Crime does, in fact, pay

LANGUAGE | Crime Writing
Crime does, in fact, pay
Der kanadisch-amerikanische Schriftsteller Linwood Barclay erfreut sich international
zunehmender Beliebtheit. STEPHANIE SHELLABEAR hat sich mit ihm über sein Schreiben
unterhalten und Interessantes erfahren.
You haven’t always been a crime writer. Before you
turned to that, you were a newspaper editor and
wrote humorous newspaper columns and books.
What motivated you to change to the darker side of
literature?
In many ways, I was really just returning to something I
had always wanted to do. I was writing novels in my late
teens and twenties, except I probably wasn’t very good
at it back then. I asked myself, “Where can I get paid
money to write every day?”, so I went to newspapers. I
got my first job at the age of 22 and spent more than 30
years working in newspapers. For the last 14 of those,
I was doing three columns a week for the Toronto Star.
Once I’d got back into the groove of that, I started thinking about what I’d always wanted to do. So I wrote five
novels while I was still a columnist. The fifth one was
successful enough to allow me to write novels full-time.
What happens in your typical week?
L
inwood Barclay lives in Oakville in Ontario, Canada.
It’s 9 a.m. his time when he answers the telephone
call from Spotlight. He’s sitting in his study, the room
in which he does his work, with a cup of coffee in his
hand. Barclay is surrounded by bookshelves packed with
literature and also what he calls “ridiculously childish
toys, cars and Batmobiles”. On the walls, there is artwork
from the animated Batman series.
A dozen of Barclay’s crime novels have already been
published, the first four of which feature a detective
named Zack Walker. The novels that followed are all
stand­alone thrillers and have been translated into as many
as 30 languages. His latest book, No Safe House, is on sale
in the US as of this month and will be available in the UK
from late September.
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Spotlight 8|14
animated [(ÄnImeItId]
artwork [(A:tw§:k]
as of [(Äz Ev]
committed [kE(mItId]
draft [drA:ft]
groove: get back into the ~
[(gru:v]
novel [(nQv&l]
ridiculously [rI(dIkjUlEsli]
standalone thriller
[)stÄndElEUn (TrIlE]
study [(stVdi]
thick: in the ~ of sth. [TIk]
TrickfilmKunstwerk, Grafik, Illustrationen
ab
engagiert, beschäftigt
Entwurf
wieder in Schwung kommen
Roman
lächerlich
Einzelthriller
hier: Arbeitszimmer
mittendrin
Fotos: Bill Taylor; Spencer Barclay
Linwood Barclay: it’s a
crime not to read him
Well, if I’m writing — and that’s a big part of this year,
because I’m trying to get two books done instead of just
one — and I’m in the thick of a book, I start writing at
around 8.30 and go until 2.30 or 3, with lots of wandering around the house in between. And I do that Monday
to Friday. I don’t usually work at the weekends, although
I will sometimes if I know I’m going to lose a day through
something else. The first draft of a book takes me two
to three months, so I’m pretty committed to getting that
done. When that’s over, I have time to do all the other
things that have to be done, which may be travelling to
promote the books — or else just collapsing.
CRIME FICTION BY LINWOOD BARCLAY
Bad Move (1st Zack Walker novel)
Bad Guys (2nd Zack Walker novel)
Lone Wolf (3rd Zack Walker novel)
Stone Rain (4th Zack Walker novel)
No Time for Goodbye (Ohne ein Wort)
Too Close to Home (Dem Tode nah)
Fear the Worst (In Todesangst)
Never Look Away (Kein Entkommen)
Clouded Vision (a novella)
The Accident (Weil ich euch liebte)
Trust Your Eyes (original title: 360: A Novel)
(Fenster zum Tod)
Never Saw It Coming (based on Clouded Vision)
(Frag die Toten)
A Tap on the Window (Nachts kommt der Tod)
Barclay’s passion: transportation in miniature
Two books in a year sounds like quite a challenge.
I’m doing that this year because I’m now writing a trilogy.
The first book in the trilogy will come out in a little over a
year from now. Normally, I could take off several months
and then start the next one. But because the books are
all linked, I’m rather eager to get them all written close
together, so that if I get to the third one and think “Oh, I
have this great idea, and it has to be put into book one”,
I’ll have time to do that. I’m almost halfway through writing the first draft of the second one. Then I have a lot
of book-touring duties in August. I’m hoping to take a
holiday in September, so I might start the third book in
October.
What type of questions are you asked by fans when
you’re touring?
People always wonder how you go about doing what you
do, what’s your routine and how you craft a plot, how
you do this and that. I find those are the questions people
ask most. Of course there’s the standard one which every
writer gets: “Where do you get your ideas?” Like we go to
a shop somewhere.
Crime novels are so popular these days. Why do you
think the genre is so successful?
I think there’s a number of reasons why it’s so popular.
First of all, it’s very entertaining. And crime novels more
than a lot of other kinds of fiction are very plot-driven. A
plot that moves quickly and has lots of twists and turns is
just naturally fun. It’s like being on an invigorating roller
coaster: you don’t know what’s coming next.
There are also weightier topics and explanations as to
why crime fiction is popular. I think people like a hero,
they like seeing justice done. There may be some comfort
in reading about bad things that are resolved, and that
there are these white knights out there who solve these
Book covers
that hint at the
suspense waiting within
crimes, bringing bad people to justice. It’s comforting to
read about some kind of order out there amidst the chaos.
You were born in the US, but you grew up in Canada,
and you live in Canada. Where do your loyalties lie
and why?
My parents moved to Canada just as I was turning four,
so I’ve lived virtually my whole life here. I have dual citizenship; I became Canadian several years ago. I feel 70 or
80 per cent Canadian, because I’ve grown up here, this
amidst [E(mIdst]
comfort [(kVmfEt]
craft sth. [krA:ft]
dual citizenship
[)dju:El (sItIzEnSIp]
eager: be ~ to do sth. [(i:gE]
invigorating [In(vIgEreItIN]
knight [naIt]
like [laIk]
loyalties [(lOIEltiz]
plot [plQt]
plot-driven [(plQt )drIv&n]
roller coaster [(rEUlE )kEUstE]
twists and turns
[)twIsts End (t§:nz]
weighty [(weIti]
inmitten
Trost
etw. fertigen; hier: entwerfen
doppelte Staatsbürgerschaft
eifrig dabei sein, etw. zu tun
erfrischend, belebend
Ritter
hier: als ob
hier: Zugehörigkeitsgefühl
Handlung
handlungsgestützt
Achterbahn
Drehungen (Rätsel) und
Wendungen
gewichtig, bedeutsam
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