Red Scorpion is the eleventh - and latest - thriller by journalist-turned-writer Tom Bradby.

It’s the story of a struggling London doctor, Laura Strong, who is made an offer which is too good to be true.

Her destiny is then tied to a second-generation Colombian who is trying to stay away from his family’s dark business.

While the story is a thrilling work of fiction - it has its roots in Tom’s extensive network of contacts built through years of being a foreign, home affairs and political correspondent.

As well as writing books - and for ITV’s News at Ten - he has also penned screenplays for film and TV. The latest being the ITV hit Secret Service, starring Gemma Arterton and Rafe Spall.

Tom developed his own novel of the same name for the five-part drama which aired on the channel - and is still available on ITVX.

In this interview, Tom describes his contacts with the security services, how he finds inspiration in real moments of drama - including when he was shot while posted in Jakarta - and how he juggles three competing, but also complimentary careers.

Grab a copy of Red Scorpion here

Tom Bradby, thanks so much for being with us on the show today. Many, congratulations on Red Scorpion, which I read in about a day, an afternoon, slightly longer than an afternoon, a terrific read. What’s the feedback been from where you’ve been sitting too?

Tom Bradby

Well, that’s a great start. Should we stop there? well, thank you for reading it. the feedback I I suppose, you know, that’s my 11th novel. And I don’t I don’t want to say that you get blasé about the reception in any way. but the reception was really you know, the truth is, unless you’re Richard Osman.

Or you strike some incredible wave, no one is selling hundreds of thousands of hardbacks of anything anymore. I mean, a few people are, but that that isn’t kind of where the industry is. So when a book comes out in hardback, you know, even a lot of your readers are realistically going to wait for the paperback. So it’s kind of a weird environment in that it’s not like you suddenly have hundreds of thousands of responses.

But the response was been amazing actually. The reviews were, I think, some of the best I’ve had and the reader response was fantastic and I’ve had a lot of people sort of saying to me, God, I really loved it. So yeah, so far so good.

Robert Murphy (05:57.208)

Yeah, it’s been likened, I think, in one review that I read to the Sopranos even, that’s mentioned as well. Well taken. Yeah. So it starts with Dr Laura Strong and she’s in a bit of a pickle, isn’t she? Both her parents have died. She’s got a profoundly disabled unwell brother. She’s got bailiffs knocking at the door. She’s saving people’s lives. Take us up from there please, Tom.

Tom Bradby

I think it’s weird, isn’t it, how a protagonist comes into your head. You you must you must hear this time and time again with authors. You know, you’re tr you’re try y where does a character come from? Sometimes I I look back on all the characters I’ve written and think, How did that character come into my head and then evolve in the way they do? And the the truth of the matter is, as any I think writer would tell you that some of the way they evolve is in the story.

You create a thriller where you want to take a character and then put them in a kinetic situation which propels the reader forward into a world of perfect escapism, to be honest with you, so that they you know, they find they get through it. And you very kindly said you read it in a day. That’s sort of what you want all your readers to say. I started reading and I couldn’t stop. And I decided I was gonna come up with the idea of creating something in this world which came

fr from a friend of mine who lives in Colombia and w you know works in that industry and maybe we’ll talk about that in a bit. But that’s where the idea came from. But I wanted the idea of somebody that every reader could really relate to. You know, and I thought a young female doctor, debt ridden, very difficult personal circumstances, she’d have every reason to take a job offer that maybe seems a bit too good to be true.

Wanted to try and get the readers right alongside her, to be able to relate to her and to want to go on her journey. And then the kind of character comes into your head and it forms in a way you find difficult to explain sometimes. Just suddenly the character is very real to you and then you’re pounding away.

Robert Murphy (07:36.502)

And enter into her world, Rafael Fernandez. I think I’ve pronounced that correctly, who is trying hard to escape his family. But of course he’s from the kind of family where you can’t, you can move to the other side of the world and you still can’t escape the family really. Just tell us a bit about him because he does make her that offer that is too good to refuse. It’s a lot of money. It’s going to solve all her problems or also create a few more as well.

Tom Bradby

Well, I have a a friend from university who w was was in the army for a bit, then became a foreign correspondent for a bit, and then took on what arguably I think must be one the most dangerous jobs in the world. He runs a website called Insight Crime, which investigates organized crime in Latin America. And he lives in Medellin, he’s married to a Colombian girl, and he basically, as the website title would indicate, spends his time digging into what’s going on in organised crime. And every time I see him, I sort of have a sort of a slight black joke of how come dark humour, you know, you’re still alive, that’s good. because, you know, he’s had death threats and it’s a very, very difficult, dangerous job. And I he’s one of those people I just really admire because I think he’s got guts like few people I’ve ever seen. Talking to him one day about it, obviously I always find the stuff he’s investigating absolutely fascinating as you’d expect from a journalist.

And he was talking about how far the drug cartels have come from the days of Pablo Escopar, where everything was very kind of flashy and you know, it was new money if you want to put it that way. And he was talking about the way the new generation of drug leaders have many, many more fronts of legitimate businesses, frankly, because they bought lots of other businesses over time.

And that the next generation of leaders are often educated at Oxford or Harvard or wherever, precisely because the idea is to sort of project or to hide the industry behind many layers of apparent, perfectly respectable business fronts and to you know allow them access to the elite. So that’s where the idea of Rafa came from. Somebody who was sent abroad to be educated for that purpose, but hates his father and everything that he represents and wants to run a million miles away from him and has made a success of running away from his father, but his sister’s getting married, she wants to do it in Columbia, she hasn’t cut off their father like he has, and so he goes back very, very reluctantly to her wedding with Laura, the doctor, and you can imagine what my the father dies and then he’s stuck in.

Yeah, and exactly. And there’s a horrific scene just after the wedding, isn’t there? We won’t give too much away or anything away. But it was sort of chin on the floor time, really, when what happened happened within the family circle, let’s put it that way. I wanted to ask you a bit, and the book goes off, so it starts in London, it moves to Bogota, Medellin, and then to Trieste as well, doesn’t it?

It zips around the world. It’s quite glamorous, isn’t it? It’s quite escapist, isn’t it, from the reader’s perspective.

Tom Bradby

Yeah, I mean I think I d I don’t I I have enough real It’s it’s a difficult thing to explain really because I I want my books to be as real you’d expect as a you know, I’ve been with ITN not sitting in quite this office, but offices like this for thirty six years. I love journalism, I always will. You’d naturally expect me to be wanting to write things that are real and credible, and all the rest of it. But the same time, you know, there’s enough reality in the world, as it is. And I want things that do feel escapist where you can just get into a journey with someone that’s exotic and compelling and frightening and really propels you through it. and so having a bit of moving around the world and a bit of glamour and a bit of taking you to you know new places, hopefully ri realising them very vividly for the reader, that’s all part of the mixture I’m trying to create, I suppose.

Robert Murphy

And when she is approached as well, Laura, by an agency, there’s a great passage which sort of describes her being trained in the tradecraft that she’s being taught. In what ways, what research do you do for that? Or is there any connections there that you can talk more widely about in terms of what you learned, what you know?

Tom Bradby

Well, I’ve spent a lot of my career around intelligence people. So I started off in, you know, Northern Ireland. I wrote my first thriller, Shadow Dancer there, which later I turned into a film with Julian Anderson and Clive Owen and that was the first time I’d encountered kind of members of MI5 or the police special branch. But you know, I later went on to do a job we call at ITV News UK editor, which is effectively intelligence and security. So that was, you know, around the time of the seven seven bombings. So I spent a lot of time with MI5 and MI6. I got to know a fair number of people in there. So I’m tr I’m trying to bring that

research and realism, I still have all those contacts, I still talk to them very frequently when I’m writing things. And I’m trying to bring that realism to it. Because even if you’re go you’re encourag you’re inviting the reader to go on an escapist journey, it’s not very compelling if it doesn’t feel real. So it’s got it I think it has to feel real and that’s why I’ve tried to make it as realistic as I possibly

Robert Murphy (13:32.48)

Yeah, it is grounded. It’s very grounded. And as you said as well, Laura is a very grounded character that’s very easy to relate to. And even the, know, the Raffa, the guy she sort of is along the journey with, who’s taking her to look after his son to South America. And she’s in this sort of a plot with, I mean, we’re kind of on his side as well. There’s a really, engaging part of the book where you described, and again I won’t go into too much detail, but something that he was asked to do as a child. And suddenly you have so much sympathy for this poor multi-millionaire. It’s very grounding, but where did that come from?

Tom Bradby

It’s funny, when I did I think the truth about writing is that you learn something a little bit different every time. And as I said, it’s very hard to get the structure of a thriller right. And I know that because I’ve got the structure of many thrillers wrong and had to put them in the bin and start all over again. And I I’m about, you know, at work on my twelfth book, but if I added all the drafts I’d written together.

there’ll probably be about thirty five books because an awful lot of stuff has gone in the bin. And that’s you know, like I wrote Shadow Dancer and it was did, you know very nicely. Thank you. I then sat down to write my second thriller, which I decided was a political thriller, called The Sleep of the Dead. If you ever read it, one thing you’ll spot it’s not a political thriller. That’s because several political thrillers of a hundred and twenty thousand words later that went pretty much entirely, you know, I tried to rewrite them, but they went kind of in the bin because the the the tension I was trying to create was just not there. So if you get the structure of a thriller wrong, you you you’re in a lot of pain. Now obviously I’m twelve books and quite a lot of films and TV dramas down. So I hope I’m I’ve learned some of my lessons now, but you you can still be surprised by something. And when I wrote the film of Shadow Dancer, one of the things that I really struggled with in the script was how do you, you know, film is by its nature condensed. So how do you persuade the audience to get on the side of an IRA terrorist? Like that’s somebody, you know, at the stage that I was writing this film, many people had been sort of brought up in Britain to hate or to fear or to be suspicious of, and yet you had to really for the film to work, you had to be alongside her at least to have some empathy with her if you even if you didn’t have any sympathy because she gets caught in a bombing run and then she’s turned into an informer. And if you watch the film you’ll see there’s quite a dramatic opening scene, I suppose in a way not dissimilar to Red Scorpion. So I think when it came to Red Scorpion, and it’s about her childhood and it frames things in a way that that I think makes you understand

How she ended up who she is, even if you don’t approve or sympathize with it. And likewise with Red Scorpion, you know, you’re aware that you’re gonna create a story about a main character who is the son of a drug dealer and ultimately, you know, I suppose a bit like the Godfather, has to go on a journey into his father’s criminal empire in order to get himself out of Colombia in one piece with Laura and his son. And

In order to do that, you’ve got to feel for him, you’ve got to have some empathy with him. And that’s what led me to the kind of prologue because I thought I think often as a novelist or as a screenwriter, you’re trying to stay in a s you’re trying to capture something emotional in a single scene that you could spend a hundred thousand words failing to convey. Like if you can create one incredibly visceral emotional scene, sometimes it doesn’t need any dialogue at all, but it

It lands the reader somewhere that you could spend a million words failing to do in another context, if that makes any sense.

Robert Murphy (17:48.076)

Yeah, it does. And you’ve mentioned obviously your screenwriting. You’ve had a big success this year with Secret Service with Gemma Arterton and Rafe Spall. Many congratulations and big numbers as well for ITV as well. What was that like?

Tom Bradby

That was just one of those experiences that was really wonderful from beginning to end. the producers, I mean what what happened in my sort of juggling between novel writing and screenwriting, you know, just being honest and truthful, is that I I wrote a whole load of novels. I think I wrote about six. And then someone optioned Shadow Dancer and I wrote the screenplay, and then that did the film did really quite well. So I suddenly got offered a lot of screenwriting gigs, far too many of which I took and not all of which I particularly enjoyed. Not ‘cause they were bad or anyone did anything bad and, you know, yeah, sure, I got paid for them. But, you know, you write a film that never gets made for the lots of good reasons. you maybe end up on a project where you realise you’re trying to make one thing and everyone else is trying to make something else and that’s pretty painful.

Sometimes with a TV drama there’s a danger that something might get commissioned on only one episode, you’ve then got to write another five. By the time you’re actually writing them, there’s suddenly lots of people you’ve got a view, producers, studio execs or, you know, commissioners or actors, directors sometimes. And that that can be a very unwieldy and sometimes unsatisfying process. So I I decided

Okay, what I want to do is I want to try and turn my writing career into something that just feels really logical. I want to write a book and then try and turn each one of my books into a film or a TV drama. And I s came to kind of a business arrangement, I suppose, with one particular producer called Gail Egan, who did films like Constant Gardner, and she’s a brilliant film producer, and we agreed we would sort of go on that process together. So Secret Service was our first sort of production, and it was just

Really joyful. I get on incredibly well with her. We completely see eye to eye about everything. ITV were very good, I have to say. So it’s just a Gemma Odson’s bloody nice. She’s like a really nice person. I mean great great actor, but she’s just a really nice person behind the scenes. Actually, so were all the other actors. The director James was the guy I did Shadow Dancer with, so we’re friends, so that was very nice.

And the other director Farr and I got on really with so it’s just one of those projects. They don’t always go that way and they’re very painful when they when you start pulling in directions, different directions. But that was a project that everyone was pulling in the same direction. And I honestly loved every second of it. There were stresses and strains along the way, as you’d expect. There always are. But yeah, it was great.

Robert Murphy

And that’s still available on ITVX for anyone wanting to catch up. But it got big numbers. It was well over five million, wasn’t it, I think, for the first few episodes for sure. And probably all of them by now, I would have thought.

Tom Bradby

It did really well. I was really, really t I mean, you know, you i it was a slightly different type of thing for ITV. You know, they they do a lot of very successful crime dramas. They don’t very often do something like this, so I was kind of thrilled that it I felt like it did well enough to justify the risk. And I mean I you know, I thought objectively speaking, obviously I wrote it you’d expect me to say positive things about it.

Although to be fair, I haven’t been that positive about everything I’ve written on this podcast, but you like a bit of honesty. but I I really felt it turned into something I was really proud of. I thought James, the lead director, did an particularly amazing job. I thought it looked beautiful. I thought Gemma was great in it as well as being a really nice person. So yeah, it’s one of those one of those experiences you just look back on and think, God, I wish I could repeat that every year. But you know.

Robert Murphy

Let’s see, hopefully we’ll see some more maybe. Explain to people, because you write for the news every night, you write a book a year-ish, don’t you? And now screenplays too. What’s the difference in the process for you? These are different audiences as well. One’s watching the news, one’s reading a book and the other’s of watching there and sometimes might have a second screen where they’re also.

Tom Bradby

Yeah. Which all TV and all dramas have as well at the same time. What’s the difference from your perspective as it’s quite a rare thing to write all three. In fact, I think you’re probably the only person I know who does all three.

I think the only thing I would say is that in the end it’s all storytelling and that’s maybe something that after thirty six years I can sort of come back to acknowledging and realizing. And I think the truth is every time you jump a storytelling barrier, it’s quite a big it can be a big or a little jump. So for example, you know, here I am, I’m in my office in the newsroom, I’ll go out and do the news. The way we try to think of Music Ten is is as a

We’re trying to tell a coherence or I’m trying to tell a coherent story of what happened in the world to today that you can digest and and and is e you know, easily is hopefully compelling and clear and all the other things we try to be. W and I’ve been obviously in that business since I walked in the door here as a trainee thirty six years ago, which feels like seven thousand lifetimes, but that’s a different story. When I first started to write my first novel, so 1994, in Belfast, Shadow Dancer. It was an extremely I mean, you’re an author, so I don’t need to tell you this, but maybe a lot of your listeners won’t know. I I found that an extremely painful transition and I was very lucky and my wife was was a very brilliant sort of editor really, and she was able to get me together with a fantastic literary agent, Mark Lucas.

Who I have to say I sort of courted like a, you know, demonic idiot for about six months, literally stalking him, trying to get a meeting, trying to get a conversation. And when he eventually did read my hundred pages, he said, Yeah, I mean honestly it’s crap. But but you know, I if you’d called me yesterday, I would have not taken your call again or told you where to sling your hook.

Weirdly, I was shaving this morning and I thought, hmm, I don’t know, maybe it’s got something. So I then embarked on a process of rewriting and rewriting and rewriting. And it honestly I thought it was gonna kill me at certain points. And every time I’d get the notes, I’d be like, It’s he’s talking rubbish. You know, it’s great as it is, and then I

And then gradually it dawns on you that he’s right again. And then you have some quite good ideas for how you can improve it, and then off you go on the rest of it. I found so learning to write novels I found very, very hard. and then I read my second novel, as I said, lots of which went in the bin, and probably only when I got to my third novel, which was a smoky smoky kind of noirish crime novel set in 20 Shanghai. That was the first time I really felt like, okay, this is a this is a bit easier. writing a film weirdly wasn’t that much of an adjustment. And I think that’s because a film is kind of often the same story arc as a novel, but with the kind of brevity of writing that you would y be familiar with in a newsroom. So you’re writing everything to speak, you’re keeping things absolutely minimal.

Tom Bradby (25:48.29)

So I found that not too difficult. Trying to write a TV drama, that’s a that’s a you know, obviously the writing style is similar to film, but the structure is quite different from either a novel or a film. So every every ver you know, documentary is another thing again. So it’s it’s it’s always an adjustment, but the more kinds of storytelling you do, the more you think, it’s just a different way of telling a story.

Robert Murphy

Yeah, Structure’s king really, think, isn’t it? In screenwriting, think, particularly for ITV where you’ve got to hit those advert marks, there’s got to be a cliffhanger at all the points. You’ve got to hit people very hard at the beginning, otherwise they’re just going to be off on YouTube or their phones.

Tom Bradby

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And and you know, it’s it’s you know, you’re writing that then Secret Service was five parts, so you know, that’s a different structure than six parts would be to state the blindingly obvious, or eight it’s different again. So you’re it’s a it’s a different beast. fun in its own way, but just different.

Robert Murphy

And you’ve mentioned already that as home editor, you came across lots of spooks and your friend as well in South America has been a point of inspiration for Red Scorpion too. Who else have you met along the way that have inspired books or screenplays? Northern Ireland too, of course, I’m sure was an inspiration. But if you ever come, know, there big characters you’ve come across? It’s great to a news piece with you. This is worth so much more. There’s a hundred thousand word novel in this as well.

Tom Bradby (27:19.084)

Yeah, I think I think the inspiration for a novel is often c comes at you quite hard and fast. I don’t think there are necessarily individuals I’ve run into. So for for example, I’m the you know, quite young Asia correspondent for ITV, s late nineties. The confluence of events is I watched the film LA Confidential on a Sunday night.

On Monday morning I get on a plane to go to Shanghai for some story. In the airport, I pick up a book about the kind of international settlement in nineteen twenty Shanghai. And I literally think, How how come no one’s made this into a thriller? This is like LA Confidential meets Chinatown. It’s amazing. You know, they’ve got a police force that’s full of, you know, Irish and Scottish detectives who hate each other and are in kind of rival factions and

And then you got the whole kind of Chinese element of it and the white Russians who’ve escaped the revolution. So I just thought this is the most incredible setting for a kind of noir and you know, I wrote the book very quickly. Then I was sort of very interested in the Russian emigres who’d ended up in Shanghai penniless and in some cases tragically having to sell themselves to survive, you know, having come from glittering palaces in St Petersburg. And so I thought, well that would be an interesting milieu to go and tell a story to support the revolution. So

Sometimes it’s a place. With Secret Service, the T V series that I wrote the novel of obviously first with Gemma, you know, I had the idea literally walking past the MI six building one day and it was the time of, you know, the the all the accusations of Russian influence or undermining of American democracy. And I thought, Well what what happens if you were actually the MI six case officer who actually ran an operation that actually yielded that intelligence. I mean like, how would everyone how would your bosses respond? Like, supposing some of you know one of the potential candidates for being a Russian spy was your boss, the Foreign Secretary. Like my God, how would they handle that? And then once you once you’ve you’ve got an idea, you know, a bit like with Red Scorpion, once I had an idea, I was like, okay, the reluctant heir, you know, the the the female doctor who’s kind of desperate. And probably desperate enough to accept an offer that looks too good to refuse. And the South American drug baron son who’s would run to outer space to avoid his father’s legacy, but is now trapped in it. You know, once you’ve had the idea, then everything kind of explodes in your head, really.

Robert Murphy

Yeah, and in terms you mentioned books there with the Shanghai which may or may not have been non-fiction but who do you read? Who inspires you, writers?

Tom Bradby

I tend to read literary fiction more than I read novels like mine. I would like to think my this is a very pretentious thing to say, but I’d like to think my novels are novels and that there’s s some you know, some of what I might have observed or feel or think about life, the meaning of the universe and everything else is in my novels. I’m trying to render things that are stories of the human condition that will hopefully have people thinking, but, you know, are not making any claims to literary greatness. So I I tend to move away from the space that I’m working in towards kind of literary novel. So the last one I read and loved was Land by Maggie O’Farrell, which I would I would say is a a a literary novel.

Not actually normally the kind of thing I enjoy, though I really enjoyed her book, Portrait of a Marriage. But I just thought it the characters were so real to me from page one and the way she rendered their relationship with the land was so spellbinding. So that was the last sort of novel that I read that I absolutely loved. And then having said I don’t really read the kind of people who operate in the same space as me.

That’s not entirely true because I love Robert Harris. I’ve just finished Agrippa Agrippa to some cliche, but his he’s a friend. I think he’s a brilliant writer. I love William Boyd and I’ve just you know read his latest book, Cold Sunset, which is also sublime. I I I I step warily elsewhere with thrillers and spy novels and crime novels because I quite often read it and it’s a bit cold to Newcastle. I’m like, yeah, I can see what

She slash he is doing here. no, I can see the cracks in this draw. And it’s like, I can see how this is going to end. Sometimes I think, they didn’t know how they were going to end this. no, they really didn’t. and I, you know, I only know that because I’ve been there, you know, and had that problem. But that said, I read I found a new author called Dan Festerman this summer. I read Winter Work, which I absolutely love. It’s a spy novel set in East Berlin in the late nineteen eighties and I l I read David McCloskey’s latest book, The Persian, which I also really like. So it’s quite nice when you find someone in your genre that is so good, it’s like an absolute pleasure to read.

Robert Murphy

You were also foreign correspondent, as you’ve alluded to as well. You were in Jakarta. You got shot in Jakarta, didn’t you? And what do you think that experience of having been to these, if it’s not the places that are actually in the book, but having spent, having been that sort of fish out of water, but having to see how the world around you exists, in what ways do you think that’s aided your writing of place, that sense of place, being the outsider in this other world?

Tom Bradby

I think if you look at to pick one example, you know, Richard Field, the character is in Master of Rain, which is a novel I set in twenty Shanghai, you know, he arrives in this kind of exotic, you know, potentially vice filled, crazy foreign, exciting, glamorous, exotic, dangerous world.

And he feels like a bit of a fish under out of water. I think, you know, I don’t go in for a lot of COD psychology, but I had just arrived in Asia as a foreign correspondent. I was doing quite a lot of dangerous things. I had very complicated feelings about that. I had a young family. Sometimes the response to getting shot kind of weirdly isn’t always what you think it would be. So before I got shot, I was worried that something would happen to me and I wouldn’t be there for the kids when they grew up. And my wife kept saying, Well, but you keep saying you can do it safely, so surely it’s okay. And then after I got shot, I was a bit like, Well, I got shot and survived. I mean, I’m invincible. She was like, Are you smoking crack? I mean, what are you talking about? Like you said you weren’t going to get shot and you did get shot. So that’s it. And I was like, yeah, fair enough. But I think

Think you know, inevitably you do put a lot of those experiences into your novel. I mean, I you know, certainly having been shot, having been occasionally that night and others very frightened, not knowing if you’re gonna come out somewhere alive. I mean that that’s bound to impact your writing, right? I mean when you’re writing about a character whose life is under threat, it’s a bit more maybe viscerally real to you than it might be for others. So I would certainly like to think that I’ve brought that experience to bear in places.

Robert Murphy

Yeah, our time’s nearly up but what’s next for you? Now you’ve already mentioned book 12.

Tom Bradby

Well, I’m I’m sort of right now I’m really into my new book. I can’t really tell you what it’s about, I’m afraid, but I will very happily should you wish to have me back on, I’d love to come back on to my I’m super excited about it. And it’s it’s kind of set in Istanbul, it’s a kind of a bit from Russia with love and it’s very it’s a kind of very n I think it’s an idea I’m very excited about and I think w w will will be very grabby for people, I hope. So I’m sort of putting a lot of energy into that and then

We’re looking I’m working on episode one of a potential series two of Secret Service and I’ve a couple of films, including I s Gail and I went into business with a big Hollywood company for Red Scorpion, the film version. So I’ve I’ve been writing a film version of that, which has been going very, very well. And so we’ll see whether what happens to that. You know, you never know. But we’re at the sort of quite close, I think, to the looking for a director.

Trying find cast, period, which is exciting. although I always find casting a little kind of like sit there drumming my fingers, you know. What do you mean he hasn’t read it yet? He’s had it for a week. What what else are you doing? You know? yeah, it’s like it’s Daniel Craig. He’s not gonna read it in a way. So we haven’t said it’s Daniel Craig, but you know what I mean? It’s like Daniel Craig he doesn’t read scripts quickly, you could get used to it, you know.

Robert Murphy

This is an obvious question. It’s probably that every listener is saying to shouting at their headphones at the moment. Where do you find the time? You’ve got an extraordinarily demanding day job. You are writing, you know, writing just a draft of a book will take months and then screenplays on top. How do you fit it in?

Tom Bradby

The inside of my brain would probably look a bit shocking to people. as in it’s kind of I mean, I don’t know why, you know, why does anyone’s br why is anyone’s brain wired the way it is? And sometimes it makes perfect sense to you, but it’s quite hard to explain. I mean no, that’s you’ve asked me a totally, utterly reasonable question. And I should by now have a very simple answer to it, but I d but I don’t really. I think I was an only child and my dad was in the navy, so he was a I mean he was away for a year at a time on occasion. So it was kind of my mum and I at home. I was very my mum’s sadly dead now, but I was very close to her. and so I you know my mum was you know she had a life to live she was a brilliant mum, but she, you there were other things she had to do, including work. So I had a lot of time staring out the window on my own. And I think consequently I’ve always even before I was really conscious of doing it, it kind of created stories and scenarios in in my head. And that’s just the way I’ve got used to my brain operating. So when it’s not immediately engaged on a forward, you know, if I’m if I’m sitting there writing the headlines for News at ten, then no, I’m not thinking about what I’m gonna write in my next chapter of my novel. But as soon as I’m in the taxi on the way home, I probably am. I’m I am thinking about it. and, you know I don’t find it weirdly difficult to go from writing two chapters of my novel to immediately afterwards spending an hour on a screenplay or possibly another. So I I don’t I I think the key is I find it easy to jump between them and in fact I like to live my my brain likes that. I my I have a very, very low boredom threshold, so I get bored incredibly easy. And the moment I’m bored I start

Thinking of another story. I know it sounds weird bordering along pathological probably, but there you go.

Robert Murphy (39:19.23)

Weird bordering on pathological, that’s a nice epitaph, isn’t it, Tom Bradby? Can I congratulate you one more time? I’m the reader that got the twist of Gone Girl, I got the twist of Big Little Lies about halfway through both of them. But there’s a little twist right at the end of this that I didn’t get, you got me. So congratulations. I pride myself on hardly ever being caught out. And you caught me out. So many, many congratulations and thanks so much indeed for being with us today. Thank you.

Tom Bradby

But you know, it’s been an absolute pleasure and I really enjoyed it and thank you very much for having me. If you ever want me back, just ask.

As a journalist who has covered hundreds of homicide cases, I have seen only a few with detailed preparation.

Most homicides - murders or manslaughters - involve red mist, mental health breakdowns, or are fuelled by alcohol or drugs or both. Sometimes they are self-defence.

And you usually know why it’s happened.

But the murder of Jamie Collins, a likeable, politically-aware final-year student by his housemate is still a true mystery.

How his housemate spent days planning the killing is truly disturbing.

I’ve made a short film about the case for ITV News, which you can watch below. It’s been pretty popular - having 300,000 views in the few days since it was uploaded.

The film is about how a team of detectives, when faced with a killer, pulled away the layers of lies he had left.

WATCH FOR FREE:

Zack Coughlan, 23, was on the same course at the University of the West of England. They studied Robotics together, they were both a few days away from finishing their degrees.

So why did Coughlan stab Jamie more than 30 times and try to cover it up?

It was Coughlan who called 999 in the early hours of April 9th this year, claiming to have found Jamie at the end of their garden.

He was treated as a witness.

The inquiry, led by the West of Englands Major Crime Investigation Team’s Det Ch Insp Lucy Edgeworth, started to question what he was saying immediately.

Why were Coughlan’s hands covered in cuts? He claimed to have been ‘climbing trees.’

He also said there had been knife-wielding thieves - or as he called them ‘roadmen’ in the area a few days earlier. In fact, the police had a 999 call of Jack reporting them.

Was that part of the plan too?

Police had CCTV of the actual killing. A man, wearing a black puffer jacket and ski mask, stabbed Jamie by the garage at the end of their garden.

Coughlan said he was out for hours at the time of the murder. CCTV showed this to be true.

But a wider trawl of the neighbourhood’s doorbell cameras showed him double-backing on himself and returning, wearing the clothes of the killer.

He did tell police that after falling from a tree, he had bought a change of clothing. But he hadn’t mentioned he had also changed his trainers.

And when police looked deeper into his purchases and movements, they saw him buying the clothes he wore during the killing nearly two weeks earlier.

Coughlan denied the murder of Jamie.

He owned the house they shared, Jamie paid him rent. But there had been an argument over payments. Jamie was ‘a communist’ Zack later said, and had confronted Zack arguing about how could he charge his friends rent?

On April 7th 2026, Zack asked Jamie to leave. At his trial this month, Zack said Jamie pulled a knife on him in this confrontation. This is something Jamie’s family say would never have happened.

Zack admitted he had killed Jamie, and pleaded guilty to manslaughter on the grounds he had ‘lost control.’ He had lost control because he feared for his life because of Jamie’s threats.

The judge didn’t buy this, saying his account failed to reach the criteria for a ‘loss of control’ argument.

Zack Coughlan then pleaded guilty to murder and was sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum tariff of 28 years.

As a child. Just tell us why you wanted to start the book with that.

Olly Jarvis (03:47.864)

Thank you. Thank you.

Olly Jarvis (03:56.248)

That’s what came to mind in that I wanted this character, this very curious young character who’s had a very, very difficult life come from another country. And as we know, this sadly is how so many people come to this country. And I wanted to really humanize the character and show the struggle that this person has come through. And really right from the bottom,

to becoming somebody who may make one of the biggest differences that humanity has yet known.

Robert Murphy (04:35.992)

So he is there. Hadi Khalid. But he’s a character in this in this series of books you’ve got. This is the second in the series, the Ella Blake book. So she’s a barrister and guess what? She’s a bit up against it in the beginning. She’s got a trial that’s over that that’s running over, or she’s busy with. Her daughter’s not very well. She’s stuck in London, desperate to go back. Just describe the the world of Ella as we first meet her.

Olly Jarvis (04:39.82)

Yeah, how do I call him?

Olly Jarvis (05:06.168)

Well, Ella is a very successful barrister, single parent with a teenage daughter who’s a student at Cambridge. But really Ella represents just about every barrister and particularly female barristers trying what is impossible, which is to balance family life with a career at the bar. Because you find it very difficult to put your family first when you’re in the middle of a trial.

and something comes up in court and you’ve got to be up till three in the morning preparing for a cross examination the next day and you can’t tell the judge, sorry, I didn’t have time to do it. And if you haven’t done your homework, you usually get found out.

Robert Murphy (05:51.886)

Yeah. and so how does just describe to people how Ella, your hero, comes across Haddy, ‘cause there is a a crime involved there and it’s the type of crime that wouldn’t normally come across her intray, would it?

Olly Jarvis (06:06.356)

No, her character in the books, she’s a sort of standing counsel for a fictitious college called De Jour at Cambridge University. And they often have problems, whether it’s to preside over a sort of employment hearing or some other inquiry. But in this book, she’s asked to go down to the magistrate’s court and represent this

young man, Hadi, who’s now 19, who has been caught stealing very valuable books from St. John’s Library at the College St. John’s in Cambridge at the old library, a very, very famous old library from the 16th century. And she’s asked to go and defend him. He’s clearly the master at du jour believes has psychiatric issues and

but he also has value to them and is clearly something of a genius. And it’s hoped that if she can go and perhaps get him out somehow, he might be amenable to doing some research for Dajure. And that’s how she meets him and ends up getting involved with him.

Robert Murphy (07:24.716)

Yeah. And it’s when I got the book, first of all, I thought, well, it’s written by a barrister, it’s about a barrister, it’s going to be a courtroom drama, which it is not in hardly there’s hardly any court time at all, is it? It’s more of a I mean it’s I mean, I’d say it sort of veers towards Dan Brown territory to some degree. Would you would you say that’s a fair assessment?

Olly Jarvis (07:45.08)

would. It’s so much about history, manuscripts, so very much so. And I think it’s all about really fundamentally, what is it that makes us us? What is it that makes humans humans? And the answer is you go back and look at the rich tapestry of our history.

of all those extraordinary things over thousands of years that make us so unique and impossible to understand unless you’re human.

Robert Murphy (08:24.29)

Yeah. And so it’s set over multiple locations. There’s a lot in Cambridge, there’s some in London as well, but you go to Avebury, Stonehenge, you go north of the border as well, don’t you? As well. And and there’s a there’s a nice sort of chapter towards the end, which is almost like a bookmark to the prologue as well at at sea, which is I thought was great as well, very strong. and and there’s there’s competing forces as well. I don’t want to give too much away, but you’ve got

Russians, you’ve got North Koreans, you’ve got the police as well, and you’ve got secret services involved and colleges too. Just tell us as much as you can without giving too much away.

Olly Jarvis (09:08.46)

Well, when there is something that everybody wants, I’m quite sure that this is going on all the time around the world. And sometimes in the briefs that I have for work, you just see little bits of this sort of thing going on and they all have different interests, but they all want the same thing or almost the same thing. And it’s just another layer in

the world that we live in that we know so little about.

Robert Murphy (09:43.744)

And I mean, it does take a twist. I mean, it there’s a certain otherworldliness, I would say, to it. I was expecting it because, you know, I thought written by a barrister, it might be very fact based and very legally based, but there’s a a spiritual part to it, very which you’ve alluded to already. Why was that just so important to you to get across?

Olly Jarvis (10:04.654)

I’m fascinated by history. And when I look back through history, there is this huge interconnection between so many things. And at the heart of what makes us us, there is this spiritual side, you know, to our art, to the way we communicate, in a way to the way we write, that there are so many things that just go that little bit

beyond the normal. I it’s not a supernatural book or anything like that, but there are so many interesting questions that remain unanswered in our history.

Robert Murphy (10:47.412)

And you introduced me to a character I like you love reading history, and you introduced me to a character someone I’ve not heard of before, John D. This Elizabethan mathematician stroke occultist stroke polyglot, really. What a fascinating as I did some further reading of him afterwards. How did you come across him and why did you want to include him in this too?

Olly Jarvis (11:16.322)

He is a fascinating character who really represents this extraordinary rush in enlightenment and development during the Reformation, Renaissance. And there seem to be these periods in history where history seems to move in waves, where you have these really intense moments where things just suddenly develop. We’re in one now, but...

He really represented that John Dee, this man born in 1527 in London and goes up to Cambridge to do a degree at the age of 15. And he did a sort of a degree then that would be a traditional degree, bit of Latin, bit of Greek, bit of philosophy, bit of maths, music, just about everything. But I kept coming across him during research of the book.

in so many different ways. are so many myths about him that he’s the original 007, that he was a spy for Queen Elizabeth I and would sign off his letters 00 for your eyes only and seven that the lucky special number for a mathematician. I was reading that he was responsible for the fact that the fleet defeated the Spanish Armada in 1588 because of his

meteorological predictions, invented the phrase the British Empire. He’s everywhere this man and had the biggest private library in Europe in his house in Moorlake. And there are of course, as you now know, other interesting things about him that feature very much in the book that I won’t go into.

Robert Murphy (13:05.962)

yeah, so d what were research do was it mostly web based research, or do you go off to find out more about him in in in places?

Olly Jarvis (13:13.61)

I go off and find, I obviously read books about him, but I was tracking down books that I could find that were connected to him, either books that he was part of writing or books that he owned. And I tracked down one or two books to the old library at St. John’s. And I made contact with the

special rare books librarian, a man called Adam Krovis, who was extremely helpful and invited me down to St. John’s and showed me and gave me a sort of private tour of this section of St. John’s, which is the old library. I have never seen anything like it before in my life. Quite extraordinary and so connected with history, with the centuries, whether it’s

a Nobel Prize for somebody or a lifetime skull of William Wordsworth in this library and all of these extraordinary antiquated books, deep dark bound leather volumes. I was completely captivated by it.

Robert Murphy (14:32.148)

I see, this is why I love writing, and I’ve written a couple of true crime books, nonfiction books. And when you research these things and you ask people, and these are questions that people who know this stuff are rarely asked, and they’re happy to talk. And this is the joy of research. That’s part of the fun, isn’t it? I I being able to go to these places and see little corners of our country or the world that you otherwise wouldn’t have a clue about.

Olly Jarvis (15:00.554)

Absolutely. And I remember I was standing in the library and looking at the handwritten notes that were on the bookshelf still there, you know, for the librarians. And I said to him, what’s through that door there? And he said, that’s another room. That’s that’s where they plan the D-Day landings. This casual casual.

Robert Murphy (15:22.894)

Just there in this college in Cambridge. You mentioned a moment ago that we’re in one of those moments now. And your book also is is very on topic really with artificial intelligence and and wh why did you want that to be one of the big themes of of of Language of Angels?

Olly Jarvis (15:44.238)

Well, I’ll start by saying I’m no scientist and my technical knowledge is not very good. But I’m reading every day these extraordinary news articles about AI escaping from its sandbox or the black box problem, which is apparently that now AIs can work things out and we can’t see they’re working out. So they’re getting more intelligent than us and

Where is all this going? And suddenly, in fact, in the last few weeks, now we’re talking about the end of humanity. And I wanted to write a book that was about all the things that make us us. And those are the strengths that we have against AI. It’s a language that only we speak and that an AI could never learn to speak.

Robert Murphy (16:42.07)

Am I right in this is your second Ella Blake book, isn’t it? but I th is it your fifth in total? Fifth in total. So but before you w wrote, and still at the same time as you write, you’re a barrister. wha why why the law? What was it about the law that that that that tempted you into it?

Olly Jarvis (16:48.732)

Yes, that’s right.

Olly Jarvis (17:03.712)

I suppose the first moment was when I was about 14. My father, who is an actor, had a part in a play for today. I think it was called back then. And he was playing the part of a murderer called Rouse, who hitched a lift and murdered a man in his Bentley. And he wanted to research this part to see what happens in court. So he took me with him.

And we were sitting in the gallery at the Old Bailey watching a closing speech by a defense barrister who it was a pretty simple case. was somebody who’d been found with a load of drugs in their back pocket. And the defense was that it had been planted by the police and the defense barrister was making this incredible speech to the jury. And I thought, yeah, I quite like to do that. And then.

I sort of was far too lazy at school really. And then when I was in my teens, about 18, 19, I was traveling with friends on the road and we were going to these free festivals. And 1985 was the year that if we were allowed to party at Stonehenge at the Stones, we would get adverse possession because it was the 12th year.

And so I went along with my chums as a very green young man. And there was this standoff and then battle with the police. And I sort of hid in a corner behind a tree stump, worried that my parents were going to see me on the news while this whole thing was going on. And I saw the most incredible things with these sort of literally real

real travelers that lived on the road in buses and lorries with babes in arms in these fighting for their what they saw as their rights with the police and I sort of thought I wish I had their values their strengths to stand up for what they believe in and here am I carrying behind a tree stump and I think I sort of resolved then I’m gonna change and I’m gonna be a barrister and I went traveling for a few years and

Olly Jarvis (19:30.732)

worked abroad teaching English and then came back and gave it a go.

Robert Murphy (19:35.544)

So was that the Battle of the Beanfield? You were at the Battle of the Beanfield. Yeah. Well that that is a claim to fame because lots of people say they’re at the Battle of the Beanfield, but you were there.

Olly Jarvis (19:37.198)

That was.

Olly Jarvis (19:46.83)

We were in, well, we had our little two-man ridge tent, and one of my friends in Seven Act Forest, which was very near. And at one point we sort of blocked the road with all these sort of tree branches to stop the police getting in. And everyone was sort of celebrating that we’d blocked the police from getting in. And I was absolutely terrified. I wanted to get out and go home.

Robert Murphy (20:13.592)

So do you just do defence or do you do defence and prosecution as well?

Olly Jarvis (20:17.838)

I just do defense. That was what I wanted to do and what I sort of started out doing. But now I would probably happily do both, but I wouldn’t know where to start prosecuting. There’s so much training and so much has changed over the years about how you go and see the witness first and put them at their ease and all these different protocols that you have with the CPS.

writing advices about and meeting deadlines in the case preparation that I sort of probably shy away from it a bit because they have to build the house and the defense’s job is to knock it down.

