Martyn Waites - Page 1
British Pbk Original - Pocket Books (2006) |
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The Mercy Seat
Evil shows no pity
Once a renowned investigative journalist, Joe Donovan’s life fell apart when his six-year-old son disappeared without trace. Now a virtual recluse, Donovan is abruptly thrust back into the limelight when a teenage boy makes contact, in desperate need of his help.
On the run for his life, Jamal has in his possession something that holds the key to Donovan’s past, a past that can only be unlocked by forcing him to make a terrifying journey into the present.
As long-buried secrets emerge and the bodies pile up, Donovan finds himself caught up in a harrowing web of fear. In order to survive and uncover the disturbing truth at the heart of the dangerous world he’s found himself in, he puts together a team to help him, a team of outsiders that doesn’t care which side of the law it operates on.
And Donovan will surely need their help. For he and Jamal are being hunted by a ruthless killer. A killer with a 100% success rate. A killer who doesn’t know the meaning of the word mercy.
Praise for Martyn Waites’ novels
`Dark, threatening and brilliantly ambitious’ Jack
‘Brutal, mesmerising stuff’ Ian Rankin
‘A novel that grips and squeezes and won’t let go ... Martyn Waites’ lean, exhilarating prose is from the heart and from the guts, and that’s exactly where it hits you’ Mark Billingham
‘Waites’ book has a reckless energy which demands attention and respect’ Literary Review
‘Ambitious, tautly plotted ... A stark antidote to the cosy world of middle-class murder’ Time Out
‘Ambitious, uncompromising and raw ... this novel articulates a radical voice too rarely heard in modern fiction’ City Life
‘Lean, mean and machine-like, with a pacy narrative and sharp, staccato dialogue ... His male characters are tough and complex, a throwback to the no-nonsense, near-mute charisma of Get Carter or Point Blank’ Scotsman
‘An evocative, gripping and angry novel’ Newcastle Evening Chronicle
‘A gripping read; Waites juggles a complex plot with astute urban commentary’ Jack
‘Waites’ writing is lean and taut, while his eye for detail gives his prose a vivid immediacy’ Ink
| British Pbk Original - Simon & Schuster (2004) |
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The White Room
Newcastle, June 1946 19-year-old Jack Smeaton returns from the trenches, his hair turned white by the traumas of World War II. A chance encounter with the young T. Dan Smith. visionary future leader of the city council, is set to change his life for ever.
Monica Blacklock, emotionally scarred from a childhood of abuse, believes her life will change for the better following a chance meeting with a handsome young man on the banks of the river Tyne. But the charming. psychopathic Brian Mooney has plans for Monica. In fact, Brian has plans for lots of people…
The momentous consequences of these fateful encounters cannot be foreseen - but the seeds of tragedy have been sown.
A masterfully contrived fusion of fiction and real-life crime. The White Room is a compelling tale of passion and violence, love and revenge, spanning four tumultuous decades.
‘One of the brightest stars in the British crime writing firmament’ John Connolly
| Paperback - Pocket Books (2004) |
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Born Under Punches
1984: Thatcher’s Conservative government in power. The miners on strike. Two Tribes going to war.
2001: Blair’s Labour government enters its historic second term. The rail network is collapsing; the National Health Service descending into chaos. Things can only get better?
Coldwell, a former pit town on the Northumberland coast, was once a cheerful and prosperous place. It now ties bleak and eerily empty.
Moving seamlessly between 1984 and the present day this tautly-plotted thriller involves five Coldwell inhabitants whose lives are radically changed by the strike: Tony Woodhouse, a professional footballer who can’t escape his shady past; Tommy Jobson, cruising the streets of Newcastle violently collecting debts; Mick Hutton, a striking miner, desperate to find ways to support his growing family; Stephen Larkin, an idealistic young journalist determined to expose the truth about the strike - as he sees it; Stephen’s sister, Louise, in love with Tony Woodhouse, stalked by a shadowy figure from her past.
As the lives of the five unfold, it becomes clear that the strike of ‘84 will have unforeseen and devastating repercussions - not only for those directly involved, but for future generations too.
`Not so much a crime novel as a furious study of the social spoilage which makes crime inevitable ... Waites’ book has a reckless energy which demands attention and respect’ Literary Review
`The novel weaves its tapestry of characters impressively through each other’s lives. By contextualising them within the defeat of the Great Miners’ Strike, it brings home the devastation Thatcher’s victory wreaked on working class communities, and is a better explanation of crime and delinquency than Downing Street will ever manage’ Socialist Review
An evocative, gripping and angry novel’ Newcastle Evening Chronicle
`Topical and thought-provoking ... Waites is successful in creating a feeling of menace - of something manipulative and calculating out of shot: ordinary folk trying to live their lives are set up to be trampled on’ Weekly Worker
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First British Edition Allison & Busby (2000) |
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Candleland
Karen Moir ran away from her home in Edinburgh when she was just sixteen; all her father, Detective Inspector Henry Moir, knows is that she was headed for London. Blaming himself for the estrangement, Moir resolves to track her down before it is too late. Accompanied by his friends Stephen Larkin, an investigative reporter, and photographer Andy Brennan, Moir heads down south to London.
