Speaker 1: Literary prejudice is a funny thing. All of us are
Speaker 1: guilty of it. The more we know our own tastes
Speaker 1: as readers, the more set in our ways we become
Speaker 1: about the things we value in a book and our
Speaker 1: personal subjective notions of merit, the more we all become
Speaker 1: adept at judging a book by its genre, by its
Speaker 1: subject matter, and let's be honest, by its cover. When
Speaker 1: I first got a job in publishing, my uncle Patrick
Speaker 1: bought me a copy of a biography of one of
Speaker 1: the world's great publishers. It was called Maxwell Perkins, Editor
Speaker 1: of Genius by A. Scott Berg. It won the National
Speaker 1: Book Awards in the US the year it came out.
Speaker 1: The book was great, and Perkins made for a fascinating subject.
Speaker 1: He's the man who discovered F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Ernest Hemingway.
Speaker 1: By any measure, a hugely influential figure in the world
Speaker 1: of books. But there's one line in that book that's
Speaker 1: really stayed with me more than any other, Perkins said.
Speaker 1: Apparently publishers aren't looking for the next big thing. They're
Speaker 1: looking for the last big thing in the guessing game
Speaker 1: that is publishing. Imitation is the safe path. It's why
Speaker 1: at some point in the early two thousands, every second
Speaker 1: Ya book was part of some multi book series about
Speaker 1: an orphan with unexpected magical powers at some kind of
Speaker 1: secret boarding school. If something works, the theory seems to go,
Speaker 1: then just repeat it again and again and again. In
Speaker 1: the world of crime fiction, if you walk into your
Speaker 1: local bookshop or library, it's not hard to extrapolate what's
Speaker 1: worked in recent years. Go on at the serial killer,
Speaker 1: slashers and the Nordic noir. What seems to be proliferating
Speaker 1: now is books with cozy, even twee covers, handwritten titles,
Speaker 1: a line drawing of some safe domestic item, and a
Speaker 1: convoluted name that could have been generated by chat gpt.
Speaker 1: The Beethoven Society in the Afternoon at the Vicar Edge,
Speaker 1: jaw the Sunset, Bicycle Thieves, or tea Time at thirteen
Speaker 1: Windermere Avenue, that kind of thing. Beware the imitators, but
Speaker 1: follow where they're leading. You take that trail all the
Speaker 1: way back to the books that kicked off this latest trend.
Speaker 1: Because Richard Osmond's Thursday Murder Club series are true originals, funny, moving,
Speaker 1: gripping and anything but generic if you've read them, and
Speaker 1: based on their stratospheric sales, there's a reasonable chance you have.
Speaker 1: You're already entirely in the tank. And if you haven't
Speaker 1: put your prejudices aside and settle in, you're in for
Speaker 1: a treat. I'm Michael Williams and this is Read This
Speaker 1: the show about the books we love and the stories
Speaker 1: behind them. You might already be familiar with Richard Osmond
Speaker 1: for his TV work. He's the creator and presenter of
Speaker 1: the BBC game show Pointless. Maybe you've seen on one
Speaker 1: of those ubiquitous British panel shows like Taskmaster or Would
Speaker 1: I Light You? Or QI. Richard Osman wears many hats,
Speaker 1: from television producer to comedian to podcaster. Now, however, it's
Speaker 1: as a best selling author he's most known, and he's
Speaker 1: going from strength to strength. There are four books so
Speaker 1: far in the Thursday Murder Club series, following the amateurs
Speaker 1: sleuthing of a quartet of septagenarian residents of an aged
Speaker 1: care community called Cooper's Chase. They're about mortality and old age,
Speaker 1: and they're both funny and page turners. It's little wonder
Speaker 1: they become international best sellers. The first book in the
Speaker 1: series is being adapted into a movie starring Pierce Brosnan,
Speaker 1: Helen Mirren and Ben Kingsley. But four books in four
Speaker 1: best sellers, in Richard's changing it up, He's launching a
Speaker 1: whole new series with a whole new set of characters.
Speaker 1: We Solve Murders follows the retired cop Steve and his
Speaker 1: bodyguard daughter in law Amy, in a novel that shows
Speaker 1: that Richard Osman knows exactly what his readers want. When
Speaker 1: we have the chance to speak. Last year, I did
Speaker 1: a reread back through the Thursday Murder books, and one
Speaker 1: of the things that struck me was that in the
Speaker 1: first one, there is a kind of centrality, maybe even
Speaker 1: a default centrality to Chris and Donner, your two police characters,
Speaker 1: that perhaps with the first book, active Police Officers seem
Speaker 1: like a natural entry point for telling the kind of
Speaker 1: crime story you wanted to do. And as the series
Speaker 1: has gone on, they've not receded entirely, but they've certainly
Speaker 1: given way on center stage. And I'm interested when starting
Speaker 1: a new series. Was it clear to you again, formal
Speaker 1: law enforcement isn't a framework that interests you terribly?