Robert Murphy (21:04.28)

So just tell us what it’s like when you’re in court and your job is there. You can see your your opposite counsel there, and I’m sure they’re extremely talented and extremely lucid and extremely persuasive. And you’re there. What’s it like to stand on your feet and to to be picking holes and to to to be working to persuade these twelve people while staying staying within the realms of the law that you know you’ve got the judge watching too. Just describe

Olly Jarvis (21:33.198)

Well, would say I would say it’s terrifying and for the first five years, my legs were shaking and literally my knees were knocking and it takes a very, very long time to get over that. So you can really focus on the evidence. you know, preparation is absolutely everything. You’ve got to know the brief and you’ve got to be ready for anything. You don’t know what’s going to come. You don’t know what the witness is going to say. You’ve got to know that.

their witness statement backwards, because if they contradict their witness statement, you’ve got to be ready to put the inconsistency to them. It’s very much like a theater and I do jury trials and the judge is there, he’s the referee, but it’s all about the jury. They decide the verdict and it’s very, very hard to win over a jury.

but you can lose a jury in a heartbeat.

Robert Murphy (22:35.266)

Yeah. and you do you’ve done some incredible cases, but you do a lot of road cases, dangerous drivings, things like that, some Premier League footballers, I think, or some obviously based up in Manchester, like in the northwest of England, there are some good footballers and I imagine some well paid footballers who’ve got perhaps fast cars. What is it about that that kind of defence that you have fallen into, enjoy, like, a specialist out?

Olly Jarvis (23:04.14)

Well, I suppose what really happened was I started doing a lot of death by dangeruses, causing death by dangerous driving, very, very emotional cases and very much about the jury because death by dangerous driving is unlike any other criminal offence. Most criminal offences, the first thing is intent. Can you prove the intent?

Whereas there is no issue about intent in a a causing death by dangerous driving. The question is did the driving fall below the standard of a competent and careful driver? And that standard is set by the jury the jury decide if it fell far below or if it fell below Then it’s causing death by careless driving. I find that very very interesting but

Yeah, I mean, I go all over the country doing them and I have done a fair few footballers. But I find it more interesting and in a way more challenging when you’re defending people who are just normal people who made a terrible mistake or a terrible decision, for example, to look at their phone while they were driving or send a text. And in that blink of an eye,

they hit and kill somebody and they are facing now because this is what the public want and these because the people we elect are changing the law and making the sentences more severe that they face proper long prison sentences. And I’m not, you know, I don’t disagree with that, but I think that’s very, very challenging.

doing those kinds of cases where these people, they’ve had no experience of the criminal justice system and suddenly they’re sitting in the dock and often waiting years for their trial because they’re on bail and it’s the custody cases that have to take priority with the backlog.

Robert Murphy (25:17.198)

Yeah. And you also defended some of the Encrochat cases as well. So for people well, in fact I’ll get you to describe what EncroChat was, but it was a a technology, a type of handset, wasn’t it, that was used well, anyone could buy them, but they were particularly popular among a certain section of society. Pick us up from there, please.

Olly Jarvis (25:38.794)

Yes, that’s right. A company in Holland made these handsets that you could buy for about £1,500 that looked like a normal smartphone. But if you pressed down the back, that circle key, whatever you call it at the bottom and the volume at the same time, it revealed this whole new secret phone that was encrypted. And it became very popular with criminals. And they

There were about 60,000 people across Europe using these phones. And the Dutch and the French found a way to send an update to the phones with an implant inside the update that basically enabled them to read everything on these phones. And Operation Venetic, which was an operation in the UK, the National Crime Agency, got wind of this.

got involved in it and we were able to see conversations between very high end organized crime groups in a way that we had never seen before. Murders being planned, firearm dealing, drug importations and thousands of people literally were arrested. But these cases took about

five years some of them to come to trial because of one important piece of legislation which was section 56 of the Investigatory Powers Act which meant that if you do a live intercept, a police authority, if they did a live intercept of a phone they couldn’t use it in evidence. It was a sort of covert technique that could never become evidence.

And so there were these legal arguments that went on for years about whether this was a live intercept or as was eventually decided by the Court of Appeal, no, it’s not a live intercept. was the evidence was being taken from the handset itself and therefore the evidence was admissible in court to convict these poochers.

Robert Murphy (27:57.708)

Yeah, which probably made your job obviously a lot harder, I guess, after that. what w what’s it like though? This is something I’m sure that lots of people ask you and other defence barristers, you know, you’re de you’re representing someone who you can see from the text messages there has probably done something awful. Or even in the case of a dangerous driving or a death by dangerous, it was an you know, it was a really bad decision, but made at high speed or whatever. But there are victims there and and they are suffering because of your

client’s actions. How how do how does that work in your mind?

Olly Jarvis (28:34.926)

Well, it’s difficult sometimes. I suppose that when I’m thinking now about the case that affected me most severely in 2009, I was defending a Portuguese lorry driver who was driving up the M6 and he didn’t notice the stationary traffic ahead on the M6 and he went into the back of a people carrier.

and he killed six people, mom, dad, and the four children. And I was literally trying to wipe away tears doing my closing speech. It was so emotional. And the wider family who sat through the trial with great integrity and dignity watching this play out, I was very, very conscious of it. But he was acquitted, in fact, of

death by dangerous and convicted of death by careless. So there’s always a job to do. But more specifically about when you asked me about when I’m reading this evidence, I am a cog in the machinery of justice for it to work. If I make judgments about the guilt or innocence of a defendant, I’m usurping the function of the jury. It’s not my role. I’ve for the system to work.

The prosecutor’s got to do his best and I’ve got to do my best. And if he tells me that he did it and he’s guilty, I can’t then go and defend him in a trial. I just have to act on his instructions and try and present them to the jury in the best way I can. But as you say, sometimes there are incriminating messages and I can see the jury laughing at me. And that’s very, very difficult.

Robert Murphy (30:27.308)

Yeah, yeah, I guess you feel you’ve lost them maybe at that point.

Olly Jarvis (30:31.298)

Yeah, but the evidence is the evidence and you’re stuck with the brief that you’ve got.

Robert Murphy (30:36.642)

So you must have dealt with all kinds of cases. Are there any others that stick in the mind?

Olly Jarvis (30:41.858)

Well, one I always remember for a particular person that was in the case, I did a lot of cases that involved what we call journalistic intrusion and legal arguments about whether journalists acting covertly should be bound by the same regulations that the police were, particularly TV companies that were a public authority like.

BBC or Channel 4. And I was defending one of several defendants who had been had created and were running an illegal printing press in Manchester, literally printing off hundreds and hundreds and thousands of banknotes and travellers checks on these printing presses. But a particular TV company got wind of this and

hired some people to go undercover and get footage of this press in operation, which they did. Unfortunately, it turned out that the undercover operatives that had been employed by the TV company were committing murders entirely independently of this operation, which gave rise to a legal argument.

as to whether or not their footage should be admissible in our trial in relation to the defendants. And this trial went on for a very long time. And one of the journalists had come up to give evidence. And we were told that a very expensive top silk was coming up from London to keep an eye on things and to sort of look after

the journalists when they gave evidence. Although the reality was this, this barrister would have had no standing in the case, but might have tried to jump up and down at certain questions if they were being asked to reveal sources and the like. And we were all grumbling in the robing room one morning about this silt. We didn’t know who it was that was coming up from London. And we were all being paid a pittance on legal aid. And there was a rumor that this barrister

Olly Jarvis (33:06.252)

was being paid 5,000 pounds a day. And so we were all sort of slagging him off or her off before they arrived in the roving room. And someone said, do you know who’s coming up? And another barrister said, it’ll be some stuck up council from London, I’m sure. And suddenly there was this voice from corner of the roving room and a man put his hand up and he said, that’ll be me. And it was Keir Starmer.

And of course, he was brilliant in court.

Robert Murphy (33:40.864)

Absolutely. Was he better in court than he was in Parliament? Yeah he would

Olly Jarvis (33:44.558)

was running the show and he had the judge eating out the palm of his hand.

Robert Murphy (33:51.19)

Okay, ‘cause I’ve met him and I found him utterly charming actually when I met him in person. And he was seemed like a different person the the guy I saw on television as to when I saw him in person. I I I thought he was a very nice man actually. Yes. but yeah, what what what fun. And and so d what happened in that case in the end?

Olly Jarvis (34:12.226)

They were all convicted and went to prison. As of course was the right verdict because the fact that those operatives had committed terrible crimes didn’t affect the reality of the evidence against these illegal printers.

Robert Murphy (34:29.206)

You were a barrister for s for some years, then you decided to to have a dual career and start writing. Why why the move to to writing as well?

Olly Jarvis (34:39.276)

I’d always wanted to write and I grew up reading the Rampole books by John Mortimer, a different time. But I’d always wanted to see if I could write a book. when I was, this was probably about 2010, I took a week off. I needed a break. I was feeling very, very burnt out and needed to do something else. Took a week off and thought, I’ll give it a go.

And I wrote 12,000 words and I thought, yeah, maybe I could do this. And then the addiction started.

Robert Murphy (35:20.78)

And just talk us through your process of writing as well, because as you’ve already described, you’ve got a really demanding job where you’ve got to be paying attention and you might have to stay up late to write briefs or study study the the the the case. how do are you even able to have a writing routine?

Olly Jarvis (35:40.942)

When I first started, I was much more disciplined and I’d get up at 5 a.m. and find a way to write at night and everything. I found that just harder and harder. And then more recent times, I’d take off blocks. right, okay, I’m gonna try and write for two weeks and see if I can get 15,000 words done and set myself these targets.

But it’s a slow process and, you know, as I’m sure as you know, you really need to be delivering one book every year, not one book every few years. I’ve done five books in 15 years. That’s no good. But my plan is to do less barstering and more writing going forward, I hope.

Robert Murphy (36:32.182)

And in terms of I guess those some some skills are are very transferable, isn’t it? ‘Cause you’re always thinking of the audience, the reader or the jury. And also you’ve got to use the right words as well, don’t you? There’s no y just just add a bit more to that, what you y on the similarities and differences between the two.

Olly Jarvis (36:52.512)

I think that’s very true. When I was called to the bar in 1992 and we were given a sort of opening address by a very, very old High Court judge and he said, the best advice I can give to any of you as a barrister is economy of language. There’s nothing worse than a barrister whittering on for half an hour when he could have said it in two minutes. And I think my writing is a bit like that.

I’m quite economical with what I’m trying to say, which helps with pace because pace of course is everything and rhythm. But also when I’m defending a trial, the evidence is the evidence. There’s not a lot you can do about it. Sometimes you challenge things, but most of the time it is how the jury interpret that evidence.

Does it make them sure of guilt? And I think that is very much the same with the Ella Blake books is that I am giving the reader all of this evidence. It’s all true that I’m telling them about history. They seem like amazing facts, but it’s all true. But the verdict, how they interpret this story is up to the reader, just like it’s up to the jury.

Robert Murphy (38:20.588)

And you talk about pace, your chapters are super short. You know, it’s very propulsive reading. is that a deliberate thing or is it just how you find yourself writing? I mean some chapters are two pages or three pages.

Olly Jarvis (38:35.584)

It’s how I find myself writing and I’ve always written like that. And I think it’s because I see things in a very visual way. And I think that it’s quite filmic. And although you can have very long, brilliant long chapters in books, if this is a scene in TV or film, they’re very, short, especially action.

very, very short. And I think that probably also I played chess when I was very young. I mean like nine, 10 to quite a quite a high level. And everything was about that move, the next move planning ahead. And my chapters are like blocks in the story of the moves of the game. So I think probably the bar chess and writing are all linked in the way I write.

Robert Murphy (39:35.212)

And you’ve also written for radio as well. Tell us a bit about that. You’ve written some drama.

Olly Jarvis (39:40.566)

I did, I wrote a little play, a short, about a barrister and his thought processes during a cross-examination of an alleged rape victim and very much about going back to the question you just asked me. And it’s him going through that horrible task of having to cross-examine this person and...

You know, one minute you think that his client is guilty, they’re not guilty the next minute, weaving his way through and really it’s, and then seeing through the eyes of his pupil at the end of the kind of terrible task that he has to perform in order to make justice work.

Robert Murphy (40:33.994)

And I know this might sound like an obvious question because you are a criminal barrister, but w why did you want to write crime? You know, you could have written history, you could have written any subject you wanted. What was it about crime that you found so compulsive to write about?

Olly Jarvis (40:50.38)

When I first started writing, I followed the advice of write about what you know. And I didn’t know much about anything except the law. my first three books were legal thrillers. And then as I got more confident and what I really wanted to write about was, I mean, they have a legal background. Of course, they’re the main characters of Barrister, but about history and about these really...

interesting concepts and the first book Genesis Inquiry which sort of links up all these extraordinary truths in history for the reader to try and understand whether what I’m saying is right or wrong. Really just to make, I want to make the reader think, that’s what I love.

Robert Murphy (41:40.97)

And in terms of reading crime as well, what what what crime do you like?

Olly Jarvis (41:47.118)

Well, I have to confess that I read briefs, which is true crime, every single day of my life. And so I don’t really have any time to read crime fiction, which is probably why people say my books don’t really fit into a genre because I’m not trained in that way of understanding different genres.

But I wish I had more time to read crime fiction, but I do read a lot of history, particularly books about clashes of cultures. For example, Kim Macquarie’s The Last Day of the Incas and books like that. Dee Brown’s Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee. I’m sure lots of people have read. I love books like that.

Robert Murphy (42:37.462)

Yeah. And you know, in terms of inspiration though, have there been any writers over the past you you’ve mentioned a couple of writers there, but have there been any writers you see as you know, fantastic or inspirations over the time, or are you just sort of working your own way through it?

Olly Jarvis (42:55.36)

I would, well, I’d always go back to John Mortimer as my greatest inspiration because he really understood people and he wrote obviously with a, you know, a very sort of tongue in cheek comment, comic perception of the bar, but there’s so much truth in what he wrote about the characters that I know and come across every day in the legal profession.

Robert Murphy (43:23.596)

And when you’re there every day in the legal profession, do you have people coming up to you sort of talking about your your your books or impressed? It’s such an achievement to to write not just one novel, you’re five down now. So is there any any any pick up there?

Olly Jarvis (43:40.546)

Well, I have a lot of ribbing about it in the roving room, of course, because I couldn’t be allowed to get away with anything like that. But yeah, so a lot of ribbing in the roving room, which is one of my favorite places, I have to say.

Robert Murphy (43:58.87)

Yeah. And do you still enjoy being a barrel? I I don’t know how long you’ve been a so you were d you called to the bar in ninety two, so that’s thirty four year thirty-four years. in what ways has it changed? Has it changed for the better? Have you en do you enjoy it more? Do you enjoy it less? Now you’re more experienced, the things are second nature. What just talk us through the

Olly Jarvis (44:22.35)

It’s changed beyond all recognition. When I started at the bar, it was much more theatrical, the advocacy, and the offenses were different. We’d be doing what we called armed lags, know, bank robberies, things like that. You know, that was what you aspired to be doing. I can’t remember the last time I came across a bank robbery. Everything is now to do with computers.

And before, when I started, you’d get sent the brief and your clerk would hand it to you and it’d be a few bits of paper wrapped in a pink ribbon. Now it’s all on a digital system and it has to be because if they gave it to you on paper, it would fill 30 boxes. Most cases are about phone traffic, cell sighting of a telephone.

banking records, this sort of thing. It’s all about business documents. And so you’re reading thousands, sometimes hundreds of thousands of pages of documents instead of 50. And you used to have challenge where you would cross examine an officer about his pocket notebook entry or a witness about their identification. You don’t have those same sort of live witnesses anymore.

Most of the evidence is agreed. It’s the defendant’s explanation about all of that evidence. So yes, it’s right. I am self-siceted at that address, but it doesn’t mean I was talking about that drugs conspiracy, that sort of thing. So the whole nature has changed. And it’s much harder in a way. There’s so much more material and the pressures, I think, are much greater.

on barristers and that there is so much more crime.

Robert Murphy (46:23.082)

So much more crime. The delays are outrageous, aren’t they? And you feel particularly for victims as but even offenders as well, who having to wait years for something they might be found not guilty of, or all the victims who have to wait. You know, it’s horrific.

Olly Jarvis (46:36.416)

It’s very difficult as well for a civilian witness that may be the victim of crime, giving evidence about something that happened years ago. I mean, I’m not a political animal, but we need more money in many sectors. the criminal justice is one of them, no doubt about it.

Robert Murphy (47:00.43)

So we’ve talked about the past, we’re talking about the present there now. What about the future? What’s next for what’s next for you after after language of angels?

Olly Jarvis (47:08.3)

I’m just planning an outline at the moment that I’m going through that will follow on with some of the same characters and full of chase, jeopardy, ancient manuscripts, strange things in our history, very much along the same themes. And of course, with Ella.

Robert Murphy (47:33.078)

Brilliant. Well, many, many congratulations. It’s a terrific and very propulsive read and great fun as well. So thank you so much indeed for writing it. And thanks so much indeed for being with us today. Thank you.

Olly Jarvis (47:45.863)

Thank you so much for having me on. really enjoyed it.

As a child, Olly Jarvis went to court to watch his actor father prepare for a role as a barrister.

Fast forward to 1985, and as a young man he was at the Battle of the Beanfield at Stonehenge as police clashed with New Age Travellers.

Since being called to the bar in the 1990s, he has defended thousands of suspects, including those whose encrypted phones were hacked by detectives in the Encrochat investigation.

And he crossed swords in the courtroom with a barrister who would go on to become Prime Minister.

In this chat, he describes what it's like to stand in court to defend a suspect who you think may have committed an atrocious crime, yet how being a lawyer should never replace the job of the jury.

His latest (and fifth) novel, Language of Angels, is a fast-paced thriller featuring his lawyer-hero Ella Blake. Called to defend a young prodigy, it sets her on the hunt for ancient manuscripts as agents from foreign forces close-in.

You can learn more about Olly here:

https://ollyjarvis.com/#books

Her disappearance lasted eleven days. But for the last century, the trail of speculation has never entirely disappeared.

Laura Thompson, who has been writing about Christie for two decades, has revisited the episode in her new book, ‘Eleven Days.’

Why was the author - a new mother - in extremis? What had her husband done to drive her to this state? And what impact did the recent death of Christie’s mother have?

With new research - including re-enacting the journey Christie made in December 1926, Laura’s book provides a wonderful insight into this fascinating chapter of the writer’s life - and reveals so much more about her psyche.

You can learn more about Laura and her writing here: https://substack.com/@laurathompsonwriter

Laura Thompson, it’s so great to have you back on the show with your fantastic book Eleven Days. Now we’ve had you on twice before. once talking about Edith Thompson, and then a second time talking about Lord Lucan, both real cases. And here’s another real case, but it’s about someone who’s better known for their works of fiction, and that is, of course, Agatha Christie. Now, why did you want to write this book and this book about Agatha in particular?

Laura Thompson (00:30.074)

Well, I do love writing about her. I seem to have been doing it for quite a large chunk of my life now. twenty years, certainly. And it is amazing how I continue to find her ever more intriguing and perplexing and I might say admirable. but this it’s a centenary, so that always is

Our old friend the hook. And I had been kind of waiting and thinking, when it gets to 2026, you know, maybe maybe this would be something to look at. Because this event famously happened at the e end of 1926. when Agatha Christie disappeared, as we say. Of course, she she didn’t really disappear, but she she there is this blank space in her life.

And because I am her biographer, and because I’ve you know, I’d read so much and I kinda know her novels almost alarmingly well, and f felt I had got as intimate as one can ever presume to be with somebody one’s never met. I thought I’m gonna I’m gonna just do a little book about this and I’m gonna come at it new. That was what I mainly wanted to do. You’re basically

stripping away everything we know about this woman because a hundred years ago she wasn’t Agatha Christie monolith, you know, this most famous woman you know, the kind of comparable with Queen Elizabeth II. She was a woman of thirty five, relatively young, at the start, relatively close to the start of her career, married to her first husband, a relatively new mother, and her life was upended.

And I just wanted to strip everything back and try as far as possible to inhabit that time and that reality and find out what would make somebody want to absent themselves from their life for eleven days. Because that’s a hell of a thing to do really.

LISTEN to the podcast here

Robert Murphy (03:19.53)

And s I mean we know Agatha Christie these days as, of course, the sort of set in stone, as you said, you know, etched in stone, the best selling writer the world has ever seen after Shakespeare, the creator of Poirot, the the whose books have inspired God knows how many TV shows and how many how many films. But back then in nineteen

twenty six. Just give us an idea of where she was with her life. So she was thirty five, thirty six years old. Just give us a a little flavour of how she’d grown up, what kind of person as you can ascertain she was.

Laura Thompson (03:59.63)

Yes, quite unfamiliar when one thinks of her image, which is as you say, kind of set in stone this matronly lady, the grey hair, the vicarage tea party, the you know, every cliche, which nevertheless has power because she has become the template for that kind of detective story that is about facades and what lies beneath, and you know, much of her power is in that.

And her image was part of that, the Queen of Crime. But the real woman was

So different. So different. You know, she really it really is extraordinary that she wrote those kind of books because she was really a very passionate, romantic person. and she at the age of thirty-five, she was thirty-six when she disappeared, yes, but the build-up she was kind of thirty-five. so she had had her first big hit, Mysterious Affair at Styles.

in nineteen twenty, she was like an instant success. I hadn’t quite realised just how much instant success she did have. As a young woman, as an attractive young woman, you know, the same sort of publicity as you’d get today, really. She was a bit of a phenomenon coming, you know, it was like, here’s a rival to Conan Oil, and she’s young and attractive. You know, there was a bit of that.

Robert Murphy (05:28.48)

There’s a terrific quote. There’s a terrific quote in your book from the Westminster Gazette. Agatha Christie has produced a number of detective stories which can bear c comparison with any written by ma by a man. I mean she was near she was as good as a man even. Incredible. Yeah.

Laura Thompson (05:44.376)

They wouldn’t get away with that today. They they were they were quite reliably you know, non-woke, the Westminster Gazette. But they did nevertheless they did really admire her. and it was interesting how they took this female spin on, you know, that she sort of brings humour. Her characters are more alive than those of the men, all this sort of thing. So there was there was an interesting kind of critical slum on her rear. Anyway.

She had a huge amount of success and she was married, having got married at the start of the First World War, to this guy, Archie Christie, who was

Very attractive. her mother hadn’t wanted her to marry him. She’d had three much more as it seemed appropriate proposals. But Agatha, who always listened to her mother, nevertheless, she did go for the sexy dashing guy. And they got married at the start of the First World War and then when they met up again, as it were, at the end of the First World War, they didn’t really know each other. You know, it had been a like a cow kind of

Both fell for each other romance. And then throughout the early 1920s, it did become apparent that they probably weren’t as well suited as they might have been. She was this very artistic, creative, imaginative, very modern woman. She drove her own car, she had her own literary agent. She owned her life in a way that was very unusual. It’s still not that.

usual if we’re completely honest, although we like to say otherwise. And he was a city gent, he liked playing golf. He w he wasn’t a cliche. I don’t want him to sound like a cliche, but they weren’t similar. And he wanted to live in Sunningdale because there were lots of golf courses. And of course she was not that kind of person, the gin and golf set. And the life that they led

Laura Thompson (07:51.894)

was not the life that she would have chosen, but she was in love with him. And they had a young daughter, Roslyn, who was born in nineteen nineteen, whom I met, which was very fascinating, not long before she died. And

Laura Thompson (08:10.176)

In those days you would never have got divorced because you became incompatible and I’m sure Agatha thought that they were basically compatible and they would be together f till death did them part. But in nineteen twenty six everything started to go awry and it it it it it came to a head with this double blow of events where in April her beloved mother died and then in August the second blow happened and Archie told her he was in love with another woman.

Wanted a divorce. And the fact of those two terrible blows falling upon a life that had been hitherto a comfortable and, as she thought, happy life had the effect of eventually, not instantly, precipitating this eleven day whatever you want to call it, cataclysm.

Robert Murphy (09:05.408)

Yeah. Disappearance. You’ve given a a some great background in your book to the breakdown in their marriage. So a couple of years earlier, I think, or a little while earlier, they’d gone on a tour together and they were forced together. So she was already by this stage a well-known writer and was off promoting Britain. And this is terrific quote you say, the couple were in such close proximity for such a sustained period. They’d only really got to know each other really quite recently. Instead of the calm, quiet

Devon girl whom Archie had married in nineteen fourteen. Here was this assured, energetic woman, an accomplished social animal, and a minor celebrity who thrived upon an experience that made him exhausted and ill. they they just it just wasn’t working for them, was it? And then in comes Miss the death of her mum and Miss Neil as well. Tell us about Miss Neal and and what happened there.

Laura Thompson (09:49.24)

Yeah.

Laura Thompson (10:02.37)

Yeah, that round world trip that you talk about. Yeah, I think that yeah, I mean, you know, you really get to know people in those circumstances, don’t you? And she was a mu you know, everyone always says, Agatha Christie was so shy, she was such a wicked close. She jolly well wasn’t before that her life changed. She was a very attractive, outgoing, confident woman. And

Robert Murphy (10:24.322)

Who surfed, didn’t she? She cla has some some claim, whether dubious or not, that she’s a a pioneer of the surfing world.

Laura Thompson (10:32.418)

Well yeah, Agatha does point break as I say in the book. But she yes, she sh she loved life and she grabbed it. And he was as I say, I’ve tried very hard not to make him a cliche because it’s so easy, so all the boring the boring bloke who just wants to play golf. Well for a start there’s nothing wrong with playing golf and it it’s just incompatibility and also some people say he was a philanderer. There’s absolutely no evidence for that whatsoever.

But what happened and this really does intrigue me and I do

Because it’s a small space of time and it is a short book, but I have tried to excavate it quite closely as it were, and because there isn’t that much actual evidence, what Poirot would call actual corroborated evidence. And and th th so the temptation is to guess, and I’ve tried really, really hard not to do that. But I did find out a couple of new things. One was about Archie’s family background, which I felt was quite significant in a way.

And the other was about Miss Neal, Nancy Neal, who was the single girl who was kind of on the Sunningdale scene, clearly on the lookout for her husband. She was very good looking. And what I hadn’t realised was how well she knew Agatha. You know, she’s presented as this kind of rogue factor who just comes in and upends everything because she’s so stunning and wasn’t quite like that.

She knew Agatha. They’d sat on a committee together for some exhibition that was going on at Wembley in the mid-1920s. So they knew each other. You kind of get the sense that Agatha was almost a little bit her informal chaperone. And so the betrayal was a double one in a way. And this relationship between this younger woman and the

Laura Thompson (12:36.962)

established rather blithe, rather because Agatha was quite grand in her way, you know, there is a posh element as well in here. There’s a kind of class element. She was a little bit different class. I know we’re nervous of talking about this kind of thing, but Sunningdale is very middle class. She was a little bit airy and grand, you know, and probably not that popular with the kind of people Archie was with at the time, because there’s no doubt about it.

That a couple with whom he was friendly did sort of push this relationship between Archie and Nancy. They did give an opportunity for it to flourish in a way that is. What I loved about this rob is how it tells you so much about human nature in a very Agatha Christie way. You know, it really does have all the building blocks of one of her classic stories. You know, this wretched couple who are

Nancy, you come and stay, you know, Archie’s here. He’s got nobody to play golf with. There was a lot of that going on. And I find all that kind of thing so fascinating. You know, the awful way people behave that you completely recognise.

Robert Murphy (13:48.8)

So there was he’d originally so her mum died in earlier in the year, was April, I think, nineteen twenty six. Then in August he says, I want out, I think. And that doesn’t quite happen. So they’re still ish together and then he’s invited away for a weekend in early December. And what’s described as high words happen. Just tell us about that that moment on on that on that evening, on that day.

Laura Thompson (14:17.886)

Yeah, well you obviously I read a huge number of newspaper reports and although a lot of the reporting is very, you know, unsurprisingly just as inaccurate as, you know, it might be today in certain quarters, th y i i i i there were there there there were reports of you you got a general sense of things that was g that were going on. Clearly they were talking to servants.

Because Archie and Agatha had bought this enormous house, which is why in Sunningdale, which is why I don’t think he was planning to leave the marriage. certainly not in the early part of the year, because there’s no way he would have taken on that enormous mortgage with Agatha. I think he was he was torn. And then what happened was when the mother died.

And she was bereft. I mean, her mother was the most important person in her life, really. And I think Archie was a bit jealous of the mother even in death. And instead of going away with him and rebuilding her life and pulling herself together and all that, she went down to Devon, the family home, and just sort of submerged herself in grief. And that’s when it all happened. And I think she always blamed herself for that, which she should not have done, but you know, people. and

So he came down to Devon in August for the daughter’s birthday, and that was when he told her, I want help, I want a divorce. I mean the cruelty of it. And then, as you said, there’s this kind of limbo period when they’re trying to she won’t give him a divorce, she you know, it’s all very

What are gonna do? And just awful, you can imagine. And then on the morning of December the third, the servants describe high words at the breakfast table. Which he of course denies in such a way as to make you very, very sure there had been high words at the breakfast table. She meanwhile had kind of planned that they would go away together this weekend of December 3rd, 4th, 5th.

Laura Thompson (16:32.822)

And he didn’t want anything of the kind, of course. He then went off to spend the weekend with the these two frightful friends of his, where Nancy was also the other guest. And I think something in her

Well we don’t know whether it was an instant flip, we don’t know how much of it was planned. It’s very, very difficult to know. You can only go by the clues, which are that she wrote letters. She wrote a letter to her husband, which of course he destroyed. She wrote a letter to her companion, secretary, Charlotte Fisher, who was a very good friend, which we slightly know what might have been in it.

But she also wrote a letter to her brother in law, who was, I think, the only person who was friendly with both parties, her and Archie, and she more or less told him what she was going to do. She said, I’m going up north to a spa town, and probably said a lot of other stuff. We don’t know ‘cause he destroyed the letter, but he said to the police, look, she said she’s going up north to a spa town, and they chose to disbel chose to disbelieve that.

So from that I infer that she didn’t really intend to disappear for eleven days. She intended to do something else that I sort of think I know what it might have been in the book. But she’s

Planning, plotting, but n that if you say that it has a derogatory air that she was scheming. I don’t think so. I think she was a woman in extremis a woman in very, very great distress, whose life had fallen apart in a very short space of time. But she was also Agatha Christie and so she plots. And it was the best plot she ever came up with because nobody has really been able to solve it, but equally it didn’t end in the way that I think she wanted it to end.

Robert Murphy (18:32.642)

Describe to us the aftermath. When did it become clear that she had vanished and what were the circumstances? you know, her car was abandoned at the top of a quarry, wasn’t it? How concerned was it? And how did this concern grow? How did the word spread nationally, internationally, I think?

Laura Thompson (18:51.266)

Yeah, it went viral, as we say. I so the car was in a position that is like the start of a crime novel. You know, it was, as you say, either ab hanging over or close to we don’t quite know, this chalk pit at this place called Noonan’s Corner, which is quite a scary place. Very vertiginous, you wa I mean I went there

In the middle of the night. It is not a place that you would want to be. And it was found the next morning, s Saturday, December the fourth. Early in the morning the lights were seen. they’d been left on. So clearly the intention was for it to be seen. and in the car were these clues to the identity of the owner.

She had gone completely.

Laura Thompson (19:52.994)

We don’t quite know what happened but

Because she’d left a letter for her secretary, Charlotte, she said she just sat there and waited for the police to turn up. Well that can’t be, I don’t think. But leaving that to one side, the police were on it from about eleven in the morning. The the Surrey Constabulary were on to it from about eleven in the morning. And the guy in charge, this guy Kenwood, who was a well meaning officer with a good record.

But he handled it quite badly, I think. He became absolutely convinced that she was dead, either by her own hand or quite possibly by the hand of her husband, and that she was in the environs of Newlands Corner, and so the evidence from the brother-in-law that she says she’s gone up north, he completely ignored. You know, they kind of made very sketchy search for her, including in Harrigood, where she actually was, but it was none none of it was done very, very seriously. And so

The hunt for Agatha Christie became like a nationwide pastime almost. Very like Lord Lucan, you know.

Robert Murphy (21:05.42)

They were dredging ponds. They were dredging ponds, weren’t they? They were looking in lakes. They were police forces, southern more than Surrey, weren’t they? Were were were were lucky Berkshire too, others as well.

Laura Thompson (21:18.68)

Yeah, she lived in Berkshire. And it wa and I mean Noon’s Corner if if you know it, I mean it’s immense. And as you say, there’s water, there’s a lot of water all around. All the the you know, fishing lakes and these ponds and everything, all of those were dredged. So in a sense you do have two mysteries here. You have why she disappeared and then why she stayed disappeared.

And of course, the official view is that well she’d lost her memory and she didn’t know she was being looked for. So when she saw her own face in the newspapers, she didn’t recognise herself. But I I’m afraid I don’t think that really squares with the facts. but again that I don’t mean that in a condemnatory sense. I don’t like this either she was playing a trick or she was a completely innocent victim who’d lost her memory. I think it’s much more nuanced than that.

Robert Murphy (22:13.29)

Yeah. She she was at the end of her tether, wasn’t she? In in in I I would f according to your book anyway, from what from what you see, she’s, as you said, in extremist. how did the word spread? So you know, you said it went viral. Who was looking? What what kind of what what kind of headlines was it was it making? What were people doing? what were newspapers doing to try to to find this woman who had been a well known

crime writer, but was suddenly even better known now.

Laura Thompson (22:46.232)

Yeah. Which is why s some people said it’s a stunt a publicity stunt, which is just nonsense. because of course, and I haven’t said this a bit, I reenacted this journey because I wanted to walk in her footsteps as far as as near as is possible. And I know from reenacting that journey that that is not the sort of thing it it’s A it’s not the sort of thing you do in a kind of fugue, an amnesiac fugue because it’s really quite hard going.

Quite tiring. It’s got it’s very, very intentional. You know, you’re up against nature. It’s i it was quite tough. You had to do a lot of walking and climbing and all that sort of thing. but equally it’s not the sort of thing you do for a hoax. ‘Cause it was hard and it was quite scary. I mean I was really scared, but in a weird way quite enjoying it. because it was so real. But anyway.

Sorry, back to your question. It i i it went big quite quickly the story. She was known. She wasn’t anything like known the way she would become, but but of course the because the policeman in charge, Kenwood, because he did that thing that inevitably the police do of talking to the press, but because they w he was as it were

Barking up very much the wrong tree by thinking she was in Newland’s corner and we were looking for a a dead body. The press got hold of the idea that why? Okay, then they find out that the marriage is a little bit rocky. Then they find out the thing that Archie really didn’t want them to find out, which was that he’d spent the weekend where there was an unattached young woman, also one of the guests. And so the interviews that he keeps giving to the press saying.

I have done nothing, my wife knows all my friends, all the and you keep thinking, my god, you know, just just button it, Archie, but you know, when you try and explain yourself how much worse things get. And so it it had every element to to lure the press, as it my goodness, wouldn’t it now? And of course now you’d have social media, but it went pretty big without social media.

Laura Thompson (25:09.474)

I mean I found a report in a in in foreign you know, the foreign press, India, places like that. It it did go mega because of all the elements and because of this central kind of what we would call sorry it’s a terrible term, meta element of the crime writer being potentially at the centre of a crime or a mystery.

which is still what gives it this resonance really. So over the and then there was this thing called the Great Sunday hunt when the the great British public descended upon Newlands Corner for a day out, a jolly day out really, to look for her. There were bloodhounds, there were horses, there were you know, the whole caboodle

There were people like Dorothy Al Sayers was asked to say what she thought, Edgar Wallace was asked to say, the guy who called Crippin was asked to say what he thought. You know, it just all very familiar, really. That’s what I love about this story. It’s all so familiar. And so when eventually she was found, kind of in the place where she had said she was going to be, i.e. Spar Town up north, inevitably there was a massive public reaction.

against this woman who had apparently wasted their time and made them sympathetic to you know she presented herself as this pitiable victim whereas in fact she was in Harrogate in a really nice hotel having apparently quite a good time and costing the taxpayer money for this constant search for her and you can understand in a way why people were cross about it.

Because of course the backstory was inexplicable, really, in those circumstances. So you can see why she became a bit of a joke, stroke, hate figure for a while. And it’s unbelievable how she re rebuilt her life from all that, because for a couple of years she was.

Laura Thompson (27:25.486)

I mean worse than before, really, because there was no hope. The adrenaline of doing something like that was was gone because he still wanted Nancy Neal.

Robert Murphy (27:36.587)

So she had left her car. She’d gone from Surrey to London, and you did really know this. I think you’d you might have driven up the M1, but she was on a train, was she, from from from London. She checked in to the hotel, and sh under the name of

Laura Thompson (27:54.968)

Yeah.

A giveaway, really. I mean, there’s your main clue. But all they did was look for people under the name Christy. I mean, it it it but you know searching for somebody hiding in plain sight is is easier said than done when there’s no digital trail. And of course.

And this to me is another huge clue in a different way. There was no money trail. Her bank accounts were dormant, which meant that she must have gone with quite a lot of money. Which is really why I don’t think she lost her memory. Because I I can’t square those things.

Robert Murphy (28:43.916)

And she was attending dances, wasn’t she? She was dancing, she was she was playing pool or snooker or or billiards. it would have been billiards, wouldn’t it? so she I God knows what state her mind was in, but but she was f functioning. Wha or in what ways was she functioning, did you find?

Laura Thompson (29:02.478)

I think I think some of that got exaggerated. And of course the official line is it it all got exaggerated. She didn’t dance, she didn’t sing, she never played billiards. I mean the billiards might have been a a little Daily Mail flourish. Said she played, but she didn’t never made big score. But there is this one piece of actual evidence from one of the hotel guests, of course lots of people had loads to say to the press after.

And you you can dismiss some of it as as people wanting their moment in in the sun. But there was this guy who said we used to sing and play piano because she had very good voice, Agatha. And and and he did have a piece of sheet music signed by Theresa Neal, which was offered for auction just after she died, I think. Well that’s evidence.

So you just go on those things. What can be corroborated? And and that that that is corroboration. So she did, although they said some people recognised her, some people were curious, some of the staff recognised her. Eventually two members of the hotel band did sort of because I think it was potentially getting pretty embarrassing for the hotel.

So under whatever steam they went to the police in Yorkshire. But she was

Nice Harrogate. It’s a very nice place to disappear. You know, I could have happily disappeared up there. of course I wasn’t in a state of emotional trauma when I re-enacted this journey, but nevertheless I could feel the lure. There’s something about being anonymously in a hotel. It was like she was almost like she was having a break from herself.

Laura Thompson (31:03.714)

Which more than anything in the world I think she needed. That I mean I say more than this, of course, in the book. I d I d I mean I’m I’m reducing it really. And it isn’t something you can be reductive about because it’s very complicated and she was very complicated. But there is something about that

Putting a stop on your life that is the lure of this disappearance.

Desire really, which I do talk about a bit in the preface, this desire to put to to to be alive and and not to exist almost is is very interesting and I think it runs deep in us maybe in a in a strange way, in extremists that that might be what you would want to do. ‘Cause apparently it’s not that uncommon. But of course today it would be impossible, wouldn’t it?

Robert Murphy (32:02.312)

Yeah. I mean you say in the book, towards the end of the book, she had created a story in which she was both the writer and lead character, but it was a flawed plot, the only one that she ever contrived.

Laura Thompson (32:15.598)

I think that because without saying too much, I I still don’t think she wanted our marriage to end. Mm-hmm. Really. By doing that she had absolutely ensured that it would. Anyway, sorry Robka.

Robert Murphy (32:25.71)

Yeah.

Robert Murphy (32:33.942)

Yeah, so what was the aftermath of this? What happened to her and her her her marriage, and then also what happened to her and her career?

Laura Thompson (32:42.134)

Well, in one way it was the best thing that ever happened to her.

It i it was like a dark passage through which she passed, after which life was far more difficult and in the end far more wonderful. I mean she had a life that would be difficult to have today, really. You know, the the the the free I mean she earned her freedom because she worked so hard, but the the life she lived, you know, with the obviously the travel and the the houses she owned.

the grandeur of it and would she have had that with Archie? And of course the great question, would she still rather have been with Archie? I think probably not, but you know, I I g he he haunts her her work in a way. He haunts the work she wrote under another name, Mary Westmacott. He does haunt those books I think. I think they are an act of exorcism in a way, the closest she ever came to writing about this truth three, I think.

they did get divorced quite quickly. I think nineteen twenty seven was terrible for her. Just just bleakness. And then he

they got divorced and he he married Nancy in nineteen twenty eight and that was

Laura Thompson (34:12.257)

He had to really. I mean maybe he really, really wanted to. We don’t know. Well his life was there were there were some troubles in his life, which I write about. And Nancy died quite young.

But Agatha wrote to him, which is really odd, isn’t it? She wrote to him when Nancy died and said she was so sorry. And he wrote back saying, Thank you for giving me those years of happiness. I mean wow. Subtext or what, you know, I mean. And it damaged his relationship with his daughter because Agatha couldn’t really hear his name mentioned. Her daughter said to me, you know, if I saw him I couldn’t tell my mother.

So there was an a huge amount of aftermath. It was not resolved really.

Robert Murphy (35:02.42)

And you you said earlier on that you met Rosalind. just tell us what she was like. Where did you meet her? What the circumstances? Did she talk about this at all? picking up from what you just said. and how did she how did she present to you?

