Interview with Crime Writer Paul Heatley – S. 4, Ep. 12

Debbi Mack interviews crime writer Paul Heatley on this episode of the Crime Cafe. Check out the show notes below! Or, if you’re in a rush, download your copy here! Debbi: [00:00:13] Hi, everyone. This is the Crime Cafe, your podcasting source of great crime, suspense, and thriller writing. I'm your host Debbi Mack. Before I bring on my guest, I'll just remind you that the Crime Cafe has two ebooks for sale: the nine book box set and the short story anthology. You can find the buy links for both on my website debbimack[dot]com, under the Crime Cafe link. You can also get a free copy of either book if you become a Patreon supporter. You'll get that and much more if you support the podcast on Patreon, along with our eternal gratitude for doing so. [00:01:02] It's my pleasure today to have as my guest the author of the Eye for an Eye series, one of which I'm currently in the midst of reading and thoroughly enjoying, as well as other novels and more than 50 short stories. Very impressive. I mean, it just amazes me. Anyway, from northeast England, it's Paul Heatley. Hi, Paul. Paul: [00:01:29] Hello, Debbi. Debbi: [00:01:30] It's great to have you on. Paul: [00:01:32] Thank you. Good to be here. Debbi: [00:01:34] Excellent. How would you describe your books in terms of genre or subgenre? Paul: [00:01:43] Crime fiction noir. That's the best way to describe them. Sometimes I set them in America. Sometimes I set them here in northeast England. I think it just depends on what kind of story I'm trying to tell and how I think it can be best presented. Some story ideas come to me and I just think that wouldn't work in England. [00:02:03] But I do watch a lot of American movies and a lot of American TV shows. I read a lot of American books and I think that's what has a big influence on me and why I end up setting things in America and why when I get ideas, after going through them. I'm like, "Is this English? Is it American?" And that's how the creative process grows as the setting process. Debbi: [00:02:24] That's very interesting. I noticed you did mention a lot of American authors as influential. James Ellroy, Jim Thompson, and Chester Himes being your big three there. And I've read all of them and enjoy all of them. They're great authors. Are there any particular books by them that you find particularly inspirational? Paul: [00:02:48] Yeah. For James Ellroy, it would be Black Dahlia. That was probably the first crime book I read that a big impact, because that was a big shock for me to see that crime fiction could be dark. And that sounds silly, but I read it when I was about 16 or 17, and up to that point, my only knowledge of crime fiction was ... it wasn't anything I'd read. It was adaptations of Agatha Christie, and you know, if you're not in that kind of thing, you're not going to be into that kind of thing. But then I read James Ellroy and you had these incredibly dopey policemen and sociopathic serial killers, and it was just something incredible to read and to discover and that's really what turned around for me. And Jim Thompson again, he came after Ellroy. And he was another one that kind of opened my eyes to what crime fiction is and what it can be, because at the same time as discovering Ellroy, I don't like police procedurals. On Paul's favorite books: "For James Ellroy, it would be Black Dahlia. That was probably the first crime book I read that a big impact, because that was a big shock for me to see that crime fiction could be dark." [00:03:48] And Jim Thompson doesn't write that. Jim Thompson, for the most part, writes from the bad guys' point of view and that's what I like. I like to read from the criminals' point of view. That's why I like noir. And Savage Night by him is my favorite. That's just totally off the rails. It's just great. Chester Himes ... anything, anything Chester Himes. I just think he's fantastic. [00:04:12] There's not a single book particularly stick...