Transcript
Speaker: This is the Crime Board Podcast.
Speaker: With Sam West.
Speaker: Hello and welcome to the Crime Board Podcast, a podcast dedicated to all things crime fiction.
Speaker: First of all, I want to say a massive thank you to all the support.
Speaker: It's been very, very much appreciated.
Speaker: Yeah, it's been quite a journey in the past six episodes and I'm really glad that you're all tuning in to listen.
Speaker: So yeah, once again, massive thank you for that.
Speaker: So tonight's guest is someone I've been really excited to have on the show.
Speaker: And of course, he has very kindly agreed to join me.
Speaker: crime author Graham Bightlet.
Speaker: How have you been?
Speaker: I've been very well, thank you, Sam.
Speaker: Thanks for inviting me.
Speaker: I've been as excited as you are about this podcast.
Speaker: Congratulations, I'm getting you off the ground too.
Speaker: Oh, thank you.
Speaker: So yeah, obviously, massive honor to have you on.
Speaker: So before we get to the good stuff, I'd like you to have a quick look around you.
Speaker: Oh.
Speaker: Using only the objects available to you where you're currently sitting, what would be your go-to murder weapon?
Speaker: My go-to murder weapon would be my glasses case, I think.
Speaker: Because what I would do with my glasses case is that I would fill it with stones and I would use it as a club.
Speaker: And then I would get rid of the stones and then it would just return to be my glasses case.
Speaker: And who's ever going to suspect a grey-haired, middle-aged bloke's glasses case as a murder weapon?
Speaker: So that's my murder weapon of choice.
Speaker: And now you've asked me that, I think I might write a book about that.
Speaker: Yeah, I think you'd be surprised, to be honest.
Speaker: I mean, now that you've told me, I'm going to look at everyone's glasses cases suspiciously.
Speaker: Yeah, to be right, yeah.
Speaker: Right, okay, but you've kind of cheated there, right?
Speaker: Because I said where you're sitting and you don't have stones where you're sitting, unless you do.
Speaker: That works true, yeah, okay.
Speaker: So, we are, you don't know, actually.
Speaker: So, you'd have to go outside.
Speaker: I'd have to go outside.
Speaker: Yeah, okay.
Speaker: Well, maybe I'll put my stapler in there because that's quite weighty.
Speaker: Maybe that.
Speaker: There we are.
Speaker: Sorry, but well done catching me out on that.
Speaker: I suppose you could use that.
Speaker: Use one to knock them out and the other one to smash their head in.
Speaker: I feel like this is quite good.
Speaker: I don't know where we're going.
Speaker: Two minutes, three minutes.
Speaker: It's getting quite violent already.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, well, that's what we do as crime authors.
Speaker: We do it on the page anyway.
Speaker: We might as well do it on the air.
Speaker: Get it all out there.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I must say, your books are quite graphic, quite violent as it is.
Speaker: So, well, it's a good start.
Speaker: So, yeah, so you and I, well, I've had the absolute privilege of working with you on my own novel a year ago.
Speaker: It feels like longer than a year now, but, yeah, it was a year ago.
Speaker: It must have been, yeah.
Speaker: And hopefully... Get it out there, Sam.
Speaker: Get it out there.
Speaker: It's coming.
Speaker: I'm just so particular.
Speaker: I'm like, that's not right.
Speaker: That's not right.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But yeah, hopefully many more to come as well.
Speaker: Very excited to work on the next one with you as well.
Speaker: When we eventually sort out, well, when I eventually sort my head out.
Speaker: Because it's, yeah, it's really stressful getting something out.
Speaker: But at some point it just has to be.
Speaker: It's not easy.
Speaker: It's not easy.
Speaker: No, you take your time.
Speaker: You're a very good writer, so the public have got a lot to be excited about when your work's come out.
Speaker: I hope so.
Speaker: Yeah, it's scary.
Speaker: I think it's just because you've spent so much time with it.
Speaker: It's essentially, as I said last week, it's your baby.
Speaker: And at some point, obviously, you have to let that go.
Speaker: But right now, obviously, I mean, it's gone out to I've had readers already with that just to, you know, double check and all of that stuff story wise.
Speaker: And that was okay.
Speaker: But I think actually getting out to the world for the first time is really scary because you just don't know what to expect.
Speaker: And you've spent so much time with that in your own head, you know, that actually putting it out there is terrifying.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: No, it is.
Speaker: And it isn't until you get that very first reader that comes back and tells you that it's good, hopefully.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: that you really start to believe in yourself.
Speaker: And it's hard.
Speaker: And I do hope people recognise that who read that these things don't just kind of fall on the page.
Speaker: Oh, absolutely.
Speaker: Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker: It's really hard.
Speaker: It's a struggle.
Speaker: On the one hand, it's a struggle.
Speaker: But on the other hand, I think if you're actually doing something because you love it and it's your passion and you cannot not put that story out there, I think...
Speaker: it becomes something that is absolutely amazing to do as well because you're so excited to get that story out there.
Speaker: I mean, fair enough, you might be scared, but it's the kind of story that just cannot stay locked away, I think, inside of you.
Speaker: Even if you're just writing for yourself, I think as well, it's really cool.
Speaker: No, I think you're right.
Speaker: And I think providing you can be honest with yourself that it's the very best book that you can possibly write, then you shouldn't have a lot to be worried about because we're all our own worst critics.
Speaker: You know, if we if we've got any doubt at all about our books, then then we go back and fix it.
Speaker: You know, almost too much.
Speaker: You know, I mean, I would never read one of my published books because I know I'd find stuff in there that I desperately wanted to change.
Speaker: But, you know, I think if we once we once we think, no, if the point of publication that is the best I can possibly do in the, you know, I'm really happy with it.
Speaker: then that's your job done.
Speaker: And you need to kind of, you need to let your baby go at that point.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: As hard as it is, I think, yeah.
Speaker: Your baby needs to go make friends out in the big hills.
Speaker: Exactly, yeah.
Speaker: And hopefully come back with a sequel and hopefully see, well, I suppose it depends on what you're writing, but yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: Certainly come back with another book, whether it's a sequel or whether it's a standalone.
Speaker: I was talking to an author yesterday about
Speaker: about standalones and she only writes standalones and I said how can you do that because you have to invent characters are new every time and worlds are new every time.
Speaker: Oh yeah, yeah.
