E-Book, Englisch, 400 Seiten
Jakubowski / Salis / McDermid Ink and Daggers
1. Auflage 2023
ISBN: 978-1-80336-321-9
Verlag: Titan Books
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark
E-Book, Englisch, 400 Seiten
ISBN: 978-1-80336-321-9
Verlag: Titan Books
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark
Maxim Jakubowski is a noted anthology editor based in London, just a mile or so away from where he was born. With over 70 volumes to his credit, including Invisible Blood, the 13 annual volumes of The Mammoth Book of Best British Mysteries, and titles on Professor Moriarty, Jack the Ripper, Future Crime and Vintage whodunits. A publisher for over 20 years, he was also the co-owner of London's Murder One bookstore and the crime columnist for Time Out and then The Guardian for 22 years. Stories from his anthologies have won most of the awards in the field on numerous occasions. He is currently the Chair of the Crime Writers' Association and a Sunday Times bestselling novelist in another genre.
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THE CONSOLATION BLONDE
VAL McDERMID
Awards are meaningless, right? They’re always political, they’re forgotten two days later and they always go to the wrong book, right? Well, that’s what we all say when the prize goes somewhere else. Of course, it’s a different story when it’s our turn to stand at the podium and thank our agents, our partners and our pets. Then, naturally enough, it’s an honor and a thrill.
That’s what I was hoping I’d be doing that October night in New York. I had been nominated for Best Novel in the Speculative Fiction category of the US Book Awards, the national literary prizes that carry not only prestige but also a $50,000 check for the winners. Termagant Fire, the concluding novel in my King’s Infidel trilogy, had broken all records for a fantasy novel. More weeks in the New York Times bestseller list than King, Grisham and Cornwell put together. And the reviews had been breathtaking, referring to Termagant Fire as ‘the first novel since Tolkien to make fantasy respectable.’ Fans and booksellers alike had voted it their book of the year. Serious literary critics had examined the parallels between my fantasy universe and America in the defining epoch of the 60s. Now all I was waiting for was the imprimatur of the judges in the nation’s foremost literary prize.
Not that I was taking it for granted. I know how fickle judges can be, how much they hate being told what to think by the rest of the world. I understood only too well that the succes d’estime the book had enjoyed could be the very factor that would snatch my moment of glory from my grasp. I had already given myself a stiff talking-to in my hotel bathroom mirror, reminding myself of the dangers of hubris. I needed to keep my feet on the ground, and maybe failing to win the golden prize would be the best thing that could happen to me. At least it would be one less thing to have to live up to with the next book.
But on the night, I took it as a good sign that my publisher’s table at the awards dinner was right down at the front of the room, smack bang up against the podium. They never like the winners being seated too far from the stage just in case the applause doesn’t last long enough for them to make it up there ahead of the silence.
My award was third from last in the litany of winners. That meant a long time sitting still and looking interested. But I could only cling on to the fragile conviction that it was all going to be worth it in the end. Eventually, the knowing Virginia drawl of the MC, a middle-ranking news anchorman, got us there. I arranged my face in a suitably bland expression, which I was glad of seconds later when the name he announced was not mine. There followed a short, stunned silence, then, with more eyes on me than on her, the victor weaved her way to the front of the room to a shadow of the applause previous winners had garnered.
I have no idea what graceful acceptance speech she came out with. I couldn’t tell you who won the remaining two categories. All my energy was channeled into not showing the rage and pain churning inside me. No matter how much I told myself I had prepared for this, the reality was horrible.
At the end of the apparently interminable ceremony, I got to my feet like an automaton. My team formed a sort of flying wedge around me; editor ahead of me, publicist to one side, publisher to the other. ‘Let’s get you out of here. We don’t need pity,’ my publisher growled, head down, broad shoulders a challenge to anyone who wanted to offer condolences.
By the time we made it to the bar, we’d acquired a small support crew, ones I had indicated were acceptable by a nod or a word. There was Robert, my first mentor and oldest buddy in the business; Shula, an English sf writer who had become a close friend; Shula’s girlfriend Caroline, and Cassie, the manager of the city’s premier sf and fantasy bookstore. That’s what you need at a time like this, people around who won’t ever hold it against you that you vented your spleen in an unseemly way at the moment when your dream turned to ashes. Fuck nobility. I wanted to break something.
