An interview with J.D. Kirk
In September, I had the pleasure of chairing an event at Bloody Scotland, with our own wonderful Antti Tuomainen and Doug Johnstone, and a new author to me, J.D. Kirk … a pseudonym for well-known Scottish children’s writer Barry Hutchison. I was intrigued by Barry’s story, and his route to extremely successful self-publishing, writing no fewer than thirteen adult thrillers inside two years, and topping the digital charts with his popular DS Logan series. He’s just launched a spin-off series, featuring irascible ex-police officer Robert Hoon, and we’ve caught up with him to hear all about it … not to mention how on earth he writes so quickly!
1. What encouraged you to try your hand at adult crime fiction, after a successful career writing children’s books? Do you still write them?
I actually never really set out to be a children’s author. I had an idea for a horror story that just happened to feature a twelve-year-old as the main character, and when HarperCollins picked up the series I just sort of fell into writing for children for the next ten years or so! I had loads of ideas for ‘grown up books’ but was so busy with children’s fiction that I didn’t get a chance to write one until 2016. That was the first in my Space Team comedy sci-fi series, and I haven’t written anything for children since, although I’d quite like to someday.
My first crime fiction book was actually inspired (albeit loosely) by a real life event, when I thought my daughter had gone missing. It turned out she was just hiding behind a bush to wind me up, but it got me thinking about what I would’ve done if she really had disappeared, and the story just grew from there.
2. You’ve published eleven books in your DS Logan series in just under two years. How do you do it?
I’ve actually published twelve now, plus the first Robert Hoon spin-off which is out this month. I’ve written the next Logan book, too, and am working on the second Hoon.
I have a ‘condition’ called aphantasia which means my brain works a bit differently to most people in that I have no visual imagination. I don’t ‘see’ pictures in my head, but instead think exclusively in words. I reckon this gives me an advantage when it comes to writing.
Also, I’m dead fast at typing, which also helps.
3. Tell us about DCI Logan … and what you think makes this series so appealing to readers.
DCI Logan is a pretty traditional crime-fiction police detective in that he is a troubled character who doesn’t necessarily do things by the book all the time. What seems to attract readers, though, is the humour throughout the stories, and the relationships between the characters.
I think a lot of crime fiction can be a bit morbid and depressing. Understandably, I suppose, given the subject matter. The Logan books do tackle dark and gritty subject matters, but there’s a vein of humour running through every story which helps them avoid becoming too bleak.
4. Do you think there is a place for more humour in crime fiction, particularly in the current circumstances/climate? How do you use it as a device?
I think there’s a place for more humour in pretty much every situation, and firmly believe the world would be a much better place if we didn’t take ourselves so seriously.
That said, I didn’t intend the Logan books to be funny. I had plotted out a dark, gripping crime thriller, and then I sat down and wrote the very first line – ‘The total collapse of Duncan Reid’s life began with a gate in the arse end of nowhere’ – and I realised that I probably wasn’t going to be able to play it completely straight, like I had originally intended. And I’m very glad that I didn’t.
Most of the humour, though, comes from the characters and their relationships with each other. They all know each other so well at this point that they bounce off each other nicely.
Although, in the thirteenth book, one of the detectives gets stuck inside a giant road safety mascot costume, so there’s the odd moment of slapstick type stuff, too!
5. Why did choose self-publishing over traditional agreements? You’ve been successful in multiple different forums and through different methods. Which do you prefer and why?
I hadn’t really given any thought to self-publishing until a high school asked me to go in and teach pupils how they could self-publish their own work. I had absolutely no idea how to do such a thing, but they were offering to pay me for the workshops, so I was damn well sure I was going to learn!
I wrote the first Space Team book in two or three weeks, and published it on Kindle. I had no money to spend on it, so self-edited, designed my own covers, etc., thinking that nobody was ever going to really see it, anyway.
Then, within a few weeks, it was massively outselling all my children’s books combined.
So, like with writing for kids, I just sort of fell into it by accident, really.
Since then, I’ve formed my own publishing company with foreign rights agents, a sales team, editors, cover designers, audio narrators, etc., all working to get my books out into the world. It all started just by uploading a Word doc to Kindle, though.
6. You have a new spin-off series being published this month, featuring the shamed copper, Robert Hoon, who is appeared in your previous series. What prompted this new direction, and will we see the return of Logan?
With the Hoon series, I wanted to set myself a challenge. He’s a bloody horrible character when we first meet him in the second book of the Logan series, and he doesn’t change much along the way. And yet, about half of the Logan readers absolutely adore him. The other half very much do not.
