:00:00. > :00:00.In this week's Meet the Author, Jim Naughtie talks to the crime
:00:00. > :00:09.writer Sophie Hannah about her book The Narrow Bed.
:00:10. > :00:15.Sophie Hannah is a crime writer who crashed psychological thrillers that
:00:16. > :00:20.are brittle contemporary tales, complicated stories of rock lives,
:00:21. > :00:25.people who are cynics and many unlovable characters -- tough lives.
:00:26. > :00:30.A detective of the golden age of the -- from the Google flick-mac golden
:00:31. > :00:34.age of the detective story. Under the gritty dark surface of her
:00:35. > :00:39.latest book, The Narrow Bed, lies a quite traditional fiend thought --
:00:40. > :00:57.from the golden age of the detective story. Welcome.
:00:58. > :01:03.Sophie, this is a contemporary novel, a gritty novel, and a very
:01:04. > :01:08.compensated story in many ways. You use all kinds of devices as a
:01:09. > :01:13.storyteller, but hidden in there it strikes me as a good old-fashioned
:01:14. > :01:24.detective story. Perhaps a bit of police procedural... Argue a Devo T
:01:25. > :01:36.of the traditional detective story? -- are you a devotee?.
:01:37. > :01:39.You know, I grew up reading Agatha Christie, Dorothy Sayers,
:01:40. > :01:41.Ruth Rendell's Inspector Wexford books, Colin Dexter's Inspector
:01:42. > :01:44.Morse books, and I don't think that the traditional detective story
:01:45. > :01:47.with clues and a super-genius sleuth who works it all out in the end,
:01:48. > :01:49.I don't think that has to be old-fashioned.
:01:50. > :01:52.That's kind of my whole point really, is that you can do
:01:53. > :01:54.all of that and offer all of those satisfactions
:01:55. > :01:58.It follows that, of course, we're not going to spoil the puzzle
:01:59. > :02:00.and the solution for anyone, because that
:02:01. > :02:05.But it's true, it strikes me, that you take great care at the end
:02:06. > :02:08.of the book to make sure that no-one's going to feel cheated,
:02:09. > :02:11.that there's something that's just thrown in at the end.
:02:12. > :02:14.So when the brilliant detective reveals the solution to the mystery,
:02:15. > :02:17.he or she can't use ingredients that the reader has
:02:18. > :02:27.So you have to have planted all the relevant information in such
:02:28. > :02:30.a way as the reader hopefully won't put it all together,
:02:31. > :02:33.so that when the detective announces this is who did it and why,
:02:34. > :02:35.ideally, the reader should then think -
:02:36. > :02:38.oh, yeah, I saw all of those things, but I just didn't put them together
:02:39. > :02:44.But the mechanism that you use for telling the story is one that
:02:45. > :02:46.dear old Dorothy Sayers wouldn't have recognised really.
:02:47. > :02:49.I mean, we've got a central character who has written a book -
:02:50. > :02:51.'Origami', which comes up again and again in the plot.
:02:52. > :02:55.There's also a lot of journalism in there.
:02:56. > :02:59.And in a way, one of the elements of the plot, and I don't think I'm
:03:00. > :03:04.giving anything away when I say that we're talking about serial murders
:03:05. > :03:07.or a number of murders where a message is left or handed -
:03:08. > :03:09.rather like the Black Spot in Treasure Island -
:03:10. > :03:13.as a signal that death is on its way.
:03:14. > :03:16.And we're talking really about people who are doing
:03:17. > :03:18.with the question of whether they can believe
:03:19. > :03:22.Well, I mean, this is one of the sort of contemporary
:03:23. > :03:31.The serial killer is killing pairs of best friends,
:03:32. > :03:33.and so the police have, understandably,
:03:34. > :03:36.decided that something to do with best friends is motivating him.
:03:37. > :03:38.It's not a huge stretch to get to that conclusion.
:03:39. > :03:40.But there's this journalist, Sondra Halliday, who wants
:03:41. > :03:45.And this is something I've noticed happening a lot with life
:03:46. > :03:48.as it is today, with all the sort of online social media stuff.
:03:49. > :03:50.And she intrudes constantly in the story.
:03:51. > :03:56.She kind of launches a battle against the police to get to define
:03:57. > :04:04.She says that this serial killer, who the police are calling
:04:05. > :04:06.'Billy Dead Mates' because he's killing pairs of best mates,
:04:07. > :04:10.she says that because three out of his four victims so far have been
:04:11. > :04:11.women, that his motive must be misogyny.
:04:12. > :04:16.She is a feminist of a strident sort, one could say.
:04:17. > :04:21.I'm trying to be as measured as I can.
:04:22. > :04:25.But this is one of the things that I've noticed happening these days.
:04:26. > :04:30.When a crime is committed and it's on the news,
:04:31. > :04:32.people immediately start, different groups start lobbying
:04:33. > :04:37.to get the right to define the meaning of that murder.
:04:38. > :04:40.So, you know, if somebody crashes a plane into a mountain and it's
:04:41. > :04:43.suggested that he might have been suffering from depression,
:04:44. > :04:45.immediately, depressives pop up and say, "I'm depressed and I've
:04:46. > :04:48.never killed anyone, so it can't be depression".
