It's all change around here.

I mean, not massively... but, the site's had a wee coat of pain. Its simpler, smoother, and clearer (I hope). I don't know that all the links on pages are working yet, but the main menus up the top are, and there are now buy buttons for the books to amazon.co.uk on every page, with more coming very very soon for a much wider  variety of outlets so you can buy from where you like. Most of these will be affiliate links, which means I get a little bit cash if you buy through them (Just mentioning for the sake of transparency).

Those of you who know my other life as an editor, will also not that the page about this has been nixed, with a mention on the biography page. Why? At the moment, I can't open up slots for editorial queries other than through Jericho Writers (who are lovely, lovely people) due to scheduling commitments. Its just easier to do much of this through them, and they do great work, too!

I'm working on a newsletter that will not just keep people up to date on my work, but also come chocka with reccomendations on #russelreads and #russelwatches because, hey, I need to spread the word about brilliant storytellers wherever I can! 

Anyway, its not perfect yet, but everthing's just about working now... I'll be back very soon with more updates and fun things... in the meantime,

à bientôt!

Russel

You may have noticed some changes starting round here. It hasn't reached every page yet, and some elements are unfinished (for example, there will be a newsletter sign up coming soon, as well as more on the re-released McNee novels, which will be available through most major platforms again after an experiment with Kindle Unlimited. 

So for now, the place may seem a little bit messy. Not every link will work. Some pages will look very different to others. And there may be some bugs. But I'm ironing them out and hope to have some groovy new content soon, including the aforementioned newsletter, the identity of Big Mycroft (wait, who? you ask...) and a ton (well, a bit) more groovy things.

​I will see you all very very soon...

I love Storybundle.com. Its a great little site that promotes indie publishers and authors via themed, curated bundles of e-books (in all formats) where you "pay what you like" (a lower fee gets you four or five books, but you "unlock" bonuses when you pay higher amounts.). The bundles are often curated by fellow authors and experts in their field.

One of those curators is Lavie Tidhar, a London-based author whose work defies description. He's written pure sci fi, existential noir, childrens novels, comic books and so much more. And he was very kind to get in touch with me when organising a "Noir" Bundle. After a bit of discussion, we decided to do something a little unique to Storybundle, which is a two-book omnibus of the first two McNee books. There's a mash-up cover (once again designed by the brilliant JT Lindroos), and this omnibus will only be available via Storybundle. Once its gone, its gone. As of writing, you have 16 days to go and get the bundle. The ombnibus is unlocked in the bonus section. Although prices are in USD, you can buy from anywhere in the world.

"But, Russel," I hear you cry, "what if I already have your books?" Oh, fear not, dear reader, for you also unlock another nine incredible books when you buy the bundle. You have Mexican noir, near future noir, far future noir, the noir of Tidhar's own brilliant novel, Osama, and so much more. There are some incredible authors on there -- you may already know Michael Marshall Smith or Kameron Hurley, but there are collections of shorts ripe with new discoveries, as well as a whole host of others who deserve to be on your radar.

Any other reasons you should you buy a bundle? Well, not only do they pau the authors, but you have a choice to contribute an amount of your price to English Pen, a human rights charity who campaign for the freedom to write and read around the world.

​So go on, get over to Storybundle, get your hands on some incredible e-books. They're a perfect way to while away these long, dark evenings...

UPDATED 15/11/19
About two days after I made the original post here, I was contacted by someone expressing interest in taking over the publication of the novels. I put the republications on hold for a while as this was someone I wanted to work with. I took this post off the front page and delayed some of the publicity etc that I was planning. Sadly the opportunity fell through, and so I've resumed the plan to self publish. More news will appear on the blog as it happens. The Good Son is, of course, available right now on Kindle and in print from Amazon (both .co.uk and .com) while The Lost Sister will be coming very soon...
Original Post:
It was eleven years ago that J McNee first walked the mean streets of Dundee. The permanently angry private detective, grieving for his dead fiance crashed into the Scottish crime scene with... well, a kind of polite "do you know I'm here?" vibe, if we're honest. But he did well enough that I was able to write five books featuring him, which got a lot of nice notices. But things weren't helped by a change in publishers midway through, and a US publisher who, frankly, could have paid more attention to things like getting the book into stores and not not messing around with ebook prices during the height of the e-boom.