Speaker: I have to milk the ones I've got until they're absolutely dry and then I might think about another one.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah, that's true.
Speaker: Yeah, I gosh, that's actually a discussion I had with one of my my close friends, Claire Lads, who was our very first guest on the show.
Speaker: She writes standalone thrillers, and she does them so brilliantly.
Speaker: And I just I could never because I told her I did I entered Bloody Scotland's short story competition last year.
Speaker: And I am so bad with short stories, like actually cutting down instead of actually adding more stuff.
Speaker: And after that, I mean, it was like 2,000 words, I think, max, which is nothing.
Speaker: And after that, I was like, but actually, this could be a series now.
Speaker: And I can see this character doing this, this, this, and this.
Speaker: And the whole notion of short stories, just you saying that fills me with absolute fear.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: We were saying earlier, weren't we, that I kind of write long and edit down.
Speaker: And I've just been approached to write a short story of something that hopefully will happen sort of next year.
Speaker: And I think the word limit is to 8,000 words.
Speaker: And that absolutely terrifies the life out of me.
Speaker: Because I'm a bit verbose, you see.
Speaker: I like to talk a lot.
Speaker: So maybe it'll be good for me.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, I think it's real skill, those short stories, because you kind of have to, as I've said previously as well on other episodes, you kind of have to take all of that in your head and sort of, I don't want to say compress it, but kind of fit it into this really short format and still get out what you want to say and make sure that characters are well-rounded and stuff like that.
Speaker: Yeah, it really is scary.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker: No, I need time to be able to do that.
Speaker: Word count.
Speaker: Chapters, chapters, chapters.
Speaker: It's funny, actually, yeah, like writing short stories ends up taking longer than like getting a full length novel out.
Speaker: I think exactly as you said, because you have to think about cutting down.
Speaker: I think there's a, there's a, somebody I can't remember who it was, somebody like Oscar Wilde or someone like that, apparently once said, I'm sorry, this is such a long letter, but I didn't have time to write a short one.
Speaker: And I absolutely empathise with that, you know, writing a long letter is far easier than writing a short one.
Speaker: Yeah, that's really true.
Speaker: Yeah, I mean, well done to all the short story writers out there.
Speaker: Absolutely brilliant.
Speaker: I could never, but yeah, well done.
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: Hats off.
Speaker: So, yeah, so I initially came across your name on YouTube, I think it was 2019 or 2020.
Speaker: I was up at 3am with a sinus infection, so I couldn't sleep.
Speaker: So basically, I got up your nose, is that what you're saying?
Speaker: No, no, no.
Speaker: Yeah, I was feeling quite miserable and also really overwhelmed by the immense complexity of the genre.
Speaker: I'd kind of, I don't want to say fallen into, but at that point, yes.
Speaker: And desperate to write as accurately as possible.
Speaker: Although as I've since learned with you as well, the story and the characters always come first.
Speaker: So yeah, so I found you around that time and that literally like after watching, I don't even remember.
Speaker: I think it was with UK Crime Book Club.
Speaker: I don't remember.
Speaker: It was ages ago.
Speaker: But yeah, after watching that entire interview, because I couldn't sleep, I was so excited after that and I just started making notes and yeah, immediately opened a Word document and started plotting.
Speaker: So yeah, so tell us a bit about what you do then as a police advisor and how your experience as a police officer led you to helping authors.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, sure.
Speaker: So, you know, as you touch on, I not only write books, but I also advise crime writers, both novelists and TV writers, and run courses for crime writers and deliver inputs into kind of master's programmes and that sort of thing on crime writing.
Speaker: And essentially...
Speaker: What I do is I help writers write an authentic and plausible world and characters and procedures so that their crime stories can sort of take flight.
Speaker: So it's not about writing accuracy in policing.
Speaker: I think accurate policing is quite dull, bureaucratic, and the people that do it are not always the most interesting in the world.
Speaker: But it's about creating...
Speaker: But creating a believable world where your reader can go, yeah, okay, I can buy into that world, I can buy into that character, and then that gives you a bit of a passport for some poetic license.
Speaker: And I kind of got into it, really.
Speaker: When I was still in the police, I worked very closely with a chap called Peter James, who I'm sure a lot of people will know as a brilliant crime writer and a very, very generous and active member of the crime rights community.
Speaker: So he based his books in the city where I was the police commander in Brighton and Howe in Sussex in the UK.
Speaker: And he would come in and we would sort of, you know, show him what procedures we were able to show and certain things he wasn't allowed to see.
Speaker: And we got friendly, really, and I left the police and then he was asked to write a non-fiction with the stories that inspired the Royal Grace novels.
Speaker: And he didn't think that he had the voice or authenticity to do that.
Speaker: So he asked me, and I'd never considered being a writer at all.
Speaker: So we wrote, we also were sure about that.
Speaker: So we ended up, he kind of took me through an apprenticeship of writing really.
Speaker: We published a book called Death Comes Knocking, Please, and Roy Grace's Brighton.
Speaker: And then during all the publicity for that, he,
Speaker: I was told people that, you know, I was crime advisor and worked with him.
Speaker: And so people started to come to me then and say, well, you know, do you help Peter?
Speaker: Can you, any chance you could give me a hand here?
Speaker: And it's kind of just developed really.
Speaker: And I've now, I've lost count really, but I must have worked with over 150 writers, novelists, plus TV companies, and many, many of them on a returning basis.
Speaker: And it's an absolute joy.
Speaker: I kind of, because I'm a writer myself, I'm able to apply a creative angle to my advice as well as the policing angle.
Speaker: So I'm often kind of helping out with story of character development in a way that is more than me just going, yes, this would happen.
Speaker: No, that wouldn't happen.
Speaker: So, yeah, so that's how I got into it, really.
Speaker: And it really is a full-time job now.
Speaker: You know, I'm doing something related to it all day, every day, and writing books, and writing books, too.
Speaker: It really is absolutely brilliant.
Speaker: Like I said, that's sort of how I found you was in sort of doing research for my own books and obviously looking to be as accurate as possible without making it a sort of how-to manual.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: And then I stumbled across your interview on UK Crime Book Club.
Speaker: um and absolutely thought wow i need to go check out um more of of obviously their their youtube channel but obviously more of what you've done and what you do um and it took me about i think about a full year to actually gather up the courage to send you a message on instagram yeah
Speaker: You're Jack, why did it take you so long?
