Why are my books set in the nineties? Readers often ask, and it’s a hard question to answer, because it’s asking me to post-rationalise something I just did naturally!
My books are strongly influenced by my own experiences, so let’s look at what I was doing at that time. I was in my late thirties, running my own business selling queue management systems, working on secondment two days a week to the Government’s Innovation Unit – and life was good. So, when I started scene-setting for my first crime thriller, Redline, it seemed a logical place to start. It was positive to be writing about that era, and it’s a time I felt I understood – I was on top of the technology, cars felt “real” to drive – it was before touch screen panels and electric motors. I was quite involved with accountants at the level Jake was when we first met him in Redline, and I felt I had clarity on how businesses worked at that time. In hindsight, I’ve realised that fundamentally, nothing has changed that much -business is about people and how they interact with each other, and that’s what drives my plots.
Was I influenced by nostalgia? I very much enjoyed the music, TV and culture of the nineties – and still do. Redline starts at the time when Tony Blair had just been elected as Prime Minister – it’s mentioned in the opening chapter. It seemed a nice juxtaposition – Blair is celebrating his victory at a time when my hero is having a really hard time. If I am honest, I look back on that “Cool Britannia” era with amusement. I carried on working at the Innovation Unit under the Labour Government, and it’s a period in my life when I felt in control and was doing something I loved. So I suppose there is some subconscious nostalgia. But I think what was more of an influence is the fact that, when I write, I want to make my readers feel physically there, alongside my characters. I can only write like that if I am confident I understand what I am writing about, without having to depend on too much desk research.
