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Sue Walker |
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Sue Walker is a television journalist who has worked in the industry for nineteen years. She started out in her native Edinburgh, eventually moving to London to work in BBC TV’s News and Current Affairs Department.
For the past twelve years, Sue has concentrated on documentaries specialising in crime investigative work and miscarriages of justice, mainly for Channel 4. Sue has published two novels so far, The Reckoning and The Reunion (which was a WHSmith Fresh Talent novel). Sue now lives on the Sussex coast. Visit her website at www.sue-walker.com.
Where ‘Truth’ Ends and ‘Lies’ Begin by Sue Walker
I attended a very enjoyable session with a readers’ group recently. They had been studying my novels and were quizzing me about various aspects of how I write. The group were particularly interested in my background as an investigative journalist, working on a variety of crime related TV documentaries over the years. Was that a driver for me to write crime fiction? Did my journalistic experiences play into what I write? Did being a journalist help with research? Did that make accuracy and truth particularly important to me? To those I answered: yes, yes, yes, and... yes and no.
The issue of ‘accuracy’ and ‘truthfulness’ was important to those readers I was with. It is to me as both reader and author. But I am, I admit, very happy to play fast and loose with those notions when I feel like it. This is as true of The Dead Pool as it is any of my other novels. Accuracy only matters to me up to a point. For example, since (to date) I have had no interest in writing about forensics or police procedure, those areas – fraught with potential pitfalls for the author – happily escape me. Since I deal mainly with people’s relationships, their dark deeds and secrets, I can make it up as I go along. Tell a pack of lies, if you like!
But where I do spend a lot of time looking at the ‘truth’, though I don’t stand by it, is when I’m doing my research around locations. In The Dead Pool, as with my previous novels, I use locations that are familiar, in some cases very familiar to me. The prime location in The Dead Pool is the river that runs through Edinburgh, the Water of Leith, not featured greatly, if at all, in contemporary crime fiction. I was brought up by the banks of that river and very near to the area where the novel is set. So, what’s to research? Quite a lot, actually. Although little has changed around there in the thirty-odd years since I used to spend my summers playing on the water’s edge – old family photos of the area tell very much the same story as today - a lot is different. And that difference is perspective: adult versus childhood perspective. The same place looks and consequently is different depending on who is experiencing it.
My young children play a game called ‘upside downy ways’ – this involves them on all fours, heads down to the ground and looking backwards through their open legs – thus seeing the world in an upside down way. I remember doing the very same thing in childhood myself, standing in my quiet street. It was a different place, transformed. And when I righted myself, what I was used to was both familiar but changed by the experience of contrast. So it is with my approach to location.
My location research for The Dead Pool was carried out in the usual way. I spend three days around the area. Day One: I follow my list of ‘must photograph’ locations and topographic details. This first day will also include a visit to any relevant information source - in this case the Water of Leith Conservation Trust - where I’ll pore over and buy any and all reading materials. Day Two: is a ‘freestyle’ walkabout, casually photographing what I feel like and mopping up anything missed on my original list. But Day Three is the favourite and where the ‘real’ research is done. It’s just a ‘be in the location’ day. No photos, no lists, just wandering, maybe consciously thinking about plot, character, etc, and maybe not.
It is this Day Three stage that is my ‘upside downy ways’ time. Perspectives are starting to shift and change. In my mind I’m already beginning to alter topography and landscape, create houses, gardens, buildings where none actually exist. Then come the characters and their actions to fill my new landscape.
And so back to my readers’ group. This revelation from me that I routinely alter the ‘real’ seemed to perplex them, causing a flurry of existential queries. Was the island of Fidra – featured in The Reckoning – a real place? Yes. But the house is made up, as are some of the mainland locations and topography. Same with The Dead Pool. The community of human beings I have created are obviously imaginary but so are their houses, their landscapes. The ‘real’, ‘true’ area where I have put them is undeveloped; lovely rolling hillside and much smaller than any reader will believe. Does this playing fast and loose with the truth upset locals? I have yet to receive an angry, ‘What have you done with our lovely area? It’s lies all lies.’ letter. Indeed, I fear I’m more likely to get complaints about the murder and mayhem I bring to these locations!
