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#165 - T.M. Payne
337 Plays1 year ago
Procedural crime author, T.M. Payne joins us this week to chat about her debut novel 'Long Time Dead', her previous work in criminal justice and the ups and downs of her publishing journey.
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Transcript
Introduction and Patreon Announcement
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Speaker
To listen without ads, head over to patreon.com slash rightandwrong.
00:00:04
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Ooh, a spicy question.
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I love it.
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Because the writing is sort of everything, right?
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You can fix plot holes, but if the writer... So some readers love that and some readers are like, but I wanted more of this.
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So it's kind of a gamble.
Welcome to the Right and Wrong Podcast
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Hello and welcome back to the Right and Wrong podcast.
Meet T.M. Payne: From Criminal Justice to Novelist
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Joining me today is a debut novelist who spent 18 years working in the criminal justice system and 14 of those as a police case investigator with the Domestic Violence Unit.
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The same day that this episode goes live, her first novel, Long Time Dead, will also be releasing.
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I'm delighted to welcome T.M.
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Payne.
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Hello.
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Welcome to the show.
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Thank you.
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Thank you for having me.
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It's such a pleasure.
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Let's jump in with the book, your debut novel, Long Time Dead.
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Tell us a little bit about it.
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Okay.
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Well, as you say, it's my debut.
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It's out on the 1st of April and it's the first of the D.I.
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Sheridan Holler series, which is set in Liverpool and on the Wirral.
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Basically, it's very hard to say this without giving anything away, but it starts off in 1997 with the shooting of two women outside a supermarket.
The Plot of Long Time Dead
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Now, one of these women is an off-duty police officer who is killed and the other is a local newspaper editor who survives.
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But she suffers a catastrophic head injury, which basically leaves her unable to communicate.
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Now, the main suspect in the shooting is a local sort of low-level drug dealer called John Lively, who after the shooting disappears and has never been found.
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We then move seven years on to 2004 and John Lively's body turns up in a cemetery in Liverpool in a grave where basically he does not belong.
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So the main character, Sheridan Holler, and her team have to open a murder inquiry into John Lively's death and reopen the original case where the two women were shot.
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So she's got two inquiries going on at the same time.
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There is another story that runs throughout the book and this will run throughout the series.
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And that is when Sheridan Holler was 14, her brother Matthew, he was 12 at the time, was murdered and his body was found in Birkenhead Park.
Sheridan’s Unsolved Murder Case
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Now his killer has never been caught.
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And so Sheridan sort of grew up thinking, I'm going to join the police force.
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I'm going to become a detective and I'm going to solve his case.
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So as Long Time Dead is going on, obviously his case has still not been solved.
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But there is a clue that Sheridan finds in this book where she finds a lead and she hands it to the cold case team.
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So they are now working on trying to solve Matthew's murder.
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But like I say, that is something that will carry on because I've just finished book three in the series.
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So Matthew's story will continue.
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I don't know how long because I don't want to sort of drag it out and there will be a conclusion to it.
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But that may be in book four or five.
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I'm not sure yet.
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So watch this space.
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Amazing.
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I mean, there's so much going on.
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Lots to kind of sink your
Influence of Criminal Justice Experience on Writing
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teeth into.
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It is in the style of like a police procedural.
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Yeah.
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Having worked with the police for many, many years, how much of the inspiration came from that experience?
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Well, to be fair, I've always...
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I've always been intrigued in crime.
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I've always been intrigued with it anyway, even before I joined the police.
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But I mean, my whole working life has been pretty much within the criminal justice system in some way.
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I mean, my first job when I left school was working in a shop and I ended up catching more shoplifters than I did serving people because I could just, I don't know what it was.
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I could just, I just knew someone was going to take, was going to steal something.
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So I was a store detective for many years.
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And then I moved and worked in the... What's a store detective?
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A store detective.
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You've obviously never been done for shoplifting, have you?
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No.
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Which is good.
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A store detective is somebody who dresses normally like every other shopper in the shop and they walk around pretending to be a shopper and they catch shoplifters.
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So you basically follow someone around the store, hope they don't spot you following them.
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And I have been known to hide in some very strange places within a shop.
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Once in a shop, there was a, like a clothing rail, a round clothing rail.
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And I managed to get in there and hide in there because the lady I was, I was watching was stealing clothes.
