The Mammoth Book of Best British Crime #10 now has a cover:
The anthology will be out in February of next year, and will feature my story ‘Wilkolak’, which first appeared in Crimewave #11, as well as the work of other stowaways from the fantastic genres Neil Gaiman, Joel Lane and Lisa Tuttle.
I’m getting a real kick out of being selected for this one. I love the crime genre and would love to write more in it. I get very nervous around the idea of trying though as I don’t feel I really know what I’m doing yet, especially when I see other writers ‘crossing over’ with such apparent ease. Joel Lane’s crime stories, for example, are just wonderful.
What appeals to me about crime writing is its potential for carrying as much complexity as you want within a compact form. The basic premise of any crime story is simple: something bad happened. But where you go with it after that is up to you.
I love what Barbara Vine does with that in The Brimstone Wedding. I love Patricia Highsmith’s The Blunderer, which tells the story of a murder that doesn’t happen. What Keith Ridgway does with the crime genre in Hawthorn & Child still occupies my mind on a daily basis.
The story I’m working on at the moment does have a murder in it. Is it a crime story though? I’m not entirely sure yet…