An interview with Richard Godwin.

NOTE: Richard Godwin is a good friend and an amazing writer. I basically asked him to do this interview so I could throw him off his insanely prolific path for a second. I don't think it worked. Godwin is a must read for lovers of the horrific served with a side of literary genius.

*****

Fiction is a malleable, play-state of the mind. If we can accept this notion as writers, are we prepared to accept the inevitable capacity for self-devastation this invites? Or is the premise false? How easily do you excuse what your writing demands?

I refuse to accept any premises when it comes to fiction. Novels are so many things, they are genre and hybrid, they are narrative and innovation. If you look at the huge range of novels in literary history, and how similar or dissimilar they are, it shows you quite clearly that literature exists beyond the kind of deductive reasoning so often wrongly applied to writing. How similar or dissimilar are Tristram Shandy and The Godfather? They are both telling a story but in such different ways they throw any attempt at the kind of definition that industries need out of the window. And that may be the problem for publishing. It has made quantitative decisions and assessments of something qualitative. Writing and reading are subjective. Publishing attempts to create a body of profit from a model of understanding that is based on profit while attempting to ensure quality, but it derives its definitions of quality from often internally appointed arbiters of taste in the form of reviewers who habitually fail to understand the books they are reviewing. This is clearly illustrated by the countless examples of classics now established as such by history that were slated by reviewers when they came out. This approach by the industry is ultimately an insult to the public.

I think the second part of your question only applies to someone who has a tenuous grip on their identity and reality. If someone is going to self-destruct they are going to do it anyway regardless of whether they are a writer or a plumber.

I do not accept that you have to write what you know. That is one school of thought but as with many schools of thought its adherents limit understanding. I make things up. I write narratives. Doing so may be an attempt to create order or it may equally be a matter of subverting existing structures. We play with paradigms and with the way we look at the world. There is also the problem of PC patrolling the fringes of writing. It has no place there and never did.

Literature can never serve a political agenda. If you look at the kind of art created by the Third Reich or Stalinist Russia, it was not art; it was merely a manifesto. Writers have always been subversive. No excuses need to be made for it.

I agree with you completely regarding the issue of subjectivity. I also agree that 'write what you know' is the worst advice you could ever give a fiction writer. I've never understood it, but perhaps I am taking it too literally. Obviously, fiction writers don't write what they know all the time. Science fiction would not exist, nor would any of our novels (as I assume you've never killed anyone). I am anti-censorship as well. Can you make a case for selective censorship or do you believe in complete creative freedom? And why? What effect does it have on us as writers and people?

The first thing to say about censorship is that censorship of writing is different to other media. So my answer applies purely to writing. The short answer to your question is no. While there are a few themes I would not touch as a writer nor wish to read about, they are few. I believe if you look at the history of censorship where literature is concerned then we have the ridiculous ban on Lady Chatterley's Lover as an example of how dumb the establishment is when it comes to the arts. Add to that the furor over The Last Exit To Brooklyn, it is salutary to note that the case marked a turning point in British censorship laws.

The things that can be learned from it are that people who do not read have a parochial moral agenda they wish to inflict on others. Hollywood is a good example of censorship. Show as much violence as you want but be careful of sex. That is an interesting concept if you bring social engineering into it. The mentality is let’s make killers and stop everyone fucking because sex is dangerous.

Frank Zappa famously said the campaign that led to the absurd warnings that appeared on CDs in the 80s "was generated by a group of bored Washington housewives." "Who are these select few who have decided what we will or will not listen to?" he said.

And that is a good point. Who judges?  Writers need to be free to explore. If people don't want to read it, then don’t buy it. Then there are the prurient moral crusaders who go looking for things to complain about. They need to be incarcerated with a group of censors.

The notion of the 'harm' that results from exposure to sexual themes v. violent ones has always baffled me. I mean, you can't show sex on TV, but some of the violence and gore is so extreme (I don't watch it. I have a weak stomach for images, not so much for words). How do you think this bizarre stance plays out in society? And what would be the effect if we embraced sexuality and demonized violence?

