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Tag: Writing
Writing a Revenge Thriller
When you think about it a large proportion of published thrillers are about revenge. It is one of the great sub-genres of fiction. Vengeance is a considerable motivating force. And the quest to mete out vengeance keeps many a reader turning the page.
The need to seek revenge is an unpleasant but undeniable human instinct. Turning the other cheek might be the best real-life policy, but it simply won’t do in a thriller. The Bible tells us that “vengeance is mine, saith the Lord, I will repay.”
Admirable, but not quite what thriller readers want to hear.
I was amused at a review of my Victorian thriller “The Shadow of William Quest”. The reviewer suggested he had seen it all so many times before. The poor boy making his way in the world and seeking retribution against those who had crossed him.
Too right you have, chum! That was the whole point of my Quest novel.
I deliberately set out to write a book in this very sub-genre of revenge thrillers. That’s what my William Quest book is really all about. It’s not for nothing my anti-hero is called William Quest. I was gratified that the reviewer saw, and mentioned in his review, that it was Bruce Wayne and Batman territory. A terrific compliment to be mentioned in the same sentence.
Remember Batman? Bruce Wayne, a young lad at the time, sees his parents gunned down in an alley. When he grows up he becomes the caped crusader imposing his own version of justice on sundry villains.
In a nutshell there you have the basic plot of a revenge thriller. It might be as blatant as Batman or rather more subtle.
Geoffrey Household’s classic thriller “Rogue Male”, opens with the unnamed hero in Germany, aiming his rifle at Adolf Hitler. The first-person narrator describes his actions throughout much of the book as a ‘sporting stalk’ – to see if he can get away with it. He even denies ever intending to take the shot. Only later do we discover the revenge thriller aspect. That he had every intention of shooting. And that he has a good reason for doing so. In his later novel “The Watcher in the Shadows”, Household twists the whole premise around by telling the whole tale from the point of view of the victim of the avenger, a novel and very exciting twist. Another neglected novel well worth seeking out.
Even going back to medieval ballads, we have Robin Hood. Why is he in the greenwood as an outlaw? Because the Norman overlords have put him there because of their harsh laws. Much of the rest of the stories of the famous wolfshead are about his quest for vengeance. My Robin Hood novels “Loxley” etc. certainly are about that.
The motivations in the modern revenge thriller are manifold. The hero, or very often the anti-hero, might be fighting back for very personal reasons. Someone has wiped out his family, or launched a war of attrition against him personally. Or he might be what I call a second-person revenger, where he seeks vengeance or at least intervention for something that’s happening to somebody else, but where he is emotionally or politically engaged.
My William Quest might take up the armed struggle of vengeance to settle personal scores, but he then goes on to recognise that there are other victims in society who might benefit from having an avenger on their side. One of my American reviewers kindly mentioned Rafael Sabatini’s “Scaramouche” as well as Baroness Orczy’s “Scarlet Pimpernel” novels when trying to describe my Quest novel. I was very flattered at such comparisons.
“Scaramouche” is a wonderful example of the revenge thriller. It might technically be an historical novel, but at its roots it is one hell of a thriller. Set just before the French Revolution Andre-Louis Moreau is set on the path of vengeance by the murder of a friend by a decadent aristocrat who just happens to be the finest swordsman in France. He swears revenge. And then spends much of the book getting himself into a position where he might strike back at his adversary, and solving the knotty problem of just exactly how you teach yourself to cross swords with such a noted duellist. It’s all cracking stuff, a real page-turner by a novelist who is sadly neglected these days. It’s worth reading as it demonstrates quite admirably the plot-structure of the revenge novel, whether you describe it as a thriller or not.
And the avenger can very successfully be a woman, and the plot domestic. A great example is Magdalen Vanstone in Wilkie Collins’ classic novel “No Name”. Here the need for vengeance comes from the the unfair laws on illegitimacy that prevailed at the time. Collins was the master of the Sensation Novel. Thrillers have deep roots in those Victorian Sensation novels.
The Victorian novelist Charles Reade suggested that the great plot-line of most fiction should be along the lines of ‘Make ‘em laugh, make ‘em cry, make ‘em wait!’
And if you want a thriller to work you need to build up very slowly to the final vengeance, the bloody denouement. That doesn’t mean that the novel should be devoid of conflict up to that point. There have to be lots of other minor conflicts, near-misses, moments when the tables are turned. Times when those who are targeted by the avenger come close to removing – usually violently – the avenger himself.
