New from Five Leaves, Father Confessor by Russel D McLean

Rather than just announce the book - here's its first review, from our friends - and after this review, our special friends - at www.undiscoveredscotland.co.uk. No, the cover is not sponsored by Sheila's Nails of Craigiebank.

"Father Confessor is Russel D McLean's third outing for Dundee-based private investigator J McNee, and the result is a superbly well told and compelling book that grabs you by the throat within the first few pages, and doesn't let you go until you've reached the climax. We've reviewed the two earlier books in the series, The Good Son and The Lost Sister and both were very good. Father Confessor is even better. Russel D McLean has produced a polished and highly accomplished piece of crime fiction that has lost none of the grittiness and sense of place of its predecessors, yet somehow feels more rounded and complete.

McNee's nemesis, Detective Inspector George Lindsay, the man whose nose McNee's was kicked out of the police force for breaking, is trying to find McNee's girlfriend Susan Bright, to let her know that her father, DCI Ernie Bright, has been killed in the line of duty. Susan is a detective sergeant who has been suspended from duty pending an investigation into the events at the conclusion of The Lost Sister. And now her father is dead. Still worse, the circumstances of his death raise suspicions Ernie Bright was corrupt, something McNee already feared.
DCI Bright had been McNee's mentor before his dismissal from Tayside Police, and now McNee feels he owes it to Bright, and to his daughter, to find out who was responsible for the killing. And then leading Dundee gangster David Burns turns up in McNee's office offering to pay him handsomely to investigate the same killing. What really lies behind the links between DCI Bright and David Burns, and how much of what Burns is saying about the background to Bright's final investigation, the one that got him killed, can McNee believe? Suddenly the certainties of right and wrong begin to look less certain, and things become still more dangerous when the one man McNee feels, however reluctantly, he can trust, is removed from the picture in the most brutal manner possible.
On the evidence of Father Confessor, there is a lot of mileage left yet in J McNee, and was that a hint of a slight change of future direction we picked up on the final page? We await his next outing with keen anticipation."

Down with all pesterers

If you are a regular at Waterstones, or even an irregular, you have probably come across authors, book in hand, approaching customers for a chat. One author, with a backlist of some excellent fiction books, Stephen Benatar (ex-Nottingham as it happens) has been doing this for years to great success. Here's an old article about what he does: http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/booksblog/2007/nov/08/sellingyourself. His books are good, but there has been a rash of other self-published writers getting in on the act, leading to customers feeling pestered. I found it bad enough when buying a book during the period when Waterstones staff would ask if I would like some populist dreck off the counter at a reduced price when I was buying something intellectually stimulating (or when I was buying other populist dreck), in the same way that WH Smith keep trying to sell me a giant bar of chocolate for only £1.20 when all I want is Private Eye. Annoying, and embarrassing for the staff as far as I could tell. Does Waterstones still do this? Not the last couple of times I've been in.
But I have digressed... Some of the books being sold by pestering hand-sellers have been grim, according to accounts, and one customer wrote to Waterstones complaining that they'd felt pressured into buying a badly written, badly produced self-published book by a pest. Waterstones responded by banning such practises. Unfortunately some managers reacted by banning everything in sight and some authors panicked. Below is Waterstones' statement, which is, I think, pretty clear. Some of our writers have had great success from signing sessions - I hope this all settles down to the benefit of real writers, Waterstones staff and Waterstones customers.
"Our aim at Waterstones is to host as many appropriate events as possible. These may be author signings, children's storytimes and activities, ticketed evening talks and many other sorts of events. Many of our shops have active events programmes and it is our hope that given the necessary support and encouragement we can build on this and get even more events happening in our shops. However, Waterstones’ reputation is built on service and on recommendation, and it is never acceptable for us to outsource either of these attributes. This means we will no longer allow open-ended handselling 'signings' where authors spend long periods of time in our shops approaching our customers. We will encourage our shops to support local authors, be they published professionally or independently, but never at the expense of the customer experience. So while open-ended, handselling events will not be acceptable, shops should consider other more appropriate events, such as evening talks or book launches."

