Christopher Brookmyre telephone interview for this website, March 17th 2006

Hi Chris ... first of all, can you tell us why the jackets are changing?

Erm ... not really! (laughs) Well, there was an impression that because the jackets were successful they were getting aped so much that they'd stopped being distinctive... and the new style, its still eye-catching, and will very quickly become as familiar, I think -- it's got a kind of offbeat aspect to it that's appropriate to the books. I would've been happy for them to stay the same but I can see that when you get so many other books coming along with a similar style the effect starts to get kind of dissipated.

And can you tell us about the new book, A TALE ETCHED IN BLOOD AND HARD BLACK PENCIL?

It's probably the most unusual, atypical of my books because its a 'proper' murder mystery. It begins with dead bodies and ends with a solution. It was one of the most satisfying to write, through the characters' schooldays and then the latter day story.

So you had the characters and then decided what happened to them?

Yes. I wrote from primary one through to the third level before I started on the modern day stuff, and I wrote their later school years concurrent with that ... I thought that created a better storyline. It is a crime thriller in a more traditional way than the other books, the other books have more explosions and stuff (laughs . . .) although it has elements that are still quintessentially my style.

QUITE UGLY... had crime thriller elements that this reminded me of...

It has, it starts with a body, but this is as much about the people, the characters ... much as it's kind of sacrilegous to say in the crime genre I kind of wanted the crime story to take a back seat. The crime kind of drives things but I think its possible to enjoy the growing up story regardless of the crime.

So were you like Martin at school, or any of the others?

Well all the things that happen at the school are true ...

Really?!!

Yes, all of them are things that I actually witnessed -- rather than just making things up I wanted to see if I could thread real events together. Even the headmaster slipping on a turd, that did actually happen, and it was kind of legendary at school ...

I'll bet!

... but I always thought about these things, was there something else behind it, that led to it happening? And all these things turn out to be significant, and have an impact on the characters' development ... even the thing on the first day with the coins.

They're kind of stuck in their roles from that minute aren't they?

They are ... so the characters aren't based on real people, but the events are. I guess some of them have different aspects of me, sometimes I could be positive at school like Scotty and sometimes a bit more alienated like Martin.

And did you have a twisted headmaster like Momo?

Oh god, yeh, he's real. That is the one character that is real.

Really?!!!

Yes. One of the things is you don't know a lot about the adults because its all told from the point of view of the children, but I told him exactly as he was. I'm very happy with the way it works. As the children get older he seems less scary and they start to see him more as just a joke. The new book is one of my favourites. People are saying its probably my funniest book. I guess the others have funny set pieces and this is funny throughout. And paradoxically its about children but its probably my most adult book.

Thanks Chris!