Rather More Than A Quantum Of SOLACE

Can it really be 18 months since Siobhan Dowd (right) died? The much-lamented Siobhan, author of A SWIFT PURE CRY, THE LONDON EYE MYSTERY and BOG CHILD, has her last novel published by David Fickling Books, SOLACE OF THE ROAD, with the blurb elves twittering thusly:

Memories of Mum are the only thing that make Holly Hogan happy. She hates her foster family with their too-nice ways and their false sympathy. And she hates her life, her stupid school and the way everyone is always on at her. Then she finds the wig, and everything changes. Wearing the long, flowing blonde locks she feels transformed. She’s not Holly any more, she’s Solace: the girl with the slinkster walk and the super-sharp talk. She’s older, more confident - the kind of girl who can walk right out of her humdrum life, hitch to Ireland and find her mum. The kind of girl who can face the world head on. So begins a bittersweet, and sometimes hilarious journey as Solace swaggers and Holly tiptoes across England and through memory, discovering her true self, and unlocking the secrets of her past. SOLACE OF THE ROAD is a wonderful novel from one of the UK’s most talented new writers for teenagers. Holly’s story will leave a lasting impression on all who travel with her.

  Given that Siobhan was born in London to Irish parents, and spent quite a bit of her childhood flitting back and forth across the Irish Sea, it’s hard not to expect SOLACE OF THE ROAD to be the teensiest bit autobiographical, and all the more poignant for that. Go n-eírí an bóthar leat, Holly and Siobhan …

The Gravy Train Has Left The Station

Yet another example, as if it were needed, of the extent of our loss when Siobhan Dowd died came through on Thursday, when THE LONDON EYE MYSTERY was announced as The Bisto Book of the Year. Quoth John Spain at the Irish Independent:

“An acclaimed children’s writer who died from cancer last year has won the Bisto Book of the Year Award for her novel THE LONDON EYE MYSTERY. Siobhan Dowd’s husband, Geoff Morgan, attended an emotional ceremony in Dublin yesterday, where the award was accepted on her behalf by her publisher David Fickling. Her Book of the Year Award of €10,000 will be donated to the trust which she set up before she died to help disadvantaged children improve their reading skills.”

Lovely. And the verdict from the Children’s Books Ireland wallahs?

Enthralling at the level of story, this convincingly written narrative draws the reader in with its beautifully stylish and textured language, its clever and light use of symbolism, and its unpatronising humour so as to emphasize the importance of connecting with others in life. A traditionally structured novel, this is a sustained and fully realised thriller for young readers.

Anyone interested in contributing to the very worthy Siobhan Dowd Trust should jump over here. And remember, people – every book is a new window on the world …

In Siobhan We Trust

The news arrived last week, via Notes From The Slushpile, that Siobhan Dowd’s legacy is to be commemorated with the Siobhan Dowd Trust. Siobhan (right), tipped as a future ‘literary lion’ by the Sunday Times last year, passed away in August. Details of the trust can be found here, with the gist running thusly:

A trust has been set up to manage all the proceeds from [Siobhan’s] literary work. The aim of the trust will be to help disadvantaged children improve their reading skills and experience the joy of reading. It will offer financial support to: public libraries; state school libraries (especially in economically challenged areas); children in care; asylum seekers; young offenders and children with special needs. Cheques to be made payable to The Siobhan Dowd Trust and addressed to The Siobhan Dowd Trust, c/o Polly Nolan, Flat 10 Hendred House, Hendred Street, Oxford OX4 2ED, United Kingdom.

To give you some idea of the potential talent that was lost, Siobhan has in the last week or so been picked by The Independent as one of the authors of their ‘Ten Best Books for Teenagers’, for BOG CHILD, while she’s also been nominated, for THE LONDON EYE MYSTERY, in the Red House Children’s Books Awards. It’d break your heart, wouldn’t it?

