Location is the bed that I lie my novels on. When my first novel, Falling, opens we find my hero, Charlie, being thrown from a forty-storey building (that doesn’t exist) in a city I love and live in, Glasgow. This encapsulates my approach. Take the familiar, somewhere I know and layer in the new from imagination. In the climax of Falling, someone tries to murder Charlie in the middle of Glasgow’s George Square. A familiar location mixed with an imagined act.

George Square, Glasgow

When writing my second book, 59 Minutes, I was on holiday with my family on the island of Mallorca in Spain. The novel tracks the rise of a criminal who becomes the kingpin of the UK crime scene, then he has it all taken away, reducing him to a life on the streets. At one point, I needed to drag him on a wild goose chase to mainland Europe. Where did I choose? Where else but Mallorca.

Puerto Pollensa, Mallorca, Spain

This is how I have written all my books to date but, occasionally, when I can’t visit somewhere, I reach out to a friend who can describe a place in enough detail for me to write about it. A good example is the opening of my third book, Darkest Thoughts, the first in the Craig McIntyre conspiracy thriller series. Craig is an American with an almost supernatural ability to bring out the worst in people. I wanted the opening scene to be set somewhere that breathed threat. A friend of mine, Ian, was about to visit Basra, in Iraq, on business. Basra had just opened up after the Iraqi war and I thought that it would make a great place to set the book’s opening chapter. I asked Ian to find me somewhere in Basra that would fit the bill. He did and, a back alley, in a place called Indian Market, in Basra, is where Craig’s journey starts.

An alley, somewhere in Basra, Iraq

By working on a familiar topological canvas, I find that I can better imbue local colour and culture to any scene. In the second McIntyre novel, Furthest Reaches, Craig kidnaps a senator running for president. I had just recently visited a client in Stamford, Connecticut, USA. Having some time on my hands, I found myself in a small coffee shop, near the rail terminal, people watching. It was eight-thirty in the morning and I noticed that no one was looking at their surrounds, head down, headphones on, or eyes on a phone, everyone ploughing a lone furlough to their place of work.

Across from me sat a wonderful old school that was all but anonymous to the passing throngs and, working on the premise the best place to hide something is in plain sight, this ended up being the perfect building for Craig McIntyre to hide out with the senator after he kidnaps him.

When I was asked to contribute to a short story anthology called Bloody Scotland the brief was to choose a historic monument in Scotland and set a crime story around it. I selected a little-known edifice that I used to live near called Crookston Castle.While studying the history of the place I got to wondering where else, in my own past, I could set a new novel I’m working on. I’ve selected somewhere that meant a lot to me as a kid and my intimate knowledge of the location has given my new work far more depth.

Holy Name Parochial School, Stamford Connecticut, USA

In part, this need for familiar locations is driven by where I write. The bulk of my novels have been written on the go. Planes, trains and boats are my writing places of choice. Park benches, pub tables and airport waiting-lounges provide space in my day to create. This transient life provides me with endless inspiration.

If I try to sum up the importance of location to me it’s nothing less than crucial. I realise the importance of character and plot but if the setting doesn’t get me excited then I find it difficult to write. Partly because knowing somewhere makes the process easier. I don’t have to invent the geography and partly because, like a cosy bed, I feel safe and secure – and this is when I can let my imagination take me to far darker places - while still wrapped in my favourite duvet.

 

Image Source: Google and Gordon Brown

© 2018 Gordon Brown. All rights reserved.

 

I will like to primarily talk about how local culture, society and lifestyle are influencing the crime story telling. 

Let me start with P D James’ story, The Mistletoe Murder. The protagonist in the story is an 18-year-old lady going to meet her grandmother for the first time in her country house. The event happens on the boxing day and we have only five members in the Stutleigh Manor on that day, including the butler.

She is also going to meet there her only cousin for the first time. In the words of the author, ‘the Stutleigh Manor loomed up out of the darkness, a stark shape against a grey sky pierced with a few high stars.’ Whatever happens next was all set by this tone, a combination of isolated location and how little each character knew about the other. Is it possible in an Indian cultural context where we generally have much more knowledge about our extended family members? Majority of the Bengali readers could not have related to the storyline in spite of that being one of the best stories I have ever read.

Let’s talk about the Perfect Murder by Peter James. Both the husband and wife Vicor and Joan are planning for each other’s murder for a long time. They are part of a society where a lot of secrets about them remain inconspicuous till the end. However, is it possible in a society where people know about each other much more?

