Saturday 19 January 2019

Murder most foul - why we like crime stories

I recently read an article which mentioned our predilection for reading about crime whether true crime or fiction or natty detectives. The writer seemed to suggest that we were a bloodthirsty lot. I'm not so sure that she was wrong.
From the earliest times, ordinary people liked to watched spectacles of some sort. Juvenal, a Roman poet from the late 1st/early 2nd century said people only want "bread and circuses" (panem et circenses is what he actually wrote, which roughly translated means bread and games or circuses). I don't think we have changed that much in the intervening centuries. Public executions were popular. Take for example Samuel Pepys diary entry for 16th October 1660 in which he says that he went to Charing Cross to see Major-General Harrison hanged, drawn, and quartered. When his head and heart were shown to the people there were "great shouts of joy".  And have you noticed that whenever there is a major incident, terrorist or otherwise, people get their mobile phones out and start recording?
Nearly all of us have stopped at the scene of an accident or of a major fire to see what was going on.  It's not that we revel in others' misfortune. I think it is the herd instinct, wanting to know what happened to our fellow human beings, and the feeling "that could have been me" which makes us do this. Of course, the nightly news broadcasts keep us up to date with all the major catastrophes around the world. Good news never does sell well except maybe at Christmas.
Be all that as it may, crime fiction and true crime, in both book form and on television, remains very popular with readers and viewers alike.What a pleasure it is to curl up in bed at night or stretch out in the most comfortable chair in front of the fire and read about the solving of a murder.
I enjoyed writing my Sergeant Alan Murray murder series. I am not a fan of blood-curdling descriptions of how victims met their end. I prefer the detective side of it and this is shown in my stories. Murray is head of a small police station at the foot of the Kerry Mountains in the heart of rural Ireland where crime of any sort is rare and therefore all the more shocking when three women are murdered within a short space of time.

Tuesday 8 January 2019

The Elusive Sleep

There is nothing I like better than curling up with the Sunday newspapers after lunch. Online editions can never (I hope!) replace the printed word. There is a world of news and gossip and frothy information contained in every Sunday edition. Politics, fashion, domestic and foreign news, and editorials and commentaries from people who know what they are writing about and a few who don't.
I love it!

Last Sunday, I was struck by the bias towards sleep in many of the articles I read. The recently published book Why We Sleep by Matthew Walker is providing food for thought, it appears. My guess is that a lot of people found it in their Christmas stocking. I must confess that I didn't read all of it, I mainly concentrated on the parts relating to seniors (being a senior myself, and a bad sleeper to boot). I'm afraid that I didn't really agree with his findings that we all need more sleep than we realize. Quite frankly, I find that if I have a really bad night, I usually catch up the next. As well as that, everyone has a sleep pattern of their own. And obsessing because you didn't get what you're told is the right amount of sleep, is more likely to be detrimental to your health than anything else.  When my kids were small, I felt I never got enough sleep, later I slept less, waking up in the middle of the night. I used to get very frustrated but I don't any more. I found the best way of coping was to either relax and wait for sleep to come or if feeling restless, I made myself a hot drink and watched a bit of television until I felt tired enough to go back to bed and sleep.
I daresay that if any sleep scientists read this, they will wag their collective fingers at me, but all I can say is it works for me.




Friday 4 January 2019

A couple of things to think about

I came home on the bus from shopping in town just as it was getting dusk. When I looked out of the window I could see all the houses lit up still with Christmas lights. Those dots of light on the country landscape are magical to me somehow. They signify home, warmth, being welcomed. No wonder we light everything up on these, the darkest days of the year. Soon we will tidy away the decorations - there is a tradition that this has to be done before January 6th although I know a lot of people who don't follow it to the letter. And before we know it, the evenings will stay bright for longer and we will start thinking about Spring and summer holidays and sunshine. Yes, I know we will most likely get some bad weather in the next two months. I think it was Tsar Nicholas I of Russia who said "I have two generals who never fail me: Generals January and February", referring to the brutal Russian winters which defeated Napoleon among others who tried to invade. Be that as it may, we have not seen winter until we do see what January and February dish out to us. I don't mind a bit of snow, I must confess!
For Christmas my nephew gave me A GENTLEMAN IN MOSCOW by Amor Towles. I had not heard of this author before but am really enjoying reading this book. Towles' first novel RULES OF CIVILITY was a New York Times bestseller and I intend to get hold of it when I have finished this one. So now I have a nice stack of books waiting to be read. Wonderful. That is the nicest thing about getting books as presents. You end up discovering authors you never heard of. (In the old days, ending a sentence with a preposition would be frowned on - I have no idea if this is still the case, but I've done it anyway, so sorry to anyone who is a stickler for grammar and style).

Not too late to wish all my readers A VERY HAPPY NEW YEAR!