Crime, travel guide or recipe book? Take your pick

                                                                            Picture Credit: Google 

Last month I was in ‘curious mode’, this month I’m in ‘travel planning mode’. I’m not always good at initiating trips, but when Mrs Smart prods me firmly in the right place, I am good at taking the hint and then we enjoy arranging it. At the Holiday and Travel Show, we learned Albania is an up-and-coming destination and you can have a week there for the price of two frothy coffees at the Olympia Exhibition Centre.

Our next trip, though, is not to Albania. We are off to Portugal. Three nights in Lisbon, a train ride, then three nights in Porto. Do you have any tips for us when we’re there? What can’t we miss? Where can we find the charming restaurants only the locals know about?

Of course, we’ll upload a few e-books and pack a couple of paperbacks to see us through. Tech’s great until the battery dies. To get in the mood, we both enjoy finding novels set in our travel destination. As a crime fan, I'm left feeling we’re more likely to get brutally murdered than have a good time, but so far, so good. If I disappear from the fifth of the month slot without warning, my luck has probably run out.

Before we went to Venice, we enjoyed the Brunetti stories by Donna Leon and she makes it easy to imagine walking in the very footsteps of the characters. If we had witnessed a fleeing suspect diving into the Canal Grande pursued by the polizia locale onboard a commandeered gondola, it would have seemed entirely normal. Apart from the many novels, there’s a spin-off guidebook, Brunetti’s Venice, to take you through the streets of his beloved city. You really can call into his favourite bars and cafes and order what he does because they’re there. Leon herself has even authored A Taste of Venice for fans who want to recreate his beautifully described home-cooked meals for themselves. I’m not surprised to see this. Whenever my wife is reading a Brunetti novel, I often hear her saying, ‘mmm, that sounds delicious.’ Leon’s books are crime thrillers, mysteries, travel guides and recipes all at the same time. Nice going, Donna.

This week I had a go at writing those things that are part and parcel of the publication process – a single-line ‘elevator pitch’, a synopsis and a cover letter. They were tricky, and I wished I could call on Leon for some help. There is so much to convey in so few words. I even struggled to pin down the genre, for goodness’ sake – what kind of writer doesn’t know that? The obvious answer is ‘crime’ or ‘detective’, but that seems to miss the mark – the story isn’t really about the crimes themselves but about what makes the characters tick. Then I remembered I love the Brunetti books as much for depicting his daily life as the plots themsleves. I’m currently experimenting with ‘crime with a redemptive arc‘. Do you think I should redraft with some recipes and travel ideas?

So, here’s to everyone who doesn’t enjoy being defined by a single genre. Do you have a one-line killer pitch for anything you’re working on? How did you make it capture everything you want it to?