The Semantics of Murder

Serpent's Tail have done you all a favour and released the paperback version of The Semantics of Murder by Aifric Campbell. And the snazzy new cover is quite lovely. Especially as it includes the following quote from her fellow Dub, Joseph O'Connor:

"An enthralling and intelligent thriller swirling with dark, beguiling shadows"

High praise indeed!

Meanwhile, some wee fecker from the North spouted this opinion:

"I expected a highbrow literary affair with lots of subtle nuances, subtext, dense prose, long-long paragraphs and a distinct lack of dialogue and action. And that’s what I got. But here’s the thing... I truly enjoyed it."

And he has the audacity to continue to go on about it here.

Ten and Fifty Thousand

With the passing of the 10,000th page visit to Crime Scene NI (can I get a woo hoo?) comes news of Adrian McKinty's latest publishing development. Fifty Grand's UK release will be published by the ultra-cool Serpent's Tail; the UK independent publishers who brought us The Dead Trilogy by Adrian McKinty, Hidden River by Adrian McKinty, The Semantics of Murder by Aifric Campbell, The Red Riding Hood Quartet by David Peace and The Prophet Murders by Mehmet Murat Somer, among many others.

Nice.

Serpent's Tail have confirmed that they aim to publish Fifty Grand by next summer. Better get your finger out and finish the darn thing, Mister McKinty.

Verbal Magazine - Issue 15

This month's Verbal is now available in PDF on their website. It meets its usual high standards, despite the fact that they've printed my reviews for Adrian McKinty's The Bloomsday Dead, Aifric Campbell's The Semantics of Murder and Colin Bateman's Orpheus Rising.

You'll also find a review of John Connolly's The Reapers, penned by Tammy Moore.

And, if you live in the North of Ireland, be sure to pick up tomorrow's Belfast Telegraph. They have an article on crime fiction by Adrian McKinty! If you can't pick up a copy, I'll provide the highlights in the near future.

An Interview - Aifric Campbell

Aifric Campbell is the author of “The Semantics of Murder”, a novel inspired by an unsolved murder in Los Angeles in 1971 and which has been widely reviewed in the Irish press. Please visit www.thesemanticsofmurder.com

Q1. What are you writing at the minute?

A novel I never expected to write! It’s a ghostly tale of unresolved loss partly inspired by the story of a bunch of Canadian soldiers who lived in my house during WW2 and were killed at Dieppe. Last year I was 50,000 words into another book when this new voice just appeared and was so distracting that eventually I had to sit down and write the story to get it out of my head. This has never happened to me before – I am normally highly structured - so I knew there were only two possibilities: either I was losing my mind or this would be a good book. Let’s hope it’s the latter! I’ll soon find out because the first draft is nearly finished.

In August, I’ll be returning to the abandoned novel which is set in the global financial markets in the 1980s when greed was good. A sort of female version of “Bonfire of the Vanities” but set in London and Hong Kong. This is partly autobiographical as I used to be an investment banker.

Q2. Can you give us an idea of Aifric Campbell’s typical up-to-the-armpits-in-ideas-and-time writing day?

Up by 6am – it’s a hangover from my time working the markets and anyway I’m a lousy sleeper. If I’m not lecturing I prefer to write in the morning and edit in the afternoon. Anything I write after 8pm is usually garbage. I take my son to school & walk the dogs (one arthritic lab and one crazy puppy) out on Ashdown Forest which is now the biggest public space in the South East of England (but think heathland rather than trees). At the moment the dogs are helping me with research so we wander around bomb craters and war memorials and spent a fair amount of time in a graveyard close by. I work on a Mac and back up obsessively onto flash ever since I had my previous one stolen in Spain last year. I always edit on the page. Sometimes I work in the London Library or the British Library. I love working on trains – in the carriages where mobiles are not allowed. Now and again – especially when I’m at the beginning or close to the end of a novel, I go to West Cork for 24/7 writing benders: no phone, no email, no TV and no humans. Just walk the beaches and write.

And I read. I have long reading lists (in fact I have all sorts of lists…

Q3. What do you do when you’re not writing?

Think about writing. Feel guilty that I’m not writing… I get pretty cranky if I’m not writing for more than a few days. So it’s better for everyone if I never stop for very long. Thus the notebook comes on hols. I read a lot. Watch my son play football – a LOT. I love movies and get to the theatre as much as I can. We lived in London for a long time so the countryside here can feel very isolating in winter. I lecture most terms. I go to body combat classes which my son finds highly amusing because I don’t actually hit anyone. See friends. Talk (a lot). Drink (probably a lot). Avoid housework…

Q4. Any advice for a greenhorn trying to break into the crime fiction scene?

The same as for the writer of any kind of fiction: Always be reading. Always be writing. Don’t give up the day job! Getting published is often a very long haul. Writers don’t often speak about how much and how long they’ve written for before they got their first deal. “The Semantics of Murder” was the 3rd novel I’d written but the first to get published. I can see now that it was also by the far the best of the 3! I think you have to be prepared to cut your teeth like that, work hard and be strong in the face of rejection. When I first came to London in the 80s I applied for 40 different jobs and got called to only 2 interviews. So I learnt how to be bloody minded – you have to believe in yourself when no one else does. Become a good and dispassionate editor of your own work. Learn to CUT. Most books are far too long. Target your publisher or agent carefully. Find out who or what is on their lists.

