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WORK TITLE: Scoop of the Year
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE:
WEBSITE: http://www.tomclaver.co.uk/
CITY: Dorset
STATE:
COUNTRY: United Kingdom
NATIONALITY: British
RESEARCHER NOTES:
PERSONAL
Married.
EDUCATION:Graduate of North East London Polytechnic.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Writer and journalist. Works as a freelance journalist; formerly director of a publishing company.
WRITINGS
SIDELIGHTS
Tom Claver was pursuing an economics degree in London, England, in the 1970s when he signed up for a creative writing course, largely to get away from a tenant who liked to play a Hawaiian steel guitar recording of “Home on the Range” over and over again. The writing class instructor was Rod Whitaker, an American professor who had written a novel called The Eiger Sanction, which he then sold to Clint Eastwood, who made the novel into a movie. “I think it was Whitaker’s excitement over selling his hit book to Eastwood that left an indelible impression on me,” Claver told a contributor to the Fussy Librarian website, adding: “I’d never thought at that time of writing a thriller, and it eventually became my holy grail.” Claver went on to become a journalist and to work in publishing before eventually focusing on his “holy grail” of writing a thriller.
Hider/Seeker
Claver’s debut novel Hider/Seeker features Harry Bridger, a man who helps find people but who also specializes in helping people being pursued by enemies disappear. Harry takes on a job that ends up putting his own life in danger. Angela Lineman and her son disappear abroad with the help of Harry. They are running from Lineman’s ultra-rich but violent husband in London, England. Shortly after helping Angela and her son vanish, Harry learns that his childhood friend, Ed Parker, is dead. Ed, who married Harry’s ex-wife, helped connect Harry with Angela. Then Angela’s husband is shot with the same gun used to kill Ed. Suspected of the murders and aware that he may be a target as well, Harry sets out to find Angela.
Hider/Seeker is an “an engaging read that manages some surprises amid all the familiar genre tropes,” wrote a Kirkus Reviews contributor, adding: “The scenes of physical menace, in particular, are all the more effective in Claver’s elliptical style.” A contributor to the Bookbag website remarked: “The style is straightforward and accessible, never dropping into too much description or exposition.”
Scoop of the Year
Claver’s next book, Scoop of the Year, revolves around a British journalist named Martin, who works for a weekly financial magazine. Martin has never been one to spend his time hobnobbing with his fellow reporters in bars after work, which leaves him somewhat of an outsider. Martin would much rather be at home with his wife and kids. Then Tom de Lacy arrives. Tom is charismatic and soon lands the well-paid industrial correspondent’s job that Martin had wanted. Despite efforts by Martin to sabotage Tom’s career, Tom continues to impress and lands a much-sought-after job on television. Meanwhile, Martin’s own career and his marriage seem to be disintegrating.
Things only get worse for Martin as he suddenly finds his family has decided to leave him, and he loses his job. Meanwhile, Martin’s father, Simon, is dying and has decided to leave half of his estate to his younger brother, Walter, who disappeared from their lives two years earlier but has suddenly reappeared. Martin enlists the aid of Caroline, one of his sisters, to try to scare Uncle Walter away via hiring someone to threaten him. Martin soon sees his luck change and ends up working in television, first behind the camera and then in front of it. Still, there are complications. Jebb, the man hired to scare Uncle Walter, develops a romantic interest in Caroline. As for the pharmaceutical company scandal, a recent murder may be connected to the scandal. Tom, however, has reasons not to want the police to come asking him questions.
“Martin’s brisk, generally wry first-person narrative makes him an easy protagonist to root for, regardless of his questionable acts,” wrote a Kirkus Reviews contributor who went on to call Scoop of the Year “a smartly restrained and persistently witty crime tale even at its grimmest.” A contributor to the Bookbag website remarked: Claver “writes directly and with an admirable lack of stuffiness.”
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Kirkus Reviews, October 15, 2016, review of Hider/Seeker; September 1, 2017, review of Scoop of the Year.
ONLINE
Bookbag, http://www.thebookbag.co.uk/ (February 16, 2018), review of Scoop of the Year; (March 9, 2018), review of Hider/Seeker.
Dorset Book Detective, https://dorsetbookdetective.wordpress.com/ (July 30, 2017), “Tom Claver Interview: ‘When Reading a Thriller I Enjoy Seeing What Authors Do with the Built-in-Tropes.”
Fussy Librarian, http://www.thefussylibrarian.com/ (February 5, 2018), Sadye Scott-Hainchek,”Author Q&A: Tom Claver.”
IndieView, http://www.theindieview.com/ (May 24, 2015), “IndieView with Tom Claver, author of Hider/Seeker.
Out and About with Ellen Dean, https://ellendean.blogspot.com/ (November 27, 2017), Ellen Dean, review of Scoop of the Year.
Tom Claver Website, http://www.tomclaver.co.uk (May 28, 2018).
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Tom Claver is a freelance journalist who has worked in print and television, and was formerly a director of a publishing company.
He was brought up in London and currently lives in Dorset with his wife.
When and why did I start writing?
Deep down I always wanted to write but never managed to convince myself to get on with it. Now having reached a certain age, I thought it was about time to do something about this ambition that has dogged me for so long.
I remember when I was bitten by the bug and under quite surreal circumstances. It was in the early 1970s when I was studying for a degree in economics at North East London Polytechnic in Barking. It was a depressing
era, I seem to recall, filled with social unrest, strikes, demonstrations, student occupations, and, of course, a terrible dress sense.
