Words At Large

Stephen King has called the Inspector Banks series the "best series on the market". How has it been living up to expectations based on prior successes and such acclaim?
I don't really think about it. My only concern is to make the next book better than the one before, and that's more than enough to live up to. The series is doing well, though, and Friend of the Devil made No. 1 in the UK Sunday Times bestseller list.

You first introduced Alan Banks twenty years ago in Gallows View and Friend of the Devil is the seventeenth book in the series. How have you approached the evolution of the character?
Very much as I have approached my own-mostly just let it happen. He ages in more or less real time and adapts and responds to things that happen to him in his personal life and in the course of his job. I don't really have a master plan for him, and most ideas for his development just come while I'm writing. Sometimes I inadvertently sow the seeds in one book for what will happen in a later one, and that happened especially with Friend of the Devil, though I didn't know it at the time.

Yours books contain numerous musical references. What role does music play in your writing process?
Music plays many roles. Sometimes it sets a mood. Sometimes it comments on the action, usually in an ironic manner. It shows Banks's range of interests and is often a clue to other characters. There are examples of all these in Friend of the Devil. I don't usually listen to songs while I'm writing, as other people's words rend to distract me, but I do listen to chamber music and jazz.

Friend of the Devil is about the obsessive power of vengeance. What intrigues you about this notion?
That it can last so long and become so all consuming. What could be a more powerful subject for a crime novel? Wounds and slights, no matter how mundane, can fester for years, so it should be no surprise that more serious attacks can bring about obsessions that later lead to violence and murder.

Why did you decide to become a writer?
That's a bit of a chicken and egg question. I can't remember not wanting to be a writer. I suppose I became more conscious of it when I was in a position to make choices that would affect my future and create conditions most conducive to writing. I wasn't interested in a business career and tried first for a job as a reporter on a local Yorkshire paper, which I didn't get. Then I applied to the University of Leeds to study English Literature, got accepted and never looked back.

What books or authors have most influenced your life?
The first book I remember is Black Beauty, which my mother read to me when I was a child. It made me want to retell all the stories I heard-Robin Hood, William Tell etc-in my own words, which I did in large hard-backed notebooks. I must also acknowledge the Beats for reigniting that passion for reading and writing at an age where I could easily have been more diverted by sport or making money. Bob Dylan, too, was more than just a musical influence. Certainly the crime writers I mentioned earlier have had a strong influence on me, along with Ruth Rendell. Perhaps my favourite other writers are Hardy, Greene, Chekhov and Flaubert. Poets such as Wordsworth, Keats, Heaney and Larkin also lurk in the background, too. Among my favourite books are L.P. Hartley's The Go Between, Hardy's Tess of the D'Urbervilles and Flaubert's Madame Bovary.

What advice would you give to writers starting out?
Put your bum on the chair and fingers on the keyboard and don't give up until you get published.

In your opinion, what are the most important elements of good writing?
Interesting and believable characters, a vivid sense of place and an absorbing, suspenseful plot.

Do you ever suffer from writer's block? If so, how do you overcome it?
No. I have bad days, like everyone else, but I've being doing this for long enough to know that tomorrow will be better. Or the next day.