Crime writer Anthony O’Neill no longer feels an imposter, discovers Caroline Lindsay

It was living in a creaky old tenement building in Edinburgh that inspired Anthony O’Neill’s latest crime thriller The Devil Upstairs.

“I moved into a very old flat in early 2012 and everything seemed idyllic except for the pervasive noise from the tenants upstairs,” the Melbourne-born author reveals.

“I’d never experienced anything like it in Australia but it quickly became clear that this was a huge problem in this country – the creaking boards, clanging pipes and inadequate sound insulation of old tenement buildings.

“Desperate for sleep, I found myself on certain nights imagining some very gruesome ways of achieving some peace and quiet,” he continues.

“I confessed this one day to my barber who laughed and

said he had exactly the same problem and had imagined exactly the same solutions.

He said he’d spoken to dozens of customers in the same situation and said I should write a book about it.

“I gave it some thought and finally came up with a plot that begins with a new arrival in Edinburgh, an American girl, dealing with the ‘devil upstairs’ in a very macabre fashion.”

This latest novel is the first of Anthony’s books based in part on his own experiences.

“It’s also the first novel I’ve done that’s based in the present day,” he says.

“Otherwise I usually start with a place and era that intrigues me, somewhere I want to spend two years – even if it’s mainly in my imagination.

“Immersing myself in a different world can be exhilarating and obsessive.

“And visiting foreign locations with a specific purpose – to block out the action and make notes on atmosphere and architecture – is the best way to see anywhere.

“The nuts and bolts of writing and editing, on the other hand, can be endlessly frustrating,” he says, before revealing that Jules Verne was his boyhood favourite author.

“I still love the sense of wonder, joie de vivre and verisimilitude of his best books,” he smiles.

“As an adult I found much of the same, albeit with a different focus, in Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s Love in the Time of Cholera – this I rate as my favourite book.”

Book events and meeting readers are part and parcel of being a writer but Anthony admits that he found them challenging to start with.

“I’m not a natural performer but I’ve warmed to them over the years,” he says.

“I think I felt like an impostor at the start but this is my seventh book now so I’ve probably earned my dues.”

When he’s not writing he loves walking but reveals that thoughts of work are never far away.

“In truth when I’m not writing I’m mulling over future projects so I don’t think there’s any real break from the process – which is probably the way it should be.

“It’s a very privileged role and I remind myself constantly how lucky I am.

“So I require little motivation to write and generally have a dozen books I’d like to do at any given moment.”

The Devil Upstairs by Anthony O’Neill is published by Black & White, £12.99.