A Conversation With Paul Brazill

Paul Brazill is one of the too large number of authors I know well through the Internet but have never met. What makes Paul special is that he lives in Poland, which severely limits the chances of running into him even more.

It’s my loss. Apart from being great fun and a man I’d love to tip a few glasses with, Paul’s a hell of a writer, and prolific to boot. His books include Big City Blues, Too Many Crooks, A Case Of Noir, Guns Of Brixton, The Last Laugh and Kill Me Quick! His writing has been translated into Italian, Polish, Finnish, German, and Slovene and has been published in various magazines and anthologies, including three editions of The Mammoth Book of Best British Crime.

                                                                                                          

One Bite at a Time: Paul, it’s been too long since we caught up here. What’s been up with you lately?

Paul Brazill: Writing wise, I’ve had three books published this year by the British indie publisher Near To The Knuckle. Too Many Crooks, A Case of Noir, and Big City Blues. A Case of Noir was previously published by the Italian publisher, Lite Editions. Near To The Knuckle will also publish a collection of my flash fiction later this year.

I contributed to Ryan Bracha’s latest project, The Thirteen Lives of Frank Peppercorn, which is a novel in short stories. There are lots of top writers involved.

I’ve also had a veritable cornucopia of flash fiction published online at places like Spelk Fiction, Shotgun Honey, Pulp Metal Magazine, and Out Of The Gutter Online.

OBAAT: That’s great news. Congratulations. How did you get together with Near to the Knuckle? (Which is a great name for a crime publisher, by the way.)

PB: I’ve known N2TK’s Craig Douglas online for ages via the Near To The Knuckle flash

fiction website and a few other online joints. I’ve had yarns in a couple of their anthologies too. When I saw that N2TK were going to publish novellas I knew that I wanted to get on board!

OBAAT: You’re British by birth but have lived in Poland for a long time. How did that come about?

PB: In 2001 I was living in London—I’d lived there for ten years though I’m from the north east of England—and took a sabbatical from work. This included trips to Toulouse and New York and also Madrid, where I did a TEFL course. After I finished the course, I applied for a few jobs and quickly got a job teaching English here in Poland. And here I stay, though I have moved around the country a bit.

OBAAT: Did you speak Polish when you first arrived?

PB: Not a dicky bird! I applied for TEFL jobs in various places as soon as I finished the course and I got the job in Skierniewice, Poland pretty much straight away. Two weeks after that I was living in the country. My Polish isn’t much cop even now, to be honest, since I rarely have to use it. More and more people speak English to a good level.

OBAAT: I know the interest in crime fiction varies quite a bit by country in Europe. France digs it and I’ve heard there’s practically nothing going on in Germany. Is there much of a crime fiction community in Poland?

PB: I don’t know about community but crime is certainly a very popular genre—and there are lots of Polish crime writers, mostly female it seems. Poles seem to favour Nordic noir or similar. Violent and grim! There’s an international crime fiction festival in Wroclaw every year and I’ve seen a few others mentioned too. The one in Wroclaw is the only one that’s in English, I think.

OBAAT: I never get political in an interview and don’t mean to now, but it must have been something to be a Brit living on the Continent when Brexit took place. Leaving politics out of it as much as possible—sorry, I know that’s a loaded question—what did—do—you think of that?

PB: What’s that German word? Schadenfreude. The whole thing seems to have been a case of chaotic, bad improvisation. A bit like the political version of Derek Smalls’ ‘Jazz Odyssey’ in Spinal Tap.

OBAAT: You have your own niche carved out of the crime fiction community. Probably your best-known creation is Roman Dalton, werewolf detective. How did you come up with the idea for Roman?

PB: A few years ago, Katherine Tomlinson was putting together the late lamented Dark Valentine Magazine. She was looking for cross-genre stories. About that time, I was listening to Tom Waits’ song “Drunk on The Moon.” It’s very noir in its feel and of course Tom sounds like a wolf—and he was also in the film Wolfen. So I wrote a yarn about a werewolf detective called Drunk On the Moon. And a few more yarns after that. Roman Dalton is having a bit of a kip at the moment but he’ll be back.

