The Official S. J. Bolton Blog

Well, I didn't score a double whammy with the Mary Higgins Clark Award. Elly Griffiths won this year, but I did get to meet the great lady herself and enjoy a couple of glasses of good white wine thanks to the Mystery Writers of America. I would have liked to have posted a photograph of MHC, me and small child, as we certainly posed for one, but Mr B, who was in charge of the camera, was chatting up SJ Rozan at the time.

Awards not withstanding, we're having a blast in New York. I find my mind rather blown by a city that, after just 24 hours, I can find my way around. I lived in London for ten years and got lost on a regular basis, don't even think about abandoning me somewhere like Paris, I'll never be seen again, but New York - sorted!

Highlight so far, for me at least, has been meeting my American publishers. Yesterday, at their downtown offices, (you see how easily I'm slipping into local-speak?) I met my editor, publicist, publisher, and marketing manager - all completely charming and supportive. We spent quite some time talking about why British writers find it so tough to break through in the US. Any number of huge names in Britain just don't seem to work here.

One problem, I learned, is that British writers can be too dark for American readers. Too much blood, gore and on-page violence can be a really turn-off over here. (The phrase Bloody Brits has taken on a new meaning)

Another is that we can be - well, just too British. Which is not to be confused with English. Americans love English. They love the dark deeds in sweet Cotswold villages, the blood dripping down the dreaming spire. What doesn't turn them on so much is the gritty, totally-true-to-life police procedural in the city sink estate. It seems, and these are my thoughts alone now, that even when it comes to crime, Americans like a touch of the fairy-tale.

So there you have it. To stand a chance of being successful in the US, I have to tone down the violence, think English not British, and not worry too much about my rather zany plots.

Today is Blood Harvest paperback publication day, and to celebrate my publishers are giving away a fantastic iPad 2. The challenge is to get views of the brilliant video trailer up to 20,000 on YouTube and then a "Fan" of my Facebook page will win the iPad

Just after 6am in the city that never sleeps. We arrived in Manhattan last night by stretch limo (small child was beside himself with excitement) to find our hotel is a Spiderman's leap from the Chrysler Building where the final scene of Ghostbusters was filmed. How appropriate. Not much time to do anything more than stroll to Time Square and back before we were all dropping with exhaustion. Mind you, small one had been complaining of jet lag since we arrived at Heathrow.

He is now perched on the window ledge, 21 floors up, pointing a water pistol at the early arrivals in Chrysler opposite. We keep trying to tell him people over here don't have a great sense of humour when it comes to firearms but I suspect he's going to have to learn by hard personal experience.

In a few moments, we are off to the Grand Central Station for breakfast, then I have to get ready for lunch with my American publishers. Tonight is the Agents and Editors Party and the announcement of this year's Mary Higgins Clark Award Winner.

Up at the crack of dawn this morning, to beat Bank Holiday traffic and reach the West Midland Safari Park before the crowds descend. Last time I went to a safari park (Knowsley with two young nephews in the early 1990s) it didn't go well. The park seemed run down, tired, full of rather unpleasant people coaxing animals to their cars with unsuitable food. I've held a rather dim view of the places ever since.

This, though, was very different: the result of considerable investment in a large and beautiful Worcestershire park. Small child was hugely excited (you mean we actually drive through the lion enclosures?) We did, and loved the white lions in particular.

The highlight of the trip though, was meeting Mark O'Shea, celebrity herpetologist and curator of reptiles at the park. I discovered Mark and his fabulous books when I was researching Awakening and found them invaluable. I was tickled pink earlier this year to discover he had read Awakening; and more than a little nervous to discover his legions of fans around the world are claiming the character Sean North is based on Mark himself. To my relief, Mark liked the book, has remained tactfully silent about any mistakes, and has taken the (purely coincidental) similarities to the dark, swarthy hero in good part.

Taken behind the scenes in the Reptile House, small child was thrilled to be handed a Reticulated Python. Mr B embarrassed us both by asking if it was venomous. Honestly! Pythons are constrictors, wrapping themselves around their prey and either stopping it breathing or causing a fatal heart attack. Python came my way, I weakly pointed out that I'm actually a bit nervous about very big snakes; but though massively heavy, it was very well behaved, even giving Mr B's private parts a friendly squeeze.

We hadn't travelled all that way, though, for a python, however large and swanky, we'd come to see the world's most venomous land snake - the taipan, and Mark has two, a male and a female. From behind glass doors we watched him and another curator (always two when handling venomous snakes) take up snake hooks and release them.

