Fiction Fans

Author Interview: Ashram Assassin by Andrew Cartmel

• Lilly Ellison • Episode 147

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Your hosts are once again joined by Andrew Cartmel, this time to discuss his novel Ashram Assassin, the second book in his Paperback Sleuth series. They talk about crime novel tropes, yoga, and curry.

More information about Dressing Gown:
https://tabard.org.uk/whats-on/dressing-gown/

Find more from Andrew:
https://venusianfrogbroth.blogspot.com/
https://medwayprideradio.co.uk/show/the-vinyl-detective-show/
https://twitter.com/andrewcartmel?lang=en



Find us on Discord / Support us on Patreon

Thanks to the following musicians for the use of their songs:

- Amarià for the use of “Sérénade à Notre Dame de Paris”
- Josh Woodward for the use of “Electric Sunrise”

Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License

Lilly:

Hello and welcome to Fiction Fans, a podcast where we read books and other words, too. I'm Lily.

Sara:

And I'm Sarah, and I'm delighted to welcome back Andrew Cartmell onto the podcast, this time to talk about book two in his paperback sleuth series titled The Ashram Assassin.

Andrew:

Thank you for having me on. I'm very happy with that title because there was a bit of a frack up with the publisher who wanted to call it THE Ashram Assassin with a definite article, and I just, I like the clipped, uh, alliteration of just Ashram Assassin. So when you said that, said the title, I just had to pause for a little moment, enjoying it.

Sara:

It's an excellent title.

Andrew:

Thank you. And it's a nice cover, too, because it evokes the, yes, this is a murder mystery which takes place in a yoga milieu, and so the cover art is really nice from that point of view.

Lilly:

The cover's beautiful. We were actually just talking about how much we loved the Vinyl Detective covers as well, but both of the Paperback Sleuth books that have come out have been so excellent.

Sara:

Yeah, your covers are just beautiful. gorgeous.

Andrew:

Thank you. On that subject, they've sent me the cover art for the next Vinyl Detector, one that I haven't written yet, I've just started writing. And I might under, swore not to show it to anyone, but I might show it to you guys.

Sara:

Ooh.

Andrew:

so great. It was such a wonderful, I know we'll get to these Romados later, but I was having a bit of trouble getting started on the new book and seeing the cover was such a great incentive. It really was fab.

Sara:

Interesting. I have a question about that process. I'm going to save it until we actually start talking about the book. So put a pin on that.

Lilly:

Well, what's something great that happened recently?

Sara:

I went to Utah to visit some friends and that was a lot of fun. We spent five days hiking and drinking whiskey and mead and not getting enough sleep. We hiked to a natural hot springs, which was really cool.

Andrew:

Oh, how lovely.

Sara:

Yeah, it was, it was just a wonderful time.

Andrew:

I have a friend who lives out out in Utah.

Sara:

Oh, nice.

Andrew:

So I sort of feel I have a vested interest in that part of the world.

Sara:

This was my first time visiting, and it was really beautiful country.

Lilly:

Really, I didn't know you hadn't been before.

Sara:

I've never been, but the friend that I was visiting has this lovely big log cabin that has a view of the mountains. Uh, very peaceful to sit out on their porch and, you know, watch the sunset. Not watch the sunrise, because I was not up early enough for that ever, but

Andrew:

you see any salt flats? Because that's what I always think of when I think of Utah.

Sara:

we didn't see salt flats, we were by the mountains. We did see snow, we went up to Bald Mountain, and we had been planning on doing a sunrise hike, but there was a little bit too much snow for us to be comfortable with doing that.

Andrew:

Sounds like there's a little too much whiskey for you to be comfortable doing that.

Sara:

There was a significant amount of whiskey, and like I said, a significant amount of mead. The friend that I visited makes his own mead.

Andrew:

not weed. It's a bit difficult when you say whiskey and mead.

Sara:

Yeah, mead, not weed.

Andrew:

whiskey and weed. We have too much whiskey and weed.

Lilly:

Well, Andrew, how about you? What's something great that happened recently?

Andrew:

Rehearsals began for my new play, which is on in July. It's the last three weeks of July and we started rehearsing this week, so that was tremendously exciting.

Lilly:

Oh, that's fantastic.

Sara:

Can you tell us a little bit about the play?

Andrew:

Oh yes, in fact, I'll show you a copy of The Flyer. This is very good radio. Okay, so it's a comedy. It's called Dressing Out. In fact, it's a farce. It's a sort of naughty comedy cum farce. It's what we call a four hander. Four actors who are all wonderful, great director, and it's on a very nice book. pub theater called the Tabard. Just in case anybody who's listening is in London in the last three weeks of July, go to the Tabard theater and see my play because I guarantee you'll have a good time. It's a good, it's a very enjoyable comedy and it looks like it's going to be very well evoked. Did I say it was called Dressing Gown? Anyway, it's called Dressing Gown and the play begins with a doorbell ringing and this guy comes out of his bedroom, knotting his dressing gown, little knowing what the day is going to throw at him. He's not ever going to have a chance to get out of his dressing gown. So it's about one of those, I think we've all had those kind of days, you know, I'm going to get dressed now. Oh, another fire to fight. Uh oh.

Lilly:

I often consider a day where I never change out of my dressing gown a success, but I think that it might be a different, a different approach to

Andrew:

I needed actually to ask whether in America you guys say dressing gown or would you say bathrobe or

Lilly:

Bathrobe.

Sara:

Yeah, I think we would say bathrobe.

Andrew:

you're right but you but you're such brilliantly bilingual people you instantly knew what I was talking about without me having to translate so bathrobe yeah I guess so

Lilly:

That context clues, I figured it out.