Laura Thompson (35:19.222)

I thought she was fantastic. She was pretty old, 84, 5. I met her a couple of times. she talked about this. I knew I am not the kind of person who could sort of say, tell me about it directly. But she talked she actually raised it, talked about it obliquely. But you did get the sense that it was very much about this personal.

crisis with Archie. you got the sense that Rosalind, she was very like Archie. She wasn’t imaginative like Agatha. She was a pragmatist. She she she couldn’t have been less like her really, but she thought a lot of her. Don’t think she particularly liked Agatha’s second husband, Max Mallowan, who she married in 1930. But that was a marriage of convenience, but it kind of worked

But Ros Rosalind’s life was a little bit circumscribed by having to be Agatha Christie’s daughter, I think really, you know. I met her at Greenway, which had been Agatha’s the beautiful house in Devon that she bought, and in the end Rosalind took that on and it’s now National Trust. you got the sense that being Agatha Christie’s daughter was a full time job, really.

Robert Murphy (36:42.011)

yeah.

Laura Thompson (36:48.354)

But she was a realist. She also sort of, you know, took the good stuff from it, you know, the privileges that went with it and all that sort of thing. But you you did get that sense a bit, yeah. but I I thought she was fantastic.

Robert Murphy (37:04.15)

And when in terms of Agatha’s career, you said it was it’s it was she became something of a a national hate figure. When did her career start to pick up? And what were the books that that started to do that?

Laura Thompson (37:17.122)

Yeah. Well she she had a book well, hate figure maybe I shouldn’t have said that. That’s perhaps too strong. A little bit of a joke, you know, a little bit of a hoax, you know, the woman who played the hoax. But I think that was agony to her. I mean she had a book that came out almost immediately, The Big Four, which is a dreadful book. she would freely admit it was a drug but cause it y sold enormously, which

fitted the publicity stunt theory. And she’d kind of written it with the help of this brother-in-law, Campbell Christie, who’s quite an interesting figure as well, I think, that he managed to be friendly with both sides and always remained friendly with Anitha.

He he and Archie both had issues of their own though. I go into that a bit in the book. But so she and then she had The Mystery of the Blue Train, which was the book that she always said she hated so much. She was struggling with it through that terrible year of twenty-six, couldn’t finish it. You know, for the only time in her life she had kind of a block. She she she was in such a bad emotional state. But it came out.

And then what you really think of as the resurgence is for her, murder at Vicarage in nineteen thirty, which was the year she got married again, it was after she’d started travel when she’d gone to Iraq, which of course then was, you know, perfectly kind of colonial almost, but they she wasn’t interested in any of that. She started getting interested in archaeology.

She met Max Mallowan.

Laura Thompson (39:06.988)

I think through that you feel she almost made a decision. I’m either gonna fade away emotionally or I’m going to crack on. And she did. She did. And I think the travel was a a real metaphor for, you know, a very obvious metaphor for this driving forward with her life, taking the Orient Express and then going on, going east, going to new worlds. I think

It’s very, very obvious way of presenting it, but I I think that did that daring that she evinced was very significant to her, I think. And then she starts to become this figure that we recognise, you know, this the Agatha Christie of indestructible myth whose popularity merely increases.

Robert Murphy (40:02.64)

So the thirties w you know, we’re talking golden age here, aren’t we? So, you murder on the Orient Express in thirty-four, the ABC murders in in thirty-six, and and and she was at at the height of her powers and was one of, you know, along with other people as you mentioned, Dorothy El Sayers, Josephine Tay as well, Marjorie Allingham. this was you know, the golden age. This was by this was the the s this is like a a a bookmark in

in her life really wasn’t and everything seemed to to change afterwards.

Laura Thompson (40:35.392)

It did, and as you say, the golden age, and she was and she I mean, they’re all fantastic, those women, I think, but I think she was a template in a her simplicity that marks her out really. the the the the the I hate the word tropes, but the kind of tropes that she came up with. Her boldness with the whole concept of solution, you know.

It was all of them, it was none of them, it was a child, it was a policeman. You know, there’s something so conceptual about the way she comes at this genre that’s I mean it was there from the first really, but she really cuts loose in the 30s those books she mentioned. I mean, they’re just wildly first time I read the ABC Murders, I couldn’t believe it. Because they’ve got this almost childlike directness about.

And yet they they’re very, very, as I say, informed by a very sophisticated knowledge of human nature, which she of course had experienced at first hand. you know, a lot of her books are about spouse murder, a lot of her books are about

Women taking other women’s husbands away from them and quite often they come to a sticky end. And you know, her books are very impersonal, but subtextually I think there’s quite a lot going on, particularly in a book that I always say is my favourite, but it is my favourite, Five Little Pigs is there’s a lot of emotional h heft in that book I think. That’s the forties. I mean during the war she was

Magnificent, you know, she was on such form. And also in the thirties she became pretty rich and then she had tax problems thereafter, which were completely not her fault, but i i i she was on a very grand scale living hand to mouth afterwards and in fact she didn’t leave as much money in her will as Archie Christie did, or is comparable ‘cause he did very well in the city. But she nevertheless she was

Laura Thompson (42:45.698)

You know, I always think from his point of view and from Nancy Neal’s point of view, it’s not like he divorced a woman that you never have to think about again. You can put it behind you and get on with your own life. It’s like every day there’s gonna be a reminder of this other woman. I mean it must have been quite a thing to live with really.

Robert Murphy (43:07.448)

And for Nancy to live with as well, you know, the first wife to be this this gl this now global megastar that she wasn’t at the time, but went on to be.

Laura Thompson (43:17.346)

Yeah, it must have been a very weird thing to live with, I often think. but she was pretty tough, Nancy, I think. But and they had a son, whom I met, very nice man. He didn’t give a an impression of absolute radiance within the marriage, but that might have been I don’t know. And he met Rosalind for the first time at Archie’s funeral, his half sister. I mean that

Is extraordinary, isn’t it? That that that’s what I mean by the great schism within Agatha’s life thereafter. sorry.

Robert Murphy (43:59.628)

When you were writing this book, what what were your what were your big takeaways from it? Either the big surprises, and you’ve alluded to it well you’ve mentioned a couple already, but there are any other sort of big surprises that you came across in the research, the writing or the speaking to the people? or things that you were able to sort of crystallise in the the mind having being a Christie fan that you hadn’t quite perhaps realised beforehand?

Laura Thompson (44:23.064)

Hmm. Well the I mean I minimise it a bit because one doesn’t want to be prurient, but I d what I found out about Archie Christie’s father really surprised me. And I felt it was quite a shadow for him to live with. and it might have explained the air he gave of being almost overly controlled. Almost it kind of explained a bit to me why he found Agatha almost too much to handle.

I have a degree of sympathy with him, which is probably not very sisterly. But that that I sort of explained that a bit in the book. I hadn’t realised that Agatha and Nancy knew each other I knew they knew each other, I didn’t realise they really did know each other. So when she says in her autobiography, Archie said

I want to marry, you know, that dark girl, making out she doesn’t know who he’s talking about. She knew perfectly well who he was talking about. And Nancy knew perfectly well whose husband she was flirting with. you know, that relationship between those two women that really interested me.

I never really, I mean, in my biography I say I don’t buy the amnesia theory, but I’m much more certain about that now. And through reading more newspapers and local newspapers and everything, and trying to sort this media wheat from chaff, as it were, I I did become a bit more sure of what might have happened that night. I know sure and might are contradictory.

Because anyone who says they know what happened is lying because we don’t know. But I felt I pieced it together to my own satisfaction. And people will read it and think, No, I I don’t think that or I’m moved by that. I think that’s where the evidence most clearly points, which is how I would put it. They might think, No, I do think she lost a man or no, I do think she was trying to set him up to be arrested for murder. Or I do you know

Laura Thompson (46:41.589)

It’s

Laura Thompson (46:45.122)

What do I say that quote from John Fowls, Nothing lasts like the Unsold. It i it is like Lord Lucan in that respect. These things these stories will never die. But to my own satisfaction I feel pretty sure of of what was going on. And that that that’s the best one can do, remaining truthful, ‘cause a lot of what’s written about this is not entirely true.

Robert Murphy (47:09.044)

And the the the last question really is is I’m really interested to speak to a true connoisseur of Christy, someone who knows all the works and has studied her life because I’m not. And there are there are, believe it or not, some other people like me who’ve who’ve dabbled with Christy. I I read a couple of books and I like them, but I’m not sure they were quite connecting with me at the time. Maybe it was me, not her. What would you say to people? What books should a

Christie someone who doesn’t know an introduction to Christy Reed. And just why? And you’ve mentioned many of her talents already, but just why, if you could sum up, is she so good? Is she such a game changer? Is she deserving of all the plaudits and all the mm bazillions of books that she’s that she’s sold?

Laura Thompson (47:57.794)

Well, I read her as a child. I don’t know. Did you read her as a child or did you come to her in Right, that okay. I think I was about eleven. That might be even a bit too there’s something about reading her as a child. When I call them fairy tales for adults, I do think they have that element. The fairy tale power, the sense of justice, the power of resolution, all that kind of thing. That speaks spokes for me very, very deeply.

Robert Murphy (48:03.797)

It’s a teenager, yeah.

Laura Thompson (48:27.766)

And I still get that pleasure when I reread them. But I do think they’re very adult. I do think she is very sophisticated in her thinking and almost I rather take pleasure in her cynicism, as we would call it today, about human nature. You know, Miss Marple, one hopes for the best but one always expects the worst. And I do a bit shed I mean, Rob, you’re a crime

expert if ever there was one. I mean, you know all about the bad side of human nature. I mean, you know.

Robert Murphy (49:00.044)

Yeah, I do, I do, but I don’t do it with cucumber sandwiches and but I think that’s a bad that’s a bad analogy to make because I know that she isn’t all about the cucumber sandwiches and and tea at the Vicarage and th that kind of thing as well. There’s so much more to her than than my impression that I’ve got from the books that that I haven’t read.

Laura Thompson (49:25.228)

Yeah, the well that yeah, but that

That tug between facade and subtext is Golden Age. That’s the essence of Golden Age, really. But she does cover the twentieth century in a way that I always think is perhaps a bit undersold. Her post war books are quite an interesting sort of little slanting look at the way society changed after the

the cucumber sandwiches era, you know, and then if you read a book like Endless Night, which is written in which was published in the sixties, I mean, wow, you know, that’s a pretty good portrait of a of a modern a young man. She’s good at the male voice. You know, he’s a very, very modern figure, I think. And I think for her to have done that in her late seventies, that’s what I love a lot about her. She’s

She’s not frightened. She was never worried about what anybody thought. You know, it’s so unlike we have to be today. God, what will people say? What will Goodreads say? You know, she would never have given any of that a thought. She had an idea, she trusted her instincts. She’s a very instinctive writer, I think, despite the planning. And there’s a speed and a vitality about her books that I find very, very alluring. And that the others.

The much more intellectual women like Sayers and Tay and all those, they don’t quite have her deste, if you like, her vitality. She almost writes they’re quite dramatic. She writes in scenes, they move along at pace. They’re very, very simple, but it’s a very distilled simplicity. And I find all those qualities, once you think

Laura Thompson (51:24.322)

This isn’t s this isn’t simplistic. It’s simple and simple is the hardest thing to do. You sort of see them from the other way around. But

It is part of why she is so often adapted and pulled apart by modernisers and th because her plots are so elastic, it’s it’s a tribute in a way to her durability that she can be people can do what they like with her, really, because A she sells and B her plots won’t let them down. But

Robert Murphy (52:02.126)

So after So after people have read Eleven Days by Laura Thompson, what three Agatha Christie books should people go out and buy as an introduction?

Laura Thompson (52:12.47)

Okay, that’s a good question. Well, I think we’ve mentioned I I would definitely say the ABC Murders because the concept is so ridiculously good. I would say Five Little Pigs, about which I’m borderline boring, but I do think the quality of distillation in that book is peculiarly strong. The way character and plot move as one is is is quite brilliant, I think. It’s a very powerful plot.

And it does have this autobiographical element. And then rather than going for one of the obvious murder on the Orange Express or Roger Aykroyd or any of those, I would I would I would say Endless Knight, go for Endless Knight. See Agatha the the in her late seventies taking on swinging in London. It’s quite it’s quite a meeting.

Robert Murphy (53:04.991)

Brilliant.

Laura Thompson (53:05.708)

Those three and if you don’t love her at the end of those three, then she’s not for you. Which is fine.

Robert Murphy (53:13.4)

Well Laura Thompson, this is a terrific read. I ripped through it. It was fantastic. and I learnt so much, not just about the eleven days, but about Agatha Christie as well. which were you know, so it’s a great sort of mini portrait and very, very easy read as well. So many congratulations and the very, very best of luck w with the launch.

Laura Thompson (53:33.806)

That’s so kind Rob. I I d really, really appreciate that and it’s always always a great, great pleasure to talk to you. So thank you.

Robert Murphy (53:41.336)

Thank you. Brilliant. Let me stop recording. Is there anything else you’d like to add or anything I haven’t asked you that you’d

Laura Thompson (53:47.054)

No, I think we no.

Robert Murphy (53:49.806)

I’m mindful of not g giving too much away ‘cause people want to read the book, so

Laura Thompson (53:55.072)

Yeah, and I I did try not to do that. I hope it I kept freezing on this screen, but was everything okay your end?

Robert Murphy (54:02.922)

Yeah, it froze a few times here, but the sound is good and sometimes on Riverside it it records in better quality than it seems. So yeah, sometimes the software looks a bit glitchy, but actually when I download it it looks perfect. That’s what happened That’s what happened with Tim Sullivan last time. I thought, my god, this is gonna look awful and then it picked pinged up perfectly. So that’s w we’ll see.

Laura Thompson (54:20.834)

That’s absolutely fine.

Laura Thompson (54:30.134)

That looked great.

Robert Murphy (54:31.714)

The sound is is good. let me just stop recording there. So have you got any other projects coming up or are you working on things

Okay, Tim. Tim Sullivan, thanks so much for being on the show and many, many congratulations on this. This is a proof copy of the Tailor, which l launches today. Many congratulations.

Tim (01:10.658)

Yes, it is publication day today.

Rob (01:14.605)

And this is a story about how a train leaves Bristol Temple Meads the ten o’clock to London Paddington. and within minutes a man is found dead. He’s a tailor, but who is he? Why has he died and what secrets has he taken to his grave? Pick us up from there, please, Tim.

Tim (01:31.215)

Well, yeah, I I often, I mean, with my books, all of my books are named after the occupations of the, of the victim and, and my detective George crosses on the spectrum and he’s very interested in processes. So in a way it’s kind of, it’s lent me to kind of look at various worlds that interest me and that might be unlikely places for someone to be killed. And bespoke tailoring is, is a fascinating dying art and,

as well as an excuse for me to commission a bespoke suit to do the research. I thought George would, yeah, I thought George would be really fascinated in that world. And, know, often with like my, my fifth book was called the monk. And that was partly because I was a, an altar boy till I was about 16. And you start with the premise of who would want to kill a monk, who would want to kill a tailor. And with the tailors.

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Rob (02:06.477)

Tough job.

Tim (02:29.838)

Killing. It’s clearly very deliberate and quite savage. It’s almost like an execution. But why? How does that make any sense?

Rob (02:40.494)

clue which the big clue that which of course we’re not going to give any spoilers away is is it’s almost Christiesque. It is ingenious, isn’t it? Where did that come from? I don’t want to obviously for you to tell us what it is, but but i i it it’s a great idea.

Tim (02:50.902)

Yeah. Yeah. It’s quite, it’s actually quite a difficult book to talk about without giving spoilers away. Yeah. I mean, the thing about George is that George doesn’t have any gut instincts or feelings about crime. He just follows the evidence and he looks at patterns and he looks at behaviors. So for example, if a woman is murdered in her seventies and for 30 years, she’s had her blue rinse done on a Thursday afternoon.

Rob (02:58.584)

Ha ha.

Tim (03:19.938)

And the week before her murder, she doesn’t turn up for a hairdressing appointment. That interests Cross. For him, that could well be pertinent. And it’s the same with the Tailor’s murder. Everyone is concentrating on the way that he’s been murdered. And George just said in this middle of this meeting, where’s his luggage? And everyone goes, what? you talking about? For George, that’s not right.

It’s, you know, it’s out of the ordinary. And it’s those things that that lead him into solving crime in a successful way that he does.

Rob (03:55.693)

Why did you want to pick up on tailoring in the first instance? Is this something that had been brewing up over the years beforehand, or is it a bit of a flash of inspiration when you realised you had another another book to write?

Tim (04:05.772)

No, no, I’ve always been interested in tailoring. And again, I thought it was a George Cross encountering the world of bespoke tailoring and learning about it. I knew would be interesting for the reader, but also a kind of a thing that would fascinate George. I mean, in the patient, he goes to a dry cleaners and he sees a shirt iron, a shirt pressing machine. Have you ever seen one? The ones where they blow the shirt up.

Rob (04:32.334)

No.

Tim (04:34.346)

And not blow it up with explosive, but blow it up with air. And, and he’s fascinated by this and his colleague, Josie Otte gets used to the fact that sometimes he gets sidetracked, but there’s a bit of May Gray in him. like to think I flatter myself in that George will talk to someone about the shirt pressing machine. Otte will go, why is he, we’re trying to investigate a murder here. And he’ll get back in the car and he’ll have two pieces of information that someone working the machine because of his interest in the machine.

They let their guard down and they will spill the beans about a couple of things. Jules Maigret did that brilliantly all the time by sort of posing as a kind of a bit of a fool, but actually being incredibly intelligent.

Rob (05:17.026)

Yeah.

And this is the eighth, am I right in thinking the eighth George Cross book? And and many congratulations on your recent award, the the CWA Dagger in the Library award, which what did that mean? You know, that that’s voted for by librarians, isn’t it isn’t it?

Tim (05:31.832)

Thank you.

Tim (05:36.929)

It was amazing. mean, I was, I was very shocked and surprised and, immensely flattered. I mean, it was an incredible, sort of a list of nominees. so I was, I was absolutely delighted and I’m really glad that borrowers and librarians have taken George to their hearts as much as they have. think libraries is such an important part of the community and, and they’re such easy targets for lazy councils making cuts.

Rob (05:47.478)

Yeah.

Tim (06:06.412)

It’s kind of such an easy target. And the libraries I visit, they’re not just places where people borrow books. They’re community hubs. They’re where people go and meet. They’re where they have friendships with the librarians. They who know their tastes, who, you know, they have different things going on now. They make use of the space in different ways. And I think it’s, you know, it’s not just a question of people going there to borrow books anymore. It’s so much more important. And, and, you know, they’re an endangered species.

Rob (06:36.322)

Yeah, pubs and libraries really, isn’t it? That’s the the the keeping keeping our neighbourhoods together in a in a way. and so to win that award, you know, you you had to have written a series with a great big character here, George Cross. And just just what do you think it is about him? that that people have taken to heart, that people want to read more about him again and again.

Tim (07:02.99)

I think it’s a few things, as I said, because he’s on the spectrum. He, he’s very dogged and patient in following evidence and nothing more than that. And I think that he’s got enormous integrity. People with, he’s got asper, what we used to call asperges, but now it’s called ASC. And often people on the spectrum have a need for things to be right, to be done in the right way.

So he’s a great advocate for protocol, but also the need for things to be right is perfect for a detective because he needs to solve the crime to make it right, to provide justice for the victim and, also meet out justice for whoever’s perpetrated the crime. So I think that he’s got no side to him, George. What you see is what you get. And he’s got great integrity and vulnerability. And I think the, the audience, the, the readers really liked that.

There’s a line in the first book, The Dentist, which I think sums him up really well. They go to investigate a retired detective. And as you know, retired detectives hate having their cases reopened because number one, tells them they’ve done a bad job, possibly. Number two, it makes them feel really old because new generations coming along and having a look. And George goes out and he’s not been treated well by this man who was his boss when he first joined the police force.

Rob (08:12.35)

technically because you know the time hate having their cases re owned because number one it tells them they’ve done a bad job. Number two it makes them feel really old.

Tim (08:32.878)

George rings the doorbell and the man opens the door and goes, it’s PC odd. To which George replies, actually it’s DS odd now. And Otty finds this incredibly funny. George doesn’t, he’s just simply correcting the mistake in his rank. And that’s what I love about George, the sort of, the way he goes about things. Really, really I think makes him quite endearing.

Rob (08:38.243)

odd to which Todd replies actually is DS odd now. And all he finds is incredibly funny.

Rob (09:01.115)

And he’s got a lovely interplay with his parents in this book as well, hasn’t he? The the the elderly parents who weren’t together. He was a you know, the mother who abandoned him, they’re s together, but it’s a bit fractious. And it’s just it that’s that’s a nice little element that brings a bit more humanity to w what could other be you know, he’s there facing the some the same personal pressures that that so many people, so many of us

Tim (09:15.244)

Yeah.

Rob (09:29.347)

Endure.

Tim (09:29.644)

Yeah, I think over all the books, there’s this overriding arc of character development. So in the first couple of books, the mother isn’t around and George wants to find out why she left them. And his assumption is it was because of his autism. And he wants to go and find her to say to her, look, I’m all right. You made a mistake. I’m fine. I’ve turned out really well.

But George being George, what he doesn’t understand when he does this is that she might then want to have a relationship with him. It doesn’t occur to him at all. And this is a bit of a shock and it takes a few books for him to kind of work out how this plays in his life. And I think those, you know, with readers, know, he’s got, George has got a little circle of friends around him. He just doesn’t realize it.

He’s got the local priest where he practices. He’s a brilliant church organ, self-taught organist, and he maintains his friend’s organ, but he refuses to play in any religious services because being an atheist, he thinks it would be an act of great hypocrisy. And he’s got his father and he’s got his colleagues. And I think people like to come back to the books because they’re coming to a world they know about and they want to catch up.

with the people surrounding George. And in a funny sort of way, the reader, to an extent, sees George through these other characters, which is very helpful.

Rob (11:05.73)

Yeah, it is. And and talking about the other characters, I mean the the big thrust of course in this book is who’s killed the tailor. And he’s got a wife who’s a bit suspicious. There are some other people who turn up as well, who are in a a village near near near Bath. how when you started writing the book, do you do you plot it in a advance or do you feel your way through it and and learn when everyone else learns who the killer is?

Tim (11:30.861)

Yeah.

Tim (11:35.151)

Yeah, exactly right. I don’t, don’t plot at all. So here I decided I wanted to kill a tailor. I knew nothing about him. I knew where I was going to do it. The time I did it, I didn’t know who had done it. I never know all I have as a body. don’t know who they are, whether they’ve got family, anything about them. And I then set about finding out and I don’t know who’s done it. I’m just writing next year’s book. My books tend to be around about the 90,000 word mark.

And I’ve got to 70,000 words and I just found out one of the killers last week. And I think the advantage of this is that I’m finding my way through with George or George is finding his way through. it means that we’re never ahead of the reader. It’s very much an organic process. We can’t be ahead of the reader because we don’t know any more than they do. I went to a, a, you know, what do you call them? An event once where someone put their hand up and said,

I could think the case of the politician. Oh, I knew who did it on page 142. And I went, well, congratulations, because I didn’t. So you’ve done some pretty neat work there.

Rob (12:44.95)

You do do some research though, so you did some research into the bespoke tailoring here. Just tell us a bit about that. Because there is a tailor or there was a tailor anyway on Park Street, which in Bristol. Yeah.

Tim (12:51.682)

Well, I called it.

Yeah, I spoke to them. Vittori. Yeah, I spoke to them and they had a fantastic story about, I don’t know whether it was a grandfather or a great grandfather or someone in their family who was, you know, their fifth, sixth generation tailors and the family comes from Sicily. And back in the day, it was illegal to take money out of Sicily, to take currency out.

Rob (13:11.65)

Yeah. Yeah.

Tim (13:22.198)

And so for a while, lot of members of the Sicilian Mafia who were dealt with by the, tailored for by the Vittori family had suspiciously large shoulder pads because they were all stuffed with cash.

So I spoke to them and in fact, Richie Charlton, who did my suit, he knows the Vittori family. So it’s all quite a small world, but they’re still there on Park Street.

Rob (13:48.407)

Yeah, is that that’s not the Torito family, is it? Mike Torito? Yeah. Yeah. He’s he’s actually my neighbour as well. He lives two doors down from me. Yeah, yeah, great guy and a master. I’ve been into his tailors and the it’s beautiful, isn’t it? If you were to to if you were filming there, it would just look so it just it’s so evocative, isn’t it? It’s beautiful.

Tim (13:51.566)

Sorry, sorry.

Tim (13:56.779)

extraordinary. Sorry to get the name wrong.

Tim (14:10.22)

Yeah. Yeah. I didn’t go and see them because by this stage, I’d already commissioned a suit from Richie and I felt it would be a bit rude to go and research and not commission a suit from them. Sorry, what was the name again?

Rob (14:26.318)

Torito, Mike Torito. Yeah. No. And Bristol, as ever, is a a key part of here. And just to name check some of the places that that are that are that are here, of course, you’ve got central Bristol, you’ve got Bishopston, which is where the tailor had lived as well. You’ve got Clifton. There’s an industrial estate in Brislington. There’s even Molly’s Diner in Cribs Cause where he gets a couple of shouts out.

Tim (14:27.429)

That’s Apologies for getting it wrong.

Rob (14:52.704)

As well. I mean, d do you come to Bristol to try and work out where you want to do awful things to people, or do you know the city well enough?

Tim (14:57.954)

Yeah, I do. Yeah. Yeah, I do. And in fact, the next book, The Murder Takes Place in Bishopston, I discovered a really fantastic building there. And I thought, yeah, this will do. yeah, I know Bristol pretty well, but I think it’s always good to, you know, when I did The Teacher, I went out to, you know, near Avonmouth to those little villages on the estuary to look at them.

You know, there used to be great places where tidesmen used to live because they used to pull the boats up into Bristol Harbor. But of course, as soon as Avenmouth started, all of that died off. So those are fantastically interesting communities. And I think, you know, as I always say to people, research is free. I mean, it’s fabulous. It’s a wonderful thing. I didn’t come across research till about 10, 15 years ago. And I thought, why haven’t I been doing this all my life? Why have I been making stuff up?

It’s so much easier to kind of make it up when you know a backbone of things.

Rob (16:00.662)

Yeah. It’s fun as well, isn’t it? ‘Cause you find out stuff that perhaps sometimes you couldn’t even have dreamt about.

Tim (16:07.372)

No, absolutely you do. You come across stuff that surprises you and that’s always, you know, entertaining and useful.

Rob (16:14.678)

And what what’s your connection with Bristol though? mean you don’t live in Bristol, I don’t as far as I know, haven’t ever really worked in in Bristol. Why why set it here in the west of England?

Tim (16:26.19)

Well, my parents’ families both come from Bristol, originally from Ireland. My father’s family, Ireland via Swansea to Bristol. My grandfather on that side was a print manager at the Bristol Evening Post. My other maternal grandparents, my paternal grandparents lived in Eastfield. And so we were all Bristol Rovers supporters at that point.

and then my maternal ones, I were in cotton, cotton Hill. And, I grew up there as a toddler. I was born in Germany because my father’s in the RF. And then we came back between stations to live in Bristol. And it was kind of rather, they were very poor. My grandparents, both sets of grandparents, both had outside toilets that I remember vividly. I remember the one in Woodland road. I’d always need to go to the toilet after doctor who.

Rob (17:01.517)

right. Yeah.

Tim (17:24.206)

And it was outside underneath in a basement. And I used to terrify me. And yeah. And, my daughter, my younger daughter went to Bristol university and studied in the philosophy department, just up the road in Whitlam road. And just further on, my grandfather had been the night watchman in the old gas works. And I was saying to her, you, you don’t understand how proud your great grandparents would be that you are.

Rob (17:28.814)

It’s more scary than Doctor Who.

Tim (17:54.383)

400 yards from there, really sort of almost slummy basement flat, and you’re going to university here. It’s fantastic. And then, yeah, so I was sent away to a dreadful boarding school in Somerset, Catholic boarding school with a horrendous headmaster. He was dreadful drunk and...

Rob (18:04.908)

Yeah. And you y you went to school here as well? Yeah.

Tim (18:19.97)

There should have been included. You had seven Alsatian dogs all named after Wagner operas. That should have been included to someone. Anyway, I ran away four times and was eventually moved to Clifton, but I did kill the bastard in The Teacher, my sixth novel. So I got revenge. But yeah, I then went to Clifton where I was very happy from the age of I was sent away originally at nine. So from the ages of 11 till 17, I was at Clifton and very happy there.

And, you know, have a, have a great fondness for Bristol.

Rob (18:52.876)

And w what what is it about the city that makes it a good setting for crime?

Tim (18:58.932)

Well, other than the center, course, which, you know, unfortunately the planners in the sixties did more damage to the center of Bristol than the Lefouette, to be honest. Not that I’m original in saying it. For Georgia, I I love Bristol. know it well. You know, know Clifton really well. What a beautiful place that is. But I know, you know, I was there. I’m that old that I saw the SS Great Britain being towed down. We all went to the gorge and watched it go under the bridge.

Rob (19:23.788)

Yeah.

Tim (19:28.238)

We used to have to go on these old buses to beggars bush across the bridge to play sports. You know, I’ve gone across that bridge so many times. You know, one of my murders in Scion Hill in the politician where, you know, we used to pass. And for George, because of who he is and how he is, I felt that a big metropolis like police force like London or Manchester or Birmingham, he wouldn’t really cope as well as he would in Bristol. So in the end, you know,

I think it’s great to write about somewhere you’re fond of because it will come out.

Rob (20:03.626)

Yeah, it really does. And so picking up on your journey to get here, after going to Clifton College you went to university, but you didn’t follow in your dad’s your dad’s dreams for you to be a I think a lawyer, wasn’t it? But y you you went to right, okay. Yeah. But you were you wanted to be in T V, did you?

Tim (20:19.246)

think they were his dreams for himself, to be honest with you. It laid off on me because he never did it.

Tim (20:27.5)

I wanted to be in TV and film. mean, my great ambition at the beginning was to be, you know, a big Hollywood film director. And I almost got there. I became a Hollywood screenwriter. I made a movie. I’ve written four or five. Yeah. And it was great. I’ve had a really wonderful, quite eclectic career. I started writing for the director, Derek Jarman, just after he had made The Tempest. And then I got a job at Granada as a researcher. And while I was, I got that job by being a

chauffeur on Brideshead Revisited. And I met the producer, Derek Grange, and I went on to write two movies with him, A Handful of Dust and Where Angels Flee to Tread. And, you know, then I became a director on the great scheme they used to have, the Granada director scheme. And I ended up directing Coronation Street and Sherlock Holmes with the late great Jeremy Brett, who for me is still the definitive. Yeah. So, yeah, so I had a very...

Rob (21:00.216)

Well.

Rob (21:20.874)

Yeah, those were the classics. Yeah. What did you learn? What did you learn in that experience when you’re let’s take ‘cause this is a crime podcast, Sherlock Holmes. What what did that teach you about writing, about the beats, about the rhythm and about

Tim (21:37.069)

I think, I think two things, two important things were structure and pacing. And also, you know, Jeremy, Jeremy was an object listening character and, all good crime fiction has a really strong central character. People don’t read crime fiction if it’s just about the murder or the plot. They want to know about the detective. They want to know about the protagonist.

They want to love or hate him or her. and, and I learned that from Jeremy, Jeremy was, you know, God bless him. He was slightly sort of bonkers at times and would really push the envelope. as far as the portrayal of, of, of Holmes was concerned and your job as a director was to let him go as far, probably a bit further than you thought was sensible and then rain him back.

because his instincts were so great. And he always had a copy of the collected short stories on set. And he would often flick through, not to check that we were doing things right, but just to go back to Doyle and hear Doyle speak to him about the character. And that was intriguing.

Rob (22:47.288)

Yeah.

Rob (22:54.228)

And y I mean, you’ve worked with Pixar, you directed and Ron directed was it Jack and Sarah as well, didn’t you? So this is you know Yeah.

Tim (23:00.364)

Yeah, I wrote and directed Jack and Sarah, which was wonderful. I love that. One of my one of the great experiences of my career working with that cast.

Rob (23:09.494)

And how does that inform how did working on that inform what you do now?

Tim (23:15.458)

I think when you make movies, you learn to be brave because some decisions are forced upon you in the moment of shooting and you have to think on your feet. But I think what I’ve, you know, when you write a screenplay, a screenplay is like a chameleon. It comes in various forms. When you start, it’s like a pitching document to a producer to say, look, this is a great idea. You want to make this movie. And then when the producer comes on board,

Then then it becomes a casting document. You’ve to make sure all the cast are written attractively enough to attract good names. And then once you’ve done that, it becomes a finance pitch document where you’re out to financiers. So you’ve got to make sure that they can see the appeal of it. And then finally, when the movie, if the movie’s made, it’s like an instruction manual. It’s like the last chance you get as a writer to say, look, this is my vision. Please make it as close to this as you can.

This is how I see it. So what you take from that that are advantages in terms of writing books are scene setting. You’re quite good at scene setting because you’ve got to set a scene and describe it fully so the location manager can go out and find it. You’re really good at dialogue because that’s been your bread and butter for 40 years. And you’re really good at pacing, but in the wrong way.

So what you find and I found when I first started writing books was I was guilty of my pacing, my rhythms being too episodic. I had more time. I had to take more time. I could hold things back. Things weren’t as urgent as they are in film and TV. So that was a really big learning curve. But I think the main thing that you take that applies to both disciplines is the

Rob (24:53.315)

Right.

Tim (25:11.694)

The vital importance of narrative drive. Narrative drive is everywhere and it has to be. Every scene has to have some element of driving the narrative, whether it’s in parallel, whether it’s beneath, or whether it’s dragging it behind it. So narrative drive was a thing I learned a lot.

Rob (25:31.997)

W I spoke and there’s a previous episode of this podcast with Linda LePlant, who’s done both as well, and she says the great benefit of books is you can have as many helicopters as you want. You can have there’s no budget, is there? It’s just you and a page, you can do what you want with it.

Tim (25:44.879)

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And you know, I’m, I’ve worked in animation, you know, I worked on flushed away. worked for a year on Shrek four. I just worked on a huge movie, my little pony. And you know, on that, you know, there are restrictions there because you know, you’re writing when you think, oh, it’s great. You know, it’s all computer generated and you go, okay, so basically I want to have a, this castle and they go, no, no, no, stop. We haven’t built a castle. And go, what do mean you haven’t built a castle? We’re not building anything. No, no, no. When you ask for a castle.

A team of like 200 people have to go into computers and create that castle so it can be filmed inside and out. Hundreds and hundreds of hours, millions of dollars in that castle. It’s probably cheaper to build one on the Shepperton backlot than it is in a computer. It doesn’t occur to you.

Rob (26:32.174)

Yeah.

Rob (26:37.026)

So why did you make the the the jump? it was was it twenty twenty the first George Cross book came up?

Tim (26:42.86)

Yeah. I mean, my joke, I preempted is that, you know, I just worked on My Little Pony and the only direction to go from there was crime fiction. But that’s a joke. You know, unless you’re in the top 1%, which I wasn’t quite of successful screenwriters and directors, it’s an ageist business as you get older, you know, the phone or the emails taper off a bit.

And the TV and film world is in such a state of flux. No one knows who is watching what, when, how, where, and everyone’s second guessing technology they don’t understand. AI is hanging over everyone. And so I just suddenly thought I’d been interested in autism for like 20, 30 years. I’ve done quite a bit of research and I thought I really want to write a book centered around this. And then it just made complete sense for the old.

for the character on the spectrum to be a detective. And in a sense, know, George Cross fits into a long tradition from August Japan to Sherlock. I mean, I think we put Poirot on the spectrum, you know, so that way of looking at life, that way of having your brain wired lends itself brilliantly to solving crime and murder.

Rob (28:02.606)

And your first couple of books were self published, weren’t they? yeah, what was that like? How are ‘cause that’s I mean, that you have such independence, don’t you, and such scope, but also it’s such a lot of work to do that.

Tim (28:05.046)

Yeah. So.

Tim (28:13.654)

Yeah, it was a lot of work. mean, but the reason was, you know, I, I sent the first sort of 50,000 words to my agents agency that I’ve been with for 40 years and they turned me down. And I thought to myself, well, obviously 40 years isn’t long enough, but also, you know, there’s no such thing as loyalty in the agenting world. And I went to another couple of agents and they both turned me down and they both asked me, they loved the book, the dentist, but they both asked me if I was autistic.

And I said, no, I wasn’t. And they then asked me if my children were autistic, which I thought was a bit impertinent. And they told me that I would know publishers would touch me because they felt all readers would shun me because I was guilty of what was called neuroscientific appropriation. And I just thought, I’d never heard of this. And I thought the world has gone mad. So I said to my wife, Rachel, all right, what I’m going to do, I’ve done so much work and I think my portrayal is authentic. It’s not like.

It’s not an accessory like Morse’s Jag. George Cross’s condition is his gift. What I’m going to do is I’m going to self publish it. And if the autistic community push back, I’ll stop. I’ll just, I’ll just bin it and do something else. And quite the opposite happened. Over four months, we had just 16 weeks. We had 175,000 downloads and both of us were in the TV film. Well, we didn’t know whether this was normal.

Rob (29:36.674)

You’re kidding? Wow. That’s amazing.

Tim (29:42.531)

whether it happened to everyone. So then we sort of went looking for PR and through that, you know, the figures got out and then I got a publisher. Initially, I was resistant, but I’m really glad I did. but self-publishing teaches you a lot about the business. But yeah, it was forced on me. It wasn’t something I chose to do.

Rob (29:42.786)

Yeah. It’s not.

Rob (30:09.206)

And so the last six have been with a a a publisher, haven’t they? I mean what w what crimes or have there been any crimes that have inspired you along the way or you’ve taken a little bit of this or a little bit of that, or have you seen any detectives?

Tim (30:23.468)

Yeah, I based, I write short stories, which I make free for, the subscribers to my website and then the publisher also sells them. I can’t remember the case now, but the second one I wrote is called the ex-wife and it’s based on that bloke, who murdered. You’ll remember this because you’re so clever about crime. He murdered his second wife by throwing her down the septic tank outside their house.

with their dog.

Rob (30:54.904)

That th she’s the author, she’s the children’s author.

Tim (30:57.878)

She was the children’s author, but he had also murdered his first wife and his first wife’s family had left her brain to science. And it was through that that they proved that he killed both women. And so I based the ex-wife on that because it just seemed such a kind of dreadful crime. Sometimes when you’re writing murders, you know, you do start thinking to yourself, why do people do this?

Rob (31:02.36)

Mm.

Tim (31:27.33)

And of course, as a crime writer, you’ve got to know why, but you’ve also got to believe it.

Rob (31:32.738)

What is it about crime that intrigues you, makes you want to write it, and also makes hundreds of thousands, or in your case now millions, of people want to read it?

Tim (31:47.789)

I think it’s the complexity and at the same time, the simplicity. You can overlook the simplicity of an act of murder. But I think people like to read it because they like a sense of balance by the end of the book. They like a sense of restitution. They like a sense of the world being put to rights and they like going along on that journey, having their own theories proved or disproved.

as they go along. mean, I’m not golden age author. I don’t deliberately write to challenge to send out red herrings and deceive the audience all the way through. My red herrings are organic. I find them as George finds them. Our red herrings, he said grandly, I know George is fictional, but our red herrings are genuine leads of investigation that he follows. And therefore they have a bit more grounding to them.

And I think, you know, people love to not know what’s happened at the beginning and find out why. think that’s the prime thing. And I think also people are amazed at the links that bad people will go to and they can read it from the safety of their own home.

Rob (33:02.956)

Yeah. I think a really good segment for everyone. Yeah. There’s something thrilling about it, isn’t there? It’s often sometimes something thrilling. And also something I think every day, often in i e for example in the tailor, here’s a guy who was leaving his office, he’s catching a train to London. There’s something very everyday about it, and then something awful happens during a very relatable thing.

Tim (33:09.1)

Mm.

Tim (33:26.113)

Mm.

Rob (33:27.764)

and what research you mentioned research earlier, what do do you find yourself going down YouTube rabbit holes or or reading reading books about it or or do you have advisors in what ways do you go through things to try and keep it as so the procedure isn’t too out of kilter with with real life?

Tim (33:51.267)

Yeah, I’ve got a couple of friends in the police force, but I try not to be too adherent to, know, slavishly adherent to police procedure. I have a couple of friends, friendly pathologists who advise me. have a Casey who advises me. and, yeah, but I love doing the research and as I say, with the tailor, the easiest thing was to commission a suit. so my discussions of making the suit, what I wanted.

then seeing the process happen, how it was put together with base stitching and how the canvas was done, know, all informed how just the measuring is done, what they measure, how they do it, how they look at your body. If you’ve got one shoulder that’s half an inch lower than the other or your hips at the same angle, all of that really fascinated me and would fascinate George.

And I think there’s also something wonderful about learning about people are really good at something. You know, really good at at their job. yes, and you find out such a wealth of, you know, I found out stuff that George loved about, you know, in tailor shops, you know, when they when they make these clothes, when they have offcuts of material, those are called cabbages. I just love that, you know. And so there’s all sorts of, you know,

Rob (35:14.55)

Yes. Yes. It’s good.

Tim (35:18.796)

wonderful language like that.

Rob (35:21.878)

And just what’s it like slipping on a bespoke suit?

Tim (35:25.294)

It’s fabulous because it, think, where do you notice it most? I think it’s the shoulders and the armpits. When you put the jacket on, it just slips on. It’s just like, you know, it’s just, it’s perfect. I mean, the cliche, it fits like a glove. Um, but you know, the, the, thing is don’t put on too much weight, um, because they literally are, you know, made to fit like a glove. So if you put on weight, you’re to be in trouble.

