When I was asked why I write about Charlie Fox, why I enjoy
it, and what lies behind the latest book in the series, FOX HUNTER, it didn’t take
much time to come up with the overriding answer.
I write what I like to read.
It sounds selfish when I put it like
that, but I think most authors write for their own enjoyment first, and the
enjoyment of others second. After all, if you don’t get some kind of a kick out
of opening up last night’s file and reading those words you scribbled down so
furiously, trying to do justice to the images swirling around inside your head,
why do it at all? There are certainly easier and less painful ways to make a
living.
I used to love reading thrillers years
ago, but couldn’t help noticing that most of the female characters spent half
the book swooning into the hero’s arms, being carried off by the baddies thus
necessitating rescue, screaming at inopportune moments, tending the wounded, or
cooking.
Even at that early age, I knew I wanted
to read about the kinds of role-model women who didn’t need a man to complete
them and were more than capable of doing their own rescuing,
thank-you-very-much. And when I couldn’t seem to find what I was looking for, I
decided my only option was to write my own.
Right from the start, I didn’t want Charlie
Fox to be some kind of caricature superwoman. I tried to make her believable
and human, with all the flaws that entails. But, she also has the ability to
kill when the circumstances dictate, which is still not a readily acceptable
trait in female characters. Those who do so are often portrayed as ice-cold assassins,
deranged serial killers, or a thinly disguised ‘guy in nylons’.
Instead, I saw Charlie as having a very
distinct line in the sand, which you crossed at your peril. She will go a long
way to avoid conflict, but once something kicks off, you can bet she’ll be the
one to finish it—hard and fast. I’d already learned a good many self-defence
techniques, cherry-picking among different disciplines, when my day-job as a
photojournalist led to death-threats, and I used this knowledge to provide
Charlie with a background teaching those same tricks of survival to others.
And why had she learned them in the
first place? It had to come as a result of bitter experience. At the time, the
scandal of trainees being brutally hazed at the Deep Cut army camp was hitting
the headlines. It provided the perfect reason for someone like Charlie, who
seemed to be the ideal candidate for the military, to be hiding out in a
northern English city and passing on those skills to other women.
I added to that mix parents who seemed
incapable of showing affection to their only child—a nervy mother and a
clinical father—and who had not approved of their daughter’s choice of
profession to start with, never mind when it all went to hell around her.
The vicious attack she suffered back
when she was in the army colours Charlie’s thoughts and actions to a large
extent in the early books. Although the effects do lessen over time, they are
never entirely forgotten. Neither does she allow them to define her—it is just
something that happened to her, not all of who she is. And I started the first
book in the series, KILLER
INSTINCT, at the point when Charlie turns the corner, stops running,
and begins to discover just how strong her life experience has made her.
But for this latest instalment, FOX
HUNTER, I knew I was going to have to return to the original crime and lay out
not only what had really happened to Charlie, but also who really was
responsible, and why. I tried to do this in a way that did not wallow in the
details. I don’t enjoy reading gore-porn and certainly had no desire to write
it.
I try in all the books to take Charlie
on a personal journey as well as that connected to the main story thread. For
that part, I took as my starting point a news report about modern terrorist
funding, details of the private military contractor (PMC) circuit, and
information about honour killings.
Added to that was my knowledge of the
bits of the Middle East I’d visited, and also the landscapes of Saddleworth
Moor in the UK and Borovets in Bulgaria, with its overland route from the Black
Sea via Ukraine, Moldova, and Romania. All fascinating areas with their own
character to try to get across in the course of the story, but without turning
it into a travelogue.
As always, it’s a fine balance, but
nobody ever said things would be easy …
Zoë Sharp wrote the first in her crime
thriller series featuring former Special Forces trainee turned bodyguard,
Charlotte ‘Charlie’ Fox, after receiving death-threats in the course of her
work as a photojournalist. She has given occasional workshops on self-defence,
and how to improvise weapons out of ordinary household items, but is otherwise
remarkably normal in most respects. FOX HUNTER is book twelve in the
award-winning Charlie Fox series. www.ZoeSharp.com
Buy it from SHOTS A-Store.
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