In a way I made this easier for myself in “The Shadow of William Quest” by making Quest a kind of social functionary, taking on the evils – and the evil – of society on behalf of a wider and persecuted population. He only gets near to his real quarry at the end of the book. Though there are run-ins long before that.
And as my novel is set in the 1850s, we don’t have to bother very much with the constraints of political correctness. This was the age of sword-sticks, lead-weighted life-preservers, bludgeons, coshes, and great hulking walking canes of hard-wood and blackthorn. Society was unsafe. People rarely travelled into the sinister hinterlands of Victorian England without some form of protection. My William Quest has quite an armoury at his disposal.
Believe me, he needs every last weapon!
I’m currently writing the fourth William Quest novel, which will be out later in the year. Having devoted much of the first to the genre of the revenge novel, I’m aiming to go even further in the new one. I always have liked thrillers where the hunter becomes the hunted. Which is all I’ll say about it at the moment.
But to conclude, I would just like to make the case of the revenge thriller being an important sub-genre of the thriller as such. Revenge is a dish best served cold? Maybe, at least for a while in the pages of your novel. The dish best served cold builds up both the tension and the excitement.
So that when the cold revenge becomes the hot revenge, the thrills burst out of the page.
If you haven’t read “The Shadow of William Quest” yet it’s out in paperback and on Kindle. And only 99 pence/cents on Kindle until Monday night
Detective Novellas on Sale
Both The Holly House Mystery and A Christmas Malice are on sale on Kindle for just 99 pence/cents for the rest of this week. They are also both available in paperback as well.
So, if you looking for a winter mystery do click on the links below…
The Holly House Mystery…
Christmas week 1932. The body of a young house-maid lies near the ruins of an ancient priory.
How did she die… with only one set of footprints in the snow?
Inspector Chance investigates murder in a snow-bound, Sussex village. As New Year approaches, can he work out whodunit before the house-party ends? The Holly House Mystery is a novella for fans of the Golden Age of country house murder.
A Christmas Malice…
December 1873. Inspector Abbs is visiting his sister in a lonely village on the edge of the Norfolk Fens. He is hoping for a quiet week while he thinks over a decision about his future. However all is not well in Aylmer. Someone has been playing malicious tricks on the inhabitants. With time on his hands and concerned for his sister, Abbs feels compelled to investigate.
Christmas Ghost Stories – MR James
Christmas is, by tradition, a time for ghost stories. And MR James is my favourite writer in this genre. James was himself a devotee of mystery fiction and particularly a fan of Sherlock Holmes.
But he is, of course, best known to us as the greatest writer of traditional English ghost stories. Ruth Rendell famously commented that “There are some authors one wishes one had never read in order to have the joy of reading them for the first time. For me, MR James is one of these”.
I couldn’t agree more – We’ve both loved MR James for a great many years and read and re-read his wonderful ghost stories, always finding some new delight. So with Christmas in mind, here goes.
Montague Rhodes James (1863-1936) was the finest medieval scholar of his generation, spending a great deal of his academic time seeking out and recording manuscripts that might otherwise have been lost. He was born near Bury St Edmunds, the son of a clergyman and, in the course of a long and distinguished life was assistant director of the Fitzwilliam Museum, Provost of King’s College, Cambridge and Provost of Eton.
It’s worth pointing all that out, because many of his leading characters are academics in a similar way, solitary characters who seek out lost manuscripts or who investigate strange elements of our mysterious past – encountering the forces of the supernatural along the way.
James wrote his ghost stories originally as entertainments for his college fellows, and would read them out loud by candlelight, sometimes around Christmas. Newspaper or magazine publication would follow and then volume publication in collections such as Ghost Stories of an Antiquary, More Ghost Stories of an Antiquary, A Warning to the Curious and more. Collected Ghost Stories is a volume worth getting as it includes most of the canon, though there are a few omissions.
What I admire best about James is that he would have been a superb writer of short stories whatever genre he had chosen. He was an exceptionally good writer. Some of his succinct descriptions of landscape are quite beautiful and atmospheric – whether the story be set in the English countryside or in the shadows of some great cathedral. He had the enviable gift of summoning up a sense of place in a very few words. There is also a subtlety that you rarely get with some writers in this genre and occasionally a delicious sense of humour.
A View From a Hill is one of my favourite stories, if not one of the strongest of James’s ghost stories from a chills point of view. Its depiction of rural Herefordshire is deftly done, from its opening on a lonely railway halt to the views of a lonely landscape.