Andrew:

oh bless you yeah thank you plus there's a big picture of them on the on the

Sara:

Yes, we were helped along just a little bit.

Lilly:

Well, my good thing is going to be a little bit out of date by the time this episode is actually released. But for me it is very current. We just released issue one of Solstitia, our literary magazine. Thank you. It was a marathon.

Andrew:

does the title evoke the solstice solstice yeah

Lilly:

Yes, it is actually. Which does mean it came out on a Thursday, which is not the ideal day of the week.

Andrew:

no but that was the that was two days ago and that was the summer solstice it was well done

Lilly:

Got it out on time. That was my big goal.

Sara:

I was kind of thinking that that may or may not happen, but we did it.

Lilly:

We did it.

Andrew:

Well, well done guys.

Lilly:

It was really incredible reading all of the submissions and seeing just all the really excellent work that people are doing right now. It

Andrew:

Is it an online, or does it have a physical presence, or?

Lilly:

is online only. It is three dollars and you can buy the PDF from our Patreon store. I'm currently working on getting an EPUB version out. That one did not come out on time.

Andrew:

No, well no, but you've got the footprint down on the solstice, so that's great.

Lilly:

Yes. Thank you. And what is everyone drinking today? I had to make hot chocolate. I had to. It was required.

Andrew:

Well, thank you. Yes, well that's, that is what I, just before, I was too greedy to wait until our discussion started. I had to drink it beforehand. So I had my hot chocolate. What I was checking was, I needed to find out where it was originated. It's called Santo Domingo. That's the estate, because it's a single estate hot chocolate, but it's from the Dominican Republic. And that, that was what I was just checking, which is fascinating, because, you know, it's There's an island in the Caribbean, and half of it is the Dominican Republic, which is flourishing and happy and thriving. The other half is Haiti, which is falling apart. So it's just thought it was, it's very strange that on the same island, two such utterly different nations sit side by side. But anyway, this is really good hot chocolate, and I added a big shot of cream to it.

Lilly:

Delicious.

Andrew:

Well, I've got a cream footnote because I listened to a documentary about Agatha Christie, and the thing was, she didn't drink booze, but her treat was to drink cream. And she just loved cream, which I can totally understand. I couldn't drink up too much of it. But with the hot chocolate, we have that contrast of the dark note to the hot chocolate with the cream. I was telling my buddy Joe Kramer this. He does the theme music for the Vinyl Detective radio show that I do. And we just had lunch and we walked past the statue of Agatha Christie, which they have in the West End of London. And, uh, he said, Creamy Christie. Like a quick, as smart as a webpage, he said Creamy Christie. I thought, Creamy Christie is such a great name for, bless her, Creamy Christie's Crimes. Yeah, there, there you go.

Lilly:

Ooh.

Sara:

Crimes, I like that.

Lilly:

That would be her Instagram handle if she was writing today.

Andrew:

I, I hope it would. She's great. And I've just, just before I saw you guys, I went to a matinee of a play, one of Agatha Christie's classic plays. Go Back From Murder, which was on at a local, like a local little theatre, local amateur dramatics group. So I just saw that before I came on here, so Agatha is very much on my mind.

Lilly:

Sarah, where's your hot chocolate?

Sara:

So I did not make hot chocolate, mostly because it was, it was too much effort. I thought about it.

Andrew:

Oh no, no, I, just because it's my addiction, I, you shouldn't, shouldn't feel obliged to fall on the line with my addictions, guys.

Sara:

But I, like, I wanted to because obviously it ties in perfectly with the book.

Andrew:

Oh, it's true, it does, and that's, oh,

Sara:

she drinks a fair amount of hot chocolate.

Andrew:

exactly the hot chocolate I just described. It's called Tesco's Finest.

Sara:

I was wondering when you were describing it, I was thinking, this is familiar, I'm pretty sure that it's actually in the book.

Andrew:

It is the one in the book, but that was totally an uncontrived coincidence because it's my favorite, right? So I drink it all the time. So I just stuck it in the book. And also, I guess it's a kind of a little bit of a shout out. If anybody wants a tip on buying hot chocolate when you're in England, this is such a great bargain. I should shut up because otherwise everybody, I won't be able to get it because everybody else will be buying it.

Lilly:

Yeah. No, it's awful. No one get that. It's

Andrew:

they're

Sara:

Yep, yep.

Andrew:

hands off.

Lilly:

Well, we're going to be discussing Ashram Assassin at length in a moment, but has anyone read anything else good lately?

Sara:

I have done so much reading, like, last week, that in between our last podcast and this podcast, I've only read Ashram Assassin.

Andrew:

Oh, bless you. But you didn't tell us what you, what you were drinking, did you? Or did I miss that?

Sara:

Oh, I, I'm drinking a, uh, black tea.

Andrew:

Oh, that's a, that's a really good answer. No, black tea's great. But not as good an answer as reading Asher on Assassin. That's a really good answer. you. Thank you for reading that.

Sara:

I actually, I devoured Ashram Assassin. I read it all in one evening. Really enjoyed it.

Andrew:

Oh, thank you. I love it when that happens, when I get a book that I just can't put down. And in your case, you couldn't put it down because you had to do it for a deadline. But when you stumble on a book that you're not expecting, and it's just like, like I had that with some of the, uh, Girl with a Dragon Tattoo books, which is so great.

Sara:

I mean, it's true that I was reading this on a deadline, but I wouldn't have put it down anyway, because it was genuinely very good.

Andrew:

There's also a South African crime writer called Dion Meyer, and he wrote a book called 13 Hours, and that's, I only mention that because there again, I was up at 2 in the morning, turning pages, just because I couldn't put it down, and that's such a lovely feeling, it really is great.

Sara:

It really is.

