The Circus
What can you tell us about your new book The Circus?
The title come from the saying: "the names of the clown may change but it's still a circus." Our hero, Inspector John Carlyle finds the body of a journalist in the back of a rubbish truck, setting him off on an investigation into the victim’s involvement in a phone hacking scandal and the vested interests trying to hush it up.
In a series of crime novels how difficult is to come up with unique murders and story lines?
Not that hard. You read the Standard every night and three or four stories jump out at you. Sometimes you think, you just couldn’t make this sh*t up. Evert novel will have three or four basic storylines. The basic ideas come from the media.
How did this story line come about?
A TV producer was talking about adapting the first book in the series, London Calling, and he kept banging on about the need to drop in a phone-hacking storyline. In the end, I thought: Dude, it would just be easier to write a whole new book. It was certainly a lot easier that getting the TV show made.
Tell us about the development of the character of John Carlyle from the first novel.
If the story lines come from the media, the central characters have to come from ‘inside’, from your own personal experience. The characters are, by a million miles, the most important thing – you have to like a guy, at least a bit, to stick with him for a whole novel, never mind several. I describe Carlyle as ‘pragmatic’ – other see him as cynical. Over the course of the books, however, you see him as a decent cop (sometimes!) but also a committed family man - an ordinary bloke, doing his best, professionally and in his personal life. That, I hope, is what makes people keep with him.
Did you know from the first book that John Carlyle would form the basis for several novels?
Yes. One of the best bits of advice I got when I was pitching to publishers was “it’s easier to sell 3 books than to sell one”. That might sound counter-intuitive but you’re telling the publisher (and the reader) “if you like this, there’s more to come”. Together we can build the series, the character and the fan-base over time.
Please give us a brief insight into your previous novels.
The Circus is number four. So, London Calling, the first, was about a murder stalking the Prime Minister-elect during an election campaign.
Number two, called Never Apologise, Never Explain started with an old lady being murdered in her flat. Inspector Carlyle assumes her husband did it which, of course, turns out to be totally wrong …
Buckingham Palace Blues is about a child trafficking ring that leads all the way to … guess where? Funnily enough, the opening sees Carlyle almost run over by the Queen. That happened to me – the nearly getting run over bit, not the trafficking bit - totally true story!
There’s also a novella, The Enemy Within, which fills in some of the story of his early career.
Why set your novels in London?
Because I live here, which makes it a lot easier, and because I felt that I had the field more-or-less to myself. Arguably, Carlyle is the first truly central London series since Sherlock Holmes.
I have long felt that London is under-used in crime fiction, certainly when you think of Morse in Oxford, Rebus in Edinburgh and then European settings like Ystad (Wallander) and Venice (Brunetti).
I know that there are London characters, like Mark Billingham’s Thorne, but Carlyle operates in the tourist London of Trafalgar Square, Downing Street and Buckingham Palace which, hopefully, will appeal to readers nationally and internationally.
You are a media professional so how much has this career aided your writing of your books?
Primarily in the sense that – in the end – it taught me to take everyone else’s bullshit with a big pinch of salt and not be too shy about spouting some of my own. You really do have to be pretty shameless to get anywhere.
What is your writing process?
Little and often. 300 words a day gives you a book a year. Anything more than that is a bonus. Start with a structure and keep moving forward.
What is your favorite novel?
That is a sneaky, sneaky question! There are so many great novels, how can you get it down to one? Bonfire of the Vanities by Tom Wolfe would be high on the list, but let me plug one you might not have heard of: Where the Devil Can't Go by Anya Lipska. Highly recommended.
If you could have dinner with any author who would it be?
Again, a tough one. Maybe Elmore Leonard. I’d love to talk to him about what keeps him motivated into his 80s.
Which authors do you see reflected in your own work?
I am a huge, huge fan of Andrea Camilleri’s Sicilian detectiveSalvo Montalbanobut, for Carlyle, the closest comparison would be with Donna Leon’s Venetian detective Guido Brunetti. Both Brunetti and Carlyle are professional, generally detached and occasionally jaded.
What is next for you?
More Carlyle. There will be a new short story out in the spring and novel number five, Then You Die, will be out in August. This time, the inspector will be up against his most troublesome opponent to date – his mother!
Female FIrst Lucy Walton