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And I, where I couldn't stand anywhere without her seeing me.
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So I waited for her to turn around and I hid inside.
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And she was shoveling all these clothes into her bag.
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And then as she sort of went to leave the shop, I had to very hurriedly sort of emerge.
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And I shocked a few people like, what is this crazy woman doing?
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And then basically you have to wait, pretty much wait till the person leaves the store.
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And then you follow them out and you show your ID and you identify yourself and say, you've got something on you that you haven't paid for.
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And you bring them back to the shop and have a chat with them.
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And then you call the police.
Anecdotes from a Store Detective
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Or sometimes you don't call the police.
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I have been known to let a couple of people off, I have to say.
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Okay.
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I don't know how old you are, and I'm not going to ask you, but Woolworths used to sell, and I worked in Woolworths actually as a store detective.
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They used to sell pick and mix sweets.
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Now, you probably don't remember them, but they were elderly ladies and gentlemen used to love pick and mix.
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And I've often allowed people to walk out of Woolworths with a bag of sweets.
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But what I would do is if I knew I'd let them off with it, I would roughly guess how much the sweets cost and I would actually go to the till and pay for them myself.
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So the store didn't lose out financially.
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And I'd sort of done my job, but I'm not going to arrest an elderly lady for nicking some chocolate.
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That's just not going to happen ever.
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So yeah, so that's, that's what a store detective is.
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So if you've never met one, then obviously you've always paid for your shopping.
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Yeah.
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Well, that's cool.
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I had no idea that that was a, that was a thing.
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It was a thing.
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Yeah.
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And I loved it.
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I did it.
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It was to be fair, looking back now, I mean, I was very young.
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I was in my twenties.
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it's a very dangerous job because you've got no like body armor or equipment or anything.
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And generally, back then I didn't even have a radio.
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I couldn't even radio someone and say, you know, I'm chasing this person down the road and can someone help me?
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We had none of that.
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It was just a matter of,
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hoping they came back to the store with you.
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Cause I would only run so far.
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If someone, if someone was, if they're, if they're going to run like a gazelle, I'm not going to, because by the time you catch up with them, you're so out of breath, you can't even tell them who you are.
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You know, you just got this, this panting woman going, just, just stop a minute.
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Stop a minute.
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Let me get my breath back.
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I need to tell you something.
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So yeah, so that was kind of like my intro to my working life, working, like I say, in the sort of criminal justice system.
Authenticity in Police Procedurals
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And then I was a prisoner custody officer in London.
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which my job was to transport prisoners from police stations or prisons to court and then deal with them in the cells of the court.
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And I ended up as a supervisor at Horse Ferry Road Magistrates Court, which isn't actually there anymore.
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I think it's called Westminster Magistrates Court now.
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So my job, there was 40 cells at Horse Ferry Road.
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And every day we'd have sort of probably about 70 or 80 prisoners brought in from police stations and prisons.
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So I've met some, I've met some characters.
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So I've always had this, this interest in, in criminals and how they work and how their minds work.
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And I've always liked to think I could write a book.
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And then obviously working in the police, I've dealt with a lot of domestic violence.
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So it's not,
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Working for the police wasn't an inspiration to write the book or books.
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It's always been there.
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And I haven't used any of the crimes that I've dealt with in the books.
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This is just kind of my imagination.
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But the beauty of working in the police for so long and working in the courts, and I've obviously worked with probation officers.
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you know, Crown Court Judges, all that sort of thing.
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It gives, it gave me, it's given me a good basis for the police procedural side of it to make the books, hopefully, very authentic.
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And if there's a scene where I'm not 100% sure if I've got it right, I've still got colleagues who work in the police or who have, you know, recently retired, who I can ring up and say, look, I've got this scene.
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Would this happen or could this happen or how would that happen?
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And they're more than happy to
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to sit for hours on the phone and explain it to me.
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So I'm quite, I'm quite lucky that way.
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So I've picked up a lot of good, good contacts and good friends from the police.
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So.
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Is it quite an important part for you that, that you do keep the sort of operating kind of standards of the police, like all of that stuff, do you want to keep it very grounded and kind of maintain the reality of that?
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Yes.
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Yeah, absolutely.
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And, and, and, and the reality of how police officers, how they are in, in their environment,
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I've dealt with, obviously, I've met a lot of police officers.
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And even the job that I did in domestic violence was, that was hard.
