Good Cops, Bad Cops

It's been a busy couple of weeks since I was last in touch. I've been polishing The Boatyard and working on the first draft of book 2, The Viewpoint, and I've even made progress on the outline for the as-yet-untitled book 3, which is already twistier than a helter skelter.

I've also just completed the edit for the first book in Rachel's new Roscoe & McBride series, and I can tell you right now, if you like fast-paced, tense, intelligent crime fiction stuffed to the brim with characters you want to get to know, you are in for a treat. I'll be mentioning it again when it hits the bookshops, because this is a book that deserves to be mentioned.

But today, I thought I'd open the box and look into why on god's green earth I've decided to write a series about PSD, the cops who investigate other cops.

(And if you're wondering what that has to do with a photo of a New York Bomb Squad van, the answer is, bear with me. All will become clear soon enough.)

The thing is, it's surprisingly tricky, creating stories about corrupt cops. If you think about a regular police procedural - even one packed full of suspects and red herrings and side plots - that's really just a straight line, from A to B, with a few little diversions on the way. It's a shark gliding effortlessly through the water, pausing every now and then to chomp at the legs of an unsuspecting surfer, but ultimately, heading in one direction.

A series about corrupt cops might look like a shark, but really it's a duck, or a swan, all smooth movement on the surface, with a lot of frantic paddling underneath. 

Because you don't just need a crime. 

You need a crime that's been committed, or covered up, by a dodgy cop.

And then you need someone to investigate that crime - before anyone realises it has anything to do with dodgy cops. Someone who isn't Carl Whaley or Denise Gaskill or any of their team. Someone who might even be a dodgy cop themselves.

After that, you need a clue. Something big enough to tell us there might be dodgy cops involved, but not so big it makes it clear who those dodgy cops are, or what they've been doing. That clue has to turn up quite quickly, too, because otherwise you're reading a book about Whaley & Gaskill and spending the first fifty pages wondering when Whaley & Gaskill are going to get involved. And I know you're a patient bunch, but I wouldn't want to make you wait too long before you get to the good stuff.

And that's before you add in all those red herrings and side plots. 

So why would I put myself through this?

I put myself through it because I'm the sort of person who actually enjoys it. 

In my spare time, I like to solve crytic crosswords. I also like to create cryptic crosswords.

The best crossword clues have layers of meaning in them, complex wordplay hidden beneath what looks like a simple sentence or phrase. And that simple sentence or phrase is the most important element. It has to make sense, and it has to look straightforward, even if it isn't. You need to look at a clue, once you've solved it, and slap your head, and say 'of course, that should have been obvious' - and then move onto the next one without thinking about it too much. 

Writing crime fiction is surprisingly similar. I like constructing complicated webs of intrigue, but I absolutely love making them look less complicated than they really are, disguising all the moving parts, because when you're reading a book, you don't care about all that frantic paddling under the surface. You want your shark, or duck, or swan, to get where it's going - even if there has to be a little biting on the way. 

It's all about disguise, in the end. Making the complex look straightforward. Making corrupt cops look like straight cops, right up until the moment they're unmasked.

And, returning to the photo above, and the ones below, making Bloomsbury, in the heart of London, look like New York City. 

A week or two back, visiting my daughter at university, we came across the strangest sight. The road was full of emergency vehicles, but they weren't any kind of emergency vehicle we're used to seeing on the streets of London.   

There were big, black cars, too, the kind of sinister-looking monsters that are driven by people who work for departments so secret even the President hasn't heard of them.

There were yellow taxis and yellow school buses.

There were even American news vans with dishes on them.

I've no idea what they were filming on Malet Street. The serious-looking guys with the walkie-talkies wouldn't tell me. But I was impressed. I live in Lancashire these days, but I've known Malet Street for decades, and in recent months I've visited more times than I care to remember.

But despite that, for a moment, I felt like I was five thousand miles away, pounding the mean streets of the Big Apple.

And then I got to the end of the street and there was a guy with a clipboard standing outside Waterstones trying to convince me to sign up with a new electricity company. 

You always know it's London, in the end. The illusion is ripped away, just as the bad cops are always unmasked and their complex machinations laid bare.

But if the disguise works well enough, for long enough, then the time it takes getting there is time well spent.  

Even if a few surfers have to get bitten on the way.

There's a new arrival about to join my household, something I'm more than a little anxious about, and I'll tell you all about it next time I'm in touch.

In the meantime, happy reading,

Joel