Lacey Flint
For much of my life, I have read, and read and read, detective stories. I’m quite unable to understand why this is the case, other than the fact that I love them! I started with John Creasy and Agatha Christie, books borrowed from the local library when I was far too young to be reading such stuff, and the habit has never left me. Some of the mystery writers of my childhood are long gone from the popular domain. In his time John Creasy wrote some 600 novels, using no less than 28 pseudonyms: today, I doubt many would know about the series of books featuring Superintendent George ‘Gee Gee’ Gideon (authored by Creasy as J J Maric) or the Chief Inspector Roger West series (under his own name). However, Agatha Christie is still well-known, as much because of the various films and television series made with Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple as their lead characters (and in England because The Mousetrap is the longest-running play in the West End, on since November 1952, except for a fifteen month break during the COVID epidemic).
As I grew older, so it became clear some writers and their detectives had become favourites. Some are from a time long gone. Among these, pride of place has to go to Dorothy L Sayers and her Peter Wimsey. However, there are many other more recent authors, including, as one example, Charles Finch, a modern Sayers, writing about another amateur detective, Charles Lenox, living in Victorian times. Another series I return to is the rather more contemporary set of thirteen books about the cases confronting Commander Adam Dalgleish, written by P D James, who is, for me, the successor to Dorothy Sayers. Well, I could continue to comment on the great writers of the past, but now we seem to have entered another time of prolific and outstanding writing. Many excellent contemporary detective novelists are Australian, and there is a genre of outback mysteries that seems likely to continue for many more years. Indeed, writing about murders and their solution has flourished all over the world. Despite this, I am pleased to report there are several new and brilliant British novelists in the mix.
What makes one writer stand out from the others? The stories themselves? The principal characters? Or is it just a matter of chance, and I read a book, like it, and get hooked into a new series while ignoring others just as good? Perhaps that is the case with Sharon Bolton, and her five books centred on Lacey Flint, a London detective constable. I know that I picked up the first in the series, Now You See Me, when I was living in the US. Seeing an English detective novel on the shelf of my local library, I picked it up on a whim. I hadn’t heard of the author, nor had I read about the book, which had appeared a year or so before I checked it out it. Well, by page 7, I was hooked.
Part One of Now You See Me begins on Friday 31 August:
A dead woman was leaning against my car.
Somehow managing to stand upright, arms outstretched, fingers grasping the rim of the passenger door, a dead woman was spewing blood over the car’s paintwork, each spatter overlaying the last as the pattern began to resemble a spider’s web.
A second later she turned and her eyes met mine. Dead eyes. A savage wound across her throat gaped open; her abdomen was a mass of scarlet. She reached out; I couldn’t move. She was clutching me strongly, strong for a dead woman.
I know, I know, she was on her feet, still moving, but it was impossible to look into those eyes and think of her as anything other than dead. Technically, the body might be clinging on, the weakening heart still beating, she had a little control over her muscles. Technicalities, all of them. Those eyes knew the game was up.
It’s a vivid, unrelenting description, and there’s no looking away until an ambulance has come, a protective tent has been erected around the body, DC Lacey Flint has been given a cup of tea, and a detective inspector interviews her on site.
I re-read Now You See Me recently, and asked myself what it was about that book, that author’s style, and the Lacey Flint series that snagged me. There was a two-page Prologue, prior to the section I’ve just quoted, but the book really started with that dead woman leaning against Lacey Flint’s car. So, was it the realistic violence? Or was it Lacey Flint, with her momentarily stunned response, only to be set aside as she almost immediately tried to help a woman she knew was dying, and couldn’t be saved. We will learn that she had a possibly unrealistic aspiration to get involved with a key detective team in the Metropolitan Police, hoping for a transfer to work with them. She had been ‘moonlighting’ on a case, while waiting to get into the work she was determined to do.
I suppose you could say that Lacey Flint had been in the right place at the right time – if being where a murder has taken place can ever be the ‘right place’! With some hesitation by the leadership, she is brought into the detective team, and begins to take a key role in the investigation. However, as time goes on, it becomes apparent that the initial murder, and others that follow, seem to be tangled up with events concerning Lacey Flint herself, especially some tantalisingly unclear stuff from the past. As in any good murder mystery, by about half way through the novel, the complications are becoming close to baffling. Lacey is guided by a senior officer, Detective Inspector Dana Tulloch, while also being closely watched by another DI, Mark Joesbury. She is smart, sharp, and attractive. Life is going to get complicated, and it does.
