Short, Sharp Interview: Alison Bruce

PDB: TheCalling is a very reflective crime novel, did you have to dig up dark memories to write it?

AB: It was the idea for The Calling that first let me to write a book. I came up with part of the idea about 20 years ago and went on a screenwriting course because I thought it would make a good film. The guy running the course was David Yates, now the director of the final Harry Potter films, he advised me to start writing it as a book as he said it was very difficult to get films made without them first being successful novels.

The basic premise of the story revolves around a girl who has been in an emotionally abusive relationship and is so traumatised that when she accidentally bump into her ex-boyfriend coming out of the shop she suffers a panic attack.

She self harms and is verging on a breakdown. When the police start receive anonymous calls implicating her ex-boyfriend in a series of murders it is quite obvious that the reader that she is not the most reliable of witnesses, and may even be involved herself.

There are elements here but I drew from past experience. My relationship with my first serious boyfriend did not turn out well. He was manipulative and controlling towards me but instead of walking away I found myself trying to put everything right. In the end I felt I had lost a lot of self-respect, and some of my own identity even. He finished with me and, more than anything else, I was left wondering why I had failed to assert myself.

Me being me, I read up on the subject and discovered that it is very common for first adult relationships to deteriorate in this way.

Obviously, TheCalling, is fiction but I hope that drawing on those kind of experiences has allowed me to make the key relationships in the book relevant to many readers.

PDB:  How strong an influence is music on your writing?

AB: It's either huge or not at all. Sometimes I'll write for several days without playing anything but more often than not I have a piece of music that's playing over and over while I write a particular scene, chapter or section.

Sometimes this is music that homes in on the character's emotional state but there are other times when a particular track helps me visualise a sequence of events.

I also find music a very good way of stopping me from being distracted. I can take writing into a pub where live music is playing and happily write using the noise to block out all other distractions. Sometimes this is far more productive for me in writing at home when I have a lot of other activities vying for my time.

Because certain tracks get played repeatedly whilst I'm writing some sections of the book I end up finding that, for me, those songs are forever associated with that section of the story.
I have often explain this at events and was often asked which songs these were. In the end I decided to include the 'soundtrack' for each book is a listing at the back. These pages appear on paperback of Cambridge Blue and all editions of The Siren and The Calling.

I'm currently working on book four in the Goodhew series and my iPlayer tells me that the most popular track I am currently working to has been played 482 times!

I also find that the soundtrack listing generates nearly half of all questions I receive about my books.

I think that modern technology is leading to a convergence of media; phones are cameras, iPods, radios and even e-book readers. Why shouldn't a book give the option of adding music to the experience?

PDB: Cambridge isn’t a city that many people would consider having a criminal underbelly. How wrong could they be?

Although Cambridge isn't a large city it is extremely diverse. The crimes that make headlines locally are mostly the same kind of crimes that appear on pages of newspapers throughout the country. Maybe there's less of the crime associated with densely populated urban areas but that doesn't mean that Cambridge doesn't suffer from knife crime or drug-related crime, to name but two. The point is, in Cambridge it seems out of place, and as a writer the contrast between crime and the tranquil image of the city definitely works to my advantage.

Cambridge is not without its notorious cases however, in the 1970s the Cambridge Rapist made national headlines, just recently a huge money-laundering racket was uncovered operating between London, Cambridge and Jamaica and the city has also been at the heart of several major terrorist investigations. Given its scientific and high-tech credentials there have also been cases of computer fraud and industrial espionage occurring locally.

Add to that the history of a city that has lived through Roman occupation, Tudor investment, the discovery of DNA and the education of some of the world's greatest minds and a population that, at times, consists of approximately 50% students and tourists, you have the perfect backdrop for crime and pretty much any story you'd like to imagine.

Personally, I love Cambridge but I never quite shake the feeling that, here, anything can happen.

(Find out more about Alison Bruce here.)