I lived in a freezing bedsit with only a two-bar electric fire to keep me warm. Every night one of the tenants would play Home on the Range performed on all things a Hawaiian steel guitar. Over and over, he played this damn record, only stopping when the meter ran out.
To reduce my exposure to the tenant’s nocturnal habit, I decided to go to an evening class on creative writing at the poly. It had been set up by a visiting professor from the US. Anything would be better than listening to the Hawaiian steel guitar.
I waited in the class with a few other students for a Dr. Rod Whitaker to turn up. He arrived 20 minutes late, looking very dapper in a three piece suit. He was around 40, slim, and heavily suntanned. To say he looked out of place compared with our scruffy lecturers and Trotskyist students in jeans and Afghans would have been an understatement.
His opening line caught our attention immediately. “Sorry, I’m late, but I’ve just been on the phone to Clint Eastwood.”
Had I heard that correctly? Yes, I had. It transpired that Dr Whitaker taught at the Department of Radio, Television and Film at the Austin School of Communications in Texas. It also transpired that he’d written a blockbuster thriller called “The Eiger Sanction” and he’d sold it to Clint.
Being a big Clint Eastwood fan, I was captivated by the story of his
first book becoming an international best seller and being turned
into a film by the big daddy of them all.
So he began to explain to us why he’d embarked on writing a
thriller. He despised dumb spy novels and James Bond films and
decided to lampoon the genre. His book was written tongue-in-cheek and he thought by naming the protagonist Dr Jonathan Hemlock and having characters called Jemima Brown and Felicity Arce (pronounced arse) the publisher might have cottoned on. But no one saw through it and when he realised there was genuine interest in his MS, he started to re-write it into a more considered piece. It was an immediate success though people were mystified by the pseudonym on the cover, prompting all sorts of conspiracy theories and myths among fans about the true identity of the writer.
He wrote under the name of Trevanian and went to great lengths to keep his real name a secret, although never thinking twice about divulging it to us in Barking. Perhaps he thought we lived in the back of beyond and would never leave the neighbourhood to spill the beans. Whitaker also wrote in a wide variety of genres and under five different names. Despite achieving best-seller status he avoided interviews and publishers promotions that would reveal his true identity. Sometimes he would send imposters to represent him at interviews, just for fun.
Rumours circulated that he worked for the CIA. I don’t know whether that was true, but he did serve in the US Navy during the Korean War. However, he did mention to us that there was an objection to the word “sanction” being used to mean an “assassination”. He’d run it by someone in the CIA and couldn’t believe that the term was being questioned when he knew for certain it was used at the agency.
In 1979 he publicly revealed his true identity and his various pseudonyms in an interview with the New York Times Book Review. He scotched a long-running rumour that Trevanian was actually the thriller writer Robert Ludlum. But what readers may not have realised was that the pseudonyms he chose to write under were like character actors to him. By inventing the right character to write the book, he felt he could tell the story.
His writing classes were sometimes unorthodox, digressing occasionally into method acting exercises, but he did manage to get us to write short stories. And one evening I read my short story to the class and to my surprise all the girls around me loved it. I got the bug to write, there and then.
After graduating, my interest fell more in the direction of making films. I made some short films with moderate success. One 30 minute film I scripted was distributed in the cinema and another short I wrote and directed was sold to Central Television. I started writing feature length scripts, one of which formed the basis of HIDER/SEEKER. It had another title and was genuinely awful, but the BBC saw something and invited me to discuss it. Nothing happened and I decided it was time to put away my toys and turn my attention to raising a family.
The memories of Rod Whitaker drifting into our dreary lives in
Barking still remained strong however, and like many people, I
made attempts to write a book, usually the day after a
significant birthday milestone.
Then a turning point came just over ten years ago when I
decided I’d teach myself to write a thriller for the sheer hell of
it. By reading books such as Stephen King’s On Writing and by
sending my work for professional critique, I gradually improved. Two unpublished books later, I decided to take another look at the film script I’d sent to the BBC. I re-worked it into HIDER/SEEKER and I hope you will enjoy it.
Out of curiosity, I wondered what had happened to Rod Whitaker over the years. I Googled him and sadly discovered he’d died of an illness in the West Country of England in 2005, aged 74. I had no idea he’d been living in the UK as I’d read long ago he’d bought a house in the Basque region of France. According to his agent, Michael V. Carlise, Whitaker preferred the intellectual climate of England rather more than that of America under Presidents Reagan and Bush.
Over his life time his 10 published books sold more than 5m copies and he was heralded as the only writer of airport paperbacks to be compared to Zola, Ian Fleming, Poe and Chaucer.
This elusive author who’d baffled so many in his lifetime has left a lasting impression on me and I guess on many others too. He also gave me the bug to write all those years ago. Thank you.
Is writing hard work?
When I was a full-time journalist, I probably wrote on average around 250,000 words a year and probably up to 500,000 annually in my younger days. That’s a lot of words. The average thriller is around 100,000 or more words. So if you are a journalist you can see how much one’s workload rises if you decide to write a book in your spare time.
But it is so enjoyable to write outside the usual journalistic constraints that you forget about the tiredness. The only problem about writing a book part time is keeping the continuity of thought. It’s all stop-start. There’s a huge difference in having the freedom to write a novel full time as it allows you to keep the ball and run.
Why do you like genre writing?
Thrillers are the most widely read genre and probably the most competitive to write. Take a look at the Amazon list and you are overwhelmed by the number of books dedicated to the genre. I read that mystery-writing is enjoying a golden age and long may that last.
