Steve has written a number of novels, the latest of which, Still Bleeding, we reviewed recently along with Sean Cregan's first novel The Levels. John Rickards has previously published under his own name before taking a new identity and a change in direction.
We settled into the quieter of the two bars and you can listen to the direct audio if you prefer here. In fact, listen to the audio anyway because for practical reasons some of the asides, banter and talking over one another doesn't transcribe well but is definitely worth hearing. Some answers were also shortened a little for posting purposes.
As you are both British thriller writers, do you feel you are less inclined to throw guns at every situation?
JR: Well I set my books in America speci
fically so I could throw guns at people. Not literally, of course; that wouldn't do much.SM: It doesn't really make me reluctant to do it, it just doesn't come into it, guns don't pass my way very often. My books aren't set in England or America or anywhere in particular, they are fairly universal. I started out writing fantasy and horror and I take that to my settings, but guns I've never really thought about including them, it's far too easy.
JR: Far more satisfying to drown people in bath tubs
SM: yes and in my latest one I use a pitchfork which is surely a far more satisfying end to a book.
JR: yeah I use a lot of guns but the joy is in throwing in the other things, a blimp or a hovercraft and the helicopter at the end.
SM: I find gun fights really boring to read, it's really difficult to describe that excitingly, especially when you know the hero is going to survive.
JR: You have to be a bit poetic like John Woo, because otherwise it's x points his gun and y points his gun back.
SM: Or you have to find different ways of doing it, in First Blood, which is phenomenal, the gun fights are very very subtle with people just dropping dead.
JR: or Richard Morgan has quite fantastic gunfights in Black Man, there is a whole sequence with a character trying to get close enough to use his weapon which is designed for killing sharks.
There are some quite unusual scenes at the end of The Levels
JR: Yeah the Tower and the waterworks. That fight scene was difficult to write, because while there were guns and knives and you can only describe people being stabbed or shot once or twice so I had to cut away and describe other bits to keep it interesting. It's the same in moves, you show a certain number then you focus in on the sweat and grime and blood.
SM: My books aren't very action based, they have the odd explosion but it's more about the build up. I find the action difficult to sustain effectively in a book, it works well in cinema but not as much when reading.
So in Still Bleeding one of the themes is murderabillia, can you tell us about what that is?
SM: I'd like to say I invented the term, bu
t I didn't, it's a real thing. There are auction sites where people can trade memorabilia associated with serial killers like Gacey's paintings and Manson's hair and these are treasured items. There is a hierarchy to them, people are interested in them. Similar to the market for Nazi memorabilia. People are interested in touching a piece of evil without having to do it for themselves. Like an antiques road show of horrible things.JR: That would make a good TV pitch.
You look at the idea of absorbing people through their body parts too..
SM: Yes there is a serial killer who drinks people's blood because he believes that way the is absorbing them into him, which he kind of is by basic chemical processes. It's about the way things change into other things. He paints with their blood and transforms them into art. It's a comment in some ways on crime fiction in general, we take real life situations and create a fictional piece from them. Crime writers and crime readers in a way are doing what people do with murderabillia, touching it at a safe distance. It's an interesting thing to think about. There are real world equivalents of the violence we write about.
So what is the appeal of crime writing?
JR: Well I don't read much crime, the more
outlandish stuff appeals to me, which is now what I am writing. More speculative, a bit weirder and less conventional. You can build a believable framework around it. You aren't so tied to the real world, the fantastical nature of it is what appeals.What Steve does, freeing himself from a specific named place is very good because he can create a world in which whatever he wants can happen as long as he sells it in a believable way. He doesn't have to think, 'well they couldn't do that because it's a one way system'.
You aren't bogged down in the real world details, you can still explore issues, emotion and artefacts in a more fantastical setting just as easily.
The Levels is almost a character in itself.
JR: Yes, although it was constructed as things were needed for the book. It started from needing the police not to be involved and the reason why there are no police involved in an urban environment. Then because it's a conglomeration of things I thought would work and be cool it gives the illusion of more to it and more depth.
SM: I think that works really well, that's what cities are and it's one of the joys of the book, the invention and the little things in the background.
JR: The Levels is largely based on a number of real places, shitty old housing estates in America, like the one where Candy Man (Clive Barker) is set, and Kowloon Walled City in Hong Kong where around 40,000 people lived in a mass block of high-rises with no natural sunlight, unlicensed and between jurisdictions. The thing about dog packs is a real problem in slums but it's not something we normally see. It's nice to move away from the normal things of everyday life, take away running water and see how people survive.
One of my favourite scenes is the rooftop
JR: The rooftop is my favourite scene of the book.
It grounds it in a surreal way.
SM: Ghost is pointing out all these things that are not part of the book but make it feel as though it has a lot of history to it.
JR: Which everywhere does, Eastbourne may not be the most fantastically exciting place in the world but there are little stories even there. The railway cutting by my junior school was supposed to be haunted by the ghost of the wife of a taxi driver who was killed on the way to meet her lover. There is no truth to it but those stories all exist. It was nice to have meaningless events like that detailed. It's a nice scene for a lot of reasons but mostly for the interplay between the characters.
