If you’re a crime writer, as I am, the question is loaded. Do I have personal experience of disposing of bodies and evading the police? And when I give my truthful answer, that my ideas come from numerous sources, I sense the questioner thinking that’s a cop-out, a typical piece of evasion from someone up to his ears in crime. Short stories such as these do sometimes have a clear origin enabling me to give straight answers. “The Field” was inspired by the sight of a crop of oilseed rape dominating the landscape and completely obscuring the ground it sprang from. What else was it hiding, I wondered? Wild life, children at play, lovers in flagrante, or a corpse? “Bullets” was suggested by an old man who told me he’d once won a large amount of money in a newspaper competition to add up to four witty words to a given phrase. His win had created lifelong jealousy in his family. Intrigued, I started researching these “Bullet” competitions just at the time I was asked to contribute a story with a twenties setting to an anthology.
What do You think about Murder On The Short List (2012)?