An All-Too-Swift Pure Cry

We mentioned in passing yesterday that there was a memorial service being held in Oxford for the late Siobhan Dowd (right), a wonderful person and a marvellous writer, and when it comes to Siobhan it really doesn’t matter in which order you put those attributes. Ann Giles is a long-time friend of Crime Always Pays, and she’s posted her thoughts on the service over at Bookwitch, some of which runneth thusly:

“I felt compelled to go. So I went, and I’m glad I did. There was a memorial service for Siobhan Dowd in Oxford yesterday. The Holywell Music Rooms was a beautiful place to have it. The weather was beautiful. And the celebration of Siobhan’s life and work was beautifully put together. Siobhan’s husband Geoff and friends started it off by singing Gypsy Rover. Then David Fickling (“the Lancashire Comedian”) and Fiona Dunbar did their Oscars-style presentation. Siobhan’s sisters Denise and Oona talked about their childhood, and read from a favourite book. Bella Pearson read from A SWIFT PURE CRY and Phil Earle from THE LONDON EYE MYSTERY, which just showed us again how good these books are. Geoff read a poem by Siobhan, and Meg Rosoff read an extract from Siobhan’s next book, BOG CHILD. There was a lot of music and singing. Nick Gill played Scott Joplin. Daryl Wells sang Nina Simone. And we had real Bulgarian Gypsy music from Mike Limmer and Morski. There were readings from James Joyce, Irina Ratushinskaya, Henrietta Branford, Ezra Pound and Dylan Thomas …”

It’s all very sad, especially given Siobhan’s talent – she was feted as a future ‘literary lion’ by the Sunday Times earlier this year. Still, they need storytellers in heaven too, don’t they?

Siobhan Dowd RIP

A very sad day, people – today we learned that Siobhan Dowd (right), the author of A Swift Pure Cry and The London Eye Mystery, died on Tuesday after a long struggle with breast cancer. The news came as something of a shock, as we only knew her as a warm, bubbly and funny email buddy, and while she mentioned ‘a touch of exhaustion’ in the wake of the publication of The London Eye Mystery – the novel which had The Times tipping her as a ‘future literary lion’ – she never once complained of illness. Gara LaMarche knew her much, much better than we, to wit:

“I first met Siobhan in 1988 when I was running the Freedom-to-Write Program for PEN American Centre and she was running the International Writers-in-Prison Committee for International PEN in London. Among other things, she kept PEN’s ‘census’ of imprisoned writers on whose behalf members ran campaigns. In those days before the end of the Cold War, there were many hundreds of such writers. I enjoyed our long-distance relationship, and sensed that for various reasons Siobhan was restless for change and challenge, and when I moved on from PEN to Human Rights Watch in 1990, I suggested she move to the U.S. to take over my job, and the switch was made. She was a terrific success in her seven years here, and made many friends who are among the many grieving today. Back in England, she did children’s rights work, edited a book of prison writing, and started writing her own fiction. I read her first book, A Swift Pure Cry, last year. Though it was written for young adults, I thought it was a gem that deserved a wider audience. Perhaps because she was writing against time, given her diagnosis, she was extraordinarily prolific in the last few years, publishing The London Eye Mystery in June and having finished two more novels with a fifth underway at the time of her death.”

Siobhan Dowd, 1960-2007, RIP.

The Kids Aren’t Always Alright

The Crime Always Pays elves recently took lunch with a woman who wants to write for kids, and spent the entire hour listening to words like ‘demographics’, ‘market slides’ (?) and ‘brand marketability’. Nary a word about a love of writing, nor – arguably more important – kids and what they like to read. Which makes the interview conducted by Nikki Gamble with Siobhan Dowd (right) over at Write Away so fascinating – Siobhan chats specifically about why she writes for the kind of reader that is drawn to her latest, The London Eye Mystery. Quoth Siobhan:

“When I was working on the Readers and Writers Programme, we identified Year 6, Year 7, the transition years between primary and secondary, as years in which children were often lost to reading. I remember my own transition being quite hard, so it is a time of life that I’m drawn to as a writer. If I’ve managed to create a readable book that helps children at that period to stay focused on the joys of reading, then I’ll be a really happy woman.”

Batten down the hatches, Siobhan – there’s a veritable El Nino of happiness heading your way …

