Ann Cleeves discusses The Dark Wives

and we're live thank you very much Ian good afternoon everyone or good evening depending on where you are what an absolute treat it is once again to get to talk to an caves on the day before publication Day in the US is it the same day in the UK yeah no in the UK it's always a Thursday but I'm here in London because I'm doing a very early radio live thing on the Today program which if you've been into the UK or maybe have listened to it's the the a big news program so I'm very excited about that to meet some of my heroes wonderful well it does go on sale tomorrow so this is as close as we get to this is Ann's virtual book lunch in the United States so and I'm very glad to be doing it with you we had we had the pleasure of having an at the store last August after or maybe it was early September anyway after Boucheron in San Diego that's right it was right around the turn of the month wasn't it I think so yeah it was right anyway and at that point what was the book we were talking about last year the raging Storm which was a Matthew van book got it and this is the 11th beest and hope but you know since the publisher thoughtfully lists the titles of Ann's books inside I noticed that you know ver gets her own name which your other two series don't get names they get places the Shetland series and the two River series which is Matthew um do you have any idea why I think because they're very distinctive places Shetland is such an as you know because you visited such an unusual and beautiful place and then North Devon too where those two two rivers meet in the estery is very special too so I think the geography in most those series is important well I you know I I think that readers I've thought about Vera because sadly as you mentioned this is going to be the last series of Bea in production is it at the moment it is it's just finished filming so it was very sad yes they filmed in the studio very close to where I live so I was able to go on to set for the last two days and just to thank everybody really because the cast and crew have been wonderfully welcoming I think because I don't medal I'm always very be very welcome on set and it's just great to see them and it was like a family was breaking up and and then we had a big rap party as well in the the football stadium in one of the hospitality Suites in the big football stadium St James's Park in Newcastle where Newcastle United play and that was very fitting too and the Beautiful Cate it's unusual to have a TV series go for as many seasons as ver has um almost impossible and of course she Brenda is so identified with this there really not any way you could continue it but no I don't think so and I think I would much rather it ended while people still want it to continue there's such affection for the show there are location tours now I was hearing that people come to the Northeast especially to go on the coach parties to see holy Island and to come to Whitley Bay and that's that's lovely too because it's brought new people into a a region that not very many people have visited well I was actually going to say that I imagine most Americans what they know of North umberland is from watching Vera yeah and they see how beautiful it is which is is stunning yeah I was in I just wandered into my local booksh shop uh yesterday and there was a a Dutch travel journalist in there who was there wanting to write about beera country so that was lovely to be able to meet him and take him for a little walk around the town and show him where everything was and that was just by CH he just the ones right it is gorgeous country I've only been there once um had the pleasure of hiking along part of Hadrian's W not the entire thing which would take more time and stamina that at that time I New Castle is a really interesting city um the you know the Bay Area is great is the um I'm trying to remember is the coast to coast walk in does it go across North Umbria and or does it go across Yorkshire there is a coast path that goes up uh most of North umberland too yeah beautiful beautiful wide open beaches and lovely Morland and very interesting Market towns and the City of Newcastle which is really Buzzy now regenerated through culture mostly and then there are pockets of deprivation where we used to have the coal mines and we don't anymore and we used to have make ships and we don't do that anymore so for a WR it's perfect County to write about because there are so many different backgrounds to choose from and in the dark wives I I start off on the the more deprived area on the coast and then move Inland to to um to the more rural affluent bit of the the county well but I think that's what makes the books and the TV interesting it reminds me some of Peter Robinson's series which you know was really encompass yorshire I mean Peter in the books sometimes even went to London or whatever but the TV stuck you know with all those gorgeous views of York of the Dal yep um and before we talk about the book one last thing my husband and I stumbled I think on britbox possibly while we were I can't remember is be on britbox yes yeah I think she is now okay so while I think it was while looking to see if there it was actually posted or possibly rewatching