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Demon's Fire
I have worked in the police for nineteen years; three years in public order and the rest on the front line on the street. Today, I am a Sergeant in the Edinburgh city centre response team, managing a team of fifteen officers carrying out front line policing duties. I also cover Inspector duties across up to four stations overseeing the operations of more than fifty officers. Front line officers are responsible for attending every job in the first instance that it happens, working locally and indeed elsewhere if required. First response calls include crimes ranging from murder, rape, sexual assaults, mass disorder, firearms incidents, theft, assault, knife crime, mental health issues, youth issues, all deaths and suicides, vehicle collisions and thefts, missing persons, shop lifting, major events, sieges, human trafficking and even providing cover for large sporting events matches. These represent just a handful of the thousands of individual crimes that the police deal with every year, and only once the front line officers have attended and assessed the scene do specialist units come and assist or take over the more serious and prolonged investigations required.
I also specialise in public order policing (shield and helmets since 2004), used for large scale disorder, events, football and raids of premises for drugs, weapons, stolen property, or premises of interest, as a specialist search officer focussing on component parts of improvised explosive devices, drugs, and systematic procedures to find them. I am a CBRN Instructor and officer, a public order medic using advanced first aid skills, I am sexual offences trained and have various other skills readers and people on the street many not be aware of that police officers are trained in.
The whole of my police career has been very hands on, working all over Edinburgh in areas where there are high levels of crime, violence and youth disorder, and where the police are hated by some residents. Many of the specific issues in these areas are highlighted in my three novels, Devil’s Demise, Porcelain: Flesh of Innocents and my latest novel Demon’s Fire. I always wanted to be a police officer, first and foremost because I wanted to help people and prevent crime. I have seen and been a victim of numerous crimes and I wanted to be part of the solving of these issues which blight our society. My specialist skills are all on the physical side, which goes hand in hand with my sporting background; I played rugby internationally for fifteen years gaining eighty-one caps for Scotland and the British Lionesses, and I swam competitively for twelve years too. At six foot one and with a strong build, I feel I have the attributes to be front line and in the riot squad.
My books are all fiction, as this is a pre-requisite from Police Scotland when I applied to write as a secondary employment, although I am very lucky that procedurally - without giving away secrets of course - I have a depth of knowledge that non-police people writing crime fiction will not have, so research for me is not required. Although I have spoken with colleagues in the units I feature, I would never divulge the techniques used to trace offenders, for example. There is nothing in my books in relation to information that you can’t get on freedom of information when applied for. However, the things that I have seen, the emotions that I have felt, the fear, the assaults, the frustration and the brutality that others can and will employ, give me a unique insight when I’m writing. These experiences allow me to add authentic reality to my fictional scenarios; the sights, the smells, the anguish, the terror, the squalor, the violence. None of the cases I’ve worked on have featured in my novels – my stories are fiction - although elements of them do relate to certain offences that we deal with collectively within our role across the police in the UK. The perpetrator in my first novel, Devil’s Demise, is pure evil and fortunately for us all his level of criminality has never been experienced here in Scotland, it would be more likely in America; the same applies to the frequency and high level of offending in my second novel Porcelain; again the depths of depravity I write about are more likely to be carried out in other countries. My new novel, Demon’s Fire, the third in the series, is unfortunately very topical just now, as its main theme is human trafficking. Women who have been trafficked succumb to a fire, having been imprisoned by their captors. It was important to me that the next group of women trafficked in the story would escape as I did not want to have any more women suffer in this book.
It’s really important to me that the police officers and their on the job interaction with one another is realistic; the banter, some swearing, the gallows humour when the situation they are dealing with is just too much and they need respite from their own minds and what they are witnessing… these things are essential to get through the job but they are never disrespectfully done, The interaction between the different units and departments of the police and the way they interact with each other - and what they sometimes think of each other – can actually be funny at times.
I love reading crime thrillers myself, and these have definitely influenced my own writing. I think that my career helps me to ensure that mine are not the same. I ensure they have what I think they need more of and in many cases less of. I feel many authors can pad out their books unnecessarily and I feel it spoils the reading experience, as the reader has to plough through pages and pages of unnecessary description and boring extras and filler stories, and you start to look forward to the next good bit, instead of enjoying the whole book not wanting it to end. Titillation is important! I like to explain what’s going on in real time and get the reader thinking they are in the centre of the scene virtually, involved in the thrill of the actual crime during the event and not just going through it afterwards. This also allows the reader to feel real-life emotions when reading, and understand the characters’ life stories in the novels, to draw you in and make you want to know more. I like my books to be fast-paced, descriptive and procedural only to enhance the story and draw readers into the scene completely. There is no padding or unnecessary side lines in my books that detract from the story (except maybe a few extra love scenes!) .
The things that most influence my writing are things that I fear or dislike, the despicable behaviour that human beings can sometimes be capable of. I want to have readers on the edge of their seats, totally immersed in the storyline and the fast-paced action scenes, to feel things as I feel them, every emotion possible; fear, sadness, warmth, terror and love. My experience in the police allows me to utilise my knowledge of actual procedures throughout the novel, but it is certainly not my main influence when writing, as I hope my novels are a little more exciting than general police work in Edinburgh.
My novels are hard hitting, graphic, brutal crime thrillers with erotic love scenes and they are most definitely not for the faint hearted!
Demon’s Fire by Lee Cockburn, published by Clink Street, RRP £9.99 paperback, £2.99 ebook, is out now.