Russell James is a
British writer whose first books were hard-hitting, low-life thrillers, mainly
set in south east London. Later he added
non-fiction, historical and other novels to his repertoire, and to date he has written
ten crime novels, four historical novels and one more personal novel, along with
short stories and four biographical encyclopaedias. (He was also a main contributing editor to
Harcourt’s Encyclopaedia of British Crime
Writing.) In 2001 he was elected Chairman of the
Crime Writers Association.
As a crime writer
Russell was named by GQ magazine as ‘the great unknown talent of British
crime writing’, by Ian Rankin as ‘the Godfather of British Noir’ and by the Times
as ‘surely the best of Britain's darker crime writers’.
After several years writing
in different genres he has now returned to crime with what at first sight
appears to be, but as it turns out is not a more traditional tale, The Newly Discovered Diaries of Doctor
Kristal (subtitled: whose Strange
Obsessions caused him to Murder some annoying patients).
Shots:
That’s a mouthful of a title!
RJ: Yes, it’s long – but why not? It’s my first crime book for five years, and I
had lots to say!
Shots: It’s not the kind we would expect from you.
RJ: Not even set in London! No, it was time for a breakaway, I guess,
though the book still has more than a touch of British noir. It is, I hope, a wry and somewhat outrageous
psychological crime story, and I’ve chosen to tell it in diary form, the diary having
been written in secret by the prissy and pedantic Doctor Kristal, a 35 year old
virgin –
Shots: A virgin – at 35?
RJ: He is not, shall we say, a normal man – and sex,
or rather, his 35 years without it is what stirs up the strange obsessions which
lead him to start murdering his patients.
Shots: Hardly a normal doctor! Harold Shipman, perhaps?
RJ: Any resemblance . . . No, my doctor is quite different, based on no
one you could identify – I hope.
Shots: And why does he –
RJ: Oh, his intentions are strictly
honourable! He only wants to help. Among his patients, you see, is an attractive
young 19-year-old, grateful for some help he gave before but now saddled with
an unwanted pregnancy. (This is 1963,
remember.) Then there’s the beautiful
Eleanor, something of a hypochondriac and unhappily married to a sexually
voracious and overweening actor more than a decade older than her. Another woman faces a more unpleasant
dilemma, and it’s in helping her that the doctor finds himself in hot water.
Shots: You’ve set the novel in 1963. Why?
RJ: It was a tumultuous time – the
year when ‘sex was discovered’ supposedly, which makes his virgin state all the
more peculiar. In the background lies
the Profumo affair and the assassination of President Kennedy and, against these,
Doctor Kristal’s provincial life may seem of little significance –
Shots: Not to his victims!
RJ: No, and unfortunately, although he
means well, none of his solutions go to plan.
People get in the way – like, there are two other doctors in the town, and
they both have plans for Doctor Kristal.
His own plans are . . . a little wacky, shall we say?
Shots: Does he get away with it?
RJ: Oh, come on – you want the end of the
book? Whether he does or not is not the
main point; the fun comes in seeing how his obsessions gradually take him over
– which he can’t see but you can – and how his devious schemes pan out.
Shots: We’ve had to wait 5 years for this.
RJ: Well, I do have an excuse! In these interim years I’ve written those 4
biographical picture books, 2 historical novels and a modern-day
straightforward one (Exit 39). So I haven’t been idle. You can, of course, get all the background on
my website, http://prosperobooks.wordpress.com/
or take a look at the Kindle version of the book itself at http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00LWH9R4U
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