Roy M. Burgess
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Roy M. Burgess

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Writers are strange. Well, if you’ve ever read a book, that will not come as news to you, but hear me out. We (and after many years of doubt I now put myself in that category) can happily produce 100,000 words expressing intimate thoughts and actions of a fictional character. Tell us we have to write 1,000 words to introduce ourselves and we’ll look at you as if you’d just suggested climbing Everest in flip-flops. You want me to do what? Can’t I just write a new eight-part series about … You get my point. I dread to think what my mum would’ve made of it all. Probably something like — ‘Stop showing off. You’ve put weight on. Do you want a sandwich? Have a biscuit.’ My writing journey Anyway, allow me to introduce myself. I’m Roy, and I make stuff up. I write that stuff down and publish books. In other words, I write British Crime fiction — humorous cosy mysteries in The Fifth Series and darker police procedurals featuring DI Carrie Tyler. The books are set in a fictional city in West Yorkshire called Arthwaite. Some areas of Arthwaite may have certain similarities with neighbouring Leeds and Bradford. They say write what you know! It’s a far cry from my days in IT when I sat in a cubicle, made stuff up, and promised I would finish it by Friday (I just never said which Friday). Now I sit in the tower of a converted Victorian mill, stare at the Leeds and Liverpool canal and dream up ridiculous ice cream flavours, tales of sixties pop idols, and various ways to murder people. Again, the similarities to a career in IT are frightening. The global population in 1997 was around 5.9 billion people. I apologise for not being more exact, but counting them all is tough. I believe the number as that’s what Google says. (Always diligent with research). Who would’ve thought that of all those people, my soulmate would work in the office next door. So began over twenty years of laughter, adventure and pure joy (despite the aforementioned career in IT). Then it ended. A week short of my 58th birthday, Ruth lost her brave struggle with cancer. We knew it was coming, but no amount of preparation can mitigate the devastation for anyone in that situation. I’d already left work to care for Ruth. When the end came, I did what a lot of men do and withdrew to my cave. I cut myself off from the world. After a full year, friends finally coaxed me back to reality. I tentatively accepted a couple of social invitations and decided I could see a way forward. The route back to a career was to refresh my skills and get back to project management. I studied, got new qualifications and started applying for jobs. Then the pandemic hit. It took little for me to decide that going back to an office environment was maybe not the brightest thing I could do. Thoughts turned to the manuscript I’d started several years earlier, and a promise I’d made to finish it. In my mind there were about 40,000 words — a fair start. When I finally opened the document, it was less than 10,000 words. I had work to do. The Fifth Series Several months later, I had The Fifth Tweet. Job done. Promise fulfilled. What’s next? A couple of people asked me what happened to Frankie after the story ended. It was no good. I was hooked and started playing with ideas for the next in the series. The Fifth Thunderbolt followed in 2022, The Fifth Man a year later, and The Fifth Door at the start of 2025. I’m delighted that people seem to love the characters as much as I do. I’m often asked if Frankie is me. I can exclusively reveal, that no he’s not. I’m much taller and not as successful, but we do share a love of music, wine, and pizza. It’s fair to say, a lot of the conversations between Frankie and Jen are based on real life. Similarly, Frankie’s chats with his Mum have a lot in common with me. The story of Roddy going for a walk and not being able to remember a direct route home was based on one of the most stressful afternoons of my life! I’m a lifelong fan of crime fiction, and devour books by the likes of Ian Rankin, Anne Cleeves, Val McDermid, and Peter Robinson. But writing a police procedural? That looked impossible. What did I know about the workings of the police force? Then I read the statement - people come for the stories and stay for the characters. I realised that whenever I recommended a book; I talked about Rebus or Vera Stanhope. I’m currently immersed in the Slow Horses world created by Mick Herron. Well plotted, beautifully written, but it’s the characters like Jackson Lamb, Catherine Standish, and Diana Taverner, and the relationships and interactions between them is what keeps me going back time after time. If I could create compelling characters and interesting plots, surely I could fill in the procedural bits? It wasn’t too late to learn. Henning Mankell worked on a cargo ship and started writing at 20 with no experience of police procedures and yet created Kurt Wallender, one of the great fictional detectives. What I wasn’t quite prepared for was the completely different headspace required to go from having a laugh with an old mate like Frankie to the situations faced by Carrie Tyler. I found a wonderful editor, and her biggest battle was to stop me making Carrie as chatty as Frankie without losing the warmth and humour. Jackson Lamb is one of the funniest characters I know, and despite everything, he cares deeply about his team, but there’s an edge to the Slow Horses series that keeps us gripped. True genius at work! The Price We Pay is my introduction to Carrie Tyler and her world. People have taken Carrie to their hearts, and she’ll return shortly in Fair Play. I’ll continue to learn and dream while staring out of my office window. My next task is to get myself back into Frankie’s head for the next book in The Fifth Series (confusingly, it will be the Fifth!).
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