A THRILL A SECOND
We chat to crime mastermind Mike Nicol
By ELNA VAN DER MERWE
WHEELING and dealing, corruption, murder and megalomaniac leaders – Mike Nicol is back with Agents Of The State, another exciting instalment in his gripping crime series featuring PI Fish Pescado and lawyer Vicki Kahn.
We caught up with the popular Cape Town author to quiz him about how he plots mystery and mayhem.
How do criminals in books differ from those who operate in real life?
Criminals often do seriously stupid things in real life. Criminals in crime novels never commit stupid or careless actions because that would spoil the story and no reader would believe a criminal character would behave less than rationally and intelligently.
Crime fiction writers have the ability to play God. We create the crimes so it’s easy for us to have our characters solve them.
Although I have to say I don’t write this sort of crime fiction. My interest is more in the impact of an unfolding crime on the characters.
When you do your research do you delve into the “criminal underworld”?
In a sense just living in Cape Town is to research the “underworld”. It’s around us all the time and all you really need to do is to know how to “see” it. That’s a kind of research in itself. Then again, I was a journalist and that career exposes you to the “underworld”.
What other genre would you like to try if you should ever grow tired of crime writing?
I don’t think I’ll tire of crime fiction. There are five different types of crime fiction I could write and thus far I’ve only written about the private security sector and private investigators. With Agents Of The State I’ve shifted into espionage. And because spy fiction covers government crime I think I’ll be writing this for a little while yet.
Have your books been translated into other languages?
Yes, fortunately they have been. The crime fiction is published in five languages and my earlier literary fiction appeared in 10.
Which of your characters do you most enjoy writing?
Fish Pescado tops the pops at the moment – he has a very “middle-finger” attitude to life.
Which other crime author’s work do you admire?
One of my favourites is American Richard Stark. His character Parker has to be the coolest criminal ever invented. Absolutely essential holiday reading. return to the family home when their father has a heart attack. Liz and Jane don’t trust their hopeless, snobbish mother and three feckless, unemployed younger sisters (Kitty andLydia are obsessed with CrossFit while Mary spends her time doing online degrees) to look after him. That’s when they discover their parents are in huge debt and about to lose their home.
It’s up to level-headed Liz to fix things but she also has to sort out her love-life as she’s been having an affair with married Jasper Wick (an updated Mr Wickham). Then she meets Fitzwilliam Darcy (a nice touch when she and Jane snigger at his old-fashioned name), a neurosurgeon who’s just moved to Cincinnati, and Jane meets Chip Bingham, an ER doctor famous for being a star on Eligible, a Bachelor-like reality TV series.
This delightful read also works as a lovely chick-lit tale for those who aren’t familiar with the book on which it’s based.