0:00:00 > 0:00:01If you have a ticket, it looks like you are in for a treat. That ends
0:00:01 > 0:00:09this edition of Outside Source, we will see you in the New Year.
0:00:09 > 0:00:11Now it's time for Meet the Author.
0:00:11 > 0:00:14Vera Stanhope rides again.
0:00:14 > 0:00:16The Seagulll is the eighth book by Ann Cleeves featuring
0:00:16 > 0:00:18her slightly scruffy, determined but very warm
0:00:18 > 0:00:20detective inspector, who's drawn into a mystery touching
0:00:20 > 0:00:22rather uncomfortably on the story of her own father and his dodgy
0:00:22 > 0:00:26friends on Tyneside.
0:00:26 > 0:00:29It's been an immensely successful series from a writer who's been high
0:00:29 > 0:00:32in the league table of British crime writers for many years.
0:00:32 > 0:00:34Her other detective inspector, Jimmy Perez, for example,
0:00:34 > 0:00:36having become a favourite TV cop in Shetland.
0:00:36 > 0:00:46Welcome.
0:00:54 > 0:00:59When you get a character - invent a character -
0:00:59 > 0:01:01that you really like, like Vera Stanhope, you like to
0:01:01 > 0:01:06stick with them, don't you?
0:01:06 > 0:01:10I do, and I think that's one of the joys of writing crime fiction.
0:01:10 > 0:01:13There are very few other genres where you can follow a character
0:01:13 > 0:01:14through a number of books.
0:01:14 > 0:01:18There's some literary fiction, but crime, it's expected that we're
0:01:18 > 0:01:21going to write a series, and it's great to be able to develop
0:01:21 > 0:01:22a character that grows.
0:01:22 > 0:01:26That's an interesting phrase - "it's expected".
0:01:26 > 0:01:32You know that you're writing, not for a specific audience,
0:01:32 > 0:01:35but for a general audience that likes this kind of story.
0:01:35 > 0:01:37You must feel that you now know them quite well?
0:01:37 > 0:01:39Yes, because I go out and meet them.
0:01:39 > 0:01:42I love doing library events and book shop events and meeting readers.
0:01:42 > 0:01:44And I'm a reader, I'm a fan as well.
0:01:44 > 0:01:47I read crime fiction, so I love that sense of getting
0:01:47 > 0:01:50to know a character very well, and watching him grow or her grow.
0:01:50 > 0:01:53I think crime writers as a breed are like that, aren't they?
0:01:53 > 0:01:55I mean, they all read each other's work...
0:01:55 > 0:01:56Yeah.
0:01:56 > 0:01:58..even though maybe they don't like to admit it?
0:01:58 > 0:02:00Yeah, I think we're a very jolly bunch.
0:02:00 > 0:02:02We're so used to people looking down their noses at us,
0:02:02 > 0:02:04because we're genre fiction, that we come together
0:02:04 > 0:02:05and we fight back.
0:02:05 > 0:02:07Those days have gone, haven't they?
0:02:07 > 0:02:08I mean...
0:02:08 > 0:02:10I think there's still a little bit of that.
0:02:10 > 0:02:12You think there's a wee bit of snobbishness about?
0:02:12 > 0:02:14Yeah, still a bit of that.
0:02:14 > 0:02:18But you all enjoy paddling around in gore, and all these dark deeds,
0:02:18 > 0:02:23and actually you're like sort of, I don't know, anybody who works
0:02:23 > 0:02:26in a kind of profession or trade, where they're facing death
0:02:26 > 0:02:28all the time, they're actually quite full of fun and stories.
0:02:28 > 0:02:29Yeah, I think so.
0:02:29 > 0:02:34I'm not really into the gore.
0:02:34 > 0:02:37I'm more into using that as a framework to develop characters
0:02:37 > 0:02:40and to look at the things that really interest me, so...
0:02:40 > 0:02:43Well, we don't want to talk about the plot in great detail,
0:02:43 > 0:02:45because obviously that would spoil it for people who haven't
0:02:45 > 0:02:46read the book yet.
0:02:46 > 0:02:50But we can say that Vera Stanhope, your detective inspector in this
0:02:50 > 0:02:54series, the eighth book in the series, is taken, by chance -
0:02:54 > 0:02:57she doesn't really expect it - into her own past, and this rather
0:02:57 > 0:03:01dodgy ne'er-do-well father of hers, who had been sort of slightly grand,
0:03:01 > 0:03:03but then shall we say, fell into bad company?