The Monday Review: It’s Nice To Be Nice, Although It’d Be Nicer To Be In Nice

That stalwart friend of Irish crime writers, Myles McWeeney at the Indo, is back on the case again, this time trawling the mean streets of Arlene Hunt’s latest, Missing Presumed Dead: “A very enjoyable, neatly worked mystery, packed with deft characterisation. Read it on the beach but keep an eye on the kids.” … Over at The Book Bag, Jill Murphy likes Derek Landy’s Skulduggery Pleasant: “It’s pacy, it’s funny, it’s irreverent … a humorous badinage going on that’s reminiscent of Woody Allen and Diane Keaton or even Doctor Who … the plotting is a little bit loose. The villain isn’t really much more than a cardboard cut-out. But the humour, the high-spiritedness and the wonderful interaction between the two main characters more than make up for it.” Mmm, lovely … Not to be outdone, Julia Eccleshare at Love Reading 4 Kids is bigging up the other major current kiddie crime release, Siobhan Dowd’s The London Eye Mystery: “This may only be Siobhan Dowd’s second novel but it’s clear her talent as a superb storyteller is beyond question. Her first novel A Swift Pure Cry was short-listed for nearly all the major awards last year and although this second novel is very different it has that same page-turner feeling to it.” But stay! I hear you cry – what news of Alex Barclay’s The Caller? “Written with a depth of feeling for the characters that is sometimes lacking in the genre from her colleagues … a fast-paced and sometimes ugly serial killer novel. The characters are richly described with a sense of humour at times that makes you smile, and a touch of the cruel and sadistic where needed …” reckon the folks at Woyano … They’re still coming in thick and fast for John Connolly’s The Unquiet: “One of the finest reads of this or any year, from the man with the darkest imagination. I was enthralled and terrified at the same time, but it’s the wit Connolly employs that prevents this dark tale from becoming too malevolent,” says Ali Karim at Books ‘n’ Bytes, while The Observer is no less impressed: “The Unquiet is more contemplative and affecting than some of the earlier novels, but the violence, when it comes, is vicious. Hard to put down, harder to forget.” Just about gorgeous … Staying with The Observer, for The Artist Formerly Known as Colin Bateman’s latest: “Exuberant also describes I Predict a Riot, the latest diverting entertainment from ‘Bateman’ … what follows is sometimes brutal, often blackly humorous and always terrific.” Meanwhile, Neil Dowling at Totally Dublin is middling-to-fairly impressed with The Big O, from inky-fingered urchin Declan Burke: “The Big O is a fairly standard crime caper with some implausible turns in the plot. Burke’s great achievement, however, is to give a typical genre storyline some real flavour through his skilful use of dialogue and imagery.” Neil? The snakebites are on us … Finally, you know you’re in business when the Indo’s arts editor, Sophie Gorman, gives you the hup-ya: “With Julius, [Donovan] has created a man who exists beyond society and a story that magnetically absorbs you with every page turned … You know that you are having one of those special reading experiences when you find yourself rationing the final chapters, in an attempt to prolong the experience for as long as possible,” she says of Julius Winsome, while The Guardian reckons that, “History may judge it to be less than the perfect modern classic it aims to be, but it is a memorable tale, distinguished by masterful prose, an intriguingly peculiar sensibility, and something hard to define that many great works of art have: a kind of dignity. Such books are rarer than publishers’ hype encourages us to believe.” Publishers’ hype? Shurely shome mishtake ...

Dispatch From A Perch On London’s Eye

Not a bad week for Siobhan Dowd (right), people – her latest, The London Eye Mystery, launched last Thursday and made Children’s Book of the Week in The Sunday Times three days later, to wit: “Dowd’s story grips the reader from the opening chapter … Dowds’s first book, A Swift Pure Cry, was a deservedly acclaimed young adult novel. This second book, which is aimed at a young audience, demonstrates her versatility.” Which may or may not have prompted a sudden change in publishing schedule. Quoth Siobhan:

“David (Fickling) is insisting on publishing my just-finished fourth book ahead of Solace of the Road, so we’ve done a sudden switch in schedule. Number four is called Bog Child and it’s set on the north-south Irish border in 1981 ... and yes, it is eeerieee (I hope). Now it’s off to New York City to research follow-up to London Eye. My publishers are keen to have my young sleuths Ted and Kat back on another case ... and I can’t wait. I have an art heist in mind this time.”

You go, gal. Just don’t forget to come back to us, eh?

The Real London Eye Mystery: Has Siobhan Dowd Gone And Cloned Herself?

Crikey! It’s all going (exquisitely) Siobhan-shaped, folks: not only is Siobhan Dowd’s novel for kiddie crime fans, The London Eye Mystery, being published by David Fickling on June 7, but her agency is keen to congratulate her on being nominated for Germany’s Jugendliteraturpries Award for A Swift Pure Cry – this coming in the wake of her Irish Bisto Award glory, and a short-listing for both the 2007 Carnegie Medal and the 2007 Branford Boase Award. Oh, and she’s facing into a month of being Book of the Month at Waterstone’s, God love her. Right now she’s slaving away on her fourth novel, but her third, Solace of the Road, a story about a girl who returns to Ireland to find her biological mother, is due in January 2008. Gorblimey, Guv! For an interview with the Woman du Jour, scoot on over to the Irish Post …