I find coastal walks are the best way to clear the cobwebs and inspire the next chapter. For me, the best place to write is away from the distractions of home – my favourite spot is Southwold, where I occasionally rent a bolthole for a week out of season.
I have big plans to turn my spare room into a study. Unglamorously, I tap away while sitting at the dining table (when I’m not working at my other job as a freelance TV producer). What is your writing routine? Do you have a regular desk or writing shed? I was thrilled when I was asked to write two short stories introducing Cassie for BBC Radio 4 in 2018 – it was a great way to test drive her character and get a feel for how a full-length novel might work. Body Language is very dependent on anatomical and forensic/medical detail so I went on to do tons of research with pathologists and above all with a very talented Anatomical Pathology Technician called Barbara Peters who has been an invaluable guide to mortuary life and the puzzles that dead bodies can present. I met her at a post mortem! Sort of… Years ago I attended a PM while researching my debut crime book and there was a girl working there with punky dyed hair, piercings and a Goth vibe who must have stuck in my mind because when I was looking for a new character she popped back into my mind. How did Cassie Raven come into being and how did you do your research for the book? After the police dismiss her growing suspicions that the death was accidental Cassie turns freelance sleuth to investigate what she is convinced was murder. When the body of someone she was close to turns up at the mortuary it hits her hard.
She treats them like people rather than corpses, and sometimes they respond by ‘telling her’ how they died.
I was writing poems from when I could hold a pen, then plays to be performed by my brother – who, shockingly, charged a fee to appear in my epic works…Ĭan you give us a flavour of Body Language for those who have not read it yet?Ĭassie Raven is a Goth-girl technician working at a mortuary in edgy Camden Town who has a special affinity with the bodies in her care. So I was only about twelve when I was gripped by The Odessa Files thanks to master thriller-writer Freddie Forsyth, and blown away by the prose of Raymond Chandler in books like The Big Sleep. I got into crime fiction fairly early – cutting my teeth on the classics like Agatha Christie but soon moving onto grittier stuff that my Dad tried – and failed – to hide out of reach in a high cupboard. Who were your literary heroes as you were growing up and when did you first realise you wanted to write? The first novel, Body Language was published in November by Zaffre and is also available through Suffolk Libraries. Alison (A.K.) Turner is the author of a new crime series set in a London morgue featuring mortuary assistant Cassie Raven.
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