I’m not going to say too much about the story because you may want to read it and I don’t want to spoil your enjoyment. Sufficient to say that an academic, Fanshawe, visits a remote part of Herefordshire to visit his friend Squire Richards, the owner of a small country manor. Fanshawe’s host lends him a pair of binoculars with a mysterious provenance. But is what he sees of the landscape through the binoculars quite the same as what is actually there? 
The BBC, in their splendid series of filmed Christmas ghost stories by M.R. James, did a version of A View From a Hill, though there were changes to the plot which took the story rather a way from what James actually wrote. Even so, as with all the films in the series, it was beautifully shot and well acted. Well worth seeing even if you admire the original more.
As Christmas approaches, we have been watching again some of these films of James’s stories, directed by Lawrence Gordon Clark (and we do commend the box set from the BFI, with its excellent extras and introductions if you want to give yourself a Christmas treat). So far we’ve watched “The Stalls of Barchester”, “A Warning to the Curious” and “Whistle and I’ll come To You,” 2010 version (though the last is a disappointing take on the original story.)
But do seek out the original stories which, around a century after they were penned, are as addictive and readable as ever. If you are reading them for the first time, I do envy you. If you are revisiting an old favourite, then enjoy these tales once more.
Do I believe in ghosts? Well, all I will say is that I’ve seen things I can’t rationally explain.… What they are though? Well, who can say? Fortunately, none have been as malevolent as the demons created on the page by MR James.
I’ve always wanted to write a ghost story in this classic English tradition, but it’s a hard task. A ghost story either works – gives you a chill – or it doesn’t. And, as James himself suggested, has the electric light killed the dark potential of the classic ghost story? It takes great ability to pull a chilling ghost story off. But I’ll keep trying.
Meanwhile, draw the curtains, turn down the lights and enjoy these classic stories by the master himself – and have a very enjoyable Christmas.
Dangerous Game – Publication Day
Dangerous Game – Publication Day
My new book is published today. Thank you to everyone who has pre-ordered the E-book version or bought the paperback. I hope you enjoy the novel. If you haven’t ordered a copy I’ve provided an online link below. And do please tell your friends and fellow readers. Word of mouth publicity is worth its weight in gold!
“Sean Miller – a rogue of the first water; a former Army sniper, he seems unable to stay out of a fight.”
Sean Miller’s on his way back to fight in Spain when he’s diverted to Devon. To undertake a mission for renegade members of the German Secret Service, trying to stop the Nazis plunging the world into war. A secret agent lies dead in a moorland river and the one man who can keep the peace is an assassin’s target. As the hunter becomes the hunted in an epic chase, Miller encounters his greatest enemy in a dangerous game of death across the lonely hills of Dartmoor.
A fast-paced action thriller by the author of Balmoral Kill and the William Quest adventures
John Bainbridge is the author of over thirty books, including novels, thrillers and historical fiction, as well as non-fiction and topographical books about Britain. He has also written widely for newspapers and magazines and broadcast on radio and television. John read literature and history at the University of East Anglia. He campaigned for nine years as chief executive of the Dartmoor Preservation Association – one of Britain’s oldest environmental campaigning groups. He spends his spare time walking in the countryside.
Writing About Dartmoor, John Bainbridge says…
Dangerous Game is my personal tribute to Dartmoor – one of the few massive areas of wild country in southern England. It’s a place I know particularly well. I first walked there when I was seven years old. I have spent decades exploring Dartmoor and have long campaigned to keep it wild and free.
For nine years, very active years, I was chief executive of the Dartmoor Preservation Association – a voluntary group founded in 1883 to protect Dartmoor from many threats. During that time we had our share of victories and defeats. But Dartmoor is as you see it today because of the often militant stance taken by previous DPA campaigners.
I wanted to write a Dartmoor novel which was topographically accurate. Nearly all the places mentioned in this novel are real and you can seek them out on foot. The Dart Gorge is as magnificent as I’ve suggested, Wistman’s Wood as mysterious, the great heights of the northern moorland as wild. You can walk to Oke Tor, the setting of the book’s climax. Only a few houses are invented, as are all the characters.
The Duchy Hotel (now the Old Duchy Hotel) in Princetown, which features in the book, has been transformed into an information centre for the Dartmoor National Park Authority. Upstairs is the office of the Dartmoor Preservation Association, where I worked for those nine campaigning years.
Dartmoor Prison is still in use, though the footpath which used to pass near the French and American War Cemeteries – and which features in the book – no longer exists. It was closed in the 1970s. I objected to its loss, but lost the battle. A pity I always think. A pity too that there is very limited public access for anyone wishing to visit the war cemeteries.