Rob (35:32.546)

Yeah.

Rob (35:51.862)

Yeah. So if you put on weight, Yeah, you can lose a little bit maybe, but not put it on.

Tim (35:56.206)

I would definitely lose, definitely lose. You can always lose as a general rule. But yeah, but it was, it’s been a joyous thing to do. And the world of tailoring has been really fascinating to look into. and, you know, my tailors, as with your neighbor and my tailors are on Park Street. So it sort of lends a bit to them.

Rob (36:20.322)

Well, it’s a terrific book. I thoroughly enjoyed it. And how about this for a coincidence? I actually finished reading it a couple of days ago. When I was on the ten o’clock train from Bristol Temple Meads to to to Paddington, there was a bit of drama on that train journey because someone had left a backpack in the cycle storage area and that caused a freezeworn. But nobody was killed.

Tim (36:40.27)

Well, I bet if you finished it you were a bit wary of going to the loo.

Rob (36:45.64)

Yeah, exactly. That’s right. It was. So many, many, many congratulations with this, your eighth with your incredible award as well, the the dagger in the library. And w wishing you the best of luck with number nine and everything else that you do.

Tim (36:55.064)

Thank you so much.

and you, thanks so much. It’s been a real pleasure talking to you.

Award-winning crime author Tim Sullivan joins us to discuss The Tailor, the latest novel in his award-winning George Cross series, which begins with a murder aboard the 10 o’clock train from Bristol Temple Meads to London Paddington.

Tim discusses why he never knows who the killer is when he starts writing, how commissioning a bespoke suit became essential research, and why Bristol continues to provide the perfect backdrop for his mysteries.

We also explore his remarkable career directing Sherlock Holmes, writing Hollywood films, and the lessons storytelling on screen taught him about pacing, character and suspense.

WATCH Interview on YouTube

George Cross has connected so well with readers, the series has just landed Tim with a prestigious CWA Dagger in the Library Award.

Learn more about Tim here:

https://timsullivan.co.uk/

Mark Billingham, thank you so much. And many congratulations on Shadow Step. Now this podcast is about where crime and culture clash. And I guess the origins of this story is where a kind of a true crime and culture clash, in that it started in a park with you and your dog, didn’t it?

Mark Billingham (00:20.088)

Did start in a part with me and my little dog. my wife and I were walking our little dog, Ruby, and the park over the road. And she’s a she’s a funny little dog, she’s a sausage dog, miniature brown sausage dog. And she’s wobbly. in fact, at one point I had a big battle with my publisher about trying to call this book the wobbly dog, but they wouldn’t have it. so she had a back operation, she had an injury in a back operation, so she has a little wobble. And we’re walking in the park and she was attacked by two XL bullies. These huge dogs just came running from nowhere.

And they would they picked her and they were shaking around. It was horrendous. But we managed to get her off these dogs. And then the owner of these monsters came ambling over like nothing was happening and was like, Yeah, what? And I went, Keep your effing dogs on a lead. At which point he threatened to stab me. and what my wife and I did was obviously back away and go, This guy’s un you know, dangerous and went away and called the police and he got away and nothing happened. So I thought, I’m gonna write about this.

But the ending’s not gonna be the same as it was in that park. he’s gonna get what’s coming to him.

Rob Murphy(01:18.978)

Ha ha ha.

Rob Murphy(01:23.008)

Yes, and he gets what and that’s what I loved about this story. He gets what what’s coming to him really quickly, doesn’t he? straight from the

Mark Billingham (01:30.978)

Yeah, really really quickly in a and in a vaguely comical way. you know, involving tripping over his own dogs and all that kind of stuff. Yeah, he I mean it’s not a spoiler, he ends up stone dead in a lake. and then a person believes he’s responsible for that and confesses to the crime, but Miller knows straight away that he’s

Rob Murphy(01:50.286)

And you’re talking of course about Barry Cheshire there. Barry Cheshire who is extremely we’re sick we’re extremely sympathetic to him because life’s dealt him a bit of a a bad set of cards. He’s his wife leaves him, her lovers stay away.

Mark Billingham (02:07.636)

Leaves him his wife leaves him for for another man and he’s currently living in the basement of his own house, you know, with sort of a camp bed and a and a grotty old microwave and a little portable telly while his wife and her new lover are romping around in his in his house upstairs. And he’s you know, he’s he’s traumatized from his ex services. Yeah and he’s come back after, you know, several tours in the army. So no, his life is not is not going as well as he expected, to put it that way.

Rob Murphy(02:37.45)

And why did you think this would make a Declan Miller book when this happened to you and you thought, Well, this is a story. What was it about this that made you think, Yeah, this is a Declan Miller one, it’s not a Tom Thorne one?

Mark Billingham (02:49.464)

Well, it it’s funny though. I mean, I d I don’t think I thought that straight away. I don’t think I went home after this incident in the park thinking, here we go, this is the start of something. But it stays, you know, that stuff stays in your head rolling around. And when it came time to start this Miller book, and starting is always the hard bit. Yeah, it’s always a hard bit. that just popped popped back into my head. in the same way that the the the first Miller book, The Last Dance. Again, I hadn’t really got a way to start sorry, the second Miller book, the wrong hands. I hadn’t really got a way to start it. And then I remembered this thing I’d written.

before my first book was published, so twenty-six years ago, I started to write a sort of more comedy crimy book. And I wrote, you know, ten thousand words of it and then put it aside in favor of what became my first book, Sleepy Head. And I went back to look at it and I went, hang on a minute, that’s that’s all right. That’s not, you know, not as horrendous as I remember it. I could tart that up a bit and instead of setting it in the toilets at Birmingham New Street Station, which is where it was originally set, I’ll set it in the toilets at Blackpool Station. And that was the start of the second book.

That nothing is wasted. Nothing is wasted.

Rob Murphy(03:51.154)

You can repurpose anything, can’t you? Of course you can. And so Declan Miller as well. Talk us talk to us about him, please. He I mean he is a gear change, isn’t he, from what you’re originally so well known from, Tom that Tom Thorne. and these books are, you know, they’re they’re funny, aren’t they? So, so f funny. Was that I hope so. Yeah. why why why this why this change? Why why

Mark Billingham (04:11.925)

Yeah.

Mark Billingham (04:17.227)

It is a it is a gear change. I I’d felt I felt like it was about time to to hit pause on Thorn for a couple of books. and I’d been, you know, my background is in comedy and my my in stand up and my my first instinct is usually comedic. You know, somebody tells me the most horrific story and I’m like, where’s the gag? You know, where’s the joke? Nothing is off limits. but you know, and there is humor in the Thorn books, but it’s a sort of dark gallows humor, you know, that cops use. But I wanted to put humor front and center.

And I was invited to create an original detective drama for television. This is, I don’t know, five years ago now. and I came up with this character, Miller. They they wanted it, they wanted ballroom dancing, this company. because I think the the the show was originally devised as a vehicle for an actor and comedian who may or may not just have won Strictly. Okay. So I started developing this thing. And, you know, in the way television works, wrote a dozen drafts of this script and it got nowhere. And I

Eventually ran out patience and and you know started to not care about it and took it away. Just took it away and thought, I’m gonna write these books because that’s the difference in television. You never know if it’s gonna happen, right? However enthusiastic everybody is, so many people are involved, you just don’t know. Whereas I’m I’m in a fortunate position of knowing that if I write a book, it’s gonna be published. So I took it away. By this time I’d been living with Detal Miller for, you know, a year and a half. I knew him really well. I knew him much better than I ever knew Tom Thorne when I started writing about it.

So boom, I just I just wrote the first Miller book. But I did I did you’re write a change of gear. I did think it was time to to write something that reflected my belief, my very passionate belief, that humour and seriousness are not mutually exclusive. You know, you can write about very serious things in a humorous way. If you if you don’t have humour in books, that’s not real life. No. You know, life life is unbearably bleak and horrible and hilariously funny, often at the same times. And that’s the sort of tone I wanted to try and create with Miller.

Rob Murphy(06:15.082)

Wha how you describe this book, there’s a passage there’s a sentence, it’s like Coronation Street meets the wire with extra sausage dogs.

Mark Billingham (06:22.72)

Yeah, yeah. There’s there’s a little there’s a little bit of that going on. Yeah, I like that. Coronation Street meets the water. Did I write that? Very

Rob Murphy(06:28.95)

It was good that But it’s really moving as well. The passages the pas passages with the ex-wife the ex-wife, the dead the dead wife, Alex are are really moving, aren’t they? As well. She’s funny, but it’s also light as well.

Mark Billingham (06:44.534)

Yeah, I mean I you know Miller is somebody whose life is is defined by grief at the minute, you know. He’s gone back to work arguably much too early after his wife was murdered. and he’s grieving, but his way of dealing with it is through this the fact that he just doesn’t care. He doesn’t care who he upsets, what he says, he can’t read a room. he’s forever coming out with these terrible jokes and saying absolutely the wrong thing at the wrong time, which makes him a joy to write about.

You know, I would write Tom Thorne books and a stupid gag would pop into my head, but I would have to put it to one side because that’s not Tom Thorne. If a gag occurs to me when I’m writing Miller, it comes out of Miller’s mouth. and I did want those scenes with Alex. They’re very important to the books because I wanted the reader to know what it was Miller missed. You know, she’s not a ghost. She’s only in his head. I make that very clear. and you know, some of the times they’re just talking about the state of his grill pan or the fact that he’s hasn’t taken the bins out. But you know, that’s marriage.

You know, and I and I w I just wanted a picture of what their life together had been like. And yep, if it’s moving, I’m very happy.

Rob Murphy(07:46.112)

It is and it’s very, very grounding. And there’s lots of things in the book that are really grounding as well. her daughter is a you know, is a a serious drug addict, isn’t she? Yes. And you know, you you it’s funny you but you’re not shying away from anything, are you, that will affect people’s lives. Again, th really moving scenes where you’re trying to where he’s trying to get her help, you know.

Mark Billingham (08:04.694)

Yeah, well I mean I’ve written about addiction quite a lot and it’s something I’m very interested in. My closest friend is a is an addict, a former addict. and so he’s my he’s my technical advisor. and it’s something that affects so many people, you know, from so many different backgrounds. It doesn’t matter where you’re from, who your parents are, whatever, anybody can become an addict or suffer from from the disease of addiction. So I just I again I wanted to write about that, but I didn’t it’s not

You know, I didn’t want to write some sort of tub thump thumping, bleak, serious. You know, the relationship he has with Finn is often quite funny one, you know. And she’s his eyes and ears on the street at Blackpool, so he uses her as a kind of unofficial snout. Yeah, yeah.

Rob Murphy(08:45.606)

Intel so I mean this is a this is a bit of a time for you as well, isn’t it? Because as we’re recording this next week you’re picking up the the diamond dagger. I am which is the highest accolade pretty much in in global crime writing, one could argue. If you look at the list of people who’ve won it before

Mark Billingham (09:06.658)

I know. What’s that like? It’s astonishing. well, this is happening next Thursday, and I’ve got to say it’s a it’s a day I might have a drink or two, because it’s the day the Shadow Step comes out. Yeah, it’s the day I get the dagger, and it’s my birthday. These things have all just ha happened, you know, to to on the side. So I may have a drink or two that night. I’ll wait until I’ve got the award and made a speech and then start drinking heavily. yeah, you look at that list of of of former recipients of the Diamond Dagger, and it is just astonishing.

You know, Reg Hill and P. D. James and Ruth Rendell and Elmore Leonard and John LeCarey, Lee Charles, Val McDermott, Ian Rankin, McHerran. I it it it’s an incredible club to be joining. So I’m not gonna pretend for one second that I’m blase about it. It’s absolutely thrilling.

Rob Murphy(09:49.816)

When you mention those names, they’ve each got their own they’re all it’s all crime fiction, obviously, but they’ve all got their own unique take, isn’t it? Well, you when you’re reading a Val McDermott book, win a McCarron book, win a John Lacare book, and also a Mark Billingham book. What is it that’s so distinctive about these and g and of the authors who haven’t won it as well do it too some, but what is it about you guys, this sort of people at the top of the mountain?

what is it about you guys that you’re able to do that, to write within a genre, but also to have your such your unique imprint and it’s just you.

Mark Billingham (10:25.73)

Well, I think we’re all storytellers. All those writers you’ve mentioned are storytellers. And that really is where crime fiction, I think, differs from a lot of other areas of the of the literary world. Our f our first duty is to tell a story. obviously there are other things crime fiction can do. I you I banged the drum for crime fiction for a long time and would and would claim, you know, argue with me if you want that it’s the kind of social fiction of our time because, you know, detectives can go anywhere, they can talk to anybody across the whole of society.

so you can look at what’s happening in the world. If you make that the agenda of your book, you’re gonna write a bad book. You know, a book shouldn’t have an agenda. Story is is first and foremost. But within that, you can do all sorts of things and get all sorts of things off your chest. and you’re absolutely right, all those writers could not be more different. You know, you’d never mix a Mick Herron book up with a John LeCarey book or a Lee Child book. but what they’ve all done is tell stories very regularly. you know.

Every year in a lot of those cases. and and they’re and none of them are limited by the genre because it isn’t a limiting limiting genre. One of my pet hates is the phrase transcends the genre. This is a book that transcends the genre. That just makes me want to puke. Because firstly, it isn’t a genre that needs transcending. It’s perfectly fine. Thank you very much. Nobody is making us write crime fiction. We all love crime fiction. you know, we don’t have a gun to our heads. It’s it’s what I want to write. I’d

I’d be uncomfortable writing anything else. I could try and write a lovely slim literary novel and after ten pages I’d just have to kill someone, you know?

Rob Murphy(11:57.346)

What is it about Mark Billing? What is it about you that has connected with readers, millions of them, for twenty five, twenty-six years?

Mark Billingham (12:04.312)

God knows, Robert. If I you know, it’s probably best I don’t know that. You know, I think it’s probab well, it’s like anything else. You don’t want to see how sausages are made. It’s probably it’s probably not a good idea to have you know, because if if there’s some kind of formula, if there’s a Mark Billingham formula, then I’m writing I’m being formulaic. I don’t I don’t want to do that. Which is why I I very much changed tack a few years ago and started writing these Miller books. Because, you know, I know plenty of brilliant writers, by the way, who’ve written, you know,

in one subgenre very strictly bo book after book for a long time and they’re wonderful. But I I’m I’m a bit more restless than that.

Rob Murphy(12:38.071)

and we’ve got to say as well as Tom Thorne and Declan Miller, you’ve written standalones. Is it five or six? And I think you might be working on one as we speak too.

Mark Billingham (12:45.442)

Yeah, which is what I’ve done it’s it’s the book I’ve just finished as a standalone. And it’s always nerve-wracking because there’s always part of you that goes, you idiot, why don’t I just put Tom Thorne and Phil Hendricks in a room and they can have a curry and they can, you know, all those things that readers of the series like. Because I’m like anybody else when I I’m a fan of series fiction. And when I read it, I want those little I want those ticks. I want those comf comfort moments where your favorite characters are in a familiar location talking about things they always talk about. You know, when we go and see bands we like.

The last thing you want to hear is hear some songs from our new album, right? You want the hits.

Rob Murphy(13:17.528)

So when you were growing up, what what inspired you? Was it crime fiction? Because obviously you’re you you know, you’re so steeped in comedy too. w what what was it? What were you reading when you grew up? What what are you what were your foremost inspirations?

Mark Billingham (13:29.57)

Well, it’s weird because there’s and I’ve spoken to a lot of writers about this and and and we we seem to have this in common. There’s no there’s no there seems to be this jump from these these harmless books you have to read at school to suddenly reading, you know, whatever it might be, Sven Hassel or, you know, Alistair McLean or these for me there were two big books that I read back to back one summer and I guess I’d have been thirteen, which were The Godfather and and Jaws. Right. Right. And obviously I’d not, you know

Didn’t know anything about these books, didn’t know anything about the films because I was 13. But I read these books and went, bloody hell. You know, I didn’t know a book could do that. These were two, you know, monstrous titans of popular fiction, but I didn’t know that at the time. you know, the vi the way the violence was described. Both the both the books also had dirty bits in, I should say. which is probably quite important when you’re a 13-year-old boy. Because again, you don’t get that when you’re reading To Kill a Mockingburg and an Animal Farm at school.

So those the so I I read those books and then a few years later, I guess when I’m when I started being a student and stuff, I started becoming obsessed with American hardboiled fiction. So Raymond Chandler and Dashel Hammett, and on James Kane and all that, Ross MacDonald, all that stuff. and from that it was crime fiction from then on. You know, I I guess the bit I’ve missed out here is the the probably the the fuse was lit by an old teacher of mine, a maths teacher, oddly, not an English teacher. No, he was a maths teacher of

Rob Murphy(14:55.062)

Okay.

Mark Billingham (14:57.216)

Really curious old fellow called Len Bowles, lovely man. and he would get bored in his own maths lessons. He would get he’d get twenty minutes in and go, God, this is this is tedious. And he had an old bat battered cricket bag which he took everywhere with him, and he would pull out a copy of The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. And he read a Sherlock Holmes stories in maths lessons.

Rob Murphy(15:15.33)

How’d you doing your math how’d you doing your maths exams? Were you going two two one B?

Mark Billingham (15:19.528)

Squeaked through, but you know, I think to d to this day that’s why I love crime fiction, but I can’t add up. He would read these amazing stories. And, you know, I can’t remember all the details of these short stories. There’s poison and snakes and all that stuff, but the character, you know, that character stayed with me, this incredible character is socially completely sort of inept and and you know, borderline psychotic, and would sit shooting bullet holes in the walls as he tried to solve cases and the music and the drugs and all that, you know, we haven’t come too far.

From Sherlock Holmes to, you know, the modern detective and all their foibles. But yeah, that’s that’s probably what lit the fuse for me.

Rob Murphy(15:54.146)

And just for people, and I know lots of people listening to this will know you and know your story, but for those who don’t, after you were a student you went into acting, and this is gonna be a bit of a if and onto TV, and if I’m not as old as I look, life’s been hard to me. But if twelve and twelve, thirteen-year-old me said you’d be interviewing Gary from Maid Marion, I that’d be a proper pinch me moment there. That’s

Mark Billingham (16:20.718)

Best best job I ever had. I mean, I I I wanted to be an actor. That’s all I wanted to be at that time, you know, mm mm getting through school and then training and doing drama at university. and I did for a bit. And I would be getting bit parts in TV and theatre and this and that. And then I walked into an audition for this job made Marion and a Merry Men, and that’s what I did for the next five years. And it was just a brilliant job. written and created by Tony Robinson. although it was ostensibly a kid’s show.

There was lots of stuff in it for adults and students. Yeah. in fact, when they showed it in America, they showed it back to back with Blackadder at like midnight. I don’t think they knew even knew it was a kid’s show. and by the end of it, I was involved in writing it. because Tony knew I wrote. And and and me and Tony would and the other guy, David Lloyd, who played Graham. We would sit around between takes just telling filthy jokes and whatever. And when Tony got busy and they wanted an end extra episode, said, do you fancy having a crack at this?

So I did, and by the time Mar Mariam finished, I’d become a writer by default. It was just a complete accident. But God, I’m glad I’m glad he did.

Rob Murphy(17:24.942)

And how what responsibility did you feel as the script writer there? ‘Cause you know, you you were had been part of the casting crew, but to know that you’re responsible for the gags, for the story, for the and other and also you know, it’s comedy as well. You can’t get comedy wrong. Comedy fails quicker than anything, doesn’t it? So

Mark Billingham (17:41.806)

It does, it does. I d I think I suppose what I remember most is trying not to give myself all the best lines. but also it was an episode, this particular episode was featured this that I wrote featured this parody of the crystal maze. Okay. So so we’re running around inside this, you know, medieval maze, just getting covered in custard and feathers, and it was so unpleasant. I thought, why did you write this, you bloody idiot? but it’s and I mean I I

went from there to writing for television for a few years and I have to say now looking back largely hating it. Really? Largely hating it. For some of the reasons I hinted at when I was talking about the you know, the genesis of Miller. It’s just the wheels grind so slowly and you’re getting notes from a hundred different people and a dozen different countries. I used to do a lot of animation for the Cartoon Network and write, you know, and it was good stuff, but

You’d get notes from Lithuania and France and Russia and w and they’d all s conflict with one another. And again, you’re 15 drafts in for a half hour animated comedy and you don’t care about it anymore. and obviously the thing the thing with the books, once I made that leap, I can I’d be a fool if I didn’t listen to what other people said when I’m writing the books, my editor notably. But at the end of the day, I can say, Do you know what? I think I like it the way it is. I can. I have that power to do that, which is kind of

But you know, you that’s not a power you want to give away.

Rob Murphy(19:07.51)

And so y you got in your first book was now twenty six years ago, twenty seven. You started writing Sleepy Head? And you’ve had a special edition out this year, haven’t you, I think? Was it last year?

Mark Billingham (19:13.496)

Yeah. Yeah, two thousand one.

Mark Billingham (19:18.232)

Two special editions, I had a special edition on the twentieth anniversary and and Little Bram put another one out on the twenty-fifth. And it’s great. On the twentieth I had a lovely introduction from Lee Child, and for this special edition, Mick Heron wrote a lovely introduction. So yeah, they’ve they’ve they’ve been nice little landmarks.

Rob Murphy(19:34.848)

And how important it’s a silly question really, but it’s only to elicit the answer. has Tom Thorne be been to you? because he has changed and and developed, unlike some other writers’ characters over the years, there’s been a a slower aging process, hasn’t there, than

Mark Billingham (19:52.6)

There’s been a slower aging process because I’m an idiot because I I made him the same age as me when I wrote the first book, thinking I was going to age him in real time. And after four or five books, I started going, hang on, you’re gonna run out of road very quickly here, mate. So I just slowed it up because even though there’s a year between the books, there’s not necessarily a year between the cases, you know. Book twelve can kick off two weeks after book eleven finishes. So he’s aged, he’s still aged, you know, he’s not charging around

kicking indoors or whatever, but he’s but he’s younger than I am now. He’s he’s aged rather more slowly. and I and I and I’m glad you said that he’s changed and developed because how can these characters not? Yeah. I mean that there are, you know, there’s room in this world for the James Bonds of this world. or or Jack Reacher. Nobody’s a bigger fan of of Jack Reacher and Lee Child than I am. And Lee would be the first to admit Jack Jack Reacher doesn’t evolve emotionally.

Awfully much. You know, that’s not what he does. That’s not what readers want. They want Jack Reacher doing what Jack Reacher does. but when you put people through the violence and the loss and the pain and the grief that crime writers tend to do with their central characters, they have to change or else it’s a cartoon. and he’s not the same at the end of one book, so God knows how different he is at the end of 19 books.

Rob Murphy(21:08.494)

Yeah. And as you’ve been writing these for for twenty odd years, twenty-five years, how how has the writing changed? How’s the j genre changed? how who has been consistently with you on this journey in terms of writers, who who you respect, you like, are inspired by?

Mark Billingham (21:30.296)

Well, there’s right I mean I mean there’s writers I’ve always read. and I like I say I was a big fan of series of of series fiction. So I you know, back before I was published, when I was interviewing writers and trying to write reviews and stuff, I interviewed Ian Rankin, I interviewed Michael Connolly. You know, these are pals of mine now, which is still gobsmacking to me. so they’ve stayed with me. There’s writers whose whose proofs I will beg for early from from publishers.

you know, you just want them straight away. John Connolly, who’s another mate of mine who I think is a wonderful writer. American writers like James Lee Burke, George Pelicanos. those people will always and then and then the new writers that come along, the slightly more recent writers like Mick Heron, who just is sickeningly brilliant. I wish he’d write one bad book, just one. But I still wanna re you know, I I’m still a passionate reader of this stuff, and I don’t I don’t see how you can write it without without not being.

Rob Murphy(22:14.754)

Very good, isn’t he?

Mark Billingham (22:25.1)

Yeah, you know, and and reading new writers, reading new authors that write astonishing books, not just it makes you want to spit feathers, thinking how can you be that good that straight out of the traps? that’s great too. You’ve got to be reading the people that are raising the bar, whether they’ve been doing it for twenty years or ten minutes.

Rob Murphy(22:40.6)

I know we talked about the genre a little while ago, but what is it about crime that you think readers are enticed by?

Mark Billingham (22:48.684)

Well, I think it’s because it’s such an enormous umbrella, Robert, honestly. There’s so there’s crime out there for everyone. I mean crime fiction will tell you a story, as I talked about earlier. There will usually be a resolution of some kind. you know, so there there’s chaos and there are problems, and then this detective comes in, whatever kind of a detective he or she is, a private amateur sleuth or a copper or whatever, and will largely put the world right again. that formula has been around for an awfully long time.

But within that, there are so many subgenres. You know, there are crime novels set in space, or in the 14th century, or in the 17th century, there’s, you know, there’s cr crime that’s dark as bloody burnt toast, or there’s crime that’s incredibly cozy. There’s everything there. You see it, you know, when you go into a mystery bookstore in America. these bookstores that just sell mystery fiction. And there’s golf mysteries and cooking mysteries and golf and cooking mysteries. There’s dog mysteries based around particular breeds, you know.

real estate mysteries. There’s everything out there, if crime happens to be your bag. and as I say, I do I do think it kind of reflects the world. At its best it reflects the world we live in, you know?

Rob Murphy(23:58.56)

And right at the beginning of this interview we touched upon for want of a better word, well, a phrase, a a real crime. But what real crimes have inspired you over the years or have led to characters or storylines?

Mark Billingham (24:12.492)

Well, only one really. I mean, I sometimes you read a little thing in a newspaper or hear something on the radio and it’s a tiny thing, really. You know, if you’re writing about the front page news, then you’re probably on hiding to nothing, because so will ten other writers or you know, you but a little story tucked away on page twelve, and you go, Hey, what? Just something that makes you ask questions because you can start with that and the readers will be asking questions, which is all you need from a kind of opening of a book. The only time I’ve actually written about

Been inspired by a real case. It was horrendous. I wrote a book called Love Like Blood about so-called honor killing a few years ago, which was inspired by the horrific murder of this young girl called Banaz Mahmoud, who was murdered by her family. a bunch of them. I mean, a whole bunch of them. There was a kind of conspiracy, and they hired killers. They brought killers over to murder her, and it was absolutely horrendous. and while I was writing the book,

While I was halfway through the book, the young man she was in love with, which is why them killed her, he, Ramat Suleimani, he took his own life. He took his own life halfway through the writing of that book, which is why that book’s dedicated to the two of them. I think that’s the only time. And and it’s weird because I don’t think I’ve ever been angrier writing a book. The more I looked into this, the more research I did, the more you just thought, this is monstrous. You know, it’s one thing for the likes of me to make up these.

bloody pattern serial killers and all that sort of stuff. you know, thankfully there’s not too many of them running around. But this is something that happened, that is still happening. and it, yeah, it just b boiled my blood. And while I was writing it, I thought this could be terrible because I’m I’m feeling so emotionally involved in it, or it could turn out okay. Thankfully I think it turned out okay. But

Rob Murphy(25:57.708)

What what what would your guidance be to people listening to this and someone who’s got the diamond dagger, who’s been there, seen it, got the t shirt? In fact, I think there’s some something hanging up behind you there.

Mark Billingham (26:08.75)

T-shirt, do you that? Do they give me t-shirt with diamond dagger winner? They should do. I’m gonna insist on a dagger. Bugger the prize, I want a t-shirt. You want

Rob Murphy(26:16.066)

the t shirt. What would your what would your advice be to up and coming writers?

Mark Billingham (26:22.656)

It sounds so bloody obvious, Robert, but read. I mean, I know I I I’ve met so many aspiring writers who tell me they’re writing a book or they’re really keen to write a book. And I go, okay, fine. So who do you read? And they go, I don’t really read. And instantly you just go, it’s not gonna work for you. you know, how could you be a chef without eating food? You’ve got to read. and you’ve got to finish whatever it is you’re writing. That sounds really obvious, but you know, people give up. People give up far too easily.

Every writer I know, all the amazing writers we’ve spoken about in this interview, all of them have got 10,000 words into a book and thought, this is rubbish. You know, they all have that self-doubt, however many books they’ve written, they all have imposter syndrome, but they get it finished and it turns out all right. Every year I go downstairs and I say to my wife, this one isn’t working, this is the one I’m going to be found out. And she goes, Shut up. You’ve said this 26 times. You know, you get a you’ll get away with it. But you’ve got to finish. That’s really important.

Rob Murphy(27:20.344)

What is it about what you do that that makes you want to carry on doing it? What gets you to your laptop every day?

Mark Billingham (27:27.5)

Well, this this this sounds incredibly shallow of me, and that’s because I’m very shallow. But I’m I’m a you know, I’m I come from a performance background. I’m a big show-off. The book for me is a performance. Writing a book is a performance. It’s a different kind of performance, but I’m trying to entertain the reader, keep them engaged. So one of the things I love, and I guess this is because I’ve long ago given up stand-up, so I don’t get those performance jollies anymore. I love the stuff that goes with being a writer. I love having a book out and promoting it.

And some writers would rather stick needles in their eyes and stand up on stage and talk about their book. Bring it on. I mean, that’s that’s what I want. I want to travel about showing off at festivals and in libraries and in bookshops. You know, I got a bunch of that stuff coming up because of the new book coming out and I couldn’t be happier. I you know, so it’s the the job, you know, the job is sitting down and putting your ass in the chair and writing the book. The perk of the job is I get to go out and show off about it. And and if I didn’t have a book out, I don’t know what I’d do.

Rob Murphy(28:24.222)

And a few technical questions. You’re not a planner, so do you is it literally idea, this happened in the park opposite and after some kind of period of time you get something in your mind, you think, actually I could do a book with this, it’s gonna be Declan Miller and you just sit down and type or is it and and you you just start off on the journey and you don’t quite know which way the

Mark Billingham (28:44.278)

Yeah, it is. I mean I’ve got a notebook and it and it’s sitting next to me. you know, book twenty six, twenty seven, Miller three, where I just scribble, you know, I might have a few scribbled ideas, but there is no I I b I once bought a whiteboard and I put it on my office wall thinking it was going to be covered in post it notes and, you know, a plan and never, never used it. it’s just it’s it is just an opening. You need a strong opening. And at the end of which those questions I mentioned, I don’t know the answers to them either.

So I will find out the answers at the same speed as Thorne does or Miller, you know.

Rob Murphy(29:16.664)

But when I was reading the Shadow Step, this is what I found really intriguing. And having since found out that you’re a a planner, not a plotter. sorry, you you don’t plan or or plot, but you but it’s a four hundred page book. But at the end of page a hundred, there’s a big twist. Sit halfway through, there’s another big twist. Three quarters of the way through, there’s another big twist. It does fall really into that four act structure.

Mark Billingham (29:42.124)

Well, I I I wish I could tell you how that happened. it it’s like, you know, somebody once described writing something like this, like a crime novel, as like driving through fog at night and you can only see as far as the end of your headlights. You’ve got a destination in mind. Now you could just put it in the sat nav, you know. but that’s boring. You know, I don’t want to do that. I wanna be able to wake up one morning and go, I could kill him. Or maybe she’s the killer, you know.

I’ve got a better idea than this plan I’ve I’ve spent months working out and then I’m gonna have to stick to slavishly. so it it is just you take a lot of wrong turnings, I tie myself in knots, and then I have to step away for a few days until I’ve solved the problem. but I’d rather I’d rather have those problems to deal with, you know, and the end of one chapter kind of suggests another. I wrote that opening in the park and I it ended. And I thought, well, I’m obviously I’m gonna go to Miller now and see where he is and catch up with him and you know.

By the end of that, or just a conversation between two characters that I haven’t planned out. One of them will say something and it’ll spark something else off. it’s a it’s a strange way to do it. I mean, the standalone that I’ve just finished, or I’m just finishing, I had nothing. I had absolutely nothing, other than this this horrific thing that happens in the first two pages. and I knew it was gonna be the main character was gonna be an undercover cop or an ex-former undercover cop. And that’s it. I’ve literally just been.

By about halfway through you know where you’re headed. and even though I don’t know exactly how a book is gonna end and I don’t know the last line un until I g I get there, I know, and this is the best way I can think of to put it, I know the taste I want to leave in the reader’s mouth. I know how I want them to feel at the end of it.

Rob Murphy(31:21.728)

And do you how many drafts will you do?

Mark Billingham (31:24.406)

I’m I’m very I I’m a bit I’m a bit anal about this stuff. So that by the time I deliver it to my publisher and editor, I’ve I’ve redrafted, you know, I can’t write chapter two until I’m really, really happy with chapter one. Right. Okay. I’m not one of these people that bangs through it and then goes back and starts again. Everything is rewritten and rewritten as I’m writing it. So by the time I’ve I’ve got to the end of that, I then do an a my own copy edit.

Because I know I know the phrases I I overuse and sometimes it’s frightening. Absolutely frightening. In fact, here’s the here’s the copy edit on the book. So this is how many times have I used the word actually in this book? That many bloody times. So I note them all down and then go through, you know, taking most of them out. So I do my own copy edit, I check for typos. You know, if my editor finds a typo in the in the draft I deliver, I’m I’m heartbroken.

Rob Murphy(32:04.462)

Right.

Mark Billingham (32:19.266)

So he I will then get notes from my editor or I will work on on usually one more draft. It’s usually one more draft. And then the copy editor has a go and tells you where you’ve gone wrong and says, Well, if it’s Tuesday in chapter seven, it’s gotta be Friday in chapter twelve, you idiot. Or if he was watching Doctor Who then it would have been Peter Davidson, not Tom Baker, you know, that kind of stuff. but it’s it’s pretty quick. From the from the time I’ve I’ve gone, here’s that’s the first draft, usually one more.

Rob Murphy(32:46.75)

Good stuff. So we know that you’ve got a big week ahead and by the time this goes out this will probably may have just happened. The the dagger, your birthday importantly, and the book coming out. And the book coming out. And you’ve got a tour coming out as well. So if people want to see you, how can they how can they come see you?

Mark Billingham (33:05.014)

best way probably is to look at my website which has all the all the events. I think I think there’s a well there’s a there’s a section of my website called showing off which is just clips of me doing there’s a Marion clip. I think it’s a there’s a clip of that of me getting covered in custard on there. but in the eva there’s an events page which will basically tell you where I’ll be rocking up to show off anywhere near you in the foreseeable future.

Rob Murphy(33:28.466)

Mark Billingham, many, many congratulations on your many achievements over the years and awards and Sleepy Head a great book. Many Sleepy Head and The Shadow Step as well. So from from there to there, thank you so much and thanks for your time today. Thank you.

Mark Billingham (33:44.462)

Thank you for having me.

Mark Billingham has just been received the Crime Writers Association’s Diamond Dagger - perhaps the biggest prize in the genre.

In this wide-ranging interview he tells me about his a near-attack whoel walking his dog inspired his latest DS Declan Miller novel, The Shadow Step.

Mark describes why he believes humour and serious storytelling belong together, and how the irreverent detective DS Miller has given him a fresh creative freedom after more than two decades writing the Tom Thorne series.

We also discuss his journey from actor and comedian to one of Britain’s most successful crime novelists, his instinctive approach to plotting (or not plotting), the influence of real crimes on his work, and the advice he’d give to aspiring writers.

A funny, thoughtful and fascinating conversation with one of the masters of modern crime writing.

You can find out more about Mark, his new releases and his extensive back-catalogue here:

https://markbillingham.com/

John Marrs is the award-winning author who has sold more than five million books, including What Lies Between Us and You Killed Me First.

In this fascinating interview, John reveals how he went from rejected, self-published author to being a global best-seller.

Dead in the Water is his latest best-seller, about a man who when resuscitated after drowning, suddenly recalls a dark chapter of his childhood.

He talks about the inspiration behind Dead in the Water, his writing process, the success of The One, and the Netflix adaptation of his work, his legendary ‘Chapter 39’, and the secrets behind creating addictive crime fiction.

And John and Rob talk about their shared history (and terrifying news editor) working for the same newspaper decades ago.

Subscribe for more conversations with leading crime writers, detectives, investigators, and true crime experts.

WATCH John Marrs interview on YouTube

READ the podcast transcript

You can find out much more about John Marrs here:

https://www.johnmarrsauthor.com/

#JohnMarrs #DeadInTheWater #CrimeFiction #PsychologicalThriller #AuthorInterview #TheOne #Netflix #WritingTips #BookTube #CrimeBooks

John Marrs, many congratulations on the three decades of success. It’s incredible. What does it feel like looking back?

John Marrs (02:26.958)

When you talk about it like that, it sounds like you’re talking about another person. doesn’t really seem... On a day-to-day basis, I don’t sit here and count books and count sales and things like that and think, oh, I did this and this has been a success. So when you hear somebody else say it, it’s like, okay, I haven’t done too badly after all.

Rob Murphy (02:45.004)

Not too badly. I’m gonna ask you about success. Actually let’s ask you about success now because I’ve asked a couple of multi million selling authors and what are you at five million books, I think, more now?

John Marrs (02:56.514)

Yeah. A few more. He said vaguely.

Rob Murphy (02:59.374)

But when you started writing and someone said you’d have the Netflix, you’d sell five million, six million, whatever however many millions of books, how would you have felt and h how when you actually reach that point does it feel and how different does that feeling feel to what you would have expected it to have done beforehand?

John Marrs (03:22.838)

I wouldn’t have liked them to have told me that because then I would have felt a lot of pressure to try and accomplish that. But because my first three books were self-published, because nobody, no publisher or agent was interested in me, I was doing it all for myself. So there was no pressure. I could do what I wanted to when I wanted to. I could write psychological thrillers, could write speculative fiction, didn’t have to change my name, could switch genres, could do what I wanted to.

And was great. I think had somebody told me that back then, first of all, wouldn’t have believed them. And secondly, I would have been like, yeah, it felt a little bit scary. I was in my comfort zone working for national newspapers and magazines. I knew what I was doing. I didn’t know what I was doing writing. It was just a bit of fun to see what happened.

Rob Murphy (04:08.546)

Well, it’s worked. So Dead in the Water, which we have here, which I’ve read and thoroughly enjoyed, is your fourteenth book, is that right?

John Marrs (04:17.408)

I think so because when you’re writing you’re always right you’re always several books in head so the one after that which comes out next year is already that’s done and dusted. Wow. I’m about 70,000 words through the one after that for 2028 and in the meantime I’ve got a novella coming out so in my head I’ve no idea so you’re probably right it probably is for

Rob Murphy (04:35.826)

14th published. So just give us the premise for Dead in the Water. It involves it centres around a man called Damon, who’s in his late 20s, and he’s an unreliable narrator, isn’t he? He has a past, but the incredible thing is he’s got a past that he himself isn’t even aware of.

John Marrs (04:54.188)

Yeah, yeah. It only starts to come to light when he accidentally drowns and is resuscitated by a paramedic friend of his. And his life is flashed before his eyes. He remembers pretty much everything that’s happened, good and bad, except the one thing he doesn’t remember is seeing a child being killed. And he’s like, well, if everything else is true, then surely this must be true. And so he tries to tap into his...

into his memories and various different ways that don’t work and he decides the only way to find out what happens is if he keeps dying over and over again and resuscitated until the truth finally comes out.

Rob Murphy (05:37.195)

And

Where did the premise come from? I know you get asked this a lot and sometimes you you know, you pull it from the ether, but but this is quite a strong concept, isn’t it? Where did

John Marrs (05:48.91)

Yeah, I don’t know. I honestly can’t tell you. It was in my notes section in my phone and I typed in very briefly, man dies, life flashes before his eyes, remembers everything except something happening. And I didn’t touch it, so I had other projects on the go. So I didn’t touch it for about two or three years. Then suddenly found this note. I was like, oh, okay, yeah, this has legs. And then worked on a plot from there. So I don’t generally remember where that one sprang from.

Rob Murphy (06:14.51)

You don’t remember where you you don’t remember where you were or or or w when it was that that you had the idea?

John Marrs (06:20.622)

No, not at all. But I know what I did do is I thought, okay, this sounds a bit like the plot of Flatliners. So I watched both Flatliners films, the original, which I remember loving in the 90s, but hating because it was so bad when you look at it now. And the remake, which wasn’t particularly great either. And I was thinking, I’ve once seen both of those, was like, okay, cool, I’m not ripping them off.

Rob Murphy (06:43.092)

and it’s dark, isn’t it? It is extremely dark. I and I’ve read a couple of your books actually, and the other one that I I read was also dark. Where does this come on your spectrum of darkness, would you say? Top darkness being ten.

John Marrs (06:57.066)

I’d say it was more towards the 10 mark than some of the others.

Rob Murphy (07:03.328)

although it is dark, you tell it with a lightness of touch though, isn’t it? how what’s it like I guess how long did it take to write something like this? Three, four, five, six months? You know, you’re spending a lot of time in this world. Yeah. how what’s that what’s that like?

John Marrs (07:22.638)

It can be a bit depressing sometimes, to be honest, because you’re constantly thinking about death. My character is, on his mind all the time, so therefore it has to be on my mind. And then researching alternative points of view as to seeing the light and stepping towards the light and then seeing these carousel of images of everything that’s happened in your life and why your brain potentially does that and whether it’s all chemical or whether it’s something else. Yeah.

It can be quite depressing. I found that one probably darker than my other books to write. So the one after that for 2027 is lighter. It’s not a barrel of laughs, but it’s not lighter. And the one after that again is still more on the light side rather than the really dark side.

