You can read the English version of the Interview below. 

Pauline, you are a professional writer but at the beginning of your career you have been writing business and motivational books. Today you are highly acclaimed crime novels’ writer. I must say that is amazing and uncommon way of literary career evolution. How have you started writing crime novels?

P.R. From a very young age I always wanted to be a fiction writer, and I wrote my first adventure novel when I was eleven years old. Then work and a career in marketing got in the way of further writing until I returned to it twenty years ago. In between fiction writing I was running my own marketing and training company and began writing business and motivational books, because I spotted a gap in the market for very simple and practical ‘how to’ books. But my first love was and always has been fiction. I persevered for many years learning my craft and developing my style, receiving many rejections along the way, until I won a prize in a writing competition for the first draft of my Detective DI Horton novel and I knew that I was at last on the right track. I sold my business in 2003 to concentrate on writing fiction, and in 2006 my first crime novels were published. Since then my crime and thrillers have gone from strength to strength and I have written six crime novels, five are published and the sixth will be published in late 2009.

You have created a new type of detective story – the marine mystery crime novel. Where did you get that idea from? Was the criminal genre too narrow for your ideas?

P.R.The idea for calling them marine mystery crime novels came because my novels are all set against the backdrop of the sea. They are very atmospheric and I wanted them to stand out from other crime novels in a crowded market. It describes the setting and gives readers a flavour of the type of book they are about to read.

What in your opinion makes your novels so unique? How are your books so nicely different from other crime writers?

P.R. My novels are fast-paced and action-packed which allows the reader to get into the story right from the beginning. They follow one man’s story, whether that’s my detective, DI Horton, or my thriller characters, like Alex Albury in In For the Kill. Readers experience the character’s triumphs and his tragedies and become involved and hopefully obsessed by them. And because I come from an ordinary working-class background rather than a ‘literary’ background, and have lived and worked with the characters I write about, I believe this adds reality to my novels.

What usually gives you the inspiration for the stories?

P. R. Locations are very strong for me, and because I live near the sea there are so many different areas conjuring up a variety of moods. Other times an idea can come from an overheard conversation, or someone telling me about their experiences. I have always been very interested and fascinated in people and having an ‘open’ mind always gives me more ideas for plots.

You are called a marinist. You set your action in Portsmouth, or in general, on the South Coast of England. Is this your Shangri-La, your own paradise?

P. R.I love the sea, so anywhere near it is my Shangri-La. Portsmouth and the Solent area is such a diverse area. Here there is wealth and poverty living closely together. There is a large and diverse ethnic community, inner city, modern developments and history stretching back hundreds of years.

There is sea and countryside. I really love this contrast from a creative point of view.

Why is the sea so important in the books?

P.R.Because the sea has many faces and many moods and that’s what I love about it. It mirrors my novels. The sea can be calm and beautiful but it can be very angry, and very dangerous. You can look at the sea on a beautiful day and be beguiled into thinking everything will be plain sailing and then just when you get complacent about it the wind can rise, changing everything. Just like life. There you are thinking everything’s fine and something comes out of a clear blue sky to upset your world. This is what happens to my characters. They think their lives are settled then something happens to turn it upside down. DI Horton wants to go with the tide, but he can’t. It always seems against him.

The most popular of your books are these from the marine mystery series of crime novels featuring, as you once said, the flawed but ruggedly seductive Inspector Andy Horton. DI Horton is a very complex character, described in a different shades of grey. Do you like him?

P.R.I adore him. And the more I write about him the more I like him and so do my readers, I’m pleased to say. Horton wants to do the right thing but he never seems able to. He’s had a tough upbringing having been abandoned by his mother when he was ten and being raised in Children’s homes. He desperately wants to belong, but never seems able to quite fit in.

All of your characters are very complex. Their past hides dark secrets, their motivations are not clear, their personalities have several dimensions. It’s uneasy to describe people that they seem very real. Does your characters remind you people in your life? Do you base your characters on your family/friends?

P.R.My characters are drawn from many different people I have met over the years and from an inner part of me. I believe most people and their emotions are complex and we live in a troubled and very fast world. I am fascinated by people’s personalities and motivations and have studied this in the past and lectured on it. Society changes and puts more pressure on people making them act and react in different ways and this intrigues me.

And what about their memories. Are their memories at some points your memories? Their thoughts your thoughts?

P.R.I can identify with some of my characters emotions, but I can also look at the character I have created and think what would he or she do in that situation? How would they think or behave? My marketing background has helped me to do this because part of being a successful marketing person is getting to understand your customers’ motivations and beliefs and I apply this to the characters in my novels.

Do you research murder case histories for your books? Are you interested in criminal profiling?

P.R.I keep newspaper cuttings of interesting cases and I do some research but most of the ideas, plots and development of the characters come from what I see, hear and feel. I am interested in what makes people tick.

Your books are fast-paced, action-packed and full of twists and turns. Is your pace of life similarly hectic?

P.R.My life has always been rather hectic. I’m the sort of person who likes to be working on many different projects at the same time. I have always enjoyed my work and I love writing and working hard. I respond well to working to tight deadlines, but I do like to take some time out for walking, where I can always be on the look out for new ideas for plots or thinking through a difficult aspect of a novel I’m working on.

If you could choose once again your career, would you become a writer? Does writing give you satisfaction?

P.R.Yes, yes, yes! I have always loved books and I adore words and writing. Writing gives me great pleasure and satisfaction, and what gives me even greater pleasure is when readers tell me how much they enjoy my books.

Which writers inspire you? And which of them do you like to read just for your own fun?

P.R. Enid Blyton was my greatest inspiration as a child. If it hadn’t been for her then I would never have discovered the pleasure of reading or tried to copy her when I wrote that first novel at the age of eleven. I went on to read the great crime writers like John Creasy, Leslie Charteris and the wonderful Agatha Christie who makes it all look so effortless but who had the ability to make readers keep turning the pages. That’s what I want readers to do with my books. I set out to write absorbing, entertaining crime and thriller novels, not to shock people. Yes, I want to give people something to think about, and I try to raise awareness of the social issues in our world today, but through the eyes and lives of my characters.

Could you tell me a little bit about your future plans? When can we look to the bookstore in search of your new novel? :)

P.R.I have written two more DI Horton novels, DEADLY WATERS and THE SUFFOCATING SEA, which are both published in English. I have just finished the fourth DI Horton novel, which will be published in late 2009 and I am working on the fifth. Then I will write another thriller. I’ve also written a murder mystery play which will be performed in England in November 2008 and I would like to write more plays or screenplays, as well as continuing to write my crime and thriller novels. I hope many more of my books will be published in Polish.

And so we do :) Thank you very much for the interview!

Interview by Anna Kutrzuba
http://www.zbrodniawbibliotece.pl/

 

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