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It was tough.
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It was a serious job.
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You're dealing with people's lives.
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But there was always a time in the office where, not at the expense of a victim, obviously, but we would have, we'd have a laugh.
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We'd wind each other up.
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We'd do stupid things.
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Because
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it kind of got you through the day a little bit.
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If you were always very serious and always, you know, yeah, taking things too seriously, you'd probably struggle to stay in the job that long.
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So I think the authenticity of how police officers and police staff work together and how they talk to each other
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That's important to me.
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And there is humour in the book.
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And I will always put humour in the books.
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In fact, that's the easiest part for me is to write the funny scenes.
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But I don't think it takes away from the police procedural side of it because it is, you know, they're crime fiction novels at the end of the day.
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And, you know, there's horrible crimes being committed.
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So I hope I've got the balance right.
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I think I've got it right.
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We'll see.
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The readers will tell me, won't
True Crime vs. Fiction: Inspiration for Writing
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they?
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I'm sure.
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Yeah.
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Do you, do you read, um, or, or like watch a lot of crime and fiction sort of, uh, shows or novels or whatever?
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I, do you know what?
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I'm very late to the, to the game, Jamie, if I'm honest, I, um, in the last couple of years, I've read more books than I've read in however many years before that.
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Um, I, I obviously do now, um, read, read a lot and I've, I've met a lot of incredible authors and read their books.
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Um,
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because it intrigues me how other people do it.
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Do you know what I mean?
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And I think there's always this fear that people say, oh, you know, if you're reading so many crime fiction books and you're writing one yourself, do you end up not stealing their ideas, but their plots drift into your head and you end up using them yourself without even kind of knowing it?
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That hasn't happened yet.
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And that's another thing I think the more I read, the more I can sort of make sure my books don't copy them.
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But I'm different and I think everybody probably feels that way.
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I like watching films.
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I like watching true life crime because I think that's, you know, they say the truth is stranger than fiction.
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And when you sort of see a review on someone's book and they go, well, that's ridiculous.
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That would never happen.
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People don't act like that.
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I think we'll actually watch a true crime because...
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trust me, people do the strangest things and get away with, with crimes they shouldn't get away with.
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Um, so it's wild.
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Yeah.
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I was watching, um, my wife was watching dirty John.
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I don't know if you've seen either of the series for that, where it is like a dramatic recreations of things that happened, but I didn't realize that.
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So I was kind of watching it over her shoulder and I was just thinking like, wow, I literally said, imagine if someone did that in real life.
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And she just turned to me and said,
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This is a recreation.
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Someone did that.
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Exactly.
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It's crazy.
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Yeah, that's what I mean.
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So it doesn't matter.
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People that write crime fiction and put these incredible scenes in, you think, really?
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But there's more true crime out there that is unbelievable.
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So there's nothing that an author writes is going to be unbelievable because it's probably already been done in real life, like you say.
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Yeah, exactly.
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Was it like Ted Bundy escapes the police like two times?
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Oh, is that right?
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Something ridiculous like that.
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Getting back onto you though, as it's important to you that the book is like authentic and that the things that happen and the way that the police and the kind of courts work is true to life.
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Are there any things when you're sort of reading crime detective novels or watching shows, do you have any like pet peeves where they kind of repeatedly keep misrepresenting something?
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I try not to think like that.
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I mean, I have seen... Try and disassociate.
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Yeah, I just try and think, you know, for dramatization, I understand why people will do certain things.
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But, you know, if I'm watching a TV program where, say, someone's being interviewed by, say, two CID officers, two detective constables or whatever...
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and standing in the corner of the interview room as a big burly uniformed police officer.
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Um, I think that wouldn't happen.
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He wouldn't, he wouldn't be there to know what I mean.
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He, you just wouldn't have that.
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I've never, I've say I've, I've sat in thousands of interview rooms and with, with some very, very dangerous people.
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And, um, yeah, we don't have a burly uniformed officer, but there must be a reason that they've put that in there.
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So yeah,
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I try not to go, that wouldn't happen or that annoys me.
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I just think they've used that, shall we call it artistic license for a reason.
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And does it really make a difference if the person's enjoying the program, if the viewer's enjoying what they're seeing, then does it matter if they've probably got that a little bit wrong?
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So I try not to.
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Otherwise, I'd just be going, that wouldn't happen.