Rob Murphy (08:09.546)

But it is extremely well observed and it is told with a lightness of touch, isn’t it? You know, it’s not a you might have found it depressing, but actually as a read. You know, it’s dark, but it but it’s not, you know, y there’s there’s a real lightness of touch and it’s it’s extremely propulsive. Your your chapters are short, the characters are strong.

John Marrs (08:27.758)

short and snappy reel them in get them reading just one more chapter that’s the oddest like crack

Rob Murphy (08:32.462)

How long how many words do your chapters tend tend to be? ‘Cause they are

John Marrs (08:36.142)

I normally keep them probably about, if I get to about five, I’d measure them by pages on Word documents. And so if I get to about four pages and I’m still writing, I start to feel a bit jittery. I don’t know how many that translates to in actual pages.

Rob Murphy (08:53.058)

and in terms of the research as well, I mean, did you have to go in c incognito on your your your browser to look at some of the things you were looking at here? I mean there’s sort of hiring hiring kinds of all kind you I mean, it it reflects anyway sort of dark dark corners of the in the internet and the kind of things that you might find there.

John Marrs (09:13.71)

I’m a bit scared of the dark side of the internet. I’ve never been, I’ve done a lot of research into the dark web. I’ve never actually been on it. So don’t think I want to, I don’t think I need to. I can read enough about it to get the gist of being able to use it in stories if I need to. But yeah, don’t think I’d like to venture on there.

Rob Murphy (09:34.518)

And th th th so Damon, who’s the the protagonist, and he’s got his former partner who is trying for a baby with her with her new partner as well. so you’ve got that dynamic going on as a as well. You’ve got just tell us where his lack of memory takes him as far as you can without giving too much of the game away.

John Marrs (10:00.47)

Yeah, it takes him. So he remembers a lot of bits of his past, but not some key moments. So he knows that his parents are no longer alive and that he went into care for a while. And there was one particular woman who’s been a constant in his life, who’s been his anchor. And when he can’t remember aspects of his life, he turns to her to see if she can shed some light on it, except she’s keeping things from him as well for his own sake. There’s nobody he can really trust. Nobody he can really...

apart from his ex-wife, but how much can you trust someone who has kind of cheated on you?

Rob Murphy (10:35.7)

Yeah. I he’s he does seem completely alone and even he’s unable to rely on himself as well because he doesn’t know himself what what’s going on.

John Marrs (10:45.832)

No. The danger of writing a character like that is the reader’s like to have someone that they can identify with or just see bits of themselves in. With Damon, there’s not a huge amount, I totally admit, there’s not a huge amount you can see yourself in with him. But hopefully he’s interesting enough to keep the reader going through the next 90,000 words.

Rob Murphy (11:10.784)

And yeah, so it’s all about fractured memories and you saw also refer refer to ECT, which is electroconvulsive therapy. Did you have to do much research on that or other things? What kind of research did you have to do for for the book?

John Marrs (11:24.13)

Yeah, that was main bit of research. I didn’t really know much about it and I just wanted to see whether it was actually possible to erase bits of your past using that. And from what I gathered, some a lot of YouTube videos I watched from people who’ve had it, yeah, it definitely is possible to. And then the role of a paramedic as well. So his ex-wife is a paramedic. She’s the one who has to keep killing him and bringing him back to life so he can remember chunks of his past.

So I have a paramedic person who follows me on Instagram and spoken to her in the past about various things. And she was a big help. She would tell me what equipment you would use, what you would do, what you wouldn’t do, just to keep it just a little bit real. The worst thing I think you can do in a book is refer to something that happens in the real world, but have no knowledge of it and just make it up and see what happens. Because if I hadn’t had...

got in touch with her, probably a thousand paramedics would have been in touch and said that wouldn’t happen, they wouldn’t have used it in truly in the street, they wouldn’t have put that directly into his leg, blah, blah.

Rob Murphy (12:27.526)

Yeah. And and what what relationship do you have with research normally? Do you tend to write it and then work out what research you need or do you find yourself going down some w wormholes and

John Marrs (12:40.078)

I tend to try and write it first and then fill in the blanks afterwards. My other half, commonly known online now as Other John, he helps out with the research sometimes as well. Yeah, I find that that often works. For me, getting that first draft out there, I don’t want any distractions. I just want to get on with it. And my hands are going 20 to the dozen to try and get the words out of my head and onto a screen. I don’t want to then stop.

and think, right, I need to research how this happens. So I’ll make it up and then go back to it.

Rob Murphy (13:13.954)

Yeah. I mean it really reminded me in some ways, and I don’t know if you’ve read this book, a Patricia Highsmith book, Deep Water. with the the ‘cause it’s the the protagonist is quite is in a sort of similar situa situation, you’re not quite sure what’s going on. You’ve obviously got the water thing as well, but actually, it you know, so it it it just really r reminded me of that reading reading this one.

John Marrs (13:37.806)

that to my TBR list. I’ve been working my way through her Tom Rickley books. Fantastic, just absolutely fantastic.

Rob Murphy (13:47.65)

Yeah, they’re great.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. Can I take you back then? So you as we’ve already referred to, you weren’t always a a crime writer. Just tell us a bit about your background and w you know, where where you grew up and what you started started doing.

John Marrs (14:05.806)

So I’m from Northamptonshire. When I finished my A-levels, I had work experience at a little newspaper called the Davenport Express with something like, I think it had 10,000 readers. Wow. Oh my God, that’s amazing. I remember being, was on 4,200 pounds a year, which seemed like an incredible amount. Yeah. And I was there and I jacked that in after about two and a half years, went backpacking around America for a year, came back, worked for other local newspapers, worked my way up.

got to a point where I wanted to work down in London and started working for some tabloids, doing celebrity interviews and that kind of thing. And then had an idea in about 2010 for a story. Never written a book in my life. Never had any desire to write a book. Read this article in The Guardian about a woman whose husband vanished. And thought, oh, it’d be interesting to write a book about that. And I thought, you know what, let’s just do it. Let’s just see what happens. What have I got to lose? Had a bit of downtime.

Rob Murphy (14:50.412)

Yes.

John Marrs (15:01.676)

that just got started and that’s where it all kicked off.

Rob Murphy (15:05.932)

And that was the wrong sons.

John Marrs (15:08.226)

Yeah, so that was taken on by a publisher, Thomas and Mercer. So basically I had in the space of, so I’d written three books, self-published them, had no interest from publishers. And then in the space of one week, two publishers suddenly got in touch about the books that they had downloaded and read themselves and wanted to take on. And then a couple of days after that, someone from a TV production company wanted to take the one on, see if they could do something with that.

That’s been a bit of weird old time. So, 0 to 100. It’s basically like 10 days.

Rob Murphy (15:42.326)

Can I take you back to your your newspaper stuff? Because you know, you and I worked at the same place, didn’t we, the Northampton Chronicle and Yeah. What was the experience like there? ‘Cause that’s a good place to to be a young journalist, really, a daily paper, fair amount going on. And what did you learn from the experience of writing and being I don’t know if you were ever beasted by the news editor Terry Morris like I was, but

John Marrs (16:03.694)

Oh yes, yes, think had, I think she threw something at me once across the room telling me that whatever I’ve written was a load of effing so-and-so. I don’t think you get away with it these days, do you?

Rob Murphy (16:14.936)

No. It’s a bit more touchy feely I think these days, yeah. It’s more how y feeling as opposed to do this now.

John Marrs (16:21.288)

Yeah, there will be no feeling in a newsroom. It was a really good time. It was a great way of learning about deadlines. I think it was Terry who gave me the advice that everybody has a story. You’ve just got to find it in them. So it’s a great, yeah, local papers are fantastic way to get started. Things are so different now in newsrooms. Newsrooms barely exist. So much of it is...

Just press releases or AI is quite shame the way local newspapers and been decimated I think out of the Three locals that I work for only one exists now, and when you look at that, it’s quite depressing

Rob Murphy (17:01.75)

Yeah. Did you as the ti ‘cause it would have been the nineteen nineties, wouldn’t it, when you know newspapers were big, weren’t they? That was before the internet had taken off really. and did you come did you do any crime reporting? Did you

John Marrs (17:15.96)

Yeah, so my main topics were I used to do the music pages. They gave me the business portfolio. God knows why, as I had no knowledge of business whatsoever. But one of biggest confessions is that if we were short of a story, every now and again, we’d phone up the business and say, yeah, we hear you’re closing down.

And they’re like, no, that’s not true. Where did you get that? Oh, do you want to give us a quote to say that you’re not? And then you get a page lead out of it. I’ve denied rumors that they’re closing. very much keeping going, blah, blah, blah. And then we had to do death knocks, which I’m sure you probably had to do in your time as well, which is just the worst. And then sometimes I’d go and cover crime and court cases, literally just over the road at the local court. I remember one of the, when I was in my first newspaper, the first...

case I ever did, think it was a GBH or an ABH and a guy was up in court and I knew him because what not six months earlier I was at school with him and yeah things didn’t turn out so great. The last time I saw him, he waved to me from the dock and waved back at him and we caught up afterwards which was just the most bizarre experience but then I saw him so it must have been about 25 years later on a train coming back from London and yeah.

I read up about him, just I googled him and he’d spent most of his life in prison. It had just gone so badly for him. Yeah, he must have been a really crap criminal the amount of times he’d been found guilty of something. Yeah, he was just an absolute state of a man, him.

Rob Murphy (18:46.018)

Yeah, you won’t be writing a book about his his criminal p his criminal. No.

John Marrs (18:49.582)

No, I did enjoy doing the crime stuff. Some of the court cases could go on for a very long time and you’re trying to have to keep your attention going and keep your shorthand short.

Rob Murphy (18:59.976)

Has your shorthand this is someone I ask all journalists how good was your shorthand? Mine was awful Well done. Fifth time for a hundred for me. Fifth time for a hundred I was

John Marrs (19:03.95)

110 a minute.

John Marrs (19:09.454)

But I never passed my NCTJ. No, I failed my local government twice and after that I thought I can’t be bothered to finish this. I just, it’s like my maths, I was doing my maths, maths and I are terrible. I never finished it. I never got a proper qualification. I needed a C or above. did the, it was the last year of O levels and got a D and then doing A levels, I was still retaking my maths but it was then a GCSE. All in all, I failed it four times.

Rob Murphy (19:11.918)

Okay,

Rob Murphy (19:38.166)

Is that still going though, because you’re not sure how many million books you’ve solved?

John Marrs (19:41.87)

The last count he was five point four million

Rob Murphy (19:47.776)

and in term you know, you mentioned death knocks there. I mean that there are any that stick in your mind in term ‘cause this is this is raw stuff. You know, you’re when you do that and I’ve done loads, you know, you’re putting yourself out there and and sometimes the door opens, they’re really welcoming in a way that you wouldn’t expect them to be, but other times it’s not quite like that.

John Marrs (20:06.894)

No, yeah, definitely had my, it wasn’t, yeah, definitely had my bad experiences of that. I’ve been told to f off and threatened and, but yeah, there were other ones. was the parents of a little boy who’d come in, they’d come in to put a death notice in the paper. And then as soon as there was a death notice, they would phone up to the newsroom and say, oh, blah, blah, blah. And I went around to the house a few hours later, which seems so intrusive these days.

And it was a really, really emotional story about he’d had cancer and he’d been fighting for his life for such a long period of time. And I was in tears with the parents. It was awful, it turned out was a really beautiful story and they raised some thousands for charity through it as well.

Rob Murphy (20:49.186)

Yeah, it’s incredible because you would n naturally think that the death knock is a horrible th and it is a horrible thing to do. But actually sometimes the families are really keen to speak to talk. And actually would like that that conta not always, but but but you know, you can never predict which way or or presume either, can you?

John Marrs (21:09.356)

No, I’d like most journalists, I think I hated doing them. There were occasions when we knew that the person who had died had led a, how shall we say, a colourful life. Yes. Not necessarily law-abiding. And to be honest, I bottled it and put a note through the door and pretended they weren’t in. So thought, I do not want to be at the brunt of whatever they’re going to say.

Rob Murphy (21:30.924)

No. And you moved on to ‘cause I remember because I obviously I remember you from when I was working there and you were then at the Peace World Herr On Post. But I remember that for a it was a weekly free paper, wasn’t it? Or was it a weekly paid for? Yeah. But I remember it being really inventive and that coming from you, because my my then partner, you know, y you did lots of ends and I it that would have been the time just after maybe brick pop and you

John Marrs (21:55.278)

Just before, yeah, just before Britpop started. It really, really took off. And yeah, we tried to do a lot of showbiz, lot of entertainment in it, but then we also tried to keep the local news and just, there were so many free newspapers that were not necessarily taken very seriously. And it was my aim to get that paper taken seriously and taken as competition to the Peterborough Evening Telegraph.

And it were, we won quite a few awards, our journalists won a lot of awards, a lot of our journalists went on to do really good things afterwards.

Rob Murphy (22:26.06)

Yeah. And I I do I remember you having quite a lot to do with the Prodigy, which were pretty much one of the biggest dance bands at the time. But I remember the them them having something I y I just remember, you know, this is the biggest dance band maybe in the planet and and th the local newspaper, which you wouldn’t normally put together, that there was a good relationship there, a strong relationship I think.

John Marrs (22:47.726)

Yeah, we hadn’t been there because we had someone who did some freelance writing for us and she was really into local bands and she knew a guitarist who became their live guitar, sorry their live performer with the band and so he managed to get us interviews with the Prodigy which was like, and you wouldn’t expect that with a little newspaper in Peterborough.

Rob Murphy (23:07.062)

No, it was terrific. It was great. And very inventive as well, which what I’m getting at because your writing is so inventive too, but they you know, you were showing I think the signs of that back then. There you go. I get the prodigy on after this. and and just tell us a bit about the the end how long did you work in London for and and why did you want to move into Showbiz Entertainment?

John Marrs (23:16.662)

thought about that for years but yeah.

John Marrs (23:33.742)

So a couple of my colleagues had moved. So we were at that point, we were owned by the Daily Mirror and they started a website. It’s websites in London called IC. And there’s IC showbiz, IC homes, IC news. And I wanted to work for the showbiz website. And a couple of them went down to do that. I thought I really want in there. And so I did it. so applied for the job, got it, moved down to London. And within two and a half weeks of starting there, they closed all of their websites down to pull the funding away. All right.

Oh my God, what am going to do now? But they put us on gardening leave and they must have had some money back then because they put us, so I got paid what would have been a year’s salary plus three months gardening leave. Wow. Which equated to probably about, so a bit crass talking money, but it was about, at the time this was like about 20 odd years ago. It was worked out at about 25, 26 grand. Wow. And that just was fantastic because that kept me going in London and gave me time to apply for other jobs.

and try and get my life going, my career going down there.

Rob Murphy (24:33.358)

And inter and and what was it about Showbiz that that intrigued you?

John Marrs (24:40.078)

I’ve just always been interested in it. some people do it because they have some latent desire to be a celebrity, but that’s not really for me. I enjoy meeting famous people and talking to them. And yeah, I worked for the News of the Worlds magazine for about six years. And that was all celebrity stuff back then. So that was a great way of doing it. I really enjoyed that.

Rob Murphy (25:07.522)

Who was your favourite celebrity that you met?

John Marrs (25:11.506)

Back before he had his troubles, Johnny Depp was pretty cool. Was he? So remember, we used to do a lot of film junkets and sometimes you could wangle one-to-ones. And was in his hotel room and we both sat in this double bed and he just sat there and I used to smoke back there, making me these licorice rolling paper cigarettes and just sit there smoking and talking to him like he was a normal person. And I really liked him, him and Johnny Depp were cool. Sorry, him and Colin Farrell, I enjoyed him.

Rob Murphy (25:37.494)

Really, okay. He’s a big character.

John Marrs (25:39.086)

It’s always good, because you smoke indoors back then, it was always good to have a packet of cigarettes with you and you just like have them poking out of your bag because if they’d been doing a lot of interviews, they probably didn’t get that many breaks and they’d be like, have one of those. It’s a great little way in. Yes.

Rob Murphy (25:51.736)

Yeah. Who was the biggest disappointment that you had as a

John Marrs (25:56.588)

I guess disappointment.

I think there were that many massive disappointments. There were some people that I didn’t gel with and there some people who were a bit peculiar. There was a Spice Girl, I’ve used this anecdote before, there was a Spice Girl who sat opposite me, we were in this empty restaurant, just me and her, her PRs had hired it for the day. And she released an album, I didn’t really like it, but I had listened to it. She said, what did you think? And obviously I gave her a bit of bull and said, yeah, it was great. What’s your favourite song? And I could only remember one title. And then she sang it to me for like the full three, three and a half minutes sitting opposite it.

And that was just, well, what do do when a Spice Girls song to you? So I just like gave her a little clap afterwards. Like, wow, a lot of people I know would be very envious of me right now. So that was quite awkward. There was another celebrity who, well, you get some who have not the brightest sparks in the world. And we were talking about, so who do you think is the sexiest man alive? Who’d be the perfect man that you’d like to go on a date with? And she said, Elvis. And I should have corrected her, but I didn’t.

Rob Murphy (26:42.401)

Yes.

Rob Murphy (27:00.952)

No, no.

John Marrs (27:02.134)

I can’t say there were any really, really bad experiences. There’s one interview, I walked out of an interview with Jedward once, because he was just, I had to cut it short, because there was no point. He was going nowhere. It was like talking to a couple of hamsters. It was absolutely pointless.

Rob Murphy (27:17.974)

Right. God. And w was and you’ve been doing that a good little while, hadn’t before you started writing and quite. I really wanna work long form. I wanna write a hundred thousand words on something.

John Marrs (27:40.91)

And you know, I feel really guilty often saying that when people ask me, oh, so you’ve always wanted to be, write books, I assume. No, I haven’t, never, never really thought about it. I just saw this idea, it was about a woman, as I mentioned earlier, goes, her husband’s got three to four children, husband disappears one day, never comes back, and she’s writing this letter, this anonymous letter in a section called A Letter To.

in which she talks about what happened to her family over the next 15 years and how they basically thrived without him and they did great and how much he’s missed out on. And I thought, could be interesting from her point of view and then 25 years later from his point of view when he turns up on her doorstep and they tell each other where their lives went.

Rob Murphy (28:24.652)

Wow. I mean but but to write a book is is good, but you need technique there, don’t you? You need A to be able to write, but B also to be able to characterize, you need to be able to plot as well. and I g I don’t know how l you know, was the book I mean ninety thousand words, a hundred thousand words, you know, it needs a structure to it as well. Did you write it with that in mind, or did you just put the words on the page?

John Marrs (28:46.604)

just put the words on the page. I didn’t plot this book. I just wrote it because there was no pressure, no time constraints. I just wrote it and saw and to see what would happen. Then there quite a few rewrites afterwards. And then I got, I decided I’m not just going to get people I know to read it and give me opinion. I’m going to ask them to ask their friends. So there’s no personal link there. They can be as honest as they want. And got some really interesting feedback and then self-published it. And,

I think the biggest thing I learned from self-publishing was obviously that you have full control, but you were responsible for publicizing this book and for getting the word out about this book. Because there are some like a couple of million books, I think every year, uploaded onto Amazon now. And Amazon aren’t going to advertise them for you. They’re going to do nothing to promote it unless it hits some of their algorithms. So I’ve got to do it myself. So it was a lot of Facebook, blog tours, that kind of thing. And then later on,

Instagram and TikTok and etc etc.

Rob Murphy (29:45.75)

Yes, and you’ve handled I mean, y your work and people who haven’t seen your social media profile, it is so in going back to being inventive. like in principle it’s so inventive and so I mean it’s an art form in itself, really, isn’t it? And lots of authors don’t like putting themselves out there. but but i it it’s so fresh what you do, I think. W

John Marrs (30:06.262)

That’s one thing I’ve learned, you have to put yourself out there unfortunately. And you have to, it’s taken a long time to learn, you have to separate yourself from the job that you’re doing. I’ve sat in meetings before with my publishers and they’re constantly referring to John Marr’s brand, John Marr’s brand. And I’m sitting there almost shrinking into myself. But that’s what it is. That’s how they see me and that’s how I learned to have to see myself.

Rob Murphy (30:29.814)

Yes. and you know, i the the the Facebook videos you do, the Instagram videos and the the the TikToks do, they’re they’re all yeah you know, there’s they’re of some oftentimes graphics, but you’re always taking people on a little journey as well, whether it be going into a a book signing or a supermarket or whatever you’re doing, it’s quite yeah. And and is that yourself and John, the other John who is key in that?

John Marrs (30:51.66)

It’s just trying to get, it’s trying to make it interesting for people. I think a lot of authors who have these social media pages, and if they’re just talking about themselves and their books and the same things over and over again, you won’t get a lot of interest over a long period of time. You’ve got to mix it up. So I like to talk to other authors. I like to talk about other novels, other stuff that I’m reading. I like to give a bit of myself away about what I do behind the scenes.

I like to try and be honest about stuff. Like there’s a piece that I wrote last night that we’re to run soon about 10 things I hate about writing that you’re not really supposed to say. And just being honest about it. But choosing how much of yourself you want to give away. don’t, yeah, we don’t put our son on there. We don’t, yeah. It’s a balancing act a lot of the time.

Rob Murphy (31:44.62)

Yeah. and so y you know, your book Career was was flourishing. So but you s you actually wrote in two styles, didn’t you? So you did the sort of crime psychological thriller ones like you know, the wrong sons and and also Welcome to Wherever You Are would that fall into that category?

John Marrs (32:00.266)

Yeah, I guess so, yeah, that would be, yeah.

Rob Murphy (32:01.846)

And the one was the first no I’m not huge on this, but speculative fiction is something So firstly what is that? And and just describe it to people who who aren’t sure.

John Marrs (32:07.406)

I’m not addicted, so...

John Marrs (32:14.06)

If you’ve ever seen Black Mirror, then you’ve got an idea of that kind of style. it’s speculative fiction. Sometimes people call it sci-fi, but I don’t like the word sci-fi because for me, sci-fi is more about kind of interplanetary wars, et cetera. So for me, it’s like speculative fiction, five minutes in the future. So it’s using, there’s like a backdrop of technology, but it’s all about the people and how they respond to what’s going on in these slightly futuristic worlds.

Rob Murphy (32:39.808)

And I mean that was huge, wasn’t it? It sold over a million thirty five languages.

John Marrs (32:45.088)

Yeah, that’s been translated into about 40 languages, I think.

Rob Murphy (32:51.31)

I was looking at 65,000 ratings on Amazon. That is. Yeah, amazing. It’s just incredible. Yeah. one of the books that I loved of yours as well is which I think is my favorite title of not just your books, but pretty much any, but What Lies Between Us. It’s just such a clever title.

John Marrs (33:10.926)

I like, I like, I’m gonna say I like that title. A lot of the times I can come up with titles by myself. Sometimes I can’t, but that one was one of mine. I was quite proud of that one. One of my books was from, was it last year, called You Killed Me First. And I thought of the title before I thought of the book. These words suddenly came to me, okay, I like this. And how do I get a book out of this? And then had to go backwards and then plot the book revolving around the title.

Rob Murphy (33:36.152)

Yes. What what would you say your books all have in common, be it because they’re all standalones, aren’t I mean you’ve got some sort of repetition with the characters, including in the last book as well, but but they’re largely standal they’re all really standalones. But what what themes, what w what do you what w what feel, what mood, what what charac what do you have that are w you would say are in all of your books?

John Marrs (33:59.95)

lies, secrets, psychopathic women and stupid men and people making the wrong decisions. That’s what I would say.

Rob Murphy (34:12.3)

What and why crime? Because you could have written about anything. You could have written about showbiz, you could have written about business, you know, having your your extensive knowledge of but you could have written about anything. Why crime? What is it about crime?

John Marrs (34:20.247)

business portfolio.

John Marrs (34:29.454)

It’s fun, it’s absolute escapism, isn’t it? Most of us lead pretty normal lives. We take our kids to school, we eat dinner together, we go away on holiday, we watch TV in evening, we do ordinary lives. And I think crime is, if you’re lucky enough not to have been a victim of crime or you’re just your average Joe, it’s not a world you’re part of.

but it’s interesting to read about and to put yourself in these positions and think, well, what would I do if I was in that situation?

Rob Murphy (35:01.794)

Have there been any cases or criminals or detectives over the years that you’ve seen and maybe not given you the idea for a story, but given you the idea of something that happens within the story?

John Marrs (35:14.202)

I think there’s a book, The Stranger in Her House, which was about an being conned by a man who moves in and pretty much takes over her life. That was inspired by a true life crime story in a documentary that I podcast. I can’t remember the name off the top of my head. And Keep It in the Family, that was inspired, the mother and the father in that book were kind of loosely...

based on Fred and Rosemary West. And I read one of their children’s autobiography, which is absolutely fascinating to just try and get a little bit more of an insight into the characters. And book that I have coming out next year, I used to, I hired the services of a retired detective just for the legal side of things, just to make sure that everything was okay in there, just to make, yeah, like when it comes to police interviews and what they would do. Because again, like I said about.

paramedics earlier, I don’t want to make a mistake and look like an idiot.

Rob Murphy (36:15.734)

Yeah. And d and you spend a lot of your time writing crime. So for example, if you’re writing Dead in the Water, you’re spending maybe a couple of hours or a few hours a day writing that. But of an evening, would you read a crime book or a true crime book or watch a documentary? What’s your relationship with the culture side of side of things?

John Marrs (36:34.362)

I try and watch utter garbage on television sometimes just to try and switch off from what I’ve been doing all day. It’s difficult though because there’s so many books that I want to read as well and trying to find the time to do everything is just impossible. I don’t watch a lot of true crime documentaries anymore but occasionally I do to just sometimes it’ll just give me like a little insight maybe into the minds of some of the baddies that I write about.

Rob Murphy (37:03.808)

Yes.

John Marrs (37:05.174)

Yeah, watched a very good drama on ITV recently which was based on a book by someone you might know. Yes, we binge watched that, really, really enjoyed it.

Rob Murphy (37:14.926)

Well thank you. my involvement is actually quite is quite slight. It’s down to the the the screenwriter George K. It’s i it’s his achievement.

John Marrs (37:21.166)

Yes, but you have your name on the screen. And so when my series, The One, was on Netflix, you know that part of Netflix at the end of an episode and there’s that little bar that shoots up and it goes onto the next, click it for the next episode, or it automatically does it. My name is on the screen for a split millisecond before it goes onto the next episode. I was always really paid off about that. So I’m quite envious.

Rob Murphy (37:43.166)

right, okay. Well you know, five point four four mil books sold. so you I mean, you mentioned the one there and it’s the tenth anniversary coming up, isn’t it? And you’ve or or it is so you’ve got a special edition. Tell us about the special edition.

John Marrs (38:00.504)

So my publisher came to me and they didn’t, they weren’t even aware of the date. They just wanted to refresh the cover of that and another couple of books and to try and make them feel a little bit more, more with it, more modern. I said, well, if you’re to do that, how about I, I I don’t want to write a sequel to it, but how about I follow these characters 10 years later, cause it’ll be 10 years since I self published that book and find out what, what happened next to them. And they’re like, my God, yes. So for the first time in years, I’ve read the book and

I had an idea of where they were gonna go and it was, think, about 2,000 words for each couple, so it’s about 10,000 extra words in there now. an author’s note as well about what’s happened to me over the last 10 years and what happened to be specifically with the success of the one and my memories of writing it in the aftermath of it. So that was quite good fun, quite enjoyed doing that.

Rob Murphy (38:51.478)

It’s doing super well. It’s like number fifty in Kindle as I was looking earlier too. Yeah.

John Marrs (38:55.17)

Yeah, last week and it shot up. Yeah, it’s really enjoyable to do that.

Rob Murphy (38:59.956)

And with what would it like to go back and read that now? Because since you’ve written that book you’ve written maybe another eleven, twelve books. What was yeah, what was your relationship w like with your with your earlier writing? It’s really interesting that.

John Marrs (39:14.414)

Yeah, I look back at it and there were lots of bits that I would change. So maybe some of the characters I would have altered. I like to think my writing has improved. But then I learned a lot from that book because that was the first book that had quite short brief chapters in. And that really propelled it forward. And I realised that a lot of readers really liked that.

I hadn’t realised at the time it was a leading title book. I thought, because was my first experience, because was published by Penguin, first experience with a really big mainstream publisher, that all books were like that. You released a book, there would be billboards, there’d be like a hundred train stations with posters, be on the underground, would be a Clapham train station, massive billboards.

I did an interview about it on Simon Mayo’s show because they chose it as their book of the month. Yes. And they’re radio too thick. I thought that happened with every book. So when it didn’t happen with the next book, I’m like, oh, okay. Yeah. Oh, this is a bit unusual. Very naive back then.

Rob Murphy (40:16.95)

I think actually this might be a good point to a a good time to sort of bring in, you know, just how important your your f fans are as well to you, because, you know, I know I know lots of writers, but I don’t think I’ve come across a writer who’s got the same sort of depth and feeling towards them as as you do. I was at the book party event in Bristol mm a few months ago and there was some really top crime writers there in the room.

And I knew you were gonna be there. So I like looking around, where’s John? ‘Cause I hadn’t seen you for for many years. And I thought, he’s not coming. So I I left. And you were outside. You couldn’t even get in because of the queue of people waiting to see you.

John Marrs (40:54.318)

It’s because I don’t really do that many events. I’d rarely do them. This year I’ve decided I’m going to do three. I thought I’d give it a go, see if I can get away with it without being cancelled. But because I don’t do a lot of events like that, people can either buy my sign books from my website or they have to see me wherever these rare appearances that I do make.

And so yeah, was a bit mad that book party. I got there at eight and I didn’t get into the venue until about just after 10 because people kept coming out with books and I didn’t want to say, look, I’m going inside now and be all precious about this because they’ve been waiting for ages.

Rob Murphy (41:31.49)

Yeah. Well it’s incredible. It shows the depth of, you know, love that people that your read readers have for you. you know, the brand you

John Marrs (41:38.198)

I it’s, yeah, I try and talk to them a lot on social media, try and respond to their comments on Facebook groups or on my own social media. I always, at the back of my mind, remember that without them, I would not be doing this. I would still be talking to someone from Love Island or The Only Way Is Essex about their latest clothing line.

Rob Murphy (41:59.534)

You’d be speaking to Jedwood and cutting short lanes.

John Marrs (42:02.542)

God no, please God no.

Rob Murphy (42:05.344)

I need to ask you ‘cause I know I’m sorry to ask you a question you’ve been asked a bazillion times, but chapter thirty nine. How important is that to the mystique to the to the the where did that come from? And when you wrote that, of course you couldn’t have understood just quite where that would have gone, but but just tell us what chapter thirty nine is, but you can say the word if you want, but where it’s led to, you know, the kind of feedback you’ve had from from chapter thirty nine.

John Marrs (42:33.55)

So it was in a book called, The Keep It In The Family, and the preceding chapter, you just found out that a character had been exposed for having an affair. And so chapter 39, I thought, right, I could write his entire response and how it made him feel. And I thought, actually, you know what? What would be more fun? So it was just so that that page simply read, chapter 39, Finn, fuck. And that was it. The rest of the page was blank. I didn’t think any more of it. I just did it as like something to amuse myself. And then the book got picked up by an American.

a Facebook group called Psychological Thriller Readers, which have some like two million members now, they, posted it, and then someone else posted it, and then they found it funny, and they’re, oh my God, what books this, what books that. Up until that point, I’ll be honest with you, Rob, the book was doing okay. It had sold probably about 60,000 copies in a few months. It was okay, but maybe not as successful as my, if I know, about 600 copies in a year, which is not as successful as my other books.

And then this just snowballed and snowballed and it became a thing. And there were hundreds of posts on it. People got tattoos of chapter 39 on their arms and legs. In America you can have like personalized registration plates in your various cities with chapter 39 on. Chapter 39 themed parties. Someone in a Halloween costume dressed as chapter 39. And all of that, that book is now my biggest seller in the UK.

So much more than the one. So that sold like about 850,000 copies now. And that’s why social media to me is so important because it’s really helped push my career in a different direction. And that’s why talking to people and have been accessible is really important to me.

Rob Murphy (44:21.794)

Yeah. And you’ve and I know you’ve mentioned you’ve got the book coming out next year, but in the meantime you’ve got you’re trying something new as well with your novella. Just tell us you’ve got a character called Brenda.

John Marrs (44:31.768)

Yeah, so my editor, Thomas and Mercer, which is owned by Amazon, they do, I think, Amazon Original Stories, where basically it’s just on ebook, just ebook and audiobook, and it’s a short story, about 25,000 words, and they have like, people like Margaret App would have written them, things like that. And they said, would you be interested? And I’m like, yeah, thanks, but no. Never written a short story since school, not really got any interest. Then I had a gap in my schedule for a while, for a couple of months, I thought.

I could give it a go, couldn’t I? But not tell anybody to see if it works. And so I had this idea about a woman called Brenda and a village who is constantly gossiping about her. They think she’s up to something. has visitors at her house overnight, coming through the night. I wonder what she’s doing. And I just had a go writing it and showed it to other John. It’s like, oh my God, this is really good.

So we tinkered around with it, did a few chat, a versions of it. And I said to my aunt, you know, you asked me about this, would you be interested in it? And she said, yeah, definitely. So I sent it to her and she read it that night and got that to me. And so we want this book. That was last year. So it takes that long to get a book out sometimes. And so it comes out this October.

Rob Murphy (45:45.272)

Great. And w do you think there’ll be a one off or can you see yourself doing a few more of these, maybe?

John Marrs (45:50.222)

No, this particular character will be a one-off and think there’s something else that I’ve got, I’m in discussion with regarding a not a full-length book, but it’s one of those things I can’t talk about it yet unless it actually happens. But I enjoy doing it, it’s interesting, going from 100,000 words to trying to keep a self-contained story at 25,000. It was, yeah, was difficult.

Rob Murphy (46:10.574)

Yeah.

Different part of the brain, different muscle, different different

John Marrs (46:15.404)

Yeah, try not to waffle on too much. No massive descriptions about sunsets or beaches.

Rob Murphy (46:20.878)

There’s none y you no, y your books are so fast paced, so fast paced.

John Marrs (46:25.866)

You know what, I’ll tell you a secret about Dead in the Water. So I never write consecutive chapters. I will plan a book out now, so everything is all planned and I

Rob Murphy (46:34.882)

You actually planned, you you were planned one to chapter eighty or whatever.

John Marrs (46:38.414)

One paragraph a chapter, so I know exactly what I’ve got to do, but I don’t write in order. So I’ll start with chapter 53 here or chapter 12 somewhere else, whatever mood I’m in that day, or I’ll concentrate on a particular character. And then I piece it all together at the end on word documents. And then that’s only when I work out my word count. And I thought that, I thought it might be a little bit short. I think it might, it was going to come in at about 85,000 words. And when I added it all up, it was 57,000. Really? Like my God.

How have I underwritten so badly?

Rob Murphy (47:09.391)

And this is dead in the water. Dead in the water, was it? Okay.

John Marrs (47:12.214)

Yeah, so then I had to go through it again and that’s when certain things like the introduction of an old character came to mind. Yes. And that changed the direction of the book.

Rob Murphy (47:21.432)

Yeah, well it is terrific. It’s a terrific read. I I can’t recommend highly enough. And who for you ad is as is doing it at the minute, for you crime writers, who do you think is at the top of their game? Who do you like to read? Who do you think is in who do you get inspired by?

John Marrs (47:39.746)

I have three favourites that I’ll always go back to. So, Kara Hunter, who writes the Adam Foley series. There’s nothing she’s written that I’ve not enjoyed. I remember getting a really early copy of her very first book and I was like, okay, I’m already going to be a lifelong fan. The American writer Peter Swanson. I think he does great crime thrillers, love him. And Lisa Jewell as well. I think you can go wrong with Lisa Jewell.

Rob Murphy (48:07.458)

And she always sounds y I think you might know her, but she just comes across so wonderfully. So

John Marrs (48:13.128)

Yeah, I’m doing a panel with her at Harrogate in July and yeah, looking forward to that. And Harriet Tice as well, who was on Traters recently. Really like her stuff, I’ve got into her since before her first book came out. And when I did this event in All Thought recently, was in the audience, she was doing The Next Day, but she came to watch, she’s lovely.

Rob Murphy (48:36.206)

Brilliant, brilliant. So can you tell us anything about your release for next year?

John Marrs (48:42.36)

haven’t got a, my elevator pitch is one line basically. Other John, he describes the book as, one day meets I know what you did last summer.

Rob Murphy (48:52.46)

Okay, well that sounds intriguing. So

John Marrs (48:54.338)

It’s more of a relationship between two people and what’s happened in the past and what’s happening in the present.

Rob Murphy (49:03.566)

It sounds super intriguing. And that’s written.

John Marrs (49:06.828)

That is, yeah, I’ve got proofread left to do and that’s it. It’s got to this stage now where if I never read it again, I’ll be fine. I’ve read it too many times.

Rob Murphy (49:17.87)

Brilliant. Well look, John Marrs, thank you so much for your time today. You’ve been as a terrific guest. Thank you so much. And many, many congratulations on Dead in the Water. It is a terrific read. And everything else you’ve done.

John Marrs (49:29.166)

Thank you, I thank you for having me.

Anthony Horowitz, thank you so much for being on Behind the Crimes with Robert Murphy. I struggle to know how to describe you. Is it crime writer, screenwriter, children’s author writer, journalist? What what do you call yourself? ‘Cause that’s a a mouthful.

Anthony Horowitz (00:16.782)

I think there’s an easy answer, Robert, I’m a writer. That’s all I’ve ever been, that’s all I’ve ever wanted to be, and that’s all I am. But I write lots of things.

Rob Murphy (00:24.166)

You do. And well w let’s get into that straight away. Why lots of different things? Because lots of you are extremely successful, but it’s unusual I think for someone to be so successful in lots of different ways.

Anthony Horowitz (00:38.798)

Well, first of all, I never think of myself as successful. I rather worry about that because I’m not quite sure what success is. And I’ve often said that nothing really changes. Maybe, you I spend most of my life sitting in a room and maybe the room has got a bit bigger, but that’s sort of about it. That’s how it sometimes feels anyway. But as to the why, I mean, why so much? so much?

First of all, I love writing. I love storytelling. I love the world of fiction. I love reading books. I love cinema, theater. I love magic. I love illusion. I love all the things that I do for a living are the things that I most love, and there’s nothing else I want to do. Secondly, I’ve always been extremely driven from the day that I started writing, which was when I was 10 years old, was when I first knew I’d be a writer. And that...

was a very unhappy time in my life. I was in a horrible school and I was, you know, not a very nice person and I was quite friendless. And I discovered books and they became a sort of a lifeline for me. First of all, because they took me into a different world because they took me somewhere better, somewhere where I felt safe and happy. But also because they taught me the art of storytelling that I realized I’d been told over and over again that...

that I was useless, that I was fat, that I was going to be, you know, a waste of life. And I discovered actually that my teachers were wrong. I did have a talent and it was for storytelling. And I think that sort of sense of desperation, sense of reaching for a lifeline has never left me. Even now I have, you know, like all writers do, I have bit of imposter syndrome, but it’s more than that. I just feel that if I’m not writing, I’m not living.

Rob Murphy (02:20.492)

Well, I’m gonna go back to your school time in a little while, but we’d I’d like to start off by really asking you about the Marble Hall murderers, which is a huge success, and I’ve never heard this as an excuse or a reason to write a book, and this is the first time I’ve ever heard it, and the reason was because Les Leslie Manville told me to do it.

Anthony Horowitz (02:38.538)

Indeed so. Well, Leslie Manville, who came into my life when we filmed Midsummer Murders, not Midsummer Murders, God, I always get all these literations, when we filmed Magpie Murders. I wrote a book called Magpie Murders. It took me a very, very long time to write it. And we tried to it to the BBC, but they didn’t want to do it. They said the book was unadaptable. That was it was the shortest meeting I’ve ever had. But they just said this book cannot be adapted.

Rob Murphy (02:46.038)

All the murders mixed up. Marble.

Anthony Horowitz (03:03.544)

But working with my wife, Jill Green, I did adapt it and we made it into a TV show. And very early on, Leslie Manville came along and showed interest in the book, agreed to play the main part of Susan Ryan in the editor who solves crimes in that book. And was just a wonderful friend and totally onside, on team. so we made the show and it was adaptable in the end and it did very well.

I had already written Moonflower Murders and the reason for that one, the sequel, it was always meant to be a one-off. But the sequel happened because my wife Jill Green, the producer, said it would be much easier to sell magpie murders around the world if there was a sequel. So I wrote Moonflower Murders, which we then shot again with Leslie. And as you correctly say, we were shooting in Crete after that one. And in Crete, I remember Leslie on set saying to me, you know, I’ve had such a great time. We really must do a third. And...

That was a sort of quite terrifying thought because Leslie is one of the busiest actresses. What do I say? Actress. I’m not sure which word one uses these days. She’s one of the busiest actors in the world. And she had one available slot, which was about 15 months away. And the only way to write a script for her, six scripts, was to write a book first. I couldn’t just write a TV show. I had to have a book to adapt.

So I had 15 months to write both a 650 page novel and a six part TV series. And it was to say the least, a bit of a roller coaster ride. mean, just these books are complicated. They’re big. And I don’t know how quite high I got through the year. But the funny thing is, is that I think of the three, certainly the TV series, which we’ve just finished shooting is.

by a country league, the best of the three. I mean, it’s really, really wonderful. And Leslie is brilliant in it. But I think in some ways it’s my favorite book too. So it just shows you what a bit of pressure.