So, should anyone go on a tour of my locations - and I urge them to do so – they will find beautiful parts of Scotland but they will look different because they are different in reality. This imaginative licence is, I told my readers’ group, one of the most uplifting aspects of writing novels. For me it’s a true liberation. I can shrug off the slavish adherence to accuracy that the journalist in me has so deeply ingrained within myself. But that part of me stays out of the room where I write.
While the other part of me merrily plays ‘upside downy ways’!
Location, Location, Location… Putting the Dark into Light
Sue Walker on the three Ls of writing a great crime novel
I was asked by an acquaintance recently how the inspiration for my novels came about. A common enough question and I had a straightforward reply. ‘Location, location, location.’ And that answer, to a great extent, is the whole truth. It is certainly the case that the locations used in The Reckoning (the island of Fidra and the East Lothian coast) and the forthcoming The Dead Pool (the Water of Leith in Edinburgh) inspired me long before I had even conceived of a single character or plot line. At some point I knew, just knew, that these places had to be central to my stories. But then that begs the question of why some locations inspire and others do not? What exactly is it about a particular place that sparks off an idea? In some ways I’m rather loathe to over-analyse this. Does it matter if it works and keeps working for me? On the other hand, there is obviously a pattern there and maybe it’s worth looking at. It would appear that in my case the answer to what sparks it all off is beauty. More than one person has remarked that I seem to like using the most beautiful locations and turning them into places of hell. ‘You put the dark into light’, as someone told me not long ago.
That might sound like a bit of an accusation but, actually, I’m perfectly happy with that response. I’m very aware of what I do to my lovely locations. I’m fascinated by atmospheres and the truth is that the most beautiful place on earth cannot be immunised against what human beings bring with them. The menace - the ‘dark’ - I bring to a location is only what the characters themselves bring with them. It may be that their torment is inner and thus ruins their appreciation of a location’s beauty, or, by their appalling actions, they physically despoil that location for others. Perhaps the latter option is the worse. I believe that violent events and, in particular, the most heinous of those - murder – and our collective memory of those events, can affect our attitudes to a place for ever, no matter how overwhelming the physical beauty of a location. After all, isn’t that what bogey man stories, hauntings, notions of imprints of evil residing in a place are all about?
But as to an explanation for my preference when selecting particular type of location. What’s it all about? Well, one key moment in my journalistic career has a direct relevance to this and, in a strange way, could be said to have put the ‘dark into light’ concept in motion for me. Some years ago I began work on a documentary series investigating alleged miscarriages of justice. We looked at the worst criminal cases, mainly murders. The television production office had a locked filing cabinet that was treated with great care and respect. I wondered why. Soon, I found out. It was where the scene-of-crime photographs were kept. In addition to all the other legal documents relating to any case we were investigating, a key part of that was the photographic record of the crime scene.
To say that my first viewing of scene-of-crime photographs was upsetting is an understatement. But not for the obvious reasons: blood, terrible injury, visions of extreme violence and suffering. No, quite the reverse. My first murder scene was situated in an area of outstanding beauty - a lovely wood - and there lay a semi-naked young woman, eyes closed, looking as peaceful as if she were asleep. Other parts of the case papers told me this impression was, of course, deceptive. There had indeed been violence: strangulation, sexual assault, undoubtedly great fear and suffering. But nothing in those photographs betrayed any of that. Not the pitiful victim, not the beautiful surroundings, even the season and the weather was benign. It was a gentle spring day. So, my first introduction to murder was all the more shocking for the beauty of its physical context.
And this wasn’t the only time that beautiful settings were to be the locations for murder cases that I examined. I spent much time in rural and coastal Devon, in the prettiest villages and towns of Sussex. Again, these cases were all the more disturbing because of their locations, the surroundings threatening to seduce me away from the terrible reality that I should have been looking at. Each and every time I would visit the locus of a particular murder, soaking up the beauty of my environment, I would wonder: ‘Could this horrific event really have happened here?’. I also spent my fair share of time trudging around tough, urban, inner-city areas as well. The same incredulity never accompanied those visits. For me, somehow violent death seemed to fit better with the hard urban landscape than the rural idyll. Illogical maybe, but it’s what I felt, what I still feel. I like the incongruity of setting hellish events in an apparently benign physical context.
