0:00:00 > 0:00:00me and the rest the team at Twitter. Thank you very much for being with
0:00:00 > 0:00:00us
0:00:20 > 0:00:27we hear the police with two different investigations.
0:00:28 > 0:00:31Nine lessons, subtitled some wounds never heal.
0:00:31 > 0:00:34They conscious tribute to the classic English detective tradition.
0:00:34 > 0:00:39Not least because Josephine in real life was a foldable, but now largely
0:00:39 > 0:00:42forgotten writer of
0:00:45 > 0:00:48old-style thrillers herself. Welcome.
0:00:48 > 0:00:55old-style thrillers herself. Welcome.
0:01:03 > 0:01:07Uncounted debts you feel to the old-fashioned detective story, they
0:01:07 > 0:01:11would be in no doubt after this book. Cambridge, 1930s, ghost
0:01:11 > 0:01:17stories. Very traditional story. In a sense, you are paying your debt,
0:01:17 > 0:01:21making it obvious.I am paying a debt to that tradition. When I
0:01:21 > 0:01:27decided I would go down the route of novels featuring Josephine is a lead
0:01:27 > 0:01:30character, I decided I would include all the things we love about the
0:01:30 > 0:01:35golden age, the puzzle, the Mr Regan the red herrings, the suspect. I
0:01:35 > 0:01:39would also combine it with a modern sensibility. They are set during the
0:01:39 > 0:01:48golden age period, but by no means golden age.A couple of plotlines
0:01:48 > 0:01:51intertwine, which we were not go into in detail, because it is a
0:01:51 > 0:01:56thriller. We don't want to spoil it. A series of attacks on women,
0:01:56 > 0:02:01rendered in a very contemporary way. In a way that the writers in the
0:02:01 > 0:02:121930s would not have dared to touch. That is the joy of hindsight, you
0:02:12 > 0:02:15can treat crimes like that and more honest way, the way people may have
0:02:15 > 0:02:18talked about it at the time. They were put in print. It is based on a
0:02:18 > 0:02:21much more contemporary crime, the Cambridge rapist, Peter Cook.Were
0:02:21 > 0:02:27you around the time?No, I was not. My partner, interestingly was in
0:02:27 > 0:02:32Cambridge at that time. She ran a music club, at a pub called the
0:02:32 > 0:02:38anchor. Where he was caught. His picture started appearing in the
0:02:38 > 0:02:42papers. She realised she knew him, serving him for every week. He
0:02:42 > 0:02:45worked for a wine merchant, delivering wine to the pub. The
0:02:45 > 0:02:49shock of that, which still resonates with her. The fear the Cambridge
0:02:49 > 0:02:53rapist, for people who live there at the time is very strong. There are
0:02:53 > 0:02:58bars on ground floor windows.The intimacy of the setting is a lot to
0:02:58 > 0:03:03do with the story. Everybody knowing everybody else. Students of that
0:03:03 > 0:03:06era, lodging little passageways, quite close to the University Centre
0:03:06 > 0:03:13of the city. They very claustrophobic atmosphere.Amazing
0:03:13 > 0:03:18how easily that crime transported itself back to the 1930s. In the
0:03:18 > 0:03:2270s, people who suffer that were a group of female students by and
0:03:22 > 0:03:25large. Not relevant in the 30s, but transfer that to shop workers,
0:03:25 > 0:03:30waitresses, nurses at the Addenbrooke's Hospital, that works
0:03:30 > 0:03:34well. The suspicion of the innocent men, the randomness. The idea that
0:03:34 > 0:03:38the man who was holding the town to ransom could be a taxi driver,
0:03:38 > 0:03:42ambulance driver, the Man U cube next to in the cinema, very
0:03:42 > 0:03:46relevant.We also dealing with a series of murders, which conceal a
0:03:46 > 0:03:55secret. Not unconnected. With the ghost stories of MR James, a provost
0:03:55 > 0:04:06of Kings at one point. He used to read the stories at Christmas.
