Detective Hero
No Nine-Day Wonder
Interview by Debra Clarke

Many authors are quick to deny the characters they create are based on specific people, but Nick Fletcher is all too willing to name the inspiration for his ascerbic private-eye creation Max Slater.  ‘This isn’t going to sound very modest, but I based Max on myself,” says Nick. “At least, I based him on the sort of person I’d like to be - adventurous, witty, and wise-cracking. Max leads the sort of life I’d like to lead if I wasn’t busy writing about him!”

Max Slater made his debut in a novella called Playing The Ace, included in Nick’s short-story collection published in paperback two years ago. Several newspaper critics immediately compared Nick’s style to that of Raymond Chandler.

“Fletcher is bookmarked for greater literary heights,” said Malcolm Baylis in the Yorkshire Evening Press. “His Chanderlesque detective Max Slater is never short of a quip or two while being battered into oblivion.”  And Mike Howard, in the Brighton Evening Argus, said “ Here is a detective we want to hear a lot more about.”

Now, Max Slater is the subject of a full-length novel, The Long Sunset (South Star, £6.99), a fast-pace thriller with the cynical detective on the trail of a psychotic millionaire. The action starts in rural Shropshire and ends dramatically on the holiday island of Lanzarote.

The novel has been a long time coming from the Staffordshire-born author. He wrote his first detective yarn at the age of ten, but then abandoned fiction writing when he left school to pursue a career in journalism.

After several years as a crime reporter, and a long spell as a showbiz writer, interviewing Hollywood stars such as Lauren Bacall. and Raquel Welch, Nick finally found time to return to fiction, almost 40 years after his schoolboy efforts.  “There’s an old joke in journalism - the only fiction you write is on your expenses form - and it is remarkably accurate. Most journalists are too busy chasing news stories to write a novel, so I had to wait until I was middle-aged before I eased up enough to try writing crime fiction.”

Nick’s first short story, Just A Hat And High Heels, a clever twist on the hitman theme, won an award from World Wide Writers Magazine and inspired him to tackle a novel.
“It was inevitable it would be a detective novel,” says Nick. “I’ve been hooked on the genre since I was a child. Then, I read stories of Sherlock Holmes and Sexton Blake, later moving on to Mickey Spillane, Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammet.
“In Max Slater, I wanted to create a detective who admired Chandler’s private eye Philip Marlowe, but knew deep down he wasn’t as good. Slater is a very flawed character, often relying on perseverance and quick-thinking to solve a case. He has little or no deductive skills.
“His strong points are his determination to get the job done, whatever it takes, and a deep sense of honour and justice. He is always true to his own code, however bizarre the circumstances in which he may find himself .”

Nick wrote The Long Sunset in just nine days, which may stagger would-be authors struggling to complete their first novel.

“It may sound fast but before I wrote a single word, I spent a year or so just kicking ideas around in my head, creating the characters and situations, reviewing the options, testing the dialogue, just making a few notes now and then.

“By the time I came to write the book, I felt I knew it almost by heart. I wrote the first draft in nine days, and after that, it was just a honing-and-polishing process.  I do think many writers rush to get started without properly thinking it all through.  This method works for some, but I think it creates too many obstacles, slows the whole process.

“It is always tempting to get started, harness that inital enthusiasm, but if you can channel that energy into into creating the book in your mind rather than on paper or on screen until you know the entire plot, and have all the angles covered, then when you do start to write it, it will just flow so fast you’ll be amazed.”

Nick - also the author of several non-fiction books on antiques and collecting - lives in Stoke-on -Trent with his wife Cassie, who he met through the antiques trade. “At the time, she was a dealer in textiles and sold me a lace cushion. I didn’t really want it, I just used the purchase as an excuse to meet her,” said Nick. “I had to buy a lot of cushions before she agree to come out with me!”

The couple married a year later and now live in a large Victorian house which they share with their four dogs.

Nick’s next project is another Max Slater adventure, at present still in the thinking stage. “I’d like to see Max in a long-running series of books,” says Nick. “His character is what holds the reader, more than the situations, so I feel he could build up a devoted following. Because of his many failings, as a detective and a human being, people can easily relate to him.

“He’s a very interesting, very entertaining character and... actually, I shouldn’t be saying that as he’s supposed to be based on me! It doesn’t come over as very modest, does it? Still, it shows a lack of modesty is one of my own failings!”

To obtain a signed copy of The Long Sunset CLICK HERE