It’s always exciting to discover someone new.Ībsolutely right. Yes, thank you for that-because I hadn’t come across him either. I have been reading him since, so it was a book that turned me into a fan. I loved it and recommended it to a lot of people at the time because I’d never read Peter Swanson before. It’s about what happens after that, because he gets off the plane thinking, ‘Oh, well, that was just a plane journey with a woman I’ll never see again.’ But it wasn’t.įor me, it was. Then, they happen to be on the same plane and they end up sitting next to each other. I always wondered when I read that line-because an author is always looking for the clue that will give everything away-is the red hair going to be a clue? He sits next to her at an airport bar and tells her he’d like to murder his wife. It’s about a man who meets this girl at an airport with red hair. I found I was turning the pages and wanting to follow this strange situation.
I hadn’t thought about it that way, but you’re quite right, there is a bit of Strangers on a Train to it. It’s a slightly Strangers on a Train-inspired plot, isn’t it? First on the list is The Kind Worth Killing which is by Peter Swanson. Let’s talk about the books you’re recommending. That is equally important to the crimes he’s solving. So yes, I hope there are the usual twists and turns, but you’re quite right: it’s a book about a character who we will follow from leaving school, going to university, joining the Metropolitan Police and right the way through. One caused a reader to write to the publisher and say, ‘I stopped breathing.’ That may be the best crit I’ve ever had in my life. It is more about William himself, but there are three big twists in it. It’s more about the detective, is that right? But from what you’re saying, it’s sounds like you’re not going for that corner of the genre, where the book revolves around a ‘wow’ moment where you’re completely taken aback by something that you weren’t expecting. I read a lot of crime fiction and I’m a fan of plot twists. Otherwise, he will never get to the Commissioner’s office. So, with each book, you’re going to have a different subject and a different rank, right through to Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police-as long as I live to the age of 86, Sophie! That’s my only hope. In the book you have in front of you, he has become a detective chief inspector. He will go up one rank with each book, so in the first book he is a detective constable, in the second a detective sergeant, in the third a detective inspector. Now, in the latest one, he’s head of the murder squad. The second one is about drugs, the third about police corruption. The first one is about art and he’s on the antiques squad. I’m more interested in the life of William Warwick as he goes from being a constable on the beat-and, if I live long enough-through to being Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police. As I’ve said very clearly, my book is not a detective story, it’s a story about a detective. Given it’s so overcrowded, how come you ended up writing in the detective fiction genre? They only come once in a while and I’ve chosen five for you to consider. The books I’ve chosen are ones that I think are unputdownable and exceptional. There are great detective writers over the ages who are wonderful. I don’t want a book that I put down at chapter three or four because I can either see where it’s going, or I don’t think it’s very good. To actually come up with anything original is very difficult indeed. Also, there are so many films and miniseries on television that you’re bombarded with it the whole time. Writing is an overcrowded profession to start with, and crime fiction within the profession is even more overcrowded. I think one of the hardest things is that there are so many people who write in the genre.
What makes a good work of detective fiction, what are you looking for as a reader? You’ve chosen some of your favourite detective fiction for us, spanning quite a few decades.
Foreign Policy & International Relations.