Bill James

Latest Release

Interview

Which character from your books do you most identify with?

Panicking Ralph. He constantly fights and sometimes wins against inner terrors. Actually, he probably wins more often than I do.

For the new reader could you give us a 'potted-history' of your career as a writer?

I began by writing 'straight' -- that is, non-crime --novels -- when got bitten by the espionage bug and tried doing some of those. I settled on crime in the mid-1980s, though I still publish an occasional spy novel and have done a comic novel. I've written a documentary on council housing and a lit-crit. examination of the novels of Anthony Powell. As to crime, there are, at the latest count, 24 Harpur and Iles novels, and a new one, IN THE ABSENCE OF ILES, comes out this summer, along with paperback re-issues of the first five. I write also as David Craig and Judith Jones.

Do you stick to a strict routine when you write?

I have habit like other people have talent. I have to work every morning, 7/365, including Christmas Day and St. David's day, in case I relapse and become what I was at school, a skiving layabout.

What do you want your readers to get out of the book?

At least three laugh-alouds. Also an occasional shiver of dread.

Is there a book out there you would have liked to have written?

THE FRIENDS OF EDDIE COYLE, by George V. Higgins. I couldn't have, because it is very American, and because, as an ex district attorney, he knew a unique amount about the crime scene.

What fascinates you in writing about the criminal side of life?

I write mainly about organised crime, rather than who-dun-it mysteries. It is the imitation business methods and structures of crime firms that intrigue me, and can produce sinister and comic situations. THE GODFATHER is obviously the model for this kind of fiction: think of Tom Hagen, the Godfather's qualified lawyer, who presumably arranges for the race horse's head to get into bed with the uncooperative film
producer.

View the whole Harpur and Iles series.