Crime fiction
Bob Burns Investigates - The Cruise Connection by Peter Kerr
Peter Kerr is the author of the Bob Burns Investigates detective series published by Accent Press, including The Mallorcan Connection, The Sporran Connection and The Cruise Connection. For more information on these titles and Peter’s other work, visit www.peter-kerr.co.uk
My first detective novel, Bob Burns Investigates: The Mallorca Connection, was published in 2006, something like twelve years after I’d completed it.
There are so many sub-groups within the crime fiction genre that different people may be attracted to one particular type of story, but not necessarily others. For instance, my material is humour-laced, with nothing of the ‘Tartan Noir’ about it, so people who like loads of blood, guts, grizzly murder details and dark urban settings probably won’t fancy it.
I’m forever told by people in ‘the trade’ that my stuff is difficult (if not impossible) to categorise. As my one-time agent said all those years ago: “If nothing else, it’ll be different!”
The result is that my detective books tend to be tagged as ‘cosy crime’. But I suspect they’re in a quirky sub-genre all of their own, which isn’t necessarily a good thing in a business which, by necessity, has to have neat pigeonholes. I suspect that my books fall between most recognised cracks.
Humour raises its head in everything I write. It isn’t planned, it’s just the way it turns out. With regard to the detective novels, I don’t think I’d be able to tackle a mystery story without thoughts of the funny side of ostensibly humourless situations entering my mind and finding their way onto the page.
I know that this can be annoying to people who take their crime-reading really seriously. I respect their outlook and I certainly don’t try to parody what the ‘purists’ write, but my mind works in different ways from theirs, and that’s reflected in my writing.
There’s very little of a ‘technical’ nature in the investigative content of my detective stories though, oddly, I’ve had one book listed at No 2 in the ‘Police Procedural’ charts on Amazon. They are mysteries, certainly – whodunnits, fairly convoluted, and with a twist in the tail – but peppered with humorous situations involving the main protagonists as the stories unfold.
I construct the stories as if seen through the eyes of someone who likes a good detective yarn, but is more interested in relating to the nature of the characters than in what goes on behind closed police doors. So, the research involves nothing more profound than reading the papers about everyday crimes, then letting my imagination do the rest.
For me, writing a detective novel really isn’t that different to writing any other kind of novel. Unlike many writers in this genre, I have no idea how the book is going to develop when I start writing it. There is no preconceived plot. I try to start my non-fiction ‘travel’ books with a catchy opening, and it’s the same with my fiction, whether detective or ‘general’.
If you haven’t grabbed the reader’s attention by the end of the first page, then you’ve got an uphill struggle on your hands. That said, what may attract one reader may well put another off. But you can’t please everyone, so you can only go with what you feel is right for you, then hope that the book rings the same bells for enough readers to make its sales viable for the publisher… and also to earn you a few quid in royalties.
I’ve been accused of having too fertile an imagination, which, if not kept in check, could lead to story situations that are a bit bizarre, over-the-top and, therefore, slightly unbelievable. I try not to fall into that trap, but I still have to hope that there are people out there who share my quirkiness, particularly where humour is concerned.
The real challenge is to temper the humour with the ’serious’ thread that’s essential if the story is to hold the reader’s attention and keep the page-turning aspect going. Giving the reader a few things to think about at once (and to remember) is my way of tackling that one, though not really consciously. It’s just the way it turns out.
I get a lot of pleasure from putting the three main characters in the Bob Burns Investigates stories into situations that take them from their relatively humdrum UK surroundings into more exotic overseas locations. That’s
Also, I thoroughly enjoy inventing colourful and eccentric criminal characters for them to cope with. Playing with regional and foreign accents in dialogue is also great fun, although it’s easy to offend if regional accents in particular aren’t accurate, so I do try hard to get those right.
Perhaps the biggest pleasure for me, however, is the creative freedom that writing mystery stories gives me. I was a professional jazz musician earlier in my life, so improvisation is in my bones, and the fact that I don’t write to a preconceived plot means that the progress of my stories is an ongoing revelation to me as well.
Once the characters are established, they seem to come up with enough surprises to keep things rolling along, and all I have to do is follow the ‘chord sequences’ that they lay down.
The most important piece of advice I can offer is don’t attempt to emulate anyone else. There was only one Agatha Christie and there is only one Patricia Cornwell, so admire their work by all means, but don’t try to write in their image.
If you haven’t got ideas of your own, then forget it. Having said that, publishers often go for the safe option by taking on new writers whose work relates to that of established authors, while at the same time declaring that they are only interested in publishing ‘original’ new material.
Confusing? Discouraging? Yes. But that’s the name of the game, whatever the genre. Welcome to the madhouse. But don’t be afraid – most of us inmates are quite harmless… even if some of our published work is bloody criminal!
