One Of These Kids Is Doing His Own Thing …

There’s no good reason for republishing this pic from Bristol Crime Fest (l-r: Maxine, Rhian, Karen, El Cheesalero – with Ms Witch lurking with intent, no doubt, just out of picture) except to say that three of the four crime fiction bloggers are superb exponents of what they do, which is to let the world at large know about quality crime fiction writing for no reward but the joy of doing so, while the fourth is only in it for the money. If you’re in the market for insightful, illuminating conversations about contemporary crime writing, click on Petrona, It’s A Crime! and Euro Crime. Oh, and while you’re about it, click on Crime Scraps, whose host – the inimitable Norm – was behind the camera for this epoch-defining snap. He reckons he’s shy, but your secret is safe with us, Salman. Now, the Big Question: can we persuade Peter Rozovsky and Gerard Brennan to make it to Crime Fest 2009? Only time, that notorious tittle-tattler, will tell …

Not All Crimes Are Actually Illegal

Crime Fic at It’s A Crime! has supported some noble causes in the past, but few so noble as her current one, which picks up on a campaign being run by Norm at Crime Scraps. Quoth Crime Fic:

"CARE Blackerton House is registered to provide care to people under 65 years of age with learning disabilities. It is run by the charity CARE which states on its home page:

“Our aim is to assist men and women with learning disabilities to live a full and purposeful life at the heart of society and to help them to gain independence through the encouragement of further training in everyday and vocational skills.”

  "Norm at Crime Scraps has recently been writing about the risks to such people in the community and CARE’s proposal to sell the site and move its residents to another location, which he argues is of less quality with the disruption of the move likely to cause immense stress to the residents. He has now started an online petition and in his post to announce this, he also lists his previous posts which cover his thoughts on the proposal and its background. You can find it here along with a link to the petition. I think Norm makes a strong case.
  "Alas, whatever the government tries to tell us, we live in a period where certain crimes are mounting and it is easy to prey on the vulnerable. Indeed, Disability Now is maintaining a “hate crime dossier” to support its arguments for its hate crime campaign.
  "If you feel you already know enough to add weight to the petition, you can go directly here. But please read Norm’s posts and if you have a blog and feel empathy, please link as I have done."

The Embiggened O # 1043: Smoke ’Em If You Got ’Em

There was a time when Camberwell was best known for its infamous carrot (see below), its intoxicating powers demonstrated to best effect in WITHNAIL AND I. But no more! For lo, Crime Scraps, run by the mysteriously monikered Uriah Robinson, operates out of the mean streets of Camberwell, a place where the metaphorical stick is more popular a motivational tool than the equally metaphorical carrot, sadly. Anyhoo, Uriah had himself a read of our humble offering THE BIG O over the Christmas, and was kind enough to post his thoughts, to wit:

“This book is a blunt, rude, crude, politically incorrect, raucous, rumbustious, rollicking, romp of a crime caper novel. The characters are larger than life and the action is convoluted and non-stop … THE BIG O is a loveable rogue of a novel and while it is not literature you will have a lot more fun reading it than some labyrinthine incomprehensible Booker prize winner.”

Hmmm. T’would appear Uriah has tumbled to our cunning plan to reverse the John Banville / Benny Blanco strategy, which is to write a half-decent crime caper first, then the incomprehensibly labyrinthine Booker winner, preferably while mashed off our collective bins. Zounds! Foiled again …