I think sex is business and I don't mean porn. Religion uses sex all the time for business. The Pope advises AIDS bearing nations not to use contraception and takes a stand on morality. Just think how warped that is.

Wilhelm Reich may have gone a bit barmy but he did stand up to fascism and devised a good working theory based on orgasms. What is wrong with pleasure? Nothing, unless you have a pain principle built into it. And that is at the root for the sex haters - their pain principle is embedded in their sexual drives. If an entire industry encourages violence it is arguable it is in the sweating hands of the war mongers. 

Generalizations are dangerous, but let's make some. Are writer's narcissists?  Do you feel that there is an element of narcissism in all creative ventures?

I will resist the generalization. There is an inherent danger of narcissism in writing but not necessarily more so than in many fields. Narcissism is a prevalent modern condition. Interestingly, in the middle ages, authors did not put their names next to their works. The Pearl poet is anonymous, we do not know who wrote Njal’s Saga. The concept of writing was different then. And I think that shows that consciousness has changed. It does not apply simply to writing. I think it depends on the writer. Is there narcissism in writers? Yes, but not more so than in an actor or a politician or many other areas.

How would you feel about publishing anonymously? Is recognition an important piece? I find that many writers claim it isn't, but not too many publish anonymously.

I am not sure my publisher would like that. Recognition is important to people in many ways but I do not think it is the same thing as narcissism.

Certainly, your publisher would not like it. How, then, do you feel that the desire for recognition differs from narcissism?

Recognition is the identification of something previously known or understood. Narcissism is an extreme and pathological form of vanity based on an addictive need for constant self-gratification to the point where people become your mirror.

I have painted an extensive portrait of narcissism in my novel Mr. Glamour. The beautiful wealthy people in it only see themselves in each other. They are incapable of appreciating that anyone else exists. But the killer changes that.

How do you think your writing would be different if you had been born and raised in the US? Or would it?

I don't think it would make any difference at all.

See: Piquant: Tales Of The Mustard Man.

You are extremely prolific. I know this is the most boring question to be asked in an interview, but I have to know...what is your writing schedule like?

I write every day.

Your characters are real and flawed. Your stories bleed. There is a delicacy to your prose that makes the darkness...deeper. How important is this juxtaposition in conveying your stories?

Juxtaposition is everywhere. Stylistically I think it conveys the ambiguity of the situations I am writing about, and it engages the reader.

The literary world is changing. E-books and self publishing are big game changers. It seems that people are reading more than they used to...perhaps that is wishful thinking. How do you envision the future of literature and publishing?

I think in many ways people are reading less because they want shorter forms. I think the big publishers are struggling to contain the situation largely created by Amazon. They have been dragged before the US Supreme Court for price fixing and rightly so. I think it is going to become extremely interesting.

Apostle Rising provides an interesting commentary on religion and its hypocrisies. What role will religion play on a global level in the centuries to come? Will we (the collective we) shed the trappings of our mythologies or become more didactic in defending them?

Religion will need to use alternative mythologies to stay abreast of the technological revolution.

Identity is being subverted.

Art is the only thing that can reverse that.

I refer you to The Mustard Man.

Thank you, Richard, for the opportunity to pick your brain. If you are not yet a fan of Godwin’s work, I highly recommend you rectify that unfortunate happenstance.

Richard Godwin is the author of crime novels Mr. Glamour and Apostle Rising and is a widely published crime and horror writer. Mr. Glamour is his second novel and was published in paperback in April 2012 by Black Jackal Books. It is available online at Amazon and at all good retailers. Mr.Glamour is Hannibal Lecter in Gucci. The novel is about a glamorous world obsessed with designer labels with a predator in its midst and has received great reviews.  Apostle Rising, in which a serial killer crucifies politicians, is available everywhere books are sold. It is also available for the first time as an E-Book with some juicy extras, an excerpt from Mr. Glamour and four deliciously dark Noir stories, like the finest handmade chocolate.

He is an active member of the CWA and HWA.