Rob Murphy (05:07.726)

It is a terrific book and it’s also quite subversive, isn’t it? Because it is the golden age of murder. As firstly, I don’t know how you did it with the first book, how you did it, you know, just the the concept, the conceit of it. But then to repeat it and then to do it one more time, and I think there might even be plans for a fourth one as well. But you know, it’s the golden age of murder turned into a which is a book with the d detective Atticus Pund.

But then it’s also a modern day dual time where the book that you’ve written within the book leads to c gives clues. I’m struggling here.

Anthony Horowitz (05:41.71)

When you listen to this, say, well, that’s one I’m not going to read. It sounds like completely confusing and chaotic. It’s actually simpler than that. It is a story of an editor, Susan Ryland, who works in the field of murder mystery and has created or has been part of a huge series of bestselling novels with a detective called Atticus Put. And the conceit of it is that the author, the original author, Alan Conway, who wrote the Atticus Put novels, was himself murdered.

and the solution to his murder was inside the book he had written. So what you have in all three cases is books that contain the secrets of real life murders. And the joy of the TV series is the collision of these two worlds and indeed of the books. You get both the Golden Age style novel, Marblepool Murders, but you also get Susan Rylan who is a modern woman, an editor, solving a modern crime, the secret of which is concealed in the book. Does that make it sound a little?

I’ve got used to it. When I first did, I have to tell you that Magpie Murders took me something like, I think it was over 10 years to actually work out and to write. And I can prove it because going back to Midsummer Murders, the TV show I was working on, if you look at that in one of the very, very earliest episodes, a character is reading Magpie Murders. I put it into the TV show, as it were, to stake my claim on that title and that book. And then it took a very, very long time to work

how to do it in a way that would be complex and satisfying but never confusing.

Rob Murphy (07:15.98)

Yes. I mean that’s quite a thing to put it i in a T V show to stake your claim, to put the flag in the flag flag on the sand to to say

Anthony Horowitz (07:24.62)

more for myself than for anybody else. was, am going to write this book. It now exists. And having a mock-up of it on TV sort of made it a reality. But I had to wait to do it because I didn’t, at that time, I hadn’t written much adult fiction. And I honestly didn’t think I was good enough to do it. I needed to wait and to work to get better to be able to write that book.

Rob Murphy (07:44.608)

And this project, this whole double project really, is a great example of of your variation of talents. What wha what is the difference between writing the book to writing the sc the screenplay? How would you say it to somebody who who writes neither but just enjoys both?

Anthony Horowitz (08:04.014)

Well, I’ve already said that I couldn’t do the TV show without the book. The main difference is, is that it is impossible actually, as the BBC originally said, to fully adapt 650 pages of Murder Mystery. You have to winner it out. You have to somehow make it a little easier, have fewer stories, fewer red herrings, fewer suspects, and all that sort of stuff. And just somehow focus more on the sort of core story and choose.

What are the sort of B and the C stories? know, writers talk about A stories, the main story, B and C as being sort of subtext, if you like. And so that’s what you have to decide. And that’s why I needed the book with all its complexity in order to have something to winnow down. But there are other differences too. I mean, you know, a simple one is that when you’re reading a book, you do it at your own pace. And if you feel you’re not quite following what’s happening, you can go back and you can check out characters’ names and you can, you know, remind yourself, you know, what happened

the last chapter, TV is, unless you’re watching, you know, with a stop start button, is much more sitting down and watching it from start to finish. And there is a flow, you know, the speed of the storytelling is rather dictated by the creators. So that is a very big difference too. And it just means you always have to think about...

not losing the viewer, of keeping everybody comfortable because these days people have a short attention span. If they’re not following what’s happening, they’re not going to actually wind back or whatever digitally and start again. They’re just going to go and have a cup of tea and do something else.

Rob Murphy (09:33.856)

And as a writer is there the show not tell thing or is there and also I guess the T V project is, you know, you write it and then it moves on to other people as well. You need actors, directors, producers.

Anthony Horowitz (09:47.374)

Of course, I mean, that role in, you know, although I am an executive producer, and I am of course married to the producer, which is very helpful. Joe Green produces these shows for me and does a fantastic job about it. But, you know, when we’re talking about the differences between TV and a novel.

their legion and some of them you’ve just mentioned, know, the sort of, you know, the rules of television. But I actually prefer to think about what makes them similar. And to me, it is about flow. It is about suspense. is about making sure that every chapter finishes with something that makes you want to keep reading just as every episode finishes on a note that makes you want to watch the next one. That sort of sense of always having cliffhangers, having a clarity, immersion of being inside the world. know, the first

TV version of Marble Hall, you’ll be surprised how different it is from the book. Just to give you one example, and this is about money and about sort of what was possible and what wasn’t, the book is largely set in the south of France and I very much wanted that when I started writing it. wanted that

that white linen palm tree David Niven feel to the whole thing. But we couldn’t shoot him with South of France. It’s prohibitively expensive. And also, to be honest with you, it’s not very nice anymore. A lot of the South of France has been spoiled by sort of traffic and high rises. So in the end, we had to move the shoot to Corfu back in Greece again. And that threw out an entire strand of the plot. But nonetheless, you you are presented with what has to happen.

And you adapt, that is part of the nature of writing TV scripts.

Rob Murphy (11:26.764)

One of the big themes of this book, in fact, you know, one of the main stories, is it’s about a literary estate. And of course you’ve got dealings with not one, but two literary estate I think you are the only author who has written both the continuation of James Bond, or prequels as well, and Sherlock Holmes, too.

Anthony Horowitz (11:45.496)

Indeed so. In fact, I remember, I mentioned the pressure I was under to come up with this book and TV scripts in just 15 months. And I remember that in the first month or even six weeks, I was in a state of utter panic because the big question about writing the sort of books I write isn’t who’s going to be murdered or, you know, what are the clues going to be? It is what is the milieu? What am going to write about? What is, you know, the sort of underlying world theme?

general sort of, just the universe of the book. What is it going to be? And I just couldn’t think. At one stage, I was going to set it in an Irish stables, you know, racing stables. I even had this zany idea that it wouldn’t be a person who was murdered, but a horse. Although it’s an interesting fact that although people don’t mind ever reading about dead people in books, if it’s an animal, they get very upset. So that idea went out of the window very quickly. But then walking along with my...

marvelous dog, giver of great ideas. Every writer should have a dog, as I know you do, you have told me. I suddenly realized that family estates, literary estates, was something I knew a lot about. You’ve already mentioned James Bond and Sherlock Holmes, but I’ve also had dealings with the Agatha Christie estate because of my work on Agatha Christie’s Poirot, the role Darl estate I’ve known for many, years, Felicity Darl I see occasionally and admire very much, and even the Herrscher estate, Tintin.

I’ve had dealings with them. You can probably see some tinted memorabilia behind me in the picture of that figure sitting on a Rasco Capac, I think he’s called, out of Prisoners of the Sun. Anyway, and it suddenly occurred to me that literary estates are fascinating. What do do if you are the grandson, the great-grandson, or if it’s just even the son of a famous writer loved by everybody in the world, but you remember that person as being a monster?

And that, course, was how I came up with the idea of Miriam Crace, who is sort of the head of the Crace family and the family that Susan gets involved in the culture of the book. And I just thought it was fascinating to sort of, you you’ve got to keep, you your entire livelihood depends on people continuing to love this, this, she’s the grandmother in the book.

Anthony Horowitz (14:02.36)

But actually, you know that she was horrible and awful. And that tension and that sort of, do I tell, don’t I tell? Do I keep taking the money from the royalties or do I sacrifice them for the truth? That to me seemed like a fascinating world to explore.

Rob Murphy (14:15.894)

Yes. And w tell us about what it was like to get the call from the Sherlock Holmes est was it Sherlock Holmes that came first and Bond? And you you were a fan already. You were a fan of

Anthony Horowitz (14:24.258)

first one.

My agent simply said that they were looking for somebody to do what would be the first, you know, authorized Sherlock Holmes, I hate the word continuation novel, because I think it sort of somehow undermines everything you’re trying to do, but that is what it was. They wanted somebody to write an authorized Sherlock Holmes story. And I was quite nervous when I was asked. And in fact, I remember that I wrote the first chapter.

before I signed the contract, I said, is this good enough? And if it’s good enough, I’ll sign the contract and write the book. So I sent that out and everybody liked it. So I then wrote the book. But I also had a rule, which was I wouldn’t take any notes from anybody in the estate, which may sound to you a little arrogant and such, but I was just nervous about getting tied down in sort of arguments about, you know, Doyle might have wanted or not wanted. And the estate was marvelous. They were very, very supportive. And of course, the House of Silk.

I think perhaps it is my best book in some ways. I think it’s the most polished book I’ve ever written, and I loved writing it. Can you imagine spending six, seven months effectively living in 221B Baker Street with two of the greatest friends in British literature? It was just such a wonderful experience.

Rob Murphy (15:42.51)

I loved it. And to prepare, did you go back and read the books again or what did you

Anthony Horowitz (15:46.734)

I read all the short stories. There’s not a lot to read. I had about 60 short stories and four novellas, which are also quite short. There’s not a lot. But of course, I’d read them since I was 17. I mean, I grew up on Sherlock Holmes and was very, you know, I used to love the Jeremy Brett adaptations, which are still for me the best Sherlock Holmes adaptations. He, I mean, was the best Sherlock Holmes ever. But so, yes, I read, but also I’m very, acquainted with 19th century literature. All my.

favorite reading is in the 19th century. it’s George Gissing, who is late 19th century, almost a contemporary of Doyle, I think, and George Orwell, who might also have crossed paths, H.G. Wells. I have a feeling, I saw a photograph when I was searching of George Gissing, H.G. Wells, and Conan Doyle all together in one picture. And to me, that was like Nirvana because it was three of my greatest favorite writers together in one space. And so it wasn’t difficult to immerse myself in that world.

Rob Murphy (16:40.952)

Did you have to what stylistic changes did you do to to stop being Anthony Horowitz and be a bit more bit more Conan Doyle, or did you?

Anthony Horowitz (16:53.23)

I had to analyze.

I mean, reading the books, I was making notes on the prose all the time about his techniques, about what he did and how the stories work. mean, you know, he does time jumps quite interestingly, which I don’t do in my books where two people are talking and then suddenly they’re in the street. know, suddenly they’ve moved and it’s almost like a cut. And he does a lot of things like that. There were words I used, expressions. know, obviously you get the elementary, my dear Watson type thing, which I’m not sure he actually ever said.

but nonetheless it’s sort of a it’s sort of you know it’s part of that language and I remember that there was a word I particularly loved which was snibbed. A window is described in one of the books as snibbed. To this day I have no idea what I what it means but in my book a window is snibbed as well.

Rob Murphy (17:39.764)

So you did the the Holmes books in twenty eleven and twenty fourteen, but you just after that you picked up with Trigger Mortis and Bond. I mean that is that is pr also, you know, talk about pressure that to to pick up that series, or was it for you?

Anthony Horowitz (17:54.862)

you

Less so because of the success of both The House of Silk and then the sequel to that Mariotti had done well. So was getting, I was growing a little more confident about my ability to ventriloquize. You asked in your earlier question about changing your style for Sherlock Holmes. And it really is a question of becoming the ventriloquist or maybe the dummy, rather, in, you being controlled by the voice of Doyle. And Fleming, of course, has also got a remarkable voice. I mean, I think the books are underrated.

People know the films and sort of everybody in the world. think it’s half the world’s population has seen the James Bond film. But not many people read the books, which is a shame because they are masterpieces. They really are.

Rob Murphy (18:36.622)

Th the early ones in particular are, aren’t they? The later ones I I’m not so sure.

Anthony Horowitz (18:40.718)

I mean, it’s clear that Fleming gets bored of the character and he’s looking for ways to break the formula. And so, for example, he writes A Spy Who Loved Me, which is a catastrophe. You Only Live Twice is peculiar, although very good in parts. And he was quite ill when he was writing the last book, The Man with the Golden Gun. And you can tell from the text, from reading it, that he’s getting, you know, he’s bored, he’s tired of it. But the earlier ones, I mean, you know, there are six or seven wonderful James Bond novels.

Anthony Horowitz (19:13.068)

also quite peculiar and not really sort of mainstream bond which is I think it’s Dr. No and it’s Goldfinger from Russia with Love and Live and Let Die, Diamonds are Forever, that exact core of sort of you know the super villain and the sort of and the international trail. Moonraker I adore, that’s not international.

Rob Murphy (19:32.478)

Yeah, that’s setting paint, isn’t it? Yeah. Yeah.

Anthony Horowitz (19:35.566)

But those are the of the hardcore James Bond novels. And, you know, when it came to Bond, I had been waiting and waiting for them to ask me. I adored Bond as a child, the films and the books, and along with Holmes. I wouldn’t have done these novels if it hadn’t been for the fact that I loved the originals so much that I just wanted to live in their worlds.

Rob Murphy (19:58.732)

And you wrote them in the world, isn’t there? There was a prequel, there was one that’s kind of midway through the series or the end and another at the end. Is that right with the bond?

Anthony Horowitz (20:06.542)

I mean, I’m not criticizing anybody who didn’t do this because there were other very good James White. I mean, Robert Markham, think that is probably the best of the continuation of his. Robert Markham is the pseudonym of Kingsley Amis, who wrote a book called Colonel’s Son, which I think is a terrific bond, pastiche continuation, whatever. But what was your question? can’t remember what you asked me.

Rob Murphy (20:28.02)

you set them at the time rather than updating them to present time.

Anthony Horowitz (20:31.278)

I, some writers, William Boyd, for example, and Jeffrey Diva modernized the books and had them in a different era. But I always thought that Bond was very, very much tied to the time in which he lived. So my first, although I didn’t write them in this order, I go from sort of mid-50s to about 1963, which is sort of the first book, Trigga Mortis, takes place just after Goldfinger has finished. And the last one I wrote, The With a Mind to Kill.

is after or just immediately after the man with the golden gun. in the end, I ended up with a trilogy of beginning, middle and end of career.

Rob Murphy (21:06.06)

Yes. And you s you mentioned that you read these growing up. I’d just like to ask a a few questions about you growing up because you’ve described your your background as upper middle class North London. Is that is that the best

Anthony Horowitz (21:17.858)

I used the words upper middle class because it was more peculiar than that. mean, my parents, I think, were trying to have a sort of miniature Versailles in a North London suburb. And it was really sort of quite upper class, except it wasn’t. And I find class distinction sort of tricky and perhaps a little archaic now. But it was definitely North London. It was Jewish North London. Peculiar.

Rob Murphy (21:45.15)

And you went to a a prep school which was tough w for one

Anthony Horowitz (21:49.606)

Well, you again, Robert, I always get nervous about complaining too much about, you know, I had a privileged upbringing, no doubt about it, but the five years I spent in a school in North London were utterly and completely destructive in almost every way. And as I’ve said to you at the beginning of our discussion, I only survived those five years and came out as a reasonable human being because of books. Comics first, you know, just from Valiant to Tintin to Willard Price to...

to Alistair McLean and Desmond Bagley and Ian Fleming and Conan Doyle. You know, those books were my protection.

Rob Murphy (22:26.092)

You mentioned Willard Price there. You’re the the only other person I think I’ve come across who’s read that I I I consumed them in hours at a time. Underwater Adventure, Safari Adventure. There was I think fourteen of them and I loved those as a boy. But I d they’re not talked about.

Anthony Horowitz (22:41.337)

And this is very much in forms of where I write. I can remember waiting in the library for the new Willard Price to come in because they bought them every year and it would arrive and nobody was going to come in week or two. And you had to your name on a list to get the burrow of the book and my name would always be number one. And that excitement about waiting for the next adventure of Howe and Roger, the two brothers going off around the world, that sense of neediness of I’ve got to read it. I try to inject that into my writing. want, you know, when I was writing the Alex Rider series.

I always wanted kids to really want the next one.

Rob Murphy (23:14.368)

so after school you there was university, but you didn’t go straight into writing as most writers don’t. you went into advertising. W

Anthony Horowitz (23:22.798)

I writing immediately after I left. I was writing all through school. I was writing throughout university, drama and novels. I had rejections and, you know, and such. But I actually was published quite quickly. My first book, which was a children’s book, was published almost immediately after I left university. I was only 22 years old. And.

Rob Murphy (23:50.306)

Sorry? Was that Granny?

Anthony Horowitz (23:53.854)

Actually, it was a book called Enter Frederick K. Boer. It’s before Granny, a little bit before Granny. One of the few of my books that has gone out of print, curiously. But that was the first book I wrote. Granny was, I think, about the third or fourth.

And the books never did very well in Sydney, and I was very, fortunate to have a publisher who continued to support me and to publish me. But I was working in advertising because my books weren’t making enough money not to be. I was a copywriter, and the only good thing that came out of it was meeting my wife, who was the account director at McCann Ericsson, where I was working. I wasn’t a very good copywriter, but the building gave me everything I needed, and what I would do is I would, I would.

work on advertising from nine until six. I would go out with Jill for supper at seven, dump her at the station about 8.39, go back to the office and then work on my novels through the night. what I had there was an electric golf ball IBM typewriter. You may remember them, you know, with that little, it had a little ball in the middle with all the letters on it. It’s spanned around every time you press the key.

Rob Murphy (24:56.386)

Wow, okay.

Anthony Horowitz (24:57.32)

It was a marvelous machine. I was actually doing, I was writing also the, while I was advertising, I was also writing scripts and things. But I remember that I was doing all the functions that a computer does, cutting and pasting and whatever. But I was doing it by hand, literally cutting and literally pasting sections of the script together and then photocopying the whole thing in order to build a page. And I would work through the night.

and then sleep in my office from about sort of two or three in the morning until it was time to get up, have a shower in the office, and then go back to my desk. Not every night of the week, but often. Wow.

Rob Murphy (25:32.795)

I mean that is driven, isn’t it? And you said

Anthony Horowitz (25:35.318)

You talked about this in the beginning and yes, I was absolutely determined to succeed.

Rob Murphy (25:40.96)

And how long did the two overlap, the advertising and the writing?

Anthony Horowitz (25:47.566)

would say about all in, maybe 10 years, something like that, from different agencies. It was a long haul. And eventually what happened was when I was hired to do Robin of Sherwood, which was my first ever television program, I was...

Rob Murphy (25:53.602)

Good while. A good long while.

Anthony Horowitz (26:09.236)

suddenly earning more money from my writing than from advertising and realized I didn’t need to be doing this sort of really quite strenuous double life and that I could let one go. I did so with reluctance. I loved advertising. loved it. It was some of my closest friends to this day I made in that period. Jill obviously is top of that list. And...

It took me a very, very long time to get used to being on my own, to being in a room, to being out on the street at 11 o’clock in the morning and not feeling that I was some kind of social security scrangler, as I would be called now, whatever.

Rob Murphy (26:43.614)

so so you gave up the advertising. You’d written a book, hadn’t you, which led to the TV job, the Robinham Show.

Anthony Horowitz (26:51.898)

I had written quite a lot of books by the time I left advertising, maybe about 10. This is pre-Alex Ryder. Alex Ryder was what broke the glass ceiling and sort of launched me. But I’d written at least 10 kids books during that period. And one of them was a collection of myths and legends.

I remember that I was doing Greek myths, obviously, and Roman and Egyptian and Babylonian and Persian or whatever, myths from all over the world. I wrote it largely when I had glandular fever. It was a commission. And I was ill in bed for a month and spent that entire month writing the myths and legends. And one of them was Robin Hood. In fact, I didn’t write about Robin Hood. I wrote about a man called Adam Bead. I think that’s correctly his name. I can’t remember his name. Adam Bead? can’t...

I’d have to go back and write it so long ago. But anyway, he is sort of a precursor of Robin Hood. And I was interested in the fact that Robin Hood, there are many different versions. Adam Bell, not Bede. Adam Bell, that was his name. And at the same time, Goldcrest, the company making Robin of Sherwood, had a problem, which is that they had suddenly been commissioned to write 13 episodes. They only had one writer and they needed desperately somebody to come and help. So I sent them a short...

story, of, you know, a treatment of Adam Bell. And it was Adam Bell meets Robin Hood. So was like sort of Robin Hood meets his own precursor, his own ancestor. And they liked it enough to get me in and hired me. And it was an incredible thing to go from never having written television at all to being a junior writer on a show that was attracting 12 to 15 million people every week.

Rob Murphy (28:31.688)

It was the biggest show in Britain, wasn’t it? It was it was huge. And but but you’ve gone from working in an office in advertising while writing books on the side to suddenly being, I guess, on set working at a pace as well. Just describe the leap from from one to the other.

Anthony Horowitz (28:34.744)

Amazing show.

Anthony Horowitz (28:49.762)

Well, first of I have to pay tribute to the producer, Paul Knight, who hired me. And nobody else would have. mean, because, you know, I was just so ignorant of everything. I’ll tell you a story. The first time I ever visited the set of Robin Hood, I’d written an Adam Bell, which finishes at a ruined church in a field where the sheriff in Nottingham has set an ambush for Robin Hood. And he’s got soldiers hiding. I described very carefully a window upstairs. There’s somebody hiding there with a bow and arrow. And there’s somebody in this section there. I visit the set.

and I’ve never been on a film set before. And there, in front of me, is the church I’ve described. Everything that I wrote is in there. It’s got a... The window is there and the archway and the place where someone else is gonna hide. And I’m just looking at it, saying, how did you find this? It’s incredible. And, of course, I then walked up to the church and touched it. It was made out of fiberglass. It was... The whole thing had been... I didn’t realize that that was how films work. That’s how stupid I was and how...

ignorant of that world. But what it was like to ask you to answer it was, it’s a bit sad in a way because I’ve done a lot of television now, but I’m not sure I’ve ever had quite so much fun as I’ve had on that. First of all, Paul Knight was a wonderful producer. But he was a party giver. Everybody on that set was drinking until two or three in the morning sometimes. It was just sort of madness. A weekend when he was on the set was a nonstop party with Ray Winston, famously the wonderful Ray Winston as well as Scarlett.

who was just sort of a, he was a madman in a way. I use the phrase as a compliment, not as an insult. But he was a wonderful.

actor and a bit of marvelous character as well, as were all the Merry Men and everybody on the set. Richard Carpenter, the senior writer, was the other person I wanted to pay tribute to. I learned so much about TV writing from him. He was just a wonderful mentor and a guide to me. In the same way, funnily enough, as Conan Doyle was when I was writing Sherlock Holmes, he was the living embodiment of that when I was writing Robin. And his vision was really remarkable. It was terrific. I still think it is one of the greatest...

Anthony Horowitz (30:50.094)

versions of Robin Hood ever done, the idea of bringing in pagan mythology and, you know, her and the hunter and all the rest of it. It was extraordinary, but it was enormously high pressure. Unlike a modern TV show where you could wait a year and a half for production, you know, on that show I would be writing a script on Friday.

for the start of shooting, actual shooting the following Monday. It would be, you know, obviously they knew what I was doing. They were building sets and getting my notes of what the story involved, but it was that fast, that scary. it was enormously high pressure, but wonderful fun.

Rob Murphy (31:27.662)

And those were the Jason Connery days, weren’t they?

Anthony Horowitz (31:30.232)

Yes, and Michael Prade was the original Robin, but he had, I think, mistakenly, I think, decided to leave the show for other things. And Richard Carpenter had to, and very cleverly instead, he worked out...

where the new Robin would come from and wrote a wonderful story about how a new, a more noble figure, young nobleman played by Jason takes his place. But of course, in those days, nobody knew what Robin Hood would have looked like. it wasn’t like James Bond where you can just, or Doctor Who, where you could just transform the character. This was an actual story about another person taking over the role.

Rob Murphy (32:08.406)

And with that pressure, with that change, with that that swap from advertising to that, what what what did you learn? What were your key takeaways? What w you know, you must have been learning so fast and having to think on your on your feet.

Anthony Horowitz (32:20.546)

think it was a slow lesson. think in a way I’m still learning. mean, know, television is changing the whole time and what audiences want now is very different from what they were wanting then. But I think that at the end of the day, this idea of, don’t think, again, forgive me for answering it in a different way, but I think it was the same is what I remember, but it wasn’t different, you know, storytelling. What makes people engage with...

narrative, with character, with ideas, with landscapes, is story. And story binds us together in life as well. You know, we began before we had this interview with a little bit of story about each other and where we’ve come from, and very quickly established a sort of a, I hope, a sort of rapport, which is helping us through the interview now. And story, that’s why, you when people talk about the value of reading and the importance, this is meant to be the year of reading and all that, I think in a funny way, they’re missing the point. You know,

Reading, yes, it is good for you. It’s good for communication skills. It helps you with language and confidence, and it’s a wonderful way to relax or to, not actually to relax, because reading is one of the most creative things you can do with your mind. But I think what people ignore is actually without story, you are lost in life. Story unites us all. Well, you know, what is happening in Ukraine, what is happening in America, what is happening in all over the world, these are stories. And one of the things that I’ve learned in my long

is that my books are in 20-odd countries and story unites people no matter where they’ve come from, whether rich, poor, or from, you know, from the south, from the north, whatever. Story has this incredible value to humanity and that’s what partly drives me and it’s why I’m involved in trying to get people to read, I mean, because that’s really what you’re getting from it.

Rob Murphy (34:11.201)

So I’m gonna come back to your books in a second, but I think we do really need to to mention your your continuation of your screenwriting work after after Robin because it’s again so so prolific, you know, Midsummer Murders, Poirot, you know, you invented Foil’s War for God’s sake. You this is this is big stuff, good stuff, and atmospheric as well. You know, Foil’s War is a really you know, you plonk the reader back into nineteen the viewer back into nineteen forty. What just tell us about what it was. I mean the

These are all crime as well. Were you a were you enticed by the crime or were they jobs that came up and you just gently gravitated towards it?

Anthony Horowitz (34:51.362)

I’ve always liked crime. You know, I’m a disciple of Agatha Christie and of Sherlock Holmes and of Nagai Amarsh and Dorothy Sayers and SS Van Dyne and Ellery Queen, et cetera. These are the books I’ve read throughout my life. But at the same time, crime can become a straight jacket. And when you describe Foils War as a crime series, it wasn’t actually. You know, I didn’t really want to write crimes set in the Second World War.

I wanted to write about the Second World War, the home front. I was born in Stanmore in North London and my house was right next door to sort of the headquarters of the RAF, which is up there. And we had bomber command not very far away. You could say that, you know, a large part of the war was won in Stanmore. My nanny was...

a waft driver in the war and used to tell me when I was a boy stories. was born with 55. So, you know, I’m born in the shadow of the war, rationing at the end of the year before I was born. And he used to tell me all these stories about the home front in the war. And I was fascinated by it and wanted to do a series about it and realized that the way to tell stories about the war was to do it as a crime series. But the whole paradox of Foyle’s War is that the main detective, Christopher Foyle,

doesn’t want to be solving crimes. He wants to be working for the war effort and he’s trying to, and the stories that we tell, you yes, I mean, the crime stories are good and well-conceived and fun, but often you have to wait two or three parts of the show, maybe 45, 50 minutes before anybody is murdered. You know, it’s about other things. And there’s one of favorite episodes, the French drop, doesn’t even have a crime in it at all.

You know, it’s about different things. And that’s what really fascinated me. And throughout my whole writing career, I’ve been trying to find ways to do crime differently, to do, to not be forced into the sort of the formula of here’s a murder, here’s a detective, here’s the investigation, and there’s a solution. Trying to do things that haven’t been done before.

Rob Murphy (36:54.112)

Yeah, I’m and that goes back to what we said at the beginning of the the marble that is

Anthony Horowitz (36:57.826)

That’s definitely a... Metafiction, which I’m sort of becoming more more interested in, is a wonderful way to both write murder mystery and also question it and look at it. You know, the question I most like to ask is, why is murder entertainment? Why do so many people like reading about murder? If somebody is murdered in your street or your community or even in the house where you live, you will not...

be laughing about it and enjoying it, you’ll be horrified and disgusted. And also, of course, the police will solve it properly within 24 hours because most murders are solved by CCTV, by a blood splatter, by people just actually fessing up because, you know, if you’re sitting in a room with a knife that’s got blood all over it and your wife is lying under the table, it’s not exactly, you don’t exactly need her, you’re poor-o. So I’m fascinated by the difference between murder in fiction and the need for it and murder in real life.

Rob Murphy (37:52.31)

What do you think is the intrigue? Why do you think people are so drawn to it?

Anthony Horowitz (37:59.214)

think that murder, people are not drawn to murder itself, I don’t think, even to the midsummer murders where they spend so much time doing elaborate and slightly sort of grotesque murders. I think murder is a very, very fast way to become interested in people. Murder unites people in a rather difficult way, but it’s in a way when emotions are at their highest and when, you know, you don’t murder somebody because you are a little bit scared of them or because you don’t like them very much.

You’re terrified of them, you fear them, you hate them, you love them, you want them, you need them, whatever. And that leads you to a state where you might commit a murder. So I think that it takes us into humanity in a very fast, very direct and very passionate way. And that I think is, and it also of course tears apart secrets. What I think is great about a murder story is it’s not just the killer who has something to hide, everybody in that community.

has something to hide. And we live in a society where the British like to have their neck curtains. We like to keep our family secrets to ourselves. Murder, tears, all that open. I think there’s a certain relish in learning the truth about people.

Rob Murphy (39:04.618)

And you have done it brilliantly again and again. Who do you look to at the moment? Or over a the course of last hundred and fifty years who has taken crime writing and done something different with it and done it really well?

Anthony Horowitz (39:20.44)

There are lots of Japanese crime writers that I admire. I love Golden Age Murder Mystery. There are a lot of modern writers from, I don’t know, Ragana Yonason, who is an Icelandic writer whose work I like very much, to, don’t know, there’s so many different, so many different Val McDermid, obviously, in Rankin. you know, there are lot. I don’t read exclusively crime fiction. You know, my favorite crime writer is probably Iro Levin, by the way, is,

Rob Murphy (39:45.504)

Stepford Wives, Boys from Brazil. Well actually I Kiss Before Dying, which he wrote when he was tw twenty-two, I think.

Anthony Horowitz (39:49.048)

thinking more.

Anthony Horowitz (39:55.234)

He wrote it when he was 22. That’s absolutely correct. It’s absolutely shocking how good it is for a writer so young. But he was absolutely wonderful. I heard they’re making The Boys from Brazil for TV at the moment. Somebody’s doing a five-part series.

Rob Murphy (40:06.846)

He is one of my favourite writers as well. I I read I think three books in three days. and they’re short as well. Step for Wives is a hundred and twenty two pages, I think. It’s but if you look

Anthony Horowitz (40:15.754)

The Structure of is so astoundingly clever. And it’s one of the reasons I don’t write crime, don’t read a lot of stories because you come upon ideas in that book that I wish I’d had, or rather I come upon ideas that I wish I’d had. And it’s awful to read somebody else’s book and say, God, how could they be so clever? I wish I’d thought of that. So, but you know, as I’ve said, I love 19th century literature. I love all sorts of books. And of course I read an enormous amount for research. So,

My reading time is quite limited and I don’t want to be sitting there reading books that make me cry.

Rob Murphy (40:49.774)

No, and you say research there, I mean there’s a a bit of a tension with crime writing, isn’t there, about projecting a story that people are going to be interested in, but also having the authority that it’s the kind of story that might have actually really happened. So are there any sort of true crime stories or what kind of research do you do in terms of procedure, to to try and you know, to make sure it it can be have the authenticity that it needs?

Anthony Horowitz (41:19.992)

Well, I tend to avoid procedural crime. I leave that to people like your good self, who are the of the experts in that field. Because it’s just, it’s not what I’m interested in. What I’m interested in is sort of the more Edwardian detective in an armchair sort of thing. I like the idea of the reader and the detective travel through the novel side by side. When I was working on the very first episodes of Midsummer Murders, I remember saying, we must never see anybody in a white coat.

We don’t want forensics. Please structure and command. We had a bit of that in Follows War, but it was very background. I wanted Barnaby and Troy to solve crimes with the audience. Now I think they do have a forensic team that comes into it, but then I haven’t been working on that show for 20 years and I haven’t even seen an episode for a while. But to me, that’s what I’m after. I’m after intellectual puzzles rather than...

Rob Murphy (41:51.874)

We don’t want

Anthony Horowitz (42:19.586)

forensics and stuff. But that said, everything I put into my books, I do research. mean, I have an interesting relationship with chat GBT at the moment because it is, the one hand, the greatest gift any writer was given because I can find out the answer to anything instantly and I can get, you know, can get paragraphs about whatever it is I’m interested in, but at the same time, it is the devil.

because it’s making me lazy and it makes me less inquisitive and it makes me less open to new ideas. It just tells me what it thinks I want to know. So chat GBT is both a friend and an enemy. I presume you must use it quite a lot in your way.

Rob Murphy (42:57.58)

Yeah, I do. are are there are are there any crimes or criminals or victims or stories that you read that have inspired your work or you thought, well actually that that could happen and I could do with something like that here.

Anthony Horowitz (43:11.81)

yes, I often, I can’t actually for the moment think of exact instances, but I’ll often look up online types of crime that I will then incorporate into my novels because, you one of the things I’m most interested in is why people commit crimes and the sorts of crimes that people commit. And I think, you know, you’ve got to always have a belief in the crime that is being presented. You know, somebody murders somebody else for a reason.

And if that reason is too silly, too convoluted, too unbelievable, I think it damages the book. So I will often look up, you know, why, you know, crimes and frauds of one sort or another. You know, in Marble Hall Murders, for example, the book of Marble Hall Murders, there is a whole thread about the theft of Impressionist paintings in the Second World War.

by the Nazis who then had basically marketplaces in Europe. I think it was in the Gilles de Paule in Paris, became a giant sort of warehouse for buying stolen art, stolen from the Jews. And then there’s a whole question of reparations of art and the Swiss law, which was very, very pro-Swiss and against the Jews and against theft and such. didn’t, against justice, I mean. And.

And that knowledge, having read about that and read two or three books about that, for Fall as War, instead, I would read five books sometimes for one episode of Fall as War to look at the of the reality of the world. But talking about Marvel who murders, knowing that and having that layer of authority in the book adds a sort of an anchor, a credence, a base to the slightly fantastical story that I’m telling.

Rob Murphy (44:50.978)

And we can’t do an episode without mentioning Alex Ryder, if only to to keep my my younger son happy as well, who’s a massive fan. So I mean just how life changing was that? I the first book came out in two thousand, so I guess you’d been writing books and screenplays at the same time. But then came this this what became was it a juggernaut in your life? I don’t know.

Anthony Horowitz (45:11.584)

It became, yes, it certainly became something of a sort of a, you know, a roller coaster ride. And it was extraordinary. mean, I had written, I think, 10 children’s books. I still wonder why I was writing children’s books. wasn’t that far away from being a child. you know, I was very young. And none of them had sold very well, 2,000 copies, 3,000 copies. No other publisher today would.

continue to publish a writer at that level. But I was very, fortunate that Walker Books, who were my publishers, were endlessly patient. And then Stormbreaker came out in, think, about 2001. And I knew it was different. I mean, I still remember writing the very first sentence of it, when the doorbell rings at three in the morning, it’s never good news. And I looked at that sentence. I was living in Crouch End, and I can still see myself at my desk. It’s the same desk I’m sitting at now, which has traveled with me to Richmond.

and looking at that and knowing that this book was going to be different, that I’d come upon an idea that was signally different. And what the difference was, it was just going to be a children’s book for adults. No, an adult book for children. It was going to be a children’s book in which it wasn’t just a jape and an adventure and where the main character was having fun. It was going to have a troubled main character who didn’t really want to be in the adventure, someone who just wanted an ordinary life. That sentence I’ve just said to you.

has a darkness matter and the door rings at three in the morning, it’s never good news. What’s happened? What has happened? Well, I’ll tell you what had happened for me. It was at three o’clock in the morning when the telephone rang from the hospital to tell me that my father had died. And so that sort of darkness and that sense of reality was going to be in this book. And Stormbreaker, although it is still a fantastical story, it is quite light on its feet, was different and partly because of the success of Harry Potter, which had given publishers

greater interest in children’s books and newspapers and the public. It did much better. It sold 25,000 copies. And so I wrote another one, the sequel. In fact, I had already started writing it before Stormbreaker was published. Point blank sold 50,000 copies. I remember the next one sold 100,000 copies. And it just kept on escalating and doubling and mounting until suddenly I had sold something like 20 million copies. And it was the adventure of my life.

Rob Murphy (47:39.394)

And now you’re also writing books for adult fiction which feature loosely and lightly yourself. and there’s one coming out soon.

Anthony Horowitz (47:48.846)

I do need to say, first of all, I decided to stop writing children’s books a few years ago because I feel I’m too far away now from children because of my age. It’s one of the few professions where every year your audience is further away from you. And also, I have this sort of slightly silly idea that the children I’d written for back in the years, so 2000 onwards, I wanted to continue writing for them, even though they’re now adult. So that meant writing adult fiction. And again, this is about metafiction.

I was asked by my new publisher, Penguin Random House, to come up with a series of detective stories. And so I began to think of who is a detective? Is he sort of fat, thin, black, white, tall, short, gay, straight, male, female, whatever. And suddenly realized that everything you could possibly do with a detective had been done. So I began to think about the sidekick. And I this idea that if I turned myself into Watson, and so I’m not Doyle outside the book.

I’m Watson inside the book, the narrator, the detective’s sidekick. I’ve turned everything on its head. Suddenly, instead of being omniscient and knowing who the killer is, even more who the killer does, knows who he is or she is, I’m suddenly this sort of not very clever sort of sidekick. I don’t even know what to write. And if a detective, Hawthorne, doesn’t solve the crime, I don’t have a book. And suddenly, everything changes. I realize.

This was a way to turn the whole formula of murder mystery on its head. And so the word is murder was the first and I’ve just finished the seventh one.

Rob Murphy (49:24.502)

Is the seventh episode?

Anthony Horowitz (49:28.462)

The only episode that comes out in April, May, God, I’m very good at self publicity, I? I can’t even remember the title or the publication date. My publishers will be delighted. And I’ve started the seventh one. I was actually writing the seventh one this morning.

Rob Murphy (49:41.708)

Yeah. So you’ve got plans for this to go to run, haven’t you?

Anthony Horowitz (49:44.238)

I’m thinking of doing, we’re also developing it as a TV series. Jill and I have just finished the script of the, first script of the word is murder. You know, watch this space. It’s not easy these days to get television made, but I have high hopes. And I was thinking it would be 12 books in the series. So I’m over halfway. It might just be 10 now. I don’t know. But yeah, certainly three more to go.

Rob Murphy (50:09.272)

So if we have and we do have lots of writers and writers at the beginning of their career listen to this show, what w what would your message to them be? What would what what advice

Anthony Horowitz (50:21.658)

I’m always nervous about giving anybody advice because really what do I know? But I think that what I’ve said to you and talked about will have had echoes with writers. know, every writer goes through the same rite of passage, unless you’re very lucky and your first book is a huge smash hit, is, you know, getting published, then realizing once you’re published that actually you haven’t done the journey, you’re still standing on the platform, as it were, although at least you’re in the station. And, then realizing that people like me get invited onto podcasts by people like you, but they don’t.

and publicity. You you’re going to get publicity as a writer when you don’t need it anymore. That’s one of the sort of strange anomalies about the whole world of publishing because, you know, the books are selling anyway now. So I guess the only advice I can give is to believe in yourself. That’s all I’ve ever had in my life is self-belief, the knowledge or the determination.

that I will succeed as a writer. And the other thing is to enjoy writing. I think that that’s something that people seem to forget that I love everything about writing. I love fountain pens. I love paper. I love ink on my fingers. I love thinking up ideas and scribbling down notes and drawings. you know, I have lovely notebook which I keep which are full of my ideas. You this here is beginnings of my next novel just starting.

Rob Murphy (51:39.618)

Got neat handwriting.

Anthony Horowitz (51:41.25)

Hopefully when it won’t, no, that page doesn’t give anything away, thank goodness. it’s, and you know, getting out and not sitting at a desk worrying and fretting about writing, but having fun and having adventure and traveling and meeting people and you know, writing is not about being on yourself in a room. is about getting out there, believing in yourself and enjoying it. That’s the only advice I can give.

Rob Murphy (52:06.07)

Anthony Horowitz. I hope I’ve thoroughly enjoyed speaking to you for the last hour and I’ve thoroughly enjoyed your books as well. So thank you so much indeed.

Anthony Horowitz (52:13.55)

real pleasure, Robert. Thank you for having me on your podcast.

Bestselling crime writer T.M. Logan joins the show to discuss his gripping thriller The Weekend — a tense moral drama about six friends who discover a hidden stash of cash in a cave on the North Yorkshire moors. What begins as an ordinary New Year’s getaway spirals into suspicion, secrets and betrayal, as the group wrestles with the impossible question: what would you do if you found a life-changing amount of money?

TM Logan talks about the inspiration behind the novel and explains how ordinary, relatable characters are at the heart of his fiction.

The interview also explores TM Logan’s journey from local newspaper reporter to one of Britain’s biggest thriller writers. He reflects on his years in journalism at the Nottingham Evening Post and the Daily Mail, the lessons he learned from hard-nosed subeditors, and how newsroom discipline shaped his fast-paced, twist-filled writing style.