To me this type of writing has an innate set of rules, each one of them like a child’s building brick. When you start writing a thriller it’s like tossing a box of those bricks onto the floor and building something new each time that will always be recognisable to lovers of thrillers.
There are so many sub-categories of thrillers, ranging from soft-boiled to hard-boiled. I don’t like thrillers about cops and prefer stories about a Mr Average who finds himself in a deadly predicament. Harry Bridger in HIDER/SEEKER is not a Mr Average though, but he certainly doesn’t bargain for all the grief caused by his client.
Where possible, I like to add humour to my characters because it makes them look real and also helps to bring greater contrast when things go wrong for them. I also think there should be some romance in a story because that is how real life is. I know this is all a bit cross-genre, but hopefully it makes my writing more interesting.
Which thriller writers do you most admire?
My favourite top 10: Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler, James M Cain, Patricia Highsmith, Len Deighton, Elmore Leonard, Jo Nesbo, Olen Steinhauer, Martin Cruz Smith and John Le Carré.
Author Q&A: Tom Claver
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Thriller author Tom Claver dedicated the paperback version of one novel to his writing instructor, but one could argue he should’ve credited a long-ago obnoxious neighbor as well.
In the 1970s, Claver was pursuing a degree in economics and renting a rather dismal apartment, where another tenant’s favorite recreational activity was playing Home on the Range on a Hawaiian steel guitar.
To escape this musical nightmare, Claver signed up for a creative writing course. What happened next? Read on to find out.
SADYE: When and why did you start writing?
TOM: While studying in London for an economics degree in the 1970s, I went to a creative writing class there run by Dr. Rod Whitaker, an American professor from the Department of Radio, Television and Film at the Austin School of Communications in Texas.
He was late for his first class because he told us that he’d just come off the phone from speaking to Clint Eastwood, who was going to turn his debut novel, The Eiger Sanction, into a film. After that entrance, I was all ears.
I think it was Whitaker’s excitement over selling his hit book to Eastwood that left an indelible impression on me. I’d never thought at that time of writing a thriller, and it eventually became my holy grail.
After getting my degree, I did produce some film scripts and the BBC showed interest in one, but nothing happened. Many decades later I took another look at the script and turned it into my novel Hider/Seeker.
SADYE: You worked in TV and print journalism for many years before becoming a full-time writer. Did the state of the journalism industry have any effect on your gradual switch?
TOM: Newspaper publishing has always been a precarious profession to be in, and its decline over the past few decades has been not only sad but truly worrying. I had a long career in business journalism, both in print and television, and became disillusioned by the dwindling budgets editors had to work with.
It was around that time that I rekindled my desire to write a novel as I’d started reading classic thrillers by writers such as Dashiell Hammett, James M. Cain, Richard Stark (Donald E. Westlake), and Patricia Highsmith. I only really wanted to see how much these books varied from the film versions, but it led to wanting to write again.
I read books on writing and taught myself to put 90,000 words together in a comprehensive way. It initially resulted in two unpublished thrillers before I finally wrote Hider/Seeker. During this period of writing part-time, I think I knew I was repositioning myself towards a new type of career ahead.
SADYE: What was your reaction to seeing Hider/Seeker shoot up the Amazon charts?
TOM: Amazon was all very new to me at the time, and I have to admit it was very exciting to watch the book climb so quickly into the top 100 of all ebooks in the Kindle Store in the U.K. It reached an overall No. 11 in general fiction and No. 2 in crime thrillers. The following year, it also broke into the top 100 in the U.S.
SADYE: After such an exciting run for Hider/Seeker, did you feel any pressure about Scoop of the Year, or did you find yourself worrying about comparisons?
TOM: Not really because Scoop of the Year is a completely different type of suspense novel to Hider/Seeker and should be judged differently.
Martin, a hapless journalist, is the polar opposite to Harry Bridger, the hero of Hider/Seeker. My new book is a satire on journalism and ambition, but is framed within the structure of a thriller. I just had to write the story as soon as the idea entered my head.
Martin is a dubious character who initially has no ambition apart from derailing the career of a rival reporter. But when a scoop lands in his lap, his ambition turns to outshining his rival despite the danger it lands him in. Martin is a questionable hero you can’t help but root for as he aims for greatness.
SADYE: Was there any particular incident that you saw that may have inspired the hapless Martin?
TOM: Yes, working 35 years in British newspaper and television newsrooms. I can assure you that a common theme evolves over that period of time.
IndieView with Tom Claver, author of Hider/Seeker
Posted on May 24, 2015 by admin | Comments Off on IndieView with Tom Claver, author of Hider/Seeker
Hider Seekr
I like to read a book where the writer takes care of you. A good thriller is fairly obvious from the first sentence. It’s like getting into a sports car and being taken for a spin.
Tom Claver – 24 May 2015
The Back Flap
Harry Bridger helps people run from their enemies. But when he arranges for Angela Linehan and her son to disappear abroad from her violent husband in London, little does he know that his life will depend on finding her again.
It’s a job that reawakens Harry’s past and brings him back into contact with his ex-wife Bethany. Fate has given him a second chance to redeem himself in her eyes.
But Angela’s disappearance puts Harry and Bethany in terrible danger. He risks losing everything unless he can find where Angela is hiding in Central America. The clock is ticking and his finely honed tracking skills no longer apply. Chance and luck will decide everything.
About the book
What is the book about?