'The Plumber' by Richard Godwin

A fantastic writer - one who I am proud to call friend - Brits up the blog for us today. (Cheers, mate.) Enjoy this story, and check Godwin out...trust me.

He sat at the back of the cafe, egg dripping from his stained spoon, greased mobile clenched in his hand.

‘Na, fuck off, I ain’t doin that.’

He laid his mobile down and bit hard into the two slices of toast wedged together with plastic egg, yolk squirting out of the sides and landing on the front cover of the Sun which read:

‘This country’s gone loony’.

He was six foot and overweight, and he ignored the trainee who was looking bored and staring out of the window at two teenage girls who were laughing at something.

The plumber looked at his trainee and followed the line of his eyes.

‘Fuckin slags,’ he said.

‘Why d’you ave to say that Arry? They ain’t’.

‘Look at them. Arses hanging out, beer bellies, dear oh dear, whatever appened to decency, they look like a couple of scrubbers.’

‘They’s just young women, Arry.’

‘Na. you wanna get yourself a nice girl, Mick.’

Mick stirred his cold tea with disinterest and yawned while Harry flicked open The Sun.

‘Now look at that,’ he said.

‘What’s the difference?’

‘The difference?’

‘Between them girls there and them out there?’

‘They’re fuckin models you prat. Class paper this’, Harry said, leafing through its pages. ‘Ere, these geezers go out for a Ruby right, get slaughtered and one of em moons the waiter. Is mate bites his arse and gets his false teeth stuck up is crack. Fucking classic.’

Soon, they left, and headed to the first job.

Mick was pale skinned and in the sunshine looked like a blank sheet ready to be imprinted by Harry. He wore a look of permanent dissatisfaction and looked too clean for the van which was strewn with litter. Here and there were signs that he was trying to blend in with Harry. His trousers were overly dirty and he had a large rip in his T shirt that looked manufactured. He was unshaven and the resulting effect of this was a small wispy beard.

Harry didn’t stop talking all the way to the job and Mick stared from time to time at Harry’s hands, which were covered in tattoos.

‘So what we doing Arry?’ he said.

‘Blocked drain in Wandsworth.’

‘It’s always blocked drains or toilets.’ 

‘No it ain’t, two fucking minutes on the job and he thinks he knows it all. Mick I’ve seen things I could put in a novel doing this game, it’d be a bestseller I can tell ya.’

‘Like what?’

‘I know all sorts, all fucking sorts.’

‘Yeah?’

‘I tell ya, one night I ad to fix some loos in a nightclub in London. The ladies toilets were overflowing with piss and water, like a fucking swimming pool they were.’

‘An why was that?’

‘OK. I goes in there and wade through it all in me wellies.’

‘Right.’

‘I can tell right away it’s this one loo, bunged up it was, something terrible.’

‘So what d’you do?’

‘I fuckin fixed it you burke.’

‘Na, I mean-.’

‘I know what you mean Mick. I get me old plunger out but nothing’s appening, know what I’m saying?’

‘Yeah.’

‘So I rod down, deep down in there and in this job me old son you gotta get your ands dirty, that’s what I always say to the fucking smartarses who mouth off about ow much plumbers charge. Ow much fu-cking plumbers charge! You stick your arms in someone else’s shit every day and you’d fucking charge, you cunt.’

‘So what appened?’

‘I tell you my old lady as two washing machines, cause we’re posh. If I stuck me workclothes in the one she washes the kids’ clothes in they’d be covered in shit, know what I’m saying?’

‘What d’you find in the toilet?’

‘I stick me arm in and fish out a pair of knickers.’

‘Knickers?’

‘Yeah, some old tart had crapped erself an flushed them down the loo.’

‘Ah that’s fuckin disgusting.’

‘All part of the job me old man. Get out of the way you cunt.’

Harry leant out of the window and spat a large gob of phlegm that looked like a piece of potato. It arced and landed on the offending driver’s windscreen.

‘Yeah well I don’t plan on doing this for long,’ Mick said.

‘Oh yeah, what you got planned, running for parliament?’

‘No need for that.’

‘I tell you me old son, I seen some things. You learn a lot about human nature on this job and you get an insight into crime.’

