The Official S. J. Bolton Blog

The marquees have come down, my feet are no longer in agony, we're making good progress on the leftovers and this feels like the first quiet day we've had all month.

Every book launch, like every book cover, has been better than the last and we've had quite a week. Excitement started to build around midday on Wednesday when She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed (UK editor) emailed over an absolutely brilliant review from that morning's Daily Mirror. Thanks and congratulations to publicist extraordinaire, Lynsey Dalladay and to Henry Sutton for saying such nice things about me, like:

'It takes a brave crime writer to tackle the most analysed and written about serial killer of all time, but S. J. Bolton, in her stunning fourth novel, has given us a fascinating, gruesome update of Jack the Ripper's trail of murder and mayhem, and then some.'

She-Who-Must… then went on to update me on details of the various shops and stores that are supporting Now You See Me and the news was very promising.

A mad dash to school to collect small child and his lift-share mates and then I was off to Liverpool Street Station (6.45 sharp!) to meet a jolly crowd from Transworld, including Lovely Lynsey, She-Who-Must… and (quite an honour) MD Larry Finley. Also invited was a great group of reviewers, critics and bloggers who'd come along partly to celebrate the launch of Now You See Me but mainly, I suspect, because they, too, were starting to fall under the spell of the most notorious serial killer in history and my man of the moment: Jack the Ripper.

Our tour guide for the evening was Frank Strangebones: tall, thin, deadpan and dressed in black, who managed to be both creepy and hilarious for the following two hours. Having spent the last two years immersed in ripper lore, I found it both fascinating and immensely moving to see the actual sites where these horrible murders took place. The evening ended with a stiff drink in The Bell.

It was gone midnight by the time Mr B and I got home and I could have done with a quiet day but Thursday was the big one and we'd invited nearly a hundred friends and family to celebrate with us at a supper party in the garden. For a while, it didn't go well. The "light cloud" predicted by the weathermen turned out to be gale force winds and torrential rainfall and there were many times during the day when I feared for the roof of the house, let alone the marquees in the garden. But we were four Northern women (and Jo from next door of whom even I'm scared) and we weren't going to be daunted by the weather. Gradually, tables got laid, flowers arranged, strawberries dipped in chocolate and champagne chilled. By 7.30pm when the guests started to arrive, both wind and rain had given up the fight and the evening was ours.

Launch events fly by for me, I'm so busy saying hello, thanking people for their exceptionally kind comments and signing books, I barely notice what's going on elsewhere.

Huge thanks to Glam One (sister Louise), Chocolate Strawberry Queen (niece Ceinwyn) Auntie Sheila and Next Door Jo, not just for the hours they spent setting up but also for running the evening on my behalf. Thanks to Anne Marie Doulton for a great speech and to Peter and Rosie Buckman for gracing us with their literary presence.

Thanks to Small Child for being official photographer, to Sherwins/Stables Farm Shop for fabulous food, to The Bookhouse in Thame for supplying the books, to Warner Waitressing Services for two beautiful and charming young ladies and the biggest of all to nearly a hundred lovely friends who braved the cold and parted with their hard-earned cash. Thanks for coming, everyone. Enjoy the book and, yes, be very, very scared.

Myth No. 6 - Jack was a famous artist

One of the most controversial "Who was Jack?" theories to emerge in recent years was that of crime writer Patricia Cornwell in 2002.  Her book, Portrait of a Killer, Jack the Ripper Case Closed and accompanying TV documentary claimed that the famous 19^th century artist Walter Sickert and the most notorious serial killer ever to have lived, were one and the same.

Cornwell's case against Sickert was based on the following premises:

* He was born with a deformity of the penis, underwent a series of painful and disfiguring operations, and was left both impotent and infertile.  His subsequent murderous rage against women was a result of his own feelings of frustration and powerlessness in sexual relationships.

* He was a contemporary and acquaintance of Prince Albert and Sir William Gull, themselves Ripper suspects.

* He was morbidly obsessed with violent crime and London's underworld, frequenting the poorer parts of the city and choosing, as his models, the same type of down-at-heel prostitutes that Jack preyed upon.

