Note from Nicole: We’re back again with another Saturday night with author Julie Anderson. She has a book, a movie, and one wild card recommendation for us. You can also find out more about her book Plague and her second book Oracle, coming out this May in this post too. So, stay with us!
What is your Saturday night reading suggestion?
So, for a Saturday night, something to make you laugh, with engaging characters and plot but not too serious and, oh yes, travelling from the English Home Counties to outback Australia and back again – A Very Important Teapot by Steve Sheppard. I genuinely enjoyed being in the company of Dawson, the central character, who’d rather be having a pint down the Cricketers Arms in sleepy Home Counties Stallford or pursuing the fragrant Rachel at the Grayfold’s Amateur Dramatic Society’s Christmas panto, but instead gets sent to Australia by his best friend to ‘await further instructions’. He’s really quite loveable (on the page) but would probably drive you crazy in real life. The story includes pretty much every known espionage and gangster thriller trope, but it’s all done with verve and great humour and the reader doesn’t know what’s coming next. It made me laugh aloud. The hapless Dawson wanders around the outback in a number of beat-up motors trailing cops, robbers, and secret agents, encountering the beautiful, mysterious (and mysteriously competent) Lucy Smith and all because of a teapot. Slowly but inexorably the climax builds and eventually, everything converges on the wonderful and calamitous Yackandandah Folk Music Festival. Really good fun, I think this would make a terrific film too.
What is your Saturday night movie suggestion?
On one hand I wanted to recommend an old favourite, a film I’d watch again and again, but, given that films are still being released, even in lockdown, and often we’re not getting to hear about them, I reconsidered and thought I should choose one of these. The Trial of the Chicago 7 is Aaron Sorkin’s 2020 depiction of the trial which followed the anti-Vietnam War riots at the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago. Directed by Sorkin after Stephen Spielberg, whose project this was, had to withdraw, the film was on restricted release last September, but, given the COVID pandemic, went onto Netflix only weeks later. If I hadn’t known that this was based on real events (and court transcripts ) I wouldn’t have believed it possible. The real Chicago Seven plus Bobby Searle, the eighth defendant (and only black man) and their lawyers are portrayed by a stellar ensemble cast, including Mark Rylance, Eddie Redmayne, Sacha Baron Cohen, Joseph Gordon Levitt, Frank Langella, Michael Keaton and others. Anyone who remembers the wit of Sorkin’s The West Wing won’t be surprised by what’s on show here, it made this viewer laugh out loud a few times, though with a bitter twist. This truly was a ‘political trial’. It’s also a clever depiction of a moment in time rather in the way that the TV series Mrs America captured the spirit of the 1970s political backlash to the 60s.
The real events in Trial, like the shooting by police of Fred Hampton, Black Panther supporter of Searle, in circumstances not dissimilar to the shooting of Breonna Taylor by police in 2020 Kentucky make it very relevant to today.
What is your wild card suggestion?
Music. Not disco or rock, or jazz or folk or anything named after part of a house. Something classical – no wait, don’t turn away – this is guaranteed, and I mean guaranteed, to lift the spirits. It’s a short piece only, from Luigi Boccherini’s Night Music from the Streets of Madrid ( Musica notturna delle strade di Madrid ) and it was used in the film Master and Commander, which is based on the book of the same name by Patrick O’Brien. So, a book, a film and a wonderful piece of music all in one! Listen here
Thank you Julie!
About the author, Julie Anderson
Julie Anderson worked in Westminster and Whitehall for many years in a variety of government departments, including the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister. This informed her first successful political thriller, ‘Plague’ (Claret Press, 2020). She is currently writing the third in the series of novels featuring civil servant investigator Cassandra Fortune. The second ‘Oracle’ is being published on 5th May by Claret Press.
Julie is also Chair of Trustees of Clapham Writers, the charity responsible for the annual Clapham Book Festival an annual celebration of reading in south London.
Her website is: www.julieandersonwriter.com
Twitter: @jjulieanderson/twitter
Pinterest: www.pinterest.co.uk/andersonjulie4
About her book, Oracle
Blood calls for blood.
Near the ancient Temple of Apollo, environmentalists protest outside an international conference. Inside, business lobbyists mingle with politicians, seeking profit and influence. Then the charismatic leader of the protest goes missing.
The next day a body is discovered, placed like an offering to the gods. One day later a broken corpse is found at the foot of the cliffs from which blasphemers were once tossed to their deaths.
As a storm closes in and strange lights are seen on the mountain, the conference centre is cut off. Is a killer stalking its corridors? Or are primal forces reaching out from the past? Like the cryptic Oracle of Delphi, Cassandra Fortune must supply the answers before the conference is over. And before more die.
Justice will be done, but what kind of justice?
Praise for its predecessor ‘Plague‘
“If it’s excitement and mystery you’re after, try the bang up to date and very topical ‘Plague’. ” Time and Leisure magazine.
“Gritty and gripping.” The Yorkshire Times
“Few fictional scandals involving Parliament would surprise anyone these days, but ‘Plague’ offers a humdinger.” Natasha Cooper, Literary Review
“A fascinating and authoritative insider view of modern power politics that is all too frighteningly prescient.” V.B. Grey, author of Tell Me How It Ends
“A tense parliamentary thriller with the sour tang of authenticity.” Annemarie Neary, author of The Orphans
Purchase Now
Purchase Plague on Amazon or support local bookstores by shopping at Bookshop.org. Make sure you add it to your Goodreads reading list too! Pre-order Oracle on Bookshop.org or add it to your GoodReads reading list. Bookworms, request it to review on NetGalley.
Thanks for sharing!