‘Crime?’

‘You know how many wallets I’ve fished out of loos?’

‘Na.’

‘Undreds, fucking undreds mate. Pickpockets steal em, knick the contents an flush em.’

‘Fuckin stupid if you ask me.’

‘Well I ain’t askin you, I’m telling ya. This is like sociology this job, you see what people are made of, what they’re about and it ain’t just the low lifes, it’s the posh ones too.’

‘You charge em more?’

‘Course I fuckin charge em more, the cunts. They look down their noses at people like us and we go into their ouses and fix their shit for em. Tell you what Mick, I was called to this job once in Amstead, big fuckin gaff, massive and the loos were all flooded and I took one look at the slag who opened the door and I knew.’

‘Knew what?’

‘It was er.’

‘What was er?’

‘I’ll tell ya. She ad guilt written all over er face. You see, I know ow loos work and what goes where and I know when someone’s lyin, I’ve heard all the lies under the sun and it’s made me a bit of a psychologist see.’

‘So what appened on this job?’

‘What appened was all the loos were bunged up with condoms, undreds of the fuckers.’

‘So?’

‘The lady she’s wafting around in a negligee, showing a bit ere and there if you know what I mean.’

‘Yeah?’

‘Good looker she was, but a slag. Anyway, when I tell er about the condoms, she starts adjusting er belt and flashes er gash at me, just a little glimpse and then she looks me right in the eye and says, don’t tell my husband.’

‘She was screwing someone else.’

‘Course she fucking was. Er old man’s doddering about in the next room writing a cheque and e’s a bout a undred and she’s not bad as I said.’

‘Did she?’

‘Did she what?’

‘You know.’

‘Fuck off. I’m a appily married man.’

‘So what did you do?’

‘I fu-cking overcharged em so much it paid for me missus’s Range Rover.’

‘Look at that.’

Mick was staring at some scantily dressed women who were walking across the road.

Harry took one look at them and said, ‘You’d catch something nasty off them.’

‘Ow d’you know?’

‘I fuckin know me old son.’

‘I think they’re tasty.’

‘You wouldn’t know tasty if it sucked your knob.’

‘Why’s it always loos?’

‘It ain’t, there’s sinks and boilers , cockstops and drains, external soil pipes with shit running down em and all sorts of pipe work. Son, you’re in the right game. Fuck off you wanker!’

This last comment was aimed at a man who was loitering in front of Harry’s van.

He put two fingers up at Harry who hurled his half-drunk can of Red Bull at him, spraying him with its contents.

‘That’s a waste,’ Mick said.

‘I ate fuckin cunts like that. Where was I? You see, this is an old trade and what you want, Mick, is a trade. We’s got words that go back to Chaucer.’

‘Oo?’

‘Chaucer, ain’t you never eard of im?’

‘No.’

‘E wrote plays. There’s something we call a bastard in this game and it was used in is day, fourteenth century.’

‘Oh yeah?’

‘The cunts in Europe want us to change our terms cause they ain’t fuckin politically correct. They say they demean women.’

‘Why do they say that?’

‘Cause they want to get rid of our Englishness.’ He tapped the George flag that was stuck to the roof of his van. ‘Still flyin.’

‘Ever seen something really gruesome?’

‘Oh yeah. I could be a copper I could with what I’ve seen, and they need fellas like me.’

‘Ow come?’

‘Cause I can tell if a crime’s been committed.’

‘What crimes you seen?’

‘Mainly theft. But I tell you it’s only a matter of time.’

He pulled over and parked outside a large white house.

‘This it?’ Mick said.

Harry nodded.

‘I seen tampons, sanitary towels, rags, and clothes stuck where they shouldn’t be, but one time I ad me and down a drain and I felt all this hair.’

‘Hair?’

‘Hair me old son.’

‘What was it?’

‘I tell ya Mick I thought it was a fuckin ead.  I was pullin on it wondering what state of decay it would be in.’

‘Was it an ead Arry?’

‘The ouse belonged to some pop star, e ad this long air see?’