But I've always had a soft spot for McNee, and when the rights reverted to me from previous publishers a few months back, I tried to find him a new home. After a few months of weighing up the odds and talking to a lot of people, I made the decision to put him back out there myself in new editions, with covers by one of my favourite indie-cover-designers, the magnificent JT Lindroos, starting with the very first novel: The Good Son
​
When the book first came out in ebook in the UK, JT designed a lovely cover that we've resurrected here for the new edition, as not too many people got to see it. He'll also be designing covers for the rest in the series (part of the reason its happening over the next few months -- I believe you should always pay the artist, so I'm doing just that, which means making sure I have the money first -- something you can help with by buying any of my currently in print novels, including the new edition of The Good Son, and my first short story collection, The Death of Ronnie Sweets). Not much else has changed, though -- the books will have a little tidy up for typos and errors overlooked in the original editions but otherwise nothing much will change. The third book may be a little different on that score for reasons I'll go into when we come to the reissue, but essentially these reissues are the original books presented by the author in a new format. If you haven't read McNee and thought you'd never get the chance, that's about to chance. If you have read him, but didn't get all his adventures, this is your chance to make that happen. The books will all be reasonably priced, and while they will initially be available on Amazon, I'm going to try and expand to other markets too -- just bear with me on that front, as this is something of a learning curve!

For a long time, with self publishing, I've thought one of the ways that it can benefit readers is if a book goes OOP and rights revert to the author. Unless you're a superstar, its difficult to persuade other publishers that your early books deserve to be reprinted. But I've always worked on the principle that backlist is always new to someone, and to that end just having the books out there for people to discover matters. And more than a few people who loved Ed's Dead have asked about the McNee novels, and why they were a little tricky to find. Well, ask no more, for your prayers have been answered!

I'm hoping to do a little publicity over the coming months for these re-releases. I don't have high expectations, but I hope that if you read the new editions, you'll consider leaving a review on your website of choice, or telling other people about the books. For me, these books are special, because they mark part of my journey as a writer. But for you, the reader, I just hope they continue to be damn good reads!

I didn't get out to see anything new over the last week, but still managed to watch some old favourites, and catch up on a few films I've been meaning to watch for a while.

You Were Never Really Here - with a stunning central performance from Joaquin Phoenix, this noir from director Lynn Ramsay is haunting and demanding in equal measure, eschewing the standard hitman movie thrills for something altogether darker and more unsettling. The violence, when it comes, is brutal, but its in the quiet moments where the nastiness often lies. A wonderfully constructed and unique vision, but definitely one where you have to be in the right frame of mind to watch it.

Broken Arrow - When this came up on a random watchlist, I realised that back in the day, I never actually saw this one. I adored Woo's second Hollywood movie, Face/Off, so I decided to give it a shot. Its defintiely a film made in the 90s, with all the slightly cheap camerawork that entails, and a script that has ever chance to give its female lead something to do and never really does (although at least they don't horn in a pointless romance subplot, as much as the script hints its going to at every opportunity). The final train heist is nicely done, though, and John Travolta proves why he'd go on to play a brilliant bad guy in Face/Off, but here the script is so perfunctory he never gets more than a couple of chances to really ham it up (That said, "would you mind not shooting at the thermonuclear weapons" is a deservedly memorable moment). Basically, its aged pretty poorly, and the abruptly cut ending just feels disorienting.

Con Air - With a bad day in the middle of the week, I needed to watch something that is the movie equivalent of comfort food, and here it is. With everyone's favourite is-he-good-or-is-he-awful actor, Nicolas Cage playing an army ranger sent to prison after accidentally killing someone, its a deliriously indulgent action picture that delights in its own idiocy. With a brilliantly weird supporting cast, including John Cusack as a wide-eyed DEA agent, and Steve Buscemi as the most notorious serial killer in the USA, Con Air sort of flows over you and pulls you in with its sheer madness. A flight full of the most dangerous convicts in America (and Nic Cage's character returning home on parole to see his daughter) gets taken over due more to a series of coincidences that any real planning on the part of John Malkovich's mastermind, Cyrus "The Virus" Grissom, and from there on in things get increasingly weird. But the film carries itself with such confidence you can't help but enjoy every ludicrous moment of it.

JFK - Oliver Stone's controversial 1991 movie is a miracle of concept and passion over structure. One of the most talky movies ever made (there's a 20 or so minute sequence that is literally two people sitting on a bench), it manages to sucker you in through the sheer power of its argument, and the commitment of its cast, as to the truth of the Kennedy assassination. Whether or not Stone fudged the facts, and whether or not you believe in the lone gunman theory or the conspiracy, this film makes you wonder whether there might be something in it. Costner is at a career best as Jim Harrison, the New Orleans DA who decides to dig deeper into the connections between his home town and the assassination, and the supporting cast are solidly believable. Its made with passion and conviction, with the only real low point being Joe Pesci and Tommy Lee Jones's appalling wigs. But in this movie, everything means something, so maybe there's more to those hairpieces than meets the eye...