Lilly:

you read anything recently?

Andrew:

I certainly have, and I obviously, I, putting on a play, so I think about plays a lot, and I've been reading lots about, not just plays themselves, but also a really good book about the history of the theatre. And I realized I'd never read any Oscar Wilde, and he's considered, like, one of the pivotal playwrights. Everybody sort of thinks they know his stuff, because there's so many quotations floating around. So I sat down, and I got my little Beautiful little penguin collection of Oscar Wilde. And I read The Importance of Being Earnest. It's great. And it's great in a way that hasn't dated. It's really, it's very modern. I mean, it's just full of witty people saying witty stuff. Very tightly written. You know, I was tremendously, I can't tell you how impressed I was with The Importance of Being Earnest. I went on to read, uh, Ideal Husband and also, another play in that collection. Uh, yes, Lady Windermere's Fan, which of those plays, the last one he wrote was The Importance of Being Earnest, so he got better and better and better. So that's the best. But even those earlier plays, and I believe Lady Windermere's Fan was the first one, are remarkably adroit, well constructed, polished pieces of drama. I think some of the other plays are perhaps a tiny bit more dated than The Importance of Being Earnest, but not by much in that they read incredibly well. So I was knocked out by these plays, because for me, You think, oh, Oscar Wilde is going to be very 19th century and archaic and a bit of a struggle to read, and it was not like that at all. So I was very, very, very impressed and I immediately ordered some DVDs of BBC productions of these plays and watched them. Because I love, I love so much reading something and then seeing it, you know, seeing a production of it. It's just a great kind of dual vision, double vision.

Lilly:

Well, I also only read Ashram Assassin.

Andrew:

Uh huh. Ah! I had the lucky one this week, I got to read something that wasn't Ashram Assassin.

Lilly:

Oh, what a fun book.

Andrew:

Thank you.

Sara:

Before we actually start talking about it though, I want to go back to that question that I had, because now that we're getting into the book talk, you mentioned that you got the cover art for the next Final Detective novel before you'd really started writing the book. Is that how it usually works for you? Like you, you get the cover and then you write?

Andrew:

No, it's often, the last book, it came along, the cover was developed quite late in the process. The book had either been written or it was well underway, certainly, if not completely written. But this time, I think, I've got a new editor and I think that he's the kind of guy who likes to get his ducks in a row early on. Which I totally sympathize with, because when I was editing, like I used to work on magazines, I wanted to get everything, because especially, as you know, doing magazines, it's all about scheduling and making sure everything happens at the right time. So I'm totally behind that. So I think he's been getting stuff ready early. Although he, he was stoutly maintaining that he needed these cover images for promotion, because they're going to start promoting the books well before they're published. So maybe there's a new edict at my publisher that they're doing this Or maybe he's just an eager beaver. But either way, the cover art happened before the book. They're very good because they asked me to give them ideas for the imagery. So I had to sit down and make some decisions about imagery. Ah, well, now it's all coming back to me. The cover art for the last Divinal Detective, which was Noise Floor, was indeed created while the book was still being written. Because I remember, I said, okay, stick an owl on the cover, and then I'll have to remember to put an owl in the book. So, so, yes, the cover art. But the book was definitely underway, but whereas this one, I don't think I'd written a word of it before. I'd written an outline, quite a detailed outline, but I hadn't written any of the body of the book itself when they, they asked me about the cover. So I wrote a brief for the cover. I put a lot of stuff in it and Martin Stiff, who does the covers and is a very talented artist, he just chose a few elements. So that was cool. So I, without giving anything away, it's called Underscore. And it's about movie soundtracks. And it's actually about a movie soundtrack from a movie made in the 60s. So I did a little bit of research on what a movie camera would have looked like then. And so I sent him some images of appropriate cameras, because I like trying to get things accurate. So if there's going to be a movie camera on the cover, I wanted it to, at least to be one that would have been from the correct era. Period. Correct era. So he did, he did include that in a couple other elements and uh, I'll see if I can give you guys a sneak preview. Cause I just, it was so great. I was so pleased with it because they sent it to me and said, let us know any changes you want. And I said, Oh, I'll get back to you over the weekend. But I thought, I can't think of any, you know, it looks so perfect. Then after the weekend, I just thought, let's just admit defeat. It doesn't need any changes. It's great. Thank you very much, Martin Stiff.

Sara:

Well, I can't wait to see it. I can't wait to read the book, but we are not actually here to talk about Final Detective.

Andrew:

No, for once, we're, or no, for

Sara:

For twice.

Andrew:

second time, we're not here to talk about The Violent Detective.

Sara:

Yes.

Lilly:

Well, unlike the Vinyl Detective series, which, as listeners might be able to tell, has quite a bit to do about vinyl. Ashram Assassin is number two in your series of books. The paperback sleuth, which, as listeners might be able to tell, has much more to do with actual physical books.

Andrew:

Vintage paperbacks, though, and, and we also have to evoke the term mass market paperback, because paperbacks have come to mean books of all shapes and sizes, but these are classic, Pocket sized paperbacks that you actually could put in your pocket at one time. And that is apparently the industry term for the mass market paperback.

Lilly:

There were some very delightful meta moments while I was sitting there reading that book, because there are so many passages about novels and books. And I was sitting there going, I am reading a book right now. I don't know, it was, there was nothing too on the nose. It was just sort of a feeling of self awareness that I don't often get while I'm reading a book.

Andrew:

I do like to include that sort of thing. As you remember in a recent Final Detective novel, Attack and Decay, there's a bit where they're talking about a book where the hero doesn't have a name. So we got quite meta for that one, which I enjoyed doing. So I do like that kind of stuff.