‘Yeah.’

‘E’d been washing is air and it ad all gone down the plug ole and accumulated into this big thick ball, I fished it out and it was huge.’

Mick was laughing when they got out of the van.

A pile of puke was hardening in the morning sun and two empty beer bottles were propped against the gate to the house.

‘This shouldn’t take long,’ Harry said.

He rang and they were admitted by a maid in a starched white uniform.

            ‘Typical, she never even offered us a cup of tea,’ Harry said as he assembled his rods.

            ‘Ere give us a hand.’

He prodded for an hour or so and the water level didn’t drop.

The owner came out, a man in a pinstripe suit looking sweaty. He offered them tea and the maid brought it to them on a tray.

‘That’s better,’ Harry said.

Mick looked down at the drain.

‘What now?’

‘We get in.’

He donned his Wellingtons and water proofs and stood waist high in the water. He reached a hand down into it.

‘There’s something in the way there. I can feel it.’

He fetched the jet hose from the van and started up the pump and after an hour the water had dropped.

Harry stood in it again while Mick watched.

‘I tell you, this job shows you a lot Mick,’ he said. ‘You see what people really get up to.’

Harry reached his hand down into the water and started to pull on something. 

‘There are a lot of crazy fuckers in London and a lot of crime. This is a tough fucker I tell you, ere it goes, it’s coming, fuck me!’

Harry stood with a head in his hand.

The flesh of the neck had sealed off and was a whitish blue and the discoloration of the face was so grotesque Mick started to retch.

Harry stood there staring at it.

‘Call the fucking police.’

He placed it on the ground and clambered out of the water.

The head lay like a rotten wound in the sun.

Soon the stench of it overpowered the smell of excrement and stagnant water.

Mick stood at the edge of the garden looking away.

‘I told you this job was full of surprises,’ Harry said.

The police took a while arriving and when the owner saw what had been blocking up his drain he vomited on the flagstones in the yard.

He sprayed remnants of food and bile everywhere and the sharp smell rose into the air and foundered on the rank aroma of decay.

When the police arrived Harry said, ‘Let me do the talking’.

******

Richard Godwin is the author of crime novels Mr. Glamour and Apostle Rising and is a widely published crime and horror writer. Mr. Glamour is his second novel and was published in paperback in April 2012 by Black Jackal Books. It is available online at Amazon  and at all good retailers. Mr.Glamour is Hannibal Lecter in Gucci. The novel is about a glamorous world obsessed with designer labels with a predator in its midst and has received great reviews.  Apostle Rising, in which a serial killer crucifies politicians, is available everywhere books are sold. It is also available for the first time as an E-Book with some juicy extras, an excerpt from Mr. Glamour and four deliciously dark Noir stories, like the finest handmade chocolate.

Here in the US
Here in the UK

He is an active member of the CWA and HWA.

It's all in the Paperwork by Richard Godwin

          His charm wasn’t contagious. No vaccines were made against it. He didn’t even know what a Rorschach test was. Dolphins hated him and dreamed of eating him. He tried growing a beard but he looked like a twat. He’d been known to make people throw up just by walking into a room.

          Josh Adams started out as a campus rapist. He tied two students to their beds and fucked them with a Dos Equis bottle. He stood in front of the mirror for hours imitating the Dos Equis ads, saying over and over ‘I am the most interesting man in the world’. He played the all-round good guy in front of his friends and flunked his geography course. Until he found his true career path, he’d only ever been interested in geography because he wanted to travel. He’d never left the States, in fact he’d never travelled out of Kansas. When he became a cop he didn’t even own a passport. 

          He made a lot of arrests and got on the good side of his corrupt, racist boss who ignored his misdemeanors and sloppy paperwork. He liked to strip search his female arrests.

          One day he was called to the scene of a bank robbery. Two masked men had beaten up the manager. Josh had no interest in catching them and instead looked for records of any recent releases from jail.

          He arrested Blake Thomson, one time thief and petty criminal who had gotten out of jail a few days before. Blake was shopping out of state when the robbery occurred.

          ‘It’s all in the paperwork’, Josh said.

