FFB: A Bleeding of Innocents

Today's selection for Patti Abbot's Forgotten Books Friday is a novel by author Jo Bannister, a former journalist who was born in Rochdale, Lancashire, and currently lives in Northern Ireland. She's the author of over 30 novels and has received recognition from the Royal Society of Arts and the British Press Awards and garnered an Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine Readers' Award in 1988.

She has several series including the Castlemere books, the very first of which was titled A Bleeding of Innocents, published in 1993, featuring a trio of police detectives. The story opens at a funeral for a dead policeman, soon followed by a case handed to Detective Superintendent Frank Shapiro, who has brought in the ambitious DI Liz Graham to take over after the policeman's death. The dead policeman's partner, Sgt. Cal Donovan, tries to get over the guilt surrounding his partner's murder, which he blames on a local crime baron. The case they're given is that of a young nurse shot in her car, but it's soon followed by the death of a surgeon who used to work with the murdered nurse. Making things worse, a third member of the same operating-room team, the anaesthetist, seems to be next in line, pointing to a serial killer. Then there's the matter of who killed Cal's partner adding to the mix.

Bannister is particularly known for her skillful plotting and convincing characterization. (The New York Times Book Review said "Jo Bannister scores high on character with her persuasive insights into the psychological responses to pain").

In an interview a few years ago with Gerard Brennan via his blog Crime Scene NI, the author talked about her writing:

"I used to be a lot more disciplined about writing than I am now – working 8 to 12 and 7 to 9 six days a week. One of the advantages of getting older is that you no longer feel the need to do everything yesterday. When I’m in the middle of a book I aim at producing a thousand words a day. Sometimes I struggle; sometimes I’m on a roll and produce a lot more. But I don’t beat myself up if nothing much is happening, just keep trying until it does. There are more than thirty of my books on the shelves: if the next is a little late, people can read one of the earlier ones while they’re waiting."

She also discussed her worst writing experience involving a heavy-handed editor: "She was a zealot. And she thought...that she could improve something on just about every page," and gave her very sage advice for writing greenhorns:  "Do it for your own pleasure. There are easier ways to make a living."

Bannister's other novels include several police procedurals and a series featuring Brodie Farrell who runs Looking for Something?, an eclectic problem-solving agency in Dimmock, England. Her latest novel is the third in her Gabriel Ash series, Desperate Measures, due in December of 2015.