0:03:03 > 0:03:05Yeah.
0:03:05 > 0:03:12It's classic fictional material, isn't it?
0:03:12 > 0:03:15I think it is, and I love that idea of looking at the relationship
0:03:15 > 0:03:18between the daughter and the father, and that theme, I think,
0:03:18 > 0:03:20goes through the book - there are other daughters
0:03:20 > 0:03:23and other fathers.
0:03:23 > 0:03:26And she is a character who is, you know, a bit scruffy and very
0:03:26 > 0:03:28determined and sometimes quite rough with people.
0:03:28 > 0:03:30But the essential thing, it strikes me about her,
0:03:30 > 0:03:37is her fundamental warmth.
0:03:37 > 0:03:38I mean, she's a good person?
0:03:38 > 0:03:44Oh, she is a good person - in the tradition of
0:03:44 > 0:03:46classic crime, I think.
0:03:46 > 0:03:48That the detectives are flawed, they appear brusque,
0:03:48 > 0:03:53but they are good, because at the end, I think that's
0:03:53 > 0:03:55why, especially now in times of trouble and uncertainty,
0:03:55 > 0:03:58people are going back to classic crime, because there is at the end
0:03:58 > 0:04:01a sense of order restored, of good triumphing -
0:04:01 > 0:04:03and we need that sense at a time of confusion,
0:04:03 > 0:04:04that things will be well.
0:04:04 > 0:04:06Well, that's good that you define, or interesting, that
0:04:06 > 0:04:09you define classic crime as order being restored.
0:04:09 > 0:04:11Somehow, you know, people may not all be happy,
0:04:11 > 0:04:14but at least the fundamentals have been revealed to be still there.
0:04:14 > 0:04:17Yeah.
0:04:17 > 0:04:20So, there's a reassurance involved.
0:04:20 > 0:04:24I think so, and I think that's why it's so popular at the minute, why
0:04:24 > 0:04:27The British Library Crime Classics are doing amazingly,
0:04:27 > 0:04:29the between-the-wars books, that are selling fanta...
0:04:29 > 0:04:30Yes.
0:04:30 > 0:04:33Because people like that sense of, as I say, in a time of confusion,
0:04:33 > 0:04:35that in the end, justice prevails.
0:04:35 > 0:04:36And we know where we are.
0:04:36 > 0:04:39We know where we are, and we know the difference
0:04:39 > 0:04:43between good and evil, and even if there are ambiguities
0:04:43 > 0:04:47in all the characters, and confusions, which there have
0:04:47 > 0:04:52to be, otherwise it's a pretty boring story,
0:04:52 > 0:04:55we find at the end with a sigh, that it's OK - somebody may have
0:04:55 > 0:04:58come to a sticky end, a good person may have been brought
0:04:58 > 0:04:59down, but something remains.
0:04:59 > 0:05:04Yes, and the end of The Seagull is quite ambiguous, and you're not
0:05:04 > 0:05:07quite sure that the killer has been unmasked, but there is that sense
0:05:07 > 0:05:12of justice prevailing, I think.
0:05:12 > 0:05:16It's quite good, at the same time, isn't it, to have people wondering
0:05:16 > 0:05:21about the alternative explanations to an ending - to say, "OK,
0:05:21 > 0:05:24order has been restored, but I wonder how it happened?"
0:05:24 > 0:05:25Yeah.
0:05:25 > 0:05:29No, I think that's...
0:05:29 > 0:05:33Because you want the book to live on after the reader's finished it.
0:05:33 > 0:05:35That's interesting, yes.
0:05:35 > 0:05:38Because everybody sees the book in a different way,
0:05:38 > 0:05:40that's why book clubs are so interesting, as you know.
0:05:40 > 0:05:41Yes.
0:05:41 > 0:05:43People have different ideas, they see different pictures
0:05:43 > 0:05:45in their heads when they read.
0:05:45 > 0:05:48You have a way of creating an atmosphere, and I'm thinking,
0:05:48 > 0:05:50for example, of the Shetland books, which, of course, made
0:05:50 > 0:05:55it to the small screen very, very successfully.
0:05:55 > 0:05:59And what was it about that atmosphere, there, the bleakness
0:05:59 > 0:06:02and bareness of Shetland - which is very beautiful as well -
0:06:02 > 0:06:04that gave you the spark?
