#danielle ramsay

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Phew, what a shopping spree it’s been! We hope you’ve enjoyed learning more about the softer side of some of your favourite Mulholland detectives. We thought we’d round off the week with these cracking gifts!

Danielle Ramsay would buy Jack Brady…

I have a couple of presents that I would give DI Jack Brady this Christmas – he’s had a tough old year and I reckon he needs a bit of cheering up. The first one would be an original vinyl (Brady is an avid vinyl collector of blues and jazz) of Crazy Blues by Mamie Smith and Her Jazz Hounds; written by the songwriter, Perry Bradford and released on August 10th 1920. Crazy Blues was Mamie Smith’s second single but it was the first authentic performance of African-American blues music made for a predominately African-American audience. Blues vocalists, Bessie Smith and Ma Rainey may have gone on to dominate the 1920s but it was Mamie Smith with this ground-breaking single who pioneered the way for blues music.

The second present would be something Brady could savour while listening to Mamie Smith and that would be a bottle of Gordon and Macphail’s Old Elgin whisky – Brady loves both whisky and Scotland; Elgin in particular, so it is a perfect combination. The final present is simply fun – an  extended rally track day at Brands Hatch with two free race tickets and 40 minutes driving time. This is something I have personally experienced and loved and I am certain that Brady would get as much adrenaline pumping fun as I had, if not more!

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Writing the DI Jack Brady Series

Danielle Ramsay talks about the inspiration behind her gritty crime series...

Like many writers I knew I wanted to write from an early age, and read voraciously as a child. As I grew older I was drawn to crime fiction but it was the African-American writer Walter Mosley who inspired me to begin the DI Jack Brady series. It was a combination of Mosley’s Easy Rawlins series and his non-fiction book This Year You Write a Novel that gave me the confidence to get started.

When I began the first DI Brady book I was advised to write about what I knew which is exactly what I did. I set the series in the small, run-down seaside resort where I lived (and still live despite my bleak depiction of the place) and coupled it with my interest in the darker side of humanity. The town of Whitley Bay offered me the ideal setting for a crime series – and still does. It has a dark element to it and, like any other small town, has its fair share of serious crime which is regularly reported in the local weekly paper. In its heyday Whitley Bay was a popular family seaside resort. Now stag and hen weekend breaks make it a close second to Amsterdam as a party destination.

The fact that I live where I write about makes it easier to bring the location to life. Admittedly, I embellish and darken the setting but the stretches of wild beaches and boarded-up buildings along the Promenade make Whitley Bay one of the most atmospheric and inspirational places to write. It offers a dramatic, gritty backdrop for my series and is a continuous source of inspiration. However, I’m not sure that the Whitley Bay Tourist Board appreciates my portrayal of the town, nor some of the residents.

I knew from the outset that I wanted to write a series and not a stand-alone. With a series the writer gets the opportunity to build and develop the characters with each book. DI Jack Brady is the archetypal maverick male cop who is typically flawed and the series begins with his personal life in shambles and his career in jeopardy. Ultimately Brady is a good man, albeit a very damaged one with a dark and troubled past. Through the continuation of the series he can be seen to be slowly rebuilding both his private and professional life.

I tend to start the day early with a run along the coast and if I can manage it, a horse-ride along the fields and farms beyond Whitley Bay before I start writing. When I am not writing, I immerse myself in the crime genre by either reading or watching something connected to it. Walter Mosley suggests writing for at least three hours every day which I think is a very sensible rule. However, when I am completely submerged in a book then that can change to as much as ten hours, if not more, until I have the first manuscript written. The ideal for me is to work in isolation for at least a month. This is understandably hard to achieve as ‘life’ has a habit of interrupting. Then the hard work begins of editing the manuscript and rewriting it until both myself and my editor are happy with it.

Blood Reckoning, the latest book in the Inspector Jack Brady series is out now.

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Danielle Ramsay’s favourite detective

My favourite detective is Walter Mosley’s Ezekiel “Easy” Rawlins: an African American World War II veteran living and working as a private detective in the Watts area of Los Angeles. It is a profession that he falls into, despite having no formal training, when unfairly sacked from his job. Devil in a Blue Dress is the first book in a series of thirteen that span from 1948 to 1967 and is Mosley at his best. Easy Rawlins is as iconic as Raymond Chandler’s Philip Marlowe and Dashiell Hammett’s Sam Spade. However, Easy Rawlins is black, and it is this distinction that adds another dimension to this hardboiled series; evident in Mosley’s use of dialect and his stark insight into the black American experience shown against the backdrop of decades of social and political unrest. Easy Rawlins’ appeal as a protagonist is that his traits make him very human and consequently flawed – at times disappointingly so. But what is so inspiring about Easy is his strength and determination to rise above social expectations and ultimately, his unerring sense of justice.

Danielle Ramsay’s latest book BLOOD RECKONING is out now. 

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Reflections on Bloody Scotland 2014 (*spoiler alert* It was GREAT)

Hey folks! Got back late last night after an enthralling weekend Bloody Scotland International Crime Writing Festival, and am jiggered to the bone. Had such an interesting, fascinating and fun time, and will definitely be going back. In fact, if it was on again next weekend, I'd be checking hotel availability pronto - it was that good.