Speaker: No, yeah, well, it was, what, three years ago, I was very new to everything, not necessarily writing, but new to the whole community on Instagram, and I was just sort of beginning to explore what the road to publishing would look like, and obviously research in this genre, because I had written before, but it was never really, it was always crime, but it was never like this, right?
Speaker: So, yeah,
Speaker: Yeah, and I think, yeah, it's just, you know, obviously because for me it was a really big deal, and I think I've told you this before, to actually have someone who can speak to authors about...
Speaker: policing and obviously crafting a novel around that and you know what actually goes on behind the scenes stuff that we don't see on the outside for me that was a really big thing and something I think I'll always be grateful for because yeah there's only like I said there's only so much that Google can can teach you
Speaker: And as you and I have also spoken about in the past, like watching TV shows and stuff, the accuracy isn't always there.
Speaker: And as you mentioned to me as well, you know, there are there have been a lot of similar mistakes among authors when it comes to authenticity and accuracy, because we're obviously following what we have.
Speaker: But then to have someone like you come in, like I said, was such a massive thing, at least for me.
Speaker: Yeah, that's really interesting because, you know, I literally love what I do and love helping people out.
Speaker: And if I can be, you know, if I can just, you know, just help in a minute way, then my work is done.
Speaker: And, you know, yeah, it's interesting to hear you say that.
Speaker: And that was honestly, I think, in the beginning for me as well, because I was so new to everything, new to actually wanting to pursue writing professionally.
Speaker: And the community on Instagram, I was pretty much scared to message anyone at that point.
Speaker: I mean, also, it was a couple of years ago, so I was quite young, younger.
Speaker: So, yeah, so for me, it was that, really, I think.
Speaker: And also just having an absolute passion for the genre of TV shows as well.
Speaker: And behind the scenes is going to sound really weird, but having a passion for policing as well, because that was something I wanted to go into after school.
Speaker: And then obviously my love for film kind of took over and I thought, well, I can kind of use that in a fictional sense, crafting stories and all of that stuff.
Speaker: So, yeah, so for me, it was it was more that I think that was the biggest thing.
Speaker: It was more like I was really in awe of you.
Speaker: And I was like, gosh, OK, I don't know if I can send a message.
Speaker: Yeah, I don't know if that makes sense.
Speaker: I suppose I suppose, yeah, I mean, it does make sense.
Speaker: And I think.
Speaker: we all get anxious about, you know, if you were to make contact directly with an agent, for example, or with a publisher or with a prominent bookseller or something like that, you'd go through all the same, those same anxieties.
Speaker: But, you know, I mean, there are a few egos in the business, but most people are,
Speaker: are just human beings that want to help out.
Speaker: So, you know, I suppose the risk, the chance to come across an ego that won't give you the time of day is quite remote.
Speaker: But the same with anything, the expectation is often worse than the actuality, isn't it?
Speaker: So, you know, you think, oh, God, shall I, shall I, shall I?
Speaker: And then you phone up and you talk to them, you go, actually, they're all right.
Speaker: Just like me, really.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: yeah yeah and that was that was me with everyone i think like two years ago as well i mean even uh someone like heath who has become someone i speak to quite often um even in the beginning i'm like gosh he's published also what like do i do i message him do i not you know it was stuff like that i think in the beginning when you're really new to it and you kind of feel like the you know tiny fish in a massive pond um you feel kind of like you don't really want to step on people's toes or uh you know bother people asking questions
Speaker: And it's, you know, I've just come back from Crime Fest, which is probably the first festival of the year.
Speaker: It's a big crime festival in Bristol.
Speaker: And it's kind of a mixture of writers and readers there.
Speaker: And there, just looking around, you see, you know, some big name artists.
Speaker: authors just chatting away with readers, just literally sitting at the bar over a coffee or lunch, just like chewing the cup with readers.
Speaker: And then you realise actually, yeah, they're just, in fact, writers are quite lonely people because they spend all their time locked to their laptops.
Speaker: So everyone's grateful for the conversation.
Speaker: So give them a ring, you'll make their day.
Speaker: They're just like the human being to talk to.
Speaker: Yeah, definitely.
Speaker: Yeah, no, I definitely agree with that.
Speaker: And I think that's how it should be, to be honest.
Speaker: I think, you know, we're all creative people.
Speaker: And again, for me, like when I initially joined the community on Instagram, it was just so lovely to have such a supportive and open community.
Speaker: You know, people are open to talk about things and open to share like their journeys and their experience.
Speaker: And I think...
Speaker: Yeah, I think that's how it should be.
Speaker: Because like you said, we're often just sitting alone writing.
Speaker: So, yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, so that's definitely a good thing.
Speaker: But yeah, and then I then found, well, the second time around...
Speaker: I then spoke to Heath Gunn because at that point he had published No Remorse.
Speaker: And we sort of had started talking because I'd read the book and left a review and we just kind of went from there.
Speaker: And then he mentioned that he'd worked with you.
Speaker: And obviously I thought, well, great, that's really cool.
Speaker: And spoke about that and obviously then approached you as well myself, which was, yeah, it's been a really great experience.
Speaker: I think a really great learning experience as well.
Speaker: So, yeah, so you mentioned that you started helping, well, advising authors initially because you started with Peter James and then that grew from there, which, yeah, I think is really great.
Speaker: Like I said, I think it's really brilliant to actually have someone who knows, you know, knows what us as authors are going through and now you as well as an author, you know, how difficult it is to actually find accurate and reliable research
Speaker: But yeah, how important is accuracy to you then with your novels?
Speaker: I think authenticity is important.
Speaker: Okay, so if you flick to just before the first page, you'll see on there that there was a disclaimer basically saying that whilst I advise other authors, I've taken some liberties here.
Speaker: But I think that goes to the point about authenticity over accuracy.
Speaker: So my books aren't as is, but they are as could be.
Speaker: So when I first, well, one of my early drafts of Bad for Good, I was told by my agent that I had far too many police officers involved investigating this murder and I needed to cut them down by at least half, if not more.
Speaker: And I said, well, that's impossible because that's the number of people it does take to investigate a murder.
Speaker: And I think that's the number of people
Speaker: They said, no one cares.
Speaker: No one cares.
Speaker: You need to focus in on your key characters, give them dual roles if need be, and allow the reader to be able to follow those people in their head.
