Comments on: The Crafty Writer Book Club is Open!

By: Book Club: The Book Thief at The Crafty Writer

Book Club: The Book Thief at The Crafty Writer — Tue, 06 May 2008 20:13:52 +0000

[...] best-selling novels from a writer’s perspective to see what makes them tick. As in the last Book Club discussion, I’ll pose some questions under the following [...]

By: Book Club back on track at The Crafty Writer

Book Club back on track at The Crafty Writer — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 21:40:44 +0000

[...] those of you who participated in our last book club discussion on The Grave Tattoo, you may have been disappointed at the end of March when the promised [...]

By: Fiona Veitch Smith

Fiona Veitch Smith — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 17:05:19 +0000

YOu should really give the Wire in the Blood novels a go. They’re not time slip and are well crafted psychological thrillers. I thought Jane had potential as a tenacious heroine when she tracked down and confronted Tenille’s dad, but McDermid didn’t build on that platform, except to use the gangster connection as a red herring – was T’s dad trying to silence Jane about the killing? I suppose Jane’s confrontation with Jake could have been seen as ’strong’ when she didn’t fall for his schemes, but again, it didn’t rise to much in her. Poor Jane! And who was hoping that Ewan might go for Jane and Jake for River?

By: Meg Stokes

Meg Stokes — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 15:44:11 +0000

I wonder if Jane is perceived as ‘weak’ because she is such a ‘nice’ person. Does she have any faults? She’s rather bland. I believe that the novel did so well in spite of that because it is the other characters who are strong and quite passionate, either about each other or about their desires. They are the ones who drive the story forward. Jane sits in the calm at the centre of the action. I have to agree with Dan not being particularly plausible as the killer. The only thing which stood out for me was his affair with Jimmy. I wondered whether this showed his untrustworthy nature, considering he was in a relationship with Harry at the beginning of the novel. On the whole I enjoyed the book – I’ve not read any Val McDermid novels before – although I do find ‘time-slip’ narratives hard going. I too skimmed the Christian Fletcher Diary.

By: Fiona Veitch Smith

Fiona Veitch Smith — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 14:08:47 +0000

How many years is several? Perhaps this was written before the changeover and never corrected. I once wrote a short story in which Camilla Parker Bowles was referred to as the ‘royal mistress’, by the time it was published the mistress was the wife! Some readers took exception

One thing I don’t think we’ve adequately looked at is why Jane is perceived by most of us as a ‘weak’ character, and how the novel managed to do so well despite this. Any thoughts?

By: Alison B

Alison B — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 12:58:01 +0000

Like several of you I ended up skipping the historical journal bits, for me they detracted from the story. I enjoyed the story, I certainly liked Tenille, and began to suspect Dan after Jane was pushed in the water. I enjoyed the budding romance between River and Ewan – that’s a sub-plot that could become the basis of a novel of its own! The one real gripe I have is the references to both St Catherine’s House and the Family Records Centre when doing geneaology research. The FRC took over from St Catherine’s several years ago.

By: Fiona Veitch Smith

Fiona Veitch Smith — Sun, 03 Feb 2008 11:33:46 +0000

That’s the problem with split narratives – when one is more interesting than the other. I found that with Labyrinth. I felt Mosse skimmed over the best parts of the historical narrative to make room for the contemporary. I would have much rather had the whole book set in history. But that’s just my thing. In Da Vinci Code, Although I dislike the book as a whole, I thought he managed to integrate the historical into the contemporary without splitting the narrative. Same with Rule of Four – another book I didn’t like! So what’s the moral of the story: split narratives are hell to write!

By: Karen M

Karen M — Sat, 02 Feb 2008 21:02:00 +0000

I worked on a story for a course that involved intertwining a past and present narrative, and initially tried using journal entries for the past one. My tutor commented that it would have been far more lively for the reader to be able to read actual scenes rather than a report on them in a journal. I think she was right and I have to admit I skipped over the Fletcher sections in this book. It would have made for an extremely long story if they had been written as scenes as well though. The journal allowed us to get the facts without having to worry too much about lots of extra characters with all their dialogue etc. The problem with my story was that my ‘past’ narrative was the one where all the interesting stuff was happening and deserved a more starring role. At least with Fletcher’s story it is one that most readers would already be familiar with to some extent.

By: Fiona Veitch Smith

Fiona Veitch Smith — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 13:31:25 +0000

At least in this one there was no danger of the historical narrative taking over the contemporary. Perhaps that’s as McDermid intended it. Just the short snippets of the letters allowed us to take a breather from the overarching narrative. And, towards the end, the two narratives did begin to intertwine with Chrisian and Jane in mortal danger at the same time. But I was disappointed that she didn’t take the historical narrative to a conclusion. I wasn’t happy with the DNA inconclusive verdict.

By: Sue

Sue — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 10:14:03 +0000

I have to say I prefer the Kate Mosse (Labyrinth) handling of the past. I found it more readable. I found McDermid’s approach dull and dry at time. It felt like it was just shoved in there to supply information to justify the plot. I found myself skimming over the Fletcher Christian bits so that I could get back to the real story.