Re: RARA-AVIS: RARA-AVIS UK month

From: John Williams ( johnwilliams@ntlworld.com)
Date: 02 Aug 2002


Mark wrote

 In his interesting summary, John Williams wrote:
"There's certainly a younger generation of British crime writers with an
> explicit American influence.
 I also believe there is a younger generation of British crime writers
> with an explicit British influence. For instance, I was surprised not
> to see Russell James in your summary. Although the blurb on the back of
> most of his books compares him to David Goodis, I think he's far closer
> to Ted Lewis.

Yes pure oversight on my part - I really like Russell James - in fact it's my quote that compared him to Goodis - though that was in a review of Underworld, not the most typical of his books. I agree he definitely has a very British sensibility- and I should have stressed that I think there is some very exciting British crime-ish writing going on at the moment - as the crime consultant at Serpent's Tail I've been very proud to have had a hand in publishing David Peace, Nicholas Blincoe, the very funny Mark Ramsden, the very funny Danny King, the very singular Ken Bruen and, imminently, the very dark Sean Burke, not to mention , for one book, Russell James himself.

As for my fellow Cardiffian James Hawes - White Merc With Fins is still in development, though looking livelier than it has for a while. Meanwhile James' new book, White Powder, Green Light, out this Sept, will tell the fictionalised story of the disaster that was Rancid Aluminium the movie.

John

> James Hawes (can't believe his White Merc hasn't been made into a movie)
> and Nicholas Blincoe were the first of the new UK crime writers I ran
> across, both introduced to me by the British dance music magazine,
> Muzik. Then, while tracking down Derek Raymond shorts, I discovered the
> Serpent's Tail and Fresh Blood authors contained in the same
> anthologies. I felt like I had blundered on something new and exciting,
> a younger generation rattling cages. It had been a long time since I'd
> felt that with any US writer, not since George Pelecanos and/or Michael
> Cormany (early Ellroy, too, in style, but he didn't ally himself with
> youth culture, actually railed against it at times).
>
> Mark
>
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