          Blake gave him the receipts to prove it. Josh buried them and Blake went back to jail.

          Josh’s boss retired and he took over. His obsession with Dos Equis returned and he bought a fake beard and kept a supply of the beer at the back of the station. One night he arrested a tall blonde called Cindy. She’d thrown a glass at the barman in a nightclub. Josh walked into the cell wearing his beard and stuck his hand up her skirt.

          ‘I am the most interesting man in the world’, he said, and stopped suddenly.

           He felt a dick.

          ‘What the fuck?’, he said.

          ‘I’m a boy’, Cindy said and started laughing.

          Josh broke Cindy’s jaw then smashed himself in the face with the butt of his gun.

          Cindy was sent to jail for assaulting a police officer. He ran into Blake there.

          ‘That fucking pig’s scared of trannies’, he said. ‘He thinks he’s that guy on the Dos Equis ads, dresses up like him.’

          ‘It’s good to meet you Cindy’, Blake said.

          When Blake was released Josh was nearing retirement. He’d bought a stable where he kept a horse. He’d ride out on it wearing his beard, thinking of all the amazing things he’d done with his life. It was a beautiful summer morning when Blake caught up with Josh.

          Blake stepped out of his pick up in a long black dress with a police badge on it, army boots, a Colt 45 and a fake beard.

          He found Josh sweeping the floor of the stables.

          ‘Who the fuck are you?’, Josh said, staring at the large man in the dress.

          ‘I’m the most interesting man in the world’, Blake said, ‘and I’m here to serve you papers.’

          ‘Get the fuck out of here.’

          ‘I think you ought to read this’, Blake said and handed him a piece of paper.

          It read ‘Acquisition Notice: you are now my property, I own the police.’

          ‘It’s all in the paperwork’, Blake said.

          He pistol whipped Josh, opening up a deep gash in his forehead. He removed his police badge and stuck it in the wound.

          ‘You’re mine, now vend motherfucker’, he said, kicking the tip of the badge so it jammed deep into his skull.

          ‘You might be a useless fucking cop who doesn’t do his paperwork, but I’m going to give you an interesting death.’

          He turned him over and stuck his Colt up his ass and blew a hole through him.

          ‘I’m going to have a bottle of Dos Equis’, Blake said, and headed out into the sunlight.

Richard Godwin is a good friend and great writer.  He was kind enough to loan me this piece.

Author Bio: Richard Godwin is a widely published crime and horror writer, whose work has appeared in many magazines and anthologies, including recently Pulp Ink. Apostle Rising, in which a serial killer is crucifying politicians and recreating the murder scenes of an unsolved case, was his first published novel. It received excellent reviews and is under offer for two foreign rights acquisitions. He has recently Published Mr. Glamour, and is working on the sequel to Apostle Rising. You can find out more about the author at his website: http://www.richardgodwin.net/.  His Chin Wags At The Slaughterhouse are popular interviews he conducts with other writers:http://www.richardgodwin.net/blog.

Napping Blogger Award

The mighty RUSH!!!!!!! has seen fit to give me more work to do, and I thank him for it.  See, here’s the thing.  Rush is awesome, and he is a good friend and a good writer.  And I actually took a nap yesterday, which I rarely do.  It is an honor to be included in this group of prolific writers.

I write a lot for a lot of different people in a lot of different places.  It’s a bit like being schizophrenic. 

So, I’ma link back to my boy at http://kdrush.net/.  And I’m going to tell you what I do to relax.  And then nominate five other bloggers.  Them’s the rules.

What I do to relax:

I like to chew glass and get in fights with pitbulls and meth addicts.  I quite enjoy riding my motorcycle.  I like to hang out with my family.  I like to huff …anything really.  I like to write and I used to like reading when I had time to do it.  I like to play music.  But I never actually relax…ready at all times.

Who do I nominate to the mighty 5 (five bloggers and writers)?

Richard Godwin

David Antrobus

J.L. Murray

Rosanne Dingli

Yvonne Hertzberger

These writers can write and DO write.  Thanks Rush.  