Why? A number of things, but the standout feature was the warmth of the event. It was downright friendly! First thing I did on arrival was check out the Festival Bookshop (another triumph, albeit one that is more guiltily-enjoyed and wallet-draining), but before going in, I popped my head around the corner of the room next door. I didn't know it was the green room, but kind of worked it out pretty quickly when I saw actual authors in there. My legs jellied just like when I bumped into John Barnes in Toys'R'Us in Warrington, 1990. But every author I had the privilege of meeting was extremely friendly, down-to-earth, chatty, warm and seemed delighted to be there. This led to some fascinating conversations, and has sent me home as a new resident of cloud 9.

And as for the events themselves? Superb. I was lucky enough to attend the Deanston Scottish Crime Book of the Year Award dinner, and it was a special evening, with excellent food, great company and - yes, you guessed it - a very friendly atmosphere. Not to mention some cracking whiskey. A love for crime fiction was apparent in everyone I spoke to, and it provided a basis for good conversation. At the dinner I was extremely lucky to be seated near the lovely Alexandra Sokoloff, whose book The Harrowing is one that I had enjoyed very much a few years previously. She was so generous with her time, and spoke at length with myself (over a glass of Deanston, naturally). I'll always be grateful for the kindness she showed me, and the advice she imparted.

I enjoyed immensely hearing the authors speak at the events about their own works and the stories behind their own journeys as novelists, and especially enjoyed hearing from Nele Neuhaus, Danielle Ramsay, Ragnar Jonasson, Quentin Bates and Yrsa Sigurdardottir. It felt a bit like a masterclass at times, with nuggets of information raining readily. After each session I was dizzy with adrenaline and left invigorated, and now have so much to think about and look back upon with interest.

A special mention must go to the city of Stirling and Scotland as a whole. It was a pleasure and an honour to be enshrined in one of Scotland's iconic cities with some of the most dazzling domestic and international writers. I couldn't recommend the festival highly enough, and thank everyone involved, from the authors, who were so generous with their time, to the organisers, whose evident commitment behind the scenes led to a throughly enjoyable time.

I will definitely be back - in fact, how are you fixed for next week?

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Danielle Ramsay: MY FAVOURITE BOOK

My favourite book is I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou. Originally published in 1969, it was Angelou’s first autobiography. Six more would follow with the seventh, Mom & Me & Mom, published in 2013 at the age of 85.

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings is a beautiful and, at times, brutally traumatic and challenging account of Maya Angelou’s life from the age of three in the segregated south to the birth of her only child in San Francisco at the age of seventeen in 1944.  The book is a testament to Angelou’s strength, tenacity, courage and above all, her unique way of clinging to hope and love in spite of everything. The autobiography is more than just about hardship and the imperfections and cruelty of humanity – traits shared by both black and white – it is about traversing through life’s most arduous and debilitating obstacles and surviving. But this is more than just surviving. Angelou succeeds where there is no hope, with grace, humility and dignity despite the indignities she suffered; including the town’s white dentist’s refusal to give her emergency treatment: “my policy is I’d rather stick my hand in a dog’s mouth than a nigger’s.”

Angelou has transcended more than most people could even dare to imagine and as such, is one of the most iconic black women in the world. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings is more than just a memoir of a poor black girl’s upbringing in the 1930s. It was one of the first books to write candidly about child rape. Angelou, with jarring honesty, details the sexual abuse and then brutal rape by her mother’s boyfriend, Mr Freeman when she was eight years old. Upon hearing that Mr Freeman had been discovered beaten to death shortly after his release (believed to be murdered by her three uncles), she then refused to speak to anyone for a year, apart from her beloved brother, Bailey: “I decided that my voice was so powerful that it could kill people.”

It is Angelou’s stark and at times uncomfortable honest account of black female victimisation that speaks on a global level. But Angelou’s autobiography offers much more than an insight into racism and patriarchy. The title is taken from a line that echoes through the African American poet, Paul Laurence Dunbar’s poem, ‘Sympathy’ (1899). Angelou’s evocative title is suggestive of powerlessness and defeat but the book is in fact a journey towards freedom as her younger self looks within for the way out of racial and patriarchal bondage. In as much as the book is filled with struggle and oppression, it also sings of Angelou’s love of literature and the written word and the freedom it brings her. It is her skilful weaving of language and storytelling of her childhood set against the backdrop of the social and political tensions in the segregated south of the 1930s that has succeeded in captivating and inspiring generations of readers.

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings made literary history in 1995 when it remained on the New York Times bestseller’s paperback list for two years – the longest-running record in the chart’s history. It was also the first non-fiction bestseller by an African American woman. An incredible and truly inspirational feat when considering the twelve-year-old black girl in Stamps, Arkansas, who at her graduation ceremony was given a condescending and soul-destroying address by a white superintendent who effectively informed the black students that “The white kids were going to have a chance to become Galileos and Madame Curies and Edisons and Gauguins, and our boys (the girls weren’t even on it) would try to be Jesse Owenses and Joe Louises.”

Danielle Ramsay is a proud Scot living in a small seaside town in the North-East of England. Always a storyteller, it was only after initially following an academic career in literature that she found her place in life and began to write creatively full-time after being shortlisted for the CWA Debut Dagger in 2009 and 2010. She is the author of the Jack Brady crime novels, the latest of which, BLIND ALLEY, published late 2013.