TM Logan shares insights into adapting books for television, including seeing The Holiday and The Catch brought to the screen, and reveals how real-life crimes and true-crime documentaries have influenced some of his most compelling ideas.

To learn more about TM Logan - click here:

https://www.tmlogan.com/

Podcast transcripts - New Feature:

Not a podcast listener but want to read the interview instead?

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Click here for the transcript

TM Logan, thank you so much for being with us today and congratulations on the weekend. I’ve been lucky enough to read it and what a joy to read. What are your feelings about the book?

TM Logan (00:54)

Yeah, I mean, it’s been because my 10th book, it’s kind of it feels a bit of a milestone for me personally, but it just feels kind of, you know, it feels like it’s gone so, so fast since the first one came out in 2017. And I’ll obviously a book a year author. So but to get to get to 10, it does feel kind of amazing and surreal. And, I’ve got a looking forward to doing I don’t know the next 10 or 15 or 20 or something. So yeah.

Rob Murphy (01:20)

Don’t stop. Yeah, don’t stop. Don’t stop. We have this terrific quote, Henry Ford quote at the beginning, which I hadn’t seen before, but it really sets the tone, doesn’t it? Money doesn’t change men. merely unmasks them. And that’s that’s a great way into this, isn’t it? Just tell us, give us the the idea, the concept of the weekend.

TM Logan (01:42)

So it’s kind of like a sort of a moral dilemma really. It’s six friends, they find that they’re away for the New Year in the North Yorkshire Moors. They always go walking and spend time together over New Year. And one time they’re out on New Year’s Eve and they get caught in a thunderstorm. So they take shelter in a cave in the middle of the Dales and wedged way down in the back of this cave where somewhere you would never normally find it, quite by chance they find that there’s a backpack. One of the characters, Helen, finds this backpack and she...

hauls it out and opens it up and finds that inside there is a sort of a sealed, a very large sealed packet of lots and lots of money, these big big stacks of 50 pound notes and so it opens like that and obviously they all have the reaction that we hope we would have in a situation like that which is to say this is going to go, we’ll go to the police station tomorrow in Skipton on the way home and it’ll make an amazing story to tell our friends and then of course they go back to the cottage and have a few drinks for New Year’s Eve until one of them

kind of utters the fateful words, you know, let’s not be quite so hasty about this. Let’s think about it before we do that.

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Rob Murphy (02:47)

And you’ve got a terrific cast of characters here. You mentioned Helen there and she’s very much, I guess, the lead character, isn’t she? But you’ve got all the different arguments going on as well. I love Dev, who’s just not up for it at all. He’s straight. I think he’s a magistrate, isn’t he?

TM Logan (03:03)

Yes, he’s kind of he’s got

various hats. He’s a driving instructor. He’s a magistrate. kind of you know, he’s quite he’s not a pillar of the community, but he kind of obviously takes his own personal reputation quite seriously. And he knows he sat in many, many, many, you know, court cases as magistrates will do and and seeing people pass through and so he kind of comes at it from a very, very black and white kind of

approach right from the beginning and he says I’m not even going to pick it up, I’m not even going to touch it, we should leave it there, we should just zip it back up and pretend this never happened and obviously you know with it being a thriller that would be quite a short book so they don’t do that, they ⁓ decide to take it back to the country so they can, in theory at the beginning, so they can do the right thing and take it to the police but obviously their sort of best laid plans are a little bit derailed.

Rob Murphy (03:50)

And as well as Helen, she’s got her husband there, she’s got her brother, Dev is there ⁓ too. ⁓ All these different characters. And of course, they’ve all got secrets, haven’t you? What can you tell us about their secret?

TM Logan (04:04)

Yeah, I mean, they’re all kind of, it’s a bit like the, you you mentioned the Henry Ford quote there at the beginning about, you know, money sort of unmasking people. It’s a bit like that. So we have these, you know, perfectly normal people in fairly normal jobs. know, Helen is a PA and Jason, her husband is a social worker. then there’s, you know, Kat works in a shop and Christian is a bit different because he’s kind of runs his own business. But they all, once they have this kind of, this money falls into their laps, they all kind of,

some of the things that they have going on in the background suddenly kind of come to the foreground. And in some cases, that is, you know, things they’ve kept secret from everybody. in some cases, it’s things they might perhaps discuss with their partner. But, ⁓ yeah, it kind of it makes everything ⁓ very real. It’s that kind of difference between two. You could say the question of having what do do with this money is one question. But really, I think it’s it’s two questions. It’s me and you having this conversation now in a hypothetical sense. But

If me and you are sitting in my lounge and I throw all this money on the table in front of you, that becomes a different question. It becomes a different sort of proposition because it’s real, because it’s right there. And it makes them act on sort of those secrets and impulses and desires in a way they perhaps probably wouldn’t have if they’d never been in that situation.

Rob Murphy (05:24)

You said the word real there. Also, what I really like about Helen is that she’s so relatable, isn’t she? She’s under pressure. There’s lots of women. I think she’s around 50, isn’t she? Of that age, she’s got an elderly mum with dementia. She’s got a late teen, 20-something son who is at home that she’s worried about as well. There’s an ex-boyfriend who I think we can mention without giving too much away who pops up. But there’s just a lot.

She’s a very relatable guide through this twisty book. You can put yourself in her shoes almost.

TM Logan (06:02)

Yeah, she’s she’s very much the kind of moral core of the story. She’s kind of the the sort of the ⁓ she’s right from the beginning. She’s sort of saying probably most of the things we would probably say, you know, we would like to think we would say and she ⁓ but yeah, she is she’s in that kind of point in her life when she’s, know, the sandwich generation, isn’t it the thing they call it so she’s not only is she looking after people kind of a mother above her in age, but she’s also kind of thinking about her sons and you know, but who are both

saddling themselves with lots and lots of debt as lots of our kids will do to go to university and all of that and that kind of hanging over them and then never mind them trying to get onto the property ladder. she’s almost at the point of being sort of an empty nest parent, but she knows that that is by no means the kind of the end of her responsibility. And she’s not, when she is kind of, is a...

bit of persuasion goes on to say, look, we could do some good with this money. She’s not thinking about going off and buying a speedboat with it. She’s then sort of thinking about how can I help my family? This is kind of a really practical, of ⁓ real life situation that she kind of thinks about and thinks maybe the, well, not to go too much of the story, but it’s a kind of a real life situation, I think.

Rob Murphy (07:18)

Yeah, exactly, which I think readers would love. I mean, she wants to do the best by her mum. She wants to put her mum somewhere comfortable. know, it’s just that she wants to do a nice thing. And there’s some fantastic twists later on. ⁓ Please get involved. I’m not going to say too much, but how much of that did you work out in advance and how much did it just come to you when you were feeling your way through the book?

TM Logan (07:47)

I I’ve always tried to do, I’ll do some planning with every book and whether that’s, know, sometimes it’s, it can be only, it might only be a half page kind of back cover sort of blurb, like the thing you would imagine on the back of a paperback. More recently it’s been more like a one or two or three page synopsis. So I’ll try to normally plan some of the turning points along the way. And obviously in this book, I knew at some point,

police would get involved and so that is kind of one of your key you know key turning points and there are other things other twists probably the more more of those in the first half that I kind of had a quite good idea of to begin with but then there are still other things and certainly the way the book ends and the way the resolution is is arrived at that is really comes more as part of the

organically, kind of as I’m writing, as you get to know the people better, you get to know the characters, what they would do and what they wouldn’t do and how they might react in certain situations. So it is, it does, it is a bit of both really. some of it is, I know from the beginning and some of it will kind of grow and, you know, certain twists and things will replace, might replace twists or developments that I’d originally kind of planned because I can see that they’ll work better. And then, of course, you’ve got, you know, with this book, where there was a big, big

structural edit, the first big edit was, you know, again made more changes to how things happen. it’s kind of, there are some things which do last all the way through, which are there from the sort of day one and end up in the book on, you know, day whatever. ⁓ But there are also lots of things that come to you along the way. So it’s a nice mix for me most of the time.

Rob Murphy (09:27)

And I see at the beginning of the book as well, you’ve got a sort of dedication to friends who you’ve shared, who you clearly have shared walks in the countryside with. Do your friends sort of slightly despair now that they know you, that they might end up inspiring some kind of twisty crime thriller?

TM Logan (09:46)

think they’re all kind of used to it by now. I think most of them are fairly confident that I wouldn’t show anybody in a bad light kind of thing. I think you obviously don’t want to have antagonists in the book that people can recognise as themselves. There are certain incidents and sometimes I’ll use someone’s name. There was a character in one my books called Paul Harmer who was a mate of mine. He a copper in the book and I just thought,

I’ll be nice to have him in there as a... He was a bit miffed he was only a detective constable. He said he should have been a sort of DCI or something by the time ended. But then, know, and the book also, you know, this book, The Weeknd, begins, you got this... The reason why she finds the bag anyway is because she almost loses her... She has this water bottle, it’s a Christmas present, she rolls down this rock and into this gap and that was a bit similar to something that did happen with Moomar out and it wasn’t... It was actually off the side of a...

Rob Murphy (10:25)

page.

TM Logan (10:44)

sort of cliff, this bottle and we were all saying, I’m not going to get it. he sort of, we didn’t, it was recovered in the end, but it was in quite a hair raising sort of spot, this bottle. And we thought, I just thought it’s not worth taking a hundred foot kind of dive off this cliff to rescue it. But it was recovered in the end. So, but that kind of features in one way at the beginning of the book.

Rob Murphy (11:04)

Great stuff. I mean, this is your, this is your 10th. Compare writing this with book, with earlier books. I mean, how is it? Does it get easier for you or does it get harder?

TM Logan (11:18)

think it doesn’t necessarily get easier. think it’s because the amount of work is quite similar. The amount of hours and months or whatever. I think it’s ⁓ probably bit less intimidating now than it was back with, know, with obviously with book one. Well, my book one was never published because it was kind of, you know, it’s still on my shelf over there because it’s never, it went out to publishers but wasn’t successful. So.

The one after that, again, is a bit different because I spent three years on it and there’s no deadline. kind of make it, polish it and improve it as much as you can. ⁓ But no, since then, I think it is a learning process and it becomes less intimidating. You still have some of the same stuff, some of the same imposter syndrome and some of the same, you always think every time, well, maybe this is the one where I’ll kind of, I’ll be found out or I’ll be, you

it’s not going to meet the standard of the other ones. there’s always an element of that. There’s always an element of existential crisis about 40,000 words, is, know, which is absolutely every single time happens. And I’ve now I’ve now realized that isn’t ⁓ something wrong with my brain. It’s just that’s just what happens to a lot of people. so, yeah, there are elements of it, which because you are now familiar with them, it becomes a bit less a bit a bit easier to deal with.

Rob Murphy (12:41)

Good stuff. So I’d like to take you back from here because you you’re obviously so successful and well known as a writer, but just take us back to the beginning. Was reading and reading crime something that you did very young or is it something that came to you later on? And I see you grew up in Berkshire, is that right?

TM Logan (12:59)

Yes, in Reading, yeah, I went to school down there and that’s where my parents still live. And yeah, my wife is actually from the Nottingham area. So we’ve ended up living here and I’ve lived here near Nottingham for more than half my life now. So I still haven’t got the accent, but you When you do, well, yeah, I do, but yeah, sometimes, but you’ve got to pick your moments for that. But no, was reading.

Rob Murphy (13:16)

You don’t call anyone duck.

you

TM Logan (13:28)

the same things that probably lots of people were reading as a boy. lots of CS Lewis and Roald Dahl and, ⁓ you know, Edith Blyton and all those kind of authors. And then probably my teens, lots of fantasy and horror and sci-fi, lots of Stephen King. And then probably not until really my 20s when I first started reading ⁓ thrillers or veering much more strongly towards thrillers. And, you know, one of the first ones I read is a

as I was kind of just starting my first sort of proper job was a book called A Simple Plan by Scott Smith, which is again, has kind of provided a bit of the inspiration for the weekend because it, you they open in similar ways with this kind of discovery in the middle of nowhere and the kind of the, you know, the question of how do you respond and what if you don’t do the sort of the exact right thing straight away kind of. So yeah, so that when I just.

Rob Murphy (14:02)

yeah.

TM Logan (14:25)

Yeah, they often moved into journalism after uni and kind of went from there, really.

Rob Murphy (14:33)

Yeah, so tell us about your journal. I mean, did you know growing up that you wanted to write or did you become a journalist because it was a way to write or did you want to be a journalist because you want to be a journalist?

TM Logan (14:44)

I think I had a really vague idea as a teenager probably that I wanted to, mean English was the only thing I could really, I felt comfortable doing at school. felt like I could, I wasn’t really good at maths or science or kind of, my dad was ⁓ a lecturer in economics and I kind of, knew that wasn’t really for me. ⁓ And so I kind of, I sort of gravitated towards it and I think I had a vague idea that I would, if I was a writer.

one day I would maybe write a book, certainly the sort of stepping stone towards that I think was journalism. I kind of, yeah, I went into journalism and I had a sort of three year kind of bit of a hiccup at the beginning when I worked in PR. And then I kind of realized that journalism was really where I wanted to go. So I went to work at the Nottingham Post, Nottingham Evening Post as it was called then, and then on to work at the Mail in London for three years after that.

But yeah, was useful, I think, in lots of ways. obviously, you’ve got the discipline of writing and having a blank page and all those things. But it’s also useful, I think, because you get used to having your work edited. And that is a kind of a, you just get it into your head that, yes, you put these words down, and yes, you spend all day doing it. But yes, there is someone in the sub-editors section who will.

Rob Murphy (15:55)

Yeah.

TM Logan (16:08)

make some changes and improve it and tighten it and make it sharper and better and punchier. Which has obviously similarities to the editing process for books.

Rob Murphy (16:17)

Do you still have in your head, because I do, because I was a journalist on newspapers at similar time to you, the things that the sub-editors were telling you, like it’s register office, not registry office, or all these kind of little things they’re so good at picking up on. Or their little turns of phrase that maybe you think, that’s a bit newspaper-y. Would people really say that? Did you get any advice from other journalists growing up at that early stage about writing?

TM Logan (16:48)

I I went to Cardiff School of Journalism before I was actually working. one of the, think, if you remember these little fragments, which are kind of, there’s a guy there, I think he was a Welsh guy. He was very, very experienced journalist and turned teacher. And he used to say he wanted our copy to be tight and bright. And that was all I can kind of, in his Welsh accent, I’m not gonna try and do it, because I’ll probably, he won’t do it very well, but yeah, tight and bright. And he would say,

what you would hear from any any journalism school, is, he’d say, well, why have you got your most interesting fact in sort of the ninth paragraph here? Why is this not right at the top of the story? And so, and that kind of drums it into you to say, you you want to try and grab someone right from the beginning, grab them right from the first line, from the first ⁓ paragraph, rather than sort of burying it way, down, down low. And that obviously is something that’s true.

drummed into all journalists, think. ⁓ it can serve, certainly for thrillers, think it can serve you quite well to remember that. Because you want to have, you’re competing with so much other media and so many other interesting things people could be doing that you need to try and grab them as early as you can.

Rob Murphy (18:04)

Well,

you’ve definitely done that in the weekend because it all starts off, it all kicks off within the first chapter and boom, off we go. It’s fantastic. It’s really great. I had my journalism training at Sheffield and I had an ex Nottingham Evening Post reporter teaching me and he didn’t go tight and bright. I had Crispin Crackling. ⁓

TM Logan (18:25)

I reckon it’s probably, that’s probably similar kind of advice. Crisp and crackly, that sounds like a chicken.

Rob Murphy (18:29)

It does rather, yeah. And your time in Nottingham, I guess you, I know you did some education work, perhaps maybe later on, but did you do any crime reporting at all? Did you go to the magistrates court or crime or go to crime scenes? And what thoughts did you have about that kind of world?

TM Logan (18:49)

Yeah, we would have when you’re on the general staff back when I was there, probably in the late 90s, there would be there was a I’m not sure exactly how many were on the roster. There’s something around about 30 journalists, 30 reporters on the rotor. And so it was a big daily paper. obviously, I think, sadly, it’s probably the numbers are kind of a shadow of that now. But but yeah, you would get every every week, you’d be every day you’d ⁓ be rostered to do either the coroner’s court or magistrate’s court or crown court or

it could be a county council or city council or any number of different things. So you would get a real, really great mix of different experience. And there was a obviously dedicated court reporter who would do it every day. But obviously there’s lots of of courtrooms in Nottingham that needed to be covered. And I think that was probably my first taste, I guess, a real crime, I suppose, in terms of in a professional context. And I don’t think I covered any

because obviously there were really big cases that be covered by the senior reporters or by the court reporter, but there was certainly quite a few cases that sort of passed through Nottingham at the time when I was working there and I...

know, this education specialism came up and I thought I quite liked the idea of that. think probably in a personal perspective, I’d just got married and my daughter had been born and I was thinking probably going to be a little bit easier if I’ve got a bit more predictability ⁓ rather than, you know, running around door knocking people at 10 o’clock at night and stuff.

Yeah, was, it was a, but it was a really good, it was a really good kind of training and introduction to, to journalism and kind of writing more generally, I think.

Rob Murphy (20:29)

And from there, you said you moved down to the Daily Mail. what when you I mean, that must be quite an imposing ⁓ newsroom to walk into or was it?

TM Logan (20:41)

Yeah, I I wrote, had this, again, I had this sort of vague idea that I wanted to see if I could work on a national paper. And so I wrote to six asking for shifts, you know, it’s obviously, as you know, that’s how, they’re still works that way, but you kind of just, they either write back or they don’t. And the mail wrote back and said, come down for a week. We’ll try you out and we’ll pay you, you get paid 86 pound a day, whatever, back then. And, and then after that, they said, yeah, we’ll give you some shifts. We come, come back and you can do maybe four or five shifts a week.

And it was a very, it’s ⁓ a change from the, I mean, it’s, you in some ways it’s similar, obviously it’s a newsroom environment, but it was very, very, it’s a tough place to work. was quite a, how do I say this without, ⁓ yeah, it’s a very demanding place to work and there’s no very, very uncompromising kind of, ⁓ yeah.

Rob Murphy (21:34)

News desk.

TM Logan (21:36)

Yeah, so there was no, there’d often be that, you know, I’d be driving in, I lived in High Wycombe, because it was kind of as close as we could afford to live, driving in in the morning, and you always kind of dread that phone call driving down the ⁓ A40 into London, your phone call from my newsletter saying, you know, Telegraph have got this, Times have got this, why haven’t we got this? And you got this kind of like, before you’d even got to work, you’re kind of getting, getting a very severe dressing down. And it wasn’t, it was obviously not as polite as the way I’ve done it. But ⁓ yeah.

Yeah, it was a tough place to work, it was a good training ground and a good place to live.

Rob Murphy (22:12)

And in terms of using that as source material for what you write now, has it influenced some of the scenes maybe you might write that you’ve been into places, you’ve been into rooms, you’ve been into situations that if you hadn’t been a journalist, maybe you wouldn’t have ever been?

TM Logan (22:33)

Yeah, I mean, think that there are certainly I have quite a few journalists in my books. I’ve never had one as a kind of a main character, but they’re often popping up. And there was one in the book called Trust Me, who was a male journalist who kind of comes along and plays a quite a key role. ⁓ But I think that I mean, the one of the biggest kind of things I took from it on not unfortunately, but that first book I wrote when I when I finished at the mail, and we came back to Nottingham, the next book I wrote, which took six or seven years, had a

sort of brought in lots of the elements that I had written about because I’d been a science reporter for most of the time at the Mail and I so I brought in lots of the kind of strands and stories and things that I’d written about at the Mail into that book and I think maybe ultimately because it wasn’t successful because it wasn’t picked up by any publishers I don’t think that was a waste I mean I think it was obviously pretty crushing at the time when you have that first book that’s rejected but

Lots of my experiences from the day job at the Mail went into that book and are kind of still sitting there, I suppose, on my shelf. ⁓ yeah, just, there’s loads of luck, there’s tons of luck, certainly with the debut when you submit. And it was just bad luck, think, partly that I didn’t manage anything with that first book.

Rob Murphy (23:50)

So before we get to your debut, you finished the mail after how many years and then you moved back to Nottingham to work at the university, is that right?

TM Logan (23:58)

Yeah, only three years at the mail, so...

Rob Murphy (24:01)

That long?

mean mean that’s... That puts heads in your chest, doesn’t it? That’s a long...

TM Logan (24:07)

I think it’s like dog years, so it feels like 15 years or cat years or whatever. yeah, again, and so we’d had a second child, our son Tom at that point and living out of town again, I just kind of had not really realised how difficult it would be. so yeah, we came back to Nottingham in 2004 and I went to work at the...

at the University of Nottingham as a press officer, kind of jumping the fence and dealing with media instead of actually, but still lots of writing and lots of writing about the research. it was quite a culture shock again, because I remember the first time I got given a press release to write, said to my boss, said, OK, what time do you need this? When do you need this? And he’s like, I mean, next week will be fine. And I’m like, what? No, I assumed he was going to say I need it by 5 o’clock. It was a lot longer deadlines.

Rob Murphy (25:01)

And you started, as I understand it, you started writing the book that you mentioned there that hasn’t been published at that time. ⁓ Why write? What was it?

TM Logan (25:14)

I think it was, again, was one of those, it had been kind of bubbling around in my head and I had done some evening classes in my 20s, sort of creative writing evening classes. And then I’d sort of kind of put that to one side and forgotten about it. And then you kind of, yeah, and then you obviously got married and you have, get, our daughter came along and the thing, you just sort of forget, I think, sometimes you kind of just forget or it just gets parked. And then one day you actually, you’re doing something, you suddenly think,

never actually did that thing. never tried, I’ve never actually tried to do that thing that I thought about all those years ago to do. And so I just thought now, why don’t I just, now I’ve got a bit more control over my day and obviously not driving into London getting shouted at by the news desk every day. I, you know, I’ve got a bit more of a routine, a regular life and I can make, I can find 45 minutes or an hour every day probably after the kids have gone to bed or weekends and.

and see if I can do this. And I’d obviously been reading lots of books and reading all about, you know, other authors and how they worked and I’d maintained that sort of fascination, think, the idea that I would try one day and I just sort of finally realized that if I’m going to do it, I just need to make it something you do every day. it did then, you know, add a little

sort of tick sheet every day and I’d write down how many words I’ve written. Sometimes it might only be a couple of hundred or three hundred or less. ⁓ But I thought if I just keep on going, eventually I’ll have enough to fill a

Rob Murphy (26:43)

book.

TM Logan (26:50)

think this is what I love then and what I still love now. think it’s what I was reading, the bulk, the vast bulk of what I was reading. You know, I do read some other stuff. I read some non-fiction. I read some historical as well, but the vast majority of what I read and probably what I watch as well on TV and things is in the kind of crime thriller ⁓ genre. I just gravitated towards that. yeah, I think, so I always say to people,

who are looking for advice on if they want to start writing, I just say I think you should do, you know, do what you love, do what you love, write the book you want to read yourself. And that’s normally what I’m doing. And I want to write it in a way that I would like ⁓ to read the sort of books I like to read and in the style I like to read them. So I think it’s, I think it becomes quite obvious quite quickly if you’re trying to write for the market or write for a trend or write for a, you know, for someone else, I think you got to, you got to

I always try and write the book I would like to read myself. that was one of the big drivers for me to go into crime and thriller.

Rob Murphy (27:55)

And The Weeknd is your 10th book, but you actually got your first book out in 2017. Lies. So ⁓ what was that like to suddenly see this thing that had been something of a dream, was something you worked so hard for to actually not just be realised, but it was a hit. It was a, you you sold, I think, is it half a million copies of that? That’s incredible.

TM Logan (28:17)

since then, since it came out. Yeah, so it was, I remember talking to my editor before it came out, when you start, when you’re a debut, obviously you have no frame of reference. You have no idea, you know, what is a success? And you think, well, there’s a Sunday Times top 10, but then obviously that was, I think I’ve realized that was, you know, out of reach for, certainly for me. And I said to my editor, what’s a success? What’s a good outcome? And I think he said something like, well, if it can sell, you know,

30,000, 40,000 copies, that’ll be a decent start, that’ll be a good start. And so I didn’t really have any expectation of how it went. And obviously things happened when it was released that year and it got some really nice word of mouth from people. got lots of, got some traction on social media, I think. it was, there’s some really good marketing from my publisher and...

it was priced quite quite competitively so and again it was it was luck there was a lot of luck involved and because no one really predicted i didn’t predict no one no one knew it was gonna it ended up as like the third best-selling kindle book of of 2017 and it’s just a complete you know no one can predict this stuff it’s just kind of it just happens or it doesn’t

Rob Murphy (29:25)

Yeah,

I know, but you’ve said luck. I don’t agree with that at all, actually, because word of mouth success is never luck. It’s good. It’s got to be good to have that reference, to have other people referring it to each other. Sure, there might be some little luck along the way, but the actual core product has got to be really good for it to be that successful, I’d say.

TM Logan (29:45)

Yeah, I suppose. mean, although I still feel like there are, you still do come across books that you kind of read them or listen to them and you’re just blown away and then you think, well, why don’t more people know about that? And it’s kind of, I don’t know. And I think it’s maybe not luck, but I think it’s some elements around timing and around ⁓ what else is out there. And, you know, it’s just things like that. So I agree with you that think that if people are going to recommend to their friends, then it needs to be, ⁓ it needs to have, you know, some, some

some good things about it, I suppose.

Rob Murphy (30:17)

Well,

you’ve had, I mean, you’ve written obviously nine further since then. You’ve had two adaptations as well, The Holiday with Joe Halfpenny and The Catch with Jason Watkins as well. Can you just talk us through what it was like getting those brought to the screen?

TM Logan (30:34)

Well, it was one of those things where I had been told by an author friend before my book, my first book even came out, she had already been published and she said, you know, lots of loads and loads of books get optioned, tons of books get optioned and it’s all very nice. But the truth is hardly any of them ever get made. And she was

And I was like, okay, they’ll send you a small amount of money and it’s all very nice and you can just treat that as a win and don’t have any expectations. So I didn’t have any expectations, I think, from that. And the first two books, Lies in 29 Seconds, been ⁓ optioned and hadn’t really quite gone anywhere. And the holiday was optioned. I think it came out in summer 2019 and it was optioned at some point after that and it got the green light in December.

2020, so it’s like a year and a half-ish to the green light. And so I was kind of shocked, apart from more than anything else, kind of surprised that it actually had reached that point, especially because was, obviously, you know, the pandemic was going on, lockdown, all those things. ⁓ so, yeah, was just a complete kind of surprise, I think. And it was amazing to see when I first saw the trailers.

It obviously came out in 2022 and I remember the first scene, the TV trailers and ⁓ Jill half peeing in the car with her husband and the kids in the back and thinking, you know, that was, it was quite a surreal moment because you literally obviously that, that, that scene, that story starts off as a daydream.

Rob Murphy (32:05)

Yeah, it’s just in your mind, isn’t it?

TM Logan (32:07)

It’s something

that pops into your head when you’re washing up or when you’re driving somewhere. And then for it to actually become a four-part drama was a complete... I mean, it’s sort of bit of a dream come true as well, because it’s obviously a great way of reaching lots of new people and it’s a nice way of telling the story in a different way, in a different medium. ⁓ Yeah, then the same company then had optioned The Catch, which was my fourth book, and they... ⁓

did the same the following year. So it was kind of, and I was actually able to go out to the set for that one to Dublin to watch some film.

Rob Murphy (32:44)

Yeah, and what’s it like walking around that? You know, all these people here, I know of course the production company have put it all together, but going back to what we said a second ago, you know, it all generated up there between your ears and then none of that would have been there had it not been for you and that initial work.

TM Logan (33:06)

Yeah, I mean, had this thought. So for the catch, we had one day on set near Dublin. We flew over there, me and my wife got a taxi out to the where they were filming on a little key side because it’s obviously set in the TV show. He’s a fisherman in the book. He’s not. But so we drove it, got out of the taxi, walked up this kind of towards the set. there was I was just like, what was people doing? it was because it was like there was dozens and dozens and dozens of people. And there was tons of them all sitting down, all kind of things going off and lighting and

because they’re working on quite a fast schedule. they’re kind of filming. We saw them film about, I don’t know, four or three or four scenes in the course of a day. So I think it’s quite a lot. but yeah, this is so much activity and you just think, my God, all these people are here. This is kind of my fault that they’re all kind of here. then, you know, at some point my wife was chatting to the director and then she then tried to get me a little cameo role in the back of the scene where they discovered this body by the... ⁓

in the bay and it ended up getting cut but my little...

Rob Murphy (34:09)

Look,

the next one.

TM Logan (34:12)

my little moment and ⁓ yeah, I mean, I was, was kind of wearing the wrong clothes because there were all these guys wearing kind of like fisherman’s outfits and I was there in my sort of street clothes. So I probably looked a bit incongruous, but either that or my acting wasn’t, wasn’t my surprise face wasn’t up to much. don’t know.

Rob Murphy (34:27)

So you know ⁓ you’ve written 10 books as we know. Where do you get the inspiration from? Have there been any true crimes or criminals or cases that have guided you to any of those stories?

TM Logan (34:47)

Yeah, I mean, that’s the one that really springs to mind is, I mean, there are more ways I’m a quite a lot. I’m not consuming true crime stuff all the time. But I do listen to quite a lot of the podcasts and just listen to listen to one now, which is kind of mind boggling, which is this case of this American woman who in Utah who killed her husband and wrote a book about coping with grief after your

Corey, Corey Richins, I think his name was anyway, she’s four years after he died, she’s finally been convicted anyway. But for to the mother was a book for me that is a story about woman who’s wrongfully convicted of killing her husband. And part of the spark for that part of the inspiration came from I was looking around for ideas a few years ago, and I watched was a 25th anniversary of of the Louise Woodward case. And

Rob Murphy (35:37)

⁓ yes, yeah, don’t any.

TM Logan (35:39)

and from the 90s and we had, my wife and I had watched, that was at a time when that was on court TV and it was all available, you can watch it here and we’d watched the OJ Simpson trial, which I think was a year or two before that and it was still quite a novelty. And I remembered watching that trial and then I watched the sort of anniversary documentary of it and it kind of reminded me of the spectacle of her being in court, this 19 year old British woman in court.

⁓ and the things that have been sort said about her and the things the way the media had treated her and the contrast between the British media and the American media and all these things that were said about, you know, is she emotional enough or is she too emotional? Is she crying, is the crime real? it not, is it fake? Is she too ice cold? Is she too, you know, all these things which were kind of, and it just reminded me of all the kind of stuff which was said about her, which would probably never have been said about a male defendant. And I thought,

something in that. And so I want, then I thought, I want to start a book, you know, my next book in a similar way. And the story really is nothing, you know, the stories don’t really have any similarity apart from that. The mother is a very different story to her case. But it was just that idea of this crime, which is predominantly committed by men. don’t know what the proportions are of murder, probably 90 plus percent, I would imagine, of murders are committed by men. to have a woman on the stand will be

⁓ quite striking image and that’s sort of very early on in the book. So that was kind of an inspiration for the mother and 29 Seconds, my second book, that also drew on some of the things I had, that’s really about people in powerful positions exploiting their power and ⁓ abusing and sort of exploiting people below them in the hierarchy and that would been...

there have been lots and lots of stories about this happening in higher education when I was working at the University of Nottingham, not where I was working, but in other places. you kind of read, I remember reading in The Guardian about all the NDAs that have been signed at certain places and the way that young female researchers had kind of in one place and sort of developed this unwritten list of rules with each other for how you had to deal with certain male academics, certain male professors, because they were, you know,

Predators basically.

Rob Murphy (38:02)

Okay. And how, when it comes to writing, how, is it something that’s always on with you? Is it something that you do year round? Is it something that you have to do to be happy? you one of the people who has to work Christmas day and your birthday and New Year’s day as well? Or is it, are you able to sort of take a step back and take a break?

TM Logan (38:26)

It is most of the year. it’s most of the first half of the year where I am now is first drafting and that’s sort of January to the end of May. And then there’ll be a short break in June when my editor is working on that draft. then probably end of June, early July until sort of late in the autumn, I’m going back and forth with her on different edits and at least three major edits on that book. And then there’ll be another kind of hiatus around.

November, December, when that’s sort of done and that’s sort of thinking time. So I’m not writing all the time. Lots of it is editing, lots of it is rewriting. But I don’t tend to write on New Year’s Day, no, or Christmas Day. But there’s always kind of, you know, you’re always thinking about ideas and thinking about picking things up and thinking about, you know, I was making notes out of notebook or notes on my phone of things you hear and things you think might make a, you know,

line or a chapter or even a whole whole story for the next book so you’re always kind of thinking about the next book.

Rob Murphy (39:29)

your books,

I understand they’re all standalones aren’t they? You haven’t gone down ⁓ a series but is there a common theme between them? Is there something that you think, well it’s TM Logan but it’s got to have this.

TM Logan (39:41)

mean, there are lots of twists. I most of them are kind of family based, I suppose. There are quite strong element of relationships and ⁓ often family relationships or sometimes friendships. So it’s kind of, as you mentioned before, they’re all quite relatable. They’re all quite normal people down to earth people. There’s no, doesn’t tend to really be lots of kind of serial killers running around or...

Not to say I don’t like Syracanists, but I like reading about them. my books are all tend to be people you might know who live next door to you or live across the street or they’re kind of pretty regular people. But yeah, there’s always lots of twists, there’s always a quite fast pace, I think. I always want to, I always hope that I can sort of surprise people with every book.

Rob Murphy (40:32)

Yeah, you’ve really done that with The Weeknd and it really is. can’t recommend this book enough. It’s such a page turner, so easy to read. It’s just a... of... I romped through it, if that’s the right word. Yeah, it’s an absolute joy to read. Who out there is doing it, do you think, at the minute? Who are the best writers around? Who do you look to and think, that’s a high bar.

TM Logan (41:00)

I mean, one of the person I’ve got most books off on my shelf is Michael Connolly. Obviously he’s an absolute master and has been around for a long time. I’ve got lots of Harlan Coban. really like, in terms of British authors, really like Louise Candlish. I don’t think I’ve read a single one of hers that I didn’t think was great. ⁓

I just read one which is coming out very soon by Ruth Mancini called The Stranger on the Stairs and she is a barrister or a solicitor and brings all of that kind of legal acumen and expertise into this into a thriller and it’s brilliant. She had one a couple of years ago called The Woman on the Ledge which also was brilliant. So that she seems to be, she’s really good. I’m trying to think who else is up there on the shelf.

Rob Murphy (41:49)

There’s a there.

TM Logan (41:50)

SA Cosby he’s he’s he’s an absolute Joe Callahan yeah ⁓

Yeah, I saw you had Anna Matola on recently and I really, really, I think I read Notes on a Drowning last year and ⁓ I really, really enjoyed that as well. I again, really funny, really well informed on the legal side and quite fast paced. was, yeah, really, really, really, really enjoyed that as well.

Rob Murphy (42:18)

She’s terrific and that is also a terrific episode as well. And what would you say to people who look to you now as a figure of authority? You’ve sold, is it three million books, I think? ⁓ 10 published books. What advice would you give to people coming through? What do you need to make it? And lots of people would be tempted to say luck. But ⁓ apart from...

that what things can you control that you can do?

TM Logan (42:50)

I tried to, so I did it because the 10th book was coming out. I tried to, I did a little series on ⁓ Instagram and the run up to it about 10 things I’ve kind of learned over the last 10 years. And one of those was about, I was trying to work out how to sort of articulate this. And I think in the end I said, you need to be two things at the same time. You need to be stubborn enough to keep going and to carry on and not give up. And also humble enough to be able to learn and adapt and

Rob Murphy (42:59)

true.

TM Logan (43:18)

take criticism and take things on board and improve. that and then you think you think being stubborn and humble almost a kind of two opposing forces and in some ways they are but you kind of like riding two horses at the same time because you know being stubborn I mean you’ve got to be kind of quite pigheaded about it about you know yes you wrote this book for six years and then no one wanted it that you’ve got to get on back on the horse and go again sort of thing so but you’ve also got to be able to listen to people and

read a and a brilliant book and think in your head why is this so good, why is this character so good, why is this premise so compelling, what can I learn from that? So I’m always trying to sort of improve and trying to learn. and obviously you know and the other advice is kind of what you’d hear from anybody which is you know finish your draft.

don’t give up and start the next thing. There will always be a shiny object will come along and you want to jump on that halfway through what you’re writing. Don’t do that. Finish what you’re doing. And then you can kind of look at the whole thing in its entirety. so yeah, I think it’s you know, the other thing is everybody has sort of their own method in their own way. And the more you hear, the more I hear about other authors, the more kind of variations you hear about how they do their how they do it, how they got there. So, so yeah, it’s

I can sort of tell people how I do it, but that wouldn’t necessarily be the right way for them to do it.

Rob Murphy (44:45)

The way you’ve done it, particularly with this book, The Weeknd is absolutely extraordinary. So thank you so much for writing it. I thoroughly enjoyed it. I can’t recommend it enough. And thanks so much for your time today, Tim. Thank you. really appreciate it. Thank you, Tim. That’s brilliant. Can I just double check that that recorded? This is the bit that I nervous at.

TM Logan (44:56)

Thank you. Thanks for having me.

Val McDermid, thank you so much for being on Behind the crimes. And this is an honour because this is your writing time, isn’t it? You write between January and April. So. So have you actually managed to get any words down today so far? And how’s how’s it looking?

00:00:14:04 - 00:00:23:21

Val McDermid

Oh, no. It’s a meeting on the phone with somebody. And then I had some of them do some revision work on something else. So I’m not actually written any fresh words today. That will come later.

00:00:23:24 - 00:00:34:13

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Rob Murphy

When you try to write, do you have any sort of set number of words or set number of hours that you like to put in when you’re actually starting a first draft, or is it?

00:00:34:14 - 00:00:49:24

Val McDermid

No, I don’t have, any fixed rituals like that. I don’t I don’t say I’ve got to write a thousand words today or I’ve got to work for six hours today. I mean, like, I usually start work in about ten in the morning, ten, 11 in the morning. And then when I work and short chunks of like 20, 25 minutes.

00:00:50:01 - 00:01:05:11

Val McDermid

So I do a bit of writing and then I go and make a cup of coffee, go from you walk at the post office, have a conversation with someone, and then come back to it’s under the day progresses in these sort of 20 minute bursts until I get to the point where I think this is just not working anymore.

00:01:05:11 - 00:01:08:05

Val McDermid

That’s not coming. So I’ll stop.

00:01:08:07 - 00:01:24:01

Rob Murphy

And, well, you’ve been highly successful with your system over the last nearly 40 years. Yeah, incredible isn’t it? And I thoroughly enjoyed reading Silent Bones, which is the latest. It’s the eighth, isn’t it, as a Karen Pirie.

00:01:24:03 - 00:01:24:21

Val McDermid

Yes.

00:01:24:23 - 00:01:43:04

Rob Murphy

Yes. And it’s incredible, isn’t it? You know, you’ve got a body found in a motorway, you’ve got high, you know, elites of men, male only book clubs in Edinburgh. You’ve got an unsolved, mysterious death. You’ve got trips to Germany and everything. Just tell us a bit about where the idea came from.

00:01:43:06 - 00:01:59:07

Val McDermid

From those who came to me in a couple of bits. Really. The first bit was, I’m a part of the Scottish team on Roman Britain quiz. So once a year we get together with all the other teams, and we spend 2 or 3 days in a country house hotel, and we record all the episodes in London.

00:01:59:13 - 00:02:24:20

Val McDermid

So over the years, we got to know each other quite well. And one of the people that I’m very fond of is Stephen, who is the he’s head of the. So let me get this right. Is head of the conservatoire in Birmingham. And he, he was he was telling us about his book club, which has 12 members only, and it’s been going for since the 18th century, I think.

00:02:24:22 - 00:02:45:09

Val McDermid

And there’s a special treat there. They cut up a pineapple. That’s the final ritual as they cut up a pineapple. And he said this. I thought this was quite amusing because Stephen was talking about all these guys from different walks of life, but they only have 12 members. So you have to wait for someone to move or die or give up before you can have a chance of being elected to this.

00:02:45:13 - 00:02:59:01

Val McDermid

I just thought it was interesting and different from what most book clubs are like. And so I thought I used that as a jumping off point for part of the story. And I will say absolutely that no one in Stephen’s book club is going around murdering people.

00:02:59:06 - 00:03:04:05

Rob Murphy

Absolutely no one, quite a few get it in this book, don’t they? There’s quite a quite a few.

00:03:04:07 - 00:03:29:09

Val McDermid

Yeah. What is the place? And the, the, the, the other sort of half of the story, if you like, was a wanted to write something that that was loosely tied into the Scottish referendum for 2014. And so I thought that I could do something that was loosely tied into that, that wasn’t directly tied into political parties or individuals, around the whole referendum thing.

00:03:29:11 - 00:03:38:15

Val McDermid

And so I came up with the idea for the second plot, which is, again, this a book about power and, exploitation.

00:03:38:17 - 00:03:59:19

Rob Murphy

Yes. And there are some. Absolutely. I mean, it’s got all the things you would expect from a Val McDermid, but you’ve got, you know, so many spinning plates. Lots of a plots, B plot, C plots, great characters. It’s, you know, and it’s very fast paced. But what I love so much, I love some of the slow moments as well.

00:03:59:19 - 00:04:19:18

Rob Murphy

You’ve got some great scenes when, Steve Nimmo, Nemo’s family, is been sort of told of him being discovered or when the victim of a historic sexual assault is being talked to. And that sort of slow, just sit in the moment. Writing was beautiful. I thought.

