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'The
Death List' is my ninth novel, but it's a new beginning in several
ways. First, it's set in contemporary London, rather than the futuristic Edinburgh
or historically conditioned Greece of my previous series. I lived in London
for several years and frequently stay in the city with relatives, so I'm pretty
familiar with it. I was also drawn to its hugeness - in many ways, London is
an archetypal metropolis of noir fiction, with its juxtapositions of wealth
and poverty, its concrete jungle, and its numerous different cultures.
Second, I wanted to have a crime novelist as protagonist and target of the lead
villain's scheming - the latter being a serial killer who calls himself the
White Devil. Why a crime novelist? When I wrote the novel, I needed to exorcise
several demons, the principal of which was a life- threatening illness that
I'd suffered. Matt Wells isn't me, but it's fair to say that he reflects a lot
of my recent experiences, though he doesn't have cancer. Also, I wanted to imagine
how a crime writer would cope with the attentions of a 'real' criminal. Would
his vicarious experience of crime enable him to fight back? Crime writers spend
their lives imagining and describing acts of violence and their results. Would
that be any advantage in coping with a calculating killer who threatens our
loved ones?
Also, I wanted to examine the concept of revenge. Despite the White Devil's
crimes, his desire to pay back those who wronged him is very human. Matt has
also been tempted to take revenge, but the Devil beats him to it by targeting
the editor who ended his career, the agent who declined to represent him any
longer, and the critics who lambasted his books. In case you're wondering, I
had a ball. But I also found that 17th century revenge tragedy provided a fantastic
template for the novel, and John Webster's 'The White Devil'
gave me the name of my murderer. In fact, I'm surprised that more crime writers
haven't used the plays of Webster, Kyd and so on. P.D. James's 'The
Skull beneath the Skin' is the only example that comes to mind,
though several academic studies have linked crime fiction to revenge tragedy.
Finally, I wanted to write a page-turner, a book that was very hard to put down.
I actually wrote 'The
Death List' very quickly, at a rate of around five thousand words
a day. I think speed of writing instills pace in the text, facile though it
may sound. I should add that I spent a lot longer revising the book, though
the basic structure was unaltered. As to whether it works as a white-hot reading
experience - over to you.