Lilly:

It did make me wonder, how ironic would it be if I was reading this as an e book right now?

Andrew:

But you might have had to read it as an e book because I believe my publisher in America had to get you guys copies in time. Did they get you physical copies in time?

Lilly:

Yes, I did actually have the physical copy that I was reading, which to me, I think, really helped the experience. I have been reading ebooks more and more lately, but some books, I think, just fit in a physical format better. And this is one of them.

Sara:

So I also read the physical book, which I do think specifically with this series, I do think it makes a difference because it is about books and there's just something fun about reading a physical book that's in a series that's about like vintage mass market paperbacks.

Andrew:

not sure these, I mean, these aren't mass market paper bags. They're the next size up, aren't they? They're they used to call trade paper, but they're, they're all the love for that. And I don't think that de that detracts from them. It's just nice to have that physical object. You know, I think that, that, that's part of the, uh, the central experience of reading. eBooks certainly have their place'cause they're lovely portable, but I, I like to know how many pages I've got left to read and I like to be able to flip back in ways that eBooks don't really cater for.

Sara:

I will say that this book made me hungry, as is usual for your books, I have to

Andrew:

What, oh, was it about curries and stuff was, or.

Sara:

It's about curry. Yeah, there's, there's a lot of mention of curry in this book, and I did go out and buy curry for dinner the evening that I, that I read

Andrew:

Oh, how lovely.

Lilly:

Oh, I'm so jealous.

Sara:

hadn't been intending to, but I was like, I, I can't read this without, without curry.

Andrew:

I do like a good curry, but they're very elaborate to cook. That's the sort of thing I tend to have in a restaurant.

Lilly:

I did feel like Cordelia, the main character, because there are a few times in this book where she is offered curry, and then it ends up not working out, she doesn't actually get to have it. And so I was sitting there going, I also feel like curry is being yanked away from me

Andrew:

Yes, that's right, she's frustrated, your mouth is actually watering and she's about to have this lovely, oh I enjoyed describing that curry, that's right, I do like doing that. I think it was Kingsley Amis who pointed out that we're seldom more sensually present in our reading experience than when we're discussing the. food. If it's well described, you know, you really get into it. And I think he might even have cited Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh. Is that right? I think it was Evelyn Waugh. Because that book was written in the aftermath of World War II when nobody had, there were no luxuries and it was all austerity. So they're lavishly described banquets are apparently kind of a major feature of that. All of which is just to say we like reading about food in books. Well, that's a bit meta because there is a book about, she's hunting down these rare paperbacks and one of the traits of these rare paperbacks is the guy loves writing about meals and stuff. And there's a very centrally described meals in the books within the book. So I've forgotten that.

Lilly:

Oh, there's books within books and mysteries within mysteries, but we won't talk about those too much

Andrew:

Meals within meals.

Lilly:

Yes. One of the other things that we get throughout this book is Cordelia's relationship with the yoga studio. That she has previously been ejected from and is now working with because they need her to find these books that have been stolen. And her, like, campaign, just to make their lives difficult, was so much fun to read about.

Andrew:

Well, Cordelia is quite vindictive, which is one of the things that distinguishes her from the violent detective, who's kind of a straight arrow, nice guy. So Cordelia indulges all of the darker sides of our personalities, because we all occasionally like want to be nasty or mean, and she's, she has no hesitation doing that if somebody's been nasty. I hasten to say if somebody's been nasty or mean to her, she isn't like that all the time. But she's, she's big on revenge, for instance, but to do the whole yoga thing, that was all a case of stuff that was sort of left over and not used because when I sat down to write The Vinyl Detective, I gave The Vinyl Detective a record player like mine and a record collection like mine and a house very like mine and cats just like mine and, you know, my foodie habits, but what I did not give him was. Yoga, because I thought about, oh, should he do yoga too, like I do? And I thought, no, partly because I didn't want there to be too much similarity between me and him, but also because it didn't sort of bring anything to the party. Because, you know, as a vinyl detective guy who goes out collecting records and digging in crates, it didn't really sit particularly naturally in that world. I thought, I did consider that maybe Nevada, his girlfriend, or Agatha, their buddy, might be a yoga type because it seemed natural, but it never arose in those books. But it was a, was and is a big part of my life. So, you know, Being a writer, I've been looking for a way to monetize that in my books, so you know everything that passes from my life experience is likely to end up on the page, and for sale in your local bookshop. So I had yoga in the back of my mind for a long time as something that would be featured in a book, and then when I wrote the first paperback sleuth, it There was a bit where she's just remembering about when she went to the yoga center and got booted out of it. And I, I went back and forth about whether I should even leave that in there because it had nothing to do with the plot of the first book. It was just sort of like a bit of color or background on the character, a bit of backstory, but it had no relevance at all. And in the end, I left it in. Then when I came to the second book, I thought, ah, if I make this actually about Her yoga experience, then that's not a piece of self-indulgence and irrelevance. It's a beautiful little piece of setting up for the next novel so that, that worked out well.

Sara:

This book did also make me want to do yoga.

Andrew:

Oh, tha thank you. I, uh, somebody said that they found the yoga who, who had done yoga. She said that she felt the yoga was very well described, and I hope it is. I've only been doing it for about 20 years.

Lilly:

I've done yoga a few times. One of the things that Cordelia mentions in this book is how much more she prefers in person classes to just doing it at home alone, and that baffles me, but I'm a little bit of a homebody.