Speaker: And that's absolutely right.
Speaker: I try to be too accurate rather than authentic, saying,
Speaker: Yes, for me, it's about creating a world that people can believe in.
Speaker: And I do take some liberties in my book around that.
Speaker: And certainly, because when I started writing Bad Tribute, it was supposed to be set in the near future.
Speaker: It was almost like a cautionary tale.
Speaker: But I moved on from that.
Speaker: But I still kept some of the structures.
Speaker: So I kind of changed some structures deliberately to show absolutely how bad things could be.
Speaker: But I'm quite at ease with that.
Speaker: And I have an advantage because I know what sorts of things I need to get right.
Speaker: I'm not guessing anything.
Speaker: But sometimes I'm making a conscious decision to gloss over a procedure or compress a timeline, a forensic timeline or something like that.
Speaker: But I'm...
Speaker: as a sound bug, because I've done the job before.
Speaker: I know where I can do that and get away with that.
Speaker: But, you know, what I wouldn't ever want was for a reader to pick up my books and go, well, that could never happen, or that character would never do that.
Speaker: I like, you know, it has to be authentic and believable, and that's why I try and instill them at other writers'
Speaker: Yeah, yeah, definitely.
Speaker: I agree with that.
Speaker: And I also, as Heath and I said before, I think readers, you know, they're quite tuned in and that they know quite a lot, obviously, about the genre that they're reading.
Speaker: And I think, yeah, I think for some of us as authors as well, it's really stressful to
Speaker: Because you kind of don't know what they're going to sort of pick apart and be like, no, that would never happen.
Speaker: Or what they'll kind of just look at and be like, it's fine.
Speaker: You know, I'll kind of keep it within context of the story as a whole.
Speaker: Yeah, that's right.
Speaker: And, you know, you do have to sometimes remind readers if they get too picky that it is a work of fiction.
Speaker: But also you have to remind yourself that just because you know a procedure, you found out a procedure, or in my case you know a procedure, you don't have to spell every last line of it out on the page.
Speaker: To know, for example, that when somebody, this is totally UK-based, but when somebody is arrested,
Speaker: certain things happen to them before you can even get them to the interview room.
Speaker: They have to be presented to a custody officer, a custody sergeant who will approve their detention and then have their fingerprints and DNA taken and then they might have their clothing taken and they might have a sweet or solicitor.
Speaker: To know that means that you should never write a scene where they're arrested and then seconds later they're in an interview room
Speaker: But instead, you'll just kind of have a, you know, you'll just leap time.
Speaker: So you'll still go from arrest to interview, but you'll just leap time.
Speaker: You'll show the author, show the reader that you've moved, you know, time's moved on a little bit because there's other stuff that's gone on without having to set all that out because that's quite dull.
Speaker: Yeah, that's true.
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: I find that quite, okay, obviously, maybe not in a book, but I find it quite interesting.
Speaker: Probably off the page, I'll be like, oh, that's cool.
Speaker: That thing's happening.
Speaker: But yeah, obviously.
Speaker: And that's one of the notes you have for me in my initial draft was like, we actually don't need to know all of this stuff.
Speaker: It's like too much research on the page.
Speaker: Yeah, it makes complete sense.
Speaker: Now it makes sense.
Speaker: A year ago, I was like, but how else am I going to explain this thing?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: No, that's right.
Speaker: And you don't need to always.
Speaker: You just don't need to.
Speaker: You're just like, okay, something else is happening in the meantime.
Speaker: And sometimes it's, you know, a technique is to just put another scene in.
Speaker: You know, they do all that technique, don't they?
Speaker: You're from a world of films, so you'll know.
Speaker: To share a passage of time, you just cut to another scene and then come back when the reader or the viewer's got in their mind that, oh, something's happened in the meantime, therefore we've moved on in time a little bit.
Speaker: Yeah, no, definitely.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: As long as you, I think, make sense, make sense, make sure that, you know, those sorts of in between bits are relevant, I think.
Speaker: Yeah, then you're good to go.
Speaker: Yeah, no, absolutely.
Speaker: And again, I mean, we were talking about this before, weren't we, about making sure that every word in every sentence, in every paragraph, in every scene, in every chapter earns its place on the page.
Speaker: So you're not just putting in scenes as fillers for that purpose, you know, just to show past your time, but they're actually...
Speaker: they're actually driving your story and your character on.
Speaker: And that keeps a nice kind of tight, compressed, pacey novel.
Speaker: You don't want to be fluffing things down.
Speaker: I'm not talking about skipping on description or anything like that here.
Speaker: I'm talking about having a scene for the sake of it.
Speaker: You know, just because even if you really enjoyed writing that scene, it might be the best scene you've ever written.
Speaker: But if it doesn't earn its place on the page, into the wastebasket, it must go.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Those things are difficult to call out though, aren't they?
Speaker: You kind of sit there and you think, but maybe if I spin it this way, it can stay, but it actually has no business being there.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And maybe the ones that, you know, with your agent or your publisher, you, you, you, you argue,
Speaker: to to a dying day on but you know they're right you know they're right you know they go well that's and it often it comes back as something what is the point of this I think I think the hardest thing and I don't know if you've had that is cutting out characters that you absolutely love but you know that oh they could be used in another book or maybe they're not like relevant to this book itself like yeah I don't know for me that's really difficult sometimes
Speaker: Yeah, because I think we invest ourselves in character, don't we?
Speaker: We kind of create them as our friends, not necessarily friends that we like, but people that we will empathize with.
Speaker: And then you realize, well, the story can survive without them.
Speaker: But there's never a waste.
Speaker: As you said, you can use them in another book.
Speaker: You can rehash them somewhere else.
Speaker: People do it all the time.
Speaker: So just because you've created something in your mind and you love it and you put a lot of work to create a lot of person, they might not work in this book.
Speaker: But just pop them in a folder somewhere and make them appear next time.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Speaker: Yeah, they're never totally lost unless you absolutely have to kill them off.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But yeah, yeah, I guess you could always, always use them for something else, which is a lovely thing about actually writing because you never have to completely say goodbye, which is really nice.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: Well, you know, you kill them off.
Speaker: You look at, you know, one of the greatest books of our, you know, of our era and great films, The Godfather.
Speaker: You know, Don Corleone was killed off, wasn't he?
Speaker: Godfather 1.
Speaker: Then Godfather 2 and Back He Came.