*Several of his paintings, including one entitled Jack the Ripper's bedroom, bore striking resemblances to the actual murder scenes.

* He was the author and illustrator of several of the "Ripper" letters, themselves confessional in nature.

Cornwell set out to prove her theory and, as would be expected from a writer and researcher of her calibre, she carried out a thorough, scientific and well-resourced investigation. I found both her book and accompanying TV documentary fascinating and, to a great extent, convincing.

The most compelling aspect of her work was her attempt to prove that Sickert wrote many of the Ripper letters. She obtained DNA from one Ripper letter and managed to match it to DNA on a known Sickert letter, thereby proving that the authors of both fell into the same small percentage of the population. She found striking similarities in the watermarks and other characteristics of the paper. She proved that the "ink" on many of the letters was actually artists' paint. She compared illustrations on the letters to known Sickert doodles.

Nevertheless, in spite of all her hard work and huge expense, Cornwell failed to convince the world.

The flaws in the Cornwell theory are:

• Most experts believe the Ripper letters were fakes, either the work of journalists trying to keep the story alive, or of fools bent on wasting police time. Sickert could have written all of them, and still not be the killer.

• Sickert was not infertile. He had a son, Joseph, who in later life put forward his own Ripper theory.

• The post-mortem photographs of the Ripper victims were publicly available when Sickert was painting. It is more likely that he painted from photographs, not memory.

• A compelling interest in violent crime does not, in itself, make someone a killer. If it did, both Cornwell and I might have some questions to answer.

• There is no evidence that Sickert was in Whitechapel when the murders took place, and some that he was in France at the time.

Cornwell has probably done more than any other Ripperologist in history to unmask Jack the Ripper and for this she is to be applauded. If I were forced to come down on one side of the fence, I'd say I do believe that Sickert was behind a number of the letters purporting to be from the Ripper. Sadly, whilst this makes him a disturbed and deeply unpleasant man, it doesn't prove him a killer.

Where Cornwell's argument falls apart for me is that the Ripper stopped killing. Mary Kelly was almost certainly his last victim. Someone who killed as viciously, as brutally and as frequently as the Ripper would not have ended his bloody career until forced. Either he died, was imprisoned, or moved away from London. Sickert did none of those things. He lived in and around the City until a ripe old age, long after the murders had passed into local folklore.

NOT GUILTY  (Probably) WALTER SICKERT

It's seven in the morning at Crimefest in Bristol, one of the biggest gatherings of crime writers in the UK.  Yesterday I appeared in conversation with one of my literary heroes, the formidable forensic crime writer and author of the David Hunter series, Simon Beckett.

Simon, although he regularly appears in the Top Ten here, is better known in Germany where, on his last visit, he was actually mobbed by fans. How cool is that?

I did "a turn" with Simon a couple of years ago in Leicester. I was still pretty new to it all then, and very nervous. "Stay calm," I told myself. "Everyone will be there to see Simon, he'll do 90 per cent of the talking and all you need to do is look interested and ask a few semi-intelligent questions."

Five minutes before we were due to start, I get a phone call. Simon's car has broken down on the motorway and he's stuck in rush hour traffic.

I had to face the sizeable crowd alone, knowing everyone there was thinking, "Who the devil is she?" I, meantime, am thinking: "He's the best selling British author in Germany, you'd think he could afford a car that works!"

In the event, it was fine: I talked briefly about my new book (Awakening), did a short reading and then saw him slink guiltily down the stairs. I soon learned that when two authors genuinely like each other's work, they will always find plenty to talk about, no matter how many people are listening.

Yesterday, he arrived before I did, looking very dapper in spotty shirt and pale blue jacket (him, not me, I wore a dress). We were interviewed by the young, bright and far-too-handsome-for-his-own-good, Jake Kerridge of the Daily Telegraph. Jake had prepared rigorously for the interview and all flowed well. Photograph thanks to Ayo Onatade of Shotsblog.