Following a trail of warring drug dealers, child prostitution and born again Christian gangsters, the search for Karen Moir becomes an increasingly dangerous trawl through London's underworld. And it soon becomes clear that there are others who want Karen found - the only difference being that they don't care whether she's dead or alive.
But Larkin's mind is not completely on the task at hand; a ghost from his past has appeared, and the consequences of dealing with it could leave him damaged, permanently...
Acclaim for Martyn Waites
'Now working on his third novel, Candleland. Waites is shaping up as a compelling and confrontational challenger to the Brit Noir throne, his prose bearing all the hallmarks of a master in the making.’ Bizarre
Little Triggers
'The plot, involving corruption and child abuse, is as dark as a Northumberland winter midnight, and just as chilling. The writing keeps the tension taut and brittle, the characters as real as today's bills... Rough, bitter and cynical, Little Triggers is contemporary British noir at its best.’ Jim Driver, Shots
'Snappy dialogue and the plot crackles with tension.’ Mike Ripley, The Daily Telegraph
Mary's Prayer
'Mary's Prayer is an assured, powerful debut from a writer sure to find his place in modern crime fiction. Contemporary noir with a distinctly Chandleresque flavour, a significant contribution to the genre.’ Andrew Vachss
| Paperback - Piatkus (1998) |
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Little Triggers
Stephen Larkin is back in his native Newcastle. Working as an agency journalist, he's busy blackmailing the powerful into keeping their campaign promises. But he still dissatisfied which is why he jumps at the chance to track down a child abuser with friends in high places.
Cynical Larkin is automatically suspicious of people like Alan Swanson, the charismatic self-styled Minister for Youth and the man behind the 'Rebirth of the Region' project. But is his interest in the kids a chance for a photo opportunity or something more sinister?
Larkin thinks that, as a reporter, he knows all there is to know about the evil that men do. But nothing has prepared him for this ...
About The Author
In his Own Words
Martyn Waites was born and raised in Newcastle Upon Tyne. Before becoming a writer he worked as a barman, market trader, stand up comic and most notably as an actor.
His first novel, Mary’s Prayer, a hard-hitting gangland thriller set in the North East of England, came out in 1997. The second, Little Triggers, appeared a year later. A third, Candleland, followed in 2000. He then turned away from crime fiction and wrote a novel based around the miners’ strike and its legacy, the critically acclaimed Born Under Punches. The White Room, set in Newcastle in the 1960s and based on the life of pre-teen child killer Mary Bell came out in 2004 and was one of The Guardian’s books of the year. Bolstered by a CWA Dagger Award nomination he returned to crime fiction in 2006 with The Mercy Seat, the first in a series featuring troubled investigative journalist Joe Donovan and his team. The second Donovan novel, Bone Machine, will be released in 2007.
His short stories have appeared in American anthologies such as World’s Finest Mystery And Crime Stories and the forthcoming London Noir and his journalism in publications as far-ranging as Bizarre and The Big Issue to The Bookseller and the magazine for The Howard League For Penal Reform. He has just co-written (along with actor/writer Robert Horwell) his first film script, Cold Harbour, and is hopeful that production will start on this very soon.
He has held two writing residencies, one at Huntercombe Young Offenders Insitution and one at HMP Chelmsford. He currently runs arts-based workshops for socially excluded teenagers and adults in London and Essex. He lives, along with his wife, children and collection of 1970s horror films at a secret location in Hertfordshire and his childhood dreams of playing Doctor Who and scoring the winner for Newcastle United in the FA Cup final are destined to remain unfulfilled.
A new crime fiction voice for Newcastle...
I was born and raised in the North East of England, specifically Newcastle-upon-Tyne. I've lived in Birmingham, Hull, Colchester, out of a suitcase for a couple of years and round various parts of London, but it's still the city I know best. Where I still feel most attached to. I went to school there, grew up there, did my drinking and partying and fell in and out of love there. I sold leather jackets on the quayside market, served pints in the Trent, worked backstage at the Playhouse. Even taught drama for NACRO.
I left because I wanted to be an actor and decided to go to drama school. After drama school as a professional actor I played the `rogue and vagabond' bit to the hilt and went where the work was. Eventually I ended up in East London which is where I live now. But through all this, I kept a strong bond with Newcastle through family and friends. When I decided to become a writer and was looking for somewhere to set my novels, it was no contest.