Hider/Seeker is about a likeable maverick who bites off more than he can chew when he comes to the rescue of a wealthy battered wife. Harry Bridger makes a living helping people run from their enemies. But when he arranges for Angela Linehan and her son to disappear abroad from her violent husband in London, little does he know that his life will depend on finding her again. The job reawakens his past and brings him back into contact with his ex-wife. Fate has given him a second chance to redeem himself in her eyes. But the disappearance of his client puts both him and his ex-wife in terrible danger. He risks losing everything unless he can find where his client is hiding in Central America.
When did you start writing the book?
Good question. Would you believe me if I said about 30 years ago? After graduating in the mid-1970s, I made some short films with moderate success. One 30 minute film I scripted was distributed in British cinemas and another short I wrote and directed was sold to Central Television in the UK. I started writing feature length scripts, one of which formed the basis of Hider/Seeker. It had another title and was genuinely awful, but the BBC saw something and invited me to discuss it. Nothing happened and I decided it was time to put away my toys and turn my attention to raising a family.
How long did it take you to write it?
If you don’t count the 30 year gap, just over three years. This may sound a long time, but it takes as long as it takes. I gave up a full time job to work part time many years ago so that I could spend more time working on my novels. It took roughly a year to write the book, but it was followed by two years of editing and procrastination. The book went back and forth for critique. This is quite time consuming as the turnaround times are long.
Where did you get the idea from?
I hope this doesn’t sound pretentious, but I wanted a story that could have been written in the 1950s as I prefer thrillers from the past. But my aim was to give it a contemporary setting. I wanted a straight forward story and I also wanted it to be a chase thriller as I have a soft spot for John Buchan’s The Thirty-Nine Steps. By the way, this year marks the centenary of the publication of his book, arguably the world’s first modern spy thriller.
Were there any parts of the book where you struggled?
One of the major problems of readapting something that was written a long time ago was that so much has changed. It has become much harder for people to fall off the grid in today’s digital world. Everyone’s details are just out there, ready to be found. I did some research on this, but I really didn’t want to turn the story into a techno-thriller as that would be wandering off the initial concept of giving the story a 1950s feel.
What came easily?
Dialogue and humour. I come from north London and Harry is the typical sharp wit of the area. I would say he’s a cockney, but technically you’d have to be born within the sound of the Bow Bells (St Mary-le-Bow) to be classified a real cockney, which would be east of the city. But Harry’s got feelings and he’s allowed to express them. He also supports a wonderful soccer team called Arsenal.
Are your characters entirely fictitious or have you borrowed from real world people you know?
They are entirely fictitious although the crimes have true authenticity.
We all know how important it is for writers to read. Are there any particular authors that have influenced how you write and, if so, how have they influenced you?
Before answering this question, I would like to say that I wouldn’t have got the bug to write if it wasn’t for a certain American professor who visited my college in London while I was studying for a degree in economics. His name was Dr Rod Whitaker and he offered creative writing classes at the college in the evening. I decided to go to the class to get away from the loud music one of the tenants played every night in the house where I was staying. Dr Whitaker taught at the Department of Radio, Television and Film at the Austin School of Communications in Texas. He entered our class and apologised for being late but said he’d just been on the phone to Clint Eastwood. It transpired that he’d written a blockbuster thriller called “The Eiger Sanction” and he’d sold it to Eastwood. After that introduction he had my complete attention and he went on to explain how he embarked on writing an international best seller. He wrote under the name of Trevanian and there were long-running rumours that Trevanian was actually the thriller writer Robert Ludlum. In 1979 he publicly revealed his true identity and his various pseudonyms in an interview with the New York Times Book Review. Over his life time his 10 published books sold more than 5m copies and he was heralded as the only writer of airport paperbacks to be compared to Zola, Ian Fleming, Poe and Chaucer. You can read more about the late Dr Whitaker on my website.
Dr Whitaker showed me the excitement that writing could bring as I had never thought about writing a thriller before. After that it became a lifelong ambition to write a thriller, which I finally fulfilled with the publication of Hider/Seeker.
To answer your original question, I like to read a book where the writer takes care of you. A good thriller is fairly obvious from the first sentence. It’s like getting into a sports car and being taken for a spin. I always feel this with classic thriller writers like Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler, and Patricia Highsmith. But I’m a great fan of contemporary writers too, such as Jo Nesbo, Olen Steinhauer, and Martin Cruz Smith. You may have noticed none of these are English. My favourite classic English thriller writer is Len Deighton. I think subconsciously the style of writing is formed by the type of books you liked to read in your formative years.
Do you have a target reader?
One of the first books I read about writing was Stephen King’s On Writing. His first piece of advice before writing anything is to pick a genre. The thriller is the most competitive genre of all and it is difficult to break into because so many people are writing them. But I do have a reader in mind. It is someone who likes linear plots with a touch of romance and humour. I like to add humour to my characters because it makes them look real and also helps to bring greater contrast when things go wrong for them. I also think there should be some romance in a story because that is how real life is. I know this may sound a bit cross-genre, but hopefully it makes my writing more interesting.
About Writing
Do you have a writing process? If so can you please describe it?
I write down ideas for plots and keep them on file. When it comes to starting a new book, I try a few of the plot ideas out by writing some chapters to get a feel for the story. I then kick around a few alternative treatments to the same storylines until one of the ideas looks a goer. I see a story in terms of sailing from one port to another. I don’t know exactly what is going to happen between ports as I leave that to the characters to drive the story. But I always know that I have to navigate the ship towards the final port destination.
After drafting say 10 chapters, I send my work for a critique, along with a synopsis, for feedback. I want to make sure I have sound foundations for a story to build upon. More importantly, the synopsis is a good indicator of whether you have a viable idea. If the synopsis sounds complicated, then you have a problem. Writing a synopsis before the book is written is not easy and certainly won’t be the same synopsis when the book is completed, but it is a great litmus test.
