A bit of old chat with Mr Mark Timlin: Peter Walker Chews the Cud with South London's finest.

You may feel, on heading out to meet Mark Timlin, that you wouldn't know what to expect. His reputation certainly goes before him - especially in crime writing circles. I was in Manchester for the second Death On Deansgate and, amongst other things, was due to meet and interview Mr Timlin. Thinking about what I was going to ask him, I reflected on the various snippets of information I had gleaned from stories and comments from people who knew him, the odd encounter with him and stuff - of which there is surprisingly little - in the magazines, hoping they would give me some clues.

The sum total is this: I first met him at the Ilkley Literature Festival - of all places - and he was very funny and approachable. He was funny in the way he talked about the up and coming TV adaptation of his books - how they got big slabs of meat to blast with shot guns to get a real effect and on the subject of just how bad he thought Reservoir Dogs really was. He recounted getting smacked in the gob and how it really hurt. Tarantino's claims to being real and violent were so much whatever. He also talked, with great feeling, about the death of his friend Robin Cook aka Derek Raymond with whom he was supposed to have been appearing. This was in 1994. I was there because of the Raymond connection but I immediately took to the big man, asked him which was the first Sharman and set about the task of collecting and reading them in order.

It was a year or so after this that our paths crossed again - briefly - at that Bouchercon. The details are still a bit hazy to me - something about Minette Walters, rhyming slang, being banned from the whole of the B.B.C etc - but I remember Ion Mills, from No Exit Press, talking about Mr Timlin and his loyalty to his friends. Ion recounted Mr Timlin's delight at the comments made by Derek Raymond appearing in the first edition of Crimetime when he rubbished the cosies: "It's like he's getting at them from beyond the grave". There was some sort of stupid comment from arch cosy P.D.James to spice things up.

Other snippets came my way. The interview with Barry Forshaw in Crimetime 8 in which he talks about the death of his wife, the change to No Exit from Gollancz, stories about his life as a roadie with The Who - complete with Zapata moustache - and a delicious rumour that certain people within the CWA (and I cannot reveal my sources) talked about trying to stop him coming to Death On Deansgate!

So when, at the behest of Tangled Web, I was finally getting to interview the man I had half an idea about an interview line: will the real Mr Timlin please stand up.
Was he the 'bad boy of crime', the 'dead sound bloke' or what? Of course all this goes by-the-by when I did meet him and he did stand up because all I could think was "Jeez, what a tall fucker".

The pleasantries over with we headed down to the bar, sorted out drinks and settled down for a bit of chat. In all the excitement I forgot to turn on the tape so you'll have to take my word for it that he was as pleased to meet me as I was to meet him and that he was enjoying himself at Death On Deansgate. We talked about his new book - his first with No Exit - and the fact that, amazingly, for a period, he had no UK publisher before Mr Mills stepped in. Possibly because of this - it was as if a bad time for him had now passed - he was in a relaxed and chatty mood.

Mr Walker: "Congratulations on the latest and I really enjoyed the new one [ Called "All The Empty Places" it is only in manuscript form]. It's one of your best"
Mr Timlin: "I appreciate that. Glad you like it. If feel it's a good one".
Mr Walker: "It's good that, with all that's happened, publishers dropping you, ups and downs and so on, you've still managed to stick in there and produce another cracker. There's obviously life in the old dog yet - so to speak"

We talk about the book - I'd rate it up there as one of the best in the series - and some favourite scenes in it. Without giving too much away (and in order to whet the palate, as it were) there is a lot of Sharman down a sewer and, handcuffed to a ladder, some pretty weird things happen to him.. But he is still angry at the way he feels he was treated by his previous publisher. "Pathetic" he says "Couldn't sell books to save their lives". This leads to talking about his new publisher, No Exit Press and Mr Ion Mills.
Mr Timlin: "Ion actually sells books 'cos he's got to. A one and a half person band. There are only two decent crime lists in this country - No Exit and Orion. The rest do the occasional good book but that's no guarantee. When I see No Exit, 99 time out of a 100 I know I'm going to enjoy it. Ion dragged me out of the gutter and pulled me up again. And I can look him in the eye - which is a change for me 'cos he's roughly the same height! He's a big crime freak and something of an oxymoron - an honest publisher and an honourable publisher. There aren't a lot of them. Bastards on the whole. The days when someone like Victor Gollancz would give Orwell 500 quid to go and write 'The Road To Wigan Pier' are gone. If he knew what his company was doing now he's be spinning in his grave. I'll tell you what. I never forget a friend and I never forget an enemy. He turned out to be a really good friend. Pam, his publicist, said 'You don't have to creep up to him' and she's dead right".
Mr Walker " 'All The Empty Places' is the kind of book you could easily sit down and read in one go - others in the series are like that"
Mr Timlin: "Yeah, thanks, that's the idea"
Mr Walker: " Reading one you'd want to get the others as well"
Mr Timlin: "Well, I hope so!"

