Boom dizzied

When you sell your soul

Kate Turkington - intrepid traveller in Tunisia

Tunnel 1. Jolling in Tunisia

Tunnel 2. The skiet and the donder

Tunnel 3. Mea culpa

Most (maybe all) of the writers I know, hate marketing their just published books. Consider this: writers spend months and months alone with a story then afterwards are asked to do dances on TikTok or reels on Instagram or flighty comments on X or even posts like this one on Substack. It makes for an odd sort of career. However. If you publish, this is the way things go. Fortunately, there are some unexpected rabbit holes which can be fun and rewarding. So I follow my latest, Falls the Shadow, down these tunnels…

Tunnel 1. Years ago, I’m talking about the early 1970s, possibly 1971, at the University of the Witwatersrand, I pitched up at a tutorial on Christopher Marlowe given by a young lecturer. She was clearly fascinated by Marlowe and what she had to tell us about his Doctor Faustus was riveting. Faustus was one of those characters I responded to: he’d sold his soul to the devil in return for “being on earth as Jove is in the sky/Lord and commander of these elements”. What was not to like? Anyhow, I wrote an essay on Doctor Faustus and clearly the lecturer liked what I’d written because she gave me a seriously good mark. I’d never had a mark like that before, and never would again. That mark was the achievement of my academic career, and as you can see, I’ve never forgotten it.

Jump ahead many years and this lecturer is a voice on 702 and then many years later she’s got her own scene going on YouTube, The Kate Turkington Show, where recently we had a chat about matters writing and publishing, specifically crime fiction and Falls the Shadow.

Shortly after that, Kate went jolling to Tunisia and sent me this note on her return: “I’m just back from a fabulous trip to Tunisia. Olive groves, sheep, some of the best Roman ruins in the world, fabulous mosaics, medieval medinas and hardly another tourist in sight. Bliss. And we reached the northernmost tip of Africa!” Hence the photograph heading this Substack. It’s a long way back to the tutorials on Doctor Faustus, but also not so far.

***

Tunnel 2: Here’s another one of those marvellous ways the book world works. It’s the sort of thing all writers hope to hear, as they sit down to another day at the laptop with that insistent pulsing cursor.

At the launch of Falls the Shadow at The Book Lounge in Cape Town back in February, a young woman came up to me and said she “put in” at Cape Town each year for a few months and while browsing in the bookshop had come across my book. What had drawn her to it was the puff on the cover from John Connolly. “I know John. He’s a friend. If he recommends something, I trust his judgement.” Just goes to show the role those names on the cover play when it comes to marketing.

For instance, this was posted on the Facebook page of one Alan Stapleton. I don’t know Alan (so the randomness makes it particularly meaningful) and he gets my vote of thanks, especially as he also posted it to Paige Nick’s Good Book Appreciation Society. Here’s what he wrote:

“Not my normal flavour of read, but sometimes, I tuck into my Book club buddies books. Their tastes hang heavily towards Crime Fiction, Historical fiction and Biographical stuff. They believe that my eclectic reading interests, are linked to my supposedly nefarious side-lines, and should be avoided.”

Now here’s were the randomness comes in: “I had heard of Mike Nicol, and seen his quoted praise on the cover for Michiel Heyns’ “The Wildest Beauty” so when I saw a novel by him in our Book club, I thought I should take a walk on the wild side. Spend some time in the blood and the guts, the skiet-and-the-donder of Crime thrillers again. Where the characters, are often stereotypical, the plot, formulaic. But you become hooked, anticipating the predictable unpredictability of the final twists.

“Falls the Shadow” shouted, “Topical!” Read me.

It could not be more topical. Police crime and corruption in South Africa. I was roller-coasted into the ride. Zara, toughie cop on the Good side. A loner. Divorced. One child. Loves her kayaking, and her dop. Her sidekick, Wynstan, attorney, Jo-Jo …and a bunch of other goodies, who play minor roles. And then, there is an even greater array of Baddies … Sergeant Mpho, General Kaiser Vula, Captain Alicia Hendricks. I could go on.

An initial murder, brings Zara to uncover police running guns, illicit diamonds, corruption, shootings and more murder. She becomes the hunter and the hunted. As the plot and trail become deeper and deeper, the higher, and higher the political echelons are involved. Zara is facing a losing battle, back against the wall, cards stacked against her.

But don’t under estimate our Captain Zara. I was never in doubt.

As much as I am not a Crime Fiction fan, Nicol’s “Falls the Shadow” whipped me, dipped me and gripped me. Threw me about. Had me hanging in wonder, turning pages. And like a roller coaster, Boom, dizzied, I walked away. Happy. And that was that.

Now, what should I read next?”

***

Tunnel 3. I Have to admit I like the concept of being “boom dizzied” which happened again a few days later with a WhatsApp from a friend holding me to account for preventing her from having an early night because she started reading Falls the Shadow. “By 11.30 I had to drag myself away. 😀😀 […] And since I’ve picked the book up again this morning, I’m probably not going to get much done today.”😂😂 The grievances are stacking up. Once she was thoroughly pissed off with me for killing a gentle, loving character in Killer Country… Mea culpa, Shelley Conroy.

***