I normally pay attention to the critique and decide what is coming across and what is not coming across. If the story still looks like it can sail, I’ll get on with it. When I have finished the first draft. I put it in a drawer for six weeks or longer. Then I read through it again to see how bad it is. At that stage, I take a deep breath and start re-editing. This usually means cutting for most people, but as I tend to underwrite it normally results in me adding. Then I send it to someone else to provide a critique of the opening chapters and synopsis. I then make further amendments and continue to refine the product until it is finally ready for an editor to look over.
Do you outline? If so, do you do so extensively or just chapter headings and a couple of sentences?
I work from a one-line plot and have a good idea of the ending. Then I let the characters speak and do things. I have no idea what they will do next and if I don’t know, then I’m pretty sure the reader won’t either. If you plot chapter after chapter there is a likelihood that it will become a predictable story.
Do you edit as you go or wait until you’ve finished?
Stephen King advises to put it all down as quickly as possible. Get the whole book on paper in one go. But I’ve never been able to do this and Patricia Highsmith’s book Plotting and Writing Suspense Fiction talks about editing while you go along although there is no need to start from Chapter One each time. I prefer editing the previous day’s work before moving on. If you write in a gallop and never look back, I think there is a great danger of going completely off course.
Did you hire a professional editor?
Yes. More than one. But they tend not to change or alter your sentences. They’re largely employed to look out for typos and anomalies. The real editing is done by me. It’s a very slow process, as it eventually dawns on you that after reading it so many times, parts of the chapters are slowing things down. It’s very difficult to spot them when you are so on top of it all. It often means cutting your favourite sentences or sections. I read somewhere that a good writer knows what to leave out and I think that is very true.
Do you listen to music while you write? If yes, what gets the fingers tapping?
Absolutely not. I cut my teeth as a reporter writing in big newsrooms with boisterous journalists and clacking typewriters and nothing would ever distract me from writing my copy. But having music playing while I work would be another matter. I would not want an artist getting inside my head while I’m composing my own prose. The only advice I would give to a writer is never wear slippers when writing an action piece. Boots are much better.
About Publishing
Did you submit your work to Agents?
I always do because sometimes you get free advice, which is very helpful.
What made you decide to go Indie, whether self-publishing or with an indie publisher? Was it a particular event or a gradual process?
I have written three thrillers over the past 10 years or so, and I have a stupendous collection of rejection slips. I did find an agent at one point, but she then retired. This year I came to the view that I was more likely to expire before finding another agent. So I decided to take matters into my own hands and jump over the gatekeepers.
Publishing has been the one area of the art world where production has been restricted by cost. Musicians have been able to sing on street corners or perform in church halls and pubs. Even film makers have been able to produce short films and have their work seen on the internet. But now, thanks to the ebook, it is possible also for writers to put their book out there and break the hold of agents and publishers. It’s not perfect, but it allows your work to be read and bring some completion to a project.
Did you get your book cover professionally done or did you do it yourself?
I spent many days looking through stock shots and found something that was particularly suitable.
Do you have a marketing plan for the book or are you just winging it?
I just want good reader reviews. The whole process of putting a book together with the self-publishing company I’m working with has increased my knowledge about the whole business. It will also make me a better writer in future as my work is no longer in a drawer but out in the open.
Any advice that you would like to give to other newbies considering becoming Indie authors?
It takes many years to learn how to write and you never stop learning. Send your work to editors for comments and when they say it is of a publishable standard, take the plunge.
About You
Where did you grow up?
North London.
Where do you live now?
I live in the beautiful Dorset countryside, surrounded by sheep.
What would you like readers to know about you?
I’m one of them. But when I read, I tend to focus on the mechanics of a book and what makes it tick.
What are you working on now?
All I will say at this point is that it takes place south of the Arctic Circle.
Tom Claver Interview: “When reading a thriller I enjoy seeing what authors do with the built-in tropes”
On July 30, 2017 By dorsetbookdetectiveIn Crime Fiction, Interviews, Thrillers
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Tom Claver, author of the popular thriller Hider/ Seeker, discusses his fascination with detective fiction and dark films and how it influences his writing.
Tell me about how you came to define your writing style. What drew you towards crime fiction?
My style of writing tends to be quite direct with plenty of dialogue. I think my economy with words comes from being a journalist and keeping the word count as low as possible when writing news. When I was young I had ambitions of working in films and made some shorts, which helped me gain a visual sense of storytelling. This led me to write some feature length scripts, one of which interested the BBC, but nothing came of it. Some thirty years later, I decided to re-write that particular script into Hider/Seeker, my first novel.
Why crime fiction? As a young film buff I was mad on Hitchcock although I never thought at that time of writing a novel. I was too focused on cinema and enjoyed all film genres, although thrillers excited me the most. In the 1970s while I was studying for my economics degree, I went to a creative writing class that had just been set up by Dr Rod Whitaker, an American professor from the Department of Radio, Television and Film at the Austin School of Communications in Texas. He arrived late to the first class because he’d just come off the phone from speaking to Clint Eastwood, who was going to turn his debut novel, The Eiger Sanction, into a film. After that entrance, he had my full attention.
What is your career background and how did you get into writing full time?
