A Twist of the Knife
More things in heaven and earth …
Well, the more I read on in the book I mentioned last week – A Twist of the Knife by Peter James – not only did I find I understood the structure of the stories, and even enjoyed a few (!), but I learned something new about the author.
Peter James is usually acclaimed for his crime writing and famous for his principal character, Detective Superintendent Roy Grace (currently back on our small screens, on ITV, with a 17-episode series, called simply Grace). But I’ve now discovered he – James not DS Grace – spent a long time doing in-depth research into the paranormal for his spooky novels written in the late 1980s and early 1990s. The Twist of the Knife includes both fact and fiction arising from that phase, some of it distinctly disturbing. The research involved interviewing people who had experienced inexplicable things as well as professionals engaged in dealing with supposed hauntings, and he’s used their accounts to good effect in his own writing. Who knew?!
Perhaps it was worth persisting with this strange book after all! But it’s definitely not one to retain on my own bookshelves.
Whirlwind weeks
It’s been a crazy couple of weeks: travelling, visiting stately homes …
… attending a conference, preparing sundry talks and articles, dealing with an ongoing difficult situation, celebrating a milestone birthday, even trying my hand at curling!
So a book of short stories slotted in in spare moments nicely: Peter James‘ A Twist of the Knife bought for £1 in a charity shop.
Short stories largely remain a mystery to me and I’m still struggling to analyse the key components that make them work. Big sigh. I am trying, honestly I am. And for the first time I understood the structure of a small number of these stories. Perhaps there is hope …!