all all the seasons there's a new one called After the flood and I'm not sure where it is but it is clearly in an area where there's a narrow River Valley loads of water coming down and you know Bad actors oftentimes evil developers or people you know that anyway it is one of the best written series that I have watched it and we're not done so I don't really know how it's going to come out but we both yeah I've just started watching that too and it is very good yeah I think it's Yorkshire it's set in but um perhaps further south than the Peter Robinson stories right but anyway um I you know I think I think Americans have a real affinity for at least watching the British country side if we don't go through it so the dark wives um Rose ban is that a is it modeled on an actual care home or is this an entirely fiction no the book came about because I'd listened to a documentary again on radio I'm a great great talk radio fan and there was a documentary about uh care homes for troubled teenagers or for children but mostly it's it's a lot easier to find foster parents or adoptive parents for younger kids it's very difficult if you're they're 13 up and so quite a lot of them are in very small Care Homes but since I started working social work they've all been privatized now or most of them have been privatized now and I do feel very queasy about a company making profit out of our troubled teenagers and I suppose and this this documentary was very hard-hitting and looking at some of the the companies that were were actively corrupt and really just out to make a profit and not to look after the kids that were in their care even though they are they are regulated and that just triggered an idea for a book for me and so no it's all made up but based quite a lot on that original documentary we have had similar situations here there a real Scandal about um care homes for Native American alcoholics or possibly also other substance abusers and what a terrible fraud it turned out to be for these private homes and you know Co exposed the private nursing homes were often corrupt or it maybe maybe less corrupt than just inep and indifferent might have been you know better choice and we've privatized a lot of Prisons here and I I'm with you I feel really unhappy at the thought that um a private company is running our prisons so the in the UK it is now yes it's that's a relatively recent thing too yeah so I wanted to just look at I suppose since covid I think teens have had a really tough time because a lot of them couldn't go to school people who are coming into their teenage years now and it's hard for the schools because they're landed with this bunch of teenagers who missed out on that socializing in the first couple of years of of high school of what what we call High School our Secondary School from a so from 11 the ages of 11 till 13 their education was completely disrupted and now they're age 15 16 and it's hard it's really hard because they they're having to adjust and for teachers it's hard because they're expected to get the same sort of results as they used to well I wanted to just show show a Sparky interesting but troubled teenage lass and that's what I hope I do in Chloe Spence well I think you do and you know you're so right that you know part of the reason for schooling whether it's public school or private school is indeed socialization you know getting kids out of their family home and you know forcing them to figure out how to interact with their peers I mean I feel the same way about our puppies we take them to Doggy Daycare it makes them less nervous uh whatever so even College here I thought you know I was so young I was only 17 when I went 2,000 miles away from Chicago to palto and I found that was the hardest part wasn't the school part you know the academic part but just trying to navigate living alone with you know without guard rails from parents and I remember I got a credit card and as anyone does with a new credit card ran into debt my father was very kind to me he said I'll pay this off he said but part of the reason you have this card is so that you can learn that it is not a magic ticket you know to whatever you want you're going to to live within your allowance so that was just like one little step right yeah so anyway Rose Bank tell us about your teenager yeah she's called Chloe Spence she's 14 and the first we know about her is a little bit of a diary because the the car one the the very sympathetic care worker who who ends up being murdered I encourage it to her to write down her feelings and so Vera knows her through just a couple of pages of the Diary but it's behind her and she really doesn't want Khloe to be the murderer so this lad who's the the care worker young student who's doing it in his part-time working for an agency is found murdered outside Khloe has disappeared so the obvious implication is that she's the murderer but Vera really doesn't want that to be the case she wants she's there battling for chloey and it's a I suppose a kind of um not quite a Road movie story but they're they're trying to find this girl throughout the throughout the book as well as find out who killed Josh W the Woodburn the the murdered victim so who was he who was you know there there always