Robert Wilson
Robert Wilson is the author of four crime novels set in West Africa featuring Bruce Medway, two thrillers set in Portugal during the Second World War, and a series of four crime novels set in Seville featuring the detective Javier Falcón.
From his Q & A with PBS:
Though you knew you wanted to be a writer from the age of 14, you didn’t necessarily set out to write crime novels. How did it happen, and what about the genre appeals to you?--Marshal Zeringue
I had always traveled a lot and after a long trip over a year through Africa I started writing some travel stories. This happened just as travel writing was going out of fashion but a screenwriter friend of mine, who was taking time out to write some crime novels, read my stories and thought they would make a great setting for a series of mysteries. He told me to read Raymond Chandler and Elmore Leonard to get the feel. Both writers were a revelation to me in the ways of classic and contemporary “noir”.
What appeals to me about the genre is that there are no boundaries but the readers do make specific demands on the writers – great setting, strong characters, good plot and a powerful narrative. This is not a bad way to write novels.
You’ve said that books come harder, not easier, now that you’ve been writing for many years—why?
If you want to stand still as a writer, then the books probably would come easier. But if you want to push yourself to new limits, tell stories which contain more and more of the complexities of life, then inevitably you’re going to make life difficult for yourself. I’ve given myself new challenges with every book, some of them technical, others emotional and intellectual. We’re...[read on]
