A MESSAGE FROM MICHAEL LEESE

Once people discover you’re a writer there are almost certainly going to be a few questions that emerge . . . mostly on the theme of ‘how do you write a book?’ And naturally, being a published author, you are expected to know the answer. The truth is, there are all sorts of ways of approaching this. Some people write detailed notes in preparation. These can be so detailed that it is almost a matter of clipping them together and there you go — a book. Other writers might produce the bare bones to form the basis of the story.

Now I’d love to say that I was one of those naturals who began writing from the first time I was able to hold a pencil. I’d really love to claim the craft came easily. But no. I can’t make those claims. In fact, my school reading and writing was drifting to the point where I was falling behind my age group.

Which is when my mum and dad stepped in with a solution that could not be more appropriate for a future crime writer. Basically, they bribed me. And you heard that right. If I read an agreed number of pages from an agreed book I was rewarded with cold, hard cash.

It didn’t take long. Soon I was piling up 50p coins, rarely without a book to hand. As the passion bit harder, I would read under the bed covers long into the night, something deeply frowned on by my parents who preferred me to concentrate on getting my homework done. Fat chance when there was a world of comics and crime thrillers just waiting to be devoured.

I’m not sure I had favourites as such, not faced with choices from the dark and mysterious offerings of Marvel magazine, or the even more terrifying Lord of the Rings. Just when it became all too much you could always search out the Famous Five or the mad-cap japes of Dennis the Menace.

Inevitably as I got older my tastes started to change and I started to incorporate Sherlock Holmes, Poirot, 52nd Street series by Ed McBain, Ernest Hemingway, Stephen King, John Le Carré, Dick Francis . . . where to stop? Harry Harrison and Sir Terry Pratchett appeared just as I finished university.

But I think it’s fair to say that my favourite books are in the crime and thriller genres. I have so many I love. Lee Child, Jo Nesbo, Michael Connelly, Ian Rankin, David Baldacci, Val McDermid, Ann Cleeves and Karin Slaughter. A couple of books by each of these guys should keep anyone transfixed for a while.