:04:49. > :04:51.So I wanted to kind of have that battle for the meaning of these
:04:52. > :04:56.Meanwhile, the real meaning survives intact in the midst
:04:57. > :05:02.Now, the real meaning is known at the beginning only
:05:03. > :05:12.And Billy Dead Mates sort of realises that,
:05:13. > :05:14.actually, other people are trying to define
:05:15. > :05:18.And Billy Dead Mates doesn't like that at all because if you go
:05:19. > :05:21.to the trouble of committing a series of murders,
:05:22. > :05:24.you want to be able to get to define the narrative of those
:05:25. > :05:28.And this is where you take yourself into what you could call
:05:29. > :05:29.Ruth Rendell territory, Val McDermid territory,
:05:30. > :05:34.that dark world of the psychological puzzle, as well as the physical
:05:35. > :05:38.What fascinates you about it, the darkness?
:05:39. > :05:44.I'm not interested in crimes committed by evil monsters,
:05:45. > :05:49.if there is such a thing as pure evil monsters.
:05:50. > :05:54.I'm interested in the kind of crimes committed by people
:05:55. > :05:57.who are subjected to just so much stress or mental anguish or pressure
:05:58. > :06:01.that they kind of crack and their minds dangerously warp.
:06:02. > :06:04.So, you know, I'm interested in the psychological because it
:06:05. > :06:10.helps us understand why terrible things happen.
:06:11. > :06:16.And, in a sense, it's defining what we mean by evil.
:06:17. > :06:19.Not something existential that just arrives, but something
:06:20. > :06:22.that was there bubbling and bringing people to the edge all the time.
:06:23. > :06:26.And, in fact, my detective, Simon Waterhouse, at the very
:06:27. > :06:31.Having successfully apprehended Billy Dead Mates, Simon poses
:06:32. > :06:35.the question, "Has it ever occurred to you that you might be evil?"
:06:36. > :06:37.And Billy Dead Mates is absolutely shocked and astonished by this
:06:38. > :06:41.suggestion because, again, there's a totally different
:06:42. > :06:46.narrative going on in the killer's mind about what this
:06:47. > :06:52.is all about, and evil has nothing to with it.
:06:53. > :06:55.And when we get to the end, we realise that both these
:06:56. > :06:57.narratives, so to speak, have been intertwined in front
:06:58. > :06:59.of our eyes right through the book.
:07:00. > :07:03.Well, that's lovely to hear because what I always want...
:07:04. > :07:07.what I always hope will happen is that when readers get to the end,
:07:08. > :07:09.they realise that they saw it all, but just didn't...
:07:10. > :07:15.It was all there before but, suddenly, it takes a different shape
:07:16. > :07:19.You mentioned Simon - the sleuth, as it were.
:07:20. > :07:27.And he's an attractive character in many ways.
:07:28. > :07:32.I had an e-mail this very morning from a reader who loved the book,
:07:33. > :07:34.but wanted to lodge a complaint about Simon's annoyingness
:07:35. > :07:41.And I'm afraid I love him to bits, however annoying he may be.
:07:42. > :07:44.Well, I'm not saying I love him to bits, but he's not as annoying
:07:45. > :07:47.a human being as some of his colleagues are.
:07:48. > :07:51.Kim, she is that aforementioned very irritating character,
:07:52. > :07:57.But I couldn't bear her really.
:07:58. > :08:09....but there's possibly a reason for that.
:08:10. > :08:11.I'm interested in why you didn't like her.
:08:12. > :08:13.Is it because she's kind of stroppy and abrasive?
:08:14. > :08:21.The way she dealt with things as they went chapter by chapter
:08:22. > :08:23.sometimes made my flesh creep, you know?
:08:24. > :08:30.I like her because she's someone who has taken so much pain and grief
:08:31. > :08:33.and ill-treatment by others up to a certain point in her life,
:08:34. > :08:35.and then she reached that point and she started to
:08:36. > :08:42.And so I am fully on her side in standing up for herself.
:08:43. > :08:45.And, to be honest, the reason my characters are so kind of stroppy
:08:46. > :08:47.and stand up for themselves in a possibly over-the-top way
:08:48. > :08:50.is because in real life, I'm a complete doormat.
:08:51. > :08:55.I'm incredibly diplomatic and emollient.
:08:56. > :08:58.I always say to people who say, "Can you make your heroines nicer?",
:08:59. > :09:01.I always say, "If I become more unpleasant in real life,
:09:02. > :09:02.then maybe my heroines can get nicer.
:09:03. > :09:05.But if I want to remain tactful, my heroines have to be stroppy."
:09:06. > :09:09.Well, I'm sure that's not going to happen.
:09:10. > :09:12.And the world you paint here is a pretty dark one,
:09:13. > :09:18.but it's got some vivid colours in it, hasn't it?
:09:19. > :09:20.I mean, do you think it's possible to say just finally
:09:21. > :09:22.that there is anything like redemption in this
:09:23. > :09:32.I think the redemption is in, hopefully, if I've done my job
:09:33. > :09:35.right, is in the sort of refusal to write off any human
:09:36. > :09:37.being and in the attempt to understand that if we could just
:09:38. > :09:40.cause one another less pain, then there would be fewer people out
:09:41. > :09:47.So, you know, I try to write non-judgemental crime novels.
:09:48. > :09:51.I try to write crime novels in which I can totally see that
:09:52. > :09:53.in a different set of circumstances, a less fortunate of circumstances,
:09:54. > :09:57.I myself might do something terrible.
:09:58. > :10:00.So I'm not judging the bad guys - or the good guys.
:10:01. > :10:03.I'm just sort of saying, this is what human beings are like.
:10:04. > :10:06.And they are light and dark, but the dark is there.
:10:07. > :10:10.Sophie Hannah, thanks very much for talking about The Narrow Bed.