I've been a fan of his since A Dark Redemption hit the U.S. in 2013 and I'm so excited to share this Q&A with you today.
1.
You started out as a music critic. What brought you to crime writing?
Whom in the crime world do you like to read? Who are your influences?
The
stories I wanted to tell brought me to crime fiction. I've always
been interested in questions of morality, in those places where right
and wrong are not so clear-cut and in the choices people make when
they think they have no choice at all, so it was natural that crime
fiction would be the best way to explore that. I also love the
deductive side of crime fiction – the seductions of logic, puzzle
and mystery. There's something very elegant and satisfying about the
best crime novels that is hard to find anywhere else.
I
still read: James Crumley. Kem Nunn. Jim Thompson. James Sallis.
James Ellroy. Ross Macdonald. Those are the ones I keep coming back
to.
Outside
of crime it would be: Cormac McCarthy, Thomas Pynchon, Don DeLillo,
Denis Johnson.
2.
Do you write with music playing? Do you ever envision a playlist for
your novels? Does ELEVEN DAYS have a playlist, even unofficially?
I
can't write to music. I need to hear the rhythm of the sentences in
my head. But I can't plot without it playing in the background! It
seems to turn the tap on my subconscious. My first novel, The
Devil's Playground, was written while I
was still a music journalist and music features on almost every page.
But I hate to do the same thing twice, so there's very little music
in the next three books. However, it's started to creep back, and in
The Intrusions,
my next book, Geneva's listening habits would indeed constitute a
playlist.
3. Your two crime novels that are available in
the US, A DARK REDEMPTION and ELEVEN DAYS, are both really concerned
with global social issues and their impact in England. How do you
choose which issues to focus on in each book?
It's
sounds like a cliché but the stories choose me. I begin to get
obsessed and find myself thinking about little else. I read what I
can about the subject and then I have to write about it, so I can
stop thinking about it all the time! But, often, it's a single
situation that sparks off the book and I then start to feel my way
into it. It's only looking back with hindsight that I can see the
same theme running throughout all four novels – that of idealism
turning to fanaticism which, by its very nature, takes me to
far-flung places. I'm very obsessed by the idea of Tourist Noir –
how we behave when bad things happen to us abroad, when we no longer
have the crutches of friends, family or even language. I guess all my
books could be considered tourist noir.
4.
I love the relationship between Carrigan and Miller. How do you see
it evolving over the course of the series?
Why,
thank you! I'm so glad you like it. You never know if something's
going to work for a reader and it's always lovely when it does. I
don't plan that much ahead – I think if a character surprises me,
they're more likely to surprise the reader too – but I can say that
things are going to get a little more fractious between Carrigan and
Miller in the next book. Things sometimes have to get worse before
they get better...
5.
In the first two books the focus has been very much on Carrigan
although we got some hints of Miller's problems in ELEVEN DAYS. Her
ex seems like a real piece of work- are we going to see more of him?
Does he wind up dead?
Oh yes, we're definitely going to see
more of him in The Intrusions! I'm glad you asked about that
because in the next book the focus is much more on Geneva. It's nice
to be able to switch between them and hopefully, it'll be one of
things keeping the series fresh.
Thank you so much for taking the time to answer my questions! I can't wait for the next book.
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