So, I wanted to see if I could take what was a fairly two-dimensional ‘angry boss’ character and give him enough depth and substance to have even the naysayers rooting for him. I have no idea yet if it has worked, but I’m looking forward to finding out!
But it definitely isn’t the end for Logan! I have no plans to kill him off or anything.
At least, not yet…
7. Tell us about the first book in the Hoon series, Northwind, and what you have planned.
It’s more of a Jack Reacher style thriller than a police procedural, and sees Hoon head to London to help look for the missing teenage daughter of a former army colleague.
While searching, he stumbles onto something much bigger, and the next two books in the trilogy will show how that plays out.
It’s more action-packed than the Logan books, and Hoon gets to channel his rage into something more productive than randomly swearing at his subordinates.
8. What would you say is the secret to your near-meteoric success? What advice would you give to aspiring writers?
Thank you, though I’m not sure I’d describe it as anything like that. I think persistence is the key. I’ve been a full-time author since 2009, and have written pretty much every day during that time.
Prior to that, I wrote pretty much every day since I was in school, when I first decided that ‘author’ was the job I wanted to do.
Turning up is half the battle. You can’t be a writer if you don’t consistently get words on paper. Even if they’re not brilliant words, that’s infinitely better than no words at all.
9. What book do you wish you’d written?
Harry Potter for the money and the theme park rides, Good Omens because it turned me from a casual reader to a dedicated one, and I’d love to do that for someone else.
10. What do you do in your spare time?
I have two children, a cat, a dog, and elderly parents and in-laws. I have no spare time. If I did, I’d finally learn to play my guitar properly.
11. Funny fact about you?
I’m explosively allergic to red peppers. I discovered this halfway to the United States on a flight when I was eleven years old. It did not make for a pleasant trip.
12. Murder weapon of choice?
Powdered glass. If poured in drinks and consumed, it’s apparently untraceable. I only know that because an old man who used to frequent a bar I worked in repeatedly told me. Usually while eyeing up the drinks of the other patrons.
13. What are you reading now?
The Rabbit Factor by Antti Tuomainen. Maybe you’ve heard of it? It’s very good.
14. Where do you see yourself in five years?
Somewhere warmer. Not too bothered where, just as long as it doesn’t rain as much.
I’d also like to be publishing other authors through my company. I’ve always loved sharing books I’ve enjoyed with people, so I suppose it would be a bit like that, but on the ultimate scale!
Blurb for North Wind
Shunned by his old colleagues, and dividing his time between a dead-end job and the bottom of a whisky bottle, former Police Scotland Detective Superintendent Bob Hoon’s life is a mess.
Then an old face from Hoon’s Special Forces days turns up asking for help: his teenage daughter has been missing for months, the police have drawn a blank, and he needs the kind of help that only Hoon can provide.
And besides, Hoon owes him one.
From the Highlands of Scotland, to the mean streets of London, Hoon’s relentless hunt for the girl will see him make new friends and encounter old enemies. Enemies who know what happened to the girl. And to hundreds more like her.
But Hoon’s been given something that makes him dangerous, something he thought he’d long-since lost: a purpose.
He may be a disgraced ex-copper, a barely-functioning alcoholic, and a borderline psychopath, but Bob Hoon still believes in justice.
And he’s just the foul-mouthed **** to dish some out.
I read Norwegian fiction mostly so I have to search a bit to find what is translated into English. Among those I found I recommend The Therapist by Helene Flood, a tremendous psychological thriller, and The Seven Doors by Agnes Ravatn, a nice mix of whodunnit and psychological thriller. Or you could pick up something by Gunnar Staalesen, e.g. Wolves in the Dark or Fallen Angels. Get these and you’ll be fully entertained this summer.
Kitchenly 434 – Alan Warner
Who They Was – Gabriel Krauze
Utopia Avenue – David Mitchell
I have to recommend that people postpone reading until they have finished watching Katla on Netflix. (Blowing my own trumpet here!) But after that I think people should go for some of the amazing Orenda books on offer; next on my reading list is Simone Buchholz’s Hotel Cartagena. I love the Chastity Riley series. She is one of my fave characters, and there is something Chandleresque about Simone’s writing that is so cool.
My current read is The End of Her by Shari Lapena. She is the queen of domestic noir and I really enjoy her books.
I found this a devastatingly beautiful and powerful novel. It’s so much more than a thriller, though yes, it is one – the kind that has you glued to the page, having to read just one more. (For the record, I read it in two sittings.) As with Dean’s previous books the language is what sets it apart. He has a gift for keeping it simple, and yet it is deviously layered too. The setting is claustrophobic, the characters pulse off the page, and it’s dark, dark, dark, the way I like even my summer reads. But it’s hopeful too. It is excellent, and I strongly recommend it.
