*Crime Fiction Takeover* Tana Collins Care To Die #Interview #Exclusive @Bloodhoundbook

Every day we will have Authors from different genres answering my exclusive questionnaire.

Crime Fiction (1)

Tana Collins ~ Crime Fiction Takeover Interview

Which crime novel stayed with you long after you had finished?

It would have to be Peter Robinson’s ‘In a Dry Season’. I loved it for its atmosphere, characterisation and how it evokes the 1940’s. It was the first ever crime novel that I read and for that reason it really changed my life. Who would have thought fourteen years later I would have become a crime writer myself and that I would have a quote from Peter Robinson for my second book, Care to Die which was published on 1st June. It’s a dream come true

If you had, to sum up, Edinburgh in four words, what would they be?

Historic, vibrant, interesting and windy

Who is your favourite fictional crime character and why?

Perhaps unsurprisingly Peter Robinson’s DCI Banks. He makes me feel safe

What is your favourite part of Edinburgh and why?

I live in Morningside which I love but I think my favourite part of the city has to be Stockbridge. I love the unique character of that area and the fact it has the feel of a village. It reminds me of London.

If you could have dinner with four fictional crime characters who would they be?

Moriarty because I want to understand his motivations, Rebus because he’d bring plenty of good whisky with him; Montalbano in the hope he might fly us all to Sicily for some al fresco dining and my own Inspector Jim Carruthers as he’d really enjoy meeting the other three!

About your own work, where do you find inspiration for your books?

Inspiration is all around me. A chance encounter with a stranger, overhearing conversations, news items; world events. I also have a very strong imagination. The inspiration is never ending.

If your current book had a theme song what would it be?

My novels are set in Fife and I’ve always said if they became films I would love local Fifer, King Creosote to do the music for them so anything by King Creosote would work for me!

Write the scene of a crime for us, set in Edinburgh, one paragraph long. Include these three items ~ Banana, Greyfriars Bobby and The Wash Bar.

Having finished her banana daiquiri the woman with the flaming red hair hastened out of the Wash Bar. Walking to the Meadows for her rendez-vous with Felix she saw a couple by Greyfriars Bobby struggling to read a map as the wind tore at their clothes. Suddenly she couldn’t breathe and clutching her throat with her hands she dropped to her knees. Why had she finished that drink? She thought it had tasted strange. She felt hot, her body temperature soaring. She vomited as she collapsed on to the pavement, convulsing as she lay. The map slipped out of the hands of the couple as they looked on in alarm.

Do you have any events lined up either online or in person that my readers could attend?

I’m on panels at Newcastle Crime Writer’s Festival and hopefully Crimefest next year. Bit of a time to wait but will be appearing at another Edinburgh Noir at the Bar later this year so I’ll keep you posted!

Could you tell us about your current novel and how you got inspired to write it?

I’m in the middle of the edit for the third Inspector Carruthers novel, Mark of the Devil, which is due out 2018. The inspiration for this novel came, in part, from a visit to Tallinn and a stay in the Hotel Viru which included a trip to the secret top floor where the KGB spied on foreigners. It was fascinating so I had to create a storyline that led Carruthers over to Estonia, although I have to say the novel’s not necessarily about spies

How can my readers connect with you?

Tana Collins ~ Facebook Page

Robbing The Dead & Care To Die By Tana Collins

Robbing the Dead

In a small Scottish university town, what links a spate of horrible murders, a targeted bomb explosion and a lecturer’s disappearance? Is a terror group involved? If so, who is pulling the strings? And what does something that happened over forty years ago have to do with it?

Having recently returned to Castletown in the hope of winning back his estranged wife, DCI Jim Carruthers finds himself up to his eyes in the investigation.

Struggling with a very different personal problem, DS Andrea Fetcher assists Jim in the hunt for the murderous perpetrators. To prevent further violence they must find the answers quickly. But will Jim’s old adversary, terror expert McGhee, be a help or a hindrance?

The first in a new series featuring DCI Jim Carruthers

Care to Die

Struggling with his demotion back to DI and his concern for the grieving DS Andrea Fletcher, Jim Carruthers is thrown in at the deep end when the body of an old man is discovered stabbed to death in a nature reserve- a ball of cloth rammed into the back of the victim’s throat. The only suspect is a fifteen-year-old neighbour who is known to the police for antisocial behaviour. But the teenager has an alibi.

When a second elderly man is also found dead at the same locale, with the same MO, Carruthers starts to wonder if they have a serial killer on their hands.

On discovering that the first victim, Ruiridh Fraser, has an estranged son living in Iceland, Carruthers flies out to interview the man, now convinced that the reason behind Fraser’s death lies in his past.

But what does the disappearance of a twelve year old boy forty years before, the brutal murder of a former journalist and a bitter local dispute about a nature reserve have to do with the investigation?

Can Carruthers and Fletcher solve the case while battling their own demons?

And are they hunting for one killer or more?

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HUGE thanks to Tana Collins for taking the time to be on my blog today.

-There was a great deal of thought that went into the plot, and it showed within the writing and the way the characters wove together, as well as a creepy edgy feel to it all. (1)