JR: That scene's nice with the dynamic they have because I wanted a teenage girl who wasn't in any way the odd 'young girl' fantasy that often appears with fictional characters of that age. Socially she is still fourteen because of everything that's happened to her and that's stunted her emotional development, and in other ways she's a lot more grown up. I wanted a relationship between her and the male character that was in no way sexualised. In the scene on the rooftop Turner is only wearing a towel because his clothes ended up covered in his own blood [in an earlier scene where he gets stabbed up]. Presumably at some point she has stripped him but there is no sense of anything sexual going on; she was just looking after him. It's a strange surrogate father, daughter relationship. A bit like 'The Door in the Floor' in which Jeff Bridges hangs around the house naked and his daughter in the film is used to it and it never seems weird. It was nice to have that sort of clear familial relationship between Ghost and Turner.
While we are on relationships, most of the characters in Still Bleeding are linked in some way, some obvious familial relationships, some more subtle links. Was that something you deliberately did?
SM: I tend to write my first daft just through and then look at what doesn't work and doesn't connect and then start to tie things up in the later drafts.
JR: Didn't you once describe your writing process on line as trying to sweep up all the broken pieces of the story and hoping by magic they turn into a beautiful vase?
SM: yeah I get my fist draft and split it up into bits, look at the bits and try to work out the order. Still Bleeding I only kept 50% of the first draft. The illusion of connectivity between all the characters at the end is a hard part of the process. They seem quite disparate all the way through and it's gradually revealed. With the Yellow Man you only really understand on the last page and then you have to re evaluate all the behaviour of a main character.
The start of the book is disorientating which doesn't happen often in crime fiction. It had to be that way for the story to work. If everything followed on naturally it would make things easier but the different threads need to be introduced at the right time.
JR: There is something to be said for being confusing as it implies your readership might have a brain.
SM: I like to think my readership does have a brain. It becomes
obvious as the book goes on what is bugging the detective but you don't really find out exactly till the very end. There is a bit of a risky twist with him about two thirds in as well which risks losing the reader but hopefully you have some inclination at that point.So what is the next book?
SM: It's called Black Flowers and it's about a guy whose father killed himself and he's investigating the death, which has a connection to a book that may or may not be fiction. It's about the relationship between fiction and truth. It also involves people being buried alive and there is a pitchfork at the end.
(to John/Sean) so your next book isn't quite a sequel to The Levels..
JR: No, they are a world series of books, not a character series, so while in the next one, The Razor Gate, there's a larger role for one of the minor characters from the Levels (Chapel, who explains the aftermath of what Turner and Ghost find at the Needle in that book), there's no direct continuity. It's not set in the Levels but partly in the more salubrious parts of Newport City, partly in a kind of floating village in the harbour, another sort of interstitial settlement. About people who've been abducted from the street and given 'the Curse', which gives them 365 days to live, and what they do with that time.
So why did you create a whole new identity?
JR: Well partly I knew I was going to leave Penguin, so going into writing a completely different kind of book, for a completely different kind of audience with a completely different publisher it made sense to have a completely different name. Vicki at Headline has been fantastically enthusiastic about the book and it's nice to have a clean start.
John and Steve have a bit of a ramble about the John Rickards books at this point which is worth a listen.
So neither of you end your current books particularly happily
JR: *slightly indignant* The Levels has a very happy ending. It works out the way the characters would want it to.
We debate briefly, but essentially I concede it's positive but still refute that a beach qualifies it for being happy, because it didn't leave me feeling joyful, but satisfied.
SM: But you are right about mine, it's miserable. I got it in mind at some point that being serious meant really miserable endings and I know that's not the case. All my books the first draft is always very depressing.
JR: Most of the Penguin endings are pretty miserable. In the third he goes through the book looking for someone who may or may not be alive, then kills that person and the bad guy, we never know why the bad guy did any of it and the lead is left with a sense of guilt. The Headline books are better and more fun to write which hopefully translates into the reading.
Finally and just for the blogged version - which Cluedo weapon would you choose and why?
JR: well, I think it'd have to be the candlestick, because it's got an air of class about it, just like me...
SM: Well, I can't go for the revolver after everything I've said about guns, even though I'm essentially a coward and it would probably be best. In for a penny, in for a pound, though, so I'll go with the lead pipe. Basic, old school, efficient. Lacking in finesse, maybe - but then, so am I. Club them and run, I reckon.
Thank you both for your time.
So once again I recommend going and listening to the audio because they were both tremendous fun to talk to and you can find out what they think David Dickinson might be willing to do for money and what Twilight has to do with murderabillia. Both Sean Cregan's The Levels and Steve Mosby's Still Bleeding are really fantastic thrillers so I strongly recommend reading them.
To find out more about the authors visit
Sean Cregan
Steve Mosby
and to hear more from them you can read their interviews with each other on CrimeCulture.
Steve Mosby interviews Sean Cregan
Sean Cregan interviews Steve Mosby
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