there always needs to be I think a reason for the victim you know not just a handy straw man but a person who actually either does or doesn't need to be murdered yeah and it's I think it's quite we well we won't go into any spoilers but I think it's quite sad the the outcome of the case well I do too and so you know there are various theories about what Khloe is doing you know she's is she the murderer was she just frightened and went into hiding was she an actual witness to the crime it could have been all kinds of things but so I felt like ver really identified with her I mean ver did not have an easy Teenage time either no that's right I think that's why she is so sympathetic to this child who's aggressive challenging at school the school don't can't really get a handle on her and can't understand her and uh she she doesn't fit in at all with what they want her to do which is to be compliant and do as she's told and carry on with her work and she's got troubles you know her dad's left and her mom's got mental health issues and that's why she's in care but that there seems to be no allowance made for that and no kindness I think verer is always on the sign of side of the kind people I think she is too one of my favorite verus is the one where she got sucked into um one of the stanh Hope residences I mean it was kind of your version of anath or Christie the darkest yeah yeah and you know that I thought was a place where we could R see what Vera's early life you know had had been about how how difficult it was for her what her father was like you know what her relatives what her family as say yeah so she's she is sympathetic I think to The Outsider and to the people who are awkward and edgy and can't fit in so fortunately her rank is high enough that she can actually stomp her foot in stand up for things where perhaps a lower ranking officer would be um would not be list list to so you know ver is is this as high as ver is ever going to reach in the police detective superintendent she's not going to go on to become like a commander or a chief conable or whatever well I'm not quite sure what's going to happen in the in the film how that's how they going to end it because I haven't seen the final script so although it it will be the dark wives they are filming the dark wives as the final episode and I I don't know they quite often twist it so I'm not quite sure how that how they're going to turn that into the last of the series but they're certainly not going to kill her off or there will be rioting well I don't know I I have no idea what they're going to do with her you know I remember how relaxed you were at Letting shaton Go I mean I remember you said to me that you had said all you wanted to say about the Shetland series and about um well I think of him as whatever Douglas henshaw's actual role I mean Jimmy Perez thank you Jimmy um and you know and and you were okay with them taking it off in some direction that they yeah I really love the new actor I love it um Ashley Jensen as Ruth CER in it and I like the relationship between the two women and there are two more series of of um shaton being filmed so oh I'm so glad to hear that I was always crazy about TSH I think she's a marvelous character and you know and the other people in the uh the little Force there I thought um you know so often series you talk about Brenda you know and it is true she is the the heart of U of Vera in the same way that Douglas enaw was you know as Jimmy Paris but don't you think to a great degree this series also rise and fall on the on the Supporting Cast you know how yeah and I think people have a great love of Kenny who's put upon and who's at the end of his career and who is just takes everything that that Vera throws at him but he's still there and and I think people love that and I've introduced a new character in this book called Rosie Bell and I've enjoyed writing about her too well I was thinking that um you know one of the one of the things you realize in this book is how that whole team is really grieving Holly yeah yeah and and that's important isn't it to be able to show the reality of of loss and grief people don't just shake it off and start all over again that's right well I mean she was a part of the team and you know and a it's it's like family to you know to be a team they don't necessarily observe standard hours they're not necessarily paid all that well you know they're why are they all doing the job and part of it I think is um the way they relate to each other support they give to each other yeah I think so and I think that as well I wanted to show how hard it is to come into a team like that that is so cohesive and so and in a way that's a bit like a a film crew or a film set because you do get the sense that these actors are one of the the props guy who works in in Vera who's been there I think from the beginning he's a local chat said to me once what you need to understand is that we're like a family here big pause and Brenda is The Matriarch well I think that's undoubtedly true but you know that's another thing that various um British policing shows and so forth on other British novels it's harder for women in the police you know there's um it's in the one I just mentioned After the flood the