Speaker 2: Yeah, largely because and this is a subconscious thing I think.
Speaker 2: I think if you've set something properly within the world
Speaker 2: of law enforcement, you have to do a lot of research.
Speaker 2: And that's something doesn't interest me. If I'm spending an hour,
Speaker 2: you know, I'm working on We Saw Murders on it
Speaker 2: to be an hour typing up and you know, writing something,
Speaker 2: rather than an hour looking into whether a deputy chief
Speaker 2: inspector is a higher rank than a you know whatever.
Speaker 2: I just I'm not interested in doing it, and I
Speaker 2: like the world of criminality. I'm very interested in that world.
Speaker 2: So Amy in this book, Who's the daughter in law,
Speaker 2: is a bodyguard, which is a big industry and an
Speaker 2: industry that is around celebrity but also around criminality. Steve
Speaker 2: as an ex cop. You know, there's lots of people
Speaker 2: who got in that lovely hinterland between criminal and law enforcer,
Speaker 2: and that, to me is an interesting world where the
Speaker 2: police don't really need to get involved this. There's very
Speaker 2: little police work in this book, and what police work
Speaker 2: there is is fairly toxic.
Speaker 1: I would say you're very good at writing kind of
Speaker 1: makeshift and found families and the familiar relationship between Steve
Speaker 1: and Amy, the father in law daughter in law pairing.
Speaker 1: I can't remember saying that particular configuration before. Was that
Speaker 1: what drew to it? Or is there something about that closeness?
Speaker 1: But with distance building that particularly a build the.
Speaker 2: Question that makeshift off found family. I have not thought
Speaker 2: about it in that way, but I do like to
Speaker 2: write about that. It's an interesting combination, isn't that father
Speaker 2: in law daughter in law, because there is an absolute closeness,
Speaker 2: but you're not related by blood, And it's very possible
Speaker 2: to have a relationship with an in law that is
Speaker 2: very distant. Amy, who is the daughter in law and
Speaker 2: the bodyguard that brought up in the care system. Steve,
Speaker 2: who is the ex cop father in law, is a
Speaker 2: fairly recent widower, and so they both have something they
Speaker 2: find in each other. They both find the need to
Speaker 2: lean on each other. And neither of them, by the way,
Speaker 2: would ever speak that out loud or have any interest
Speaker 2: in speaking that out loud. But they're both from places
Speaker 2: and families where they don't have those connections anymore. They
Speaker 2: both need a connection. So I love writing about that
Speaker 2: thing of where we find love and how we find
Speaker 2: it and who we need and who actually cares for
Speaker 2: us and people who find it difficult to love or
Speaker 2: be loved. Loving each other I always think is feels
Speaker 2: very powerful to me. But you know, I love that
Speaker 2: the father in law docter in law thing. That's where
Speaker 2: it all started. I just thought that's an interesting world,
Speaker 2: and then I explored it from there.
Speaker 1: Really, the backgrounds that both of them have that you
Speaker 1: just subscribed there give you the chance for a kind
Speaker 1: of set of thematics that are very reminiscent of a
Speaker 1: Thursday murder club, around the things that we live for
Speaker 1: and the things that we're frightened of. Steve to a
Speaker 1: certain extent, you know, there are ways in which he
Speaker 1: has let his life become deliberately small in the wake
Speaker 1: of the loss of his wife. Whereas for Amy, it's
Speaker 1: about seeking that adrenaline, seeking that rush that gives her
Speaker 1: life meaning in shape. Do you think in those terms
Speaker 1: often about fear and courage.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it's interesting. There's two big responses to trauma,
Speaker 2: aren't there, And they represent to those that you know,
Speaker 2: the two big responses that are either to run or
Speaker 2: to hide, you know, And so Amy runs and she
Speaker 2: goes around the world and you know, never stays still,
Speaker 2: never stays in the same place, so she doesn't, you know,
Speaker 2: she can't confront herself with whatever it is that she
Speaker 2: doesn't want to be confronted with. And Steve, as you say,
Speaker 2: he hides, and he makes everything very small, and he
Speaker 2: protects himself and he make sure nothing can get in.
