Page Updated: 24/10/2003

David Williams - Promoting Wales through Murder

Practise to Deceive August 2003 About the Author (Photo by David Steen) Bibliography

First appeared in The Western Mail (the Welsh national daily) on Saturday Jan 3 1998

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They are out in force. Morse of Oxford, Taggart of Glasgow, Wycliffe of Cornwall. But, amid the big battalions of television detectives, Wales does not have much of a clue, as Michael Boon reports.
True, there is Inspector Noel Bain (Philip Madoc) which goes out in Welsh on S4C and is networked in English on minority-viewer newcomer Channel 5. But there is a lot of ground to be made up.
Detective Chief Inspector Merlin Parry, of South Wales Constabulary, has not yet left the printed page. But this creation of Bridgend-born crimewriter David Williams is busy solving murders in the classic tradition - surely some producer some where should be tracking him down.
His most recent tale of detection, based in the fictional Cardiff suburb of Bryntaf (LIandaff); A Terminal Case, Merlin Parry lasted just six weeks on the bookstore shelves. Then it was sold out.
"We had to cancel a book signing session at the Crime in Store bookshop in London. They rang me and said 'We can't get any more copies'," says David Williams who had a flying start in life - his father Trevor was a Bridgend district reporter for The Western Mail.
The previous three Parrys were also snapped up swiftly, but at least they lasted on general sale for a few months; no doubt the fifth Parry whodunnit will command a waiting list like membership of the MCC.
It is a second golden seam for David Williams, who is now 71 ("I admit to being 69") and whose first 17 books featured Mark Treasure, a London merchant banker and amateur sleuth. Now the Wentworth domiciled writer is on home ground. But will it strike television credits?
"I think there is still a sort of disdain, perhaps I should say lack of enthusiasm, for a Welsh detective on television." he reflects. "I can't say why it should be.
"It goes back to my theory about Sgt Lewis in the Morse series. He was a Welshman in the first of Colin Dexter's books; as soon as he got on television, he becomes a Geordie. I've asked Colin but he has no explanation. I've come to the conclusion there are those who believe you can't sell Welsh characters on the networks."
It should be said straight away that David Williams isn't touting for business in the strictly commercial sense. His home is alongside the 18th hole at Wentworth - one of the most desirable pieces of des res in Britain and his preferred means of transport is a Rolls Royce.
In the lottery of life, he has been dealt (or dealt himself) a superb hand. It is just that he feels Wales is bring shortchanged.
"I deliberately switched from Mark Treasure to bring Welsh characters to the forefront of British audiences. I am not too discouraged because my agent says that you need at least five books to make a television breakthrough.
"I will have five by next summer. The fifth featuring Merlin Parry, Suicide Intended, is written and ready (N.B. and published!). It is also set in Cardiff, a city in my view that should be a natural for television.
"The castle and Cardiff Bay are wonderful settings; indeed, in Suicide lntended, there is a key scene outside the Norwegian church."
David Williams's father encouraged him from an early age to invent children's stories and his literary talent first broke through in Oldcastle School, Bridgend. Then his education moved onwards and upwards as he won places at the Cathedral School, Hereford, and St John's College, Oxford.
His degree in modem history was interrupted by three years' war service as a Royal Navy officer, his career as an author even longer delayed.
Although this elegant, always immaculately dressed man always intended to be a writer, his ambition was put on hold for 25 years because of his highly successful career in advertising
. He became chairman of one of the UK's biggest agencies, David Williams and Ketchum, and a regular TV and radio commentator, mostly on the ethical aspects of the business scene. It was only at 52 that serious illness forced him to rethink his life.
"It was first a heart attack; then a stroke. But it was the stroke that stopped me from working in advertising any longer, they cause brain damage. In comparison, heart attacks are easy.
"I had a by-pass operation which solved that problem; the stroke came along a few months later and was probably induced by the surgery. For two years I did nothing.
"I was partially paralysed down my right side and my brain was affected. I got back to normal - but, on Harley Street advice, I was not to attempt anything so mind-boggling as running an advertising agency."
Luckily he had his escape route. He had already written his first three Mark Treasure books which he had composed on Sunday afternoons as an exercise in self-fulfilment.
"It was not escapism because I loved advertising. It was simply so very pleasant to do something entirely on my own. All I needed was a typewriter, a bit of hush and an understanding wife.
"I still have all three although the typewriter is now a word processor. The Treasure books all did well but, clearly, they were not going to make it on to TV. When you have been writing about one character for a certain length of time, you have a fair idea about whether he is going to reach the wider media.
"I decided to try my arm writing about Welsh characters and a proper policeman rather than a City banker. In addition, there is always a certain amount of disbelief attaching to an amateur sleuth, especially one who has solved 17 murders.
"Merlin parry is employed to solve crime and he is plainly very good at it. He also has an interesting private life, playing the cello and playing rugby for the Torbach seconds.
"He has an amusing assistant in Sergeant Gomer Lloyd, a non-belligerent Welsh nationalist who speaks the language. He is a large fellow with an equally large wife and they go ballroom dancing - she also knits him sweaters of undyed Welsh wool."
This is the art of the writer. These characters have built up to such an extent that they are almost part of the Williams personna. He talks enthusiastically about the relationship between Parry and his girlfriend.
She was a physiotherapist who has gone to London to study medicine and is well on the way to qualifying as a doctor.
There is another market to be captured. The Mark Treasure books did well in the USA: his successor has yet to make the trans-Atlantic leap.(N.B. Dead in the Market and A Terminal Case are now to be published by Thorndyke Large Print, and Suicide Intended is distributed there by Trafalgar Square)
Again it is a question of recognition. London and a man who operates in the financial markets is easy for Americans; Wales is something else. As my publisher puts it, the Americans don't just not know where Wales is ... they don't know if it is.
"I am convinced that we will clear that hurdle. Wales is becoming much more topical internationally with the growth of industry and upsurge of tourism.
"The reason I was elected a member of the Welsh Academy last year must have been because someone said, 'Hey, this guy is not only a fairly good writer but he's promoting Wales.' I take it upon myself to promote Wales in every single book I now write - even a couple of the Mark Treasure series had Welsh settings. There is always something in the country or its culture which reaches out to people.
"I use the settings of Cardiff, Swansea, Newport and Bridgend, if not every time by their proper names. The one I am writing now, my sixth Merlin Parry, is based on Porthcawl, or Paredmor (Seawall) as I call it."
Strangely, compared with such detailed research on backgrounds, his plots have a life of their own. He starts with a situation, a group of people and a location.
His books are rich in suspects and during the penultimate chapter, he selects the man or woman whose crimes mean an exit in handcuffs.
"It is always, to me, the obvious one among my five or six characters. But I maintain that you cannot know who is obvious until you have worked through them all.
"It is a desperately dangerous way to write books because you could end up with 70,000 words and no resolution. All I can say is that it hasn't happened to me yet and I've done it 22 times. One day perhaps it will. Then I'll give up writing and learn to play the piano."