Andrew:

Well, I found that, for years and years and years, I did do yoga at our local ashram, which does not bear much resemblance to the, initially bore a close resemblance to the one in the books, but for reasons of wanting to invent my own little world and avoiding litigation, it's now completely different from the one I used to go to. But the one I used to go to, I used to think, oh, I can never do yoga at home because I need the, uh, the incentive of, you know, going to the class and having an instructor. Well, that rapidly changed when they put the prices up. So I started doing it at home. I've been doing it at home now for at least 10 years. And it's great because I don't have to commute to do the yoga. I just come downstairs and unroll the mat. And, uh, it's a really valuable part of my life. I'd recommend yoga. If there's anything wrong with you, Yoga will help. And if there's nothing wrong with you, yoga will just make things better. I seriously recommend it to everybody.

Lilly:

I do actually, in retrospect, Having been to classes with an actual trained instructor, I think, is probably better. But once you've been to a few, you can probably do it at home. I'm just thinking about yoga now.

Andrew:

You need to start out with getting some proper instruction and when you feel comfortable to just do it at home and you, you know, you've got the poses clear in your head and you're confident that you're doing them properly, there's no reason not to do it at home. Except, you know, unless you're a very social and gregarious person and enjoy going to the yoga center. And if they do great curries, which my yoga center did used to do, so that's, that's based on fact.

Sara:

I would go to a yoga center for a great curry.

Lilly:

Yeah. Oh, there is a moment at the end of this book, which, no spoilers, I'm just gonna say that this happens, we get a Cordelia explains it all moment. And it's a direct reference to Hercule Poirot. Which I know, because you named the chapter that. Thank you.

Andrew:

it's, yeah, it's called Poirot and Walkies because they're taking the dog for the walk while they, they do the Poirot thing of explaining the entire plot.

Lilly:

Well, I was wondering if there might have been any other crime trope or classic novel references that I missed, because they were not as, as well detailed as that to me.

Andrew:

Uh, I'm just running that through my head. I don't think so. It's not a, I have written novels that are heavily influenced by particular crime writers. For instance, I did, I think it was Low Action was the one that was heavily influenced by Agatha Christie. That was a vinyl detective novel. And there was a vinyl detective novel called Victory Disc, which was heavily influenced by Colonel Woolrich, a largely forgotten suspense writer, but a brilliant suspense writer. But this one, not especially, except for that, that wind up, which Poirot usually sits everybody down and talks them through what actually happened. And so I rang the changes on that by having them walk and walk the dog. Largely because it turned out to be a really long sequence of explanation. So by structuring it that way, I could describe the various, the places they were walking through, just to make it less of an info dump, right? But also, I then realized that if they walked to a certain place, they could actually tie up a little loose end of plot, which they then do, which I was very pleased with that. It made it seem all a little, a lot more, planned and, uh, and clever than it had been originally.

Sara:

Are there any crime novel tropes that you're particularly excited about including in a future novel that you haven't explored in either Vinyl Detective or the Paperback Sleuth series? I

Andrew:

I'm not sure about tropes is quite the right word, because what happens is I, I read a certain writer and I really love their stuff. So for instance, I've been reading a lot of John Dixon Carr, who also wrote, confusingly, under the pseudonym Carter Dixon. And the thing about his books, well, they often seem to be supernatural. Right. So they have a real atmosphere of kind of supernatural menace. Nine times out of ten, they turn out to be everything is explained away, but there was at least one where it was supernatural in which it blew everybody's minds. So his stuff has a genuine mood of the macabre, which originated with Edgar Allan Poe, who was one of his heroes. But, um, he's much more adroit than Poe. So he presents this kind of supernatural vibe, which I really kind of like. And also, utterly brilliant descriptions of just general atmosphere. Like in about seven words, you'll nail down like a foggy day or a rainy morning or a sunny afternoon. And you're, there's such beautiful, succinct poetic descriptions that you're instantly there. So that whenever I've got to describe what it's like outside, I think, you know, it's John Dixon Carr. And I've, I've got some John Dixon Carrs stacked up to read, so I wouldn't be at all surprised if I was to write under the influence of that. But that doesn't really affect the book's structure, except maybe if you're going to make it seem supernatural, have some supernatural MacGuffins, which may well be, Not sure yet, but I think that may well be the way the next final detective is going. But I've also been reading Ellery Queen. And Ellery Queen is a very, very famous American crime novelist. In fact, it's a pseudonym for two crime writers. I won't get their names wrong, but we can look them up before the end of the show. But so it was these two guys, they adopted the pseudonym of Ellery Queen, and they actually called the detective Ellery Queen. So it was as if he was writing about his own adventures. These books came highly recommended. And of course, they've sold millions and millions and millions of copies. In some ways, this was the American Agatha Christie. So I finally got around to reading some, and they're very mixed bag, because John Dixon Carr, his prose is just beautiful. He's a great, great, beautiful writer, but Ellery Queen isn't. Ellery Queen is a very clumsy writer and a very crude writer, and the characters, again in John Dixon Carr, the characters are often brilliant. beautifully evoked and like quite realistic and their interactions are fascinating. In Elderly Queen they're like caricatures, they're cardboard. But the plots in the Elderly Queen are so fantastic. the one I read I believe was called Cat of Nine Tails. And it was so, like, you think you've guessed it and then you absolutely haven't guessed it. The plot, they're amazingly carefully crafted plots. And, uh, so although I do, I look downs on the prose style and the characterization. There's no denying the absolute brilliance of the plots. So I do want to write an Hillary Queen style novel, but the trick with that is you've got to think of a really, you know, you have to dream up a really complicated and brilliant Plot. And, you know, you can't just sit down and think, oh, today I'm going to come up with a mind blowingly complex and satisfying plot. Somehow you have to be lucky enough to have that, to luck into that. I've just checked online. It's called Cat of Many Tales, not Cat of Nine. I knew I'd got it slightly wrong. That is a good one. It's still not up to John Dixon Carr standards, but it takes place in a very well evoked, sultry New York summer when, you know, the New York is just, swelteringly hot and the murders are taking place. And it's actually an early serial killer novels, one of the first. It was written back in the 40s, I believe. And it's a really good one to start with because it's, like I say, it'll just blow your mind. Like the whodunit is just so great. And the reason for why the murder, it's not just the whodunit, but the why dunit. is magnificent. So I'd like to do another Equine style one, but that means I'm going to have to come up with a really fantastic story, and that doesn't happen every day. So that's something I like to do. It's much easier to go down the John Dixon Carr route and just write beautifully and come up with good characters, which is something I hope I've been doing for a while anyway. Thank you. It's very, very kind of you.