Speaker 2: And those are two very very common responses to any
Speaker 2: sort of trauma. And I like the fact that the
Speaker 2: two of them, and by the way, that wasn't a
Speaker 2: deliberate choice or anything, it was just I find both
Speaker 2: of those interesting responses. And I wanted their actions to
Speaker 2: have an opposition to each other. I wanted Amy to
Speaker 2: need to do one sort of thing and I don't
Speaker 2: need Steve to absolutely not want to do that sort
Speaker 2: of thing at all. Then, so that you've got whatever
Speaker 2: scene you do, you've got someone who doesn't want to
Speaker 2: be there but has to be there. And just as
Speaker 2: a writer, and if you want comedy, if you want pathos,
Speaker 2: if you want any of that stuff, it's all in there.
Speaker 2: But yeah, so one of them runs and one of
Speaker 2: them hides, but they both love each other.
Speaker 1: I want to ask you about Rosie as a character.
Speaker 1: Can you set her up for those lists who haven't
Speaker 1: read the book?
Speaker 2: In I certainly can. So you know, I had this
Speaker 2: central duo in mind, Steve and Amy, and that was great,
Speaker 2: and I thought, oh, you know what, Amy does have
Speaker 2: to have a client at the start of this weech.
Speaker 2: She needs to be looking after somebody. So I thought,
Speaker 2: I'll give her a client and I'll just have a
Speaker 2: conversation and just find out a bit about who Amy is.
Speaker 2: Which how I like to come up with characters I'm
Speaker 2: sickman in a situation and make them have a conversation.
Speaker 2: And I had this sort of idea of a Jackie
Speaker 2: Collins esque type of character who's living on her own
Speaker 2: sort of private island. And so it's this character Rosy D'Antonio,
Speaker 2: who's the world's best selling author if you don't count
Speaker 2: the child. And I had this conversation between Amy and
Speaker 2: Rosie where essentially I'm trying to as a writer, I'm
Speaker 2: trying to find out about Amy, trying to get a
Speaker 2: little bit about what she care about, you know, what
Speaker 2: does she like at her job? And Rosie just was
Speaker 2: sitting there with like a cocktail in the middle of
Speaker 2: a ball showed like a swan just the stuff she
Speaker 2: was saying. I was like, oh, my God, you're amazing.
Speaker 2: And I've got Steve and I've got Amy, which is lovely,
Speaker 2: But why don't have a third wheel on this journey?
Speaker 2: Somebody who literally lives for adventures from mischief is of
Speaker 2: absolutely indeterminate age. No one has the first clue of
Speaker 2: how old she can be. The certain biographical clues that
Speaker 2: the list of belution might be might be fairly old.
Speaker 2: But she just wants fun, you know, she wants an adventure.
Speaker 2: And of course we find out a bit more about her,
Speaker 2: and as the book goes on as well. But suddenly
Speaker 2: I've got these three people, and any scene that comes along,
Speaker 2: I know it's funny if one of them is in
Speaker 2: charge of that scene. I know, I know anything I
Speaker 2: can come up with in the plot. I know I've
Speaker 2: got these three people who can carry us anywhere. And
Speaker 2: so the two hander absolutely accidentally became a three hander.
Speaker 2: But I'm delighted that it did. I think, I think,
Speaker 2: I think people will love Rosie. She's quite a scene stealer.
Speaker 1: I have no doubt. She says at one point early on,
Speaker 1: something along the lines of I'd rather be murdered than
Speaker 1: be bored, which I think is it's not a bad cradle.
Speaker 2: That yeah, exactly that. That very much sums it up.
Speaker 2: And it's funny you say that, because to me, that's
Speaker 2: the process of writing. I do it quite a lot
Speaker 2: via dialogue, and so I'm just having a conversation and
Speaker 2: you know, Amy says something or other than she's than
Speaker 2: Rosie said, I'd rather be murdered than bored. And he say, okay, great,
Speaker 2: that's a tent peg. I can absolutely knock that into
Speaker 2: the ground and start my understanding of who Rosie is.
Speaker 2: And that's like one of the top notes of who
Speaker 2: she is. And that's such a lovely way of creating characters.
Speaker 2: Just have them talk to each other and then them
Speaker 2: say something. You go, oh, oh, that's a bold statement,
Speaker 2: and let's find out who you are, you know via that.
Speaker 2: But yeah, I'd rather be murdered than bored. And she
Speaker 2: means it too.
Speaker 1: Having invented Rosie, having invented a very successful crime novel,
Speaker 1: How tempt did are you to try your hand atwriting?
