Brit Grit Alley features interviews, news and updates on what's happening down British crime fiction's booze and blood soaked alleyways.
This week down Brit Grit Alley, I give you a short, sharp interview with international crime fiction superstar Torquil MacLeod
PDB: What’s going on now?
My fourth Sweden-set crime ebook – Midnight in Malmö – is just out. (The series is about a blonde Swedish female detective.) It takes my mind off the pantomime that is Newcastle United.
PDB: How did you research this book?
Pounding the streets of Malmö looking for locations. Talk to Swedes and expats living there (including my elder son and his family). Fortunately, one of our best friends happens to be a blonde Swedish female detective, so that helps. And I read The Local every day on the internet – it’s an English language newspaper based in Sweden.
PDB: Which of your publications are you most proud of?
The next book – in the hope that it’s better than the previous one.
PDB: What’s your favourite film/ book/ song/ television programme?
Film: Casablanca – can’t beat a classic.
Book: A Perfect Spy by John le Carré. An example of great storytelling.
Song: Babe Rainbow by Melanie. Shows my age.
Television programme: This constantly changes but at the moment it’s the French crime series Spiral. Have to admit I like it better than the recent influx of very good Scandi crime hits like The Killing and The Bridge. Why did the latter have to come up with a blonde Swedish female detective based in Malmö?
PDB: Is location important to your writing?
PDB: How often do you check your Amazon rankings?
Quite regularly when a book first comes out; then not so often.
PDB: What’s next?
More Malmö Mysteries and possibly a follow-up to an historical crime novel I brought out last summer. It’s a romp set in Newcastle in the 1750s.
Bio: Torquil MacLeodwrites the Malmö Mysteries (four are out as ebooks – the first, Meet me in Malmö, is now out as a paperback through McNidder & Grace). He was born in Edinburgh and brought up in the north east of England. After brief spells as a teacher and a failed life insurance salesman, he worked as a copywriter at advertising agencies in Birmingham, Glasgow and Newcastle, before becoming a freelance writer in 2000. He lives in Cumbria with his wife Susan and hens.
There'll be more carryings on down Brit Grit Alley very soon, sorta kinda thing, like.