In complete contrast to the darkness of Dean’s book is Fenwick’s captivating and beautiful tale. Once again, she has proved she is the mistress of pure escapism. Spanning generations, with an achingly intense love story and unearthed secrets about ancestry at its core, this novel is just what the world needs right now. The immersive dual timeline whisks you away, and the country setting is perfect for this time of year. It’s a glorious summer read and is definitely one to look out for in 2021.
![Dead Man’s Grave: A breathtaking, chilling, Scottish crime fiction mystery thriller (DS Max Craigie Scottish Crime Thrillers, Book 1) by [Neil Lancaster]](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51UBfTh7UGS.jpg)
I’m reading this at the moment and it is the definition of a page-turner. Creepy, intriguing and compelling.
A beautifully written thriller with a highly original setting and cast of characters. Terse, tense and packed with heart.
![Written In Bone: hidden stories in what we leave behind by [Sue Black]](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/41DACnz5zVS.jpg)
Nothing combats bone-chilling cold like talk about bones! I’m enjoying anthropologist Professor Dame Sue Black’s Written in Bone. The case studies and very human stories she weaves around them are fascinating.![The Liar's Dictionary: A winner of the 2021 Betty Trask Awards by [Eley Williams]](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/41jALH6nc5S.jpg)
I adore words and their origins and playing with them, so I got immense pleasure from The Liar’s Dictionary by Eley Williams. In this novel we have two viewpoints – nineteenth-century Peter Winceworth inserting fictitious words into a new encyclopaedic dictionary, and the present day Mallory, tasked with finding these Mountweazels. But of course it’s not that straightforward.
![A Rattle of Bones: A Rebecca Connolly Thriller (Book 3) by [Douglas Skelton]](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51u6IrX5PDS.jpg)
This has the Highlands of Scotland, a plot that zips along, fascinating characters – and did I mention the Highlands of Scotland? Dare I say it … a rattling good read (out 5 August).![The Blood Divide: The must-read race-against-time thriller of 2021 by [A. A. Dhand]](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/418aLKuh2nL.jpg)
If I read a better thriller this year I’ll be surprised – and delighted. From the first page you know you’re in the hands of a master of their craft. Loved it!
Orenda
‘We have been absolutely 
A highly anticipated follow-up to her indie-favourite A Modern Family, Helga Flatland’s One Last Time, translated by Rosie Hedger, is an elegant, perceptive, warmly funny novel focusing on fractured family relationships that come under the spotlight when a woman – grandmother and mother – discovers she has terminal cancer. Winner of the Norwegian Booksellers’ Prize and a number-one bestseller in Norway, this is an exquisitely moving book and a perfect example of why Joanna Cannon has dubbed Helga the ‘Norwegian Anne Tyler’.
Ex-Guardian columnist, Katie Allen’s immensely accomplished debut, Everything Happens for a Reason, was inspired by her own experience of still birth, and is both a profoundly moving portrait of grief and a quirky, laugh-out-loud story about a woman becomes obsessed with the idea that saving a young man’s life on the day she discovered she was pregnant is the ‘reason’ why her baby was born sleeping. Fans of Rachel Joyce and Eleanor Oliphant will love the zany characters, the moving themes and the gloriously uplifting messages.
Award-winning Hull author Louise Beech has written the searingly emotive and mesmerisingly beautiful This Is How We Are Human, sure to be her breakthrough novel with 100 five-star reviews on Goodreads before publication. In this breathtaking book, we meet Sebastian, an autistic young man who yearns for a relationship and all that this entails. Driven by love and a desire to make her son happy, his mother hires a high-class escort, whose own determination to get through the night, to pay for her father’s medical bills and her own nursing degree is absolutely heartrending. When these three lives collide, everything is changed. For everyone. This is a timely, thought-provoking story about love in its many forms. We are enchanted.
Everything Happens for a Reason is Katie’s first novel. She used to be a journalist and columnist at the Guardian and Observer, and started her career as a Reuters correspondent in Berlin and London. The events in Everything Happens for a Reason are fiction, but the premise is loosely autobiographical. Katie’s son, Finn, was stillborn in 2010, and her character’s experience of grief and being on maternity leave without a baby is based on her own. And yes, someone did say to her ‘everything happens for a reason’.
Helga Flatland is already one of Norway’s most awarded and widely read authors. Born in Telemark, Norway, in 1984, she made her literary debut in 2010 with the novel Stay If You Can, Leave If You Must, for which she was awarded the Tarjei Vesaas’ First Book Prize. She has written four novels and a children’s book and has won several other literary awards.