Speaker 1: Death pulls the trigger?
Speaker 2: Oh? I mean, every time I come up with a
Speaker 2: title for Rosie d'antonia book, there's like, knock, who's dead,
Speaker 2: it's death oclock. You're like, ah, just I want to read.
Speaker 2: I just absolutely want to read this now, you know,
Speaker 2: if any fan fiction versions of it want to come out.
Speaker 2: But you know, I love the idea of you know,
Speaker 2: we had to really have a Jackie Collins of crime particularly,
Speaker 2: and it's a be a fun label for someone to get.
Speaker 2: But yeah, I want to see the front covers. I
Speaker 2: want to see the sort of American TV adaptation of
Speaker 2: these things. But yeah, her whole world, I just think
Speaker 2: I so desperately want her to be real.
Speaker 1: Do you clearly have fun with naming things. The other
Speaker 1: name that I'm particularly enamored with in this book is
Speaker 1: Steve's very imaginative name for his private investigation company, which
Speaker 1: is called Steve Investigate. It's, much to Amy's horror. Details
Speaker 1: like that are a great way into character, aren't they.
Speaker 1: I mean that says everything about Steve in the Way's
Speaker 1: mind works that you need it to.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think I think it's exactly that. You know,
Speaker 2: the choices we make, And yeah, who who would call
Speaker 2: their investigation company Steve Investigates because Amy, by the way,
Speaker 2: he wants to call it, I think Maverick Steel or
Speaker 2: something like that, because branding is important. Now Steve goes well, look,
Speaker 2: my name is Steve and I investigate and it's a
Speaker 2: simple thing. But there you go. Okay, I understand those
Speaker 2: where those two characters are coming from. Now, I understand
Speaker 2: the oppositions there might be. I understand that, you know,
Speaker 2: the kind of pull and push we might have just
Speaker 2: from a simple thing like that. But you know it
Speaker 2: it speaks to the title of the book, We Solved Murders,
Speaker 2: being the name of a detective agency. It's like, well,
Speaker 2: I mean, it's the second I had that title. When
Speaker 2: I talked to my agent after with thirty Medal Club,
Speaker 2: I said, I've got this new idea. I want to
Speaker 2: do it. I said, look, it's not going to be
Speaker 2: called this, but at the moment it's called We Solved Murders.
Speaker 2: And she went, oh, that's a great name for a book. Yeah,
Speaker 2: but you can't I can't recall but we Solved Murders.
Speaker 2: It's it's very on the nose. And she was like, no, no, no,
Speaker 2: that's I think. I think people will love that, and
Speaker 2: they go, oh, okay. So honestly, if I had an
Speaker 2: investigated an agency, it would be called Richard Investigates. So
Speaker 2: you know, we Solved murders.
Speaker 1: When we come back. Richard reveals the reason he probably
Speaker 1: won't be writing a six hundred page Booker Prize winning novel,
Speaker 1: and cheers the advice he gave to Pierce Brosna. How
Speaker 1: far into the Thursday Murder books did you realize that
Speaker 1: you wanted to try and cut your teeth on a
Speaker 1: different series.
Speaker 2: I think that, you know, when I wrote the first
Speaker 2: Thursday Murder Club book, all I wanted to do was
Speaker 2: write a book that sold enough copies they let me
Speaker 2: write the second book, and then still enough to make
Speaker 2: me write the third. And I think I got sort
Speaker 2: of three or four years in and I thought, well, listen,
Speaker 2: I am an author. Now you know. I've always been
Speaker 2: a writer. I've done journalism, I've done sitcom and done
Speaker 2: all sorts of things. But I finally think, Okay, now
Speaker 2: you are an author. And if I'm going to do
Speaker 2: this for the next twenty thirty years, which I'm very
Speaker 2: hopeful that I am going to do, I'm not going
Speaker 2: to just write the same series. So I wanted to
Speaker 2: introduce a new world to people. I wanted to introduce
Speaker 2: new characters. I wanted to have a bit of fun
Speaker 2: with something. You know, I want to enjoy the next
Speaker 2: twenty years. And I want readers to really really enjoy
Speaker 2: the next twenty years as well, and I'm going to
Speaker 2: do that by inventing different worlds and showing people different
Speaker 2: things and seeing if they bite. I think, not.