August 12 1952, revisited

I've posted a time or two about August 12 1952, and the Five Leaves commemoration. Those who want to know more are welcome of course to read our book, From Revolution to Repression, by Joseph Sherman, but anyone wanting a summary of the event will find this YouTube does the job: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nIQaRPvQJL8.
Gennady Estraikh is the speaker and the event was indeed our commemoration. I'll later post the music from the day, with Merlin and Polina Shepherd. One of Polina's own songs was her setting of a poem by David Hofsheyn, one of the murdered writers, but she startled the audience most by announcing her grandfather had been in the KGB.
We worked out that 145 people had been at the event, excluding the speakers, musicians and organisers, which was very encouraging given that it was the last day of the Olympics and so many people were out of London for the duration.
We are grateful to all the speakers, readers and musicians - those mentioned so far plus Robert Chandler, Helen Beer, Heather Valencia, and to the Jewish Music Institute who sponsored the event, and to Jewish Renaissance, Jewish Socialist, Morning Star, Yiddish London and others for their publicity.
The event was initiated by Myra Woolfson, who undertook most of the detailed and preparatory work for what turned out to be a great event and a fitting memorial, 60 years to the day after members of the Soviet Jewish Anit-Fascist Committee were killed by Stalin, including the cream of Soviet Yiddish writers.

Nairnscape

After a lengthy summit meeting in a Methodist Chapel cafe in Leicester today, editors/writers Gillian Darley and David McKie and a senior management figure from Five Leaves Towers came up with this title for our forthcoming book on the maverick topographer, the late Ian Nairn. Mostly we walked round in circles trying to find a peaceful cafe, ideally one as beautiful as the Leicester Turkey Cafe (pictured) but open during the day. The rest of the meeting passed amicably, but we were stuck for a sub-title. Maverick and topography are good words, but more for the back cover. Architecture is a killer word for a cover as it reduces the potential readership by 99%. A celebration? Not if I can help it. Enthusiast? Thumbs down. Observer - that he was. A polemicist. A writer too. Isn't everyone? So we parted, without a sub-title. Perhaps you can help. The book won't be completed for a year, and is due out around November 2013 but having a sub-title will help immensely so we can brief a cover designer and bring in other contributors. Any sensible idea will be considered, and any on our shortlist will win a copy of the book when published.
More information? Gillian D. is the author of Villages of Vision, David Mc. is currently working on a book about surnames (alas, for a different publisher - but see his chapter in our Maps anthology). And Nairn? If you don't remember him he was indeed all of the things mentioned above. A quick google search will reveal more of course, but meantime here he is on television, completely mispronouncing the name of my hometown of Hawick: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h3H6XtYTx24. We are planning essays on London, Nairn's broadcasting, Britain from the air, Nairn in American, on the man himself, his influence today, and others.
Add a comment if you have any suggestions.

New from Five Leaves, Student by David Belbin

Student is actually published on 24 September in paperback and 17 September as an ebook but our chums at Inpress Books have advance copies available now. Student is in the voice of a female student, and we follow her from West Kirby in her A-level year through three years of university in Nottingham. If we simply said she does not join the Christian Union, the amateur dramatic society and spend three years working hard for a 2.1 we'd only be scratching the surface. It's quite a journey, and - as the sub-title says - a lot can happen in three years. More if you follow the link: http://www.inpressbooks.co.uk/student/
Here's what Melvin Burgess said: "We have almost no university literature in the UK. David Belbin is ideally placed to help start it off, and this book is a valuable addition to the Young Adult range. Anyone who has been or is at university will relate to the characters. The full range of experiences from that first year after leaving home are all here - isolation, friendship, sex, loyalty, heartbreak, happiness, despair. Some succeed, some fail; of them struggle. The book is full of honesty and insight, and you never know until the very end who is going to make it and who is going to fall by the wayside."
The cover image is by Izza Maria Angeles who lives in the Philippines. This is the first time any of her images have been published, and it fits the book perfectly.

London Fictions, advance notice

Well, this item is not due out until 1st April but the text is in, as are most of the illustrations and we are rather proud of this one. It's an important book for us. And we do like the cover. Well done editors Andrew Whitehead and Jerry White. More later. The biggest debate was whether to publish it as Five Leaves or under our New London Editions imprint. We went for the former. The book is orderable already, though I'm not expecting much interest until next year. Just showing off, really. But if London fiction is your interest, keep following Andrew's www.londonfictions.com. We do have permission to use the cover painting, from Tower Hamlets Council which owns the work, but we would very much like to contact the artist Belinda Davies, who painted this in the mid-70s and used to live in Stepney. There is a younger artist by the same name, who appears in all the searches. Any ideas?

Independent publishing book fairs

 

 I've mentioned before about the welcome rash of book fairs and one day book festivals organised by the independent press world as one of ways we are all collectively fighting back against the big boys. The provisional date for our next States of Independence day in Leicester is March 16th but if you can't wait that long, there's Free Verse in London (pictured) on 8th September, the Birmingham independent publishers fair on 9th September, the Sheffield Independent Publishers Bookfair on 3rd November, all of them in their second year, plus the longstanding anarchist book fair in London on 27 October. There will be Five Leaves stalls at them all. Doesn't half wreck your weekends though.