For whom do you write?
In the first instance, I write for myself. That’s not as self-inflated as it sounds. It just means I have to write what I want rather than trying to write what I think publishers will want (and since experience has proved that even they don’t know what they’re looking for, how can I?). It’s also true to say that I write (now) for the readers of my previous works, since I’ve written a series and people have followed that through – and hopefully, want more.
What value does reading have for you?
Enormous value. I can’t imagine not reading. My idea of sheer hell is being on a long flight without something to read. The biggest gain I get from reading is entertainment. I like to be taken out of myself. If I also learn something along the way, well, that’s a bonus.
Do we read and do you write crime novels because the genre isn’t afraid to postulate the extremes we are capable of?
On the first level I think we read because (a) we need entertaining, and (b) because we want to see someone triumph over adversity or evil without being too closely involved. Where I think points (a) and (b) come together might well be in the proliferation of police, camera, action-type shows on TV, dealing with true crime, true triumphs (mostly) but no proximity. It’s real life yet at a distance. The danger here, I believe, is that crimes seen in these ‘shows’ will start to lose the element of seriousness, much like watching gladiators did in ancient Rome, and we will begin to treat assault, robbery and so forth as little more than a Saturday night ruckus – merely because it doesn’t impact on the viewer sufficiently. Reading crime fiction is not the same. It’s made up.
I write crime fiction because I enjoy it, I enjoy reading it by others, I enjoy building a plot and the schemes involved within it, and coming up with the characters required to make it come alive. What I try to do is use a current theme or event (say, people trafficking, the Russian mafiya, espionage, etc) and write my own version of it. It can never be real unless by sheer coincidence.
Have you read any Tartan Noir?
Yes, I have. It’s undoubtedly gritty and inventive, and I do enjoy some of it (without going into names). However, I feel there’s a danger among some ‘noir’ writers (not just Scottish) to portray a somewhat comic-book violence/drinking/social exclusion/self denigration backdrop. All essential, maybe, for their take on a place or characters, but which I find can overwhelm a good story. But that’s just my view. I used to love Mickey Spillane and Hank Janson, but got tired of the sheer down-beat lives they led and wanted them to get on with solving a crime and catching the baddies.
Personally, I think too much about characters drinking in dangerous, down-at-heel pubs and the over-use of flash-violence and paranoia is rather boring and repetitive.
Is there a place for heroes in contemporary crime fiction?
Of course. The white knight still exists! They may have flaws, they may cross the line of ‘normal’ behaviour and they may have lots of cracks in their armour. But a hero is still a basic requirement. Otherwise, who will bring down the villains?
So is crime fiction stoicism with a fancy for spectacle?
Crime fiction has to be larger than life, so spectacle of a sort is a part of that. Stoicism is in only a small number of crime fiction characters; most of the others are hardly suppressing suffering or emotion! But it’s changing all the time. For example, the hard-bitten gumshoe of yesterday has morphed into something else since the 50s and 60s (including a change of gender.) And conventions are changing along with it. But at the end of the story, good (even if a slightly sludgy shade of white) has to prevail.
Representing a majority of popular fiction, does crime fiction deserve more critical attention?
Tricky question. Anything which comes under too much inspection can too easily be ruined by sheer familiarity and repetition. (I’m thinking CSI-type offerings here as an example). But there is certainly a lot of snootiness in some quarters about crime fiction, which is a shame. A good story is a good story, and if people like to read it, and come back for more, that’s all the judgement it needs.
If there’s a danger about critical attention, it’s where critics over-analyse a book to the degree where I think they see things that simple didn’t exist in the author’s mind.
In your own work, are you concerned with revealing the social structures that facilitate crime?
I’m not sure I could reveal anything by what I write. One only has to read the newspapers and watch TV to see that. I certainly don’t attempt to be some kind of social commentator. What I am concerned with is writing a story which will engage someone and take them away from the reality of their lives for maybe a few minutes or hours. That’s not to say that their reality might be bad in any way; they might just like to be taken out of themselves, and that’s no bad thing in today’s hectic world.
