Written in Blood by Peter Tickler

Trials and tribulations of a crime writer - Cornish Crime.  

At the time of writing, I have just spoken at the Bude Literary Festival.  It’s a long old drive from Oxfordshire, and so (of course) I decided I could only manage the stress and strain by taking a week’s holiday while I was about it. Who said marketing wasn’t tough? But I managed. I was interviewed in the Bude library and had a very enthusiastic audience. Of course, setting a crime story in a real place has its problems, notably getting the geography and other details right, so I had taken opportunity to get someone who lived in Bude to check the manuscript out before I gave it to the editor. It was just as well I did, because she found one glaring error where my protagonist Doug Mullen and his partner Becca Baines turned left rather than right. How was that possible, when my wife and I have have spent several happy holidays in the area and know the town very well?  It all came down to me changing Doug’s holiday house in Bude from one street to another – from Breakwater Road to Lynstone Road if you must know!

But does that sort of error matter? To someone who doesn’t know Bude, maybe not. But to locals – and indeed holiday makers who regularly come to Bude – of course it does. If one detail is wrong, they ask themselves, what other details has Tickler got wrong? Can he be trusted? Other thoughts may enter their heads. What is this Tickler chap doing, writing about our town when he lives miles away? Why don’t ‘e stick to Auxford. These would all be fair questions. As a farmer’s son who left the farming world to study and then live in in Oxford, I am conscious of the parochialism one can encounter. I returned to Lincolnshire for a party, and when I tried to talk to one of my brother’s friends, I was dismissed by him a townie: ‘what would you know about it?’ But being a townie or an outsider does give me a different perspective on communities. I am able to tune into Doug’s feelings as he finds himself in a world where he is an outsider investigating a murder that most of the locals would prefer to forget. He is viewed with deep suspicion by those from whom he might expect support, even by the dead girl’s mother. Of course, I am writing fiction. There is a dark truth which Doug needs to uncover in Bude. But I can assure you that everyone I have encountered on this trip to Bude has been most welcoming. I hope that won’t change when they have read the book! 

If you are ever visiting Bude, do call into the Spencer Thorn bookshop for a copy of

Death in the Sea Pool.

https://www.petertickler.co.uk

Twitter: @ptickler