Alex Clark is a journalist and broadcaster, often seen in the pages of the Guardian, the Observer and the Times Literary Supplement, and heard on BBC R4 programmes such as Front Row and Open Book. An experienced chair of live events, she has also worked as an artistic director at the Bath Festival is a Patron of the Cambridge Literary Festival. The literary awards she has judged include the Man Booker Prize and the Orwell Prize. Alex lives in Kilkenny, Ireland.
Orenda Books has teamed up with Jonathan Ball Publishing in South Africa, to celebrate publication of Michael Stanley’s chilling, sophisticated, warmly funny and absolutely nail-biting thriller Facets of Death –prequel to the award-winning Detective Kubu series. The Times said, ‘The local colour is as delightful as the intriguing investigation’.
It’s Sunshine Noir meets Nordic Noir, as the Queen of Icelandic Suspense, Yrsa Sigurðardóttir, guides the proceedings, introducing readers to the South African writing team who make up Michael Stanley – Michael Sears and Stanley Trollip – and quizzing them about the Botswanan setting, the breathtaking plot and everyone’s favourite detective, David ‘Kubu’ Bengu, who makes his first appearance in Botswana CID! Yrsa will also give us a preview of her chilling new thriller, The Doll, out in July.
Michael Stanley is the writing team of Michael Sears and Stanley Trollip. Both were born in South Africa and have worked in aca- demia and business. Stanley was an educational psychologist, specialising in the application of computers to teaching and learn- ing, and is a pilot. Michael specialised in image processing and remote sensing and taught at the University of the Witwatersrand.
Author of the bestselling Thora Gudmundsdóttir crime series and several standalone thrillers, Yrsa Sigurðardóttir was born in Reykjavik, Iceland, in 1963 and works as a civil engineer. She made her crime fiction debut in 2005 with Last Rituals, the first instalment in the Thora Gudmundsdottir series, and has been translated into more than thirty languages. Her work stands ‘comparison with the finest contemporary crime writing anywhere in the world’ according to the Times Literary Supplement. In 2011 her standalone horror novel I Remember You was awarded the Icelandic Crime Fiction Award and was nominated for The Glass Key, and has been made into a film starring Jóhannes Haukur. In 2015 The Silence of the Sea won the Petrona Award for best Scandinavian crime novel, and The Legacy, the first novel in the Freyja and Huldar series, was nominated for The Glass Key and won the Icelandic Crime Fiction Award. All of her books have been European bestsellers.
was performed at a small festival in Hull. It was inspired by the real-life difficulty I had when my daughter Katy, having been diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes aged just seven, later had a complete breakdown and refused her life-saving injections. The only way I could get her to have them was via storytelling – and the only story good enough to keep her attention was that of my grandad’s survival at sea during the second world war. We not only bonded over the shared discovery of our ancestry, but Katy found the courage to fight, just as Grandad Colin had done for fifty days on a cramped lifeboat, under searing heat, with little food and water.
My third novel, Maria in the Moon, was actually the first one I wrote way back in 2007 after the devastating floods in Hull. We were living in temporary accommodation after our home was submerged beneath four feet of sewage-rich, muddy rainwater. I created Catherine-Maria at a rickety, makeshift, metal desk because mine had been destroyed. I poured my pain into her experience, her voluntary work at Flood Crisis, her despair at what the water had taken, and what it flushed out from her past.
My own life has infiltrated some of my other novels, even in small ways. My voluntary work with children going through the care system helped shape The Mountain in my Shoe, and my own care records helped me create young Conor’s documents. I also moulded him around quirks and characteristics my own son had at that age.
My radio work inspired Call Me Star Girl. I’ve volunteered at community radio and then at BBC Radio Humberside for over ten years, and often thought – when doing the night-time show – how spooky the studio is when it’s d
My role as a theatre usher had me create I Am Dust. Ushers steal about backstage, in the shadows, barely noticed. Invisible, we see everything. I’ve read theatre books where the actors are the protagonists and I wanted to give voice to those who work behind the scenes. When I wrote Chloe, and the musical world of the iconic show ‘Dust’, I wanted to create a claustrophobic place where only the theatre building exists.