Speaker 1: Only is it a new world and a new set
Speaker 1: of characters, but Liz, in genre terms, a kind of
Speaker 1: slight sideway step. It's still unmistakably a Richard Osman book,
Speaker 1: which is a great thing to be able to say
Speaker 1: if you think that five years ago we couldn't say
Speaker 1: what a Richard Olsman book was, but now you've kind
Speaker 1: of made it your own. But this one that has
Speaker 1: as much of a debt to kind of thriller conventions
Speaker 1: as it does to the old idea of the cozy,
Speaker 1: even though I know that's a term that you reject.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I wanted to, you knows. There's certain things, you know.
Speaker 2: I love the thirty Medal Clubs so much, and I
Speaker 2: love those four characters. There are things that they cannot
Speaker 2: really do. You know, they can't jump out of helicopters.
Speaker 2: They're probably not going to go on a breakneck race
Speaker 2: around the world. And that's the sort of thing I
Speaker 2: wanted to write because again, I read quime fiction. I
Speaker 2: read thrillers, you know, big airport stuff. That's the kind
Speaker 2: of stuff I love it. So I thought, well, I
Speaker 2: want to bring the sensibility that I have, hopefully a
Speaker 2: bit of the wits, hopefully a bit of that kind
Speaker 2: of British warmth to a more thrillery type story. Listen,
Speaker 2: I haven't written a kind of hard boiled thriller. Is
Speaker 2: unmistakably me page one onwards. But as you say, you know,
Speaker 2: I know the conventions of that genre because I read
Speaker 2: that genre and I love that genre, and I never
Speaker 2: do any of this stuff consciously, but I just being
Speaker 2: able to write in that world, but to be able
Speaker 2: to bring what I love to bring to books, which
Speaker 2: is character and heart and warmth and feelings, was a
Speaker 2: really lovely challenge and something that yeah, I enjoyed a
Speaker 2: great deal.
Speaker 1: I can't help but notice it already in maybe two answers.
Speaker 1: Both times you have vaguely apologetically name checked the Cooper's
Speaker 1: Chase mob, like you're being disloyal to them. You're doing
Speaker 1: these interviews, and clearly there's part of you that's wired
Speaker 1: to go God, I hope that I don't feel like
Speaker 1: I'm playing away.
Speaker 2: Well do you know what. Well, first, yes, disloyalty to
Speaker 2: the characters, of course. But funnily enough, as soon as
Speaker 2: I realized that both of these books could exist at
Speaker 2: the same time, I thought, it's okay. I thought, listen,
Speaker 2: Joyce and Elizabeth. They're happily they're just watching TV in
Speaker 2: another county, So that's okay. But it's a reader's thing, really,
Speaker 2: you know, I've had a career of you know, you
Speaker 2: try and make something good, and then you try and
Speaker 2: make something else good, and you have to just bring
Speaker 2: readers with you, and so I have this guild of
Speaker 2: just saying to readers, I really, I honestly know that
Speaker 2: you wanted a fifth thirty Murder Club book. I absolutely
Speaker 2: get that that's what you think you wanted. Tell me now,
Speaker 2: you're going to enjoy this book, and in a couple
Speaker 2: of years time, you'll want the second one of this one.
Speaker 2: And I'm going to keep doing Thirsty Murder Club. But
Speaker 2: I'm going to keep doing this. And it's just the
Speaker 2: idea of saying to readers, I promise you're in safe hands.
Speaker 2: I promise if you like the stuff that I do,
Speaker 2: you're going to like this one. Too.
Speaker 1: You're the musician doing the stadium gig who gets up
Speaker 1: and says, I'm going to play as having from the
Speaker 1: new album and the mood just palpably drops.
Speaker 2: In the room exactly. So you have to absolutely sort
Speaker 2: of hammock it between two absolute bangers. That's that's the key.
Speaker 2: And then in next year's tour the new material is
Speaker 2: the banger. So you know, that's always the transition people
Speaker 2: have to make.
Speaker 1: Are you an Agatha Christie reader?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm a big Agatha Christie fan. You know, I
Speaker 2: think about Christie a lot when I write, actually, because
Speaker 2: she would write two books a year. You know, she
Speaker 2: would absolutely churn this stuff out and it's endured and
Speaker 2: it's lasted, and you know, she's not somebod who spent
Speaker 2: five years writing a book and panicked over every single,
Speaker 2: you know, sentence. She just thought, what's going to entertain
Speaker 2: people today? And that's the thing that's that's you know, lasted.
Speaker 2: And that's what I was trying to think with we've
Speaker 2: sold murders. I was thinking, think in twenty years time,
Speaker 2: don't worry about this year, just thinking in twenty years time,
Speaker 2: what do you want people to know of you? What
Speaker 2: do you want people to have read of you, and
Speaker 2: you know it's it's all going to be part of
Speaker 2: that chick sort of hopefully.