OBAAT: Your current book, Big City Blues, has story lines and characters going every which way: a London detective, a Polish cop, and an American PI. No spoilers, obviously, but what gave you the idea of combining such disparate elements into the same book?

PB: The title is a bit of a clue. I was a big fan of the TV series Hill Street Blues—and later NYPD Blue—they usually had three stories running together at the same time. With Big City Blues, I wanted to up the ante a bit more and change location a couple of times too.

OBAAT: I loved both those shows. Actually I love NYPD Blue in the present tense, as I’ve only started watching it in the past year and I’m still working my way through it. I’ve always been drawn to stories where there’s more than one thing at a time going on, probably ever since I first read Ed McBain. Who are your go-to writers in the genre?

PB: I was first drawn to crime fiction after reading a Charles Shaar Murrey article about Elmore Leonard in the New Musical Express in the ‘80s. I got Stick and Swag from the library and never looked back. After that I mostly read American writers such as Jim Thompson, Joe Lansdale, James Lee Burke and Patricia Higsmith. Since then I’ve given a lot of crime writers a try. These days, Les Edgerton, Tony Black, Eva Dolan, Cathi Unsworth, and Ray Banks are always a pleasure, never a chore. And lesser known writers such as Martin Stanley and Ian Ayris. But there are loads of good writers out there. Far too many to mention.

OBAAT: Do see any direct influences of any of these in your writing? (refers to the authors cited in previous answer: Leonard, Thompson, Lansdale, Burke, Highsmith, Edgerton, Black, et al.)

PB: If it wasn’t for the likes Tony Black, Ray Banks, Charlie Williams, Nick Quantrill and Alan Guthrie, I would never have dabbled with writing myself. They showed me you could set things in a world that I was familiar with and turn them into interesting yarns. The humour in Charlie Williams’ Mangel books was a sure influence, as was Damon Runyon—who I should have mentioned before.

OBAAT: I want to get back to Big City Blues for a bit. With three protagonists and disparate plot elements, how do you keep them straight, or make sure none have been neglected for too long? Did you outline first? Any variance from your typical practice when working on a book?

PB: Big City Blues is very similar to most of my other books—Guns Of Brixton, Too Many Crooks, Cold London Blues—where an oddball cast of characters are thrown together and then we see what will happen. I’ve never outlined but probably should give it a shot at some time!

OBAAT: What can we expect from you next?

PB: Well, as I mentioned, Near To The Knuckle will be putting out my latest flash fiction collection over the next few months. I’m just finished a sort of companion to my ‘seaside noir’ novella Kill Me Quick! (which was published by Number 13 Press). This one’s called Hit The North! And I’ve a few other unfinished projects which I hope I can get moving on! I was thinking of writing a cozy noir about a guilt-ridden canine detective. I’d call it ‘Out, Damn Spot!’

20 Questions with Paul Brazill

It’s hard to hang around the crime fiction community much and not come across the name Paul Brazill. (Often mispronounced, but still.) Paul is the author of Guns of Brixton, Cold London Blues, The Last Laugh, and Other Shots of Noir. Born in England, Paul now lives in Poland. He’s a member of the International Thriller Writers whose writing has been translated into Italian, German and Slovene. His writing has appeared in various magazines and anthologies, including The Mammoth Books of Best British Crime. He has edited a few anthologies, including the best-selling True Brit Grit with Luca Veste.  

Today Paul is here to talk about new newest book, Kill Me Quick!

                                                                                                            

One Bite at a Time: Tell us about Kill Me Quick.

Paul D. Brazill: Seatown may not have a lot going for it – apart from the Roy Orbison lookalikes and Super Seventies Special every Thursday night, of course – but it is at least the place Mark Hammonds calls home. And after a decade away, it's the place he returns to when he has nowhere else to go. From dead bikers to dodgy drug deals, from one downbeat bar to another, from strippers to gangsters and back again: the luckless former musician bounces from one misdeed to the next along with a litany of old acquaintances, almost as though he never left. And if only he can shake off everybody who wants to kill, maim, or otherwise hurt him, maybe he could even think about staying. After all, there’s no place like home, eh?

OBAAT: Where did you get this idea, and what made it worth developing for you? (Notice I didn’t ask “Where do you get your ideas?” I was careful to ask where you got this idea.)