The Dead Zone - I'm a sucker for Stephen King novels. Well, some of them. But there was a real period where it felt like King could do no wrong (aside from Cujo, a novel I never really understood the appeal of), and The Dead Zone is definitely from that era. The story of Johnny Smith, a schoolteacher who falls into a five year coma following a car crash, and awakes with the ability to see people's past and futures when he touches them, it moves from a serial killer thriller through to a moral quandary as Johnny discovers the extent of his powers (in some visions, there is a "dead zone" where he realises there is the ability to change the outcome of events) and realises he may have a chance to stop a man from becoming president and starting world war 3 -- but to do so he must take drastic action. This 1981 adaptation stars Christopher Walken as the everyman who becomes something else, and while this seems odd casting given Walken's reputation now, it really works here. In the first part of the movie, he plays off as kind and goofy before events turned him into a haunted, gaunt figure. Its an episodic movie, but due to the focus on Walken's character, this approach doesn't feel too stop and start, as it might have done in lesser hands. There are some mild moments of horror here, but its more psychological than body horror. Having suffered through some terrible King adaptations in the past, this is definitely one of the better ones.

Get Out - Normally, Lesley doesn't like horror movies, and leaves me to watch them on my own, but when she said she'd heard good things about Get Out and perhaps could watch it, we fired it up on Netflix. To me, Get Out isn't a full on horror, but rather a creepy weird little tale that plays with elements of the genre. That said, I must be inured to horror, as the tension definitely started to get to Lesley, especially when the true extent of the weirdness behind the overly-liberal-acting white family was revealed. But where Get Out works is by relieving the horror with moments of humour and relatable moments. We made it to the end intact, but it was nice to see someone reacting to it the first time round in exactly the way they should have -- tense, but willing to go on and see just how Chris extricates himself from the weirdest meet-the-parents scenario in contemporary cinema. 

Today is the last day of the Aye Write Festival in Glasgow. Its been running for years at the Mitchell Library, and I've been lucky enough over the last four or five years to be asked to moderate a number of authors (as well as appearing myself!) for the festival. I do quite a bit of this work for festivals, which was an extension of some of the work I used to do as a bookseller, chairing and interviewing authors for instore events.

Its a funny gig, really. Moderating a panel or interviewing an author means that you have to at once be welcoming and entertaining, but also make sure that you are not the centre of attention. Its something of a balancing act, but when it goes right it can be hugely rewarding. I do my research before I go in to any event, reading at the very least the latest work by an author, but also doing a little research to see what they tend to talk about and whether there's anything interesting worth exploring. But what's most rewarding is when I can go off script - when the conversation lurches in an unexpected direction.

One of the reasons I love Aye Write, too, is that they're one of the festivals who let me spread my wings outside of crime fiction. As much as I love my crime and thrillers, its great to be able to to talk about other topics. For example, I got the opportunity to resurrect my past as a philosopher by chairing the excellent Julian Baggini on a few occasions (in fact, the first time was on precisely the topic of my MLitt dissertation, which I think was more a coincidence than anything, but hugely welcome). I've also done a number of SF panels (my second love) as well as diving into more unexpected subjects, such as a panel on PTSD in the military, and a fascinating event this year on "Weird Maths", which was a great topic for someone who was utterly terrible at maths at school (and still is, on a general arithmetic level, but as this panel proved, maths is about far more than just adding and subtracting numbers).

Chairing/moderation at festivals is a subtle art, and I think sometimes people forget that. Its easy to get things wrong. I still get shudders at one panel where I was a little nervous,. and ended up laughing a little too loud at the author's jokes. Someone online slammed me for this later (although they also slammed me years later for coughing at an event I'd been chairing where I'd literally come from hospital after an asthma attack, so maybe its just they don't like me personally!). And when you get an author who doesn't want to talk (it happens) things can feel tense. But when it goes right -- and it does most of the time, as long as you let the authors be themselves, and give them room to talk about their books and work, and the things they love -- then it can be a hugely joyous experience. I also love it when an author surprises you. There was one author I chaired for the first time a few years ago, and was terrified that they were going to be a little like the characters in their books (who are, let's say, a little violent and unpredictable) but they turned out to be one of the loveliest people I've met.

I've had a blast again at this years Aye Write, and I'm hoping I'll be at other festivals as the year moves forward, meeting new authors, introducing new and familiar voices to readers, and just generally helping to spread the love of books. I'll keep you all updated here as and when things happen, and I hope to see you out there at some of these events, too!

