‘David and Goliath’ battle for writer
AWARD-WINNING North East crime writer Trevor Wood is up for yet another top prize – and this time it’s personal.
Trevor has already claimed the prestigious Crime Writers Association’s ‘New Blood’ Dagger for his debut novel The Man On The Street.
Now it’s been shortlisted for the Specsavers Debut Crime Novel Award as part of CRIMEFEST, one of Europe’s leading crime writing conventions.
As well as claiming the £1,000 prize Trevor, from Sandyford, has another good reason for wanting to take home the award. Also on the shortlist is Pointless star Richard Osman for his debut crime novel, The Thursday Murder Club.
Long-time fans of the BBC gameshow, Trevor, 62, and his daughter, Becca, 23, auditioned for Pointless in Newcastle in 2017 but didn’t make the cut. “We’d been waiting years to get a chance but when it came we blew it, so this is my chance to get my own back,” joked Trevor.
“We’d both been away and had to rush back to the city for the audition so I’m going to blame tiredness. In reality, there were a couple of questions about Love Actually and the second verse of the National Anthem which stumped us – things that everyone else in the room seemed to know inside out.”
He added: “Obviously it’s not a twohorse race – all the other writers on this list are fantastic – but Richard has to be the favourite. The Thursday Murder Club has sold gazillions of copies so it feels a bit like a David and Goliath situation but, if memory serves me right, David won that one so you never know.”
It’s been quite a a year for Trevor and his book centred around Jimmy Mullen, a homeless Falkland War veteran suffering from PTSD living on the streets of Newcastle who, against his better judgement, turned detective to help a young woman find out what’s happened to her missing dad. Readers quickly dubbed Jimmy ‘Sherlock Homeless.’
Aside from winning the CWA New Blood Dagger, TMOTS was also in the Guardian Books of the Year and chosen for the prestigious Theakstons Crime Festival’s New Blood panel by Val McDermid. The rights to TMOTS have also been snapped up by the makers of hit TV drama Line Of Duty.
Before he turned to crime fiction, Trevor was best known in the North East for a series of plays he penned with fellow North East writer Ed Waugh including Dirty Dusting and Waiting For Gateaux.