I’ve had a long career in business journalism, both in print and television. One lunchtime I was browsing in a bookshop and I came across The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett. I realised that I had seen the Humphrey Bogart films many times, but had never read the novel. After devouring that book, I began to read other classic thrillers to see how much they varied from their film version. Books such as Double Indemnity, by James M. Cain, Point Blank, by Richard Stark (Donald E. Westlake) and Strangers on a Train by Patricia Highsmith. This rekindled my desire to try again to write a novel as I enjoyed so much reading these books. I read books on writing and taught myself to put 90,000 words together in a comprehensive way.
I had already been writing for more than 10 years when I decided to go full-time. I just wanted to see how I would fare in an entirely different sector of the publishing industry. I think that during those years of writing part-time, I knew I was repositioning myself towards a new type of career ahead.
Please tell me about your novel, Hider/Seeker.
Hider/Seeker was published originally as an ebook in April 2015 and after three months it had broken into Amazon’s British top 100 paid ebooks. It reached No.11 in the Kindle Store and ranked No.2 in Crime Thrillers in the UK. Last year, it reached No.48 in paid ebooks on Amazon.com in the US and was No.3 there in Crime Thrillers. The paperback version is due out shortly.
The story is about Harry Bridger, who makes his living helping people disappear from their enemies by teaching them how to avoid detection in the digital age. But when he helps a woman disappear from her violent husband, little does he know he will need to find her again for his own survival. The story opens in London, but it soon shifts to Central America and there are plenty of twists and turns on the way.
Are there any particular mediums or narrative tropes you like to use in your writing and why?
That’s the whole fun of writing a thriller. Bertolt Brecht, who was a fan of thrillers, was once quoted as saying that the aesthetic quality of the detective novel is derived from the variation of its fixed elements. When reading a thriller I enjoy seeing what authors do with the built-in tropes. It’s like watching an escapologist getting out of chains while in a burning box. Every time I pick up a thriller, I think, how is the author going to pull it off this time around?
When starting a novel, I always create a hero with plenty of baggage who is reluctant to get involved in an adventure. Then I engineer it so that he has a lucky escape from death towards the end. It is the basic chassis to build any story upon. As long as I can torture the hero along the way, I’m happy because the reader needs to experience directly the dilemmas and anxieties facing the protagonist.
JPEG HIDER SEEKER COVER
What do you enjoy reading and how does this influence your writing?
You’ve probably guessed that I prefer reading thrillers from an older era, partly because they are less horrific, but mainly because they have such a wonderful style of writing. I read recently Rebecca for the first time, having seen the Hitchcock film on numerous occasions and found that I enjoyed it more than the film. I’m currently reading My Cousin Rachel, also a Daphne du Maurier novel, and am totally absorbed by her clever storytelling. Similarly, I like Patricia Highsmith for those reasons. But the trouble with writing is that you can only do what you can do however much you dream of writing like your favourite author. You have to work with the material you’ve got and know your limitations. I tend to introduce humour into my thrillers as I feel it brings more realism to the characters and also helps to bring a greater contrast when things go wrong for them. I’m probably most drawn to authors such as Hammett, Chandler and Deighton because their dry wit is so appealing.
If you could collaborate with anyone, living or dead, on a writing project, who would it be and why?
I strongly believe it is a mistake to meet your heroes, as they can never live up to your expectations. After all, it is their work that we love, not them, as they are complete strangers with their own private lives and complications. So, I don’t think I would be attracted to collaborate with anyone as writing a novel is not really a collaborative art form like filmmaking. But if I had a time machine and had a chance to work on a film script with a director, it would have to be Hitchcock, because I would be able to learn how to extract the nub of a story in such a cinematic way. He would always seek a story where he could explore its emotion rather than its detail. Daphne du Maurier didn’t like what he did to her novella, The Birds, but he had the good sense to focus on the horror she had created based largely on her descriptive writing.
Have you got any exciting new plans or projects coming up that you’d like to share with me?
Yes. I am publishing my second book, Scoop of the Year, at the end of October. It’s a suspense novel with a healthy dose of humour and is quite a departure from Hider/Seeker. It’s about a young hapless journalist called Martin who becomes jealous of the meteoric rise into television by Tom, a fellow reporter. But when he lands a scoop that would allow him to outshine his rival, he discovers his malfunctioning family gets in the way.
It is written in the first person from Martin’s POV and shows a positive side to envy. Martin is a luckless hero you can’t help but root for as he aims for greatness. Both the ebook and paperback will be available on Amazon from 28th October.
Thanks ever so much for your time Tom, it’s been really interesting to hear your thoughts
Claver, Tom: SCOOP OF THE YEAR
Kirkus Reviews. (Sept. 1, 2017):
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2017 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
Full Text:
Claver, Tom SCOOP OF THE YEAR Matador (Indie Fiction) 10, 28
For a British journalist, maintaining a career and financial stability can be murder--and may even call for it--in this thriller. Though Martin's two years older than Financial Review co-worker Tom de Lacy, it's the latter who gets the coveted industrial correspondent's job. The magazine's editor effectively demotes Martin, who's married with twin daughters, to subeditor, where he resents Tom and discreetly sabotages his copy. As Tom's career soars, including a gig as a TV reporter, Martin takes a personal and professional nose dive, eventually becoming unemployed with his wife and children gone. The news gets worse: Martin's terminally ill father, Simon, has changed his will, giving his house and half his estate to his younger brother, Walter, who's just returned after inexplicably disappearing years ago. Desperate for money, Martin convinces Caroline, one of his two sisters, that enlisting a heavy to scare Uncle Walter out of the house is a good idea. Shortly thereafter, Martin hits a wave of good fortune, starting behind the scenes on a TV show and winding up in front of the camera. But hired heavy Jebb complicates matters by becoming smitten with Caroline. Martin's potentially hot new story involving a pharmaceutical company, meanwhile, has ties to a recent murder--and he certainly doesn't want authorities digging anywhere near him. Claver's (Hider/Seeker, 2015) story is quietly chaotic, a series of events unfolding organically. Martin, for example, handles one problem at a time, such as his inability to get a hold of Jebb to verify that he's only strong-arming Walter. Likewise, Martin's solid under pressure and often funny. When Jebb hears Caroline's voice over the phone, after Martin says she's out of the country, the journalist tells him: "No, it's my other sister, the ugly one." Martin's brisk, generally wry first-person narrative makes him an easy protagonist to root for, regardless of his questionable acts, while Tom, quite frankly, deserves the protagonist's rancor. The somewhat ambiguous ending is striking, a lasting impression revealing what's most important to Martin. A smartly restrained and persistently witty crime tale even at its grimmest.