Over on Twitter, I do two hashtags that you'll only find on my feed -- #russelreads and #russelwatches.

#russelreads is all about books. Because of the nature of my day job (as an editor) its updated less often, as my time for pleasure-reading is less due to the nature of that work.

But #russelwatches is all about my second passion: movies. I adore movies - with a particular love of late 60s/early 70s stuff - and have made no secret of the fact that my dream has always been to move into scriptwriting, alongside my career as a novelist.

I'm going to try and do a weekly roundup of #russelwatches on the blog, as sometimes I miss or forget to do a twitter tag of what I'm watching. And hopefully, it'll help you guys find a few things you might fancy watching (or know to avoid!)

Anyway, this week on #russelwatches

US - Caught the new Jordan Peele movie at the Glasgow Film Theatre at an afternoon showing. Anyone expecting a retread of GET OUT might be slightly confused. This is a different movie, although again he's playing with horror tropes. If you're looking for a clear and concise message, again you might find yourself confused, but this is a movie all about the performances. Lupita Nyong'o is particularly superb as both the mother looking to save her family and her terrifying, guttural dopelganger. A last minute twist may seem obvious to some, but this movie really is about the journey - and its a damn fine one!

DEADPOOL 2 - Caught on demand, and, you know, I was slightly underwhelmed. Ryan Reynolds does a great job as the "Merc With a Mouth" who was one of my favourite comics characters back when I was a teen, and his double act with the incredibly serious Mutant-from-the-future, Cable (Josh Brolin) is superb, But the movies at its best riffing off cliches, and slows down a little whenever it actually has to move the plot forward. That said, I laughed a hell of a lot, especially at several jokes pointing out the po-faced seriousness of DC's recent crop of big screen adaptations.

CALIBRE - Scottish-set thriller on Netflix about two friends who go hunting in the Highlands and accidentally get into a lot of trouble with the locals. Cleverly eshcewing Deliverance cliches, and with a great central performance by Jack Lowden, it promises a lot but slightly misses its landing in the third act, where you get the impression that you've missed a lot of character motivation from the local villagers. But its watchable, and has a number of nicely tense wee sequences.

INFERNAL AFFAIRS - On Blu-ray, the movie that influenced THE DEPARTED, you can see some scenes that Scorcese lifted wholesale in his adaptation. so its not full of huge surprises. That said, its a lot leaner than Scorcese's epic, and once it gets going, the two leads have a great intensity. Really looking forward to the next two films in the trilogy.

 "Where the hell have you been?"

I've actually had a lot of people ask me that lately. Ed's Dead came out in the UK in 2017, and since then...? Well, its been a little quiet, let's say that. Not that I haven't been working -- I've been editing a LOT of books, and I've been writing a number of articles (for the latest, see the April issue of Writer's Magazine, where I talk about the lessons prose writers can learn from screenwriters) as well as taking part in the excellent Write4Film program from the Scottish Film Talent Network. But between all of that, where I would normally find the time to write, things have been slow.

Why?

It started at Bouchercon in New Orleans, at the tail end of 2016. Some people who were there will know I had a small asthma attack while I was there. I didn't think much of it at the time, but what then happened was that my asthma got worse over the next year, to the point where I was hospitalised for a few days during the Edinburgh Book Festival in 2017. I came out, thinking all was well, and things were for a bit. But we had something of an issue where we had to find a new place to live at short notice, something that went on much longer than it should have. And then, in 2018, I found myself struggling with kidney stones for about six months. If you've had kidney stones, you'll know how painful  they can be. And what I now know is that when they get stuck on the way out, the pain ramps up even further. They were finally removed after three attempts at the tail end of 2018, and since then I've just been trying to get everything back in order.

But I'm writing again -- a new book is slowly forming, and I'm really excited about it. It'll see me return to writing about Dundee, although many years before McNee showed up on the scene... yes, I'm writing about the past, and I'm hugely enjoying it. I just hope my publishers will like it!

I may also have a few other exciting projects on the go, so while I haven't seen many publications since Ed, please don't worry -- I'll be back! I'm so grateful, however, the superb community who've supported me through this. From my partner - the brilliant Lesley McDowell (go read her book, Unfashioned Creatures, and do it now!) - to my agent, Al Guthrie, and the publishers of Ed's Dead, the wonderful Saraband, along with many others, people have been hugely understanding.

But 2019 feels like a fresh start. Which is why I've updated a few areas of the website, and intend to try and keep this blog up to date with a mix of thoughts, writing tips, and general insanity.

Watch this space, folks. I'm baaaackk....

