Eftychia Giannaki presents her new crime novel: ‘In the Back Seat’.

Eftychia Giannaki, author of the new crime novel In the Back Seat, due to be published in June by Ikaros Publications, introduces herself to us with a text full of reflections on the writing of crime fiction. She describes her own relationship with writing and shares her view on the influence of the evolution of Western society on the flourishing of this particular literary genre.I think I was twenty when, following an accident, I realised that all my organs are perishable. Until then, I had no physical sense of myself. When I confessed how much this realisation had unsettled me to a nurse who struck up a conversation with me during my hospital stay, she reassured me that, generally speaking, there is nothing in me that is not mortal, and she gave me many examples of patients around me who were preparing to prove the mortality of the matter, whilst I was temporarily safe.Since then I have been writing because, among the few things I am capable of, writing always acts like that reassuring nurse who reminds me of the words of E.A. Poe, that fear, and particularly the fear of death, is an emotion that people like to feel when they are certain they are safe.As I write these lines, a lady is sitting next to me enjoying a cold chocolate. She even asked for a bar of chocolate, which she’s been nibbling at for some time now. Chocolate with chocolate, then. A short while ago, a group sat down amongst us, talking about a crime, about a car that had run over, killed and abandoned an acquaintance of theirs who was riding a motorbike. The group, despite the grim tale, ordered coffees, and the lady who heard it all didn’t feel her enjoyment of a large bite of cake diminished in the slightest once the account of the events had finished.What am I getting at? A detective story is precisely this kind of narrative within our everyday lives, a mirror reflecting what we avoid seeing just before we turn back to our pleasant habits. Many wonder whether such a narrative carries any particular weight. I agree with those who believe that this narrative has value, particularly as it has evolved in recent years, reflecting the social and psychological implications of the story in question.Antiquity lived with the hope of overcoming pain and death, with Epicurus going so far as to say that death does not exist for us. Christianity proceeded with its glorification of it, and the Western world in recent decades with its denial of it. In Europe during the second half of the twentieth century, euphoria and excessive optimism were cultivated through images that erased the public expression of pain and, even more so, of death. Were it not for the recent economic turmoil and terrorism, we would undoubtedly be talking mainly about the weather.It is no coincidence, then, that crime fiction—and more recently crime series and films—has flourished, particularly in countries where euphoria has long prevailed. It stems from the need to cast our eyes upon what is concealed.The past, the shared secret, the cover-up, the violence that goes round in circles, the superficiality, the simplicity of everyday things, even humour in the face of the abhorrent, the huge bite of a chocolate bar after a painful narrative, the city’s inhabitants, their conversations, and Athens as a microcosm of the artificial euphoria of a few years and a subsequent resounding fall—these are the themes that preoccupy me in my first crime novel.Now, as I write these lines, I realise that when the accident I began with happened, I was sitting in the back seat. Perhaps if it hadn’t happened, this story wouldn’t exist. Since then, I’ve enjoyed creating situations of fear so that I don’t feel afraid; that is the pleasure of the crime novel. And that pleasure is the same whether you’re writing it or reading it.Brief biography: Eftychia Giannaki was born and raised in Athens. She studied computer science, music technology and communication, and worked for several years in secondary education. In the past, another of her novels, entitled Hardcore, was published under a pseudonym and adapted for the cinema. You can find out more about her at www.giannaki.com