Interview with Iain McDowall
by Jon Jordan
Iain's Web Site

12/12/01

Jon:  To start with, for people who are just hearing your name for the first time, what can you tell us about the series and DS Kerr and DCI Jacobson?

Iain:  Frank Jacobson and Ian Kerr head up the murder squad in the fictional town of Crowby, located in the English Midlands. My take on modern English society is a dark one which might - or might not - have some connection to my dour, not-easily-impressed, Scottish origins. John Harvey/Reginald Hill/Ian Rankin is the obvious triad of established UK writers who give a point of reference to the kind of novels I’m trying to write. Though I wouldn’t be a writer at all if I didn’t believe I had something new and/or original to contribute.

Jon:  Why did you decide to write a series instead of stand a lone books?

Iain:  I’m attracted by the challenge of really getting right inside the heads of my series characters over a number of books, exploring how they change and develop over time. I’ve had a killer idea for a stand-alone for a while now though. One of these years I’ll find a way to squeeze it into my work schedule.

Jon:  So what things lead you down the path to writing mysteries?

Iain:  I was always interested in the idea of books that would be more or less realistic in tone and character. I didn’t want to play post-modernist textual games with the reader or write about times and places far away from my own life and experience. Since policework can take a copper anywhere - and into any layer of society - the police procedural seemed the ideal medium for a series of books rooted in everyday reality.

Jon:  What authors do you like to read?

Iain:  Recently, I’ve been rediscovering some of the giants. Ross Macdonald, Chandler, Patricia Highsmith and - especially - Georges Simenon. Simenon seems to be going through a phase of neglect here in the UK. The last time I checked my local bookshop, he wasn’t on the shelves at all. Maybe the controversies about the personal life of the man have cast a shadow over the undeniable talents of the writer. The modern book I always mention when I get asked this question is Donna Tartt’s The Secret History. What an amazing first novel. But when will there be a second?

Jon:  You cover a lot of things in the book. What kind of research did you have to do?

Iain:  You need to take certain liberties with facts if you’re writing a novel as opposed to a textbook. But with that proviso, I try to depict police procedures, the legal system and forensics as accurately as possible. So there is certainly a fair amount of fact-checking going on when I’m working on a book. For the rest, I tend to draw on my own life experience and stuff that I know about or have a particular attitude towards. A Study in Death moves from a university setting to the software industry to a New Age community to Amsterdam. All settings which I’ve lived from the inside at one time or another. Writing should be personal. Otherwise why bother?

Jon:  Have you done any signings yet? Or any conventions?

Iain:  I was lucky enough to be invited to Dead on Deansgate up in Manchester last year and again this year. Also this year I was invited to Crime Scene 2001 at the National Film Theatre in London. I had a great time at all three events. It’s a fantastic buzz for a new writer to meet up with readers and to be ‘backstage’ with some of the big names. I’m genuinely delighted at the warm and encouraging welcome I’ve received from some very established crime writers. I’ve hoping to be at the next Bouchercon in Austin, Texas, which will be my first experience of conventions, US -style. From what I’ve heard, it should be quite an experience.

Jon:  A lot of authors lately have been writing mysteries with a lone good guy, often brooding and troubled. What made you decide to have two detectives partnered? I think the contrast between them works really well.

Iain:  Like all the best ideas, it wasn’t really the result of a conscious process. I started out with just that very idea of the lone, troubled cop (Kerr) but Jacobson (Kerr’s boss) just grew and grew as a character while I was working on the first book : so that in the end they took on equal billing. What I like about them now is that their differences in age and temperament enable me to give more than one take on the case in question. Kerr is an action-man and emotionally volatile whereas Jacobson is more reflective and something of an intellectual on the quiet.

Jon:  Did the opportunity to release the books in the US come pretty quick?

Iain:  Yes, I’m pleased to say. My UK publisher (Piatkus) had negotiated a deal with my US one (St Martin’s/Minotaur) even before A Study in Death was published in the UK. Now they’re looking at foreign translation rights. Onwards and upwards.

Jon:  How important do you think location is in your books?

Iain:  Location is very important. But not in a straightforward way. Occasionally I get emails from readers arguing that my fictional town of Crowby is ‘really’ Town X or Town Y. The idea of using a ‘real’ named town was also one that my publishers were keen on pushing when they first looked at the manuscript. But although I do draw on real locations for particular scenes, I always wanted Crowby to be a fictional space. One of my takes on modern Britain is that everywhere is starting to be like everywhere else. Same out of town shopping centres, same chains of theme pubs, same quiet desperations breaking out into the kind of dark, ugly cases that Jacobson and Kerr need to solve and mop up. So Crowby is emblematic as well as specific. When he introduced me at Deansgate this year, Andrew Taylor commented that Crowby was a state of mind as much as a location. That puts it just right for me.

Jon:  It seems that there are as many methods for writing as there are genres. How do you approach it? Do you write at a certain time every day? Do you outline first?

Iain:  I work pretty much regular office hours and try to put in a full working week. Same as anyone with a ‘proper’ job. As a warm-up, I’ll check my email and review what I wrote the day before. Then it’s straight on to the difficult moment where I’m staring at a blank space where the next sentence needs to go. I don’t really do anything that would stand up as a developed outline for a book. I start with a set of characters and a situation and take it from there. I think if I knew everything in advance I’d lose interest in the story before I’d even got started. For a police procedural, I think the absence of an outline is a positive. You’re uncovering clues and reviewing information as you go: exactly what your detectives are doing.

