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A Minister for Propaganda Elf writes: “Being something of a moron, and deaf in one ear, the Grand Vizier didn't realise that the copies of WHAT BURNS WITHIN offered below are SIGNED COPIES (woo-hoo!). We apologise for any inconvenience caused. Peace, out.”

The good folk at Dorchester Publishing have been kind enough to offer us three copies of Sandra Ruttan’s latest novel, WHAT BURNS WITHIN, to give away, so the least we can do is consult Mr & Mrs Publishers Weekly as to the quality therein, to wit:

Three Vancouver constables—son-of-a-sergeant Craig Nolan, bombshell in the boys’ club Ashlyn Hart, and stolidly antisocial cop Tain—are drawn together as the rapes, arsons and child abductions they’re working on respectively converge. The three, who have a beef over a prior case gone bad, must get over their personal differences and chase scant leads before another raped woman, burned building or missing girl turns up. Ruttan manages to keep the multiple leads and seconds on the same page admirably: she doesn’t drop too many clues in their laps or allow the tension to flag. The child abduction and sex crime aspects of the story are handled without exploitation or kid gloves; the straight proceduralism from Ruttan (SUSPICIOUS CIRCUMSTANCES) serves the story well through the rewarding climax. - Publishers Weekly

Hmmmm, nice. To be in with a chance of winning a free copy, just answer the following question:

Is what burns within WHAT BURNS WITHIN:
(a) deserted warehouses;
(b) a bonfire of the sanities;
(c) Sandra Ruttan’s searing desire to brand the white-hot truth onto every page?

Answers via the comment box please, leaving an email contact address (using (at) rather than @) by noon on Wednesday 28. Et bon chance, mes amis …

Nobody Move, This Is A Review: WHAT BURNS WITHIN by Sandra Ruttan

What burns within WHAT BURNS WITHIN is Sandra Ruttan. There is, among the six or seven sub-plots, a story about arson, and the title could also refer to personal hells, but what really burns, with a cold intensity, is Ruttan’s seriousness, the clarity of her intent, the laser-like precision she brings to the process of saying that the truth is subjective and the universe is pitilessly indifferent, so let’s roll up our sleeves and do something about it.
  The characters who roll up their sleeves here are RCMP officers Craig, Tain and Ashlyn, who begin the story investigating child abductions and potentially related arsons and rape cases in the Vancouver area. The trio’s complex history is explored as the three main stories weave together, although Ruttan is clever enough to use this material to propel the story forwards rather than rely on flashbacks and digressions that might slow the scintillating pace.
  Short and snappy chapters, terse dialogue, staccato delivery of minimalist description – Ruttan’s style harks back to the classic hardboiled era, although she’s more Horace McCoy than James M. Cain or Dashiell Hammet. McCoy, like Jim Thompson, always had bigger fish to fry, and told more than tales rooted in criminality. As with Thompson, and Ruttan, McCoy was fascinated by conflict, its roots and possible resolutions, and particularly the conflicts of the mind (WHAT BURNS WITHIN also engages with notions of justice and forgiveness, religious extremism and secular self-sacrifice, damaged sexuality and the abuse of power). And yet Ruttan is very much a shower rather than a teller: there are very few internal monologues to be heard in WHAT BURNS WITHIN, the subtleties of the characters’ complex psychologies being drawn out through their interactions with their colleagues. That’s a difficult skill to make invisible, but it’s one of Ruttan’s most effective weapons.
  It’s a war out there. Writers wage war on the credibility of the reader with every weapon they have, and most crime writers do so by having their characters go into battle in a quixotic, unwinnable war against criminality. Sandra Ruttan has gone to war under a banner of honesty, bringing an integrity to the genre that results in a bleakly depicted but ultimately compassionate, fascinating and meticulously researched police procedural that dares to say that we – as a community, city, society or culture – are entitled to believe we can become better people. – Declan Burke

(A Minister for Propaganda Elf writes: The Grand Vizier would like it to be known that Sandra Ruttan has previously reviewed THE BIG O, thus raising issues of log-rolling and mutual back-scratching, most of which are discussed at length here.)

“Ya Wanna Do It Here Or Down The Station Punk?” Sandra Ruttan

Yep, it’s rubber-hose time, folks: a rapid-fire Q&A for those shifty-looking usual suspects ...
What crime novel would you most like to have written?
TO THE POWER OF THREE by Laura Lippman.
Who do you read for guilty pleasures?
Since I review almost all the books I read these days I guess I’ll have to say Ian Rankin, because I won’t review the Rebus books.
Most satisfying writing moment?
When you know you’ve nailed a scene and created the exact mood or elicited the specific emotional response you were after.
The best Irish crime novel is …?
Oh, probably THE GUARDS by Ken Bruen. It’s hard, because there’s a lot of fantastic Irish crime fiction I’m discovering.
What Irish crime novel would make a great movie?
Oh, really, which one wouldn’t make a great movie? That’s probably the shorter list.
Worst / best thing about being a writer?
I love writing, so the process of creating a work and being satisfied with it (until self-doubt kicks in) is probably the best thing for me, but a close second is when someone reads the work and they get what you wanted to do with it. That’s incredible.
The pitch for your next novel is …?
When the body of a missing girl is recovered at an arson scene police suspect a link, but by the time they discover the real connection between the fires, abductions and a serial rape case it may be too late to save a child’s life and when an officer becomes the latest rape victim the cases collide, with devastating consequences. (Can I amend my answer to the worst thing about being a writer? Writing pitches. I hate writing pitches. Really, WHAT BURNS WITHIN is all about sex. Can you just say that?)
Who are you reading right now?
SATURDAY’S CHILD by Ray Banks, HEAD GAMES by Craig McDonald and EXPLETIVE DELETED, edited by Jen Jordan.
The three best words to describe your own writing are …?
I’m actually considering using a pseudonym, because I really have two personalities with my writing. Some of it is action-packed, dialogue-driven, page-turning stuff. And some of it is more emotionally charged, the kind where you don’t want to turn the page to see what happens next but can’t help yourself. What I aim for is to tell a captivating story, with tight writing and believable characters.

Sandra Ruttan’s WHAT BURNS WITHIN will be released by Dorchester in May 2008, to be followed by THE FRAILTY OF FLESH in November 2008.