Criminal way to make a living

10:44am Thursday 3rd July 2008

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As usual, it's a bloody fight-out for the Theakston's Crime Novel of the Year title. Steve Pratt talks to Simon Kernick, one of the contenders.

SIMON Kernick turned to crime in his mid-20s. Writing about it, not doing it.

He put aside ideas of writing science fiction - he'd penned a couple such books in his teens that he freely admits were "abysmal" - and tried his hand at crime thrillers.

Reaction was not favourable. "I wrote two and tried to get both published.

I received enough rejection slips to paper my house," he recalls.

He spent five years trying to get published but doesn't see the time as wasted. "You need to learn your craft and sometimes write a rubbish book to learn. The more you do, the more you write, the more chance you have to be successful," he says.

He's certainly that now. His eighth novel, Relentless, published last year, has made the shortlist for the 4th Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Novel Of The Year Award, alongside names including Alexander McCall Smith, Peter Robinson and Reginald Hill.

The winner will be announced on July 17 at the opening of the Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival in Harrogate. By coincidence, Kernick has programmed this year's event.

Most of his organising work was done a year ago in putting a draft programme together. Now it's only an interruption to his writing if people start pulling out of the event, which sees dozens of crime writers under the same roof talking about the business of murder and other anti-social behaviour.

"I was working with a very flexible brief as long as I put together events that are different enough from previous years. But we're treading the same path and still very much within the crime fiction genre," he says.

A rare public appearance by soldier- turned-writer Andy McNab is part of this year's programme and an example of someone people might not immediately categorise as a crime writer.

"I think you find them in the crime thrillers section," says Kernick, of McNab's books. "We can't constantly put together people who are just your classic detective story writers.

The crime genre encourages a really wide variety. Every year we put together 20 or 25 panels and the festival has been going six or seven years so you need to tap new markets."

One of the panels, Bloody Women, wonders why female thriller writers can get away with what Kernick calls "more ferocious and gory fiction"

than their male counterparts. His own books, notably those with a London gangland setting, have dealt with the grubbier, more violent side of life.

After years of rejection, Kernick sold his first book seven years ago and gave up his job as a salesman in the IT market to write full-time.

"Most writers are like that, there aren't many 20-year-old writers floating around who get themselves established,"

he says.

"Usually, it does take a long time and a lot of the most successful crime writers say they've had two books written and unpublished before writing one that was worthy of getting published.

"I wrote science fiction when I was a teenager then, with crime fiction, started out writing more suburban thrillers with fairly ordinary protagonists thrown into situations out of their control and they have to find their way out of them."

Publishers tend to like series featuring the same character rather than stand-alone books like Kernick's.

He did write a sequel to his first novel but not immediately, not until his fourth book.

KERNICK'S forte has become thrillers dealing with the seedier side of London, although he lives "in comparative tranquillity" in a small town 40 miles outside the capital. He researches his stories on both sides of the law.

"I was introduced to several distinguished police officers through friends of friends and got to talk to them. They told me quite a lot about how crime was incredibly widespread in London, how difficult it was to combat and how politicians massage the figures," he explains.

"They told me good stories about police officers involved in drugs busts and things we never know about. Other people I was introduced to were on the other side of the law.

"Finding out about the seedier side, you realise there's tons of stuff going on that no one knows about. I tried to put that in my first book, The Business Of Dying, about a corrupt cop who was also a hit man.

"I've kept my contacts on both sides of the law and have called on their services if I needed them. You get some really good stories from villains and police, more from the police in the specialist and anti-terrorist areas.

"People will always talk to you as a writer off the record and give you good information if they think you're a writer, not a journalist.

They're prepared to tell me fairly much everything."

He used the methodology of how police work in kidnapping cases in one novel, although he wasn't giving away too many trade secrets. The policeman who proof-read the novel "seemed quite pleased", he reports.

They think the authenticity is a good rather than a bad thing.

Kernick is moving away from the seedier side, noting that Relentless doesn't fall into that category, and has emerged as his most popular book.

"For me, as a writer, it's always been a question of trying to keep things varied and not be writing the same story over and over again," he says. "Ideas come from all over the place. I do have a book I'm planning that came from a conversation with police officers three or four years ago that I've not been able to use yet.

"I have no particular plan apart from writing detective stories with a difference, such as a police officer who's a hitman. I keep my books fastpaced.

I don't think any of them has been described as boring."

SHORTLIST FOR THE 4th ANNUAL THEAKSTONS OLD PECULIER CRIME NOVEL OF THE YEAR AWARD Simon Beckett: The Chemistry Of Death Mark Billingham: Buried Christopher Brookmyre: A Tale Etched In Blood And Hard Black Pencil Reginald Hill: The Death Of Dalziel Graham Hurley: One Under Peter James: Not Dead Enough Simon Kernick: Relentless Stuart MacBride: Dying Light Alexander McCall Smith: Blue Shoes And Happiness Stef Penney: The Tenderness Of Wolves Peter Robinson: Piece Of My Heart CJ Sansom: Sovereign The shortlist was drawn up from votes cast by thousands of readers across the country. It covers all aspects of the crime genre set in places ranging from Norfolk to the wilds of Canada while featuring police detectives, forensic anthropologists and an investigator in the time of Henry VIII.

The Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year is the only award of its kind voted for by the general public.

Past winners have included well-established authors like Val McDermid and, last year, debut novelist Allan Guthrie.

A panel and a readers' group block vote will decide the winner to be announced at the Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival. The winner will receive £3,000 and a handmade Theakstons cask.

Harrogate Crime Writing Festival takes place from July 17-20. Call 01423-562303 for weekend packages or 0845-1308840 for individual tickets.