PB: I’d read Cathi Unsworths Weirdo and re-read Graham Greene’s Brighton Rock around the same time. Both take place at the English seaside. I was e-chatting with Cathi about the lack of seaside noirs. She suggested a few books, and since I’d set a few short stories in the fictional seaside town of Seatown I thought I’d give it a go. Can’t hang a man for that!

Kiss Me Quick hats used to be very popular at the English seaside so the title was obvious.

OBAAT: How long did it take to write Kill Me Quick, start to finish?

PB:  About six to eight weeks, with gaps, breaks. I left it to marinate for a couple of weeks and then tidied it up. Went back to it about a week later.

OBAAT: Where did Mark Hammonds come from? In what ways is he like, and unlike, you?

PB:  Well, he is a bit like me in that he drinks too much and is always one step behind the action. His musical career was much better than mine, of course!

I’ve known, and know, lots of musicians of various degrees of success and Mark is like many of them. He’s someone who had his moment in the sun and has absolutely no idea what to do with the rest of his life. He’s just about clever enough to know that he’s not particularly clever though he does have one moment of inspiration in the book.

OBAAT: In what time and place is Kill Me Quick set? How important is the setting to the book as a whole?

PB: It’s for sure set in the north east of England. It’s where I grew up. It’s in the fictional town of Seatown, which is an exaggerated grotesque version of my hometown and its environs.

It’s post ‘80s. It had to be set after the ‘80s because that was a time when a few British bands had a degree of success that they never really recaptured.

OBAAT: How did Kill Me Quick come to be published?

PB: Around the time I was thinking of writing a ‘seaside noir’, I read and liked a few books from the publisher Number 13 Press. Their plan was to publish 13 novellas on the 13^th of each month. That kick started me into writing the book and submitting it to them. I made the deadline, just!

OBAAT: What kinds of stories do you like to read? Who are your favorite authors, in or out of that area?

PB: I mainly like stories about people with strong personality and writing that has personality, too. Crime fiction offers up a lot of that.

Naming names: Raymond Chandler, Elmore Leonard, Nelson Algren, Charles Bukowski, Les Edgerton, Oscar Wilde, KA Laity, Damon Runyon, PG Wodehouse, Dorothy Parker, and Heath Lowrance are good examples. There are loads of others, of course.

OBAAT: What made you decide to be an author?

PB: I didn’t. It’s something I stumbled into. I’d always quite liked the idea of it, of course, because writers used to have such strong personalities and lived such full and rich lives in the old days - Capote, Mailer, Wilde, Greene etc. Now they just play Bejeweled Blitz and moan a lot on Twatter, of course.

But I fell into writing after messing around on social media and found some flash fiction websites that I liked – Beat To A Pulp, A Twist Of Noir. I thought I’d give it a shot and still seem to be getting away with it.

OBAAT: How do you think your life experiences have prepared you for writing crime fiction?

PB: Well, I’m not scared of made up versions of violence because real life is worse, of course. I’ve met lots of colourful, interesting people. Heard lots of interesting stories. Seen some funny and weird things. They’ve given me stuff to use. Whether or not I write crime fiction is another story, of course.

OBAAT: What do you like best about being a writer?

PB: I enjoy writing and finishing it. Anything else is a bonus.

OBAAT: Who are your greatest influences? (Not necessarily writers. Filmmakers, other artists, whoever you think has had a major impact on your writing.)

PB:  People with strong personalities or whose ‘art’ has a strong personality. Tony Hancock, Tom Waits, Alan Bennet, Ealing comedy, Damon Runyon, Bukowski, Mamet, Tarantino, Billy Wilder, Mar E Smith. All the writers that I’ve mentioned and many more. Certainly real people at least as much as entertainers. No names no pack-drill.

OBAAT: Do you outline or fly by the seat of you pants? Do you even wear pants when you write?

PB:  As in the rest of my life, I wing it. Fully clothed. We may only be writers but we’re not barbarians!

OBAAT: Give us an idea of your process. Do you edit as you go? Throw anything into a first draft knowing the hard work is in the revisions? Something in between?