But I didn’t have the appetite for serious drinking, especially when my vanquisher arrived in the same bar with her celebration in tow. I finished my Jack Daniels and pushed off from the enveloping sofa. ‘I’m not much in the mood,’ I said. ‘I think I’ll just head back to my hotel.’
‘You’re at the InterCon, right?’ Cassie asked.
‘Yeah.’
‘I’ll walk with you, I’m going that way.’
‘Don’t you want to join the winning team?’ I asked, jerking my head towards the barks of laughter by the bar.
Cassie put her hand on my arm. ‘You wrote the best book, John. That’s victory enough for me.’
I made my excuses and we walked into a ridiculously balmy New York evening. I wanted snow and ice to match my mood, and said as much to Cassie.
Her laugh was low. ‘The pathetic fallacy,’ she said. ‘You writers just never got over that, did you? Well, John, if you’re going to cling to that notion, you better change your mood to match the weather.’
I snorted. ‘Easier said than done.’
‘Not really,’ said Cassie. ‘Look, we’re almost at the InterCon. Let’s have a drink’
‘OK.’
‘On one condition. We don’t talk about the award, we don’t talk about the asshole who won it, we don’t talk about how wonderful your book is and how it should have been recognized tonight.’
I grinned. ‘Cassie, I’m a writer. If I can’t talk about me, what the hell else does that leave?’
She shrugged and steered me into the lobby. ‘Gardening? Gourmet food? Favorite sexual positions? Music?’
We settled in a corner of the bar, me with Jack on the rocks, she with a Cosmopolitan. We ended up talking about movies, past and present, finding to our surprise that in spite of our affiliation to the sf and fantasy world, what we both actually loved most was film noir. Listening to Cassie talk, watching her push her blonde hair back from her eyes, enjoying the sly smiles that crept out when she said something witty or sardonic, I forgot the slings and arrows and enjoyed myself.
When they announced last call at midnight, I didn’t want it to end. It seemed natural enough to invite her up to my room to continue the conversation. Sure, at the back of my mind was the possibility that it might end with those long legs wrapped around mine, but that really wasn’t the most important thing. What mattered was that Cassie had taken my mind off what ailed me. She had already provided consolation enough, and I wanted it to go on. I didn’t want to be left alone with my rancor and self-pity or any of the other uglinesses that were fighting for space inside me.
She sprawled on the bed. It was that or an armchair which offered little prospect of comfort. I mixed drinks, finding it hard not to imagine sliding those tight black trousers over her hips or running my hands under that black silk tee, or pushing the long shimmering overblouse off her shoulders so I could cover them with kisses.
I took the drinks over and she sat up, crossing her legs in a full lotus and straightening her spine. ‘I thought you were really dignified tonight,’ she said.
‘Didn’t we have a deal? That tonight was off limits?’ I lay on my side, carefully not touching her at any point.
‘That was in the bar. You did well, sticking to it. Think you earned a reward?’
‘What kind of reward?’
‘I give a mean backrub,’ she said, looking at me over the rims of her glasses. ‘And you look tense.’
‘A backrub would be… very acceptable,’ I said.
Cassie unfolded her legs and stood up. ‘OK. I’ll go into the bathroom and give you some privacy to get undressed. Oh, and John – strip right down to the skin. I can’t do your lower back properly if I have to fuck about with waistbands and stuff.’
I couldn’t quite believe how fast things were moving. We hadn’t been in the room ten minutes, and here was Cassie instructing me to strip for her. OK, it wasn’t quite like that sounds, but it was equally a perfectly legitimate description of events. The sort of thing you could say to the guys and they would make a set of assumptions from. If, of course, you were the sort of sad asshole who felt the need to validate himself like that.
I took my clothes off, draping them over the armchair without actually folding them, then lay face down on the bed. I wished I’d spent more of the spring working out than I had writing. But I knew my shoulders were still respectable, my legs strong and hard, even if I was carrying a few more pounds around the waist than I would have liked.
I heard the bathroom door open and Cassie say, ‘You ready, John?’
I was very, very ready. Somehow, it wasn’t entirely a surprise that it wasn’t just the skin of her hands that I felt against mine.
* * *
How did I know it had to be her? I dreamed her hands. Nothing slushy or sentimental; just her honest hands with their...