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That wouldn't happen.
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And that would just get, I just annoy myself, I think.
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Yeah, that's fair enough.
00:14:23
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Let's go back to a bit more about your writing and the origins
T.M. Payne’s Writing Journey
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of this.
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You did mention that you'd always wanted to write a book or that it's something you'd always thought about doing.
00:14:35
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Was Longtime Dad your first go at that or had you written other manuscripts and stories before this?
00:14:41
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I actually wrote a book many years ago.
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I always wanted to write a novel and I knew it would be crime before I was 40.
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I'm 57 now, so I told you I was late to the party, didn't I?
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So I wrote a book called To Catch a Butterfly and I couldn't get an agent and I couldn't get a publisher, so I self-published it.
00:15:04
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And it did really, really well.
00:15:06
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But then kind of life sort of took over and obviously work and your general, and it's not an excuse.
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Well, it sort of is an excuse.
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And I didn't really sort of touch anything else.
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And then in about 2015, I thought I really need to, if I'm going to write books, I need to kind of do it now.
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I just need to do it.
00:15:28
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So, and the idea for Long Time Dead came out of,
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one line, which I can't tell you what it is because it will give the whole, that one line will give the whole book away.
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And I just remember thinking, yeah, that this line is going to, is going to become a book.
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It's going to become, um, a whole novel.
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And then once I'd sort of started working on it and I'd created Sheridan Holler as a character, I realized very quickly that this wasn't going to be a standalone.
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This was going to be a series.
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And because,
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However this sounds, and it probably sounds really bad, I love her so much.
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I couldn't just have her in one book.
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I want her to be my best friend in real life because I think she's a great police officer.
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She's a great detective and she's funny and she's just everything that I would want in A Best Friend.
00:16:23
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So yeah, so Long Time Dead was born.
00:16:25
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That probably wasn't even the question, was it?
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Am I right?
00:16:28
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What was the question?
00:16:30
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No, you got there with some frills and bits on the edge.
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I was just asking you how much you'd written prior to this.
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And it sounds like you'd written one full novel and then you took a break and then you ended up writing this one.
00:16:43
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Yes.
00:16:44
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And like I say, I started it in about 2015.
00:16:47
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And then I sort of put it down, picked it up, put it down.
00:16:51
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And then I met my partner.
00:16:53
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Susie in 2016.
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And without actually knowing it at the time, she is a massive crime fiction reader.
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She's read everything.
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I mean, she's read thousands of books.
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And when I said to her, and I quite like writing crime, she's like, well, have you written anything?
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I said, yeah, I'm writing this book at the moment.
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And she said, well, finish it.
00:17:13
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And we actually worked quite closely together on the plot.
00:17:16
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And again, because she's been a reader for so long,
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When I throw a scene at her and say, how about this?
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Her mind works so well.
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She goes, no, that's been done loads of times before.
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So she's like my little kind of Google, really.
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She's my personal Google.
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And so, yeah, we started sort of working on it together.
00:17:38
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I was living in Norfolk at the time and she was on the Wirral.
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She's a scouser.
00:17:43
Speaker
eventually I moved in here I moved up to the Wirral in 2019 and still hadn't finished it and so one day she said to me just just get this book done you must get this book finished and then sadly COVID hit and I'm sure you've heard this many times before we were all locked away and it was like no excuse now and I finished it I finished it in lockdown and then sent it to my agent or sent it to
00:18:07
Speaker
many agents, shall I say, got a lot of rejections.
00:18:11
Speaker
Um, and then eventually got, got Brew Doherty from DHH Literary Agency, who was the agent I always, always wanted, um, and never submitted to her because I was so frightened that she would turn me down.
00:18:25
Speaker
So she was one of the last on the list and she should have been first cause she loved it.
00:18:30
Speaker
Um, and then since obviously finishing long time dead, I've written the second book, which is out in October.
00:18:37
Speaker
which is called This Ends Now.
00:18:39
Speaker
And I've just finished the third book.
00:18:40
Speaker
So that's now with my editor.
00:18:43
Speaker
And we haven't got a title for that yet.
00:18:44
Speaker
We have submitted one, but
00:18:46
Speaker
it might not stick.
00:18:47
Speaker
So I won't, I won't say what it is.
00:18:49
Speaker
So I'm three books in now.
00:18:51
Speaker
Yeah, three books in and I've got to start writing the fourth one.
