CRITICS are quite often wide of the mark when they try to cite the influences for my Tartan Noir protagonist Gus Dury.
I’ve heard Gus likened to Ian Rankin’s Inspector Rebus; Mickey Spillane’s Mike Hammer, and even the psychotic ‘Begbie’ from Irvine Welsh’s Trainspotting. (The last one came from the author himself, and I’d actually have to agree with his assessment!)
But, truth be told, Gus – my “reluctant PI and enthusiastic alcoholic” protagonist, as one reviewer described him, is much more of an amalgam of several diffuse influences from literature – and – film and television.
Don’t get me wrong, I get nothing but the greatest kick from being likened to best-selling novelists in the crime genre, however, if you were to as me for the stand-out markers in my reading that produced Gus Dury I’d be hard pressed to mention more than one or two definites.
Film influences, I could list easily. I grew up in the Eighties. Healthy, testosterone-filled movies and television such as Dirty Harry, Minder, and the A-Team … it was a time when men were men, and female programming executives were nervous.
I remember latching onto macho male leads like Clint Eastwood’s Harry Callaghan and thinking – he get’s the job done! Nice work, fellah … There is no doubt in my mind that there is a direct link between such boyhood influences and my own male lead Gus Dury.
Perhaps, this is why – as a young-ish man – I recall Clint’s unforeseen move from the hard-man genre to, er, Romance, in the form of The Bridges of Madison County. When I saw the-man-himself being asked “Why?” in one interview … Why, Clint, did you turn away from that established audience? … I was blown-away by his response: “Because you either progress, or you decay!”
Quite.
Several years later – and four PI novels under my belt – Clint’s wisdom and influence struck me again. My fifth novel, I decided, was going to progress … it was going to challenge me as a writer. Hence, Truth Lies Bleeding (Preface/Random House) was a true departure for me and the learning curve continued with my just released Murder Mile.
My Gus Dury novels were anarchic – the Scottish Daily Record even described Gus as “the punk rocker of the Scottish crime scene”; but, DI Rob Brennan – who heads up my latest novel – is a pillar of the force – truly one of Lothian and Borders’ finest.
There are many reasons why I chose to change tack; firstly, I grew up. Yes, it happens to the best of us. Whereas Gus was, in many regards, a perfect representation of my younger self – he had my taste in music, my truncated academic background, and my former profession (journalist) – Rob is much more of a reflection of my advancing years (I am loath to use the word ‘maturity’).
Rob is a father, a man with responsibilities, older and wiser. I think it would have been too much of a reach for me to even attempt a creation like DI Rob Brennan in my younger days. Much of this comes down to craft too; I am a huge proselytiser when it comes to teaching craft – the more you know about writing, the more you can achieve, or even attempt.
The Gus Dury novels I began my published career with were first-person narratives. Fine, for linear storylines and plots – but – I found when writing my new police procedural series that the complexity of the narrative simply didn’t lend itself to first-person.
With multiple storylines, several layers of plot and sub-plot, it was clear that as an author I needed to take a more helicopter view. Rob, unlike Gus, couldn’t be in every single scene. There were too many incidents happening off stage that needed to be relayed to the reader. There was too much going on that Rob – as dictated by the story and plot – could not be a party too.
Was this harder to achieve? Well, yes.
In a first-person narrative like my first novel, Paying For It, I had my protagonist bounce from pillar to post, chasing every lead. It was easy to sink a few hooks, add areas of tension, drop red herrings … because, as long as Gus was in the dark, so too was the reader: instant tension!
This is not to say that Paying For It was rendered in a more facile way: it was sometimes tricky to engineer the protagonist into every visible turn in the road; but, with Truth Lies Bleeding and Murder Mile there was the added consideration of whether or not the scene had been shown from the best viewpoint: Rob’s view – or another character’s? Sometimes it was simply a better server of suspense to have Rob unaware of the main turns and have the reader know something that the protagonist didn’t!
The mechanics of storytelling aside, attempting a new genre – for me, the police procedural – when previously I’d been known purely as a Tartan Noirist was a challenge in itself. Quite apart from convincing my agent and editor that this was a move I should make (especially when the reviewers had been so kind to Gus Dury) there was the added question of whether the novel would gain acceptance with my established readership.
Colleen McCullough may, quite effortlessly it seems, move from general fiction to the historical genre, and then onto crime – but lesser mortals (those without a Thorn Birds to their name!) have an uphill struggle simply getting into print regularly, never mind changing course.
What I found, however, was that the people backing my work couldn’t have been more supportive. Enthusiasm, it seems, breeds enthusiasm … even in an industry as difficult to break as publishing.
A writer who needs no introduction once said, “A man’s reach should far exceed his grasp.”
Sound advice, I’d have to say.
Tony Black’s latest crime thriller, Murder Mile, is published by Preface/Random House. For more information on the author, visit: www.tonyblack.net or the author’s blog: www.pulpppusher.blogspot.com