Anyone who's worked with me will know my love for author, agent and editor Allan Guthrie's superb essay, HUNTING DOWN THE PLEONASM, which is all about cutting the unnecessary from your work to make your voice and your story truly shine. It used to be hosted on the Hi Arts website, which has recently gone AWOL. However, since Al is actually my agent, I approached him and asked if I could possibly host the essay here on my website. Luckily, he agreed, and you can link to/download the essay (in pdf form) right here

The essay changed my writing for the better, and I know its worked for a number of authors who swear by it. And if you like that, you should check out Al's books - HARD MAN in particular remains a favourite of mine, but each and every one of them is a little slice of hardboiled wonder.

I may have covered or mentioned this in several places, but I think it bears repeating. Dialogue tags are important in writing prose - but not in the way you might think.

Over and over again, I come across characters who "extemporise" or "exclaim" or "pronounce", which just makes me cringe (and none more so than characters who "quip") as it draws attention to the dialogue that precedes the tag in an unwanted manner.

For example, when you have something like,

"I want to kiss you," he pronounced

You have a tag that adds a weird imagery to the dialogue. A pronouncement that seems like he's got on a soapbox to say it. Take it away, the dialogue feels more natural. Unless, the idea was that he was saying something in an unusual fashion (in which case, I would always say that surrounding detail should do the work - show us that he's pronouncing something by talking about his actions and tone).

Then you have,

"You're a damn moron," she quipped.

Where a) its clear that this is a joke or a witty aside from the words and the context and b) if we have to be told something's a quip, you might want to rewrite it so that it is a quip.

The thing with dialogue is that the words and the tone should immediately be able to conjure up the sound of the words and their meaning in the reader's head. Its an art, and a damn hard one at that, but writers should be able to convey tone and layers without getting lazy about it and drawing attention to themselves. And that's the thing - "said" is the invisible dialogue tag. It helps us identify who's speaking (which can help with knowing the way in which we should read a line of dialogue)

Here's a little bit from a work in progress where you'll see that for whole lines of dialogue I don't use tags except for said, and imply tone through both construction and details:

Silence for a moment. Parks takes a drink.
Stark says, “You knew Caulder?”
“The detective who killed himself? Only by reputation. You weren’t a fan.”
“That’s obvious?”
“Only to anyone who was in the morning briefing.”
Stark nods. Tight smile. Blood rushes from his lips. “I wear my heart on my sleeve.”
“A good quality.”
“For some people. That morning? I’m not so sure.”
“Its the reason we’re here, now.”
“Aye?”
Parks nods. “I’m not some wide-eyed little boy coming into the polis, thinking its all about being Dixon of Dock Green or whatever. I’m not a fucking idiot.”
“With your father, that would be a disappointment.”
“He wasn’t a man who liked to be disappointed.”
“I can imagine.” Stark takes another drink. He keeps looking around, like he’s expecting to find someone watching them. But the evening drinkers are involved in their own conversations, or else their own pints. They don’t give a toss about the two men at the corner table. “So, Caulder’s where it starts. He was in bed with Kennedy. Professionally, I mean.”

That tight smile, for example, shows that Stark's trying for a joke but might be realising he's avoiding the truth. The fact that Stark looks around before starting his story about Caulder tells us that he's speaking confidentially, maybe even whispering. But the dialogue itself is what does the heavy lifting, and with no attention-calling tags to do the work, I think it works okay, especially for a first draft (one of those character names will be changing, given they're way too similar)

I recently re-read George Pelecanos's debut, A FIRING OFFENCE, where the dialogue is so good, Pelecanos rarely needs tags beyond said. Action and tone do all the heavy lifting, and the result is that the reader feels closer to the action because there are no words directing them how to feel - they're being shown it all the time. Its the same with the late, great Elmore Leonard - look at how many of his characters pronounce, proclaim, 

Now, sometimes you will need a tag or two when something's unclear or you need to be specific, but using them all the time simply because you want to show that your vocabulary is larger than said has the opposite effect than the one you want: it gets in the way of your writing and trips you up. Its puts the artifice of your dialogue on display where, if you're good enough, the words that fall out of your character's mouths and their actions should be more than enough.

Which brings me to a final point - never ever have your characters "action" their dialogue.

By which I mean,

"That's great," he shrugged.
or
"God, I love you," she smiled.

These are actions, and not dialogue tags. Its impossible to shrug dialogue, although you can shrug while speaking. 

The other thing about using "said" as a dialogue tag is that it will make you work harder at your dialogue so it reads natural, smooth and clean - if the tone and the intent are in the words, your dialogue will, believe me, sing off the page.