Who'd live with a writer? We're all nuts.

 This piece was first published in Red Herrings, the Crime Writers Association @the_cwa in the March 2022 issue:)

Who’d live with a writer? – We’re all nuts

By

Jennifer Lee Thomson

 

"For goodness’ sake. Where have you been? I'm freezing out here."

I flash my partner of over 20 years a wry smile. "Sorry, I had a chapter to finish. I wasn't long, was I?"

He takes a sharp intake of breath and breathes the air out his nose like a raging bull. "Of course you bloody were. What else would you be doing for 20 minutes, in the public toilets as I stand out in the snow shrivelling and shivering."

I fight back the desire to congratulate him on his fine alliteration but think better of it. I've stretched his patience already. He's a rubber band about to snap.

We're meant to be on a Christmas shopping trip. He'd envisioned being warm inside a shopping centre drinking a cup of hot chocolate with a touch of ginger and eating a cinnamon bun, reading his paper as I went round the shops. Not standing outside in the snow.

We hadn't even made it to the shopping centre before inspiration had struck and I used the excuse of going to the toilets to get it down on my phone.

That's the trouble with living with a writer. There's a lot of standing around waiting as they finish that last sentence, that last paragraph, that last chapter.

"Just give me a few moments. I need to do this now." Those are probably the two phrases I use more than any other.

Who in their right mind would want to live with a writer?

We're an annoying bunch. We're a slave to our writing. When we're deep into it, we wouldn't notice if the house was burning down.

Our life is all about deadlines. The deadlines we are given and the ones we set for ourselves.

Our writing is a time stealer - thieving huge chunks from family and friends.

In my case, I'm always asking stupid questions seeking the male point of view.

The questions we ask are completely insane. And if we weren't writers we would probably be reported to the police or the anti-terrorism unit.

Questions like would curling tongs on a man's bits hurt and can you get rid of a whole body in a wood chipper?

There isn't a piece of paper or a notebook that's not written on in our homes. We devour paper like termites. And at least in my case I'm told I horde all the pens. Well, how else do I make sure I always have one (or six) at hand?

Let's salute them; those who live with writers. Mentioning them in the acknowledgements of our latest book or article isn't much of a reward for all that they do.

Just ask my other half who has spent far too long standing outside different establishments whilst I finish the last line.

 

BIO

Jennifer is the author of several books including fiction and non-fiction. Her most recent books are the pulpy crime fiction novella How Kirsty gets her Kicks from Shotgun Honey and Vile City (Detective in a coma book 1) from Diamond Books.

In Vile City, DI Duncan Waddell thinks he’s losing his mind when his best friend and colleague Stevie Campbell who’s in a coma starts to talking to him. But only Waddell can hear him.

Twitter @jenthom72

Blog https://ramblingsofafrustratedcrimewriter.blogspot.com/

 

You can visit their website at https://thecwa.co.uk/

Happy crime reading, viewing and or watching. 

"The plot is full on intense" - Donna's Book Reviews on Vile CIty

Delighted with this review from Donna's Book Reviews for Vile City.

Thanks, Donna for such an insightful review😀

Review 

I'm a big fan of Scottish crime, and the crime writing standard in Scotland is particularly high. I had never heard of this author, but the title and blurb sounded intriguing, and I was right to take the plunge. The story follows Di Waddell, who has to investigate missing women in the city of Glasgow. His partner and friend is lying in hospital in a coma, so he has to work with McKeith. He is already up against it, not being the man Waddell wants, but his is also gangly and clumsy, but luckily does provide some useful insights. Their pairing made for an entertaining read. Waddell alone is exactly the type of character I love to read, he has a sarcastic humour and it certainly endeared me to him almost immediately.

Shelley is the woman who is abducted, and you follow a lot of the story through her eyes. It shows the abduction and captivity from her point of view. It was difficult to read at times, but Shelley's strength shone out. She was determined to survive the ordeal and wouldn't be broken no matter how much they tried.

"The plot is full on intense"

The plot is full on intense, it goes all over the place, not confusing, just breathtaking in its speed and multi layer. approach. You are kept guessing, and even when you think the case is finished and passed over, the author laughs and throws a grenade in to blow everything wide open again. It covers the sex trafficking trade, and discusses many of the awful acts that are inflicted on women, but on the other hand there are a cast of incredibly strong women to balance this out.

The detective in the coma remains so throughout the book, and does rather make you wonder why he gets the title, but it does intrigue me as to what will be done with his character as the series progresses. He will clearly have been able to hear what has been discussed with him, but whether his condition leads to any useful outcome remains to be seen.

Whatever happens I will be reading more from this author, I will look forward to re-inserting myself in the tough Glaswegian streets, amongst this great team, to see what they get up to next.