'Apostle Rising' by Richard Godwin

A little change of pace, here's a review of a book you should definitely, definitely purchase immediately.

            Apostle Rising, by Richard Godwin is an extremely good read.  It is also extremely hard to categorize.  It defies categorization.  This is one of its  many strengths.  It is a detective novel.  It is a mystery.  It skirts the edges of gothic horror.  Some of it is written (brilliantly) in verse.  It is dark.  It has depth.  It gives a nod to Noir.  It is so well-wrought and complex that it is almost like two novels in one. 

Did I mention that it is dark?  So dark that parts of it are hard to stomach, but it is well worth the trip into hell.  The prose is beautifully written.  Godwin certainly knows what he is doing.  The story is tight, with enough twists and angst to satisfy the most critical ‘crime novel’ fan.   It is a book that will stick with you.  The beauty of the words resonate long after you have read the last page.  And the darkness will tug at you, reminding you that the world is full of lots of different kinds of people.  And some of them are intensely frightening.

            Our protagonist is Detective Chief Inspector Frank Castle.  He is of the old school…the kind of cliché we love so much he’s not a cliché, but an archetype.  He drinks too much (whiskey of course).  He is incapable of feeling joy.  He is, in fact, haunted by a string of murders that almost drove him insane (the ‘almost’ is questionable).  The Woodlands Killer nearly drove him mad, but he hung on, only to find himself up to his eyeballs, years later, in copycat killings that are so much like the old cases that it would make any hardboiled detective dive into the bottle. 

Castle is aided by his partner DI Jacki Stone, a tough woman who is faced with the toughest case of her career.  Meanwhile her marriage is falling apart due to the stresses of her work and her inability to leave it at the office. 

And then there is Karl Black, a sociopathic, religiously obsessed manipulator who played a large role in driving Castle insane with the original investigation and gets Stone in on the act with the new one.  He is a fantastic character.  He is evil, yet his charm (and his ability to get under the skin of Castle and Stone) make him a pleasure to visit.

            There are more characters of course, and they are well rendered and interesting, but I don’t want to give too much away.  So, we have our cast of characters.  And we have death.  Dead hookers and dead politicians, brutally murdered by…who?  Some of the murders match the MO of the Woodlands killings.  Some don’t.  Some are clearly biblical taunts.  Some are attacks at the establishment and political corruption.  All are vivid and terrifying.  London is literally covered in corpses.  (A personal note here: I am often accused of writing ‘Dark’ fiction…Godwin’s murder scenes are enough to make the darkest thing I have ever written piss itself and run in fear.  This is not a critique.  It is worth noting, though.  The murder scenes are so vivid and real that you might not want to read them if you are alone in the house.)

            The genius of this book is that Godwin plays with so many forms (and with such a light touch), that it defies cliché in what can easily become a clichéd form.  Crime novels can enter the realm of cliché very easily.  This one never does.  Godwin is undeniably well informed about religion, compulsion, corruption, and delusion, and the way he weaves them all together is truly impressive. 

            There are people who read books and want to figure out “who dun it”.  I am not that kind of reader.  I like to be surprised.  But, even if I was that type of reader, I would have been shocked at the eerily twisted conclusion to this novel. 

            If you like crime novels, you will like Apostle Rising.  If you like horror novels, you will like Apostle Rising.  If you are interested in religion and human psychology, you will like Apostle Rising.  Hell, if you like well written books, you will like this one.  Godwin is a gifted writer who knows his craft, knows when to play the right cards, and he will get inside your head…just like Karl Black.

Author Bio: Richard Godwin is a widely published crime and horror writer, whose work has appeared in many magazines and anthologies, including recently Pulp Ink. Apostle Rising, in which a serial killer is crucifying politicians and recreating the murder scenes of an unsolved case, is his first published novel. It has received excellent reviews and is under offer for two foreign rights acquisitions. You can find out more about the author at his website: http://www.richardgodwin.net/.  His Chin Wags At The Slaughterhouse are popular interviews he conducts with other writers: http://www.richardgodwin.net/blog.