Jon:  I’ve heard that it’s harder and harder to get first books read. How did you get to print?

Iain:  Now that I’m a published writer, it’s very tempting to opine that good books will always find a market, always find their way out of the slush pile. The history of literature demonstrates the falseness of that view however. That said, I don’t think there’s any magic key to publication other than perseverance. All I did personally was to draw up a list of well-known publishers and send out sample chapters. Piatkus were the first to demonstrate real, definite interest and I was pleased to sign with them.

Jon:  As a new author you have the advantage writing on a computer that has spell check and is easy to make changes, doing some research with the internet and using e-mail. Also the internet provides some nice exposure. Would you have decided to write if these things were not available?

Iain:  You can’t stop a writer from writing. But I’m highly appreciative of writing in the age of the computer. The only downside is that whereas writers used to suffer from writers’ block - not getting any words out - now there’s an equal and opposite danger - what I call the ‘not finished’ syndrome. It’s so very easy with word-processing software to alter the sequence of a novel or of an individual chapter or just to generally tinker and tinker with a scene way beyond the point where you’ve said all you had to say. The internet is a useful research tool although again it’s no substitute for walking the mean streets of - in my case - Coventry or Birmingham or wherever. Where it really comes into its own is in opening up a direct channel of communication with readers which never existed in the past. My website - should you care to visit it - lives at http://www.crowby.co.uk

Jon:  This is kind of trivial, but how do you decide on names for the people in your books?

Iain:  Weirdly, the names of central characters often jump into my head ready formed - and always sounding just right for the character. For more minor characters, I tend to rely on those old stand-bys, the telephone directory and today’s newspaper

Jon:  Making a Killing won’t be out in the US till next year. Can you tell us anything about it and maybe what’s after that?

Iain:  The British, and especially the Scots, are supposed to have a great fear of being boastful and immodest in public. But I have to say that I’m really pleased with Making A Killing (the second book in the Crowby series after A Study in Death). OK, on one level it’s just another police procedural where a couple of cops with dysfunctional personal lives solve a couple of nasty murders. But along the way it manages to tackle global business corruption, tabloid hysteria, the legacy of 1968, sexual politics and even the odd reference to Plato and Hegel. Jacobson and Kerr take on the case of the murdered wife of a local company bigwig. Meanwhile, a notorious serial rapist has - legally- been released back into the community and is the subject of a media witch hunt. The cases don’t connect directly - one of the clichés of the genre which I’ve always disliked - but they do intertwine in a nicely complex way. End of plug. I’m working on book three now. The title is Perfectly Dead and it should be out in the UK next winter and the US some time after that. So far it’s shaping up to be even darker than the first two books. Amongst other things, it should see my body count into double figures for the first time.

Jon:  How do you like to spend your free time?

Iain:  I play in an amateur rock band with a couple of mates. We’d be a garage band except we rehearse in a basement. The Stones, Lou Reed, Chuck Berry, the MC5 : you name it, we’ll mangle it. When I can get away, I enjoy hill-walking in the Scottish Highlands, especially the North West. I’ve also an ambition to walk the old pilgrims’ route through France and Spain to Compostela. One of these days.

Jon:  What kind of movies do you enjoy? What are some of your favorites?

Iain:  I was a real movie buff a few years ago. But now I think I might be enjoying TV more. Was there a movie in the last year as fully realized - not to say enjoyable - as Buffy the Vampire Slayer or The Sopranos? Anyway some of my favourite cinema moments would have to include The Big Sleep, LA Confidential, La Bête Humaine, Get Carter (original British version, that is), The Producers, La Dolce Vita. My favourite movie might be Bertolucci’s 1900. Ask me again tomorrow and you can have another list and a different favourite.

Jon:  Do you find it easy to slip into the characters heads when you write? Are they starting to form a life of their own?

Iain:  The hard thing is sometimes to get back out of the head. It’s fine to be sharing thoughts with ultimately moral people like Kerr and Jacobson. But writing Robert Johnson for example ( the serial rapist in Making A Killing) was a deeply unpleasant experience. There are techniques from behavioral psychology which I find helpful. Mainly writing at the same times and in the same place. Once I switch my computer off and come out of my study, the world of Crowby goes away until tomorrow. Except for the bad dreams of course…

Jon:  Jacobson seems to have his share of bad habits. Do you have any bad habits?

Iain:  The short answer is yes. The long answer is one that I’m not giving here. I also have one good habit (Tai Chi) which defends my mind and body from the ravages.

Jon:  What other types of jobs have you had?

Iain:  I worked as a university lecturer and researcher in philosophy (I believe we’re called Professors in the States). One of my interests was whether the human mind is really a kind of machine and whether a computer could be a kind of mind. Later I worked in the commercial software industry where I found out more than any sane person wants to know about database technology. I ripped off both milieux shamelessly in A Study in Death

Jon:  What is the one thing that is always in your refrigerator?

Iain:  A sufficient quantity of chilled Belgian beer. And the remains of last night’s curry. I know that’s two things but to me they’re inseparable.