Crime Beat

Stray doppies
Women and Violence: quotable quote 1: Jassy Mackenzie: ‘I consider myself a fairly strong-stomached reader, but the scenes of graphic violence towards women in Val McDermid’s novels have removed her from my “must-read” list.’
Quotable quote 2: Sarah Lotz: ‘There’s James Patterson, who’s just signed an insanely lucrative deal, and who built his career on torture porn fests such as Kiss the Girls (there’s a scene in it where a child gets her feet cut off, for fuck’s sakes).’
Quotable quote 3: Joanne Hichens: ‘On this topic, Jessica Mann and I swapped views about this on BBC Newshour on Tuesday. Although I agree writers should not write gore for gore’s sake, for me it comes down to the quality of the writing and the story.’
Quotable quote 4: Margie Orford: ‘So what to do with a woman? and what do women (in crime fiction) want, to lift from Freud. Because this is uber-Freudian territory this. And female leads exist in this strange gap left to them by the femme fatales of all classic noir-boy-hero-crime and the boy-heros.’

Crime Beat Diary November 2 – 5:
Monday: A special conflab with the Irish krimi writer, blogger (Crime Always Pays) and good guy, Declan Burke
Tuesday: Reviews of Bad Company by the ace US blogger Peter Rozovsky on his Detectives Beyond Borders.
Wednesday: Some thoughts on publishing from our far-flung correspondent, Richard Kunzmann.
Thursday: The FMR krimi review of hot local and international reads.