young pregnant wife is um is having a hard time because nobody actually wants her to be solving the crime um and so you know ver ver on own is kind of gled the glass ceiling but um yeah especially a woman who doesn't dressed in a in a sharp suit and doesn't wear heels and doesn't really care what she looks like and I think that's that's what makes her stand out it's quite easy it's a lot easier to fit in in a man's world if you're prepared to play the part and she really isn't prepared to play the part I think I think everybody will think of her Macintosh in Camp you know I mean that pretty much you could sort of blank out her face and still it's it's almost like Sherlock Holmes you know there's you know the the pipe and the deer stalker and all and I think with Vera we all think of her with the with that with that hat and the in the coat so very very clever costume design there I think nobody would call her well-dressed but you know underneath it sorry let me get rid of that um I always forget to turn my phone off um Matthew man so you know moving in that direction of somebody that might have a hard time feeding in you you decided to make him a gay policeman and you know the various questions that come along or problems that come along with that did Vera in a way inspire you to do that I mean you know a person who didn't actually fit in I think um Matthew V came along quite unexpectedly I I decided that I would I'd never really thought about writing a book set in Devon because although that's where I grew up north Devon but the more remote bit of Devon uh because I thought people would think immediately of cream teas and thatch cottages and would expect it to be very cozy right and so I I write traditional crime fiction but I don't think I write that sort of cozy crime fiction and so but but I went there soon after my husband died I went and ran away to where my best friend lives so who's who I was at school with I've known since we were 12 and and she still lives there and went down and spent some time with her and thought that and it was February and it was blowing a gale and it was freezing cold and it was raining and it wasn't a bit cozy it wasn't a bit chocolate box Dev and I thought well I could I would actually quite like to set a series here and started getting an idea because Sue had grown up within a very strict Evangelical community and so that triggered the idea the thought that if you'd if you grown up within that sort of family and then lost your faith quite suddenly and dramatically and publicly you would be cast out you would be UNF fellowshipped and that someone to W that that that had happened to might turn to the Police Service to find a sort of sense of Duty and honor and belonging and so I had that I had that character in my head but then the people who looked after me most after Tim died who fed me tea and whine and let me cry on their shoulders were a gay couple Martin and Paul and they were still very much in my head when I was there and they were friends of Sue too when she'd come to stay with me and so that's how Matthew became gay really just because they were there and I think he was always meant to be gay because that that explained his uneasiness and why reconciliation with his family was so difficult and so troubled absolutely plus um you know there is that sort of unease or distrust among his colleagues that you know no matter how enlightened everybody is can come up I thought the raging Storm I do think I didn't just thought it I think it uh was one of your best plots I thought it was a remarkable book it's not that often that I get left behind but I read really didn't see the end of that book coming and and there were so many different aspects to it you know I mean it was it's a very complex novel is that is that series not going to continue on TV I don't think so because um uh Ben Aldridge who played Matthew he went off to Hollywood I think I think he got seduced by bigger and better things so I don't think he's around to play him I think the the option Runs Out very soon so I think there's a possibility that we might find somebody else who's willing to take it on and that that would be interesting well it's gorgeous Countryside and I think you know is a brilliant background for television but you just illustrate you know what we started talking about earlier that if one one person is you know ENC capsules the series like like Brenda you can almost not I thought Shin worked reallyy well because the rest of the cast was so strong and so supportive you could you know you could have Jimmy decide he'd had enough and retire or get married or marry somebody who didn't want to want him to be a policeman is I think what actually happened there yeah um you know I've had these conversations with Diana because uh they're filming or about to film I can't remember where they are season 8 which will be the final season of Outlander meantime she has not yet written the final book so she's engaged in writing script for one of them and I've said to her you know how how do you see this working you know because um they're going to they're going to it's going to finish and fans are are are going to identify with that but you haven't actually written the book so how will that go um