PB: Block my block. Word by word. Sentence by sentence. Leave it for a bit and tidy it up. Two steps forward, one step back. I think Les Edgerton does the same thing so that’s alright.

OBAAT: Do you listen to music when you write? Do you have a theme song for this book? What music did you go back to over and over as you wrote it, or as you write, in general?

PB: I don’t usually listen to music as I write as I’m too easily distracted but film soundtracks sometimes work.

The theme song for Kill Me Quick! Could the theme to the ‘70s British sitcom Whatever Happened To the Likely Lads?

I’ve been listening to the soundtrack to The Phantom of the Paradise a lot recently and who knows how that’s influencing me!

OBAAT: As a writer, what’s your favorite time management tip?

PB: Time is a concept created by the bourgeoisie to oppress the proletariat. I have no time management skills. Que sera sera.

OBAAT: If you could give a novice writer a single piece of advice, what would it be?

PB: Never give or listen to advice. Enjoy yourself, it’s later than you think. Enjoy yourself, while you’re still in the pink.

OBAAT: Generally speaking the components of a novel are story/plot, character, setting, narrative, and tone. How would you rank these in order of their importance in your own writing, and can you add a few sentences to tell us more about how you approach each and why you rank them as you do?

PB: Character and atmosphere are the main thing for me. If it ‘feels’ right then I stick with it. I’d write better plots if I could but I’m not clever or organized enough.

OBAAT: If you could have written any book of the past hundred years, what would it be, and what is it about that book you admire most?

PB: Maybe, Gerald Kersh’s Night and The City. Atmosphere characters and a proper story.

OBAAT: Favorite activity when you’re not reading or writing.

PB: Life.

OBAAT: What are you working on now?

PB: Back From the Dead. A sort - of follow up to Guns of Brixton and Cold London Blues – both published by Caffeine Nights Publishing. Darker and more violent but still funny, I hope.

A short story for the next NoirCon programme.

Catching Up With Paul Brazill

Paul Brazil gets around. A tireless writer with an offbeat view of crime fiction, he writes the Roman Dalton series of PI novels, as well as other standalone books and stories (Guns of Brixton, Gumshoe.). Paul recently started Blackwitch Press. Today One Bite at a Time takes a look at the multi-faceted Mr. Brazill.

One Bite at a Time: Let’s start with a nice, easy, “chicken or the egg?” question. Which came first, Blackwitch Press, or Roman Dalton?

Paul Brazill: Roman Dalton started off in a story called Drunk On The Moon that I wrote for the late lamented Dark Valentine Magazine a couple of years ago. He later appeared in a few more stories that have been published in various anthologies. I wanted to collect the stories together so I came up with Blackwitch Press.

OBAAT: Okay, here’s a softball if there ever was one: what makes Roman Dalton different from all the other PIs out there, and why did you decide to make him different in that manner?

PB: He’s a werewolf. I just liked the idea of creating my own world and the PI is always an outcast, as is the werewolf – even in a world of supernatural creatures, the werewolf is always the outsider. It just seemed natural, to be honest.

OBAAT: Does Dalton’s unique background make him better suited than other PIs for certain kinds of work?

PB: He has a better chance of escaping Haitian voodoo lords and zombie henchmen than the normal PI though his actual detection skills do seem to leave a lot to be desired.

OBAAT: Once you decided what it was set Dalton apart, did you discover anything unexpected in the writing? Things you were able—or not able—to do?

PB: I realised that it was all about Dalton’s ‘world’ and creating an equally colourful cast of supporting characters was great fun. It’s not a one man show.

OBAAT: Given everything else you’re into (see exhaustive list above), why start a publishing venture?

PB: I just wanted to put the Dalton stories in a package and then saw the opportunity to put out some other things and thought why not? It’s only my stuff. If it all goes pear shaped it’s only me with egg on my face, which worries me not a jot.

OBAAT: Now that Blackwitch is off the ground, what about it was harder than you expected? Easier? Maybe neither, but somehow different?

PB: The ebook was easy because I used professionals to do the heavy lifting before I put it online. I got Marcin Drzewiecki to do the cover, Julie Lewthwaite to edit and proofread and Craig Douglas for the formatting.