Speaker: It was a prequel.
Speaker: You know, it was inspired because it was so good.
Speaker: Thank God he'd bring him back as a ghost.
Speaker: That would have been a stretch too far, I think, for...
Speaker: I think in crime fiction, if you were to hypothetically shoot someone in the head and they came back in the second book, you'd kind of be like, what?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: What happened?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: There are certain things.
Speaker: This character had an identical twin that we weren't aware of.
Speaker: Yeah, I think that's where it could maybe suspend disbelief a little bit too far.
Speaker: Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker: Yeah, there are limits.
Speaker: As I say, it's all about a world that readers can buy into and there are some limits to that.
Speaker: I don't know if you've ever seen Jed McCurrier's Bodyguard, the TV series with Keely Hawes.
Speaker: um yeah when she was killed off uh sorry spoilers if anyone hasn't seen it but when she was killed off um and it was a whole explosion and you know i thought maybe she's gonna come back but she didn't because i just thought how would they be able to pull that off if she were to come back so yeah i think there's there's a point uh but it's fun
Speaker: Yeah, yeah, no, absolutely.
Speaker: And there are lots of things that Jed Mercurio gets away with that others may not.
Speaker: I do love him.
Speaker: I think the only said about that the better.
Speaker: All right, okay, we'll move you.
Speaker: That's why I said, yeah, I said I do love him.
Speaker: Well, I don't know, for me, like for me, from the production aspect, I think he's brilliant.
Speaker: Oh, absolutely.
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: And I think he, I don't know if you've seen it, but there's a, there was a six part, I think it was a six particle, Blue Lights, which was a police procedure.
Speaker: Oh, yes.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Oh, my God.
Speaker: That was incredible.
Speaker: Absolutely incredible.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I mean, I could watch it taking off my procedure advisor hat because it's based in Northern Ireland and Northern Ireland have got completely different procedures from England and Wales.
Speaker: So I could just enjoy it as a drama, but it's incredible, wasn't it?
Speaker: It was absolutely amazing.
Speaker: And just his ability, I mean, he's got this kind of ability to just, just when you think things can't get any worse, he ramps it up again.
Speaker: Yeah, throws it at you.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And that's brilliant writing.
Speaker: So I know you started out writing nonfiction.
Speaker: So you started with Death Comes Knocking and then did Babes in the Wood and then transitioned to fiction thereafter.
Speaker: What drew you in about writing fiction and was the transition a difficult one to make?
Speaker: So I kind of, it just felt like a natural progression to me, really.
Speaker: I didn't, so I really enjoyed the writing, the two non-fictions, although the second one was quite emotionally draining because of the subject matter.
Speaker: I really enjoyed the writing and kind of learned a lot about the writing.
Speaker: And it just felt like a, I just felt compelled to do something more creative and imaginative.
Speaker: So, yeah, I just thought I'd give fiction a go.
Speaker: I kind of, you know, I played a little bit safe.
Speaker: They say, right, well, you know, and I think I took that to an extreme by it.
Speaker: writing, but you know, my main character, the only difference between her and me, apart from some of her character traits, is that she's a woman and I'm not, but other than that, she's, you know, she was a former detective who became the divisional commander of Brighton and Hove, a job that I did in the city that I worked, so I kind of, you know, I, as I say, I took some, took the writing, you know, to extremes there, but
Speaker: Yeah, I just had these kind of things dashing around in my head that I thought I want to write a book out of these.
Speaker: Writing nonfiction is really hard, writing fiction is hard, because with nonfiction you have to be so fastidious with your research that you have to remember sometimes that you're writing a book and not an academic paper.
Speaker: But writing fiction, you know, I could literally allow my imagination.
Speaker: And, you know, it turns out I enjoy much more than nonfiction.
Speaker: So it just felt like a natural progression.
Speaker: You know, I wanted to give it a go.
Speaker: I had some stories buzzing around in my mind.
Speaker: So I thought, well, why not?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, I think that's really cool.
Speaker: Because I think, yeah, when I initially met you, you had been working on the first fiction novel at that point.
Speaker: So before that, it had only been the two nonfiction novels, which, by the way, are absolutely brilliant.
Speaker: I've like made so many notes.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, so I was quite curious about the transition because obviously it is different.
Speaker: But I can say having just read your debut novel, Bad for Good, which we're going to speak about in a minute, and reading it a second time, you absolutely cannot tell that it's your debut novel.
Speaker: It was really well written.
Speaker: And yeah, I think that's always such a treat.
Speaker: It's always such a great thing, especially for a debut novel.
Speaker: So yeah, really, really well done.
Speaker: Thank you very much.
Speaker: Thank you.
Speaker: I mean, it did take me seven years to write, so... Seven years, well.
Speaker: Maybe because of the... a certain amount of procrastination.
Speaker: I was writing non-fictions as well, but so it's kind of like I started it seven years ago.
Speaker: I didn't really go in sort of, you know, into full writing mode until I've tried to finish Babes in the Wood, but...
Speaker: Yeah, it was a long hard slog and I learnt a lot about the differences between nonfiction and fiction but it's very kind of you to say that and let's hope I continue in that vein.
Speaker: So, yeah, so as I mentioned, your debut novel, Bad For Good, released last year, June, I believe.
Speaker: But yeah, so the first chapter opens on a rather grim scene.
Speaker: We're launched right into an assault.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: That ends with our poor victim being hauled into a van.
Speaker: Yeah, poor victim.
Speaker: I don't know about poor victim.
Speaker: He's not a very nice person.
Speaker: I will be.
Speaker: Right, yeah, but if you've just come into it, you know, obviously you're going to feel for him.
Speaker: The way that he was, yeah, smacked around.
Speaker: I felt all of that.
Speaker: It was, yeah, it's terrible.
Speaker: And that's, like I said, really well described as well because I felt what he was going through.
Speaker: And by the time the van drove off, I was like, this poor guy.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But then obviously, as we learn later on, yeah, I'm not going to spoil it.
Speaker: But yeah, as you were right in saying, poor victim, not so much.
Speaker: Yeah, no.
Speaker: Yeah, there aren't any good characters in that particular scene.
Speaker: But I mean, I think that's what's so great about it because you're still able to feel for them.
Speaker: And that to me is, that's a mark of a brilliant writer, especially in our genre, because how often can you actually generate sympathy for a character that should not be likable by any means?
