My Life of Crime with crime author Dave Sivers
Dave Sivers grew up in West London and has been writing all his life. His books include the popular crime series featuring the Aylesbury Vale detectives, DI Lizzie Archer and DS Dan Baines. The Scars Beneath the Soul and Dead in Deep Water were both top three bestsellers in the Amazon Kindle Serial Killers chart. His next novel, In Ink, introducing DI Nathan Quarrel, will be published on 15 May. Dave lives in Buckinghamshire with his wife, Chris, and is a founder of the annual BeaconLit festival of books and writing. Over to you Dave.
Two books that influenced me.
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C S Lewis.
I inherited love of story
from my mum and quickly realised that primary school ‘compositions’ could be
used as an excuse to make my own stories – so I’ve honestly been writing since
age six. But it was around that age that a teacher called Miss Jones introduced
us to Narnia by reading us a chapter a day. Stephen King talks of the ‘hole in
the page’ that a writer dives through into the world of the book, but it works
for readers, too. That was the first book which truly opened that hole for me
and pulled me in.
Every Dead Thing by John Connolly.
I’ve always thought John
Connolly and Stephen King have a lot in common. They’re not easy to pigeon
hole. Both have elements of supernatural in much of their work, but there’s a
lot more to it than that. King is usually on the horror shelves, while Connolly
is usually in crime, probably because his series character, Charlie Parker, is
a private eye. This first Parker book is for me a masterclass in writing a
crime thriller. I immediately read it, making notes on the structure so I could
see what the author had done and how he’d done it. It’s the book that first
opened my eyes to story structure in quite that way.
4th of July, Asbury Park (Sandy) by Bruce Springsteen.
The Boss is such a
brilliant songwriter, never more so than when he tells a story in such a way
that you can almost see the movie playing inside your head. I especially love
the live version of this song about leaving an old life behind. Some think it’s
a metaphpr for Springsteen himself ;looking back on how fame has changed him. I
see it more as a coming of age thing. It probably offers different meanings for
everyone. It’s a song you can go back to and find new nuances in, and it has
killer lines like, ‘Did you hear the cops finally busted Madam Marie for
tellin' fortunes better than they do?’
The Age of Miracles by Mary Chapin Carpenter
I love just about every
song this woman has written, and I could have chosen hundreds of them. She’s
currently lifting our spirits online with songs from her kitchen. This is a
song of despair over making the same mistakes over again and finding hope in
witnessing small acts of courage and defiance. It’s both moving and uplifting.
Maybe just what we need in the current crisis.
Two Films/TV Dramas,
documentaries or similar that influenced me and why
The West Wing.
Seven seasons, 156 episodes,
and simply the best TV ever. And I say it as someone who keeps going back and
watching the whole thing through. Aaron Sorkin’s ensemble drama, with it’s
sweeping grand design, big stories, slow burn stories, and also the little
stories self-contained within a single episode is a simply brilliant construct,
carried along by a pitch-perfect cast inhabiting credible characters with
strengths and flaws. The relationships between the characters are brilliantly
observed – the love, the irritations, the disappointments. And if all that’s
not enough, look at the sequences where the action is in perfect tune and time
with the music: for an example, go to YouTube and find the military funeral of
a homeless man while ‘Little Drummer Boy’ plays over it. The quality of the
writing is so good, it makes me weep, but that sort of quality should also be
the Holy Grail for a writer.
It’s a Wonderful Life
The best film ever for
me, and many others’ favourite too. The device is simple: a man pushed to the
edge contemplates suicide until an angel shows him a vision of what the world
would be like if he’d never existed – and it’s a dark place indeed. When he
returns home, realising that life really is wonderful, he finds how loved he
is, and everyone has rallied round to help him. So far, so schmaltzy. But of
course, the best films are about the observation and the characters. James
Stewart plays George Bailey with such conviction and compassion that you can’t
help rooting for him. It makes me cry no matter how often I see it. The first
minutes bring a lump to my throat. Call me a softie – and most people do – but
any writer can learn from films like this how to invoke powerful emotions, time
and again.
Nelson Mandela.
Great men and women are
rare enough but, of all that rare breed, it’s hard for me to think of anyone
else quite so extraordinary from my lifetime. A man who spent 27 years in
prison for his struggle against South Africa’s apartheid regime and, following
his release in 1990, worked with the President F W de Klerk to negotiate an end to apartheid. Their
efforts led to the 1994 multiracial general election in which Mandela led the
ANC to victory. In his five years as president, he led a broad coalition
government, which promulgated a new
constitution, and he focused on reconciliation between the country's racial
groups and created the Truth and Reconciliation Commission to investigate past
human rights abuses. He by no means solved all his country’s problems at a
stroke, but his achievements, through the strength of his own personality, are
staggering. Watch the film ‘Invictus’ in which Mandela, played brilliantly by
Morgan Freeman, manages to rally black South Africa behind the national
Springboks rugby team, previously a hated symbol of white supremacy, and
inspires the team to win the 1995 World Cup.
When Mandela wore a Springbok shirt at the final and presented the
trophy to captain Francois Pienaar, an Afrikaner, it was seen as a major step
toward reconciliation and won the hearts of millions of white rugby fans.
Stephen Booth.
These are such hard
questions, but taking the ‘influence’ thing literally, this Derbyshire crime
writer deserves a mention. When I first started trying to write crime, I used
to go to a lot of festivals, especially Harrogate Crime. I knew I wanted to
write authentic crime set in my beloved Chilterns, but a panel discussion on
Town vs Country settings seemed to be saying that if I wanted to wrote gritty
crime I should go for a big, urban city setting; rural would condemn me to cosy
crime with old ladies, hats and cats – or something like Midsomer Murders. But
I also saw Stephen Booth talking about his Cooper and Fry series: it’s set in rural
Derbyshire, but is as gritty and uncompromising as they come. It gave me the
courage to stick to my guns, and I’m glad I did. Stephen is also a seriously
nice guy.
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| Available here |
The Blurb
A cruel death. A macabre calling card.
A killer on a mission.
A body is found outside a
church in a small Hertfordshire town. Alastair Murdoch suffered before he died.
But what really disturbs DI Nathan Quarrel is the Tarot card motif adorning the
body: The Fool.
Just 24 hours later,
another body turns up.
A different card, but
from the same pack.
Unless Quarrel can
decipher the meaning behind the cards and the connection between the victims,
more will follow in a twisted agenda of abduction, pain and death.
PRAISE FOR DAVE SIVERS:
‘Fabulous stuff – as good as Peter Robinson’ – Christina Jones, bestselling author
‘Sivers is alongside the likes of McDermid and Billingham in
terms of giving you characters you just long to know more about’ – Robert F Barker, author of the Jamie
Carver series.
Facebook:
davesiversauthor1
Twitter: @davesivers
Thanks so much for having me, Liz!
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