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"Claver, Tom: SCOOP OF THE YEAR." Kirkus Reviews, 1 Sept. 2017. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A502192306/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=d1df3867. Accessed 22 Apr. 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A502192306
Tom Claver: HIDER SEEKER
Kirkus Reviews. (Oct. 15, 2016):
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2016 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
Full Text:
Tom Claver HIDER SEEKER Troubador Publishing Ltd. (Adult Fiction) 0.99
An expert at getting people off the grid must find a woman he helped to disappear in this debut thriller. Harry Bridger is good at tracing debtors, fraudsters, and missing heirs, but he’s even better at helping people who want to go missing. Angela Linehan, for example, wants to start a new life for herself and her son away from her powerful, “stinking rich,” and abusive husband, and she’s willing to double Harry’s fee for him to make it happen. But no sooner does Angela get gone than Harry is plunged into circumstances that noir-fiction fever dreams are made of. For starters, Ed Parker, a childhood friend who connected him with Angela (and who married his ex-wife, Bethany), is found dead. So is Angela’s husband, who was shot with the same gun that killed Parker. Angela’s husband had cautioned him, “The boys in blue have developed bad vibes about you.” So where does this leave Harry? In “a big pile of doo-doo,” as Inspector Wallace Gemmell inelegantly tells him. It’s soon revealed that there are shady deals afoot: millions of dollars are owed to the wrong people, and Harry faces possible dire injury if he doesn’t come up with Angela. The hits just keep on coming (often literally) in Claver’s auspicious British crime thriller. It offers an archetypical flawed hero who has personal issues (a drinking problem, an estranged father, an ex), refuses to “bend with the wind,” and sees things as “either black or white.” Overall, though, it’s an engaging read that manages some surprises amid all the familiar genre tropes. The scenes of physical menace, in particular, are all the more effective in Claver’s elliptical style, such as when Harry mouths off to a henchman: “ ‘So can I go now?’ asked Harry. He forgot to duck.” A novel about a finder that’s a real find.
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"Tom Claver: HIDER SEEKER." Kirkus Reviews, 15 Oct. 2016. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A466551420/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=3541793b. Accessed 22 Apr. 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A466551420
Claver, Tom: HIDER/SEEKER
Kirkus Reviews. (Oct. 15, 2016):
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2016 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
Full Text:
Claver, Tom HIDER/SEEKER Troubador Publishing Ltd. (Indie Fiction) $0.99 4, 20
An expert at getting people off the grid must find a woman he helped to disappear in this debut thriller. Harry Bridger is good at tracing debtors, fraudsters, and missing heirs, but he's even better at helping people who want to go missing. Angela Linehan, for example, wants to start a new life for herself and her son away from her powerful, "stinking rich," and abusive husband, and she's willing to double Harry's fee for him to make it happen. But no sooner does Angela get gone than Harry is plunged into circumstances that noir-fiction fever dreams are made of. For starters, Ed Parker, a childhood friend who connected him with Angela (and who married his ex-wife, Bethany), is found dead. So is Angela's husband, who was shot with the same gun that killed Parker. Angela's husband had cautioned him, "The boys in blue have developed bad vibes about you." So where does this leave Harry? In "a big pile of doo-doo," as Inspector Wallace Gemmell inelegantly tells him. It's soon revealed that there are shady deals afoot: millions of dollars are owed to the wrong people, and Harry faces possible dire injury if he doesn't come up with Angela. The hits just keep on coming (often literally) in Claver's auspicious British crime thriller. It offers an archetypical flawed hero who has personal issues (a drinking problem, an estranged father, an ex), refuses to "bend with the wind," and sees things as "either black or white." Overall, though, it's an engaging read that manages some surprises amid all the familiar genre tropes. The scenes of physical menace, in particular, are all the more effective in Claver's elliptical style, such as when Harry mouths off to a henchman: " 'So can I go now?' asked Harry. He forgot to duck." A novel about a finder that's a real find.
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"Claver, Tom: HIDER/SEEKER." Kirkus Reviews, 15 Oct. 2016. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A466329170/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=42071718. Accessed 22 Apr. 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A466329170
Martin is an ambitious journalist working on the Financial Review. Martin is good at his job - accurate, dedicated, hardworking and with a good nose for a scoop. But Martin is also uninterested in the culture that comes with reporting. He has a wife and two daughters at home and he doesn't want to waste time and money in the pub, talking macho nonsense with the other hacks. He is a far cry from his colleague Tom de Lacy, a charismatic, silver-spooned charmer with piercing blue eyes. Tom doesn't just grab the limelight though - he also grabs the promotion to industrial correspondent. And that is the job Martin not only wanted, but needed.
