An Interview with Chris Brookmyre

And don’t forget to cast your vote to decide who will take home the UK and Ireland’s most coveted crime fiction writing award.

Tell us your story – when and how did you start writing fiction?

I have been writing fiction since I was able to write sentences, and throughout my childhood I was inspired to imitate whatever had recently made an impression on me. Around the age of eight I was taken to see Jaws, and then wrote several short stories involving people being eaten by sharks, all of which I designed covers for, as though they were novels. At secondary school, I was very well behaved, but the one time I got into trouble was for writing a short story. I wrote (very long) short stories for English assignments, but I was frustrated by not being able to use the kind of language that I felt was appropriate to the dark tales I was telling. So to make a point, I submitted two versions of a story: one, the school classroom acceptable version, and one the way it was supposed to read. My teacher said it was the best thing I had ever written, and asked if she could keep it to show the head of the department. This she did using the unfortunate phrase, “I think you should take a look at this.” So the head of the department was presented with a story featuring not only liberal use of swearing, but a reference to necrophilia. This did not go down well in a west of Scotland Catholic Secondary School, but it did show me how much a thrill there is In causing a bit of scandal with your work.

We’ve heard of some unusual writing habits over the years, what would you say is your most interesting writing quirk?

I don’t know if it’s my most interesting writing quirk, but it is certainly the most enduring, and that is that I work by walking. The ideas seem to flow if I am ambulatory, so I go for long walks talking into my phone. Once I get home again I transcribe what I have dictated and expand upon it. It means I get plenty of fresh air exercise whilst writing: often more than sixty kilometres a week towards the end of a novel. The downside is I am often to be overheard by passing strangers discussing how to get rid of a body.

What’s the one line or paragraph you’re most proud of in your shortlisted book?

“She wasn’t breaking out the Tunnock’s for this chancer.” This is Penny Coyne, decorous to a fault, politely obliged to offer the uncouth and suspicious Johnny Hawke tea and biscuits, but drawing the line at giving him the good stuff.

Let’s say you’re going rogue: which crime fiction villain would you most enjoy being (just for research, of course)?

My instinct is to say a Bond villain, because they usually have huge amounts of wealth and tend to be living somewhere very comfortable and exotic. Problem is, I wouldn’t make a very good villain, because I am easily contented. Who can’t be happy with their underground lair in a hollowed-out volcano, on an idyllic Island? I’d be too busy enjoying the facilities to want to get up to anything villainous.

Which writers have influenced your own writing the most?

Iain Banks was perhaps the most profound influence on me. I always wrote stories, or even dreamed up stories I didn’t get around to writing, but my ideas seldom struck me as viable prospects for a publisher. Then I read The Wasp Factory. Iain Banks had the most baroque imagination, and was not only bizarre and outlandish in his fiction, but unapologetically Scottish too. I felt that gave me permission to write the kinds of stories I always had in mind.

You’re cast in a gritty crime drama. Are you the detective, suspect or the wildcard witness?

I would have to be the kind of wildcard witness who inadvertently talks himself into being a suspect, before later making reference to something the significance of which I hitherto did not appreciate, but which suddenly cracks the case.

What book would you always recommend to someone who “doesn’t usually read crime”?

I would recommend The Crow Road by Iain Banks, because it is a multi-layered, deeply affecting and hilariously funny family saga on one level, and on another an emotionally compelling murder mystery.

And the very fact that it was never marketed as a crime novel means it’s the perfect gateway drug to the genre for anyone otherwise reluctant.

What’s the best book you’ve read recently?

Missing Person: Alice by Simon Mason. I have seldom read a crime novel in which so much is conveyed in such a short number of pages. Not a word is wasted, even though the years-long impact of a disappearance on a whole community is explored in fascinating depth.