TODAY’S Mystery Thriller Week
INTERVIEW IS WITH: Nick Rippington,
author of Crossing The Whitewash,
a hard-boiled crime thriller
HOW DID YOU COME UP WITH THE IDEA OF YOUR BOOK? I’d been a journalist in the UK for 30 years when I landed my dream job on Rupert Murdoch’s flagship UK newspaper, the News of The World in London.
Having worked previously on a provincial newspaper in Wales, the change was a bit of a culture shock, particularly the people. One of the hard-bitten hacks in London used to ask me, as the new Welsh sports editor of the paper, what was going on in my neck of the woods. As soon as I started to tell him he would yawn and walk away, saying: “Really? No one is interested in Wales, mate.”
It was quite funny but made me wonder what would happen if someone had done the switch the other way – going from the gritty urban environment of London to become a newspaper reporter in the provinces.
That started the ball rolling.
WHAT DREW YOU INTO WRITING THE GENRE YOU DO? Strangely enough, my gangland thriller Crossing The Whitewash began as a comedy! I sent it away for a critique by a traditionally published author who picked a thousand holes in it. I didn’t agree with everything he said – particularly as I had to pay £600 for the privilege of having my writing torn apart – but a few ideas resonated.
As I began to develop a back story with my main character Gary, I decided he needed something that would make him ‘run’ from London to take up a job in Wales. The gangland tale I came up with gave me new and fresh impetus and gradually the story developed.
I’ve always had a bit of an interest in gangsters – my favourite TV series of all time was the Sopranos and I love all the Godfather films, not to mention Goodfellas – and I thought about characters I knew and what sort of roles they might play in a gang. Having established the characters I have found readers want more of them, and they have some good individual stories to tell.
WHAT DREAMS HAVE BEEN REALIZED AS A RESULT OF YOUR WRITING? My mother was a great inspiration to me and always insisted she was going to write a children’s book but unfortunately she died when I was 21 without ever achieving her ambition.
I took up the mantle, but unfortunately life and journalism got in the way. In newspapers, you are always writing to a simple formula and it takes a different mindset to come up with something truly creative. I managed to complete a couple of manuscripts and send them off to agents and publishers without even getting a reply from many of them. It was so frustrating.
Then, when the News of the World was closed down by the phone-hacking scandal it coincided with the self-publishing explosion. Suddenly, there were options and being made redundant was the ‘kick’ I needed to finally write the book I always wanted to write. Holding that first paperback in my hands was the most thrilling experience I can recall – and I’ve had a few.
It only seemed fitting I dedicate that first book to mum.
WHAT INSPIRES YOU DAILY? Fear. It seems a strange thing to say but I have a wife and a six-year-old daughter to support and have worked in newspapers for 38 years.
Every year the industry dwindles and a round of redundancies come about and having lost my News of The World job through no fault of my own I now have to rely on freelance work.
I have regular shifts at the Daily Star and Daily Star Sunday in London from Thursday to Sunday, which pays the bills, but the early part of my week I have to discipline myself to sit down and write. I hope to establish a safety net through my books so that I have something to fall back on when the axe inevitably falls.
So please buy my books... and keep me off the scrapheap!
Gangland London collides with rugby-mad Wales in the build up to one of the biggest sporting shows on earth.
THE rat sniffed the air as the kid watched, spellbound.
He’d never seen one running free before. Some of them could grow as big as cats, he’d been told. Not this one. This one was so malnourished you could see its ribs. Hungry as it was, though, it wouldn’t go near the decomposing organic lump that lay in that corner of the room.
“You think they’re gonna rape you?” The cellmate’s words broke the spell. “You’ve been reading too many stories, kid. They ain’t gonna rape you, they’re gonna fucking kill you... That’s what you should be worried about.”
If the younger man was concerned, no flicker of emotion crossed his baby face. He kept his eyes fixed straight ahead, doing a quick inventory of the fat fuck opposite him. The bloke was 18-stone of pure human junk, ugly tattoos plastering the top half of a flabby, uncovered torso...
FIND Crossing The Whitewash AT: Amazon
Hi, Nick! So thrilled to have you today. What's up next for you?
Hi, Nick! So thrilled to have you today. What's up next for you?
4 comments:
Hi Vicki, thanks for having me on the blog. Great fun.
Btw the link to Amazon doesn't seem to be working... this should do the trick https://www.amazon.com/Crossing-Whitewash-Nick-Rippington/dp/1514362171 Hope your readers are intrigued enough to take the plunge
I'll check on the link, Nick! And thanks for visiting. Hugs!!
Great guests today! Enjoyed their posts!!
Thanks, Angela! I like reading what other mystery writers have done, too.
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