I am pleased to welcome fellow author John Pye to the blog today to discuss his books and writing in general. Thank you for your time today, John. Tell us a bit about your work.
What inspired you to write your new book Where the Silent Screams are Loudest ?
During my time in the police I was involved in many serious criminal investigations. I’ve always been interested in the technological advances which help police investigation. It’s been fascinating to see this go from strength to strength in aiding crime detection. The scientists, boffins and inventors were always coming up with something new which could in some way help with crime detection.
I’d already written a crime thriller trilogy which was based back in the era when I was a detective (80s/90s). From a research point of view this made it fairly simple as I was familiar with procedures of those times.
I’d never had the opportunity to work with DNA during my service, but the concept and capabilities always fascinated me. I followed some of the earlier cases involving DNA with great interest (Colin Pitchfork being the prime example) and had also been fascinated by some of the use by genealogists in TV programmes where familial DNA is used to trace siblings and parents (particularly in cases of foundling babies).
Put this alongside the horrendous cases of Josef Fritzel in Austria and Jaycee Dugard in USA where young girls were held sex prisoner for years… and you have a good deal of the inspiration which led to me writing ‘Where the Silent Screams are Loudest’.
The fact was, that by writing a book set in the ‘here and now’, I gave myself one hell of high learning curve to climb.
Which is your favourite character in Where the Silent Screams are Loudest?
My favourite character in this book is private genealogist Madeleine Scott. She only really just pips the main character DS Eve Brenan at the post in this, but I just love the way her character develops throughout the story. Why? Well… her passion, not just about what she does so well… tracing people through familial DNA and family trees, but also how her need to find the missing girl, Poppy Hunt, alive, becomes a hunger. It’s a hunger which grows in equal measure to that of the police officers she finds herself working alongside. It’s great how she slowly becomes such an integral and accepted part of the police team and such a close friend with Brenan.
What was the first piece you had published?
Putting aside a few historical articles that I wrote for the local newspaper my first published book was a mostly-humorous bio, based on my police career. It was a huge and costly learning curve. It took several years of me finding my feet, before it achieved its present form as ‘The Nick of Time’ in 2016. The book remains really popular with readers and has accrued getting on for 400 mostly super reviews on Amazon.
Do you have another story planned or in progress? When can we expect to see that?
I was stunned to win the Arnold Bennett International Book Prize with ‘Where the Silent Screams are Loudest’ and had hoped to do really well with the book. I’m particularly useless with IT and social media and as an indie author you really do need those skills. As a result the book has still not achieved the exposure it needs to make it fly.
I guess I became disillusioned and so it was a while before I found my mojo again and got back into ‘writing mode’. I’m now working on a sequel to the Where the Silent Screams are Loudest, with the same police team. I’ve even devised a plausible way of getting Madeleine Scott back alongside Eve Brenan, but won’t be dropping into a ‘samey’ DNA based story… this idea is very different!
When can you expect to see this one?? Well I’m about 50,000 words in and the ideas are still pretty sketchy so bear with me… I’m slow. Maybe 12 months!
Who is your favourite author?
My favourite author? Hmmm, differs greatly from genre to genre. I just love some of the classics, so Thomas Hardy is up there. I do absolutely love Freddie Forsyth… beyond brilliant. I’ve loved most of the Rebus stories so Ian Rankin is also up there (I’ve even been to the ‘Ox’) {Oxford Bar in Edinburgh} on a sort of pilgrimage (excuse to have a couple of pints of Leuchars!)
What do you like to do when you’re not planning or writing your next book?
When I’m not planning or writing I like to scour the odd car boot sale. I’m an avid collector of antique pottery. Coming from Stoke on Trent there are often some real gems still to be found. I’ve got to be careful not to become a hoarder though!
When did you know you wanted to write novels?
I guess I got the bug by writing those historic articles for the local newspaper. I enjoyed the research and trying to piece the stories together in an interesting way (very different from police reports!) I loved putting together my police bio (the Nick of Time) and that further inspired me when I few peculiar crime ideas started to come to mind.
Do you write in other genres?
I do like to write in other genres. As I’ve mentioned, history has always been a passion, but I’d love to try my hand at humour. There are so many laughs to be had in The Nick of Time and I simply can’t help myself from putting a few funny episodes in my serious crime novels.
It’s a fact that if you did not have humour to help you through some of those awful moments on a murder enquiry then you would go completely crackers. Funnily enough I posted about exactly that on Crime UK Book Club (Facebook) a couple of weeks ago. The response from readers was overwhelmingly that crime stories need to have an element of humour occasionally (it’s real life).
I’ve also published a short story on Amazon (just on Kindle as it’s only a half hour read) which you might categorize as ‘Horror’. ‘The Vampire of The Villas’ is a tale about a case that I actually dealt with as a 22 years old uniform beat bobby back in 1972. After the inquest it made the national papers and TV around the world. A couple of films have been made about the incident and it’s managed several pages in different books over the years.
What do you like most about being an author?
Lovely people. Authors and readers. It’s rewarding to get a great response from a reader who has enjoyed your book. Authors are such a friendly helpful lot, who all, without exception seem willing to go out of their way to help other authors. I’ve found myself so many times getting in touch for advice and have never been disappointed.
Also research has put me in touch with some amazing experts in different fields. I even managed to get myself a guided tour of the local mortuary as I knew that things had changed hugely since I had to attend post mortems. Obviously there were no PMs taking place but the lady who showed me round and pointed out the latest procedures was lovely.
I had bags of help from non-other than Professor Dame Sue Black, one of the country’s leading forensic anthropologists when I needed a few questions answering on skeletal analysis. She was great and promised me an ‘any time’ email. Super to meet such helpful kind but very busy people.
Do you have a specific routine for writing? Is there a special place or particular tool you use?
My writing routine is not disciplined enough! No set routine – early morning, perhaps an afternoon, maybe an evening. But when the end (of the story) comes on the horizon then I start to knuckle down.
Writing place and particular tool… we’ve got a lovely Victorian home and I’ve bagged myself a cozy little room as an office on the top floor with my Nespresso machine.
What advice do you have for other writers?
Get into your character’s skin’s (question of the day… should there be two apostrophes there?). Descriptions, not just of people but of actions. I sometimes find myself acting out a physical movement so that I can describe it more effectively (watch out for the window cleaner though or he may put you down as a lunatic! AND get some humour in there… this is supposed to be real life!
If your book were to be made into an Audiobook, who would you choose to read it?
Ha ha, definitely not me, not with this Stoke on Trent accent! Even BOOK is pronounced ‘BOOOK’ rather than the accepted and rather refined ‘buck’. I do love audio books and there are some super narrators about. Having said that I’ve also heard some dire ones and it completely and utterly ruins the story.
I just loved, loved, loved Joanne Harris’s Blackberry Wine unabridged audio book narrated by Alex Jennings. Very different genre for me but I still go back for a listen occasionally . Fabulous narration and wonderful story.
Freddie Forsyth’s Day of the Jackal (unabridged) read by David Rintoul, again, fabulous narration. So either of these two would suit me nicely.
If your book were to be made into a movie, who would you like to play the main character?
Thinking of my main character as DS Eve Brenan, I’d give Nicola Walker a stab at it but she’d have to go blonde!
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