Crime thriller wins Richard and Judy Search for a Bestseller open genre competition!

 

How exciting is that? The competition for first-time unpublished writers has selected Caz Frear´s thriller Sweet Little Lies for the podium spot.

Richard Madeley and Judy Finnigan, who described Frear as “an exciting new talent” and praised her for her “storytelling ability, distinctive foice and fantastic grasp of character” have offered Caz, in association with WH Smith and publishers Bonnier Zaffre a publishing contract, representation from literary agency Furniss Lawton and assurance that her books will be stocked in WH Smith stores across the country.
For this unmissable read, set in contemporary London with flashbacks to late 1990s Ireland, police detective Cat Kinsella investigates the murder of Alice Lapaine, who is discovered near the pub Cat´s father runs. Evidence emerges that links Alice to a girl who went missing in Ireland 18 years before…

Sylvia Campbell from the Crime Warp team interviewed the budding new author:

Hi Caz, it's great to be Crime Warping you today.  Tell us a bit about your current book release. 

Thanks for having me!  Sweet Little Lies tells the story of DC Cat Kinsella, a young DC in the Met, who starts to believe that her father may be somehow connected to the murder she’s investigating.  It’s very much a police procedural at heart – and the start of a series – but it definitely has family/domestic noir overtones as Cat tries to balance her professional responsibilities with her personal suspicions – well, in truth, there is no ‘balance’ in that situation and she’s forced to make a number of decisions about whether blood really is thicker than water.

Having won the Richard and Judy ´Search for a Bestseller´ competition - as a crime writer - must have been quite a buzz… How do you feel crime writers are represented in open genre writing competitions?

It was a buzz and I’m still buzzing!  It’s only been five months since I got ‘the call’ but I I really can’t remember what life was like before!  It’s been all-consuming from an emotional point of view, obviously, but also physically - taking the book from first draft through to finished product in just five months has been frantic.  Good frantic though!

Interestingly, the shortlist for the R&J competition had a real leaning towards crime.  I think mine was the only police procedural but there were definitely several psychological thrillers on there too, which reflects the huge appetite for the genre at the moment.  There’s a few specific crime novel competitions out there at the moment which I fully, fully applaud (and probably would have entered!) but winning an open-genre writing competition means so much.  I think it speaks volumes about the real respect for the genre these days – the standard of expectation when it comes to the actual writing, the characterisation etc, where perhaps in days gone by, it was more about the plot.

You have an unusual father/daughter relationship angle in your book. Has being a woman writing crime fiction been instrumental in how you have developed the female characters and the relationship dynamic in your book?

Oh, hugely.  While Cat’s character is a world away from my own – and thankfully her dilemmas are too – you can’t help but have your own experiences bleed into the writing in subtle ways. 

Certainly, in fiction, there’s a lot less written about the father-daughter relationship, which is odd given that the former is often far more complex. Psychologists say that whether you’re a daddy’s girl, or you’re at the other end of the spectrum - what they call the ‘disappointed daughter’ - your relationship with your father will always shape your personal life so it’s such a interesting topic to cover and I absolutely loved writing their scenes.  However, while Cat’s relationship with her father is obviously at the heart of the novel, there’s a real fatherhood theme running throughout that extends beyond just this.  I’ll stop now to avoid revealing any spoilers!

Have you ever written in another genre, or would you be tempted to? Or is crime your one and only love?

It’s a bit of a contradictory answer, because while crime really has been my one and only love, I did write a women’s fiction novel a good few years ago.  It didn’t get published but it did attract some tentative interest and that was enough to keep me motivated, thank god!  Looking back now, it seems odd that I was writing women’s fiction but my reading pile was 95% crime, but at the time I just thought that you couldn’t really write good crime fiction without being somehow in the know (a police officer, a barrister etc)  Thankfully, I got rid of this notion a couple of years back! 

If you were to host a “Come Dine With Me” party, who would you invite from the Crime Fiction fraternity and why?

Lynda La Plante – because I absolutely adore everything she’s ever written and I hear she’s an absolute hoot!

Tana French – again, because I am THE biggest fan but also because I know so little about her.  She’s such an elusive writer (by today’s standards anyway) – she isn’t on Twitter, she rarely features on panels, she gives the very occasional interview, but not many etc.  I’m just intrigued by her ability to live under the radar but completely knock my socks off with a new book every 18-24 months.

Sarah Hilary – so I could badger her about what she’s working on next - she literally can’t write them quick enough for me!

My editor, Katherine Armstrong – a) because she’s lovely   b) because she knows EVERYONE within the Crime Fiction fraternity so she’d be good at facilitating if the chat got a bit stifled and c) because she can hold her drink incredibly well and never gets hangovers, so I’m thinking she might tidy the kitchen for me while the rest of us are face-down in our pudding.

What authors have been influential to you and is there a book you wish you had written? 

I’m repeating myself here but definitely Tana French and Lynda La Plante, who make an odd duo, admittedly, as they’re markedly different writers. 

I first watched Prime Suspect when I was 12 years old and I was OBSESSED with it (probably too obsessed for a 12 year old!) and since then I’ve devoured everything Lynda’s ever written.  I’d recommend literally any of her books, but especially The Red Dahlia, to any budding crime writer (particularly police procedural writers) who want to learn about plotting and pace.  She really is a master story-teller.

And then, for me, Tana French is the go-to person for stunning prose and sharp characterisation.  I think she was the first writer to make me realise that you don’t exactly have to like a character to be completely entranced by them - it’s the wry humour that she injects into all her novels that really hooks you in.

Apart from wishing that I’d written Gone Girl or Girl on the Train for pure financial reasons J, I’ll go back to Tana French and say that I wish I’d written In the Woods (sometimes it feels like I did write it, I know it so inside-out-and-back-to-front!)

What are you working on at the moment?

Right now, I’m balancing publicity for Sweet Little Lies with the makings of Book 2.  I think I’m almost there in terms of knowing where I’m going with it.  I’ve written the most detailed synopsis, in fact it’s almost a novella (a badly-written novella) and I’ve been writing – and deleting – some key scenes, just feeling my way in.  As I mentioned before, Sweet Little Lies is the first of a series so Cat, Parnell and Steele will be back, and while it is a completely different story (as opposed to a sequel), the events of Sweet Little Lies still continue to cast a shadow.

If you were not writing what creative activity would you be involved in?

Do you know what, I’m pretty awful at every other creative activity.  My mind must be set to a stubborn writing default!  I definitely can’t draw and I’m not at all musical.  I’m known for my awful photography (although I’m trying to improve) and while I wouldn’t say I’ve got two left feet, I’m certainly no Ginger Rogers either. 

I’m a pretty good cook though, so I’m told.  I guess cooking is a creative activity (given I never follow the recipe!)

And finally, what question would you love to be asked in an interview?

Good question – that’s a tricky one! 

I think because I feel so grateful for everything that’s happened over the past six months, and so privileged to be in this position, I’d just love to be asked any question that helps another aspiring writer  - whether that’s advice on handling rejection, how to edit your work, how to build suspense etc.  Not that I’m the fount of all knowledge on these things (far from it) but I think everyone’s perspective is valuable, you just need to find works for you. 

Thank you Caz, it has been a pleasure.