Leigh Russell in Conversation with Quentin Bates
who is
a writer and journalist.
His first crime novel was published in 2011 as Frozen Out in the UK, Frozen Assets in the US.
It is set in present-day Iceland
in the months leading up to the collapse of the banks. 2012 saw the publication
of the second novel in the series. Cold Comfort is set in an Iceland coming
to terms with the recession.
The latest book is Chilled to the Bone,
set in post-recession Iceland
and the depths of winter.
.
Q You mention somewhere that you have always
been a big reader. Is reading as necessary to you now as it was before you
started writing?
A Definitely, probably even more so. There’s less time for reading
these days, so I’m probably more selective than I used to be and rarely embark
on a book unless I’m fairly sure it’s going to be a good one. I’m also reading
a little more widely these days and I’ve found that the Kindle my daughter gave
me has helped discover all sorts of things that I’d probably not otherwise have
found.
Q You
say on your blog that you ‘have always seen fiction as a mug’s game.’ Do you
stand by that opinion now that you are a successful fiction writer, and, if so,
why have you chosen to write fiction?
A I
don’t see myself as a successful fiction writer. I’m still a beginner.
I wanted to see if I could do it. I had written some non-fiction stuff before
and have a day job as a journalist (no, nothing even remotely glamorous or
sensational), and saw fiction as a challenge, and I like a challenge. I’m still
not sure if it’s a mug’s game. To be quite brutal about it, the odds against
getting published to start with are steep, and the odds against staying
published for a mid-list writer aren’t much better. On the other hand, dreaming
up murder and intrigue is a great way to spend your days.
Q You wrote about your first novel, ‘Frozen
Out’ that ‘there was just too much material not to do it.’ Do you write for enjoyment, or do you somehow
feel driven to do it?
A If
I didn’t get a buzz from writing, I wouldn’t do it, so the prime mover is
definitely my own enjoyment. I think I’d been leading up to it for years,
almost unconsciously collecting ideas, scenes and characters. Although I was
already deep in Frozen Out at the time, it was the Crash in 2008 that
crystallised everything as the lunacy of what had been going on just spilled
out.
Writing fiction was also a release. I used to work for an editor with an
incredibly rigid style. Everything in the magazine had to look the same and any
kind of creative flair was firmly discouraged. So Frozen Out was partly born of
that frustration of having to write that turgid, formulaic stuff. I later found
out that one of my colleagues was doing the same thing; going home and writing
fiction after spending all day writing for an editor who was firmly anchored in
1978.
Q You have put some amazing photographs online
that you took in Iceland.
How difficult was it to leave such a beautiful place?
A It was a wrench to leave, as I have
some roots there that go deep. I met my wife there, two of our children were
born in Iceland,
but probably the right thing to do at the time.
Iceland
isn’t an easy place to live in, especially as we didn’t live in comfortable
urban Reykjavík. It’s at the edge of the world and although it is undeniably
beautiful, somehow that passes you by when your car is buried past the roof in
a snowdrift or when there are only a few short hours of daylight and the sun
doesn’t actually rise at all.
Q Q You
have lived in at least two countries.
Does the displacement of settling in a new place add to your ability to
feel detached as a writer?
A The expression ‘Glöggt er gests augað’ means that the visitor has
the sharper eye. I find it much easier to write about Iceland when
I’m not there, as if the distance puts things better into perspective.
I read the papers online and listen to ‘Steam’ radio at home, so that keeps me
in touch, and there’s rarely a day when I don’t speak to someone in Iceland (skype
is a godsend). I have a far clearer idea of what’s going on in Icelandic
politics than what’s going on in Westminster.
It’s also important to spend time there and there’s no substitute for speaking
to people face-to-face. I don’t do a great deal of proper research, but I find
it’s important to spend time there, with Steam radio on in the background, read
the papers, chat to the fishermen at the quay, taxi drivers, the coppers and
minor criminals I know, listen to what people are saying in the Co-op or the
bank, take in the internecine local politics and the petty feuds going on, all
that kind of stuff – and then write about it later.
Q On your blog you claim that ‘developing a
kevlar-lined rhino skin is an essential part of any writer’s kit.’ I think we all know what you mean, but can
you explain why you said that?
A It’s
uncomfortable when someone who gave up after forty pages gives your book a
laconic one star, or likes it but still gave it a solitary star because it was
delayed in the post.
I get a good few complaints about the complex names and how difficult they are
to cope with. The books are set in Iceland and people there aren’t
called Jim and Sally. The names aren’t what we are used to and there’s no
getting around that, regardless of my efforts to keep them as accessible when I
could easily have made them so much more complex.
Anyhow, I decided to give a character in Chilled to the Bone a name so awkward
that I defy any non-Icelander to pronounce it. But I did give him a suitably
short nickname, so the real name only has to appear once or twice. I had
expected my editor to ask for it to be changed, but she didn’t say anything, so
it stayed in.