0:06:04 > 0:06:07I suppose I first went there 40...
0:06:07 > 0:06:10More than 40 years ago, because I dropped out of university
0:06:10 > 0:06:13and just by chance I got the job working in the bird
0:06:13 > 0:06:17observatory in Fair Isle.
0:06:17 > 0:06:20And since then, I've been going back, but I hadn't really
0:06:20 > 0:06:21been there in midwinter.
0:06:21 > 0:06:24I went in midwinter and there was snow, and it is very bare,
0:06:24 > 0:06:26because there are no trees, really, in Shetland.
0:06:26 > 0:06:27No trees.
0:06:27 > 0:06:29And so it's that contrast, I think, between the...
0:06:29 > 0:06:32You can see for miles, but then the contrast between that
0:06:32 > 0:06:33and any possible secrets.
0:06:33 > 0:06:36And the warmth of the domestic scenes within the croft houses,
0:06:36 > 0:06:38that attracted me first.
0:06:38 > 0:06:41Yes, the fact that even on a bare landscape, all kinds
0:06:41 > 0:06:42of things can be concealed.
0:06:42 > 0:06:43Yes.
0:06:43 > 0:06:46You've also got the feeling in Shetland of stepping away
0:06:46 > 0:06:47from the world, haven't you?
0:06:47 > 0:06:50I'm not saying that pejoratively about what goes on in Shetland.
0:06:50 > 0:06:51But it is distant.
0:06:51 > 0:06:53It is.
0:06:53 > 0:06:57It is the edge of our known universe in the UK.
0:06:57 > 0:07:00It's 14 hours by boat from Aberdeen, so it's a long way.
0:07:00 > 0:07:03And it does feel separate, and it feels...
0:07:03 > 0:07:05And they're very self-reliant, Shetlanders, so they do
0:07:05 > 0:07:06things their own way.
0:07:06 > 0:07:09Do you write, you know, in a continuous stream, really,
0:07:09 > 0:07:10or are their big gaps?
0:07:10 > 0:07:11I alternate between...
0:07:11 > 0:07:13I wouldn't just want to write Vera, because...
0:07:13 > 0:07:14No.
0:07:14 > 0:07:17At the end, I've had enough and I want to go off
0:07:17 > 0:07:18and try something new.
0:07:18 > 0:07:19You want a break.
0:07:19 > 0:07:22Yes, so I've been alternating with Shetland.
0:07:22 > 0:07:25So, I've just finished the very last Shetland book, just now, so...
0:07:25 > 0:07:31The very last, the end of the series.
0:07:31 > 0:07:36The end of the series.
0:07:36 > 0:07:39Did you come to the end just because you thought, well, that's it,
0:07:39 > 0:07:42time to close the covers on this, it's done, I am not
0:07:42 > 0:07:44going to keep it, give it artificial resuscitation?
0:07:44 > 0:07:46I'd said all that I can about the place, and about
0:07:46 > 0:07:48the characters that I've created, I think.
0:07:48 > 0:07:49Yes.
0:07:49 > 0:07:53And I don't want to be bored by them - and I certainly don't want
0:07:53 > 0:07:54the readers to be bored by them.
0:07:54 > 0:07:56So, better end while I'm still enjoying it.
0:07:56 > 0:07:59Do you find writing, which you've been doing for a long
0:07:59 > 0:08:00time, very successfully, and with great dedication,
0:08:00 > 0:08:03do you find it a kind of therapy as well?
0:08:03 > 0:08:04Oh, it's an escape, isn't it?
0:08:04 > 0:08:07We lose ourselves in a different world when we're writing,
0:08:07 > 0:08:08just as when we're reading.
0:08:08 > 0:08:11So, certainly it's an escape.
0:08:11 > 0:08:14But you need to be there living, as well, otherwise you run out
0:08:14 > 0:08:17of things to write about, so it's a good balance.
0:08:17 > 0:08:21But when you're in full flow in a story, and it's working,
0:08:21 > 0:08:22the rest of the world doesn't exist?
0:08:22 > 0:08:24No, there's nothing like it.
0:08:24 > 0:08:25It's an amazing feeling.
0:08:25 > 0:08:28Ann Cleeves, author of The Seagulll, thank you very much.
0:08:28 > 0:08:38Thank you.