and part of the reason that it has to stop is that both Sam and Katrina have become such Stars you know that um they want to go on and do other things so there's a danger in having an actor so ID ified with your series if they decide they want to move on there you are yeah I think so and I think you know two series is pretty lucky three was a bit greedy so I think done very well I don't think greedy is it at all I think what it really means is that you write great stories in great locations and people absolutely love them so now if anybody's greedy it's your fans is not you I love them I thought I really enjoyed it I think this is a wonderful series I mean it has some aspects that are familiar from your other series and then you know there are things that are original and you know you you have experienced with long series there were what seven how many chatlands are there this is the 11th VI there seven is that right there are eight shat eight sh and now three of the others so um yeah I'll certainly write more Matthew van um I'm just about to start one there but in between the the dark wives and um the new Matthew Ben there's a Stalone set in Wy that I'm working on at the moment yeah wow so is that scary but also exciting yeah very exciting yeah having great fun doing that I love Oley too it's I don't know it as well as Shetland but I went up and spent some time up there got to know it quite well yeah I've only been there once so um but yes I think I think that the Scottish islands are you know are remarkable I'm trying to think who it is that wrote a book on one of the one of the islands and just the description of the difficulties of living in a place that remote um and yet the joys of it was was remarkable so is chatland visited more often than orty I don't think so I think orty is a lot easier to get to much closer to the mainland so and there are more feries so it's it's actually more accessible than than Shetland is so watching sorry I was just gonna say when watching Shetland they seem to move back and forth fairly fairly easily Aberdine that there is that where the faeries the ferry is 14 hours though it takes 14 hours on the ferry from Aberdine up to Shetland okay so and you could do the top of Scotland to or me in three so it's a bit different yeah no absolutely so have you ever thought about like motoring on up to the Pharaoh Islands or you know I've never been there I'd have to i' have to go that you know you it really would be remarkable the first time I was ever there was I think in 1991 and it was really it was dark and it was so poor and they were actually still eating puffins which was very hard to accommodate you know sort of like a different version of Kentucky Fried Chicken or something next time I went around the whole thing was completely changed we were there with a festival where everybody was you know dazzling a native dress and it has turned into this sort of locavore location where people actually travel there to eat not puffins but you know local food and um they've restored a lot of the um the villages they have a remarkably beautiful church and it's become quite a you know quite a tour stop as people down up to Iceland yeah well brender and I will be in Iceland in November which will be fun we've both been invited to go to Iceland Noir which is a a lovely crime writing Festival in reuck organized by ragna janison so yeah we'll both be there which will be good you will love that I hear such wonderful things about it unfortunately it is scheduled right before the Thanksgiving holiday here when all us Publishers are trying to cramp at us because they know that there's going to be this big break I have always wanted to go but it's a very well I've done I've done I've been three times I think before and it's a it's a very lovely place but a very very friendly Festival too they have great names there Anthony horovitz goes most years I think and when I was there a couple of years ago Ian Rankin was there and yeah it's a it's a big draw oh Lis peny went a couple of years ago too she did I mean it's it's a gorgeous country been to Iceland several times but um three four four times um but never have um been able to go in November has been more of a summer anyone who lives in Phoenix tries to go north if at all possible in the summer so anyway but uh so do you get outside of rubic do you go to any of the surrounding areas yeah I did um the last time I was there that the icelanders organized a a kind of road trip for people who want to travel out so either regular people who go all the time or for friends and I've known Ragnar and Ursa for years and years now so yeah so that was fun they did us a the weather was abominable it wasn't snowy it was raining it just rained the whole time so mostly what I can remember is getting very very wet but we did go to the black beach with the black sand and the V volcanic sand where everybody goes and we walked through waterfalls which was not very different from just walking through the rain and ate lots of good food and drank a lot of beer I think right well and they they have one of the highest literacy rates in the whole world um you know very impressive and Ragnar um you know he translates Agatha Christie into um Icelandic and I I just read