Malice On The Moors (23 page)

Authors: Graham Thomas

BOOK: Malice On The Moors

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He eventually reached the top and a welcome breeze cooled his perspiring face. He looked down at a gentle slope of heather, which fell away more steeply near the bottom into the rock-strewn course of a tumbling gill. His eyes scanned the hillside, but there was no sign of the dog. The vast silence was pierced by a curlew's wild cry. He rested his gun on his shoulder and started down the slope, whistling and calling to no avail. When he got to a point just above the stream, he stopped to listen. There was nothing but the sound of rushing water. He looked back up the hillside and saw Barrett and Sarah coming over the top.

Before starting back, he walked down to the edge of the stream to get a drink. Just as he was about to lay down his gun, he happened to glance upstream. There, about ten yards from where he stood and partially screened by a tangle of gorse, was Misty, frozen on point. She was as rigid as if she'd been sculpted from a block of marble, her brain hardwired to lock up at the first intoxicating scent of her quarry. Not taking his eyes off her, Powell slipped two cartridges into the breech of his gun and quietly closed the action. At the soft
click
of the gun being loaded, Misty began to tremble with anticipation, but her gaze remained fixed on a patch of heather about twenty feet in front of her nose on the far bank of the stream.

Powell made his way carefully over to the dog, searching the cover for any hint of where the objects of her attention might lie. He was trying to decide where to cross over the gill when there was a sudden flurry of wings as a covey of grouse exploded from the heather.
Brr-beck-a-beck, beck, beck, beck, go-back, go-back.

He pushed off the safety catch as the old Westley Richards came up to his shoulder and swung the barrels out in front of the lead bird. He could see the chestnut and black of the grouse's breast and the vermilion over its eye as clearly as if he were looking at a painting. He watched the covey disappear from view then slowly lowered his gun. He broke open the action and extracted the cartridges. Enough to be alive amidst this wild splendor, he thought.

He looked down into Misty's recriminating brown eyes and wondered how he was going to explain himself to Barrett.

A CONVERSATION WITH
GRAHAM THOMAS

Q: Graham, who (or what) was the inspiration for your series hero, Detective-Chief Superintendent Erskine Powell of New Scotland Yard?

A: Powell is undoubtedly an amalgam of various influences and experiences, both literary and personal. It became apparent when I started writing
Malice in the Highlands,
the first book in the series, that he already existed somewhere in my creative unconscious. It's as if I'm writing about someone I know intimately, as opposed to consciously constructing a fictional character.

Q: Let's talk briefly about your pre-Pow ell life. Would you give us a thumbnail biography of yourself?

A: From the moment I picked up a copy of J. P. Don-leavy's
The Ginger Man
as an impressionable youth, I knew I wanted to be a writer. I majored in English literature at university, then switched to biology when I realized that I might have to get a job someday. For the past twenty-five years, I've worked as a professional biologist in the field of fisheries management.

Q: When you introduced Erskine Powell in
Malice in the Highlands,
did you envision a series?
Or
was
Highlands
originally a stand-alone novel?

A: I always envisioned a series. There are the practical considerations, of course, but from a creative point of view, much of the enjoyment I derive from writing mysteries is the opportunity to continually develop and reveal my hero's character, to test him in new situations. You can't do this in a one-off novel. Also, I think most mystery readers appreciate continuity. It's like cheering on the home team—although every game is different, the star player never lets you down.

Q: Clearly you are not (and never have been, have you?) a Scotland Yard detective; but that aside, how much of Erskine Powell is based on your own experience? Or to ask another way: In what ways is your protagonist similar to
—
and completely unlike
—
his creator?

A: Short of signing up for a course of psychoanalysis, I'm not sure how I should answer that! Powell is better-educated, better-looking, and more intuitive than I am. However, like his creator, he is, beneath a somewhat cynical veneer, a romantic at heart. More revealing, perhaps, is the fact that we're both addicted to curry.

Q: What about background research
—
how vital is that for you?

A: Getting the details right is very important to me. Put it down to my scientific training. Having said that, I am willing to sacrifice verisimilitude, where necessary, to further the story. An example: In my books, Powell is a member of the Yard's Murder Squad, an organization which no longer exists. At one time, senior Scotland Yard detectives were called in by local police forces to investigate difficult or high-profile murder cases, but this is no longer the case. It is, nonetheless, a useful fictional device which enables me to set my stories in a variety of interesting and atmospheric locales such as the Scottish Highlands, the north coast of Cornwall, and the North York Moors. I typically spend more time doing background research for a book and thinking about the story in a fairly unstructured way than actually writing.

Q: Your novels unfold in actual locales, although you sometimes invent town names. What advantages and disadvantages have you discovered with this approach?

A: A vivid sense of place and setting is (I hope) a key element of my novels. In order to strike a balance between realism and literary license, I generally set my stories in a fictional village, which I locate—using plausible, but not overly precise, geographic reference points—near a real town. For example,
Malice in Cornwall
features the imaginary village of Penrick near St. Ives. Similarly,
Malice on the Moors
is set in and around the fictional hamlet of Brackendale, near the town of Kirkbymoorside in North Yorkshire. This approach enables me to realistically describe an actual locale yet allows me to take liberties for plot purposes. And I don't have to worry about somebody who was born and raised in my village taking me to task for getting some detail wrong. The disadvantage? The risk of not pulling if off.

Q: You chose a pseudonym for your novels. What was the thinking behind that?

A: Being a writer with a day job, I basically have a split personality. A pseudonym seemed the logical expression of this. And it has the added advantage of insulating one from excessive public adulation or derision. (I like to hedge my bets!)

Q: What's the game plan for you
—
and Erskine Powell
—
after
Malice on the Moors?

A: Erskine and I have a number of ideas, including a story set in London and perhaps a trip to America.

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Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 99-94294

eISBN: 978-0-307-55774-2

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