What's it about then?

Detective Inspector Duncan Waddell has his hands full. A wave of burglaries in Glasgow has targeted the elderly. Two young women have gone missing, and a report has just come in about a third victim. He is training his new partner, DC Brian McKeith. He and his wife are raising their children. It is no wonder that he visits and talks often with his former partner.

His former partner, DC Stevie Campbell, is lying comatose in the hospital, with no sign that he will ever recover enough to wake up. Stabbed by a criminal with a broken bottle, he now lies inert, fed intravenously, turned regularly to prevent bedsores. Waddell visits him, shares details of cases with him, jokes with him and reads to him, hoping against hope that he can somehow hear him despite there being no evidence of this.

Until the day that Stevie sits up and talks to him! Except, no one else can see him. There is no medical sign that he ever moved, no one else heard him, and when the nurses come into the room to check on him he is as deep in his coma as ever. Only Duncan can hear him.

 Read an extract here 

Buy it on Amazon here

Book 2 in the series that was once called Cannibal City will be out soon under the new name of Butcher City. Also from Diamond Books. 

You can see more of their titles at https://diamondbooks.co.uk/library/ and on Twitter @diamond_crime

Scotland's Missing Crime Files: The disappearance of devoted mum Arlene Fraser

This is another case that has always haunted me and inspired to write crime like Vile City. 

Tragic Arlene - was she killed by her husband Nat Fraser?

Pretty mum-of-two Arlene Fraser was just 33-years-old when she was last seen in the Scottish town of Elgin in 1998. Since that day she was never seen again.

Picture the scene in Arlene's house. It looked as if it'd been abandoned suddenly. 

The vacuum cleaner was still plugged in and the washing machine had been recently used.

Could Arlene have left and be living somewhere else?

This was a theory that was touted by Nat Fraser and his defence. 

If Arlene had left she hadn't been prepared.  

Her medication for Crohn's disease, her glasses and contact lenses were still in the house.

Would she really leave home without her children? 

Then there were her children. Would the devoted mum have left without them? Not by choice.

Just weeks before her disappearance, her violent husband Nat Fraser had throttled her for coming home late. He was sentenced to eighteen months for that assault but that only happened two years after the assault on his wife which was first treated as attempted murder. 

Had he been convicted sooner she might not have been killed.

Tragically, Arlene had been set to divorce her violent husband and start a new life. 

She was never given that chance.

What happened to Arlene?

Initially her disappearance was treated as a missing persons case. The detective in charge of the case, Detective Chief Inspector Peter Simpson said: "Something criminal has taken place here. Arlene has been the victim of a crime. I am of the opinion that she's dead. There's no indication that she's living somewhere else."

The police believe Nat Fraser paid someone to wipe his wife off the face of the earth. During the search for her, he was accused of not being interested in her whereabouts as if he already knew where she was.

In 2003, he was convicted of her murder and sentenced to 25 years in jail.

In 2011, he successfully challenged his conviction and it was quashed. But in 2012 in a new trial he was again convicted of Arlene's murder. In 2013, he lost yet another appeal. 

DOUBT 

So, why was there so much doubt over the husband's conviction?

There was no body and Nat Fraser did not commit the murder himself. 

The prosecution argued that Nat Fraser accused his wife of having a lover and decided that he wanted her dead to avoid giving her half his fortune. What's more Fraser was willing to pay someone £15, 000 to kill her.

Weeks before she vanished, Nat Fraser is alleged to have said to his wife: "If you are not going to live with me, you will not be living with anyone."

Chillingly that came true.

After she went missing, her son Jamie, who was only ten at the time, left a heartbreaking note for his mum. It read."Mother, where are u?"

He'd never get an answer to that question.

Arlene's body has never been found so her children and the rest of her family don't have a grave to visit. It's believed that her body was disposed off after she was murdered. Maybe even fed to pigs or burnt. 

What do Arlene's family think? 

Arlene's mother Isabelle Thompson spoke after Fraser's last appeal: "Hopefully we can get on with our lives, it's been never-ending."

In a shock documentary on Channel 4, in 2013 Arlene's daughter Natalie Fraser who was just five-years-old when her mum went missing, said she was "100 per cent" sure that her dad's friend Hector Dick and not her dad Nat Fraser, who was guilty of killed her mum. 

Hector had testified against her dad. 

Why would Hector Dick kill Arlene? 

Did he think he was doing a friend a favour? Or, did he fall for Arlene and get upset when she spurned his advances? 

There has been no evidence pointing to that.

All of the evidence points to Nat Fraser arranging the murder of his wife. 

Read about the documentary here