveller thumbed through as he waited for his plane to fall out of the sky. The story progressed in a fairly linear fashion with the cop leading the investigation struggling to keep on top of things. But not just the investigation. Oh no.
Just to make things super different I’ll ensure my leading man, my Bosch, my Wallander, my Rebus, not only finds the case difficult but his very own life. How fresh. I won’t make him just a normal chap doing a rather abnormal job. No, he’s got his demons. Merely hinted at in the beginning but soon it will become clear that something weighs heavily on his conscience. A death! The death of a girl! That he might have stopped. Or that he might have caused. Oh, I am mighty and you may call me a name which is not my real name but which I will use simply so I can use the phrase ‘you may call me’ as it sounds all sinsister and dark and mysterious. Who know, if this works out I might even give him a drink problem!
The Crime Writer continued his book, all the way to the end and he wrote ‘the end’ but left the denouement a touch ambiguous just in case he wanted to use some characters again or to draw people in to his next novel. A novel he would find hard to write having just used every available crime fiction cliché already reinvented the entire genre but one that would not best him.
I shall use the killers vanity to have him caught. Or, perhaps, I shall completely change his character. I can ensure that the murderer, who was meticulous about his planning and behaviour, suddenly becomes careless and sloppy. His hubris shall be his downfall. A chase, a fight, a shoot-out, during which he displays characteristics completely at odds with why he was a killer in the first place, will see him get on top but then he will make one mistake too many and I shall take his life. Why? Because I am mighty, so very, very mighty. And you may call me … The Author. For that is my name.
The weary traveller decided next time he would take a sleeping pill. Or a parachute and jump out of the plane. Or maybe, just maybe, a better book.
Sounds like a great book.
Whats it called?
How about different victims?
Instead of young pretty women, make the dead bodies be hippies or something.
Or Jazz musicians!
only reason police would look for the killer of crustys or jazz perpetrators would be to give them a medal. novel would be more of a pamphlet than paperback
How about different victims?
Instead of young pretty women, make the dead bodies be hippies or something.
Or Jazz musicians!,
Remember Medbh,he is reinventing the genre,im sick of hippies and jazz musicians getting bumped off in crime thrillers
I dont why nobody though of butchering a load of pretty young girls… Then it turning out to be the heroe’s friend/lieutenant/wife.. revolutionary stuff that would be..But its copyrighted now,if any of you steal it,i’ll know where you got the idea from!!!
Ha ha.
Perhaps some Marian Keyes, Twenty.
A detective fiction fan, is it.
Like a dad.
I am seeing a pipe somewhere in your near future.
Twenty is a blogger on the edge, this time he got pushed TOO far….
Is this book called ‘ The return of the man who never came back ‘ ?
…and fell off?
But who pushed him? Was it Crispy? Baldy? or perhaps Bock Bock Bocky
It was The Author, because he is mighty, so very, very mighty.
For that is his name…
How about a killer who goes round butchering people who buy Damien Rice Albums ?
Twenty, you need to get into Murder Ink on Dawson Street and get some Donald Westlake, Ross Thomas, or the old reliables of Chandler and Dashiell Hammett, early Lawrence Block stuff maybe.
That’ll sort ye.
Mickey link went around to all my friends, that’s me and me ma – very funny photo.
As a descendent of Jack the Ripper (I can’t say too much more for legal reasons), this topic is close to my heart Twenty. These crime writers have it too easy. If they truly had the courage of their convictions, with a Daniel Day Lewis kind of dedication, they’d quietly knock off a few hobos to fully understand the criminal mechanisms they’re waffling about.
Or alternatively, they’d use the media to deliberately taunt active serial killers in order to become the latest victim, and subsequently dictate their novel from beyond the grave via Oijua board. Artists should suffer for their art, and if that means becoming a headless torso, I don’t see what the problem is.
Good books are so hard to find these days.
Especially for three europounds…
haha
No value these days.
If they truly had the courage of their convictions, with a Daniel Day Lewis kind of dedication, they’d quietly knock off a few hobos to fully understand the criminal mechanisms they’re waffling about.
Then you could write a book about the writer who was writing a book about a writer who was a serial killer.
Cool.
How about a murder novel when the cop does not find out who the murderer is. That would be fresh.
The back of the book will read as follows;
“He loved the woman he killed, he killed the woman he loved. He blamed the banks and got upset that people were upset.”
I missed the whole bockfest arguing and as you know I can’t be arsed to read all the comments, so this was my only opening.
I did try Rebus, but only got as far as the drinking problem and the ex-wife.Was she dead or divorced? I cant remember…
If you think Rebus is bad you should try Ulsterbus.
Or alternatively, they’d use the media to deliberately taunt active serial killers in order to become the latest victim, and subsequently dictate their, novel from beyond the grave via Oijua board.
It came to me, suddenly, that maybe The Author wrote this book so that some outraged reader would kill him? I have a feeling we might see a novel from beyond the grave on the bookshelves soon…