I’m still trying to get my head around formatting the cover for CreateSpace. I suspect I’ll have to ask someone to do it for me!

OBAAT: Where do you want to go with Blackwitch?

PB: I want to put out a couple more of my books and then an anthology or two. After that, I’ll just see how it goes.

OBAAT: What was it got a nice English lad such as yourself to move to Poland? (No offense to Poland. The Sole Heir is one-quarter Polish ancestry.)

PB: I did a TEFL course in Spain in 2001 and after that applied for various teaching jobs around the world. The first school to sort things out was here in Poland. I’ve been here since then, though in various cities. Now I’m a dad, I’m not going anywhere else.

Coming Up For Air

With an e-book recently released and a dead tree scroll due out in a few months, promotion has been on my mind. Unfortunately, it has been almost exclusively self-promotion, which always makes me feel a little like a politician, which is to say, unclean. I spend a lot more time reading other people’s stuff than writing my own—with good reason—so it’s time to give credit where it’s due.

Patti Abbott is hard to keep up with because she’s everywhere. Her most recent efforts include, “Floes the Ice” in Shotgun Honey, as well as “Won’t You Pardon Me?” in Plots With Guns. Her novel in stories, Home Invasion, currently has a five-star rating and is available for Kindle for $0.99. Her blog, Pattinase, covers topics from forgotten books to good things to say about Detroit to music to television, films, and whatever else comes to mind. I stop by several times a day.

Paul Brazill never sleeps. In addition to posting daily on his fine blog, You Would Say That, Wouldn’t You? he released two books in July, which is allegedly a vacation month. A Knife and a Quill says of Gumshoe, “The adventures of this PI feel like they rolled out of a Tom Waits song.” Of his newest, Guns of Brixton, Out Of the Gutter Online says, “Brazill has a knack for larger-than-life characters, tar-black humor, and sharp plots, and Guns of Brixton offers a great deal of all that.” McVoices has nominated Death on a Hot Afternoon as Alternative Crime Book of the Year.

Gerard Brennan is about as busy as Patti and Paul. (I’m sensing a pattern here and feeling like a bit of a piker as I do so.) He has a couple of new novellas vying for public attention. I read Welcome to the Octagon yesterday and kept thinking of what a good movie this story of a MMA fighter and single father would make, partly because it has a perfect plot for a movie, and for how well the descriptions of the fights put me on the inside. His newest, Wee Danny, is picking up good reviews faster than I can find links for them all. Save yourself some trouble and just get a copy.

Jochem van der Steen has a different perspective on private investigators. Noah Milano is the scion of a Mafia family who tries to make amends by becoming a straight PI, which isn’t always as easy as Noah would like it to be. Primarily a series of “novelettes,” Jochem’s treatment of what many would call a uniquely American genre proves those who would say that are nuts. I read and enjoyed Scoundrel and Redemption a lot; Noah’s newest is the novella, Guilt. Anyone wishing to keep up with what’s going on in Pi fiction should take a look at Jochem’s blog, Sons of Spade.

Steve Weddle is co-creator of Needle Magazine, as well as my favorite writing blog, Do Some Damage. Steve has been posting kick-ass short fiction all over the place for quite a while, and his first novel, Country Hardball is available for pre-order. There will be more on this one as the date approaches.

Jim Winter writes the Nick Kepler series of detective stories, set in Cleveland. (And I still read them; that’s how good they are.) His collection of short stories, The Compleat Kepler, does a superb job of universe building, showing Kepler in multiple situations. His newest novel, Bad Religion, starts out as the story of a shady preacher, but drags Kepler into a whole lot more.

There are others to catch up with; stay tuned.

Two Bits of Good News

Paul Brazill runs an excellent blog, titled You Would Say That, Wouldn’t You? It’s always an entertaining source for information, interviews, and writing stuff in general. Today he risks having people take it seriously by conducting one of his patented short, sharp, interviews with me.

Paul’s a good guy, and highly respected within the community. I’m flattered to have been included with the other folks he’s swapped Qs and As with.

“Why would Paul Brazill interview the likes of you?” can’t be far from your mind. My newest Kindle book, A Small Sacrifice, is now available at Amazon. Just in case you might want to risk $2.99 on it.