The taipan plays a leading role in Awakening, but I'd never seen one in real life before, relying entirely on still photographs when I was writing the book. In terms of appearance, I was pretty much spot on. The taipan is slender and graceful, with a sweet, tiny head and gleaming scales of gunmetal and gold. What I did not expect, and sadly failed to do justice to in the book, is the sheer speed of the creatures. They dart and strike and twist and spin, so fast even Mark struggled to keep hold of them. Many people bitten by taipans, according to Mark, never even see the snake that attacked them. Even behind the safety of glass windows, I found myself a tiny bit afraid of them. So small, so pretty, so very, very deadly.

So, million-dollar question - how closely does the real life Mark O'Shea resemble the character that, despite my numerous denials, his fans will keep insisting he inspired? Not so much, actually. Their lifestyles might be very similar, their immense technical knowledge and passion for their subject pretty much identical, but in terms of character - no. Sean is rather measured, deliberate in his actions, cynical in outlook, dry-humoured, possibly even given to bouts of superiority. Mark is mercurial, never stopping moving and speaking, warmer, friendlier, exceptionally generous with his time and his knowledge. Mark, I have to admit, is a whole lot nicer.

West Midland Safari Park is well worth a visit, if you're close enough; and be sure to drop into a reptile encounter and give the lovely Mark O'Shea the Bolton family's very best wishes.

Myth No. 5 - Jack was Jewish

At the time of the murders (and persistently ever since) speculation was rife that Jack the Ripper was a Jew; an apparently racist view that has to be seen against the social background of the time and London's burgeoning Jewish community.

For centuries, every continental upheaval in which the Jewish people were sufferers brought influxes of refugees into England. In the middle to late 19th century, low rents, the proximity of the new central business district and the presence of an existing Jewish community drew the newcomers in large numbers to Whitechapel. Whilst many areas undoubtedly benefited from the influx of hardworking, entrepreneurial people, racial tension was inevitable.

After Polly Nichols was killed, police enquiries among prostitutes in the area discovered that a number of them were particularly afraid of a local they referred to as "Leather Apron", a Jewish man who worked in the leather trade and who was rarely seen without his characteristic piece of working apparel. Leather Apron's real name was John Pizer, and he was certainly known for violent extortionism of prostitutes. The press of the day picked up the story and ran fast and furiously with it.  The Star newspaper, in particular, produced frightening headlines and lurid copy.  "His expression is sinister", one story related, "and seems to be full of terror for the women who describe it."

At first, no one, not police, press, or local people knew were to find John Pizer (not surprisingly he'd gone to ground) but on 8 September the urgency to locate him grew when, close by the mutilated body of Annie Chapman, police found a piece of leather apron.

The scared local community quickly gave in to anti-Semitic feelings. 'It was repeatedly observed, ' said the Observer newspaper, 'that no Englishman could have prepared such a horrible crime … and that it must have been done by a Jew.' The likelihood of anti-Jewish riots became a serious concern for the authorities.

On the 10 September 1888 John Pizer was found and arrested. At Lehman Street Police Station, though, relief and excitement were quickly quelled. He was able to account for his whereabouts during the murders of both Polly Nichols and Annie Chapman. Both alibis were soon corroborated. Pizer could not be the Ripper.

Pizer might have been exonerated, the Jewish community was not. On the 30 September, the night of the double event, anti Jewish feeling was to raise its head again with the discovery of the chalked writing on the wall near Catharine Eddowes body.

"The Juwes are the men who will not be blamed for nothing."

If the double negative was intended, and simply the spelling incorrect, this seemed to be a deliberate attempt to implicate the Jewish community in the murders. Either way, an overly-nervous Charles Warren ordered that the writing be removed, lest it stir up more anti Jewish feeling.

The Macnaghten Memorandum

Some time after the last of the Whitechapel murders, the Chief Superintendent of Scotland Yard, Sir Melville Macnaghten, wrote a document that became known as the Macnaghten Memorandum; important because it forms the starting point of most modern-day Ripper studies, because it names the canonical five victims and because it identifies, for the first time, three men who have since become important suspects.

The first of these, Montague Druitt, was the subject of an earlier blog. The other two were Jewish men.

Michael Ostrog

Michael Ostrog, a Jewish doctor and petty thief, was in and out of trouble (and prison) for most of his adult life. He pleaded insanity and was incarcerated in Surrey Pauper Lunatic Asylum, only to be released in March 1888. He promptly disappeared. Once the police started to believe they should be looking for a lunatic with medical knowledge, they started to consider him as a potential suspect. The investigation began to focus on checking asylums for men who had recently been released.

At first glance, he looks a likely candidate, except that the only act of violence he is known to have committed in a long criminal career, was to pull a revolver at a police station. He was apprehended (again) in 1891 and sent to Banstead Lunatic Asylum where he was considered suicidal but not dangerous. He was released in 1893, imprisoned again in 1904 and then he disappears from record.