Speaker: But they are.
Speaker: They really are.
Speaker: You do end up feeling bad for them.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: And it's, you know, the scene was there to...
Speaker: kind of introduce immediately the world of vigilantism that the book kind of centres around really.
Speaker: I mean, there is another main storyline which is around the murder, but the vigilantism is the sort of what pulls the story through.
Speaker: And you kind of, yes, the person who is attacked has done some very bad things, but
Speaker: Yeah, I tried to show that he is kind of, you know, it's his judgment day and he's feeling very, very exposed, obviously very victimised and very wronged and obviously quite badly injured as well, you know, as part of that.
Speaker: And it's kind of, you know, for me it was important to sort of,
Speaker: showing that sometimes there are scales of good and evil.
Speaker: And sometimes people are generally all way one or the other.
Speaker: They are, you know, good people do evil things.
Speaker: You know, bad people do very good things too.
Speaker: So, you know, it's kind of, it's sort of a short-term balance.
Speaker: But yeah, I wanted to start the book with a shop, so that's what I did.
Speaker: Well, I mean, it was really effective.
Speaker: So yeah, so we open on that scene.
Speaker: And then shortly afterwards, we are introduced to our lovely main, well, I don't want to say main, yeah, well, essentially our main character.
Speaker: So we've got Joe and we've got Phil and Phil's family.
Speaker: And immediately, as I've said, again, definitely on the emotional side with what he's been going through with his wife, who's sick and
Speaker: despite having both this world around him that feels comfortable, he's immediately thrown into something that's unfamiliar territory for him as a father, obviously, when his son is murdered.
Speaker: And as a police officer for him, obviously, he has dealt with stuff like this before, but when it really hits home for him, his entire world is completely turned upside down.
Speaker: So why did you decide that this was the story you needed to tell?
Speaker: I think it goes back to this point about, you know, people in roles that they're not comfortable with.
Speaker: And, you know, with Phil, you know, his life's been quite good for him.
Speaker: You know, his wife is very sick.
Speaker: And he's struggling with that.
Speaker: And he is struggling with that.
Speaker: And he's feeling very bad.
Speaker: But workers escape.
Speaker: And he's very used to dealing with death and tragedy and violent death and tragedy.
Speaker: And then suddenly the boot's on the other foot.
Speaker: And these aren't spoilers.
Speaker: Please don't worry about it.
Speaker: But the...
Speaker: the death message scene when Joe gives him, basically tells him that Harry's died, you know, that was written from probably 20 or so encounters where I've had to give death messages to people.
Speaker: And you kind of, and I rewrote that scene dozens of times because how would he react?
Speaker: How would he react?
Speaker: You know, he's, you know, most people,
Speaker: have a very strong reaction of either denial or anger or blame.
Speaker: I've been attacked when I've been giving death messages before, not because, only because people want the message to go away and you're the kind of, you're the thing in reach that can do that.
Speaker: I really, yeah, and I really wanted, and I wanted Joe to be very much empathetic to what he was going, you know, what he was going through and kind of making it really clear to him, no, you know, you've got to believe this.
Speaker: You know, this is, you know, you can say that you need to see him, you can question whether we're sure, all of that, but kind of, you know,
Speaker: as well as I do, that we don't come and give these messages for no reason.
Speaker: And so it's a really, really emotive scene to write.
Speaker: And it was quite a tenuous scene as well because it's revealed quite early in the book that they've got a romantic past and Phil actually had an affair with her when he was married, in fact, and his sons were young and she was just a young DC and it had all gone horribly wrong.
Speaker: But there was still that tenderness there between them.
Speaker: And I think I pointed at one point, you know, he'd broken her heart once, but there was nothing to what she was about to do to him.
Speaker: She was literally about to go and tell him.
Speaker: And that was, you know, that was really kind of, you know, that's written from the heart, that.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, I think, gosh, yeah, that scene for me as well was, gosh, I had to actually stop because I was so invested in that scene.
Speaker: And I realized, like, you know, obviously, given their history as well, and that's exactly as you've mentioned now, I think it was absolutely right for her to be the one to have delivered the message.
Speaker: But at the same time, understanding that in the same vein, her, you know, knowing their history and knowing what they've been through, I think for her as well, must have been really, really difficult.
Speaker: So there's two aspects to it.
Speaker: It's not just her going as a friend or as a colleague as well, delivering a message like this, but also given what they've been through, like you said, he would know that this is not just something small and that it really has happened.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker: So all of those kind of emotions.
Speaker: And of course, I mean, you sort of, you know, I was telling you about authenticity and accuracy.
Speaker: And I kind of, you know, I said about, yeah, sometimes you have to take a bit of a leap.
Speaker: And, you know, technically speaking, should she be investigating the murder?
Speaker: Is that her ex-lover's murder?
Speaker: Well, no, she shouldn't.
Speaker: But the fact is that as far as she was aware, nobody knew about it.
Speaker: It's not quite the case, but as far as she was aware, nobody knew about it.
Speaker: And two, I needed her to do that.
Speaker: So that's why she did it.
Speaker: But I kind of, but I gave a nod to that.
Speaker: I gave a nod to it that, you know, she knew that it's just maybe she was too close, but she was going to do it anyway, just to show that, just to show that I knew that it wasn't something that would happen, you know, as a matter of course.
Speaker: I'm really glad that you've kept on that because that for me is just way more interesting than having someone else do it because she knows the history and I'm like, ooh, what's going to happen?
Speaker: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: She's got this, you know, because she hasn't even told her husband who she met long after the affair had finished.
Speaker: So she's got that secret to keep as well.
Speaker: Yeah, so very, very good.
Speaker: And then obviously, you know, he has to deal with the fact that his son has died, his wife is sick.
Speaker: Obviously, Kyle, Kyle's going through things of his own now, which, you know, there's so much to deal with.
Speaker: And he obviously can't be involved as much as he'd like to be involved.
Speaker: And
Speaker: You know, he doesn't really believe, especially in the beginning, he doesn't really believe that after three days into the inquiry, that they don't have anything.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Up until that crucial moment, obviously, where things start to happen at that point, he's kind of just thinking, how can they not have anything, you know?
Speaker: So yeah, so it's really, really well written, I think as well from a parent's perspective, and that's something I had to learn when writing my own book, as you pointed out.
