Blog Tour – Strangers by Paul Finch *Guest Post and Review*

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Incredibly excited to be hosting my turn on Paul Finch’s Strangers blog tour today and I have the man himself talking about how he researches his novels.  You can also listen to a podcast between him and fellow author Ash Cameron and check out my review.  So I will place you in Paul’s capable hands –

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How do you research for your cop fiction?
I suppose it all boils down to how much research you actually want to do.
Do you want to be as precise as possible and follow real police procedure to the absolute letter of the law? Or are you quite happy to cut corners in order to tell a rattling good story?
Either way, I have a slight advantage because I was once a serving police officer, albeit some time ago now. Given that police protocols change so regularly, and vary so much from force to force, my basic knowledge is hardly likely to be 100% accurate. That said, my service did ensure that I have a good basic understanding of police life, police attitudes, police relationships, and I like to think that I’m fairly well informed when it comes to the law, though I too have to update my legal knowledge on a regular basis. Thankfully, I still have some of my old crime investigation manuals to hand – very grubby and dog-eared though they are – and there are still lots of police buddies I can consult when it comes to tricky issues. In addition these days, we all have an amazing resource of information in the internet. Complex, detailed data that once could only be discovered by going to the library or visiting the local Citizen’s Advice office is now available at the push of a button. Law exists online, the rights of citizens are available online, police procedures at the time of arrest and custody are online – it’s not difficult to keep yourself appraised of essential developments.
Which brings me back to the point I raised earlier. How much hard fact to you want to include?
Some authors are very hot on procedure, while for others it’s nothing more than a vague background. I guess I fall somewhere between the two. I like things to be as accurate as possible, but by the same token I consider that I’m writing thriller fiction not police textbooks. So I don’t like to overdo it. But that doesn’t mean I don’t keep my ear to the ground and read up on new cases and systems, which can be a time-consuming process.
Of course, one key advantage the average crime writer has in this regard is the sheer amount of misinformation already out there. Most members of the public have never visited a real life murder scene, and hopefully never will. Nevertheless, they think they know what goes on because they’ve seen it so often in the movies and on television. But most dramas are operating on the same principles that we novelists do: in other words, their priority is not always to be absolutely faithful to real life, and they too will skimp on inconvenient details. In addition to this, there are some investigative techniques that official police advisers will not speak to writers, publishers or film and TV producers about, and I won’t even name them here. It definitely suits the police if not all the tricks of their trade are known to the public; there are some areas where they are more than happy for crime authors like myself to make stuff up.
But even then, it depends what you’re writing. With regard to my new novel, STRANGERS, there is no way that even as a former copper, I could just have grabbed up my keyboard and started bashing it in. To start with, STRANGERS is about a policewoman, not a policeman. Not only that, it’s a policewoman who needs to go undercover among Manchester’s prostitutes to try and snare a vicious female serial killer called Jill the Ripper, a streetwalker who is murdering and mutilating her male clients.
How could I know what it would be like as a young woman, who as part of her duty must don the most suggestive clothing and walk the roughest parts of town at the dead of night, while actively seeking the company of deranged offenders?
But thankfully, I had this covered too. The author Ash Cameron, a personal friend of mine, is also a former police officer, and she performed this perilous duty many, many times during her own days in the job. So I had more than a few discussions with her on the subject, and trust me, I got it chapter and verse (and you will too, if you tune into a podcast that Ash and I did together, which at some point in the near future will be accessible on the HarperCollins podcast site).
As I say, I’m not in the business of writing how-to manuals. On occasion, the mythology of police work is much more entertaining than the reality – how much do you really want to know about mountains of soul-sapping paperwork, or sitting in court for hours while lawyers argue over minutiae? – but on this occasion the truth was every bit as compelling and hair-raising as the fiction.
I guess it’s over to my readers now to see what they make of it …

Thank you Paul for the brilliant guest post.  You can listen to the podcast he talks about here.

The Blurb

ANONYMOUS, ALONE, AND FEARING FOR HER LIFE.

As PC Lucy Clayborne is about to find out, going undercover is the most dangerous work there is.

But, on the trail of a prolific female serial killer, there’s no other option – and these murders are as brutal as they come.

Lucy must step into the line of fire – a stranger in a criminal underworld that butchers anyone who crosses the line.

And, unknown to Lucy, she’s already treading it…

My Review

I have to admit that this is my first novel by Paul Finch but I can assure you it won’t be my last. A serial killer whose M.O is killing men is on the loose in North West England and PC Lucy Clayburn is part of the undercover team to try and find the killer.

There are so many things I loved about Strangers that are refreshingly different from your standard crime novel. Firstly, the fact that the main character is a female and is not a detective. Lucy is a plucky, tenacious copper desperate to prove herself after a serious blunder cut short her career as a detective. She is not afraid to take risks, often to her and her colleagues detriment in order to bring criminals to justice. I really liked Lucy and hope that this is going to be the first in a series of novels featuring her. Secondly the serial killer is a female, which makes a real change and thirdly it follows the PC as she goes undercover. I have always been interested in police undercover work – how they go about it, how it effects them, the dangers involved – so I really enjoyed that this was the angle Strangers took.

It is gritty, dark and full of vile characters – everything you want from a crime novel. Really well written and constructed, Paul takes you straight into the heart of the North West’s underworld with his rich descriptions and I couldn’t help but get totally drawn into the book.

The twists and turns made me dizzy and kept me reading when I knew I should have been getting on with other stuff. The pace is fast and the momentum never stops with lots of shocks along the way. If your in the mood for a crime thriller that keeps you on the edge of your seat and also offers something a bit different, check Strangers out.

A huge thank you to Paul Finch and Helena Sheffield at Avon books for the ARC in exchange for my review and for the invite to take place on the Strangers blog tour.

Published 22 September 2016 by Avon.

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