Ostrog had no history of violence against women and given that there is some evidence of his being incarcerated in France when the murders took place, he has to slide a long way down the list of suspects.

NOT GUILTY (PROBABLY) MICHEAL OSTROG

Aaron Kosminski

Rather harder to dismiss, is the Polish Jew Aaron Kosminski. According to Macnaghten, Kosminski was of particular interest because two senior police officers with direct responsibility for Ripper murders considered him the killer. The case against him hinges on the anecdotal belief that an important eye-witness identified Kosminski as the killer but refused to give evidence and send a fellow Jew to the gallows.

Kosminski was mentally handicapped and showed signs of insanity in the late 1880s. He believed that a higher power spoke to him, and controlled his actions. He refused to wash and would not accept food from others, preferring to forage in the streets.

Schizophrenic, delusional, paranoid and incoherent he almost certainly was, but in all the years of his incarceration, Kosminski was never classed as homicidal and it is specifically stated in his records that he was not a danger to others.

Other than the uncorroborated eye witness account, there is no evidence at all to connect Kosminki with any of the murders.

NOT GUILTY (PROBABLY) AARON KOSMINSKi

It's that time of year when the countryside is awash with blossom, small furry animals poke their heads out of holes, and the residents of Midsomer County load up their people-carriers and head south for the annual Biggest Twit in the Snow Championships. There has been a record number of entrants this year, twelve adults and children beyond count, but snow conditions are unusually challenging; basic problem being that there isn't any.  As Mr B remarked yesterday, 'I've never had to scrape cow-shit off my ski-boots before.'

Anyway, onto the contest. Small child's best mate and his siblings got off to a impressive start on the strength of what they were prepared to wear on their heads, but I leapt into poll position in the first hour by missing my footing on the ice and hurtling 500 metres down the crowded village slope. Extra points were awarded because I hadn't even got my skis on at this point, and special Bonus Points, because, given my rather distinctive jacket, I'm now doomed to spend the rest of the week hearing small children sing, 'She'll be coming down the mountain on her bum.'

Later that day, one of our mates made a valiant attempt to take the lead by failing to stop at the chairlift and sliding forward into the path of the oncoming chair. Cue imminent disaster, impalement on a pair of French skis and a solid victory, but she chickened out at the last minute, threw herself to one side, leapt kangaroo-like into the air, landed on the chair and pulled down the safety bar before the lift attendants could curse 'Stupeed Engleesh women' and press the stop button.

Reigning champion, Mr B, gave a solid reminder of his talents when he persuaded the group he was leading to follow him down an off-limits competition piste, (a strategy that worked well for two of the group last year) in the process trying to jump a stretch of net-fencing that had been laid across the snow. At which point it all became a bit predictable. Ski got caught in net, Mr B got wrapped in net like a flaying salmon, 50 metres of fluorescent orange net and Mr B hurtled towards a crevice. The prize looked safe, but he was thwarted at the last minute by another mate spearing the net with his ski pole and bringing the plummet to an end.

In the meantime, a number of minor prizes are being hotly contested, with the Responsible Parent of the Week Award currently being shared by four adults who late yesterday afternoon tried to get three children onto a chairlift and left one of them behind.

Most Annoying Person in the Apartment is, of course, Mr B, who will insist on getting up before sun-rise, walking round the flat in his ski-boots, emptying the dishwasher and rearranging the saucepan drawer, while Meatloaf plays at maximum volume. God knows I've spent fifteen years trying to explain to him that not everyone wants to get up before six on their holiday but he just doesn't get it.

The Special Merit For Getting Off With A Ski Instructor is probably a done deal, given that adult lessons are finished for the week and children don't take part in this one. To be honest, it was all over on the first morning when handsome Christophe got rather more than he bargained for when he skied backwards down the mountain, yelling "Faster, faster! Closer closer!" at the lady following him. She took him at his word, two bodies merged as one and an eight-limbed creature hurtled down the slope, wiping out everything in its path.

Today, we are attempting to get twelve adults, all staying in different parts of the resort and all with differing child care responsibilities, over to The Glacier and back in time to collect numerous small children from numerous ski schools. Given that it's an hour there and back, lessons only last two and half hours, nobody ever arrives on time, we have to factor in several stops to check emails and take phone calls and someone always needs a wee, I have a feeling the prize could be settled today.

Some time later…

We are back from The Glacier. Hideous experience. Never going again. On a brighter note, my lovely US publishers have organised a nice lunch for me when I visit New York the week after next, and the long list for the 2011 Dagger in the Library has just been announced. (With my name on it!)