There are some publishing events that I would truly kill to be invited to - James Patterson and Thomas Pynchon's literary salon, Katie Price's Oxford Union symposium on 'the role of silicone in a reductionist prose landscape' and, of course, anything involving Sebastian Faulks, but from the look of the invitation for the ITV3 Crime and Thriller Awards - dripping in blood and with a sinister typeface - the killing appeared to have already been done for me.
Dressing for the part - imagine hot Disney witch meets Cheryl Cole – I sped over to the Dorchester, blew kisses to the paps and to DCI Tony Mulliken and swept off to find my fellow guests. I was attending as part of the Murder Most Foul imprint recently launched by Hitchcock Books and one of my authors, Hector Hambledon was up for the Zombie Dagger for his poignant study of marital disharmony TILL YOUR FLESH DO I EAT. It promised to be a hot night.
After hours of oo-ing and aah-ing as various hot technicolour TV stars and some rather crumpled black and white authors collected their worringingly authentic Dagger trophies we got to the defining moment of the evening - no, of 2009 actually and of my career to date.
Sweet Lynda La Plante came up to the podium to join the Hall Of Fame and accepted her dagger with dignity and real humility. We clapped and cheered and ovated and she smiled. Then something happened – she went totally mental and started really screaming about how sleb-lit was bastardizing real lit and publishers were to blame. The room went quieter than Waterstone’s Piccadilly after a Leona Lewis signing session and in a moment of true inspired brilliance LLP threw her dagger just over the head of Martina Cole and with extraordinary accuracy it shot across the crowded room straight towards the lovely Martine McCutcheon. Time went into slow motion and we gasped collectively and as it was nearing its sleek gleaming target I knew that I had to act - I leapt to my feet grabbing the cheese board in front of me and caught the full force of the dagger right through the middle of a piece of Neal's Yard stilton. Catching my breath I sat down calmly removed the still vibrating dagger from the board and delicately ate the cheese from the end of it. The cameras zoomed in and the audience paused and then cheered, laughed and stamped their feet in my honour. Forget Martine this truly was MY moment and it was being seen live by millions of people around the world. Well – at least a few hundred.
Comforting a distressed Martine is the ladies powder room afterwards I gently took her hand, locked eyes with her and said, ‘I think Lynda was being unfair - she quite clearly hadn't read your book she probably just read that incredibly cruel parody called ‘The Mistress' that someone has put up on the web. They have even designed a hideous pink cover with your name on it to make it look real. Christ, it made Geri Halliwell's children's series read like The Chronicles of Narnia’.
I was about to continue when suddenly I was tapped on the shoulder by a man who introduced himself as a TV producer. ‘You were awesome in there', he raved, ‘a natural born entertainer - Amanda Ross wants you to front a 13-part series about publishing called THIS IS LIT. Please say you'll do it.'.
I just knew this moment would come one day - inevitable stardom, followed by the Daisy Frost biopic that would trace my humble beginnings from private school to the flat my parents bought me in Notting Hill. I could be played by-...'Me?' Martine piped up. ‘Um...sorry was I thinking all that out-loud? I was going to say Megan Fox' I said crossly, dropping Martine's hand and striding forth to find Ms Ross.
As I was leaving the event, now undecided between Ange and Jennifer Garner, I grabbed three goodie bags and ran for the Hitchcock Books limo. Discarding all the usual sponsors leaflets and weird stuff like I came across a free book with a strangely familiar pink cover - The Mistress by one Martine McCutcheon. As I read the first line I realised that the on-line parody was in fact the real deal.
Oh my god.
Must dash - my future awaits me.
--http://www.missdaisyfrost.com/
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