Secrets and lies

[John Dean]

One of the key skills which the crime writer must master is the ability to be totally unreliable.

What do I mean by that? Surely, we’re all down-to-earth, honest folks? Of course, we are (!) but that does not mean that we do not dedicate every writing moment to trying to mislead our readers. Readers of crime novels expect nothing less, it’s part of the contract between us.

So how does the arrangement work? Well, at the heart of a good crime novel is secrecy, things that characters wish to keep private, from friends, family, investigators and, of course, readers.

That’s why the concept of the ‘red herring’ is so important, the creation of storylines that have the reader looking one way when the truth lies the other.

Why is this concerning me at the moment? Well, as a crime writer it always preoccupies my thoughts, of course, but, with the latest DCI Harris novel having just been published by The Book Folks, I have turned my attention to the next in the DCI John Blizzard series.

It’s a plot that twists and turns, well-planned from the beginning but also taking its own direction during the writing process as the story evolves naturally. A writer will recognise that as worth encouraging, even if the evolution changes the original plan.

Making that evolution possible are characters and, in the case of the new Blizzard, as with all my novels, are a series of people all of whom have secrets to keep and whose private life is very different from their public persona.

That conflict is what keeps me interested as a writer and will, hopefully, do the same for the reader when the novel is finished