Chris Nickson is the author of eleven Tom Harper mysteries, eight highly acclaimed novels in the Richard Nottingham series, and seven Simon Westow mysteries. He is also a well-known music journalist. He lives in his beloved Leeds.
Nickson's newest Simon Westow mystery is Them Without Pain.
Recently I asked the author about what he was reading. Nickson's reply:
I tend to keep two books on the go, a novel for my downstairs ready and something non-fiction on the bedside table. The other week I picked up a Henning Mankel Wallender novel at a free library, and that's sending me down a rabbit hole. I've read many of them before, but a long time ago. Currently I'mVisit Chris Nickson's website.on Sidetracked, set around the Swedish midsummer, and a series of strange deaths - most of which are gruesome murders. As always, Wallender is appealing and repellent in equal amounts. I'm curious to see how he solves this one.
Upstairs it's A Travel Guide to the Middle Ages, by Anthony Bale. Travel became an industry then, with increasing numbers going to pilgrimages to Rome, Jerusalem, Compostella and more. I read plenty of English history, but this takes me farther afield. Bale weaves his scholarship lightly and easily, with fascinating details about the people making these voyages and the places they go. The section on Venice is quite detailed, with plenty of interesting asides- apparently the powers that be deemed prostitution necessary to the local economy - and a sense of the place and time, when travel was often interrupted by outbreaks of plague; the Black Death wasn't the only one. I read plenty of history, often as research for my own books. Sometimes, though, it's simply because a topic piques my curiosity, and this did that. So far, it's very satisfying.
My Book, The Movie: The Constant Lovers.
The Page 69 Test: The Constant Lovers.
The Page 69 Test: The Iron Water.
The Page 69 Test: The Hanging Psalm.
Q&A with Chris Nickson.
The Page 69 Test: The Molten City.
My Book, The Movie: Molten City.
The Page 69 Test: Brass Lives.
The Page 69 Test: The Blood Covenant.
The Page 69 Test: The Dead Will Rise.
The Page 69 Test: Rusted Souls.
The Page 69 Test: The Scream of Sins.
The Page 69 Test: Them Without Pain.
--Marshal Zeringue