his new book death in the sanatorium which is coming out shortly and and it's translated the I mean the translator getes some billing which is good because August has been women in Translation but I thought to myself okay if he can translate Agatha Christi into Icelandic surely he could translate his own book you know for the no I think you need to translate into your native language it's very different I think I i' talk to quite a number of translators because I love translated especially crime fiction and I think you do no matter how fluent you are in the in the language that you're translating into you'd need to be a native speaker to do it properly okay and it's and I think at at first Ragnar used Quentin Ates who's a a prime writer himself and was a friend and he did the first few but it's it's it's an art and I'm I'm I love going to I because I'm translated into Icelandic I've got a great uh publisher there called yakob yeah so I'll I'll be lovely to catch up with he he he publishes Louise too so be able to catch up with him lovely Ragnar and his wife and children have been to visit us I have a wonderful photo of them cting and the poison which is great and you know thanks to the wonders of Zoom we have we do get to talk to him um once you master the time difference then you know it's really La easy after your that so anyway um so there will be is the Standalone going to come before the next Matthew van or after yeah so it'll be this time next year I guess so have you found that not writing a series book and having to start and make up a whole thing all over again has that been really fun for you yeah I just had a a a wish to go somewhere a bit different so I went to Alney but that was good and now I'm really excited to go back and think about Matthew Ben again I'll need to go back to de Cornwall and get a sense of the place again I was I was motivated because I did the Penance Book Festival which is right down right down in the south of Cornwall and again very beautiful and I was lucky I stayed with the patron is is a I think a wonderful literary author called Patrick Gail who lives with his husband in this beautiful farm right down near Land End and uh the Farm's been in Aiden's family for Generations I think so it was great fun I went to London and did lots of work with met met up with my publisher and did stuff then and then got the sleeper train to Penzance which is a very romantic thing to do and it was a sunny beautiful day and we walked around the did The Cliff Walk and then went into penans and did the gig and then went back to The Farmhouse to stay so yeah that that fired me up to go back to the West country because it was such a perfect time oh lovely we went to see the parat of penans a few months ago you know the only time I've ever been there it was hard not to break into song cool I know but there we are so Ian come and come back and see if we have any questions or comments from the audience that Ann would like to hear about or address there are a few questions here for the first one we've had some little Peaks into Vera's family do you have her full backstory in your mind or is it an evolving thing no I know exactly what her background is and who the family is and what happened to her mom who was a village school teacher and so Hector her dad who belonged to quite an um a member of the local Gentry and lived in the big house which is a big deal in rural North umberland still it's still very feudal I have a cottage up up there and my neighbor still lives in a tied Cottage so when he stops working for the big house he'll lose his home as well as his job and uh and Hector was the younger the younger son so I guess like the spare he wouldn't inherit the house or the estate but he he was expected to do something respectable and instead he married The Village School teacher and took to and and then she died Di and he was left with his child that he really didn't want and and neglected really and that's that's how Vera became who she is I think and I will I'm I'm wanting to go back and maybe flesh that out a bit in the next book but I'm I'm not there yet oh you have plenty of time to think about it after you've polished off orgy and right so but that answer to question I failed to ask you was at the end of the TV series does not mean the end of your writing Vera novels no I think at least one more Vera novel after this one yeah it's it's very it's been left quite open-ended so I want to I want to write at least one more wonderful e next if you could magically blink your eyes where would you go and who would you spend the whole day with oh I think I think because it's summer and our summer has been so horrible here this year I would go back to that sunny day in Penance and walking on the cliff Cliff path there with Patrick and talking about books and writing and and place and what a magical place the Southwest is next how do you deal with writer's block I go for long walks I'm a great Walker so if I get stuck I'll I'm very lucky I have this Cottage up in the North umberland Hills that I got after Tim died because I wanted somewhere different without any memories so it's it's only very small but I can walk out of my door there and walk all day on public foot paths on a bank holiday and