Speaker 1: The Christie parallel, I think is definitely an earned one,
Speaker 1: and the Cooper's Chase marble vibes giving way to a
Speaker 1: more Poirot kind of template for this one in terms
Speaker 1: of where you can go and how you can make
Speaker 1: a play. I'm interested in your description of loving a
Speaker 1: particular kind of airport thriller. I can't remember the last
Speaker 1: time I read something in that genre that brought such
Speaker 1: ineffable englishness to it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, listen, Michael, that's all I have as an author.
Speaker 2: When you sit down, what is it that you have?
Speaker 2: You know, of course you can think of plots. Of
Speaker 2: course you can have ideas, and of course you can
Speaker 2: have different characters. But everything comes from inside you. And
Speaker 2: you know, I can't help but to come from some
Speaker 2: wit and some humor and seeing the ridiculousness of life.
Speaker 2: But I love these big, bold thrillery type things as well.
Speaker 2: And so it wasn't deliberately me thinking oh this would
Speaker 2: be funny, you know, combining the two of those. It's
Speaker 2: me thinking, well, I want to write that, But I
Speaker 2: can't write it in any other way than the way
Speaker 2: I write. You know, my fingers are on the keys
Speaker 2: of the keyboard, and you know they don't do what
Speaker 2: I tell them. They do what they want to do,
Speaker 2: and that is to entertain and to see how funny
Speaker 2: and ridiculous the world is, and hopefully make you cry
Speaker 2: a little bit as well, and talk about love. But
Speaker 2: you know, I can't help but write that way.
Speaker 1: Those fingers type the word twigs without you even controlling.
Speaker 2: Them, exactly that. Weirdly, every time I do you start
Speaker 2: a new book or a new something, I think, or
Speaker 2: maybe I wonder if this is the one where actually
Speaker 2: I find that I'm going to be very very serious
Speaker 2: this time, and I'm going to write a proper kind
Speaker 2: of you know book, a prize winning six hundred page novel.
Speaker 2: And as you say, within three pages, I'm writing about
Speaker 2: twixes and you know, sausage rolls, and I think, oh no, listen,
Speaker 2: it's going to be more of the same. But just
Speaker 2: my note to myself is always make it brilliant, maybe
Speaker 2: as great as you can do. Make it something you're
Speaker 2: proud of.
Speaker 1: Look, the only thing you're pointing to there is a
Speaker 1: short sightedness of Book of Judges, and one day twigs
Speaker 1: and sausage rolls will be what they're looking for. I
Speaker 1: have no doubt. There is a scene in the fourth
Speaker 1: Thursday Murder Book where it's Christmas and their unwrapping presents
Speaker 1: for each other, and it's a page of almost pure
Speaker 1: dialogue without reference to who's speaking at any given point,
Speaker 1: because you simply don't need it. The characters are so
Speaker 1: well formed at this point, you know them so well
Speaker 1: that through what they say, they are unmistakable at all times.
Speaker 1: I'm interested that you turned your attention, you turn your
Speaker 1: labors to the novel rather than to TV, which you
Speaker 1: know so well in a kind of dramatic or comedic sense.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think because you can be inside people's head
Speaker 2: spar more. And so I love writing dialogue. I mean
Speaker 2: it's a joy. And so yeah, you would naturally think, well,
Speaker 2: that would lead on to screenplays and what have you,
Speaker 2: and you know that sort of thing is fun. But
Speaker 2: I love writing dialogue. But then I like going inside
Speaker 2: someone's head, and I like hearing the stuff that they
Speaker 2: haven't said, or hearing their misunderstanding of what it is
Speaker 2: that they have said, or just that stuff where you know,
Speaker 2: for when anytime you have a conversation with people, there's
Speaker 2: lots of stuff that isn't being said, which is as
Speaker 2: interesting as what is being said. And in a novel
Speaker 2: you can just do that. And also you can go
Speaker 2: into different people's heads, in different people's characters, you can
Speaker 2: write in different voices, and I love to do that.