Lilly:

Well, there is still quite a bit about the plot of this book that I am excited to discuss. But before we get to the spoilers section, Sarah, who should read this book?

Sara:

You should read this book if you like crime novels with morally gray main characters.

Andrew:

true.

Sara:

And also, if you've read Death in Fine Condition, like, definitely read this book.

Andrew:

Thank you. I, I like this book, I shouldn't say this because I wrote both books, I like this one a lot better. It was so much easier to write, like it just flowed really quickly and I think that's probably inevitable because in the first book I was creating the character and her world, so it was a bit of an uphill battle because I was setting everything up and now everything is set up, so this one just whooshed along in a very agreeable way when I was writing it.

Lilly:

The remainder of this episode contains spoilers.

Sara:

It was interesting for me, the comparison between the first book and this book, in the way that the tension was different.

Andrew:

Oh, do tell, tell more.

Sara:

The first book made me anxious. Like, don't get me wrong, I really enjoyed it, but I had a lot of anxiety reading it because Cordelia was causing a lot of the bad situations for herself.

Andrew:

True, very true,

Sara:

Like, basically, the whole plot of The first book is her fault.

Andrew:

Yes, that's, that's absolutely right, yeah.

Sara:

Like she, she causes it. And so that made me really anxious. Whereas this book, that's not the case. And so I could sit down and just kind of flow through it. And not to say that like either style of tension is better than the other, but I did find it an interesting comparison.

Andrew:

It hadn't occurred to me that that was the case, but that's a very important distinction. And also it makes this more like a classic crime novel. I think that those stories where the characters plunge themselves into a morass of danger, they're often noir stories, aren't they? Rather than police procedurals, or straightforward mysteries, or whodunnits. They're usually very dark, noir ish novels, which don't end well. But that one did, fortunately for our heroine.

Sara:

That one did, but I think because it does kind of have a different tradition that it's pulling from, I was not expecting it to end well. Or at least not quite as well.

Andrew:

I'm glad that they're different, and I think that this also might make Ashram Assassin an easier read, because it's more in the classic lineage.

Sara:

Yeah. And also, I feel like, again, because Cordelia is not the cause of

Lilly:

The danger.

Sara:

everything that goes wrong, yeah, the cause of the danger, she's a little bit more moderate in this book. Like she talks about her thievery and things like that, but she doesn't do quite as much of that in this book.

Andrew:

She's not as morally compromised character this

Sara:

Yeah,

Andrew:

which is good. It's good because she, uh, you know, she, she was quite towards the dark side in the first book. And it's nice that she's less so now.

Lilly:

We also get a very different version of her crush on Agatha in this book. She sort of works through it in the first book, and we see a little bit of that tailing off, but in a very different way.

Sara:

she's not as obsessive in this book.

Andrew:

that's good. And there's a good reason for that. And I think it's not something I could do twice. But one of the ways I found, when I was writing the first paperback sleuth book, it took me a while to sort of get into it and get into that world. And one of the ways I found my way into the character of Cordelia, was by giving her an almost Nabokovian obsession, a romantic obsession, sexual obsession. And so that was, I thought, well, I can write that character because I know what she's about, because I know she's got this, you know, fixation. And so suddenly I knew exactly what she was thinking and feeling. So that was the reason. But having now got the character up and running, I I no longer needed that, and also it would have been a bit repetitive to have her still locked into that, that obsession, but at the same time it needed to be at least alluded to to be realistic, I felt. And also it's just fun because it brings the violent detective characters back in.

Lilly:

Yes, it was so much fun seeing Nevada in this book. Although, is she named? She does get a name, right?

Sara:

She is named in this book,

Andrew:

I think she might even introduce herself because they sit down and have a little chat, don't they, which is not something that happened before.

Sara:

Yeah, they talk a little bit and I think Cordelia mentions that oh, you know She's Stinky's sister and she had a thing with Tinkler and so they do have a little chat

Andrew:

Yeah, which is very useful because now they sort of know fully about each other and we can do effortless crossovers between the two series.

Lilly:

Oh, but Cordelia wasn't awake when she was rescued by Agatha. Heartbreaking.

Andrew:

It's rather neatly done that Agatha's vanished, like, Agatha's gone to change her clothes after the rescue, which is perfect, but it's perfect for two reasons, because it means that Nevada and Cordelia can chat just between the two of them, but also it means that Lorde. Heartbreak of Cordelia continues, which it sort of has to, because the whole point of unrequited love is that it's unrequited. And

Lilly:

So there's a Excellent moment in this book, where Cordelia is trying to get home, she has to go to the bathroom, and so what does she do? Find a private piece of woods where she can go pee behind a tree. And we got this incredibly, like, unglamorous moment where that's when,

Andrew:

the bad guy attacks,

Lilly:

yeah, and just the most inopportune moment possible.

Andrew:

Well, I'm, I'm glad that it worked, but it was, it's a case of, you want that to happen when someone is at their most vulnerable.

