You're Kernick'd

IT'S been a busy time a'late for Simon Kernick, what with topping the bestsellers' lists and catchin' a wave a'soar-away success but he done found the time to come tawk with The Pusher...respect is due!

THE PUSHER: Thanks for dropping by, welcome to Pusher Towers.

SIMON KERNICK: Good to be here.

TP: You been a busy guy a'late.

SK: Currently working on book number seven, so yes, I'm keeping busy. Not that anyone ever believes me!

TP: I'll get to them books a'yours later, fust I see you is scored a slot on the Richard and Judy picks, I gotta ask ya, she still goin' 'bout with them hooters out?

SK: As if I'd answer that!!

TP: That pair got some weight -- I ain't tawkin 'bout the hooters -- you think they get it right most times, with the picks?

SK: They picked me, and I'm going to stay happy with that.

TP: The slot with Dick and Judy...it fairly whacked up them sales, right?

SK: Makes a huge difference. It's difficult to quantify, but it's helped one hell of a lot.

TP: You come from Slough in England-shire...it's like The Office shows it? 

SK: No, it's worse.

TP: I been readin' you once worked construction, but you done got in a scrape that cut you out that line a'work.

SK: I got my leg in the conveyer belt of a grit-tipping lorry, believe it or not. Almost broke it, too, but someone switched it off in time. Yeah, it cut short a promising career.

TP: I guess you happier now, being a writer, it been a fairly rapid rise for ya...get dizzy sometimes?

SK: I wouldn't say rapid...Relentless (the Richard and Judy pick) is my fifth book, so it's been a few years coming. But I'm glad to see that the slogging away is finally paying off. I'm a hell of a lot happier now, I've got to admit.

TP: You always wanted to be a writer?

SK: Pretty much since I could pick up a pen. I've been writing stories ever since I was a kid and even if no-one was publishing me, I'd still keep going. 

TP: Who was the authors you was readin' way back when you started to think a givin' this writing lark a go?

SK: Big influences of mine are Lawrence Block (particularly Scudder books), Dennis Lehane, Michael Connelly, and from this side of the pond, Derek Raymond and the late, great Ted Lewis.

TP: And now, who you readin'?

SK: Book I'm reading now is King of Swords by Nick Stone, which is a truly original and enjoyable piece of writing. Just finished The Mark by Jason Pinter, and on the bedside table in 'to be read' slot is the latest Karin Slaughter. I like to stick to my crime stuff.

 

TP: Okay. Okay. Now tell us about yer book, Relentless...it's a thriller, right?

SK: A race against time thriller set over one day. Tom Meron, an ordinary guy, gets a phone call from an old friend he hasn't heard from in years. But this is no ordinary call. The old friend's being murdered down the other end of the line and his last words, delivered to his killer, are the first two lines of Tom's address. Tom ends up on the run being chased by people determined to kill him, and to survive he needs to find out why.

TP: I hear you do some serious research, with cops, Special Branch and the like?

SK: I talk to a lot of people on both sides of the divide, and they tend to give me some good stories, a lot of which end up in the books. Shit, I couldn't make half this stuff up.

TP: Hell, I know cops, but like my view's got one side...these folks you research wid, they like the books tell it in real life?

 

SK: Pretty much.

TP: What's the craziest thing your research ever turned up?

SK: That the average mark-up on a coffin is 1000%. No wonder it costs so much to die.

TP: Okay. So back to the books, ya new standalone is Severed, whatcha gotta

 tell us about that?

SK: Another race against time thriller, this time set over twelve hours. Ex soldier, Tyler, wakes up in a strange room next to the headless corpse of a girl he's just met, with no idea how he got there. A sign at the end of the bed tells him to play the DVD

in the room's DVD machine and when he does so, it appears to show him killing the girl. But Tyler knows he's innocent.

Then the phone rings and he's told that if he wants the footage to stay out of reach of the police, he's to go to an address in east London and pick up a briefcase from the people there. But things go wrong, and Tyler ends up on the run, trying to evade

faceless killers as well as the police, and knowing that if he's to survive, he's got to find out who's set him up and why.

TP: Man, I like the sound a'that! Thanks for stoppin' by, it been good tawkin.

SK: Thanks for the interest. It's appreciated.

PUSH-UPS:

Simon Kernick gives The Pusher three of the best...

1...Dance at the Slaughterhouse, by Lawrence Block

2...The Pledge, by Friedrich Durrenmatt

3...Every Secret Thing, by Laura Lippman

Simon talks about Relentless.