Speaker 2: So for me, yes, naturally my skill set should be
Speaker 2: screenplays and stuff like that. But actually, weirdly, the second
Speaker 2: I started writing books in other people's voices, I was like, oh,
Speaker 2: this is I love this. I love exploring, you know,
Speaker 2: someone's you know, internal monologue and seeing what drives them
Speaker 2: because you know, all day, every day we meet people
Speaker 2: and we don't know what's just happened to them. We
Speaker 2: don't know where they've just come from. We don't know,
Speaker 2: you know, a terrible thing that's just befallen them. We
Speaker 2: don't know what their childhood was like. But in novels
Speaker 2: you can find that out and you can get to
Speaker 2: know people you know more and more and more, and
Speaker 2: as you say, by the fourth Thursday Murder Club, you know,
Speaker 2: these people are so real to me and I think
Speaker 2: also to the readers, and that's something you can't do
Speaker 2: quite quite as well as a screenplay.
Speaker 1: I don't think the other thing by that fourth book
Speaker 1: is a bit what you're describing happened to you with Rosie.
Speaker 1: I mean, I do think about that as a peculiarly
Speaker 1: Richard Osman problem is you have characters walk on clearly
Speaker 1: for the purpose of one scene or one function in
Speaker 1: the context of the plot, and suddenly two books later,
Speaker 1: three books later, they're part of your cast of characters.
Speaker 1: You are and I say this with admiration and affection,
Speaker 1: but you are very bad at letting characters go. Like
Speaker 1: once they come on, you're like, oh no, they're back,
Speaker 1: and I need to have my universe expand.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's exactly right. And you know, it's funny because
Speaker 2: with Thursday Murder Club again, the bog Down is a
Speaker 2: character from that, and he was a very very bit
Speaker 2: part very early on, and yet by the fourth Thursday
Speaker 2: Murder Club it's snowballs and you've got all these characters
Speaker 2: you've sort of turned up. I cannot have a new
Speaker 2: character come into a book and be a cipher or
Speaker 2: someone boring. I can't. I just it just doesn't interest me.
Speaker 2: I always say, my wife is an actor. And I
Speaker 2: always just think if you were to have a small
Speaker 2: part in this film, and it was this part of
Speaker 2: this character in this scene that I want you to go,
Speaker 2: oh my god, this character is great. You know. I
Speaker 2: hate that thing of someone's a shopkeeper or someone's you know,
Speaker 2: a delivery driver or someone anything like that. Yeah, if
Speaker 2: the second you give anybody a hinterland, then you can
Speaker 2: write about them again. And if you do want to
Speaker 2: write a series, there's in this book there's a border
Speaker 2: Patroyal border security guy in America at a private airport
Speaker 2: called Carlos Moss. And I just again, so here's the
Speaker 2: way of the sort of writing process I think. I know,
Speaker 2: when you go to America is terrifying to go through customs,
Speaker 2: right because the guys and the women who do bardup
Speaker 2: patrol in America do not want you to be there.
Speaker 2: You feel terrible, You feel like a criminal. So I thought, great,
Speaker 2: I'm going to write a scene with Steve, who does
Speaker 2: not want to become into America in the first place,
Speaker 2: has to go past a border security guy and need something.
Speaker 2: So I thought, oh, that's I can see where humor comes.
Speaker 2: But the second Carlos Moss starts talking to Steve, I'm like,
Speaker 2: oh my god, you're great. I love you. You're far
Speaker 2: more than just this border security guy is going to
Speaker 2: be trouble. And he's a perfect example of someone where
Speaker 2: you think, Okay, you're only to be here as a
Speaker 2: comic four for one scene. But I loved what you
Speaker 2: said so much and the way you said it. There's
Speaker 2: no way I'm not going to bring you back in
Speaker 2: the next book. I guess, of course you're going to
Speaker 2: come back because I love who you are, so yeah,
Speaker 2: I do. I store trouble up for myself by falling
Speaker 2: in love with characters.
Speaker 1: I'm curious that addiction to kind of making no character
Speaker 1: a bit part. Did that come back to bite you
Speaker 1: with the adaptation for Thursday Murder Club. I know the
Speaker 1: film is shooting at the moment. Did they go, oh, no,
Speaker 1: we have to cut these extraneous characters because it's just
Speaker 1: too expensive.
Speaker 2: It's just well, you know, it's just an entirely different
Speaker 2: skill set. You know. I've been around television and film
Speaker 2: long enough to know that they have to do their version.
Speaker 2: They've got to make like a two hour version of
Speaker 2: this book, which, if you really did everything would be
Speaker 2: seven and a half hours something like that, maybe they
Speaker 2: have to make something entirely different, which they are absolutely doing,
Speaker 2: and I am staying out of it. I go along
Speaker 2: to set, and that's really good fun and everyone's lovely
Speaker 2: to me, and I love all that. But I said
Speaker 2: to them from the beginning, I'm not going to interfere,
Speaker 2: and I think they didn't believe me, because I'm sure
Speaker 2: all authors say that, But actually, I'm not going to
Speaker 2: interfere because it's really hard to write a book, and
Speaker 2: if I had fifteen people telling me every five minutes
Speaker 2: how to do it, I wouldn't be able to do it.
