:00:14. > :00:19.On BBC News, it is time for Meet the Author with Nick Higham.
:00:20. > :00:28.Robin Bucas' works is a departure. It is about a time travelling
:00:28. > :00:38.serial killer and it is set in Chicago between 1931 and 1993. We
:00:38. > :00:40.
:00:40. > :00:44.came here to London's Forbidden I suppose if you are known for
:00:44. > :00:48.anything, it is science fiction set in South Africa, but this book is
:00:48. > :00:52.set in Chicago, why? I had the idea about a time travelling serial
:00:52. > :00:57.killer and I knew it would be set in the 20th century and I was
:00:57. > :01:02.interested in how the 20th century shaped us. If I set it in South
:01:02. > :01:05.Africa it would have become an apartheid story. I wanted to
:01:05. > :01:12.explore big issues. I wanted to explore how the world has changed.
:01:12. > :01:16.How highways reshaped cities. How women's rights have changed. How
:01:16. > :01:20.some things keep coming up and again and again. It is about time
:01:20. > :01:26.time travel. It is about the loops of history.
:01:26. > :01:29.This is about the social history of America, particularly women? That
:01:29. > :01:37.ascends to much of the history about the western world. South
:01:37. > :01:43.Africa has a lot in common with South Africa. A lot of the of the
:01:43. > :01:52.world has problems with segregation and all kinds of things
:01:52. > :01:57.Your book moves between 1932 and 1993. He is difficult to catch
:01:57. > :02:03.because nobodies sees the links between crime which are separated
:02:03. > :02:11.in crime. Why did you pick 1993 as the final date? I stopped at 1993
:02:11. > :02:14.because I wanted to avoid the internet and cellphones. The person
:02:14. > :02:19.who survives the serial attack has got to piece together the mystery.
:02:19. > :02:22.He leaves clues on the bodies. So for example, there is a 1993
:02:22. > :02:32.baseball card taken from a young woman that he killed and left on a
:02:32. > :02:32.
:02:32. > :02:36.woman in 1943 and if that was to emerge, a 1993 baseball card on a
:02:36. > :02:43.1943 corpse and the internet would be over that. We have just seen
:02:43. > :02:48.that with the Boston bombings. The internet would have gone crazy.
:02:48. > :02:54.They would have solved the case in two days. Between that and CCTV
:02:54. > :02:59.cameras, I wouldn't have had a novel. This is about a violent man
:02:59. > :03:03.who did violent things. You don't spare us the details. Why go full
:03:03. > :03:13.throttle? I don't go full throttle. It might feel that way. I was
:03:13. > :03:14.
:03:14. > :03:21.interested in how crime fiction and the news, depict dead women as just
:03:21. > :03:26.bodies. That's all we know about her. She becomes a statistic and, a
:03:26. > :03:32.catalogue of wounds and I was interested in who they were they
:03:32. > :03:37.were beyond that. The violence is written in a very real way. I want
:03:37. > :03:40.you you to know what real violence is. Real violence is shocking and I
:03:40. > :03:46.wanted to write it that way in the book, but it hangs on one or two
:03:46. > :03:50.details. The whole chapter will be about the woman's life and why she
:03:50. > :03:58.was remarkable and what a tragic loss it is that this horrible,
:03:58. > :04:03.hideous man has come and cut that life short. It is not that typical
:04:03. > :04:06.thing where it is almost sexy because we are complicit. I try to
:04:06. > :04:10.avoid that. It is shocking and if you are sensitive, you maybe
:04:10. > :04:14.shouldn't read it. It is because I wanted to reflect the real world.
:04:14. > :04:21.So what extent do you feel like a South African writer, but South
:04:21. > :04:28.Africa is a limiting place and you need to be able to work on a larger
:04:28. > :04:32.canvass? You probably do need to work on a larger canvass. A lot of
:04:32. > :04:37.people reacted to my novel because it was set in South Africa. Because
:04:37. > :04:42.it felt like an alien place while still having resonances with other
:04:42. > :04:45.cities. I didn't choose to write in America because it would be more
:04:45. > :04:50.commercial. I did it because I didn't want to write about
:04:50. > :04:54.apartheid for this book. But it did work out to be a much more
:04:54. > :05:03.commercial bookment I would like to be able to write about anywhere I
:05:03. > :05:08.want and I think international artists do that.
:05:08. > :05:13.Your publishers commissioned a cinema-style trailer for it.
:05:13. > :05:18.He gave it to me when I was a little girl. He said it was to
:05:18. > :05:25.remember him by. He didn't mean me, obviously. The dead don't remember
:05:25. > :05:29.The script is taken from the book. They send me the photographs. They
:05:29. > :05:34.were just amazing to work with. I was very much involved with it. But
:05:34. > :05:40.yes, it is also entirely theirs and they have done the most beautiful
:05:40. > :05:44.job and it really does feel like a film trailer. I have had people say,
:05:44. > :05:52."Is it a movie?" Not yet, but hopefully.
:05:52. > :05:59.This book has an element of the Superman trail about it. Why not
:05:59. > :06:05.write about realism? Setting it in the near future, it allows you to
:06:05. > :06:09.play with ideas in a way that gets over people's issues fatigue. We
:06:09. > :06:12.see so many horrendous things on the news every day and it is easy
:06:12. > :06:15.to change the channel on that. And fiction and in particular, high
:06:15. > :06:19.concept, where it is engaging and interesting and it is just
:06:19. > :06:22.distanced enough from the real world. There is just enough of a
:06:22. > :06:27.twist on the real world that it feels fresh and feels different and
:06:27. > :06:33.it doesn't feel like the horrors we endure every day. It allows you to
:06:33. > :06:37.explore that and also, allows you a way into the horror and to try and
:06:37. > :06:43.find some empathy. I think stories really get you into someone's head
:06:43. > :06:48.and it is a wonderful medium to explore that. What are you doing?
:06:48. > :06:54.He says putting brightness in his voice. Really, he has never seen a
:06:54. > :06:58.child with such crazy hair. Like she got spun around in her own
:06:59. > :07:05.personal dust devil. You are here for a book signing and to meet the
:07:05. > :07:08.public. Who are your readers? a range of people. I seem to have
:07:08. > :07:12.equal male and female people. I think they are people like me. I
:07:12. > :07:17.write with myself in mind. I write books for me and I hope there are
:07:17. > :07:22.enough other people like me who will find them interesting.
:07:22. > :07:28.What do you want them to take away from your books? I want people to
:07:28. > :07:35.come along for an amazing ride. To be captured by an amazing story,