The Crime Warp

I have followed the progress of James Carol (and Jefferson Winter) with eager enjoyment for the past year and am really pleased that he’s agreed to this interview (poor man doesn’t know what he’s letting himself in for!) James Carol’s character Jefferson Winter is extrovert, highly intelligent, instantly noticeable and gregarious.  When I first met his creator James Carol last year at Theakston's Crime Writing Festival, Harrogate I was immediately struck by the quiet calm that emanated from him.  I felt immediately relaxed and at ease  and then… I discovered what his day time job was and the reason for his calmness was clear.... read on to discover what James Carol does when he isn't writing!

Photo: Poppy Berry Today’s guest on The Crime Warp is A. N. Widdecombe, former politician, part time dancer and fiction writer.   I only recently found out that Ann was an author when her first foray into crime fiction, The Dancing Detective, was published on Amazon in July this year.   I thought Ann would be a perfect guest for The Crime Warp and here she is! So, welcome to The Crime Warp Ann.   My first questions are about writing in general - how important is writing and when did you start writing? What kind of things did you write about? I always wanted to write and finished what I grandly described as “my first book” when I was about nine or ten. In reality it was a couple of exercise books stuck together. I also wrote a play which friends and I used to act for the neighbours. By the time I was 18 I had produced a full-length novel but I am glad I did not try to get it published as it was set in Ancient Rome and I think the estate of Quo Va...

R: The Crime Warp’s latest interview is with Peter James, most famous for his Roy Grace books, but he’s also been a script writer, film producer and writer of the world’s first “electronic novel”.   Welcome Peter, it’s a privilege to have you here. PJ: Thank you, it’s an absolute pleasure. R:   Peter, going back to your childhood, I understand that your mother was came to England as a refugee in 1938.   How did that background influence your childhood and home life?   Did it have any effect on the career path you chose? PJ:   My mother was a refugee from Vienna, but had kept hidden from my sister and I that she was a Jew.   I went to school at Charterhouse not knowing what a Jew was!   I was bullied because I looked Jewish – many people in the school, like in much of England in the early 1960s, were aggressively anti-Semitic.   One day, ten boys sat on a wall were chanting “Jew, Jew, Jew” at me.   I dived over the wal...