Things spiral downward for Martin after losing out on the promotion. While Tom's star rises to the point of landing a plum job in television, Martin's sinks to the detriment of his career and his marriage. So when a possible scandal story about a pharmaceutical company comes Martin's way, he is determined to turn it into something worthwhile and rescue his floundering prospects...
... but can he manage it, with family crisis unfolding in the background?
I thoroughly enjoyed Scoop of the Year. The book packs a great deal of plot and action into roughly three hundred and fifty pages - Claver blends Martin's rivalry with Tom de Lacey, chasing a corporate scandal and a family drama worthy of the most popular TV soap without ever losing sight of each strand. He writes directly and with an admirable lack of stuffiness. I like this no nonsense approach to the narrative especially in thrillers, where events count more than anything else. The dialogue is also very good - never stilted and often very witty. There are some excellent throwaway lines that will make you laugh. All in all, Scoop of the Year is a smooth, absorbing and engaging read.
I liked Martin. By the end of Scoop of the Year, he is a somewhat compromised central character but you can't help but root for him. He's treated unjustly - and with a good dollop of old-fashioned British classism - at the beginning of the book but he keeps on trying, both to succeed as a journalist and to do the best for his family. He might be flawed but Martin is, at heart, a good guy.
I don't want to ruin the book by saying too much lest I give it all away, but I will say that I loved the ending. I wasn't expecting it and it really made me think. It's a big reveal but not the type of reveal you'll be expecting. I trust that's suitably enticing and mysterious for you, Bookbaggers!
A satisfying read for all fans of complicated conspiracy thrillers.
Monday, 27 November 2017
Scoop of the Year by Tom Claver - Book Review
An intelligent, exhilarating and entertaining mystery about a luckless hack that you just can’t help but to cheer him on
A delicious satire about the media, ambition and making the most of unexpected opportunities
Tom Claver is a journalist, the author of the bestselling thriller Hider Seeker.
Synopsis:
Martin, a hapless journalist on a weekly financial magazine in London, plods along in a job he can’t afford to lose. But when he misses out on promotion to the well-heeled Tom he tries his utmost to bring his rival down a peg or two. Yet nothing can stop Tom’s effortless climb to the top. As Tom’s career blossoms, Martin’s life disintegrates, personally and financially.
But when he stumbles across a scoop on a major corporate scandal, Martin has the opportunity to make a name for himself and to outshine the achievements of his rival. The only trouble is that life is not as straightforward as Martin thinks, and sometimes extreme actions are needed…
About the Author
Tom Claver was a director of a publishing company and is now a freelance journalist who has worked in print and television. He was brought up in London and currently lives in Dorset with his wife. He is the author of the popular thriller, Hider Seeker, which was a top 100 bestseller on both sides of the Atlantic.
My Review:
Excellent read. Loved the drama, humour and conspiracy. The characters came to life. I really felt for Martin and his family. This book has more twists than a screw. I found myself thinking the story could be non-fiction, it was so real. I was in detective mode all the way through. One thing I have to say is...I was left hanging at the end. Hope there is a sequel or I won't sleep.
Ellen Dean most definitely recommends
Harry Bridger is an ex-policeman who now makes his living helping people disappear. His clients aren't always whiter than white, but when a wealthy woman fleeing domestic violence asks him to help, his chivalrous instincts override the doubts that lurk in the back of his mind. A few things about Angela Linehan don't chime right but she's been vouched for by an old friend and Harry's basic decency won't allow him to leave a woman and her child in danger. And there's another advantage to helping Angela. It brings Harry back into the orbit of his ex-wife Bethany. And Harry would do almost anything to redeem himself in her eyes.
But things quickly begin to unravel. Bethany's new husband - and Harry's old friend - is murdered and Harry is the prime suspect. Unless he can locate Angela and her son in South America, where he had helped them to flee, his future looks bleak - dead in a ditch or, at best, in prison for a crime he didn't commit. Still worse, the dark forces at play are threatening Bethany, too. With the love of his life in terrible danger, Harry is about to embark on a very dangerous journey...
I rather enjoyed this twisting, turning thriller. The plot fills the pages extremely well and while it's easy enough to keep up with, it's complex enough to keep you guessing. It's a whirlwind of a journey across the globe and into the murky world of organised crime and money-laundering. Without spoiling anything, I will say that I didn't see the final few pages coming at all. The best plot twist is kept until last and the signals for it are subtle. Always a sign of success in a thriller!
I liked Harry Bridger as a central character. He's flawed alright, but there's a basic decency about him that the reader can get behind and root for. And he shows a bit of vulnerability in his love for Bethany, which makes him relatable and it's this vulnerability that makes him take risks that his head is telling him not to - always a dangerous thing when you're in Harry's line of work. The supporting cast is good too - particularly Angela Linehan, who occupies an antagonist role really, but who is, in the end, just trying to save herself, as we all would.
The style is straightforward and accessible, never dropping into too much description or exposition. Chapter length expands and contracts in harmony with the urgency of the plot stage, which makes for a satisfying read and one you could equally go at with gusto in one sitting, or pick and up put down over the course of a couple of days.
Hider/Seeker will appeal to fans of noirish fiction but those who like plenty of action in the mix. Readers of crime or thrillers will both enjoy it, I think. And, without wishing to gender stereotype you, dear Bookbaggers, there's more than enough action for the men and more than enough of the personal for the women.
I don't know if we'll be seeing Harry Bridger again, but I, for one, would be happy to.
You might also enjoy The Argentine Kidnapping by Bill Sheehy.