Speaker 2: And it's really hard to make a film, and it's
Speaker 2: not fair on them for me to say, yeah, but
Speaker 2: I would do it this way. You think, yeah, but
Speaker 2: you're not doing it. You know someone else is doing it,
Speaker 2: so it's it's sort of nice to kind of let
Speaker 2: somebody else get on with it and we still see
Speaker 2: what happens with it. But yeah, you either do it
Speaker 2: all yourself or you do none of it yourself. I
Speaker 2: think with a.
Speaker 1: Film, I can't remember and I haven't done sufficient research
Speaker 1: to go and kind of cross check this. But you know,
Speaker 1: they're pretty starry actors who are being cast in the adaptation,
Speaker 1: and I'm curious. It seems likely to me that Joyce
Speaker 1: would have had views on Pierce Brosnan, for example, at
Speaker 1: some point in the books.
Speaker 2: Surely, well, it's fascinating. So I was down on the
Speaker 2: set the other day and Pierce is there, and he
Speaker 2: is the most handsome man in the world, you know.
Speaker 2: I mean, he's insanely handsome, and bless him. He dresses
Speaker 2: down for Ron, but you know, he's still Pierce. Pro
Speaker 2: wasn't and I was talking to him about it. I said,
Speaker 2: I said, firstly, Piss Posson is an unbelievably great comic actor,
Speaker 2: which I think people forget. But I said to Pierce,
Speaker 2: I said, here's the absolute key to your casting. I said,
Speaker 2: you are who Ron would have chosen to play himself.
Speaker 2: So yeah, it's I see it purely as icing. You know,
Speaker 2: it's and we'll see what happens.
Speaker 1: I am extremely excited for the screen adaptation of The
Speaker 1: Thursday Murder Club and with whatever Richard writes next. His
Speaker 1: latest book is called We Solve Murders and it's widely
Speaker 1: available now. Before we go, you might have seen this
Speaker 1: week the announcement of the twenty twenty four Booker Prize shortlist.
Speaker 1: It's a terrific list of six titles. Some of my
Speaker 1: favorite books in the past twelve months are there, but
Speaker 1: the notable inclusion for local readers is Charlotte Wood's Stoneyard Devotional.
Speaker 1: It's an absolutely exquisite novel and it's so exciting to
Speaker 1: see it there on the list. It's the first time
Speaker 1: an Australian's been shortlisted for the book as since Richard
Speaker 1: Flanagan ten years ago when he went on to win
Speaker 1: for The Narrow Road to the Deep North. So I
Speaker 1: recommend you read Stoneyard Devotional and once you're done, go
Speaker 1: to the Read This archive and find the episode with
Speaker 1: Charlotte discussing the book. It's a beautiful conversation and we
Speaker 1: are super excited for her. You can find it all
Speaker 1: the rest of the shortlist and the books of Richard
Speaker 1: Osman at your favorite independent bookstore. That's it for this
Speaker 1: week's show. If you enjoyed it, please tell your friends,
Speaker 1: rate and review us. It helps a lot, and we're
Speaker 1: only a few ratings shy of three hundred on the
Speaker 1: Apple podcast app, so help tip us over the edge
Speaker 1: this week. That'd be fun next week. I read this.
Speaker 1: I'm joined by Ruman Alam, author of the award winning
Speaker 1: novel Lave the World Behind, and he's talking about the
Speaker 1: genesis of his newest book, Entitlement.
Speaker 3: A long time ago, my husband said to me about
Speaker 3: a friend of ours. She's kind of like a chronically
Speaker 3: single woman at a time approaching mid life, and he said,
Speaker 3: you know, I think at a certain point, you should
Speaker 3: be allowed to marry yourself and throw a big party
Speaker 3: and everyone has to give you a gift and sort
Speaker 3: of treat it the same way that they would treat
Speaker 3: it if you were getting married to another person. A
Speaker 3: not cruel joke, but kind of like a funny observation,
Speaker 3: and that really stayed with me. I remembered that moment,
Speaker 3: and at some point I had this idea about a
Speaker 3: woman choosing to marry an apartment.
Speaker 1: Read This is produced and edited by Clara Ames. The
Speaker 1: show was mixed by Travis Evans with original compositions by
Speaker 1: Zelton Fetcher. Thanks for listening, See you next week. Four