Across three books Nick Quantrill's Joe Geraghty series has put
the city of Hull firmly on Britain's crime map, delving into the
area's recession blighted streets and the pockets of tentative
regeneration, the kind of places where a private investigator can
operate more successfully than the police.
The Crooked Beat
sees Geraghty jobless and drifting, carrying the burden of his wife's
death along with the cumulative weight of spent chances and broken
personal connections. All he has left now is his family and
they're about to be put under the cosh.
Geraghty's brother Niall, in need of cash to get their father's
pub up and running again, has unwisely involved himself in a
cigarettes smuggling operation, taking a few quid to store a
consignment until they can be picked up, but when the lock-up is
broken into and the cigarettes stolen the debt falls on Niall and
he's incapable of paying up or tracking down the theives. And
this isn't the kind of situation where the rightful owner will shrug
and walk away. It falls to Geraghty to get them back.
While he's on the trail another job comes in. A local
accountant, who he's worked for in the past, asks Geraghty to do some
delving into his wife's movements; standard marital business Geraghty
figures. The wife is the head of a literacy charity, seemingly
the height of respectability but her past is anything but and links
to some unsavoury characters begin to emerge, making Geraghty wonder
if there might be more to the case than simple mistrust.
The search for the stolen cigarettes takes Geraghty from Hull's
bustling port to its seamy underbelly; decrepit terraces housing just
as derelict people, seedy bars offering even seedier extras, run by
small time gangsters all dancing to the tune of a the city's Mr Big,
Frank Salford, a man who Geraghty has tangled with before, and whose
business has already touched the Geraghty family with terrible
consequences. As he gradually uncovers the scale of the
smuggling operation it becomes clear that the only way out of the
mess Niall has got them into is to take the full burden on himself.
The British P.I. walks a very different beat to his American
counterparts, the crimes are smaller, the guns and femme fatales
thinner on the ground, but these limitations have led to a school of
writing which is more character driven, less reliant on the old
cliches and ultimately very satisfying. While Quantrill's Hull
may lack the glamour of Los Angeles or New York it embodies the
post-industrial decline common to many northern British cities,
largely forgotten by politicians and left in the hands of
gangster-businessmen. It's fertile ground for crime fiction and
Quantrill has drilled deep into it across the Joe Geraghty trilogy,
establishing himself as a major talent in the Brit Grit school.
The Crooked Beat is a highly accomplished novel, written in terse
prose which perfectly reflects the grubby brutality driving the plot
and the character of Joe Geraghty, a good man caught up in bad
business. This is a world where a victimless crime quickly
snowballs into extreme violence, where nobody can be trusted,
especially the police, and even the oldest bonds can be broken in a
moment. I was hugely impressed with this book and the
assured manner of Quantrill's writing. Whatever comes next for
him I think he's going to be a name to watch.
(You can read an interview with Nick here.)
Today I'm joined
by Nick Quantrill, author of the Hull-based Joe Geraghty novels,
Broken Dreams and The Lates Greats. This month sees the release
of the third in the series, The Crooked Beat, with Geraghty doing
what he does best, finding trouble and making it his own.
So Nick, can
you tell us a bit about The Crooked Beat?
“The
Crooked Beat” is the third Joe Geraghty novel, and although it
wasn’t initially conceived as a trilogy, it effectively sees the PI
back to square one and ready to start over. With no paying work to
take care of, he finds himself trying to dig his brother out of a
serious hole when a consignment of smuggled cigarettes goes missing
from his lock-up. What Geraghty can’t foresee is that taking his
brother off the hook for the debt will extract a high personal price
from himself.
One of the things I loved about the book was how it hinges on
an unflashy crime, what attracted you this kind of subject matter
over something more glamorous?
More than anything, I think it’s an awareness of writing about
Hull, an isolated city on the north east coast of England. It’s
what feels real to me when I look at the place. I do like the idea of
what starts as a relatively low-key crime rippling outwards and
exploding across a range of characters. If I had to pinpoint three
authors whose work I really admired, I’d go for George Pelecanos,
Graham Hurley and Ray Banks. It seems they all have that strand of
realism running through their novels. Many years ago, I studied for a
degree in Social Policy and Criminology, so maybe I took more from
that than I anticipated.
Do you consider yourself a politically motivated writer?
I don’t consider myself to be motivated by politics. Motivated
by anger? That sounds more likely. The first Geraghty novel, “Broken
Dreams”, essentially used the death of the fishing industry in the
city as a backdrop. Although it happened in the mid-1970s, it was a
situation which came about after decades of struggle. Both political
parties have to share the blame.
From the moment I started to think
about the story, I wanted to examine the trickledown effect on the
city in the present day, the idea of loss of work and purpose. I do
like to play with themes of urban decay and regeneration simply
because it’s a real issue in a city like Hull. You only have to
look at how such cities in the north of England have been
disproportionately hit by government funding cutbacks to understand
the ongoing struggle.
Why a P.I. rather than police?
The truthful answer is that I couldn’t make a police character
work. I dabbled with one in an unpublished novel and it didn’t
quite gel. It’s such thoroughly explored terrain, you need to find
an interesting angle to make the character compelling. I’d
hopefully make a better fist of it if I tried again, but a P.I.
seemed a nice compromise. I owe Ray Banks a debt of gratitude, as he
showed with his Cal Innes series that you can make the P.I. a
relevant character.
I didn’t want Geraghty to be crossing paths
with femme fatales and wisecracking his way out of situations. I
wanted him to be a man grounded in a northern city in the 21st
century. Of course, as a writer you can have a lot of fun with a
P.I., too. You’re not tied to procedure and rules like in a police
novel.
You've recently been working as writer in residence at Hull
Kingston Rovers rugby club, how has the experience been?
I had an amazing year working with the club. I was brought up a KR
fan and was taken to games from a young age, so it was a real thrill
to be offered the role. One of my jobs was to write flash fiction
pieces featuring Joe Geraghty (he’s an ex-player) for the match day
programme. It was definitely a challenge.
The real thrill, though,
was going into schools to work on short story writing with pupils. I
had an amazing response and the link between sport and literature
seemed so obvious. It’s a cliché, but trying to engage boys is the
hardest thing, and this was perfect. I’m hoping to do more stuff in
the community in the near future and I would recommend it to any
author. What’s better than sharing a passion for reading and
writing?
What's coming up next for you?
I’m fighting on
two fronts. Part of my time will be spent promoting “The Crooked
Beat” at events around Europe. I can say ‘Europe’, as I’ve
received an invite to talk at Iceland Noir! It’s a really exciting
opportunity for me. Hull is twinned with Reykjavik and there’s
plenty of shared history, so it feels right. I’ll also be talking
about the book at several equally cold places around the north of
England over the coming months. The rest of the time will be spent
writing. I’m well on with the next novel, which is crime (of
course) and set in Hull, but features a different protagonist(s).
