John Coughlan; An Introduction

 Here I am introducing a new writer on the block, John Coughlan.  He did stand in once for us at a big crime fiction festival where he happened to be attending, and the back end of our pantomime horse, Trump, had failed to appear. This could be the greatest novel written by the  business end of the equine species....

So  John first book published today, how does it feel?

Mixed emotions. Very chuffed and nervous at the same time. Was a bit like pushing the nuclear button and sending it off to be judged by hecklers who really know their business. Like dropping a child off first day of school.

 

You were already a successful poet, why the turn to crime fiction?

Well, I had already published both poetry and short stories when I began to mix with the wrong crowd, namely   my local writers group. And of course criminal writers like yourself who brought out the dark side.

 

Tell us a little about the book and what made you write it?

It wasn't the book in my head that wound up on the page.  Never is, it seems. When the quarry up the bluebell woods was in danger of reopening I had the sudden thought you could be in bother when they started operations and found the body I’d hidden up there.  Retribution Road is a raw brutal tale of vengeful justice. The main characters are DS Frank McDowall and his long time friend, Alec Stewart, and ex Marine struggling with suppressed PTSD. When Stewart's niece Angela is found by McDowall abused and killed at a drugs den, it triggers bloody bedlam. The characters are of their time, welded from Irn-Bru and girders. The book exploded in my head through about ten edits before today. Set in Paisley in the seventies it’s a harsh look at the times. It’s a right jaggy story, the characters bursting from the pages wrapped in barbed wire so wear gloves to read.

 

 You can tell he's a poet can't you? Why do you think people become writers in the first place?

Crime writers are dark people whose internet history should attract Homeland Security.  Some construct great novels, some are storytellers who study people places and situations and they are compelled to write and recount. Why did I write? I just did, have been since I was seventeen. All I ever liked at school were history and English Lit. Everyone has a story, and if they don’t the writer tells the story for them. It’s a tradition spanning verbal history since man scrawled on a cave wall

 

Was the location of the book important to you?

Yes. There is plenty Tartan Noir set in Edinburgh or Glasgow, but not much in lesser places like Paisley and West Coast. I love the way you took murder and skulduggery north of the Wall as it were. The location moulds character behaviour. When Life on Mars was first aired nobody expected it to be a cult box-set.  I think the Road trilogy can be as popular.

 

 

Did you bring much of your experience into the book, esp that as a fire officer. The book is full of gallows humour.

Oh yes. The Fire Brigade was something I was born to. There is a very dark humour used as counselling in hard times to sooth sounds sights and smells from your brain. Outsiders cannot understand it and are appalled. Yet those in the job cannot explain it to an outsider. In a Fire Station the watches are closer than brothers. There is something wrong with a guy running into a fire when everyone else is leaving. Lots of the dialogue was taken from real life and the way cops and firemen behaved at the time. Maybe I chose the seventies in order to put these gems in characters' mouths.

 

What’s next on the cards?

Second McDowall book is at 56,000 words and growing. Book three is in six notebooks. Now I am free to get into it reassuring myself the first draft is always keich*  I have no idea where the characters will take me. As a side project I’m going to self publish my poems in a short book. I’m thinking of a title, ‘Diamonds in The Coal.’ I also have 15 short stories about the Troubles in Ulster which will be titled, ‘Shrapnel.’

* Glaswegian for something that would come out the back end of a horse CR.

 

I know you were given opportunities to publish traditionally, so why did you go indy?

Traditional publishing is a battle for agents and publishers who already have big names like, Skelton, Malone, Talbot, and the like. Oh and some woman called Ramsay. I’ve been offered deals, but was wary of editing, and the book losing its soul. Mind you when I was posting on KDP there were times I wished I had given it tp somebody else to sort out. Indy offered the same rewards for nothing but the work, apart from marketing. My weakness in IT is a bugbear. Amazon thinks everyone is computer savvy, but I come from the pencil and paper poke generation. I suppose being Scots I was reluctant to give money to AN OTHER when I could do it myself. 

 

How much alcohol will there be at the launch? How much will be left afterwards….

I shall provide alcohol in abundance at the physical launch. I know where there is a good shebeen. I may hold it there. The drunker people are the more chance of buying a hard copy. Afterwards there will only be the debris

 

 I have a new copy on my kindle, what can I expect?

A damn good laugh.  A well told story.  If the reader enjoys it,  maybe has a wee think about soldiers and what happens when they leave the armed services, then  I’ll consider myself well served.

John Coughlan AKA Tonka  ( as in small, hard and indestructible )