00:18:56
Speaker
So do you, is it, is it a multi-book deal that you've signed with Thomas and Mercer?
00:19:01
Speaker
Yeah, it was a three book deal.
00:19:04
Speaker
We'll see where that goes.
00:19:05
Speaker
Like I say, at the moment, things are heading in the right directions, but certainly with the reviews, I'm absolutely blown away with the reviews that Long Time Dead's getting.
00:19:14
Speaker
We'll see.
00:19:15
Speaker
Like I say, it's a business where you don't know, do you?
00:19:17
Speaker
You might sign a three book deal and then the publisher says, thank you very much.
00:19:22
Speaker
We're done.
00:19:23
Speaker
Or they might say, yeah, we'll have some more.
00:19:26
Speaker
So I don't know at the moment.
00:19:27
Speaker
We'll see.
00:19:28
Speaker
Everything crossed.
00:19:29
Speaker
So everything crossed.
00:19:30
Speaker
Everybody.
00:19:32
Speaker
Yeah.
00:19:32
Speaker
Yeah.
Desert Island Book Choice: The Mercy Chair
00:19:33
Speaker
And that brings us to the, the, the desert island.
00:19:38
Speaker
So Tina, if you were stranded all alone on a desert island with a single book, which book do you hope that it would be?
00:19:47
Speaker
Do you know what?
00:19:47
Speaker
This is such a hard question.
00:19:49
Speaker
And like, again, I'm sure you get everyone saying, Oh, I really struggled with this.
00:19:53
Speaker
And I did a little bit, but I was extremely lucky to have
00:19:58
Speaker
been sent a copy of M.W.
00:20:00
Speaker
Craven's latest book, The Mercy Chair.
00:20:03
Speaker
And I don't know if you're into Mike Craven or read his Washington Poe and Tilly Bradshaw series, but I love them.
00:20:12
Speaker
And I've met Mike a couple of times and he's just a phenomenal human being.
00:20:17
Speaker
And there's a character in his books called Tilly Bradshaw.
00:20:22
Speaker
And anyone listening who knows the Washington Poe series will
00:20:26
Speaker
will smile when you say Tilly Bradshaw's name because she's a character who is so out there and different and wonderful.
00:20:35
Speaker
And whenever she appears in a scene, you just know that everything's going to be okay.
00:20:41
Speaker
So I haven't had the time to read Mike Craven's book yet.
00:20:46
Speaker
It's out in June, but I've started it.
00:20:48
Speaker
So if I was on a desert island, there's two reasons I would pick that, The Mercy Chair.
00:20:53
Speaker
One is because I haven't finished it.
00:20:55
Speaker
And I'd be really annoyed if I'm sat there on this island for however long and I haven't finished his book.
00:21:01
Speaker
And secondly, and I thought of this this morning, I just have this vision of Tilly Bradshaw.
00:21:06
Speaker
Sort of as I look out onto the horizon, she'll come paddling towards me in an inflatable dinghy and she'll pull up and she'll say something like,
00:21:16
Speaker
How did you get yourself stuck on this island, you muppet?
00:21:20
Speaker
Get in, I'll take you home.
00:21:22
Speaker
And like I say, anyone listening that knows Tilly Bradshaw will probably relate to that and go, yeah, so that's my desert.
00:21:28
Speaker
That's my desert island book.
00:21:30
Speaker
That's great.
00:21:31
Speaker
And it's cool that you know the author.
00:21:34
Speaker
I think it's rare that people pick a book where they have met the author because I think that if you've met the author and you like them, you get on with them, then obviously I think there's a much deeper kind of connection with the material because you kind of know the source in some ways.
00:21:50
Speaker
Yeah.
00:21:50
Speaker
And it's weird.
00:21:51
Speaker
It's like when you read a book and you haven't met the author, you read the book and you enjoy it or whatever.
00:21:57
Speaker
When you've met them, and I've done this a few times now, obviously, I mean, I've been lucky.
00:22:01
Speaker
I've been to a couple of sort of crime fiction festivals and I've managed to meet quite a few people, Steve Kavanagh, Mary Hannah.
00:22:09
Speaker
I've known Ellie Griffiths for quite a few years.
00:22:11
Speaker
When you've met that person and you kind of get to know them a little bit, when you read their book, you look at it differently differently.
