English - Novelist | July 2, 1961 -
It may sound surprising, but a joke and a crime novel work in very much the same way. The comedian/writer leads their audience along the garden path. The audience know what's coming, or at least they think they do until they get hit from a direction they were not expecting.
Mark Billingham
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I could never gamble on stocks and shares because I saw my father get hurt that way - he lost quite a lot of money when the stock market collapsed in 2001.
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What I usually do is hoard money - I accumulate as much as possible in the fear of not having enough to pay tax.
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I bought an insurance policy covering the inheritance tax my kids will have to pay when we die, which I thought was a good bit of forward thinking. And I always know I'm going to have enough for tax because I make sure I keep it back in my business account.
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The problem with being a writer is that some readers tend to think that anything that comes out of a character's mouth is you talking.
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I've always slightly preferred Spade to Marlowe, probably just because I thought Hammett was cooler than Chandler. He was leftwing, his name shortened to Dash rather than Ray, and he didn't smoke a pipe or like cats.
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In the 1970s, there was a trend for all detectives on TV to have some quirk or gimmick, and this was often physical.
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I believe that if writers want their readers to care about a character, they have to care themselves. I have to root for a detective who screws up as much as Thorne does, who shares my birthday, my North London stomping ground, and my love of country music, both alt and cheesy.
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I've never read an ebook. Print every time.
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I write slowly and get distracted a lot.
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I read 'Jaws' and 'The Godfather' back to back one summer when I was 14 and was suddenly aware of how powerful fiction could be.
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It's heretical, I know, but I've never really been able to get on with Agatha Christie. She is, of course, a giant of the genre, but I never feel that she cared a great deal about the characters. Consequently, neither do I.
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