The latest Sharman is now out in Hardback called Quick Before They catch Us. We talked about getting it published and my role as a sort of editor.
Mr Timlin: "You need an editor. Someone to sit down and say 'love the book - hate the book - beef that up - take that down'. I've got to hear that. With this one I sat and after your comments had to go through every fucking page and re-did the parts that needed it. You gave me loads of ideas."
Mr Walker: "I wondered reading it if you'd gone all 'social conscience' on me. Racism is a key element in what happens in the book. Did you try to introduce an issue?".
Mr Timlin: "Well, I did. I was uncomfortable with the idea of 'social issues' but I think this is something around me now - especially since I now live in the East End. The most racist people are, often, Asian people. Then again I look at something like 'Eastenders' where there is a white bloke running a newsagent and think 'Wouldn't happen'. He wouldn't want to work 6am to Midnight. It's laziness. But the most racist guy in Quick Before They Catch Us is the Asian father - that's what I wanted to get over."
Mr Walker: "The book also has a change in location. It's not set in South London but Manchester and beyond."
Mr Timlin: "Made sense to the plot of the book. They wanted an outsider to investigate. Manchester was the most recent place I'd been to so it made sense to use those locations."
Mr Walker: "One of the things that often strikes me about your books is that there is a film in there waiting to get out - they are very cinematic. Sharman's been on telly but I wasn't a fan of that...".
Mr Timlin: "Between you me and the gatepost I was a fan of the cheques. Previously I was scratching a living - 200 quid articles - a book - maybe 10 grand a year and suddenly the money was coming in. We're talking a different level. The thing is I've never been able to sell books. In the Libraries my PLR is fantastic - 70,000 loans. The people who like my books don't buy my books. They like to borrow them, steal them I guess but not to buy the bloody things. But with Sharman on telly, well...don't get me wrong. I loved the whole thing but we were in the wrong place at the wrong time. Dunblain happened and they pulled Sharman off. Six months earlier nobody would have blinked an eye but suddenly we were public enemy number one. The Daily Mail said we should be banned. Said it was a national disgrace".
Mr Walker: "I never knew that. The TV tie in is good for the bank balance but there are, what?, three or four British crime writers actually living on their earnings as writers? The big publishers are carving up. It's one of the things I like about No Exit - at least they'll take a chance on something new because it's good and deserves to be out there - maybe a book or author the big publishers wouldn't take a chance on"

We talk about the possibility of Sharman being on the screen - big or little - in the near future.
Mr Timlin: "There's a guy called Dave Robinson - used to co-run Stiff Records - who's looking to go into film production because a. Brit films are doing really well and b. the technology now means its easy to get good quality. You don't have to have half a dozen Articulated lorries. So there's stuff in the pipe line."

We go of at a tangent at this point. Mr Timlin laments the 'pop star' style of marketing writers.
Mr Timlin: "Take Elmore Leonard. When he took off he was nearly 60 and already had a good rep. Now he probably wouldn't get pushed by the PR people. Not pretty enough. No kids would buy this geezers books based on his looks but they love him. He sells books right across the board".

Reviewing books is another pastime for us both.
Mr Walker: "I often agonise over what to say in a review. I like your reviews because they are always enthusiastic"
Mr Timlin: "You've got to be but if it's no good, well....often it comes down to personal preference. I have just discovered Denis Lehane. He's excellent. Good gratuitous violence, sexy, fast cars, shotguns, incredible. Discovering him was like dissevering a Mondrain in the attic. Terrific. But you have got to be enthusiastic, generally, if you're not then don't review it. Do something else".
Mr Walker: "Tell me about the underground theme in All The Empty Places. Mr Timlin: "I've always wanted to write an underground story. It's an interest of mine. Did you know that at Waterloo there was a station to take dead bodies to Kent in the Nineteenth Century? It was called 'London Necropolis'. I'm going to use that somehow". Mr Walker: "Which brings us nicely to the book just out by Toxic called I Spied A Pale Horse. There's a scene in that where the main character literally wades through dead bodies. Made me feel sick."
Mr Timlin: "That was the idea. It was something I'd always wanted to do and enjoyed doing it. Toxic picked it up and there it is."
Mr Walker: "A sequel?"
Mr Timlin: "Yes. I've got a great idea for a follow up. Got the plot in my head but I've started a new Sharman for 2002 which will be very different but you'll have to wait and see".

Somewhere along the line the tape ran out and I know we chatted about this and that for a while, about Edward Bunker, a writer we both admire enormously. Mr Timlin is will be the MC at a forthcoming do with Howard Marks and Mr Bunker. He's looking forward to it. He obviously enjoys writing the Sharman books as much as I enjoy reading them. I would suggest that therein lies one of his most enduring qualities as a writer. As to whether or nor the real Mark Timlin was apparent in all this I don't know, but I enjoyed our chat.

Peter Walker.