‘By Way of Paris’ by Christopher J Newman.

Published by Roundfire Books,
26 November 2024.
ISBN: 978-1-80341-608-3 (PB)

Luke is his late 20s and fed up with his life in North Carolina.  He is, however, looking forward to joining a writing programme in London and, before this a month with his close friend Carey Cash looking around Europe.  They travel to Paris and quickly things start to go wrong.  In hopes of meeting some authors, they go to a party.  Here Luke discovers the body of a dead woman and is blackmailed into hiding the evidence.  So he arrives in London more quickly than he had anticipated.  But he has hopes that writing the perfect novel will distance him from events in Paris.

One of the blackmailers had given Luke the name of a contact in England - Shane - and he decides to try and find him.  He eventually tracks him down to The Rifleman, a pub in Catford.  Shane is a gang leader dealing mainly in drugs and with a young team who he seems to regard as apprentices.  Luke becomes a local at the pub and an unofficial member of the gang, which perhaps become a kind of family for him.  Inevitably he is drawn into a violent and criminal world, where he finds he has strengths and abilities which impress Shane.

Luke joins his writing course, and begins to use his experiences with the gang in his writing, which impresses his class mates and tutors.  But there is an underlying concern that he is writing about events that have actually happened and in which he has been involved.  Even the threat of being expelled from his course does not dissuade him from continuing to work with the gang, making serious enemies and coming to the attention of the police.  Then the dangers surrounding him become very personal, when Carey comes to visit Luke (to celebrate his birthday).  A young gang member is killed and Carey is seriously injured.  Luke is also injured but overcomes this to inflict his own violent punishment.  And then Shane tricks him into going to France…

This is a story with different tempos and moods, adventure and violence, enmity and friendship.  Alone in London Luke has to consider his relationships - with his family (especially his mother), his friends and academic colleagues, the gang – and realises he has to make some serious decisions.  This is a first novel and certainly packs a punch.
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Reviewer: Jo Hesslewood

Christopher J. Newman was born and raised in North Carolina where he began writing stories from the back row of his high school math and science classes. What began as a hobby turned into an obsession and Newman's passion for storytelling took on two specific forms: novel writing and filmmaking. He spent the next ten years working as a freelance filmmaker by day and writing novels by night. In 2019, Newman decided to pursue writing further and moved to the United Kingdom to earn his master’s degree in creative writing from Bath Spa University. His year and a half spent abroad provided the inspiration for his debut novel, By Way of  Paris. Newman currently works in marketing for a non-profit organization, moonlights as a freelance filmmaker, and works part-time as a university instructor, where he teaches storytelling through film.

Jo Hesslewood.  Crime fiction has been my favourite reading material since as a teenager I first spotted Agatha Christie on the library bookshelves.  For twenty-five years the commute to and from London provided plenty of reading time.  I am fortunate to live in Cambridge, where my local crime fiction book club, Crimecrackers, meets at Heffers Bookshop.  I enjoy attending crime fiction events and currently organise events for the Margery Allingham Society.