Fortune teller sets crime yarns racing

LOOKING DOWN

by Frances Fyfield

Time Warner Books, £6.99

An artist is seated on the cliffs, sketchbook in hand, when the body of a young woman sails over his head and lands in a bloody heap in the distance. Mesmerised by the sight, the artist remains rooted to the spot and frantically sketches the scene before him – including a careful depiction of the baby ravens that come to feed on the body – instead of rushing to check if she is still alive. But who is the girl, what was she doing at the remote spot, and how did she come to such a gruesome end?

Frances Fyfield spins an elaborate yarn in which the mystery gradually unfurls through the eyes of her diverse and convincing characters, which she admits she finds more interesting than the crime itself. Central to them all is Sarah Fortune, a lawyer-turned-tart-with-a-heart who abandoned her career as a civil litigator some years ago in favour of a more agreeable source of income through intimate liaisons with wealthy male friends.


Fortune, who has featured in some of Ms Fyfield’s other novels, is supported by a cast that includes her art-obsessed, cat-burgling brother; the artist himself, who is Sarah’s former lover and lives upstairs in her plush apartment block; his young, beautiful but neglected wife; and a kindly local doctor haunted by the death of his wife.


Ms Fyfield is herself a former criminal lawyer. She spent the last ten of her 28 years in the law working one day a week as a prosecutor at the Crown Prosecution Service, before finally abandoning the law altogether to write full-time last year. Her books initially began with crime stories featuring a prosecutor called Helen West, which were adapted for television. She has just completed her 18th novel, which will be out later in the year.


Ms Fyfield tells the Gazette: ‘Very early on in my career, I decided I wanted another kind of lawyer [to Helen West]. Sarah Fortune is a civil practitioner who was very bored with it, and not that good at it, so she takes up a genteel form of prostitution instead. I wish I was a person like her – being a tart with a heart is a lovely idea.’


How does she find the inspiration for so many novels? ‘The ideas come quickly, but the difficult part is making it cohesive and working it into a story. I am seriously interested in crime, but of the home-grown kind. And I am actually more interested in the characters.


‘For this book, the idea started with the rare bird, the chough [which the artist believes he sees flying over the body], which I was writing a radio programme about at the time. I also had the image of a body sailing over the cliff, and the idea that it could be too good an artistic opportunity to miss for the artist – I collect art, and I know what artists are like. I wanted to write about the sea as well, and about friendship between men, which not many people seem to write about.’


Ms Fyfield may be a lawyer by nature, but that does not mean that her novels are meticulously planned. ‘I hadn’t decided at the start of the novel who the killer was – I didn’t decide until chapter five,’ she confesses. ‘I can’t write with a plan – I just have to write it as I go along. But I know that I will fit in certain scenes. It always seems to come together somehow, about two-thirds of the way through.’


She elaborates: ‘It takes me six months to do a first draft, and then there are two revisions, to make it all fit together. Then it goes to the editor, and you can’t resent it being edited, because by that stage you are holding it right up to your nose, and you can’t actually see it properly. You need someone to tell you whether there is, for example, one coincidence too many, or if someone’s eyes have turned from blue to brown. It is humiliating, but it is OK if you respect your editor.’


Ms Fyfield has plenty of encouragement for any solicitors who may wish to pick up a pen themselves. She enthuses: ‘My advice to any lawyers out there who may want to write a novel is to let their imagination flow. There is something very restrictive about being a lawyer, we depend very much on reality.


‘Writing a legal thriller doesn’t work unless you learn to exaggerate and become a liar – which can be difficult for lawyers to do. You have to take an ordinary situation and make it extreme.


‘But being a lawyer is a wonderful place to start. It is a huge privilege, because you are able to look at other people’s lives. People and companies tell lawyers their secrets, which gives them more material than most people have access to.’