A new edition of the first in the series of Benjamin Myers' cult classic Northern crime saga
Benjamin Myers was born in Durham in 1976. His most recent
novel, The Offing, was an international bestseller and selected for
the Radio 2 Book Club. Other works include The Gallows Pole, which
won the Walter Scott Prize for historical fiction, Beastings which
was awarded the Portico Prize for Literature, and Pig Iron which
won the inaugural Gordon Burn Prize. He has also published
non-fiction, poetry and crime novels and his journalism has
appeared in publications including the Guardian, New Statesman,
Spectator, Caught By The River and many more. He lives in the Upper
Calder Valley, West Yorkshire.
benmyers.com / @BenMyers1
Myers summons up the Yorkshire landscape with lyrical aplomb. The
bleakness of the snowbound landscape, the beauty of the moors, the
vivid realisation of market town and northern city are all rendered
with absolute clarity. His prose is beautifully controlled and so
graphic it’s impossible not to picture the scenes he conjures up in
striking detail. There is no hiding place from the darkness because
the writing is so damned good
*GUARDIAN*
Working within the genre of crime fiction, and yet with a prose
style that at times reads like poetry, Myers spins a tale of
torment that creaks into other, older narratives. He creates a
novel that is both environmentally and ecologically prescient …
Turning Blue is a brave and utterly uncompromising novel which
positions Benjamin Myers alongside the great names of crime
fiction. He has earned his metaphorical seat on the bench, snuggled
in between Val McDermid and James Ellroy
*CAUGHT BY THE RIVER*
A queasily compulsive evocation of a wild and brutal Yorkshire
landscape, informed and haunted in equal measure by the shades of
Jimmy Savile and his monstrous deeds and the East Riding’s lost boy
of crime fiction, Ted Lewis
*CATHI UNSWORTH*
[Myers is] grammatically armed, experienced, and capable of
subverting language to dangerous effect….In terms of the current
pantheon of crime writing, there truly is nothing with Turning
Blue’s dark power and literary ferocity
*THRILL FILTER*
Myers has his own style, he is an exciting writer of extraordinary
talent with an ability to weave heart-breaking tales about
marginalised communities and individuals with brutal, bleak and
stomach-wrenching stories into the evocative tapestry of a
landscape setting … I am continually excited and blown away by
Myers’ awesome writing
*A FICTION HABIT*
Not only has Myers managed to retain his genuine gift for writing
about the countryside – despite some quite explicit diversions into
the sexual underworld – but in James Brindle he has created a
detective who is troubled, and thankfully not just by the tired
clichés of drink, drugs or divorce … Turning Blue works as a proper
old-fashioned page turner, but Myers has created a new genre –
Dales Noir – with echoes of a great like James Ellroy
*LOUDER THAN WAR*
Turning Blue is cool, dark and hypnotic. As we’ve come to expect
from Myers, landscape and nature play an important role in the
book, providing the rough-hewn canvas on which he paints yet
another gripping, shadowy portrait of humanity, and in the process
proves himself one of our most interesting and original writers
*LOUD & QUIET*
This is far removed from the picture postcard Yorkshire of
Heartbeat … the wildness of the environs are particularly well
drawn, the reek of sheep shit practically wafting off the page…this
compulsively readable work is driven by the same kind of grimly
hypnotic thump that David Peace brought to his Red Riding Quartet
(another author not given to romanticising “the north”
*THE CRACK*
The writing is masterful. The descriptive power throughout is akin
to that of the best metaphysical poetry….to read Turning Blue is to
be totally immersed, to be so engaged with the richness of the text
that when reality calls and the book needs placing back on the
table, you long to escape back to it
*NUDGE*
Rural crime fiction in Britain is often hounded by a sense of
cosiness, of layers of geniality laid as thick as a buttered scone.
Trust Benjamin Myers to swallow those clichés into oblivion, and
regurgitate a dark, nasty detective story set in the Yorkshire
dales, with barely an iota of compassion for our methods of
clinging to what we know … this is a tour de force of stark horror
writhing from any pigeonhole you lump it in
*THE SKINNY*
What a revelation Turning Blue turned out to be. A glorious mash up
of the staccato darkness of David Peace, fused with Ross Raisin,
this book was not only utterly original, but infused with a
beautifully realised balance of naturalistic imagery, and a totally
compelling tale of sordid murder in the heart of the Yorkshire
Dales. Drawing on the theme of the infamous Yew Tree
investigations, Myers has conjured up a cast of emotionally damaged
characters across the spectrum, with blood chilling moments of
revelation, that will haunt your dreams
*RAVEN CRIME READS*
Deeply uncomfortable, essential reading, examining something very
rotten in British society
*UNSUNG STORIES*
 |
Ask a Question About this Product More... |
|