Sharon Bolton writes from Lacey Flint’s viewpoint, and she does so brilliantly. In no time at all, we are inside Lacey’s mind, her hesitations, her concerns and her insights. We feel what it is like to be an outsider in a group, working with others because of serendipity, and we yearn, with Lacey, that she’ll make some key contribution to the case. We know she is determinedly avoiding seeing DI Joesbury as anyone other than a member of the murder team, but we sense her fascination with him. It is equally clear that, against his wishes, Joesbury finds Flint compellingly attractive. As to how we get from investigating one murder to chasing a serial killer, and finally ending up searching in the underground caverns of London … you’ll have to read Now You See me for yourself.
Sharon Bolton uses one technique which pops up in several detective novels, which is that there are occasional chapters that deal with a character who is not part of the detective team, sometimes referring back to past events that must be related, in some way, to the series of murders. I can never finally decide whether this is a technique I like or dislike, but in the case of the Lacey Flint books, it works. It is as if the reader’s task is to pay to attention to the juggling of data and characters in relation to a series of murders, and then, with a spare hand as it were, also juggle this other story which you know is going to be important in some way.
I reread Now You See Me while I was writing this blog. It was more than that. I started to read, and then I had to keep going, and read right to the end in the afternoons (while I was reading my library books in the evening!). I was stunned. What I had recalled about Lacey Flint wasn’t that first story. It was as if I had never read it before. No sooner had I finished, than I decided I’d better read the second book, Dead Scared. Lacey Flint was a London policewoman, but this book was set in a Cambridge college, St John’s, and I didn’t remember that one too. Sharon Bolton was eating into any ideas I had about having some time for myself … except, of course, that reading is about time for myself!
There aren’t many writers who have the ability to make me almost obsessive. I finished Dead Scared, and then checked if I had the third in the series on my iPad. No, I didn’t have Like This For Ever. Easily fixed. I downloaded the book, while relieved to see I did have A Dark and Twisted Tide (book 4). Oops, years later a fifth book had been published, and I didn’t have that one either. Better get The Dark, just in case. Now I have all five books, and now I can get back to reading the third book. Oh no, there are two shorter books also about Lacey Flint and her escapades, If Snow Hadn’t Fallen, and Here Be Dragons. Let’s add those, just to be on the safe side.
I don’t want you to conclude that I am obsessional, not clinically so, but I do like to have copies of the books I really like. Upstairs I have all the Dalgelish books, all the Wimsey books, and it’s possible I might have all the books so far written by Philip Pullman following Lyra Belacqua’s adventures (just waiting for book six – for how much longer?). On my iPad there are several series, ranging from many of Elizabeth George’s novels about investigations undertaken by DI Thomas Lynley and Sergeant Barbara Havers, to lots of Daniel Silva, Karin Slaughter – and on my old iPad, unable to transfer across, even more . Surely all this is just proof I like good writing, and in no way evidence of some kind of personality disorder. The fact that many of these authors are British (but certainly not all) is a reflection of habits formed when I was younger, and I could add a whole number of other authors whose works litter my computer, iPad and my shrinking physical library.
The question remains: why do I find books with Lacey Flint as the key character compulsive? It isn’t that they are well-written: they are, but so are many others I read. The plots are clever, and the stories weave together, so that each separate book, which can be read stand-alone, is also part of a larger story. As I complete one book, I know the next will continue threads from that one, and I have the uncomfortable feeling (in a good sense) that the book after that will still be pulling at threads from the very beginning of the series. However, even that characteristic is not all there is to my delight in Sharon Boltons detective novels.
What makes them work so well is that Lacey Flint is so ‘involving’ a person. It doesn’t take long before you are looking inside her head, and trying to make sense of what is going on. In part it is a matter of sympathy. As you learn more, so her moods and behaviour become more understandable, and your desire to see some of the complexities in her life sorted out becomes more obvious. However, that sounds rather detached. The fact of the matter is that she is real in a way that is quite compelling: not just real in the sense of a well-portrayed character, but real in the sense that you begin to take on some of her hesitations, join her in battling some of her uncertainties, and even share her fears.