00:04:19:20 - 00:04:20:19

Val McDermid

Okay.

00:04:20:21 - 00:04:27:18

Rob Murphy

Well, how do you go about changing the pace and do all your works have to do that?

00:04:27:20 - 00:04:46:15

Val McDermid

But I don’t really think about it, to be perfectly honest. I go into a scene knowing what feel I want to have from it, and how I, how I get there. I don’t spend a lot of time musing about the technicalities of how I do it. I think, no, I’ve been doing this for almost 40 years.

00:04:46:15 - 00:05:05:16

Val McDermid

But more than that, if you ever got published, and I guess I’ve got some of the basic elements of how you write a book like this down. I don’t have to think to overthink too much about how I structure it. So you you talk a lot about lots and lots of sleepless. I don’t think about it in those terms.

00:05:05:18 - 00:05:23:06

Val McDermid

I write a tell each story in the book, and there’s always more than one story, because in any investigation, there are always periods where you have to hang about and wait for the right person to turn up so you can speak to them, or you’ve got to wait for someone to, to to acknowledge the fact that they’re going to speak to you.

00:05:23:08 - 00:05:45:22

Val McDermid

And sometimes things just take some things, just take a certain length of time, for example, the forensic side of things, you know, they take a certain length of time to do these tests. And so you can have something going on for the boring bits of going on. So, it’s, it’s I think I absorbed this almost, by osmosis when I started reading Agatha Christie.

00:05:45:24 - 00:06:06:00

Val McDermid

So I was about nine years old, and I read The Vicarage, and that was a perfect example of an overarching story, which is, come on, brother, was murder, which is not spoilers. That happens in the first chapter. But then there’s lots of there’s 4 or 5 other subplots. Go on, and they’ll help set up development, pay off that different, different pieces.

00:06:06:02 - 00:06:23:09

Val McDermid

So whenever you come to the end of the chapter, you’re ready to find out what happens next. But what happens next is not the so the what happens next of this particular strand. So I guess I, I became really hooked on the murder of the victim because I didn’t understand why at the time, but I was reading it again and again.

00:06:23:11 - 00:06:31:17

Val McDermid

But what I think is, is this a perfect structure that tells lots of different stories, and that, for me was the story. And definitely.

00:06:31:19 - 00:06:44:12

Rob Murphy

And I’m going to come back to inspiration later on. I’m going to stay with Karen Perry because, I mean, she has been around with us now for more than 20 years, doesn’t she? She first appeared in 2003, in three wasn’t wasn’t it with the.

00:06:44:14 - 00:06:50:23

Val McDermid

Yeah she’s she hasn’t aged 20 of my universe of elastic.

00:06:51:00 - 00:06:53:04

Rob Murphy

She’s not drawing up her pension yet.

00:06:53:09 - 00:06:54:24

Val McDermid

No not yet, not yet.

00:06:55:01 - 00:07:15:10

Rob Murphy

But I 23 I think was a really exciting time for cold cases, wasn’t it? Because that was the time when lots of cold case units were being set up around the country. I’m down here in Bristol, in Avon and Somerset was setting up. There’s that exact time. And why did you want to write, about historic murders?

00:07:15:10 - 00:07:19:03

Rob Murphy

So about the cases that had been unsolved for decades.

00:07:19:05 - 00:07:54:00

Val McDermid

I just had a good idea for a story. So first came about, with with, I mean, first of all, I suppose was, was, this execution, which is standalone. And I was intrigued by this, this, this case, and how it’s going to turn out differently from how people thought it had turned out. I guess it’s quite interesting to look at a case through time because you’re dealing with the investigators now here in the present day, and they bring their techniques and their their understanding of the world to it, but they’re also looking at a world in many respects very different from this.

00:07:54:02 - 00:08:17:02

Val McDermid

You know, we talk about 2003 being a long time ago, and it isn’t terms of the technology, and it is in terms of policing, and it is in terms of what you can do and the assumptions you can make. So I think that, I’m interested in not just waiting in the moment, I’m interested in the way that things have a long tail, because a lot, you know, our lives have a long tail.

00:08:17:04 - 00:08:43:16

Val McDermid

Hopefully. And, you have the chance to go back and, explore your memories of a past period. This is the series I’m working on. The look I’m writing next is 1999, which is a third only Burns novel. So that was 79 and 89 and no. 99. And that allows me to sort of go back into my own experiences at that time and see what I could draw from them.

00:08:43:16 - 00:09:13:09

Val McDermid

Now, looking back at them, cannibalise my own anecdotes and other people’s anecdotes as well. But to take people back to that time, many readers will not remember that time because they were born, not the need for them to stop thinking about these things. And so I think it’s quite interesting for readers to to be taken back in time in terms of the events of the case, but sort of measuring that against how we do it now and what their lives are like now.

00:09:13:11 - 00:09:25:18

Rob Murphy

All that I know you begin to your research, do you what do you tend to write a book first and then work out what research you need? Or do you tend to research first and then think you can take a bit of this? Or is it a blend of the two?

00:09:25:20 - 00:09:50:13

Val McDermid

It’s a blend of the those at the beginning. You the things you need to know before you can start. You know, when I was, I talked about a book called Last Temptation, which is Tony Hill and Kyle Jordan novel, which is set most on the waterways of Europe. So before I could even start to write that, I had to go and spend time in the rivers and canals of Europe and talking to barges and finding out how the lock system works and all those kind of things before I could start writing it.

00:09:50:15 - 00:10:04:12

Val McDermid

And then so there’s other things. The list was I was working on the book. I had to find out exactly how long it takes to drive from Berlin to Cologne. So the things that you say, the things you need to know before you can start, the things you don’t know, you need to know until you get there.

00:10:04:14 - 00:10:14:14

Val McDermid

And that’s sometimes slightly complicated because you need a particular expert. You don’t know anybody in that field. So you have to sufficient amounts to find someone to talk to.

00:10:14:16 - 00:10:25:21

Rob Murphy

And we’re talking with Karen Perry in cold cases. Are there any cold cases that you’ve heard about the read about that have inspired either Karen Perry or any other works, that you’ve written?

00:10:25:23 - 00:10:55:01

Val McDermid

No, really, I try not to rip things from the headlines, by and large, because, I’ve been a journalist for a long time. I understand that, sudden violent death causes all kinds of reverberations through the lives of people connected to the family the friends, workmates, the next door neighbour. Doesn’t matter how much spent time you spent talking to the people involved in the case, you know, you don’t know the whole story, and you have no idea if what you’re writing is going to

00:10:55:01 - 00:11:00:09

Val McDermid

generate a whole set of upset and memories.

00:11:00:09 - 00:11:17:07

Val McDermid

And you don’t, you know, you’re going to be inaccurate or not. And if the case still hasn’t been solved, you don’t know what’s being done behind the scenes. You don’t know who police or forensic scientists are working on behind the scenes. And for all you know, you could just drive in. It’s like a like a juggernaut. And throw an investigation.

00:11:17:09 - 00:11:37:23

Val McDermid

So a spanner in the works of an investigation. So I try not to to focus on real cases. I don’t rip things from the headlines, but obviously that I think the cases that are trends that, you understand, you hear about them, you read about them, you read around them, and sort of pluck out what you can use from that background.

00:11:38:19 - 00:12:01:07

Rob Murphy

So to, to take you back then, I mean, before, before you wrote crime, before you became Val McDermid, crime writer, you were Val McDermid, the schoolgirl and the student, the Oxford student was writing always on the cards. Was it always that Agatha Christie book or other books as well, that that, that made you think that you were going to be a writer?

00:12:01:09 - 00:12:19:08

Val McDermid

I used to read a lot of Houston when I was a child, read everything to get my hands on, but I used to read the Shelley School books, which is a series of books more than like 50 odd books written by Eleanor and Brent Dyer and set in a girls boarding school and in Switzerland and Austria at various times.

00:12:19:10 - 00:12:37:01

Val McDermid

And I just a devoured those books and I learned a lot from them. One of the things I learned from them is how to write proper series fiction, because just about let you read the Famous Five or something like that. And it doesn’t matter when you drop into that series, you don’t have to know anything that’s come before or when it comes off, though, because nothing actually changes.

00:12:37:07 - 00:12:39:18

Val McDermid

Everything takes place in the same symptom or somewhere.

00:12:39:24 - 00:12:42:11

Rob Murphy

Julian is always the same in the fingers.

00:12:42:13 - 00:13:04:05

Val McDermid

Exactly. And George is never going to grow up. But the Charlie School books, the next book covers a term or a year in the life of the school, and events have consequences. Sometimes several books later. And I thought this was interesting because you want to read the books to find out what happens next in a wider sense, rather than just the immediate context of that book.

00:13:04:07 - 00:13:20:18

Val McDermid

Borrowing them from the library made life very difficult because you could never get the next one in the series. That was book number 23. Then it would be number 47 in the book, too. So you had to do a lot of detective work to get your head round all of it. But one of the girls at the Chalet School grows up to be a writer.

00:13:20:20 - 00:13:37:00

Val McDermid

She writes girls school stories, which were not considered to be of any metal, but at the time was just what she did. And, I and one of the books, she gets a letter from her publisher on the letter from her publisher contains a cheque, and there was a moment of light going on in my head.

00:13:37:00 - 00:13:53:07

Val McDermid

Could she get paid for doing this? I could do that. I can tell lies. I can make up stories. And so from that point on, that was that was the only thing I ever wanted to be. And, you know, I hadn’t then had sort of the 20 years of being locked up by friends and family going, oh, yeah, you’re going to be a writer.

00:13:53:07 - 00:13:54:18

Val McDermid

Kosher.

00:13:54:20 - 00:13:56:21

Rob Murphy

Well, who’s laughing now? But,

00:13:56:23 - 00:14:08:02

Val McDermid

Well, yeah, but I mean, I grew up in a working class small town in Scotland, which wasn’t really sort of, background that most writers had in those days. These days, indeed.

00:14:08:04 - 00:14:13:12

Rob Murphy

Yes. And the library was important to you, wasn’t it? I think, yes. Is that right?

00:14:13:14 - 00:14:26:05

Val McDermid

Yeah. I mean, we lived opposite to the main library in Kirkcaldy, which is a really good library, very well stocked. And I was oh, that was pretty much my, my home from home every day after school and go and change my books. Yeah.

00:14:26:10 - 00:14:41:16

Rob Murphy

And you and you were fast tracked, weren’t you, through school. And then, you hold a, for want of a better phrase, a badge of honour. When you first, Scottish State school, student at Saint Hilda’s, is that right? Yes.

00:14:41:16 - 00:14:42:01

Val McDermid

That’s right.

00:14:42:01 - 00:14:47:08

Rob Murphy

Yeah, yeah. When did you discover that on on entry. Or is that something you found out later on in life?

00:14:47:10 - 00:15:02:17

Val McDermid

I’ve found. I did not know about it till I got there, but up till I went for my interview. Really? The principal said they’ve not formally taken anyone from the Scottish State School before. So both books I we started I mean, I was 16 and I was girls. Yeah.

00:15:02:19 - 00:15:16:09

Rob Murphy

And and when you, when you were at university, did that help you decide further that you might want to be, a writer? Because I guess people there go off into every sphere possible. They.

00:15:16:11 - 00:15:39:19

Val McDermid

Yeah. I mean, I wanted to be a writer, but I also understood that, people like me, people from my background was it was no money behind them, no safety net. You had to have a proper job to support you until you could actually start earning a living as a place of fiction. And so I, I went to them going to the career sphere, to in Oxford and Raleigh was really boring jobs.

00:15:39:21 - 00:16:04:04

Val McDermid

But, you know, 9 to 5 and essentially the same every day. I can’t do that. And, I spoke to the person on the journalism table and I thought, this is okay, I could do this because, you know, you don’t have to do the same story every day. You write different stories every day. And it’s it’s not 9 to 5, and it’s much less like to drive mud report also very, very low boredom threshold.

00:16:04:07 - 00:16:08:21

Val McDermid

Yes. You know, like I thought my husband was a shop. Just give me a break. Yeah.

00:16:08:23 - 00:16:11:14

Rob Murphy

So you, you train down here in the West Country in Devon?

00:16:11:16 - 00:16:17:14

Val McDermid

That’s right. Yeah, yeah. And plus and South Devon at times. And then there were some independent.

00:16:17:16 - 00:16:26:20

Rob Murphy

And with silent bones. I’m so pleased you’ve got a storyline involving shorthand. Thank you. Only there were more. Which did you do, Pitman or t line?

00:16:26:22 - 00:16:43:17

Val McDermid

T line, C line. T line. Teacher. The inimitable Mrs.. First, just to be asked to listen to the news being read by Angela Rippon because they speak at about 182 minutes. So it’s really good to practice on inimitable.

00:16:43:17 - 00:16:52:14

Rob Murphy

I think every short it comes with the territory, isn’t it? With every. My shorthand teacher was inimitable. And did you get your hundred boxes?

00:16:52:16 - 00:16:53:16

Val McDermid

I got 120.

00:16:53:17 - 00:16:56:16

Rob Murphy

You got 120 words a minute. That is outrageous.

00:16:56:18 - 00:17:00:08

Val McDermid

The training scheme. You had to 120.

00:17:00:10 - 00:17:08:13

Rob Murphy

I was fifth time to get 100. I, I yeah, I just couldn’t get. Did you go to sleep with sort t line outlines going round in your head, in your mind.

00:17:08:13 - 00:17:31:04

Val McDermid

No, no. Fortunately that did not keep me awake at night. But my t line outlines were quite idiosyncratic. And when I did the 120 exam, person who was looking at this from the, wrote or I say contacted, my shorthand teacher said, is this actually her shorthand? And Mrs. First had to say yes. Yes, only she can read it, but it’s her shorthand.

00:17:31:08 - 00:17:48:19

Rob Murphy

Yeah. I was laughing away when I was reading that in the book about t line. And so that’s just something maybe you and I and about thousands of other people will get this stuff anyway. But so from there, you, you went on to work, for the national newspapers up in the north. The north of England didn’t, it was.

00:17:49:00 - 00:17:53:18

Val McDermid

Just a couple of years in Scotland. First, I worked for the Daily Record in Glasgow, and then I moved down to Manchester.

00:17:53:23 - 00:18:00:20

Rob Murphy

Can you just describe what those times were like? Just plop us in that world? This was, 1970s.

00:18:00:22 - 00:18:24:08

Val McDermid

Yeah. Well, the late 70s, early 80s onwards. I quit in 91. But so it was, it was a, it was a man’s world. Yeah. You know, I mean, when I worked on the records that only three women news reporters, the whole team, but I went to Manchester newspapers, employed 160 journalists, of whom three were women.

00:18:24:10 - 00:18:41:00

Val McDermid

Wow. One on each type of one for the member, one for the sentimental, one for the Sunday people. Right. I, I was at one point I was bothered as the chaplain, the shop steward, basically for the journalists. One of my colleagues was leaving, so I knew we had a job vacancy coming up. Because we were a Sunday paper.

00:18:41:00 - 00:18:57:00

Val McDermid

On Saturdays, we would stuff up like a daily paper. So it was. You employ a lot of what we called Saturday casuals. And there were people who mostly worked for other papers in the region. Under one particular. She’d been doing lots shifts for us on Saturdays, and she would also be punting stories to us during the week. And she was really good.

00:18:57:02 - 00:19:15:11

Val McDermid

Went and spoke to the editor. I said, you know, we’ve got this job coming up. I think we should offer it to this young woman who comes in for us on the Saturdays. And, you know, she’s really good self-starter. And he looked at me with a sort of blank expression and said, but we’ve already got a woman.

00:19:15:13 - 00:19:18:22

Rob Murphy

It’s outrageous, isn’t it? It’s outrageous.

00:19:18:24 - 00:19:24:20

Val McDermid

I mean, I tell us people just don’t believe me. As if this was the Dark Ages. It was about 1985.

00:19:24:22 - 00:19:29:01

Rob Murphy

Yeah. I mean, it was 40 years ago. But it’s a generational shift, isn’t it?

00:19:29:01 - 00:19:29:18

Val McDermid

Yeah, yeah.

00:19:29:23 - 00:19:36:17

Rob Murphy

A generational shift you worked up in, you was the, bureau chief. What, you in the north of England?

00:19:36:18 - 00:19:36:24

Val McDermid

Yeah.

00:19:36:24 - 00:19:53:23

Rob Murphy

Eventually here. And did any. And what? This is a crime podcast. What crimes did you come across there? And just what were your thoughts? How did you approach dealing with families, courts, police?

00:19:54:00 - 00:20:20:03

Val McDermid

Well, I was working on a Sunday paper by that stage. So it’s a very different job from being a daily paper reporter. So you say you go out on a job and the last thing you want is to see another journalist, because that means it’s not an exclusive anymore. But we did cover right from the early 80s, so I can remember a bunch of us standing and, one of my colleagues kitchens in Leeds, nursing cups of coffee very early in the morning, the day that, Peter Sutcliffe had been picked up.

00:20:20:05 - 00:20:21:09

Rob Murphy

Oh, wow. Okay.

00:20:21:11 - 00:20:22:00

Val McDermid

And so.

00:20:22:05 - 00:20:23:01

Rob Murphy

81 was.

00:20:23:03 - 00:20:44:18

Val McDermid

81. Yeah. So we were all thrown straight into that to get the background ready for when the case came to trial. And background as were always the really, complicated area to get because you always have to walk that narrow line between not doing something that could potentially endanger the court case and cause a contempt of court.

00:20:44:20 - 00:21:05:13

Val McDermid

But also making sure you got something nailed down for the for the paper. And I was the story of a friend of mine. Who worked for the Daily Mail at the time. We were all trying to get Sonia Sutcliffe, you know, Peter Sutcliffe’s wife, to talk to us, and she was just. She was lost almost none of us could get anywhere with her.

00:21:05:15 - 00:21:22:15

Val McDermid

And my eagle eyed friend working for the Daily Mail noticed that her father had a lovely rose garden in front of the house, and she had horses. So she turned up one day on the doorstep with a jar of gold blend and a sack of horse manure for the roses, and she got in.

00:21:22:17 - 00:21:24:00

Rob Murphy

The jeep because the horse manure.

00:21:24:06 - 00:21:43:16

Val McDermid

Version you the. And later on, when it was all all came on top. Afterwards Liverpool was a lot. So there’s lots of people shouting and complaining about the way the TSB covered jobs that journalists had done. The Daily Mail editor called his journalists into and officers said, did you did you pay anyone for that? And did you take them out to dinner?

00:21:43:19 - 00:21:50:17

Val McDermid

Did you probably should go hunting a couple sacks of horse manure to blend this. It’s great.

00:21:50:19 - 00:22:00:24

Rob Murphy

I mean, when you were there as well, I mean, you had some really dark stuff happening. I mean, you the world is full of dark stuff, isn’t it? But, you had Lockerbie, didn’t you? Yeah.

00:22:01:01 - 00:22:20:17

Val McDermid

Luckily I was. I mean, I was there that night. I got the sun as soon as the plane blew up. I was the London night desk was on the phones and get up to Lockerbie, so I went, that’s not something I really like to think about. Talk about much. Because it was, it was very difficult.

00:22:20:19 - 00:22:23:04

Val McDermid

Yes. Very different.

00:22:23:04 - 00:22:46:08

Val McDermid

And I think, I mean, in the space of six months, I had Lockerbie, the M1 plane crash, Hillsborough. I kind of got to the point where I thought I can’t I can’t do this anymore. I can’t I can’t do this because it’s just taking too much out of me. So a lot of me really to do this properly, you’ve finally got to do one of two things.

00:22:46:11 - 00:23:07:18

Val McDermid

You either build a wall, set yourself behind the wall, and just cut off from the human, the human element of what you’re doing. And don’t think about it and don’t. Well, for what it is, what it means, and that has one outcome. And then you become pretty much desensitised, or you allow yourself to be open to.

00:23:07:20 - 00:23:12:08

Val McDermid

And that has the opposite, element of taking too much out of you.

00:23:12:13 - 00:23:26:20

Rob Murphy

Would you say some of this has, some of your experience here has so informed, has informed your writing? You know, you’re writing about police officers who were at the absolute, you know, who see nothing. You see absolutely everything.

00:23:26:22 - 00:23:50:06

Val McDermid

Yeah. So I think I have a probably a stronger understanding than the average person of of what that experiences. You know, there were times when I was a trainee journalist, that we’d be on the scene before the police on a serious crime. And, so, you know, you usually got at the sharp at the, yeah.

00:23:50:08 - 00:24:12:09

Val McDermid

I mean, there’s a huge pressure on journalists to get the stories. I mean, my my experience of journalism and as well, before people were tapping phones and that sort of thing. But there was always a real pressure to get the inside story, get the story that nobody else has. And that was how careers were built. And it’s tough.

00:24:12:11 - 00:24:27:07

Val McDermid

And I think that many of us who who were journalists lot period are probably probably got some of some sort of level of PTSD from the things that we had to do, the things that we saw, the things the stories we heard, the stories we saw.

00:24:27:09 - 00:24:32:03

Rob Murphy

And and so it’s at this time you were doing this, but you were also writing, weren’t you?

00:24:32:06 - 00:24:32:24

Val McDermid

I was, yes.

00:24:33:05 - 00:24:50:12

Rob Murphy

So, I mean, how on earth did you combine, this extremely difficult, competitive, but also quite exciting job demanding with creating another career for yourself, doing something so creative and artistic as well.

00:24:50:14 - 00:25:10:22

Val McDermid

What was that? Was kind of, that was my outlet, I suppose. That was where I could, I could, write what I wanted to write and, and create characters that I wanted to spend time with, as opposed to the characters I had to spend time with. And that for me was, was, was was a different, different frame of mind.

00:25:10:24 - 00:25:23:03

Val McDermid

I was in charge, you know, I wasn’t going to be blindsided by something else. And, I could also create characters that I quite enjoyed spending time with and exploring their world, through the lens of my experience.

00:25:23:05 - 00:25:29:18

Rob Murphy

And you so. And your writing. So funny as well. You can have, I guess, a lightness of touch with it in a way that perhaps the day job does.

00:25:29:19 - 00:25:53:02

Val McDermid

Yeah. For you, I mean, you you don’t get very many jokes. And the story about Hillsborough, for example, that would have been crass. And you know, but but you know yourself from, from working with people and emergency services, from first responders, that kind of thing, that sometimes the only way to get through a shift is to start cracking the terrible jokes.

00:25:53:04 - 00:26:10:18

Val McDermid

And the concept of too soon does not apply to first responders, you know? It’s it’s it’s another way of putting a barrier between yourself and the, the the humanity, the destruction of people’s humanity and destruction of the lines is frequently witnessed to you.

00:26:10:20 - 00:26:28:18

Rob Murphy

So how long did it did it take for you to build up enough, well, money deals to to be able to give up the day job and just say, I’m going to be a writer. That’s what I’m going to do. And and also, why did you decide to write crime? You know, you’re such a talented writer.

00:26:28:18 - 00:26:32:10

Rob Murphy

Obviously, you could have written in any genre that. Why? Why crime?

00:26:32:12 - 00:27:01:08

Val McDermid

Well, I love crime. I fell in love with Agatha Christie early on, as I said, but I from there I moved on to read, you know, all the other great gold news writers and then moved to the 1950s into the present day. And I there’s a lot of crime fiction and cookery library. But then when I went to university, just down the road from my college was Jeremy’s ten bookshop, and Jeremy’s Turnkey bookshop was basically a paperback bookshop, and everything was £0.10.

00:27:01:10 - 00:27:21:11

Val McDermid

And you could you could buy 20 book and read it. And if you forgot to get rid of it, you just took it back and got five feet. Yeah. So I just I just read everything. Every green penguin, every punk crime, that I could get my hands on and and I that was my first love. Whatever else I was reading, I was also always had a crime novel on the go.

00:27:21:13 - 00:27:51:15

Val McDermid

And I think although we were not studying the crime novel, because that was very I always noticed when I was in the tutors study of tutors rooms that they have sort of tucked away on the shelves of you. What penguin classic crime spines. So it’s fairly respectable to read it, but not to write about it. And I love the I love the sense of, of, working towards a story that has a conclusion, you know, at the time article, I think in the 80s, the 90s, a lot of literary fiction didn’t so much.

00:27:51:17 - 00:28:21:01

Val McDermid

And it just stopped. And you’d get to the end of a 400 page novel. There’s like und und. Well, well, I spent a lot of time reading it back then when there’s really incredibly cheated the narrative sense. I think that’s changed quite a lot in recent years. So many good writers of what you would call not well, not crime fiction, who’ve, I think brilliant stories with marvellous development and conclusion.

00:28:21:03 - 00:28:37:11

Val McDermid

You know, so I mean, I would, I would bow to no one in my respect for that. Ali Smith, for example. But I got frustrated by, by reading so many books that that just seemed to me to be unfinished. And so, I, I thought so I stuck with crime. Yes. And I tried to write.

00:28:37:11 - 00:28:43:00

Val McDermid

I tried to try to write the English novel after I graduated, and it was truly terrible. Trust me. It’s truly terrible.

00:28:43:00 - 00:28:43:12

Rob Murphy

Have you kept.

00:28:43:12 - 00:29:03:02

Val McDermid

It a half kept or keep it to remind myself how badly I can write? It will never see the light of day. You know Michael Rowbotham, the Australian crime writer. He’s just took a picture of his bottom drawer from 20 years ago, the first book he wrote, and reworked it, and I read it. It’s really good, but I can’t think of any way that reworking would salvage my first novel.

00:29:03:04 - 00:29:18:04

Val McDermid

But I, I wrote three Lindsay Gordon novels, which were I wrote for the Women’s Press. Yes. It was a small indie, feminist press. And they were paperback originals at a time when paperbacks were not reviewed.

00:29:18:06 - 00:29:19:09

Rob Murphy

Well, okay.

00:29:19:11 - 00:29:43:05

Val McDermid

Well, the book, the books went out there and they found the readership from word of mouth and from booksellers, put it in the customers hands and said, I think you’ll like this. And I did okay. But I mean, there was no money in it, really. And the I mean, the fact that the, the never been out of print and the fact that Harpercollins are relaunching them, this year, tells you that there was something there that people liked.

00:29:43:07 - 00:30:03:00

Val McDermid

But I knew I was going to ever make a living doing that. So, I thought I also wanted to write something very different. So challenge myself as a writer because, you know, Lindsay Gordon’s of Scottish lesbian journalists, I thought, I can do more than that. And so I thought I wanted to write about a different character.

00:30:03:02 - 00:30:10:03

Val McDermid

So I wrote a book, Private Eye, based in Manchester, and she’s straight and she’s most of the things I am not.

00:30:10:05 - 00:30:11:07

Rob Murphy

That’s Kate Branigan.

00:30:11:09 - 00:30:36:07

Val McDermid

That’s great. Branigan. And I wrote the first Brannigan, and, my agent said, well, we could shop this around, you know, mainstream publishers maybe get you a decent deal. And we went to see Julia Wisdom at Harpercollins. And she liked books, and she said, let’s I go to book deal. And I went on a brutal road, went home on the train.

00:30:36:09 - 00:30:49:06

Val McDermid

And I literally wrote on the back of an envelope, figured out that was if I could write two books a year, I could pay the mortgage and feed myself. And so that was what I thought. That’s enough. I can if I can do that, then I’ll do that.

00:30:49:08 - 00:31:00:06

Rob Murphy

That must have been hard years. But eventually, I guess. Yeah, yeah. When did it feel that actually this is I can I can actually live I can, I can, I can, I can flourish here.

00:31:00:08 - 00:31:32:19

Val McDermid

Well, this was 1991, and I quit the day job, and I think that for me, the breakout book was, I’m in singing because I won the gold dagger, much to my astonishment. And, that broke me out into a wider audience, not just in the UK, but also, my foreign sales were much better because foreign publishers, you know, in the days before you could just press a button and get Google Translate or change to translate the, foreign foreign titles without taking a gamble.

00:31:32:21 - 00:31:52:09

Val McDermid

You didn’t know who was going to work for you or not. But so a lot of foreign publishers would buy up the ones that won words on the basis. That’s probably a good book. Yes. And so I got I got published in markets I hadn’t been published in before. And also sort of cemented my position in the markets where I already was being published.

00:31:52:14 - 00:32:02:00

Val McDermid

So that was the book that really made a, made a difference to me. But it was those two, three books after that, before I was even making the same money as it was when I was a journalist.

00:32:02:00 - 00:32:05:19

Rob Murphy

Really. So we’re talking about five years. Are we off to give it up before?

00:32:05:21 - 00:32:24:06

Val McDermid

Yeah, probably more like six, seven years. Yeah. Wow. It was I mean, the first couple of years after I quit, the day job was, skint, you know, I, gave up buying books, gave up buying CDs. Went to the library a lot. Made homemade homemade wine, even, you know.

00:32:24:08 - 00:32:25:05

Rob Murphy

What was that, like.

00:32:25:07 - 00:32:31:07

Val McDermid

Above it? Well, some of the very good, actually. Also, dancers make very good wine.

00:32:31:09 - 00:32:50:00

Rob Murphy

So you’ve had five series really, haven’t you? We’ve talked about Karen Gordon, Kate Branigan, Tony Hill and, Karen Jackson Jordan and, Ali Burns as well. Yeah. So, you know, the and in total, is it more than 50 books now includes, you know, fiction and.

00:32:50:00 - 00:32:54:01

Val McDermid

Non-fiction and children’s book and things.

00:32:55:17 - 00:33:02:07

Val McDermid

Non crime fiction. I mean, there’s, there’s Queen Macbeth. Yeah. As well. So yeah, I mean, it must be about that.

00:33:02:09 - 00:33:11:22

Rob Murphy

Prolific, truly prolific a book that I absolutely adore. And you can see how well-thumbed it is. Here is your forensics book, which is, 2014. It came out.

00:33:12:02 - 00:33:14:20

Val McDermid

And I know some of those probably will update by now.

00:33:14:22 - 00:33:27:06

Rob Murphy

I don’t know. Well, I mean, a lot of it. I mean, part of it, I mean, it’s just a great read as well, isn’t it? Because you go into the history of, toxicology or entomology or, finger fingerprinting as well, or that kind of.

00:33:27:08 - 00:33:43:14

Val McDermid

A said, I said when, when, when they asked me to do it, I said, I thought the only way I could, I could make it work for myself was if I could talk to people who did it for real. Yeah. So to get their stories as well and their experiences, as well as getting the sort of factual use, the history of use is.

00:33:43:14 - 00:34:14:09

Val McDermid

No. I think, you know, for me, the first DNA appearance in the UK court was 1986, which was the year before my first novel came out. And I kind of feel that my career has gone in lockstep with the development, the forensic, over the years, because I’ve got a lot of friends who are, you know, forensic scientists from, you know, Sue black, who is the queen of forensic anthropology, these victims who does the DNA of drugs and fire and explosions, and people like that have become part of my, my friendship circle.

00:34:14:15 - 00:34:32:01

Val McDermid

So I get they’ll they’ll say they’ll tell me about something they’re working on, or new, a new technique, and I’ll stick it in the next book if I, if it’s appropriate. Yeah. The other ones overstepped the mark, though, because, Sue told me this this, this fascinating piece of information,

00:34:32:01 - 00:34:41:08

Val McDermid

you know, cells in your body regenerate all of after seven years, your body is completely new by except for one tiny bone in your ear.

00:34:41:10 - 00:34:58:09

Val McDermid

And it’s such a small bone that for a long time, they didn’t even count it. When they’re counting the number of bones in the human body. But that bone stays the same from when you’re in your mother’s womb to when you die. And so if you analyse that bone, you can tell where your mother was living when she was pregnant with you.

00:34:58:13 - 00:35:00:23

Rob Murphy

You can. Is that because if the water or something like.

00:35:01:00 - 00:35:19:06

Val McDermid

The diatoms in the water and another chemical such as the atmosphere, and I just like that she told me that, I said, wow, that’s amazing. And I, I shoehorned into the next book and, since she rang me and said, you might have waited till I published a paper.

00:35:19:08 - 00:35:43:09

Rob Murphy

And when you were studying these, speaking to your scientists, I mean, did you have what thoughts did you have about some of these cases that you were learning about or had perhaps heard about or knew about in the back of your mind, have done a bit of reading about, but actually we’re learning about more because I’ve got a real belief that oftentimes fact is strange, that if true, true stories are sometimes so extraordinary.

00:35:43:09 - 00:35:51:16

Rob Murphy

If you were to present it as a work of fiction, you would say, no, that that couldn’t happen. Yeah. Are there any cases like that, along.

00:35:51:18 - 00:36:17:17

Val McDermid

With all the other ones that always stuck in my mind because it involved different elements of forensic science? As the book Roxton case in the 1930s. But Cluxton was a doctor, a Parsi doctor who moved to England. So, so himself was a GP in Lancashire. And he murdered his wife and thus the seven kill on the case was extraordinary.

00:36:17:18 - 00:36:40:09

Val McDermid

So many, so many aspects. He he he murdered them. He dismembered them, he wrapped them up in newspaper. The bits of the bits and pieces of newspaper, a week or so went by, and then he drove off into the countryside and put them in the fast flowing stream, thinking, this is that although the trial was carried out to see, you know, no one will ever hear from them again.

00:36:40:11 - 00:37:07:00

Val McDermid

And what happened was it was sort of, so, so stent walking, isn’t it? Well, I’m walking, so an arm sticking out of the river water up to a newspaper, being a good person to jump down the hill to find the police station. So it’s like there’s something there’s a body in the river, and they found this body parts, in the in the river up to the newspaper.

00:37:07:02 - 00:37:24:21

Val McDermid

They were taken off, to because they’re found over the border in Scotland. They’ll take it off to Edinburgh and Glasgow to be examined by pathologists. And at first they thought because they’d been on the boat for a while, the various, depredations on them. This is this. They thought. They thought it was a man and a woman.

00:37:24:22 - 00:37:45:05

Val McDermid

This there’s two bodies. It’s a man and a woman. So looking for a man, a woman who have gone missing recently. And actually having a meeting that the scientists were all having a meeting, talking about the case, trying to discuss with the world. And one of the lab technicians, Russell, said there’s three breasts. Right. And then I realised it was actually two women.

00:37:45:07 - 00:38:03:22

Val McDermid

Right. Part of that, part of the reason. So this is the the one of the women, the wife of the this is a very heavyset Joel, but she looked quite masculine compared to a woman’s jaw. But one of the other things that was tracked it down was the newspapers that there were putting at a particular, a particular edition of the this one.

00:38:04:03 - 00:38:31:01

Val McDermid

Newspapers had several local editions, and this one had a stop press box. And this was only in a very limited area of Lancaster. So the new they were looking for two women who had gone missing in Lancaster, and the net was closing tighter and tighter and tighter. And he was eventually he was hanged, obviously. Eventually. And the I think that’s a that’s one that’s often intrigued by what happened to the children.

00:38:31:03 - 00:38:40:12

Rob Murphy

Yes. It’s it’s extraordinary. It’s an extraordinary piece of work. Psychology. Anthropology.

00:38:40:14 - 00:39:07:18

Val McDermid

Oh, yeah. The other thing that was important in the Wrexham case, was, was, was, it was the first time that, bugs had been used in the court case, entomology. Years later, when I was doing that, the forensics book, I was, I was at the Natural History Museum talking to French entomologist, and he said, come with me, I’ll show you some historic maggots.

00:39:07:20 - 00:39:22:22

Val McDermid

And they had some they have some maggots there and a little plastic bottle from the Roxton case, because you can date. How long a body is since body died, but which which flies are predating on it? And what was what state of development? That that.

00:39:23:01 - 00:39:35:17

Rob Murphy

Yes. Yes. It’s extraordinary. It is, absolutely extraordinary. So you you’re writing a present to Lindsay Gordon’s have been reissued this year?

00:39:35:19 - 00:39:36:19

Val McDermid

Yes. Oh, yeah.

00:39:36:21 - 00:39:41:14

Rob Murphy

You’ve got you’re writing a book with your partner and you’ve got another.

00:39:41:16 - 00:39:44:01

Val McDermid

Addition to the editorial notes or not.

00:39:44:04 - 00:39:46:00

Rob Murphy

And you’ve got another. Only burns.

00:39:46:02 - 00:39:47:10

Val McDermid

Yeah. I’m writing about this this year.

00:39:47:16 - 00:39:49:14

Rob Murphy

So that’ll be out in October.

00:39:49:20 - 00:39:51:15

Val McDermid

No, it’ll actually be out next year, I think.

00:39:51:16 - 00:39:52:06

Rob Murphy

Okay.

00:39:52:08 - 00:39:58:03

Val McDermid

Because there’s a certain sense of, I’m always going to almost new to prolific.

00:39:58:05 - 00:40:00:05

Rob Murphy

So you can try and slow your releases.

00:40:00:06 - 00:40:11:14

Val McDermid

Well but I will say slow down a bit. Now, you know, you can order. It’s not over. But what else would I do? Yeah. You know what partners this is just us. You know, you can’t retire you because you’ve got no hobbies. Yes.

00:40:11:16 - 00:40:15:13

Rob Murphy

Well, aren’t you in the fun loving crime writers as well?

00:40:15:15 - 00:40:23:05

Val McDermid

Yeah, that’s not really a hobby. I mean, that’s that’s a call. And and and people ask us to come, they call us up, we come.

00:40:23:07 - 00:40:27:12

Rob Murphy

There you go. There you appear. What what what instruments do you do? You sing and I sing.

00:40:27:12 - 00:40:28:02

Val McDermid

Yes.

00:40:28:04 - 00:40:30:18

Rob Murphy

That’s Mark Billingham as well, isn’t it? In this. Yeah.

00:40:30:18 - 00:40:38:06

Val McDermid

He plays rhythm guitar and I, I get a shot of playing the bass at one point in the, in the performance.

00:40:38:08 - 00:40:45:11

Rob Murphy

Brilliant. Okay. Val McDermid I could talk to you all day, but you’ve got about 100 books to write up.

00:40:45:13 - 00:40:46:08

Val McDermid

Yeah.

00:40:46:10 - 00:41:00:04

Rob Murphy

It’s been an absolute joy of being with you. Thank you so much for your time today. And, I can’t recommend, Silent Bones highly enough. Or forensics as well, which is also terrific. And, I really do appreciate your time. Thank you so much for being with us.

00:41:00:06 - 00:41:00:22

Val McDermid

The pleasure.

Subscribe for FREE: robertmurphy.substack.com

In this episode of Behind the Crimes, Val reflects on her path from newsroom reporter to bestselling novelist.

Val speaks candidly about her years in journalism, which included covering stories such as Lockerbie, Hillsborough and the Peter Sutcliffe investigation. She describes the emotional toll of witnessing tragedy at close quarters and the difficult balance reporters must strike between empathy and professional distance. Her reflections offer a fascinating insight into what crime reporting was like in Britain during the 1970s and 80s.

The conversation also explores how those experiences shaped her fiction. Val explains why she avoids directly “ripping stories from the headlines”, arguing that real cases carry consequences for victims, families and even ongoing investigations.

We discuss her latest novel, Silent Bones, the newest instalment in the Karen Pirie series. Val reveals how the story emerged from an unusual book club, Scottish political history, and her long fascination with cold cases. She also shares her thoughts on pacing, plotting and how she builds the intricate multi-strand narratives that have become her trademark.

As always with Val McDermid, forensics is never far away. She talks about her deep friendships with leading scientists, the research behind her acclaimed non-fiction book Forensics, and some of the real-life cases and scientific discoveries that have most fascinated her over the years.

https://www.valmcdermid.com/

Anthony Horowitz may be best-known for his Alex Rider hit novels. But as a writer of adult crime fiction he has a unique and distinguished career.

He was the first author entrusted by the estate of Arthur Conan Doyle to reimagine Sherlock Holmes for a new book. And then he wrote three official James Bond novels.

But his own inventions as an author and a screenwriter have now become parts of our cultural life: Foyle’s War, the Susan Ryeland books and TV shows and the Hawthorne and Horowitz series.

Anthony also wrote on Midsomer Murders and Agatha Christie’s Poirot.

He started working in advertising while writing books into the early hours. And his big break came in the mid-1980s when, after publishing a children’s book about Robin Hood, he was asked to write for the biggest TV show in Britain at that time.

In this episode, Anthony breaks down what parts of crime writing he enjoys - and tries to avoid. And he describes the honour and pressure which came from being entrusted with two of crime writing’s most important literary estates.

His latest book, A Deadly Episode, will be released tomorrow. You can discover more about Anthony here: anthonyhorowitz.com or @anthonyhorowitz

Not a podcaster? Would you rather read the interview?

Click here for interview transcript

David Baldacci was born in Richmond, Virginia, in 1960. What was it like growing up amidst the legacy of the Jim Crow laws? How did becoming a Washington lawyer finesse his storytelling skills? And how did he write his breakout debut Absolute Power while working 90-hour weeks as a litigator?

David has written more than 60 books in the last three decades and has become one of the world’s best-selling crime-writers.

His latest novel, Hope Rises, is the second part of David’s Walter Nash series. It tells how an everyday businessman seeks revenge after being plunged into the dark world of organised crime and security agencies.

In this conversation we speak about David’s inspiration from true crime, his literary heroes… and about his hometown hotel which had alligators in the reception.

You can learn more about David here: https://www.davidbaldacci.com/

You can grab a copy of Hope Rises here in the UK.

And here in the USA.