Modern Mothers Turn To Crime
For the first time since records began Catherine Cookson has dropped out of the Top Ten most borrowed authors from UK public libraries to be replaced by an increasing number of writers of crime fiction. The latest figures from the Public Lending Right (PLR) reveal three authors of adult fiction with in excess of 1 million annual borrowings each; Josephine Cox, Danielle Steel and James Patterson. Romance still dominates through Cox and Steel but Patterson heads a new posse of increasingly popular crime busters including Patricia Cornwell and Kathy Reichs. The top three all have new hardback books published in time for Mothering Sunday; but what do you buy for Mother - bodice ripper or body ripper?
Most-read author Josephine Cox returns with the same cast of characters from her previous Number One bestseller, The Journey. Blackburn lass Josephine writes romance from the classic Cookson school, compelling sagas spanning generations and continents. ‘The Journey’s End’ charts the progress of Vicky Maitland and Lucy Baker as their paths diverge and cross after the death of Barney Davidson.
In stark contrast to the traditional northern England rags-to–riches formula, Danielle Steel writes transatlantic padded-shouldered fiction. In ‘The House’ her power-dressed Californian heroine moves from riches to yet-more-riches as she follows her dream of buying a grand old house and restoring it to its former glories. This is Steel’s 66th bestseller, giving her over 500 million books in print.
Romance writing and Crime Fiction are two sides of the same coin; romance is the pursuit of dreams while crime stories are the stuff of nightmares. In his latest Women’s Murder Club thriller James Patterson immerses the reader in an action packed, tension racked, inescapable bad dream. In ‘The Fifth Horseman’ a psychotic killer is on the staff at the city hospital and picks off the victims when they are most vulnerable, most expecting of help and least prepared for foul play. Patterson propels the action at breakneck speed – each chapter barely a page long – leaving his audience angst ridden and breathless.
This week sees the paperback released of Kathy Reichs' latest Dr Temperance Brennan crime thriller ‘Cross Bones’. Reichs is a real-life forensic anthropologist and uses her detailed knowledge and experience to great effect in this double-barreled investigation into a recent death in Montreal and a 2,000 year old skeleton in Israel/Palestine.
Reichs has created a fiction from a true event – the finding of a skeleton by archaeologists which may be that of James, brother of Jesus. The facts of this find may prove stranger than the fictional Holy Blood Line fables of Dan Brown’s Da Vinci Code and Kathy Reichs' Cross Bones. We don’t have long to wait to know the truth as the archaeologist concerned, Dr James Tabor, publishes ‘The Jesus Dynasty’ on April 3rd this year.
This review was first published on 24th March 2006. The copyright remains the property of The Derwent Bookshop.
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