At school, were you good at English?
Yes; I was an avid reader from an early age. Biggles, Enid Blyton to Arthur Ransome and CS Lewis, onto Tolkien, Arthur C. Clarke, then to Conrad, Lawrence and the American big beasts! etc. But all this could have changed as I changed schools to do my A Levels and vaguely followed a friend into an English set that was doing an ‘experimental A-level course’ in Medieval English Literature. There we did Thomas Browne’s, Religio Medici; Spenser’s epic poem the Faerie Queen and all manner of horrors, all in Middle English!!! I got a ‘C’, by the way. Top of the class – but the course was dropped!
What have you written to date?
I’ve written five published books in the Detective George Zammit Series, all set in Malta and the Southern Mediterrean basin. All have been published by Hobeck Books. Number six has been written and is in the final stages of its edit. They are crime/adventure books, although finding a neat genre in which to place them has been tricky. The have been as high as number two in Amazon’s ‘Italian Literature’ category! True, some have scenes set in Milan and Sicily, but otherwise who knows how they found themselves there!
What made you decide to sit down and start something?
I live in Malta and have a house in Yorkshire. During the COVID pandemic I found myself getting caught between the quarantine restrictions of both countries. I had a lot of time on my hands, so I wrote the first three books in the series in less that a year. It was the headlines of the local papers that served as the inspiration for the stories (see below) and a general feeling that UK crime/police procedurals had too many middle aged, brooding, divorced, alcoholic protagonists, who might, or might not, get off with their bright young assistant. I felt the urge to create a new type of detective, an accidental hero, henpecked by his wife, bullied by his boss, who stumbled from one adventure not of his choosing, to the next. I also wanted to explore the rich geographical and geopolitical background of the southern Mediterrean and North Africa.
Where do your ideas come from?
Malta is a cray place. On one level, a sun-baked historic island with a fascinating history, on another, a corrupt and ugly back door into Europe. I first became aware of Malta’s unique problems when I watched the torchlight parade, the night Daphne Caruana Galizia, the Maltese journalist and blogger was murdered. Although the thugs who planted the car bomb have confessed and are imprisoned and one of the islands richest men is still in custody, awaiting trial, accused of arranging the murder, question still remain about the involvement of those high in government. From then on, I took a close interest in what was happening in Malta, Libya, Southern Italy and the stories seemed to write themselves. The migrant crisis, oil smuggling, sanctions busting, money laundering, online gaming scandals, political corruption, all feature. Our long-suffering policeman, George Zammit, finds himself in the heart of all of it!!
Do you proofread/edit your own books, or do you get someone else to do it?
I work with a professional editor, Lynn Curtis, who pulls no punches!! She will do a high-level structural edit, commenting on the themes and structure of the first draft. Later she does a more detailed line edit, correcting prose, language, and grammar. In between times the proof reading is done by my wife Janet, who has the amazing powers of concentration and attention to detail that I lack!
What are your views on social media?
Hobeck is a small indie press, but very professional, nevertheless. However, they don’t have huge resources to invest into promotions and advertising. Social media is a crucial part of the authors toolbox when it comes to getting a book ‘out there’. I have 4,000+ Twitter followers (can’t bring myself to say, X!), and active Facebook and Instagram accounts. In more general terms I am profoundly suspicious of a lot what I read, particularly on X, and feel fake stories and AI will further undermine the integrity of these platforms. People aren’t that stupid to believe all this stuff – are they?
How do you select the names of your characters?
Here’s a secret! A lot of my characters are from North Africa, the Middle East or Eastern Europe. I am a keen cyclist, so I start by looking at their international cycling squads of the country in which the character lives and mix and match the names! In certain circumstances, when I’m picking names from specific ethnic groups, say a Berber or a Kurdish name, I will make sure the name is appropriate. I have a dread of messing up a character’s name.
What kind of research do you do?
I research endlessly. I gather maps, Google Earth photos, Street View, local newspaper, and trade journal articles. Downloaded academic papers on certain matters. I can disappear down a research rabbit hole for hours! I think it this level of detail, in political and historical subjects, that helps make the books attractive to readers.
What is the hardest thing about writing a book?
For me, the completion of the first draft is the most exciting time in process. You have got your narrative, your story. You’ve done your research and the characters have spoken. The tough times come when the editor, the publisher, and my wife Janet, start picking and pulling at the story, the timeline, the characters. Going back over and over the script can be satisfying, when you can build on a plot line, insert a joke, or include a twist, but fixing more technical aspects, like timelines, slippage in tone of voice (formal to informal), mistakes in points of view. Etc can be a pain. I find proofreading a particular hell, all its own!!
What are you promoting at the moment?
In November, Hobeck Books is publishing my fifth book in the Detective George Zammit series, The Last Bird of Paradise. The action switches to corruption in a UN refugee camp, where George is sent as part of a UN anti-fraud enquiry. There he spots an old adversary, and his adventure begins. Back in Malta there is deception, lies and fraud as an organised crime group implodes. George returns to Malta to find himself in the middle of it all.
All the books can be read as stand-alones, but in truth, the characters develop across the series and elements of the story are more enjoyable if a reader has some knowledge of what has happened in earlier books. So, my advice would be to read the series in order – that also helps book sales!!!