I knew I had to do this one justice. Had to get every nuance of This Is How We Are Human right. A few people thought I shouldn’t write it, especially when I mentioned autism. But Fiona insisted that I was giving Sean a voice – after all he didn’t want to write it, but he was happy for it to bewritten. This isn’t an #OwnVoices story, and I don’t claim it is. But I worked closely with both Fiona and Sean. We got together and acted out scenes. I listened carefully to how Sean spoke, what he thought, and how he felt. Fiona read each chapter as I went and offered guidance and feedback. It was a truly emotional journey. I couldn’t have done it without the two of them. In fact, I never would have written it at all but for them.
Kate Fox is a ‘gentle activist’ and campaigner for the voices of northerners, the working class, women, and the neurodiverse. She is a Cultural Ambassador for the 
Shtum is a heart-wrenching and honest novel written by Jem Lester, inspired by his experiences with his own autistic son. He said, ‘A lot of the behaviours and the feelings that Jonah inspires in the book are very close to my feelings, because I couldn’t really see the point of reinventing an autistic character when I had one so close to home.’
Diary of a Young Naturalist by Dara McAnulty was one of my favourites of last year. Dara is autistic and a teacher once told him he couldn’t write. Did he ever prove them wrong. This glorious book, with writing that is wise and beautiful, chronicles Dara’s experiences as he turns fifteen, and describes his love of and connection with nature, this love of wildlife intense and inspiring.
What Cares The Sea? is the true account by the other man lost at sea with my grandad, Kenneth Cooke. It’s out of print and hard to get hold of, but there are a few copies floating around. It’s a brutal, searing, honest account of isolation, bravery, survival against the odds, and friendship.
Deon Meyer takes us to the scorching Karoo for Fever. This is more a post-apocalyptic coming of age story than a traditional mystery or thriller. The Times and Steven King both raved about it. The small community remaining after a deadly pandemic sets up their new home near the Gariep dam, hopeful that the water and hydroelectricity will help them keep the remnants of the old civilisation, but also build a better one.
Put on your dark glasses and indulge in armchair travel with Jeff Siger’s Murder in Mykonos, the first of the Chief Inspector Andreas Kaldis mysteries, all set in Greece. Unpopular with the powers that be, Kaldis is sent to peaceful, tourist haven Mykonos. When two young women are murdered, the pressure is on, not only to solve the murders, but also to save the island’s tourist industry.
Femi Kayode’s Lightseekers is a stunning debut. The first line paints the scene: ‘The October sun is as hot as the blood of the angry mob.’ Three young men are mercilessly beaten before being set alight. The question is not who committed the crime, but why and who was behind it. One of the grieving fathers hires Philip Taiwo, an investigative psychologist who specialises in the motives behind crimes and mob violence. He soon finds he’s taken on far more than he bargained for.
Step back a hundred years and meet Perveen Mistry, Bombay’s only female lawyer, as she makes her debut in Sujata Massey’s multiple-award-winning The Widows of Malabar Hill. When she raises questions about the validity of a will, Mistry is thrown into the complexity of religious and legal diversity in a country struggling to free itself of British rule.
The Missing American is the first novel in Kwei Quartey’s new series featuring female private investigator, Emma Djan. The plot revolves around the activities of the young men who make fortunes scamming people on the internet with the assistance of witchcraft from traditional priests. Along the way, one of their targets goes missing. Emma has to find out how and why. It’s up for an Edgar award this year.
Step back another hundred years, and watch Investigator Yashim become embroiled in a plot to overthrow the Ottoman Empire in Edgar-winning The Janissary Tree by Jason Goodwin, the first of five Investigator Yashim novels. You will be able to hear the sights and sounds of the city, smell the spices of the souk, as the wily inspector plies his trade.
Mike Nicol’s crime fiction is a treat. Take Power Play. Staccato prose, tense plotting, intriguing characters. Don’t even think of crossing one of Nicol’s villains. The sun beats down on beautiful Cape Town, but this isn’t the city tourists see. Abalone smugglers. Secret agents with hidden agendas. Chinese smugglers. Rival gangs for whom murder is just part of the job. And a nod to Shakespeare thrown in.
In Ned-Kelly-Award-winner Candice Fox’s first novel in her Crimson Lake series, itself titled Crimson Lake, ex-detective, Ted Conkaffey, teams up with private investigator and convicted murderer, Amanda Pharrell, to help her solve a case of deception and obsession. What a pair! Beware of crocodiles when you set out your deck chair on the beach to read the story.
Pick up Jonathon King’s Edgar-Award-winning The Blue Edge of Midnight, the first of the Max Freeman Mysteries. Ex-cop Freeman exiles himself to the steamy Florida Everglades, wracked with guilt over the death of a twelve-year-old. When he finds the body of a young girl in the swamp, he becomes the prime suspect and has to dig into his own past to prove his innocence.
