CWA Ian Fleming Steel Dagger 2021 – Interview with Robert Galbraith
Our fourth interview with shortlisted CWA Ian Fleming Steel Dagger Award authors is with ROBERT GALBRAITH, who is shortlisted with the novel TROUBLED BLOOD:
How does it feel to be on the shortlist for the CWA Ian Fleming Steel Dagger?
Incredible, in both senses! I always wanted to write crime and I can’t quite believe I’m on this prestigious shortlist and in such amazing company. I have to add that I read and loved all the Bond novels in my teens, which makes being nominated for this award particularly meaningful.
If you could summarise ‘Troubled Blood’ in ten words, what would you say?
‘The terrible vacuum left in the wake of the missing’ (a quotation from the novel itself.)
What’s your writing process – do you jump straight in, or plan and plot first and in which ways has lock-down affected your writing process, if at all?
I’m a meticulous planner and Troubled Blood had the most laboriously constructed plan of any novel I’ve written so far, because there were so many strands to interweave, including the private lives of two detectives, the past of a notorious serial killer, the life of a missing woman and the investigation itself.
Which thriller writers do you most admire?
Val McDermid, Len Deighton, John LeCarre, Belinda Bauer, Denise Mina and, of course, Ian Fleming.
What makes a killer thriller?
The clue’s in the name: excitement, escape and a hero or heroine (or, in Robert Galbraith’s case, both) whose company you can’t resist, even when it’s 1am and you know you’ve got to get up at 6
Photo by Debra Hurford Brown © J.K. Rowling 2018
The winner of the 2021 CWA Ian Fleming Steel Dagger Award is announced on July 1st, stay tuned for the next shortlisted author interview with STUART TURTON next week.