I remain, like several of the characters in my book, a very committed Dartmoor Preservationist. The Moor needs more active campaigners!
Publisher’s Details:
Dangerous Game is published by Gaslight Crime on 17th November and is available in paperback (ISBN 9781699543771) at £8.99 and as a Kindle e-Book for £2.99.
John Bainbridge has two blogs:
www.johnbainbridgewriter.wordpress.com and
www.walkingtheoldways.wordpress.com
Follow John on Twitter @stravaigerjohn
Here’s the link if you want to order a copy:
Dangerous Game on Pre-Order
My new book Dangerous Game is now available on Pre-Order for readers who read e-Books on Kindle. Publication date is November 17th. The paperback will also be out by then. Here’s the link:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07ZMH61HV
“Sean Miller – a rogue of the first water; a former Army sniper, he seems unable to stay out of a fight.”
Sean Miller’s on his way back to fight in Spain when he’s diverted to Devon. To undertake a mission for renegade members of the German Secret Service, trying to stop the Nazis plunging the world into war. A secret agent lies dead in a moorland river and the one man who can keep the peace is an assassin’s target. As the hunter becomes the hunted in an epic chase, Miller encounters his greatest enemy in a dangerous game of death across the lonely hills of Dartmoor.
A fast-paced action thriller by the author of Balmoral Kill and the William Quest adventures.
Dangerous Game – A Writing Update
My new book is out very soon – Dangerous Game will hopefully be published next week – so do keep an eye on the blog. This new book features Sean Miller, hero of my book Balmoral Kill.
Dangerous Game is complete in itself. Set in 1937, mostly on Dartmoor, Sean Miller encounters his greatest enemy yet.
It’ll be out both in paperback and as a Kindle e-Book.
Writing an action thriller set on Dartmoor
Dartmoor, southern England’s last great wilderness, is the setting of the novel I’m writing at the moment – and it’s great fun setting a thriller in a place I know really well. The book is a sequel to my Sean Miller thriller Balmoral Kill, and will be out later this summer.
I’ve known and walked Dartmoor for over fifty years. I’ve long campaigned for it to be wild and free. I spent nine turbulent years as chief executive of the Dartmoor Preservation Association (DPA)- one of England’s oldest environmental campaigning groups, founded in 1883.
Most of my books have accurate settings; I spent a great deal of time getting the area around Loch Muick right for the finale of Balmoral Kill. Dartmoor was even easier – I know it so well I can just close my eyes and picture any corner of the place.
This new novel – still working on the title – uses some considerable stretches of the Moor, including Spitchwick, where I lived wild in a wood for around a year, the area around Dartmeet and the spectacular Dart Gorge, which is the setting for one of the main action sequences.
Princetown features too, with my characters Sam Lovat and Billy Stanton staying at the Duchy Hotel, the place that was my office when I worked for the DPA, and the valley of the West Dart around the mysterious Wistman’s Wood.
There’s a lot of action in this one, including an escape from Dartmoor Prison, several gun battles and a long chase across Dartmoor.
It’s been fun to write…
And if you haven’t read the first Sean Miller thriller, set in London and the Scottish Highlands, it’s out now in paperback and as a Kindle eBook.
How do you hunt down a faceless assassin before his ultimate kill?
You get Sean Miller… Sniper. Mercenary. Adventurer. He’ll stop at nothing. Do whatever it takes.
As the shadow of the Nazis falls across Europe, a sinister conspiracy begins a secret war closer to home. Miller’s chase leads from the dangerous alleys of London’s East End to the lonely glens of the Scottish Highlands. But where do his loyalties really lie?
Who will take the final shot in the Balmoral Kill?
Thoughts of Robin Hood
I’m still thinking a lot about Robin Hood lately, even though I’ve completed my four book novel series The Chronicles of Robin Hood. The outlaw is such an essential British myth, that you can never quite get him out of your mind.
And Robin has a relevance to today, when the poor and dispossessed are still persecuted by the rich and powerful.
When you consider it, Robin Hood is quite a remarkable guy – with King Arthur one of the two essential British myths. For darned near a thousand years, the people of Britain, and then the citizens of the world, have been entertained by his exploits.
He reaches out and says something to us all to this day.
What’s the attraction?
Well, Robin Hood appeals perhaps to the rebel in all of us, the man who’s prepared to champion the poor and powerless against the uncaring rich and powerful. Mind you, if you read the original ballads he’s not quite so selfless. But it doesn’t matter. People need a champion and Robin Hood’s quite a good one.