not meet another Soul so on a one of our main holidays I could walk and so it's very wild and very empty and I love it and that's a great way of sorting out L different difficulties another good thing to do I think is to go on a train journey because if you're sat on a train you can't really be doing anything else looking out of the window and I've sorted out a number of book problems while I'm on a train but not like the train I was on today which had mostly screaming toddlers in oh dear there are some wonderful train trips around Scotland I mean British Rail has got a lot of wonderful did you did you go to AGA Christie cenery in 1990 were you well I went that was the year I joined the British crime writers association and then if you recall we moved on to London but the centinary um coincided I think the CWA decided to have its meeting at the same time and if you recall you're agara Christie you know that buo and miss marble never actually met but for this British Rail put on a bit of the Oregan Express they ran a special oh amazing right it was amazing down to London and there's a little kind of a country station stop um I'm trying to remember wherever the town is but anyway um so it's just a platform with you know like a little umbrella cover or whatever it is but we all went down and we assembled on the platform and came in this is just magical I have photos of it and then the car door opened and um AO David sush stepped out and he had a beautiful bouquet of flowers with him the other car door opened and Miss marel stepped out and he walked over bowed over her hand flourishing the flowers and said at last we meet so wonderful you know you had yeah great fun it was it was just and I thought I I was interested that British Rail apparently had some kind of sense of humor they wouldn't actually well that they they do yeah I've been to the um to the Christie Festival in in her her home in Greenway so I have been there and done the one in uh near t as well yeah it was in Turkey thank you for reminding me of the name of the place where this whole thing happened I actually got to dance with David sush in the evening banquet he's about my size so I think he asked me to dance because we could look at each other eye to eye he didn't have to Crane his neck up it was great Ian anything and finally who are you a fan of an oh so many people I read so much crime I suppose my what we were just talking about um Iceland I love indries aralo andrion who was perhaps the first crime writer that was translated into English and I've got I've just been sent to books one recent one that I've not read and a proof so I'm looking forward to that I'll have to mention my friend Louise Penny because we're great mates and I do I I think there's certainly in the UK her books are undervalued because people don't realize just how clever they are and that they're fables and that there are bits of magic realism in there too and uh yeah so I I need to to mention her though she needs no mentioning for an American audience I don't think um who else do I love at the moment I've just read will Dean's new tuver mystery which is called the Ice Town set in Sweden in in very very snowy Sweden did you read chamber I haven't read the chamber no I'm I I'm more a a tuver fan I think I read love those books so and I think that's going to be televised too I think I think I think it is I did Will's um American book lunch early in August and for the chamber and and I think it's a really terrifying book yeah I think I he does write write very but I I love that Central character that he's created and I did enjoy I think the IC town is probably one of the better ones of in that series I think it's really good I love thinking of him as sitting there in the woods the dark woods in Sweden writing his crime novels and then emerging to you know oh and I have to I have to mention mckerron as well who's who's terrific and who is also a Newcastle lad and his whose mother is the nicest woman you'll ever meet in your life you know slow horses is what has made Nick Heron an international star but I liked his earlier book I thought he wrote several really terrific books which we imported um from the UK before he ever wrote the first slow horses and I'm the Zoe BN ones I really I'm really getting into those too yep they were wonderful and the good news is that since he's become a bestseller I think that one or two of the early books has now become available um in the US and I'm really pleased about that because he's a he's a versatile writer um yeah and he great anything else see that was the last one W all right then I would like to say that we have autograph copies on sale tomorrow of the dark wives here and we have some copies coming from London as well but they take a little while um but anyway you can order one of the other from the poison pen and I want to wish you a wonderful publication week in London well thank you very much and thanks very much for inviting me again to chat to you read this well I love it I hope you'll come back and see us in Scottdale not in the summer um no not in the summer no but it's always a pleasure thank you for making time for us an much appreciated bye thanks for joining bye you're welcome there we go for some reason there we go