0:04:06 > 0:04:11Extraordinary scene, going in, listening to the boss. Reading out
0:04:11 > 0:04:19these things.It is. I love the fact MR James, Monty as he was known, he
0:04:19 > 0:04:27would emerge from his study with the ink still wet on the page. Blow out
0:04:27 > 0:04:30every candle but one, and read his new story to those gathering. When
0:04:30 > 0:04:34you write books like I do mixing fact with fiction, you are always
0:04:34 > 0:04:38looking for that little window of the truth, just big enough to get
0:04:38 > 0:04:43your story through. I found that in December 1913, of when for the first
0:04:43 > 0:04:47time MR James did not finish a new story. What were the reasons for
0:04:47 > 0:04:52that? What if it was not just the pressure of time, but something so
0:04:52 > 0:04:57terrible happened at Christmas, 25 years later the men gathering round
0:04:57 > 0:05:01to be at started dying, killed off one by one in ways echoing the
0:05:01 > 0:05:06stories.You talked about merging fact and fiction. One particular way
0:05:06 > 0:05:12that is relevant to this novel, and the six preceding it. The character
0:05:12 > 0:05:19of Josephine Tay, acting as an investigator, for the police. At the
0:05:19 > 0:05:24scene, realising thing, adding insights. She was a practitioner of
0:05:24 > 0:05:33the detective novel in the golden age. Writing eight books. What was
0:05:33 > 0:05:39it that attracted you to her? It was particularly her novel, way back in
0:05:39 > 0:05:421948 summer was brave enough to write a story about two women
0:05:42 > 0:05:47abusing younger. I love she picked up the golden age rule book are
0:05:47 > 0:05:51tearing it to shreds in front of our eyes. No murder, no real puzzle, no
0:05:51 > 0:05:56brilliant detective. It was a book that can be read on many levels.
0:05:56 > 0:06:00That is what I loved about it. Reading it now, about an England
0:06:00 > 0:06:05that is gone for better or worse. You feel the sunshine on your face
0:06:05 > 0:06:09would you pick it up. There is a depth, a darkness convey more than
0:06:09 > 0:06:13this, way ahead of time. That is what appealed about her as a writer.
0:06:13 > 0:06:17As a person who I love the fact she had a light in the theatre. Writing
0:06:17 > 0:06:21great plays in the West End running for every year. She numbered people
0:06:21 > 0:06:28like John Gielgud as her close friend. As a character, there were
0:06:28 > 0:06:34gaps in her life.What a bold thing to do, to take a real person who you
0:06:34 > 0:06:39never a coming to stick in the books as a protagonist. Someone who makes
0:06:39 > 0:06:46the turn, in many ways. You have to think hard before doing that?I did
0:06:46 > 0:06:50commit felt like I had brave thing to do. This is quite a long time
0:06:50 > 0:06:55coming novels have a long gestation period. It was before the characters
0:06:55 > 0:06:58in film and fiction were so prevalent. Although she was not as
0:06:58 > 0:07:03well known as people like Agatha Christie. People who love their work
0:07:03 > 0:07:07really love that. Like she was quite a complex and difficult woman. Quite
0:07:07 > 0:07:14contrary. Character issues, quite aloof and dogmatic. Although I don't
0:07:14 > 0:07:20want to sugar over the cracks. I wanted to bring the flaws in the
0:07:20 > 0:07:22personality, that is what people like about the character in these
0:07:22 > 0:07:27books. She is not nice all the time. Sometimes you want to pick up and
0:07:27 > 0:07:32shake and scream at her. She is quite likeable.If you are going to
0:07:32 > 0:07:39use the character of the outsider, the assistant. Who looks in on the
0:07:39 > 0:07:44case. Whether it is a blundering police officer. Someone just who has
0:07:44 > 0:07:54missed the main point. Comes in, sets it right. That person is a
0:07:54 > 0:07:59little bit of a loner.That is very true to the woman in real life. She
0:07:59 > 0:08:04kept herself to herself. I am enjoying very much creating a
0:08:04 > 0:08:07relationship that JC feeding the ducks has with my detective, Archie
0:08:07 > 0:08:12Penrose. They are friends. Rather than doing the on off romance which
0:08:12 > 0:08:17is a much loved thing about crime fiction. To write about their
0:08:17 > 0:08:23friendship, the ups and downs. Also when Josephine Pazner gift for
0:08:23 > 0:08:27friendship is more needed than ever. Quite interesting to look at.A
0:08:27 > 0:08:33pretty gruesome but, in the sense that the crimes we are dealing with
0:08:33 > 0:08:40in two parallel series of events leave nothing to the imagination.
0:08:40 > 0:08:43They have a modern sensibility, if that is the right word. Particularly
0:08:43 > 0:08:50the first one. Do you ever feel a reluctance, a distaste to do so near
0:08:50 > 0:08:57the edge in what people will do to each other?I think everybody who
0:08:57 > 0:09:02writes crime fiction has a line, and you don't know what the line is
0:09:02 > 0:09:07until you are nearly at it. I agree very much the first murder comes
0:09:07 > 0:09:12close. What is important to me, and has been through all my books is to
0:09:12 > 0:09:18make those murders very relevant to the victim. To the life they lead
0:09:18 > 0:09:22before they became the courts in your puzzle, the victim in a murder
0:09:22 > 0:09:37enquiry. -- the corpse.That is really very important to me. Nicola
0:09:37 > 0:09:39Upson, author