00:22:19
Speaker
It's like you can see them writing it.
00:22:22
Speaker
Like Mike Craven, I've met him a few times now and...
00:22:26
Speaker
When you talk to him and then you read his books, you're like, yeah, I can see Mike Craven saying this or doing this.
00:22:33
Speaker
And it does make you look at the book very differently, I think.
00:22:36
Speaker
Yeah.
00:22:37
Speaker
And I find that when I read books from my friends who are authors, sometimes there's things that aren't necessarily jokes, but it'll make me laugh because I just picture them saying the thing.
00:22:47
Speaker
And I'm like, oh yeah, that's classic you.
00:22:50
Speaker
Exactly.
00:22:51
Speaker
Exactly.
00:22:51
Speaker
And I've had a few people who have read Long Time Dead.
00:22:56
Speaker
And I've said, I can hear you.
00:22:58
Speaker
That's Tina.
00:22:59
Speaker
That is I can hear you telling that joke or behaving that way at work.
00:23:05
Speaker
Because I've before I even send the books to my agent, I send them to what I call my gatekeepers.
00:23:11
Speaker
And they are six very trusted people.
00:23:14
Speaker
One is a retired police officer who I worked with for many years.
00:23:17
Speaker
And then five other people.
Feedback and Drafting Process
00:23:19
Speaker
And I send it to them before I even send it to my agent.
00:23:22
Speaker
And they, most of them come back and they, trust me, they're brutal.
00:23:26
Speaker
I mean, I don't send it to them for them to say, wow, this is the best book ever written.
00:23:30
Speaker
I send it to them for a reason because I know they are totally,
00:23:34
Speaker
honest and like I say a little bit brutal sometimes but if you don't listen to these people then you're going to get it wrong you know I send it to them for a reason but they do mostly come back and say oh that there's a scene in there Tina which made me cry with laughter and that makes me sound like I'm a really funny person I like to think I'm quite a funny person but yeah so it's it's yeah knowing the person and then reading the book I think it makes you look at it very differently
00:24:01
Speaker
Yeah, it makes a huge difference.
00:24:02
Speaker
And when you say like, you know, the person you see their voice coming through, that's the kind of, that's one of the things that agents are always saying that, you know, they're looking for that like distinctive voice.
00:24:13
Speaker
And most of the time, that's just you as a person coming through with all your individuality in the, in the story itself.
00:24:20
Speaker
So that's great.
00:24:20
Speaker
Absolutely.
00:24:21
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely.
00:24:21
Speaker
I agree
Conclusion and Social Media Handles
00:24:22
Speaker
with that.
00:24:22
Speaker
Yeah.
00:24:22
Speaker
We're about to get into some more craft-based chat about Tina's process and getting the novel ready for publication, but that will be in the extended cut, exclusive to Patreon subscribers.
00:24:32
Speaker
So anyone listening who hasn't yet joined the Patreon, please do think about it.
00:24:35
Speaker
It goes a long way towards covering the costs of running this podcast.
00:24:40
Speaker
You're going to cut that out of the podcast, aren't you?
00:24:43
Speaker
Never.
00:24:46
Speaker
Amazing.
00:24:47
Speaker
That's awesome.
00:24:47
Speaker
Well, thank you so much, Tina, for coming on the podcast and telling us all about your debut novel, as well as your kind of experiences with various different parts of crime and telling me, enlightening me about a shop detective, something that I think is fascinating.
00:25:02
Speaker
It's been awesome having you on the podcast.
00:25:05
Speaker
Thank you so much for inviting me.
00:25:07
Speaker
I've loved every second of it.
00:25:08
Speaker
Brilliant.
00:25:08
Speaker
Thank you.
00:25:09
Speaker
And for anyone listening, if you want to keep up with what Tina is doing, you can follow her on Twitter at Tina P 66 Payne, or she has recently joined Instagram and you can find her at T M Payne author to support the podcast, like follow, subscribe on your preferred podcast platform and follow along on socials.
00:25:28
Speaker
Join the Patreon for extended episodes ad free and a week early and check out my other podcast, the chosen ones and other tropes.
00:25:34
Speaker
Long Time Dead is out as of this airing, 1st of April.
00:25:39
Speaker
And thanks again to Tina.
00:25:40
Speaker
And thanks to everyone listening.
00:25:40
Speaker
We'll catch you on the next episode.