Q5. Which crime writer(s) have impressed you this year?

Benjamin Black (I am a big fan of Banville and enjoyed this new departure), Fred Vargas, Tana French and I am about to start Borderlands.

Q6. What are you reading right now?

Excluding military research for my novel, the following mixture is pretty typical: Per Petterson “Out Stealing Horses” Helen Schulman “A Day at the Beach” Steg Larsson (I lived in Sweden for some years) Just about to start Kevin Myers “Watching the Door”. Just finished Joshua Ferris “When We Came to the End” – nice to read a book that makes you laugh for a change! I keep 2 poetry books by my bed - TS Eliot and Dante’s Divine Comedy that I sometimes read late at night.

Q7. Plans for the future?

More lists! Finish the ghost book. Start book 3. Learn the rules of rugby. Teach the puppy to stop chasing deer. Overcome my fear of deep water.

Q8. With regards to your writing career to date, would you do anything differently?

No. It worked for me.

Q9. Anything you want to say that I haven’t asked you about?

I’ll bow out and say thanks now. After all, you have to type this in!

Thank you, Aifric Campbell!

A Wee Review - The Semantics of Murder by Aifric Campbell

Aifric Campbell’s biographical information on the first page of her debut novel, The Semantics of Murder, reveals more than a few interesting facts about her. “As a convent schoolgirl in Dublin, her greyhound won the Irish Derby and a hymn she co-wrote won a national TV song contest.” Other impressive facts include her completion of a Linguistics degree, lecturing in semantics at the University of Göteborg, a thirteen year career in investment banking and her decision to drop that in favour of studying psychotherapy and creative writing at the University of East Anglia.

An impressive CV, no?

And for this simple reader, a somewhat intimidating introduction to her novel. I expected a highbrow literary affair with lots of subtle nuances, subtext, dense prose, long-long paragraphs and a distinct lack of dialogue and action. And that’s what I got. But here’s the thing... I truly enjoyed it.

Campbell’s protagonist, Jay Hamilton, is on the surface, a confident, suave and impressive individual. Having moved from Los Angeles to Kensington in London, he has set up shop as a highly-regarded (at least, among his peers) psychoanalyst. His upper class clients unwittingly feed his muse as he moonlights as J Merritt, a successful author dealing in stories heavily steeped in mental analysis. And his literary career is not his only secret. Robert, Jay’s much older brother, was allegedly killed by rent boys and Jay was first on the scene. Much of Jay’s internal dialogue deals with how he coped with the trauma of his father-figure-brother’s death and a terrible relationship with his mother. His old pains are relived when an investigative biographer, Dana Flynn, tracks down Jay to question him about Robert, a mathematical genius and the subject of her work-in-progress.

Jay is a fascinating character, and though not entirely sympathetic, Campbell does a great job of building him up and then slowly revealing his flaws and insecurities. To a point she hides his real personality behind his unsavoury opinions of his clients as he relives memorable sessions with the oddest cases. But the real Jay is revealed through his thoughts of his dead brother as the story progresses. Campbell also has a mastery of descriptive language. The book is mostly set in London and LA and when Campbell takes us to either of these locations there is no mistaking her familiarity with them. The characters’ surroundings couldn’t have been better illustrated without the aid of cinematography and a popup book. And the supporting cast is vividly painted through Jay’s eyes, each one with their own physical quirks and characteristics. Lovely.

I felt that the big reveal in the third act was a bit predictable, but I don’t think Campbell’s intention was to shock us with a huge twist in the tale. Instead, and I phrase this vaguely to avoid spoilers, she eased the reader in to the big secret and made it easier to swallow.

The plot also concerns a short story inspired by one of Jay’s most interesting clients. Jay tries to nail Cora’s character and succeeds. But it is his expert prediction of Cora’s ultimate outcome that leads him to question his ethics as a psychoanalyst. And so, the reader can’t help but feel intrigued by J Merritt’s short story, Cora. Well, Campbell made the bold decision to include the actual story as an appendix to the novel. And it was a great read. Very different in style to the novel, employing omniscient POV and a much more pared down style of prose, I found it the perfect epilogue to the story of Jay Hamilton and his self-examination of sibling rivalry.

All in all, The Semantics of Murder is not exactly a light read for the beach, but an excellent novel if you fancy an intellectual workout.

One last thing, the official release date is the 24^th of April, but I’ve seen copies on shelves in an Eason or two over the last few weeks. So, no need to wait. Go buy it.

Next on The Crit List

Got a nice surprise through the letterbox today. The most excellent Rebecca Gray from Serpent's Tail sent me a copy of The Semantics of Murder by Aifric Campbell, a Dublin born scholar of the highest degree.

Here are some press release snippets.

"A profoundly original new writer. The Semantics of Murder leads us on a dark and thrilling quest through murderous spaces of the mind, in prose of startling and inventive beauty." Stevie Davies.

"This gripping psychological drama hooks the reader into a compelling labyrinth of sibling rivalry and stealthy passion. It is an intellectual novel of ideas written with real verve and style." Patricia Duncker.

I'm quite intrigued by this one. It's been bumped to the top of the reading pile.