And so that, in part, may go some way to explaining why I choose the locations (or they select me!) that I do. The location in The Dead Pool also gives me another advantage. Edinburgh’s river, The Water of Leith, and the specific part of it I use in The Dead Pool, is a very familiar beauty spot. I have known that area all my life, I have tracked over decades how it has changed, how its pathways and access have been improved to allow more people than ever to enjoy its delights. These are superficial changes. In essence, the place itself, its atmosphere of peace and tranquillity has not changed. So, is it a shame to sully it with murder and mayhem, to put dark into light, to defile its beauty?
Hardly. Without the beauty there would be no story.
Sue Walker - Under Interrogation
What was the first crime novel you ever read?
Actually, I can’t remember. Whatever it was it obviously didn’t stay with me.
Who is your favourite crime writer?
No absolute favourite but, if pushed, Patricia Highsmith is way up there.
Which crime novel do you wish you’d written?
Deep Water by Patricia Highsmith
Why did you choose to write crime fiction?
I came late to the genre (and late to reading as it happens) but once I did, I was hooked. Also, my crime journalism enhanced that interest.
Has any thriller ever made you sleep with the lights on?
Not yet – I live in hope!
If you were stranded on a desert island – which fictional character would you most want to be stranded with and why?
Adam Dalgleish – I’d never be bored.
If you had to compare your books to any author, who would it be?
I don’t compare.
When you begin – do you already know the end?
Yes.
What is the most outlandish plot idea you’ve come up with – and did it become a book?
Haven’t done that one yet!
What are you working on at the moment?
My third novel, The Dead Pool. It’s set around the river that runs through Edinburgh – the Water of Leith – and involves some grisly events there during one long, hot summer…
Ok, now for some quick fire questions:
First person or third person?
Preference for 3rd but I also like a mixture of both in a novel.
US or UK?
Usually UK.
Marple or Morse?
A hybrid.
Amateur sleuth or DCI?
Neither.
Paperback or hardback?
Hardback.
Past or present?
Preferably both.
Series or stand-alone?
Usually stand-alone.
Chandler or Hammett?
Tough call – can’t say.
Please give your top three crime writing tips:
1) Read a lot, both in and outside of the genre. The ‘dark’ is everywhere in fiction.
2) Write what you believe in rather than what you think may be in vogue. Write what raises the heart rate! And, as you write it, ‘live’ all of your story – character, place, everything! Always be ‘on duty’ when you’re in the midst of writing your novel even – in fact, especially – when you’re away from your desk.
3) I suppose this is pertinent to all genres and all novel writing - work very hard, work consistently, and be prepared for the long haul.
Sue, a TV journalist has worked on a number of crime-related shows, in particular Channel Four’s, Trial and Error, in The Reckoning she brings all that experience to the fore in an atmospheric and suspenseful story of a possible miscarriage of justice. Here we put some quick-fire questions to Sue.
Who or what always puts a smile on your face?
Swimming.
What are you reading at the moment?
Monsieur by Lawrence Durrell
Why Love Matters by Sue Gerhardt
Creativity and Madness by Albert Rothenberg
Ideas in Psychoanalysis (various authors)
and re-reading Haunts of the Black Masseur by Charles Strawson
Which author do you most admire?
Of the genre, Patricia Highsmith.
What’s your earliest memory?
Being wheeled in my pushchair past a brewery in Edinburgh – I love the smell of hops!
What is your greatest fear?
Fear itself – it has to be the worst emotion.
Have you even done something you’ve really regretted?
Yes. That I only learned to swim in adulthood.
How do you spoil yourself?
Holidays abroad on very quiet beaches, preferably on an island, away from the bustle of humanity.
What’s your favourite book?
Deep Water by Patricia Highsmith
What makes you angry?
Injustice of any sort.
Are you in love?
Oh yes.
What’s your worst vice?
Spending far too much money on cinema and theatre tickets.
What are you proudest of?
Professionally: that my investigative journalism helped some people rectify injustices done to them. In particular, those wrongly imprisoned for crimes they did not commit.
Personally: overcoming my life-long terror of water and learning to swim to Masters level.
Where do you write?
In my Bloomsbury flat and anywhere I have to or want to. The coldest place I wrote was in Iceland last year, snowed-in not too far from the Arctic Circle – bliss! Rather apt, since I was writing The Reckoning at the time which has its fair share of snow!
Where’s your favourite city?
Edinburgh – a true world city and the place I was born and brought up.
When was the last time you cried?
At the opera. I’m always crying at the opera – very cathartic!
Did you enjoy school?
I loathed most of it.
What's your worst habit?
