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Vintage hosted an evening of “killer cocktails” on Monday night (18th September) to introduce debut crime writers Emily Koch, D B John and Jo Jakeman in the company of bestselling crime writers such as In A Dark Dark Wood's Ruth Ware.
The event, which took place in the basement bar of Old Street Records in East London, also featured authors Arne Dahl, Denise Mina, Stuart Neville, and Abir Mukherjee as part of a 2018 crime showcase for booksellers, bloggers and press.
A trailer for Jo Nesbo's film adaptation of The Snowman kicked off proceedings, followed by a video from the author introducing his new book, Macbeth, retelling Shakespeare's classic play as crime noir for the Hogarth Shakespeare series.
The first live author to take the stage was Ware (pictured below with Will Rycroft), whose book In a Dark Dark Wood has been optioned by Reese Witherspoon. Speaking about what attracts readers to her books, Ware said it was the relatability of her protagonists in her first book, which was set on a hen weekend. She went on to talk about her most recent title, The Lying Game. She said she had begun writing it with the intention of championing female friendship, after she was told her novels "did for female friendship what Gone Girl did for marriage", but as a crime novel it inevitably struck "a darker note".
Journalist Koch, introducing her debut, psychological suspense novel If I Die Before I Wake said she had been inspired to write her book after an accident which left her uncomfortably reliant on the care from others for a period of time. The book is narrated by Alex, who is hospitalised with locked-in syndrome following a rock climbing accident and is running out of time to show he is conscious and solve the mystery of his own attempted murder.
D B John spoke about his time as one of the very few tourists to visit North Korea in 2012, an experience which informed his book, Star of the North, acquired in a lightning-quick pre-empt. "It reminded me of a passage in Nineteen Eighty Four. I kept thinking 'how could people live like this?' The terror was universal and still people got on with life," he recalled.
Irish crime writer Stuart Neville - pen name Haylen Beck - told the room how he chose his new pseudonym, inspired by his love of American crime writing, after two guitar heroes (Eddie Van Halen and Jeff Beck) and delved into the psychology of his protagonist in Here and Gone. His next book will be set in New York.
Abir Mukherjee (pictured below with Rycroft), an accountant by day and writer by night, described his new book, A Necessary Evil, set in 1920s India, in terms of "what began as a search for identity" exploring the truth of a period that had largely been "swept under the carpet".
Meanwhile fellow Scot, Glaswegian writer Denise Mina - recently made the first female winner of the McIlvanney Prize for The Long Drop - introduced her new novel, Conviction, in which the protagonist is obsessed by true crime.
The final new voice of the night was Jakeman whose own upcoming 2018 novel Sticks and Stones explores domestic abuse, narcissism, revenge and ultimately friendship. "Relationships are complicated, even the good ones," she said.
Each author during the night was asked to select a song for Vintage's crime-themed music playlist while guests were also asked to make suggestions using the hashtag #vintagecrime
The evening was rounded off with pizza, drinks and goody bags.