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DAVID WILLIAMS imposes a strict discipline on himself. The morning is given over to business affairs; at 2 PM he sits down to write until 7 PM, when be prints out.
It is a routine which reaches backs to his days as head of a large advertising agency. The important, rational decisions were taken in the morning; the afternoon was set aside for creative work.
"I always found that any letters I wrote after lunch were far too romantic to be businesslike and had to be rewritten the next morning" he says. "There's a matching pattern with my novel writing.
"The other activity I find time for in the mornings is golf. Living alongside one of the greatest championship courses in Britain means it cannot be ignored.
"At least two mornings a week I am on the first tee at 7:30 so I'm back at my desk in time to deal with the business matters. A rigidly controlled life is the only way I know of writing."
There was a royal hand in his decision to abandon Mark Treasure and take up Merlin Parry ... Princess Margaret. He met her at a dinner in London in 1991 and remarked how flattered he'd been to learn that she had read the Treasure series.
"Oh, it's so easy to get them. I borrow the books from my mother," she replied brightly, That made him think.
He explains, "While it was even more pleasing to be told that the Queen Mother was a reader, it made me wonder if this indicated that the buyers of my work were getting a bit senior. So Inspector Parry was partly born to broaden the age and social range of my readers. Although I hope the Queen Mother is still among them."

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