Speaker: You know, the grief is really deep and oftentimes, you know, people experience and process grief differently.
Speaker: And you really, really did a very good job at showing that, but also how his relationships began to unfold, but also to sort of deteriorate over the length of the novel, not only with his family, but also with his colleagues, because, yeah, he essentially feels like he doesn't really have control, which was really well done.
Speaker: Thank you.
Speaker: And that was really important because he's used to being in control.
Speaker: And it was one of those things where he was the parent versus the cop inside of him conniving.
Speaker: And the parent what?
Speaker: And people do, you know, why haven't you found anything?
Speaker: You know, what's holding you up?
Speaker: What are you doing?
Speaker: You know, have you done this?
Speaker: Have you done that?
Speaker: Have you done the other?
Speaker: And particularly if they've got knowledge, you know, they're very, very, you know, and you can't criticise people for that.
Speaker: But with him, he kind of, sometimes he's placed the part of a pair and sometimes he, I mean, over, he plays the part of a pair and sometimes he uses his rank and his position to push things forward.
Speaker: And, you know, it all goes horribly wrong for him, as you'd expect.
Speaker: Yeah, definitely.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And I think I'm also really interested in just his relationship with other characters, but also I think with Joe, because Joe's, you know, she's got a lot on her plate dealing with him, but also dealing with the investigation and, you know, trying to ensure that things aren't interpreted the wrong way, but that...
Speaker: I think, yeah, I think like what I got from her was that it was really difficult to not treat this as someone who's close to her.
Speaker: You know, that person's son has died, but she has to still treat it as it deserves to be treated, you know, as another case.
Speaker: And she can't obviously prioritize things, if that makes sense.
Speaker: That's kind of what I got from her as well.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah, no, that's right.
Speaker: And she's always sort of saying, well, you know, you taught me how to investigate these things and I need to do it properly and, you know, with the right methodology and not just, you know, not just leap around as you'd have me do.
Speaker: And that's kind of the message there.
Speaker: So she needs to make sure that she's, you know, she remains professional even when he can't.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Speaker: And there's that pressure to sort of not only get it right, but also ensure that the person responsible was found.
Speaker: And I think that must have been immense pressure, obviously, because it's someone you know, it's someone that you were close with, and you now have to try and put all the pieces together on a timeline as well, you know, where, you know, obviously, there is a time limit, and he's expecting things.
Speaker: And his entire world is completely shattered and she needs to deliver.
Speaker: Exactly, yeah.
Speaker: I think it's really, really difficult.
Speaker: So I love her, absolutely love her, you know, with all her mistakes and everything that goes wrong.
Speaker: I do think she's absolutely brilliant.
Speaker: And yeah, in book two, we obviously get to see a bit more of that.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And, you know, with book two, what I've done, because I've put her through hell, then I put one.
Speaker: I mean, she's, you know, how's anyone ever going to come out of that?
Speaker: But with book two, so with book two, I wouldn't have been worried to come out
Speaker: come into book two with no scars at all from book one.
Speaker: So I actually worked with a clinical psychologist who's also a crime novelist called Dr. Chris Merritt.
Speaker: And he helped me just kind of seed in little aspects of her behavior and her personality that have changed as a result.
Speaker: So we're not going full PTSD, but we're going, you know, some avoidance, bit of alcohol reliance,
Speaker: So some kind of snappiness here and there and that sort of thing.
Speaker: So I'm deliberately just trying to ramping up her own anxieties and mental health issues because of what she went through, but one.
Speaker: And I think that's really important what you mentioned there, because as I've said as well to another author, was the fact that, yeah, you get yourself sort of like cliched detective who's always drunk and always late for work and always kind of messing up and never meeting deadlines or never actually doing what they're meant to be doing, but still somehow getting promoted and still somehow, you know, managing to pull through and, you know, their boss is fed up with them, but they don't really care.
Speaker: um I think yeah obviously that's that's the whole thing and it's so on but I think what what I really loved as well about Jo is that you didn't do that with her when you had every reason to to put her through stuff like that or to make her that kind of character you didn't um which I really appreciate because I've read so many books where the characters end up being completely hardened and yeah drunk and you know
Speaker: However, and I think that's what's so great is you do mention, obviously, this is going to have an effect on her because no one person can go through what she's gone through or what they've all gone through and come out the other end completely sunshine and rainbows, which is really good.
Speaker: No, that's really, you know, I'm glad that came across because, you know, it is one of my pet hates too, you know, where you get these kind of, these hard and cynical cops.
Speaker: I mean, some of the best police officers that I've known that have, you know, had mental health crises are the ones that, you know, that you just think, oh, they've got it all together.
Speaker: You know, they're fine.
Speaker: They're great.
Speaker: They, you know, they cope with all this and then something happens and then they snap.
Speaker: They don't all become...
Speaker: great yeah they don't all become sort of these kind of cliched sort of suit of armoured sort of robo cops that you'd expect you know they they're fighting their own internal battles but externally they're really trying to um uh they're really trying to sort of give a you know they give the best of themselves really for the job that they they still love
Speaker: Yeah, yeah, definitely.
Speaker: And I think also with her, obviously, like we have seen the darker side of her, we have seen, you know, what's behind the curtain and the kind of things that she has to essentially bring home with her.
Speaker: But how important do you think it was for you as well, when initially crafting her?
Speaker: maybe not where she is now but in the beginning to sort of have that line sort of have that boundary to not really bring things home with her but then essentially they obviously do bleed into her her life and her marriage as well as we know yeah I wanted her to be I wanted her to be a very strong but slightly um slightly insecure um
Speaker: police officer, she's a senior leader, she's got a lot on her plate.
Speaker: But I wanted her to be very empathetic towards her staff and to the public.
Speaker: And I wanted her to be somebody that loved her home life.
Speaker: You know, she's got a husband.
Speaker: She's got two boys that she absolutely adores.
Speaker: She's trying to juggle her home life with her professional life.
Speaker: And I took a lot of advice from some former senior women police officers because I've obviously done the job as a bloke, but I've never done it as a woman.
Speaker: And, you know, they were telling me about, you know, the internal battles that women have.
Speaker: in, you know, am I good enough mum?
Speaker: Am I good enough a police officer?
