My
debut novel, The Dark Inside, should
probably not exist.
Loosely-based
on a real life serial killer case from 1946, it follows disgraced New York City
reporter, Charlie Yates, as he's sent to Texarkana, a small town on the
Texas/Arkansas border, to investigate a series of brutal attacks on young
couples. In the face of hostile cops, secretive reporters and terrified
citizens, Charlie quickly realises there's more to the murders than anyone is
willing to admit - and his pursuit of the truth could cost him everything.
When
people hear what it's about, the question I'm most commonly asked is why I
chose to set my novel in such a distant time and place. There's no
straightforward answer.
I'm
a lifelong Londoner, born decades after the murders took place. I've visited the
USA more than twenty times, but before I started writing the book, I'd never
been to Texarkana, or either of the states it straddles. Moreover, my previous
attempts at writing - one completed novel and tens of thousands of words of
false starts - were set in London in the present day - taking 'write what you know' at its most
literal. When I stumbled across the case the novel is based on, I was
thirty-thousand words into writing a different manuscript. I dropped it
immediately, to start researching the book that became The Dark Inside.
The Texarkana Moonlight Murders, as the case became known,
gripped me from the second I started reading about them. The facts of the case,
while tragic, horrifying and not to be trivialised, were not extreme by serial
killer standards: five dead, three more seriously wounded; the victims mostly
young couples, attacked in lovers' lanes. The killer was never caught, but the
attacks stopped after several months, and life slowly returned to normal.
Nonetheless, I felt an incredible nervous tension as I read what took place.
The
terror was in the details. The first couple attacked survived to tell their
story: they were parked up on a rural lane after a date night - like all kids
their age, the only place they could get some privacy. Without warning, a
flashlight beam came on. Someone shone it right in their eyes. Alarmed, but not
yet knowing the source, the couple peered out into the darkness. It was then
that the young woman saw a man standing a short distance away, a hood over his
head with holes for his eyes and mouth, and a gun in hand.
It's
the stuff of nightmares - an armed man stepping out of the darkness. Coming for
you. Isolated; vulnerable. Terrified.
It
went on like that, and as I read, I began to understand the climate that
developed in Texarkana. Fear, mistrust, paranoia. Disbelief. Helplessness. This
was the start of it, for me; a sense of the atmosphere that would form the
backdrop of story - if it could be recreated in print. At the same time, I could
hear the voice of the protagonist coming together in my head. Charlie Yates
didn't arrive fully-formed - like any character, he grew over time and as the
writing progressed - but his voice, the voice needed to tell the story, was
there from the start. A certain tone; a man with too many bad miles on his
clock, who thinks he's experienced the worst of humanity - but who's about to
be embroiled in a nightmare that
I
guess what I'm saying is that, in some senses, I didn't choose the story I
wanted to write - it chose me. That sounds wishy-washy, but what I mean is that
the starting point for this novel wasn't me sitting down and planning where and
when I wanted it to be set, who the characters were, what the plot was. I'd done
that with my previous books, and it led me to the same place each time: London,
present day, characters who were a lot like people I knew. This was different;
it was being gripped by a feeling, and a certainty that there was no other book
I wanted to write. If I'd thought too hard about the challenges of setting the
story in such an unfamiliar place and time, I might never have had the guts to
try. As it was, none of that mattered to me - I had the story I wanted to tell,
and nothing else was going to interest me until it was done.
I
had a blast writing The Dark Inside,
and equally its sequel. I've learned to trust my instincts in the process; I'd
encourage any aspiring author to do the same.
You can follow Rod
Reynolds on Twitter @Rod_WR
The Dark Inside by Rod Reynolds is out now (Faber
& Faber, £12.99)
1946,
Texarkana: a town on the border of Texas and Arkansas. Disgraced New York
reporter Charlie Yates has been sent to cover the story of a spate of brutal
murders - young couples who've been slaughtered at a local date spot. Charlie
finds himself drawn into the case by the beautiful and fiery Lizzie, sister to
one of the victims, Alice - the only person to have survived the attacks and
seen the killer up close. But Charlie
has his own demons to fight, and as he starts to dig into the murders he
discovers that the people of Texarkana have secrets that they want kept hidden
at all costs. Before long, Charlie discovers that powerful forces might be
protecting the killer, and as he investigates further his pursuit of the truth
could cost him more than his job...
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