Whatever our belief in ‘due process of law’ may be, do you think we read crime novels for their promise of an ‘ersatz justice’?
I think we do. Crime novels are a ‘safe’ representation of justice overcoming evil, and makes up to a greater or lesser extent, depending on the reader, for the apparent lack of punishment handed down by the courts. It’s also much quicker – an instant version which doesn’t go through the lengthy process involved in real life. Saying that, I think most readers do know it is fiction!
How do you see the relationship between true crime and crime fiction?
It is said that crime fiction is a reflection of modern life, but I prefer to think that it runs parallel to it, while remaining subtly different. Not so much mirrors, but twin tracks. There may be some strong similarities between fiction and real events, but that is either coincidence or the writer picking up a melange of facts and re-working them to make a single (new and different) story.
Whose work can you send us to for entertainment and a few answers to the ‘big questions’?
I wouldn’t name any one individual (sorry), because there are writers who make an impact on a specific reader, and others who are picked up and put down with all the care and attention of reading a magazine. Yet both are still valued or respected by the readers involved. It’s down to the reader to examine their own reactions to a book and make their peace with either enjoying it as a piece of entertainment or as a social commentary.
I think that for ‘the big question,’ you probably have to look at true-crime writing because that is all about reality, not fiction. Personally, I do not read that genre and nor will I. Incidentally, I’ve found during my book signings that most readers pursuing the true-crime shelves do not read crime fiction. I’m not sure why – they’ve often been too intense to tell me!
Speaking of intensity, what are your thoughts about our current culture of fear and how crime writing is contributing or responding to it?
You can only be affected by something if exposed to it. If you don’t watch pornography, for example, you won’t know much about it. If you don’t want to be exposed to fictional stories of violence, dishonesty, death and so forth, don’t read about them. I think the news media and government bodies do far more to frighten and shock us than fiction ever can, because reading fiction is a voluntary act, whereas with news, we’re exposed to real events being pumped at us whether we like it or not, day in, day out – and mostly sensationalised far more than a work of fiction. Two weeks somewhere isolated without access to papers, tv or radio will prove that.
So can crime writing be about the healing quality of story-telling in the tradition of the shaman trickster tale? Does it offer consolation to readers touched by the corruption of crime? And does taking up the pen offer the troubled writer an alternative to taking up the pint?
I’m not sure I’ve ever felt healed by reading crime fiction – and I certainly don’t try to make anyone feel better about crime when I write it. All I do is try to tell a good story. I know how satisfied I feel when I read a particularly good book or short story, and that’s my benchmark when writing. What the reader takes from it is up to them. Undoubtedly, though, writing has a therapeutic quality which should not be overlooked.
How about the reading of crime fiction? Why do we do it?
Because it’s make-believe. We prefer to stretch the boundaries rather than living with and reading about what is common knowledge and ‘safe’, because it’s more exciting. Excitement is the order of the day – and always has been. The ancient story-tellers spiced up their accounts of things they saw, because it got a reaction from the crowds. Writers, if they are honest, are simply playing to an audience – or hoping to.
In the absence of a higher power, does the genre sustain hope in the punishment of those whom legal exemption allows to go free?
Hopefully, yes! We see all too often in real life the villain who gets off on a technicality. We all like to see justice done – it’s natural. Where writers differ is in how that justice is administered, whether by the courts, say in a police procedural, or at the point of a gun. There’s not much satisfaction gained from the baddy getting off scot-free.
Speaking of your own writing, how would you characterise your long-term relationship with your characters?
I need them, but not like friends. I know them, know how they’ll react in a given situation (well, I should, shouldn’t I?). But in the end, they’re tools to help me tell a story. Some characters I enjoy writing about more than others, and would find it difficult to dispose of them… but sometimes changes are necessary.
Assuming you’ll have to start all over tomorrow, what will be your last thought before going to bed tonight?
What am I going to write next and will I enjoy it.
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