Sara:

I really enjoyed it because I feel like that's not the kind of vulnerability that we get a lot in these kinds of scenes. Like, just, I don't know, something about actually having her be peeing in the woods and be attacked made it seem very grounded.

Andrew:

Yeah. It's not like a Brian De Palma attack in the shower scene. Are we in, into the spoiler section now

Sara:

We are in the spoiler section, yes.

Andrew:

Great. So, so it needs saying that, that we've got a woman peeing in the woods and she's attacked by another woman, which has a completely different vibe to if it had been a male attacker.

Lilly:

Absolutely, yeah.

Andrew:

Yeah, so that kind of works. And there's a sort of, something about the female and female violence just seemed to work in that context.

Lilly:

It was very funny. So at this point we have discovered that the killer is one of the heads of the yoga studio.

Andrew:

That's right. I shouldn't laugh, but I do, because it's, I'm just, it's just amused by the characters. I'm sorry.

Lilly:

I loved it. It was so absolutely hysterical to me that the two, like, leaders of the yoga studio were so lame. Like, in the stick in the mud sense of lame. And then when we discover that Alfie was actually the founder of the whole thing, and he was very chill.

Andrew:

that's right. It's like his disciples are the antithesis of the man who founded the ashram. It's true.

Lilly:

It was just so deeply funny. I loved it.

Sara:

It felt like they took it too seriously. Like, he knew that he was basically just making everything up. And they were like, we are true believers. Everything is serious.

Andrew:

is exactly, I think, the trajectory of all religions, isn't it? It's something like that. Yeah. So yeah, and I did enjoy creating those characters. I'm not sure I could even tell you what their proper names are at this stage. I just gave them both quite memorable nicknames, which is very handy I think for readers because sometimes it's hard to keep track of names, but if you give people memorable nicknames, vivid nicknames, they stick.

Sara:

Yeah, the, the nicknames helped.

Andrew:

And also it's true to ashram life that in, at least in the yoga ashrams I've been to, people get given Sanskrit names, which are, you know, are usually fascinating evocative names, but you'd never know what their, you know, their real name was Fred Johnson in actuality.

Lilly:

That's fascinating. I wonder if it's just a quirk of the yoga studios I've been to. But they've been much more, um, just like, exercise focused. There has not been much of the, the trimmings of, of the spirituality around it.

Andrew:

There's all kinds of yoga studios out there. The one, the only one that I really knew came with a whole package of sort of, sort of, uh, part of the Eastern ritual to it.

Lilly:

Very cool. There's a character that we get introduced to in the first book. Edwin. Cordelia's landlord. And, at this point, I would say good friend.

Andrew:

He's such a useful character.

Lilly:

He gets so much more page time in this book. It was delightful.

Andrew:

does he? I guess he does. I hadn't really realized that. The thing about in the first book, you're sort of holding back the big reveal about Edwin, so you don't want too much of him. But once the big reveal has been revealed, you can have him as much as you like, really.

Lilly:

It was great seeing more of him. And it was so interesting how, I mean, having read book one, we knew his secret. Cordelia knows his secret. But this book kind of plays that close to the chest, I would say, through at least the first half.

Andrew:

I think you need to because you don't know what order people are going to be reading the books in, and you don't want to spoil things too much because there's no guarantee people will have read book one before they read this. So it's kind of a fine balancing act between giving away too much and not giving away enough.

Lilly:

Well, he was a very good friend, I have to say. I don't know what Cordelia would have done without him.

Andrew:

It's nice because he, he has her back.

Sara:

I don't think Cordelia would be around if, if it weren't for him.

Andrew:

No, he's saved her life, hasn't he? Very much so.

Sara:

A couple of times.

Andrew:

I love him and his dog because although he is, you know, he's killed many a person, he's basically quite a boring guy, which I think is sort of his character note. He's just a bit boring.

Sara:

Well, and that juxtaposition between how he presents, you know, as boring and he listens to opera and he does the crossword or whatever.

Andrew:

It's true, he does all those things, doesn't he? It's very, very true.

Sara:

And he repairs bikes and all these very normal kinds of things. And he wears, what is it like tweed or things like that. And then actually he's a serial killer and kills a lot of people who are not great. Yeah. I think it's just a great mental contrast

Andrew:

I was going to say he's never killed anybody who didn't deserve it, but then I realized that he's never killed anybody who didn't deserve it according to, to his set of rules.

Sara:

according. Yeah.

Andrew:

yeah, so that's not necessarily the same thing, is it? But I don't want people to get the impression, if anybody's listening to these spoilers, well they shouldn't be. I don't want them to get the impression that he's the kind of hideous animal like to serial killer. He's very much set up as being not that kind of serial killer. He's a serial killer who only kills when either it's, absolutely kind of necessary, or it's in his own mind to make the world a better place by ridding it of some terribly evil person.

Sara:

I mean, like, as a person in the real world, I probably wouldn't be a fan because you shouldn't kill people, even if they're, you know, terribly rude. But as a character in a novel, I think he's just excellent.

Lilly:

Yes.

Andrew:

It's great because he's such a boring kind of chap, but then he has all this kind of weapons expertise and stuff, and he's got such a talent for mayhem, which is nice.

Lilly:

You set up several different theories throughout this book as Cordelia is trying to solve A, who stole the books, and then B, who has been killing people afterwards.

Andrew:

right.

Lilly:

And I was wondering if you had a favorite red herring.

Andrew:

Oh, I do love, love Red Herrings. I'm trying to think what, what false tracks I might've laid out. I'm trying to think who I wanted people to guess who it was. I think probably Alfie because he's such a likable character. He's almost begging to be the bad guy, isn't he? So that, that would certainly have been one. And, um, Carrie. Carrie Cooks Curry. That was my mnemonic for her. So I think Carrie was probably another one I wanted people to think might have been her.