I didn't want to be just any kind of writer, though. I wanted to be a crime writer. At the time, all of my favourite writers were both American and crime writers. This was the early to mid Nineties, when, I think, American crime writing was going through something of a golden age. There was James Ellroy, James Lee Burke, James Crumley and some others, none of which were called James - Andrew Vachss, Sara Paretsky, Elmore Leonard and Walter Mosley prominent amongst them. Although all these voices were as disparate as could be, there were several things which united them. Their connection with their audience, for one thing. Crime fiction seemed to be functioning as a kind of literary equivalent of CNN - spitting back reportage as literature. And what literature! Another thing was their strong sense of place. All good novels have, I think, a strong sense of place but this is particularly true for crime writing. Crime novels inhabited the cities and plains in which they are set, making them more than a mere backdrop but a character in their own right, one that was absolutely integral to the stories themselves. Just as Los Angeles had Raymond Chandler, New Orleans James Lee Burke and New York Andrew Vachss, I wanted Newcastle.
I knew what I would do. I would bury the cobwebbed corpse of the old English detective novel with its country houses and stuffy detectives. I would take the vital, exciting American model of crime novel and use it on a recognizable, contemporary British city. And in doing this I seemed, unwittingly, to be part of a movement all thinking the same thing. Ian Rankin was claiming Edinburgh, Mark Billingham London, John Harvey Nottingham. Newcastle, I've always thought, was a city just begging for a crime writer to dive into it and expose its heart full of secret histories and darker shadows and spread them all over the printed page. Begging for it in fact.
And I, I decided, was just the writer to do that. So I claimed Newcastle.
Although I am writing about a place that I don't currently live in, I feel that the distance gives me a sense of perspective. I know Ian Rankin was worried when he decided to move back to Edinburgh because up till that point none of his Rebus novels had been written there. No problems for me, though. I've got a good network of friends, family and acquaintances that help with the detail, colour and verification of incidents. They're well used to me pestering them. They range from politicians, social workers and police detectives to pub owners and actors. And they're all well-connected. They get me into places, at all levels of society, that normally I wouldn't be allowed entry to. For instance, when the Labour Party lost control of the city after thirty-odd years in the historic local elections of 2004, I was sitting in the Lord Mayor's office in the Civic Centre, witnessing the results first hand as they came through. Through them, I've talked to people I wouldn't usually have been given access to, been told secrets that could only be written as a novel.
I'm sure I will one day.
One of the things I wanted to do in The Mercy Seat was to show how the perception of Newcastle (and Gateshead) hadn't really moved on in the majority of people's eyes. They were either stuck thirty years in the past with Get Carter, subscribed to the `lovable scallywag' school of Geordies from Auf Weidersen, Pet or watched the thrill-free football of Graham Souness' Newcastle United. To consign the Get Carter image to the heritage bin of history I devised a fictional tour that covered the film's locations, only to find out later that one actually already existed! To show the city isn't full of lovable scallywags I wanted to depict a vicious predator preying on vulnerable runaway kids in Byker. Having spoken to various police sources I ended up getting a little more information that I needed on that one. And to cap it all, I wanted a truly explosive finale in a recognizable North East landmark. Step forward the Baltic ...
Joe Donovan, The Mercy Seat's lead character, is going to continue in a series of novels. All set in the North East, all contemporary crime novels. He's a flawed individual, but good company. The perfect companion to show you round early 21st century Newcastle. For Newcastle is where I am in my writing and where I'll stay. Wherever I've gone throughout the UK I've never felt truly English. I don't think anyone who comes from Newcastle does. When you cross that bridge over the Tyne it's like you're entering a separate kingdom. Not England, not Scotland. Newcastle. The whole of the North East's like that. It's an attitude that gets inside you and stays with you wherever you go. It's an attitude that, as Tom Waits once said, is harder to get rid of than tattoos.
Joe Donovan, and me, are going to be around for some time yet.
Bibliography
N.B. dates and publishers in dark red indicate British First Editions. Dates and publishers in black indicate recent reprints.
The Mercy Seat
(Pocket Books Pbk,
2006)
Pbk Jan 06
(Joe Donovan)
The White Room
(Simon & Schuster Pbk,
2004)
Born Under Punches
(Simon & Schuster,
2003)
Simon & Schuster Jun 03
Pocket Books Pbk Mar 04
Candleland
(Allison & Busby,
2000)
Little Triggers
(Piatkus,
1998)
Piatkus Pbk 1998
Mary's Prayer
Pbk Dec 01
The Mercy Seat
by Martyn Waites