Later, in a panel called Without Reservations, No Holds Barred, I was hoping for some strong and juicy stuff. Not a bit of it. The five men on the panel all came came across as very gentle and gentlemanly. Won't touch rape, child abuse, torture, sadism. Won't write a sex scene. Dislike gratuitous violence.

Bloody Nora, guys! We're supposed to be crime writers.  Guess it's down to us girls then!

By the way, the shortlists for various dagger awards were announced last night, and I am one of six in line for the Dagger in the Library. This award is for a body of work, and is judged by librarians and reading groups. The competition is pretty stiff: RJ Ellory, Mo Hayder, Philip Kerr, Susan Hill and Jason Goodwin. But here's hoping!

I am on the long-list of another award - the highly coveted Theakston's Old Peculiar Crime Novel of the Year. The long-list of eighteen was made public a couple of days ago, the final shortlist of six will be revealed in June and the winner announced at the Harrogate Crime Festival in July.

(If being both old and peculiar were criteria, the prize is yours - Mr B)

They're a bit of a double-edged sword (or dagger) these literary awards. On the one hand, it's fabulous to be told by people, who ought to know what they're talking about, that you've produced a half-decent book. If I were smart, I'd take the metaphorical pat on the back and not give it another thought. I'm not smart on the subject of awards though, and neither is any other writer you could name. (Even PD James was notoriously saddened she never won the Gold Dagger.) I'm with PD on this one. It doesn't matter how many times we tell ourselves the honour is in being nominated, we still always want to win.

Now the Theakston's Old Peculiar is a bit prestigious. Almost, if not exactly, on a par with the Gold Dagger, and I got very excited just at making the (very) long-list. Then - I learned the next stage is decided by public vote. Then - I saw that my fellow long-listees include authors like Val McDermid, Reginald Hill, Mark Billingham and Lee Child.

Lee Child for pity's sake! He probably has four million more readers than I do! Who do you seriously imagine will win in a public vote between the two of us? Lee, with his millions of worshippers worldwide or me, semi-famous in Darwen, Lancashire?  It's game over, isn't it?

Except…

On last year's shortlist (presumably also the result of a public vote) appeared debut novelists, Elly Griffiths and Tom Rob Smith. The year previous, Tom Cain's The Accident Man made the final list. Debutante Stef Penney won it in 2008. I'm reminded of a chat I once had with a judge friend (yes, I do have important friends) when he told me that if he were ever (wrongly) charged with a crime, he would want to be tried before a jury because juries usually get it right. So maybe the voting public, like juries, also get it right. Maybe books make it onto important shortlists on their own merits, regardless of the popularity of their authors. Maybe I should have faith.

That's not to say of course, that Blood Harvest will definitely make it to the next stage, just that whatever happens, the reading and voting public will have made the right choice. If you want to join them, and be part of that right and wise choice, the link is on my homepage and below.

www.theakstons.co.uk

And yes, you have to vote for Blood Harvest!  This is my blog!

On a different note, eight days after laser surgery on my eyes, I can once again shower, wear eye makeup and go to bed at night without goggles that make me look like a rejected extra from The Fly. Mr B is hugely relieved on all three counts.

It was a pretty scary experience, not least of which was being publicly told off by the surgeon the next day for leaving my receipt and appointment card behind 24 hours earlier. (Stone the bloody crows, I was in shock and could barely open my eyes, it's a wonder I got myself to Marylebone never mind all my personal effects.) Still, senior medical professionals are a bit of a law unto themselves!

I'd been warned beforehand that the worst bit would be the smell of burning flesh. That was pretty bad, but worse was spending an hour alone at Marylebone Station, unable to open my eyes for more than a split second, tears streaming down my face, and knowing everyone around me thought I was a mad woman.

(Shut up, Mr B, a comment is not necessary at this stage!)

It's a distant memory now, my vision is massively improved and I'm finding it rather liberating not to be chained to specs for the first time in about thirty five years. When those gorgeous copies of Now You See Me appear in the shops in a few days time, I'll be able to spot them from a distance.