If you were to give two noir writers the skeleton of a plot, lock them both in a darkened room and say, “Put the flesh to these bones,” you would end up with two completely different stories. That is the brilliance of books.
From a young age, I was drawn to films and books in the crime-fiction genre. I lie a little: in my teens, I read and wrote a lot of sci-fi, but if you saw my grades in science subjects, you’d understand why I moved on from there.
Growing up in the 1970s, I feasted on programmes like The Sweeney, one of the first TV shows I remember where the bad guys could sometimes get away with their crimes. Films such as Dirty Harry also appealed to me, with its tough cop whose morals were sometimes misunderstood.
The main characters were not all saints. They had a dark side, and that intrigued me. It moved the story beyond simple right and wrong. It gave it a pulse. It made it real.
Take another example: the western genre, and The Magnificent Seven. It was one of those westerns in which the cowboys began to lose their black or white hats, metaphorically speaking, and move into the grey zone. The story has stood the test of time and remains, to this day, one of the greatest westerns ever filmed.
I started copying these types of stories onto the pages of my writing pad. My own versions, at least, although they followed the original storylines pretty closely. That was when I first dipped my toes into writing. What I probably didn’t realise at the time, but can see clearly now, was that it was the characters that interested me.
It wasn't whether the bad guy got caught, but how the cop dealt with the situation. Characters like DI Jack Regan in The Sweeney and Clint Eastwood’s portrayal of Inspector Harry Callahan in Dirty Harry always fascinated me. There was a realism to them. They were treading a path that was neither glamorous nor easy. No superheroes, just people doing a job and trying to get by as best they knew how.
After my teenage years, I started reading more and more books. I read widely across multiple genres, and this has influenced my writing. My reading ranged from Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights to John Steinbeck’s East of Eden. What these books had in common was their complex characters. They were not two-dimensional; they had depth.
Look beneath the surface and you find a common thread: both explore the complexities of human nature. Wuthering Heights is not a simple love story. In fact, I would argue it is more about obsession, one of the ingredients of a noir novel. East of Eden has even more elements of noir dancing off the page, although it is generally classed as a family saga.
When we start exploring these ideas, we realise that crime noir, as it is commonly known, is less about the crime itself and more about what goes on around it. This is where things get interesting.
Take traditional detective fiction, such as the stories of Agatha Christie and Arthur Conan Doyle. The emphasis is often on solving the mystery. When you close the final pages of a Holmes or Poirot story, you generally have the answers. In noir, the crime may be solved, but the questions about human nature can remain.
My book The Man at Table Nine was written as a homage to one of the great writers of noir, James M. Cain, and in particular his novel The Postman Always Rings Twice. It was one of the first noir books I read that left an indelible mark on me. It was more than a crime or murder story. It delved into passion, lust and ambition, and what these emotions can drive people to do. They become so powerful that the characters begin to believe they are invincible and that nothing can stop them. Each has their own motives, and the line between right and wrong becomes blurred.
I feel that mainstream publishing has become increasingly commercially driven, leaving less room for writers who push the boundaries. Would James M. Cain be published today? I don’t know, but what a loss it would be if he weren't.
Those are the kinds of books I love to read, and I find them harder to discover. The good news is that they are still out there. Amazon is now the world’s biggest bookshop, yet when I browse its first few pages, I often find the same established names. Dig a little deeper, though, and there are hidden gems to discover.
As a writer, those are the books I want to write.
Looking back, my first published book was The Boy Who Changed His World, a novel I never classed as noir at the time. A coming-of-age story, it doesn't obviously fit the noir theme, but look closely and you can see the beginnings of what was to come.
Callum is a young boy bullied at home and at school, living with a controlling stepfather. Lost and struggling to find his place in the world, he befriends an old man, a Second World War veteran with his own secrets and problems. Once again, it comes back to human nature and what drives people: emotions, love and loss. Without these elements, a noir novel cannot exist.
I said earlier that books like Wuthering Heights and East of Eden could fall into the noir category. Somehow, the idea has taken hold that a story cannot be noir without a crime. I would wholeheartedly disagree.
If you do like a crime of sorts within your noir fiction, though, I think every book I've written to date fits the category.
On that note, I shall head back to my writing desk to continue with my next noir venture.