Speaker: You know, just this kind of, and it's not always external, sometimes it's internal, these battles, so I wanted all of that to come across, and I wanted her to have imposter syndrome as well, you know, I mean, I suffered and still suffer from imposter syndrome all the time, and
Speaker: Yeah, and I think it's a natural state with people that care and people that kind of want to work hard and do the best thing.
Speaker: So I wanted her to have that.
Speaker: She just feels that she's not up to it.
Speaker: She's going to be found out.
Speaker: There's a scene where...
Speaker: her journalist husband as you say as a journalist tells her that you know it's basically you know don't worry about the newspaper it's fish and chip paper tomorrow you know don't worry about it but she's she takes it all very much to heart and I think that's that's definitely the character I want to I mean it's you know obviously you know I'm
Speaker: I'm not a woman, but there's a lot of that of me in her.
Speaker: It's not autobiographical at all, but I've drawn on a lot of that.
Speaker: So it's one of those things that I was absolutely sure that I wanted as part of her personality is to be like that.
Speaker: and like yeah yeah exactly and that's definitely come across and like I said I really I really do love her um I feel well obviously really excited to see how how she grows and progresses um and yeah and and sort of bridging that gap between book one and two um to see how things have changed for her obviously not giving away spoilers but yeah really things changed in a big way um and the way that she dealt with that I feel is is absolutely as human I mean
Speaker: I feel sometimes a lot of people, I'm saying people, not writers specifically, but people feel that police officers sometimes can be seen as superheroes and that nothing sort of gets to them because they're kind of hard.
Speaker: But things actually behind the scenes, you're still human and things still do affect you.
Speaker: Yeah, no, absolutely.
Speaker: Yeah, no, absolutely.
Speaker: And we all take stuff home with us.
Speaker: We, you kind of, you know, at work, you have to be very much on the, you know, I always said to people that, you know, the police aren't going to fix problems.
Speaker: Who is going to fix them?
Speaker: So you have to be professional.
Speaker: But you do take stuff, you know, you do take stuff home with you.
Speaker: And, you know, sometimes that comes out in different ways.
Speaker: So speaking of your career as a police officer, were there any specific aspects of that that influenced your writing and research as a crime author?
Speaker: Yeah, I mean, hugely.
Speaker: I really wanted to demonstrate the humanity of policing and also some of the humour of policing as well.
Speaker: So, you know, we've got Bob Heaton, who's a DI.
Speaker: He's a bit sort of ramshackle, you know, he looks like he's been pulled through the hedge backwards.
Speaker: Sometimes he's over deferential, but behind that, he's absolutely brilliant.
Speaker: He's not Columbo, but he's that kind of, you don't expect him to be as good as he is.
Speaker: And certainly in book two, I developed him quite a bit because I fell in love with him.
Speaker: And he has a part of his character, I won't spoil it, he has a part of his character that you wouldn't immediately guess, but you find out halfway through book one.
Speaker: And, you know, he's one of those people that you just kind of, you just see policing from a different size.
Speaker: You know, you just see that, you know, he's got an edge to him, but he's also a lovely fellow and a very funny fellow too.
Speaker: And, you know, that's really important for me to show.
Speaker: Obviously, in bad figure, I wanted to show how stretched the police were.
Speaker: That's part of the premise of the book.
Speaker: You know, the police are so stretched, the vigilantism takes over.
Speaker: And that, you know, most of the really good stuff happens, is done by uniform officers.
Speaker: You know, I get fed up with reading in books how dumb uniform officers are made to appear alongside their detective colleagues and how they...
Speaker: how they're treated as second-class citizens.
Speaker: Well, uniform officers are the hardest working, bravest, most innovative cops on the ground.
Speaker: So I tried to show policing in its true light, but in a dramatic sense.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And yeah, I really do appreciate that.
Speaker: And I think, yeah, like I said, it's really well done.
Speaker: And you kind of, you make sure that every single character is relevant and they have, they have an impact on the greater story.
Speaker: And I think that is really important because if you were to take any one of them out, that would impact the story with them not being there.
Speaker: Yeah, no, absolutely.
Speaker: And there were a number I did take out because they didn't have that effect.
Speaker: So, you know, it's about everybody having to earn their place on the page.
Speaker: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker: I need to pay rent.
Speaker: If you're not paying rent, then just leave.
Speaker: You know, that's a great expression.
Speaker: I love that expression.
Speaker: You've got to be paying your rent.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I won't use it.
Speaker: I'll leave that for you to use.
Speaker: I've always said if my characters aren't paying rent in my head, then they have no business being there.
Speaker: Good darn.
Speaker: I think that's great.
Speaker: I think that's great.
Speaker: Well, yeah, thank you so much for joining me for episode six, seven.
Speaker: Episode seven, yes.
Speaker: Yeah, you're running away with it.
Speaker: You realise it.
Speaker: Yeah, it's crazy.
Speaker: But yeah, thank you so, so much.
Speaker: It's an absolute big honor to have you, not only as someone that I've worked with before, but as someone who has done all these incredible things and obviously written two amazing crime fiction novels.
Speaker: So yeah, so I'll definitely do reviews on that.
Speaker: But yeah, thank you so much for those.
Speaker: And thank you again, yeah, for coming on tonight.
Speaker: So what are your plans after this?
Speaker: Oh, no, Sam, thank you so much.
Speaker: I really enjoyed it.
Speaker: I mean, I'm doing loads of festivals this year, which is really exciting.
Speaker: So I'm doing a Bradford Literary Festival in June, Haraga in July.
Speaker: We're doing, so I'm sharing a panel there, but also we're setting up an interview room where anyone can come along and have their go at interviewing a potential, a suspected murderer.
Speaker: So we're going to have it all set up as a police interview room.
Speaker: And people can come along with a book to that.
Speaker: So I'll do that.
Speaker: I'll do Bloody Scotland in Stirling in August.
Speaker: Now, when's that?
Speaker: September, August?
Speaker: I can't remember.
Speaker: September.
Speaker: And hopefully I'm doing Capital Crime in London too.
Speaker: So yeah, there's loads.
Speaker: It's such a busy set, but I love it.
Speaker: And also I'm going to try and write more books.
Speaker: Yes, please.
Speaker: Please do.
Speaker: Please don't stop.
Speaker: And then, yeah, I look forward to more updates and hearing about book three as soon as you're ready to discuss that.
Speaker: It would be great as well.
Speaker: Thank you.
Speaker: No, really enjoyed it.
Speaker: Thank you very much, Sam.