Some outstanding characters in fiction, like Lyra in Pullman’s books, leap off the page as fascinating people, and you become invested in their journey. Lacey is more than that, she is flawed, troubled, and yet insightful and persistent. The more I read of this series, the more I want to stop, call Lacey Flint on her mobile, and invite her over for a chat. It’s not that she needs a therapist: indeed, we learn that she is good at managing therapists and their questions and suggestions. Not, I think it is more than that. It is the desire to offer friendship, not to achieve some particular outcome, but to create a space in which you can just chat, agenda free, letting the conversations go where serendipity takes them, while knowing Lacey will add in matters she’d like to explore or question, as and when she is ready to do so.
In case I haven’t made it clear, I consider Sharon Bolton to be a great example of British detective writing at its best. However, I have omitted one key fact, which is what she has had to say about herself and her books. When Now You See Me was first published, the author was identified as S J Bolton. Two years after, in November 2013, S J Bolton’s website announced, “I’m Coming Out!” What followed was a very English explanation!
My name is Sharon Bolton and I am a woman. Yeah, yeah, you knew that already. Anyone who’s visited my blog, read my Tweets or befriended me on Facebook over the last five years will be in no doubt about my gender or my Christian name. Significantly, though, when Like This, For Ever comes out as a mass-market paperback this week I will be published for the first time as Sharon, rather than SJ, Bolton. Of course, relatively few people will notice. The vast reading public has largely not heard of either SJ or Sharon Bolton and if the (rather exciting) marketing campaign persuades them to pick up a copy, it will be the cover and the story summary that attracts them. The name of the author is likely to be immaterial. On the other hand, I do have a modest following who know me as SJ, and I guess I owe them an explanation. So here it is:
Back in 2006, when Sacrifice first sold, Transworld, my UK publishers, suggested I publish under my initials, in the manner of PD James and JK Rowling, rather than my full name. The argument being that, whilst my books would appeal to and be enjoyed by men, a lot of men (in the UK at least) are reluctant to buy a book with a woman’s name on the cover. (Men are such simpletons, bless ‘em, stick initials on a book and they’ll never guess it was written by a girl.). I went along with their advice. Of course I did. I was a first-time author, desperate for a publishing contract. I’d have published as Daffy Duck if they’d asked me. … I don’t have a middle name … [N]o author publishes with just one initial, so I had to invent one. I tried every combination with S but nothing quite had the ring of J, so that’s what I went with. But then, a couple of things happened. First, a rather alarming number of other SJs have sprung up. SJ Rozan, SJ Parrish, SJ Watson. Then there’s CJ Sansom, RJ Ellory, NJ Cooper. All writing crime. I was starting to feel lost in the crowd. And, given that the author as a brand is becoming increasingly important, lost in the crowd is not where I wanted to be. Also, back in 2006, social media wasn’t what it is now … Over the last seven years, authors have become personalities who interact with their readers and the wider public on an almost hourly basis. I Tweet, I blog, I’m on Facebook. My online personality (far more interesting and glamorous than my real one, I might add) has become part and parcel of who I am as a writer. It simply isn’t possible anymore to hide behind an amorphous, sexless silhouette.
So there you have it. Times have moved on and what worked back in 2006 no longer holds good. But, you know what? If I’m being a hundred per cent honest, there was a bit more to it than that. Back in 2006, I had major personal misgivings about whether Sharon was a credible (for which read: posh) enough name to appear on the cover of a semi-serious novel. Had I been writing (and I use the term after due consideration) chick-lit, I’d probably have got away with it, but in an age when authors were increasingly becoming brands, could I really expect a sensible publishing house to put its money behind a crime writer called Sharon? … I’m introduced at parties and see judgment forming. I’m tired of being asked where my mate, Tracey, is or what part of Essex I come from. People hear the name Sharon and they assume a) background, b) character and c) lifestyle. … In light of this, I could hide behind the genderless, classless persona that was SJ Bolton and let the books speak for themselves. But, at the risk of repeating myself, times have moved on. …So here it is, my coming out. My name is Sharon and I write fiction … If you are put off by my name then – you know what – I can do without your custom. I am a woman. I am a reasonably decent crime writer. And, to the best of my knowledge, I am the only Sharon on the shelves!
So there you have it. If you read a Sharon Bolton book, I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.