When we read the British and American crime stories, they are characterised by isolated lifestyle, loners, less support from the extended family, more psychological problems due to high social and economic stress and more access to guns and technology. Society has less prior collective knowledge about the victim and the criminal and that is aligned with what happens in the real life also.  For example, in 1991 a suspect uses mercury switch in Grand Junction in Colorado to trigger pipe bombs to kill random victims and is successful in doing so on three occasions. Finally, he was identified by the tool marks found in the bomb fragments. In India, the person would have been caught based on collective knowledge about the person’s profile beforehand and not by the forensics.

Many of my stories and novels are set in multi-continental setting and span across multiple countries. The narrative and characterisation must align with the society accordingly. When the incident happens in India, I have to keep in mind that we cannot expect police to come and start the investigation of the crime incident within five minutes of reporting.

In an Indian context, the best information about someone comes from the servant, neighbours, and may also come from the tea-stall owner just up the road.

In my story Sab Logic-er Baire (Beyond All Logical Boundaries), I had to make a special effort to convince the readers that the serial killer could remain completely inconspicuous to others. Despite that, his servant noticed his behavioural change after his daughter was gang-raped and murdered. None was convicted of his daughter’s murder as there had been no witness and the culprits roamed free. So he started committing random murders just to take revenge on the society and to prove his point that law should not excuse the offenders in the context of Eiincumbitprobatio qui.   While I was writing the story, I had to empathise with the father who lost his daughter and lost the trust in the society. I needed to study certain locality of Kolkata in great details to engage with the readers better while writing a story whose concept was more complex than what an average Bengali reader could generally follow. The storytelling had to be consistent with an inconsistent mind.

Anilikha is the protagonist in many of my science fiction and crime thrillers. She is not a detective; however, she plays major role in finding the truth based on her observation, knowledge and analysis. When the storyline is based out of India, I have to ensure that there is a reflection of the reality there. I cannot expect the best of the forensics to be utilized there. I cannot easily use forensic linguistics, forensic entomology, Odontology, metallurgy and other forensic methods, as readers cannot associate with them. When I am narrating the story in Britain, I can consider the investigation to be based out of latest forensics methods and on much more qualified leads. I come across many novels of contemporary Bengali crime writers where forensics have no role to play. We rely more on the collective intelligence about the victim or the criminal available in the broader society.

In my novel Rahasya Jakhon Sankete (When the Mystery lies in the Clue) where forensic entomology, genetic science, mathematical patterns, criminal profiling and many other latest developments in science and technology are leveraged, I had to be very careful about the details of the methods deployed. I had to compensate that information with my more engaging storytelling style as many of them would not have any idea about the modern investigation.

Also, there is a cultural influence. In another novel of mine Rahasya Jakhon Rakte (When the Mystery is in the Blood) the central character, Piku lost his father who died in a plane crash in America when he was only 4. He misses his father and slowly isolates himself from the society. Almost 20 years later he finds a clue in the ludo board while recollecting the event of playing ludo with his father, which happened a couple of days before his father’s death in America. However, I talked about the isolation the son faced and the struggle his mother had while bringing him up as a lone parent. Are they uncommon in the western world? No. However, this is quite unusual in a Bengali family.

I do not think that the detectives are must for crime novels, however, detective characters can create continuity between different novels through his or her unique style and characteristics. Today the huge interest around Anilikha helps me in engaging with the readers quickly while keeping in mind that it can also impose some constraints to my storylines.

I generally like to focus on completely different plots for each of my writing and that may involve different topics like history, human migration, different tribal practices, brain science, artificially created life, robotics, biotechnology, and many other latest developments of science and technology.

Many of my science fiction novellas are also based on a futuristic setting. So I need to capture the futuristic society more faithfully. In Rahasya Jakhon Nijekey Niye (When the Mystery is all about Yourself) Rick wakes up one afternoon to find himself lying in a garden, unable to recollect when, how or why he came to this garden in Kolkata on a busy working weekday. This is an era of clones and a biometric identity card is the only means of distinguishing between similar looking human beings. As the novel progresses he has increasing doubt about his identity.

At the end, I think crime thriller must reflect the changing trend where we have increasingly more trust in more distant friends and technology rather than on them whom we meet daily. That has a major role to play in future crimes.

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© 2018 Abhijnan Roychowdhury. All rights reserved.

 

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