Being too talkative first thing in the morning.
Have you ever broken the law?
I’m sure I must have!
Have you got a party trick?
I’m not really a party animal.
Do you have any unfulfilled ambitions?
To live by the sea and swim in it every day.
To learn to sail and own a boat.
What's in your handbag/bag at the moment?
It might be easier to ask what’s not in it - I don’t travel light!
What makes you mad!
Where do I begin? Let’s just say I enjoy a good rant now and again!
Sue Walker, a television journalist who has worked for both the BBC and Channel 4, concentrating on crime investigative work and miscarriages of justice, talks here about her first book The Reunion, a psychological thriller about a scattered group of adults connected by a dark secret from their teenage past. When two of their number die unexpectedly it looks as if that secret is coming back to haunt them.
Why did you write The Reunion?
For a lot of reasons. One of the main ones is that the ‘mad or bad’ argument around criminal behaviour has always intrigued me, particularly in my career as a journalist where I’ve examined serious crimes. I’m also very interested in why people do ‘bad’ things and how others treat them for doing it and how ‘evil-doers’ view themselves. What role guilt, remorse, redemption plays in the lives of those who have done ill deeds. I’ve no definitive opinion on the mad/bad question but I’m certain it’s not always, if ever, a straight black and white issue.
Another reason is that I’m fascinated by the idea of people meeting up again after years, maybe a lifetime apart. What changes, what similarities do they detect in each other? I’ve a suspicion people retain an immutable core to their identity that, in some cases, may only be reawakened by an encounter from the past.
We see the main characters in adolescence having a very unhappy time. Do you think growing up is that bad?
I think it can be fearsome! Body and mind changing around you, sense of self in flux. For some, I’d say it’s the worst time of their lives. One of the most pertinent things someone ever said to me on this was that ‘difficult’ adolescents can seem like an alien and frightening species. I think this is true both from the inside - how some adolescents feel about themselves - and how they are viewed by the rest of us.
In this regard, the issue of children/adolescents and criminality has always been of interest to me. Why do some charge wholeheartedly down the road to delinquency whilst others stop well short of that?
The past is a major preoccupation of the novel. Is the past important to you?
Absolutely. I think it’s unarguable that the past matters. Our individual pasts, whether turbulent, traumatic or seemingly mundane tell us a lot about what we’re like now. Perhaps more than ever before, there is a trend for us to look to the past for explanations of behaviour, especially dysfunctional behaviour. Modern psychotherapeutic thinking and practice has done much to encourage this, though some critics might say it’s too easy to blame everything on the past. As for the characters in The Reunion, they certainly have been shaped by their pasts.
There are quite a few main characters in The Reunion. Was there one that you favoured above the others?
They’re largely tricky, complex, deceitful people to say the least, so I don’t think I’d necessarily take to any of them in real life. However, I did get particular pleasure in writing the two main male roles, Simon and Danny. Creating opposite gender to myself characters is very stretching and rewarding to the imagination. A real chance to play God!
A lot of the locations in the novel have an air of menace about them. How important is sense of place for you?
It’s key. The perhaps clichéd-sounding notion of ‘place as character’ does have real significance for me. I’m very taken by places and atmospheres. In terms of the atmospheres in The Reunion, the menace they contain is only created by what the characters have brought with them. Other places, such as the beautiful parts of Scotland where some of the characters have chosen to live, seem almost immune to the toxic atmospheres that human beings bring with them. The Outer Hebrides where Danny lives being an example.
In fact, sense of place is so important to me that a location inspired the novel I’m currently writing, well before I created a single character.
Which authors do you enjoy reading? Do you have an all time favourite book?
It’s funny, I was always a rather reluctant reader as a child and adolescent. Now I’ve gone to the other extreme. I permanently have two piles of books to try and get through. One is fiction, the other is non-fiction. I read fairly extensively within the contemporary crime/thriller genre. To list favourites would take quite a while! I also regularly re-visit old favourites. I read outside the genre as well and have a particular admiration for Pat Barker and recent Michael Frayn. My non-fiction tastes vary wildly – the current pile ranges from a book about the Cutty Sark to Roy Porter’s Madness, A Brief History!
As for a favourite of all time? Some years back, the Guardian used to run a series asking authors what book they wished they’d written. If I was asked that question now, the answer could only be one book – Patricia Highsmith’s Deep Water. Simple yet perfect.