Lilly:

Carrie Quinn, the curry queen.

Andrew:

Thank you. There you go. It's useful having these, these, otherwise, after you've written a bunch of books, it's sometimes hard to remember the secondary characters names.

Sara:

Carrie was definitely the person that I suspected. For the longest time. And I mean, it turns out that she does have a little bit to do with it.

Andrew:

bad guy adjacent, rather than actually a bad guy,

Sara:

Yeah. She's not the one who's doing the killing, but she is part of kind of that initial plot.

Andrew:

But hopefully you guys didn't guess who it was.

Lilly:

I did not,

Sara:

Nope. Nope.

Lilly:

I was kind of thinking it would be, was her name Jodi or Joni? Joni, the front desk woman who's like been snubbed by the studio.

Andrew:

she was a classic right up to the point where she ends up in hospital and then we know it's not her.

Lilly:

I almost wanted it to be her because I felt like she was the most justified for being mad at the studio. I was like, you get em girl.

Andrew:

She's very fatally treated, the poor thing. Yeah, she was originally called Jenny in an early draft, and I changed it to Joni because J O N I, like Joni Mitchell, it's just more memorable on the page.

Sara:

Is that why we get the scene where Cordelia is trying to remember her name and she says Jenny

Andrew:

exactly right.

Sara:

of numbers? Yeah.

Andrew:

draft it was Jenny. And I actually have a friend called Jenny and I didn't, I don't want her to think I'm talking about her, so I changed it.

Lilly:

Well I think those were all of the questions we had. Was there anything that you hoped readers would take away from this book other than yoga and curry?

Andrew:

hope that people find it as easy to read as I found it to write because it just whooshed, it just zoomed along. And I, I really enjoyed it compared to the first one, which is a case of like putting an intricate mosaic together. This one just flowed and I hope that that conveys itself to the reader. And that they enjoy it. And I really urge people to jump in this series on the second book. Don't feel you have to read the first book. And I said this about the final detective too, just jump in later in the series. And I really hope that they get a kick out of it.

Sara:

And I do feel like actually you could start with this book because you explain pretty much everything that you need to know about the characters. So even if you don't know them, like you're not feeling lost by who they are and what's happening and what they've done previously. Yeah, definitely.

Andrew:

Thank you for that. And, and while you were saying that, I just remembered something I really liked about this book, which I like to mention is that the so called widow of the guy who runs the

Lilly:

Yes! Oh I loved that.

Sara:

Yes, that was amazing.

Andrew:

I liked her as a character and I loved, like, although we have the twist about who did the killing and all that, we had this really subsidiary subplot twist where it turns out that her husband isn't dead at all. And I just, I just really, I really enjoyed her vengeance because she's got rid of his book collection. She's got rid of his wine cellar and she's just such a cool character. I just, I know that wasn't a big thing about the book in terms of plot, but I was just really enjoyed that little, that little strand of it.

Sara:

That was an excellent reveal. And you know, honestly, good for

Andrew:

Yeah, that's what I think, too.

Lilly:

As we wrap up here, is there anything that you can tell us or our listeners about current projects? Things we have to look forward to?

Andrew:

So at the top of the show I mentioned my play, and if you are listening in London and it's not yet the end of July in 2024, please come to my play. It's on in South, South, what is it, Southwest? It's in West London, in Chiswick, at the Tabard Theatre. So that's one project. Depending on how things play out, there might be another play this year. I'm hoping that there'll be another play in the autumn. But the most immediate thing is the next Final Detective novel, which is called Underscore, all one word. Underscore. And I've started writing that, and I've begun to find my way into it, and it's quite exciting, now I've got the cover. As soon as that's finished, I write the next paperback sleuth, which is called Like a Bullet, which is a very kind of crime novel, thriller y title, but it's actually taken from a poem by Herman Melville called Shiloh. So I liked that. It's quite an apt quote for the book, but it's just a great title for a thriller, Like a Bullet.

Sara:

Absolutely. Sounds like we have a lot to look forward to from you.

Andrew:

Sounds like I better get to work.

Sara:

That too. In the meantime, where can you be found on the internet for our listeners who want to keep track of updates from you, you know, buy your books, find your plays?

Andrew:

So I am on Instagram. Andrew Cartman was already gone on Instagram. It turned out Vinyl Detective was already gone on Instagram. So I think I'm called Vinyl Detective London. I might even be Vinyl Detective London 2. But if you look, you can find me on Instagram. And as with Facebook and Twitter, I refuse to call anything else. I'm just Andrew Cartman. I'll make sure it's 1L. But on all three of those, Socials. It's the same picture of me with a cat by my shoulder, and that's how you know you've got the right person. And if you want to jump in on any of those, you will hear about my latest shenanigans. I do have a book blog, a reading blog, which is sort of fell by the wayside during the pandemic, but I'm about to re introduce that. So by the time this comes out, who knows, it might even be back up and running. And that was called Narrative Drive. It's

Lilly:

Fantastic. Well, thank you again so much for joining us. This has been a fantastic conversation, and I cannot wait for Underscore.

Andrew:

Thank you so much, guys.

Sara:

Thank you so much for listening to this episode of Fiction Fans.

Lilly:

Come disagree with us. We're on Twitter, Blue Sky, Instagram, and TikTok at FictionFansPod. You can also email us at FictionFansPod at gmail. com.

Sara:

If you enjoyed this episode, please rate and review on Spotify and Apple Podcasts, and follow us wherever your podcasts live.

Lilly:

We also have a Patreon, where you can support us and find exclusive episodes and a lot of other nonsense.

Sara:

Thanks again for listening, and may your villains always be defeated.

Lilly:

Bye!