Q How do you account for the gloomy atmosphere
of Nordic Crime Fiction? Does it reflect the society? Do you think different
countries have different generic characteristics and if so, why?
A There
are differences. Icelanders are different to the other Nordic people as it’s an
island nation and there’s a real frontier mentality, which it shares to an
extent with Norway.
Maybe it’s because both have a past as colonies, while Sweden and Denmark were trading nations with
aspirations of empire?
There are Nordic stereotypes that sometimes ring true. Danes have an irreverent
sense of humour that the other Nordic nations don’t have in quite such
abundance. I’d best not be too forthright about the national stereotypes
– but they all make fun of each other.
It’s not just the crime fiction that’s gloomy. Literature does get taken very
seriously and maybe that has spilled over into their crime fiction. In reality
they are no more gloomy than we Brits are and in some ways they are less hung
up and serious. They do know how to have a party when they put their minds to
it. So, no. The image of gloom and misery that comes across in much Nordic
fiction isn’t representative of the way they are.
Q Is your writing governed by plot or
character?
A Character,
definitely. I’ve tried plotting things in detail in advance, but it didn’t work
for me. I get halfway through careful plans, and then an idea pops up that’s
too good to not use, and suddenly the plan has been lost. So I work with a
fairly loose set of waypoints and that seems to work better.
Q You wrote that one of your villains ‘was a
whole load of fun to write’. It is certainly
my experience that the bad guys are much more fun to write than the good guys.
Is this a problem for you when writing a series with a protagonist on the right
side of the moral compass?
A It’s starting to become more of a problem now. I’m having to
make more of a conscious effort to write
more Gunna, mostly by giving the poor lady a hard time. She gets the shock of
her life in Chilled to the Bone. I’m around
halfway through the first draft of what should be the fourth Gunna book, but so far she has
hardly made an appearance, which is a little worrying.
Q Good titles are so hard to think of. Your
first novel was called Frozen Out in the UK
and Frozen Assets in the US.
Why did the title change? Were you
involved in the decision, and which of the titles do you prefer and why?
A Originally the
book was called Frozen Assets. Then one of the Icelandic banksters published a
memoir with the same title, so I asked my publisher if they wanted to change
it. They said not to worry about it. But at the last minute they decided to
change it, and I was told when the decision had been made. By then, the US publisher
was too far gone to make the same change. So the book appeared under two
titles, which has caused some confusion. With the benefit of hindsight, they
were entirely right. Frozen Out is a better title, although it bears no
relevance to the subject matter.
Q Frozen Out is set in a small community. How
important was that social setting to you? Could you imagine setting a similar
book in a large metropolis?
A I
wanted a setting that wasn’t all Reykjavík, as the countryside is very
different in so many ways. I lived in a couple of smaller towns in Iceland, one
with a population of around 700, so that’s the side of the country that I know
best. The e-book that published in January (Winterlude) is set partly in the
north of Iceland,
not far from where I used to live, but I’m not sure I would have got away with
that so easily in a full-length novel.
Q When I started writing my first series I
deliberately chose a female protagonist because I wasn’t confident about
writing from a male perspective. With a spin off series I’m having to do just
that. Why did you choose a female protagonist for your series?
A I
hadn’t deliberately chosen to use a female protagonist, but Gunna just came to
life and demanded attention, and seemed like another challenge. She was the
sidekick in the original draft, but I twigged after a while that the original
lead character was a hopeless collection of clichés. So I discarded him in
favour of the far more interesting Gunna.
Chilled
to the Bone
Published
by Soho Crime 13 April 2013.
Published by Accent
press, 
James
Green was educated by the Vincentian Fathers at Bishop Ullathorne
Gammar School
, Coventry. He
left school at sixteen and, after working as coal-miner, farm-worker,
motor-cycle courier and building labourer, he went to St. Mary's College,
Twickenham and qualified as a teacher. During his teaching career Jim acquired,
by part-time study, an Open University B.A. and a research M.A. in Education.
He studied, again part-time and for three years, for a Ph.D. in Education at Leicester University but, in 1983, the school where
he was head teacher was completely destroyed by an arson attack and the final
write-up of the research for the Doctorate was postponed, as it turned out,
indefinitely. In 1997 Jim left teaching to become a full-time writer and
published magazine articles and books on travel. He then began writing the
first of what was to become the Jimmy Costello series, Bad Catholics, which in
2009 was short-listed for a CWA Dagger. Over the years Jim has been the author
of academic texts and reference works but now concentrates on adult novels and
is currently writing the Freedom to Espionage series which chronicles through
fiction, but based on actual historical events and characters, the rise of the
American Intelligence Service culminating in the establishment in 1947 of the
CIA. The first in the five-book series, Another Small Kingdom, was published by
Accent Press in August 2012 and the second, A Union Not Blessed, will be
published in April 2013. Jim has also been invited to become one of the
Traverse 50, an international group of writers new to the theatre, invited to
work with the Traverse Theatre Edinburgh for one year as part of the
celebration the theatre's 50th birthday.