I think it’s interesting that you could take a medieval peasant away from his plough, transport him through time and put him down in front of a television and let him watch Robin of Sherwood say, or Richard Greene in The Adventures of Robin Hood and he’d get the point. (Assuming he wasn’t overcome by technology or changes in the English language, of course. I frequently am!)
I have always enjoyed the tales of Robin Hood, and my novels Loxley, Wolfshead ,Villain and Legend, have been decades in the making.
It probably all started watching episodes of the Richard Greene series. Playing at Robin Hood was always the favourite game in our neighbourhood – in those happy days when children could make a longbow or wield a sword without social services coming round to take you into care as a potential menace to society.
Unlike so many children today, our lives were spent mostly in the great outdoors, where we would vanish for hours on end, building dens and taking massive treks across the countryside. The countryside where I lived became Sherwood Forest during these youthful expeditions.
In the 1980s, the whole myth received a tremendous boost with Richard Carpenter’s imaginative remake Robin of Sherwood, which took the story in such interesting new directions. It thrills me that so many people were enthused by this and other retellings.
In many ways, in the years since my first encounter with the man in Lincoln Green, I’ve led a rebellious life.
I’m sure it all started under the subversive influence of Robin Hood!
I spent a year living – mostly alone – in a wood back in the 1980s. Park Wood, at Spitchwick on Dartmoor, just across the River Dart from Holne Chase, an old Norman hunting ground. It gave me interesting thoughts as to just how medieval outlaws lived. There was the added spice that I was breaking laws for the common good, and I’m proud of that.
I’d practised archery over the years, and learned many of the arts of fighting. I took up fencing at university. I’d already practised a variety of martial arts. One or two of these skills I’ve had to use a few times – though I deplore violence.
Every writer on Robin Hood takes a different tack. Some of my fellow authors portray him as a saint or sinner, or, like me, a mixture of both. Outlaws, wolfsheads, come to the hidden places in the forest for various reasons in my books. Mostly through injustice.
Some writers prefer Robin in Barnsdale rather than Sherwood. I chose Sherwood out of sentimentality, I guess. In fact many parts of England have Robin Hood legends, something I’ve addressed in the final novel in the series, Legend.
In some versions, the villains, such as Guy of Gisborne and the Sheriff are out and out rogues.My versions aren’t quite as clear cut as that. And I’ve been kinder to Prince (actually Count) John than a lot of other writers – though I made him a bit more ruthless when he becomes king, though I still prefer him to the odious Richard the Lionheart.
My Robin questions the hierarchy of the society of his time much more than most Robins. As we should all do, though these are novels and not political tracts. But if Robin Hood isn’t a rebel fighting for the poor and against the unfairness of his society then he is nothing.
There have been thousands of interpretations and no doubt there are thousands still to come. We all have our own vision of Robin Hood. It’s encouraging that the present generation is being given inspiration by the legend of the old wolfshead.
I’ve finished the saga, but that doesn’t mean it’s the end of it. I deliberately left the series open for a sequel. I may return to it, though at present I’m writing the next Sean Miller thriller, and after that the next in my series about William Quest, the Victorian vigilante – William Quest is himself a kind of Robin Hood, even though he fights in the Victorian rookeries rather than Sherwood Forest. I’ve written three books about Quest so far, The Shadow of William Quest, Deadly Quest and Dark Shadow.
I’ve also got an idea for another historical tale, which I might write next year, a story set in England in the 17th century.
A big thank you to everyone who’s bought one of my books. It means a lot! And another thank you if you’ve made a kind comment or left a reader review on the purchase site.
And please do tell your friends about the books…
All of my novels are available in paperback and as Ebooks on Kindle. Here’s the link…
Why Indie-Writers Need Reviews…
A big thank you to everyone who’s bought or borrowed one of our books – writing can be a lonely business and it really helps to get feedback from readers. Now that so many books are bought online it really is important that readers who buy books from the big sites, such as Amazon, Kobo etc. leave reviews if they’ve enjoyed the book.
As Indie Authors, we especially appreciate your support. If you’ve enjoyed our books please leave a quick review. You don’t need to say much – just a line or two helps.
It’s a numbers game with these online booksellers – the more reviews you get the more they promote the books.
Thank you again to all our readers – and please do tell your friends about our books.
You can see a full list of our books at https://www.amazon.co.uk/l/B001K8BTHO?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1552209743&redirectedFromKindleDbs=true&ref_=sr_ntt_srch_lnk_1&rfkd=1&shoppingPortalEnabled=true&sr=1-1
John Bainbridge Writer 