In Baltimore, I was walking with a friend who was playing at a pub he kept referring to as the Horse. But when I saw the sign 'The Horse You Came In On' - I thought, 'My God.' I had no intention of ever setting a Jury novel in the U.S., but when I saw that, I thought, 'That's it.' The names are very important.
Martha Grimes
My black cat was named Blackie.
I do read P.D. James because she pays much more attention to character, to a particular atmosphere or setting. But most mystery writers, I think, are controlled by the plot.
I don't have to hang around a pub, really, to get an idea. I usually visit it once, get the layout, the atmosphere, the feel of it.
I'm constantly battling writer's block; it usually takes me two hours to write anything.
There are people who read Tolstoy or Dostoevski who do not insist that their endings be happy or pleasant or, at least, not be depressing. But if you're writing mysteries - oh, no, you can't have an ending like that. It must be tidy.
I do Q&As, not readings.
I don't think I could have just kept writing the 'Richard Jury' books. It wasn't that I was bored or dissatisfied. I just had to write something else.
I'll see something or hear something. Sometimes, it can be a color. Or a piece of music. Or an image of some kind. I see something, and it has huge emotional weight, although I have no idea why.
I love stories. I just enjoy telling stories and watching what these characters do - although writing continues to be just as hard as it always was.
The England I write about doesn't strike me as the real one.
I have readers tell me that I must be bored, but that's not true. I am never bored with the characters. I like them.
Writing a mystery is more difficult than other kinds of books because a mystery has a certain framework that must be superimposed over the story.
When you write the first book of a series, you do have to be careful what you put in because then you are stuck with it.
