John Harvey

Ali Karim interviewed John Harvey for The Rap Sheet.

The opening exchange of their conversation:

Ali Karim: So, the most obvious question first: Why did you decide to bring back DI Charlie Resnick in your latest work?

John Harvey: I hadn’t written about him at length for 10 years, but had given him walk-on roles in several other novels as well as having written several short stories in which he featured, so his fictional life had been continuing during that gap, which meant it wasn’t too difficult to pick him up at the start of Cold in Hand. I knew what he’d been involved in, both professionally and personally. Also, I’d been living in Nottingham again for two years, more or less, immediately prior to writing, so I felt I had got to know the city again--and had spent enough time there to register some of the changes that had occurred. I was interested in writing about Resnick as he approaches retirement (to no small degree inspired by K.C. Constantine’s wonderful book, Blood Mud) and also in writing in a little more detail about his relationship with his fellow officer and now live-in lover, Lynn Kellogg. Lastly, prompted all too sadly by the premature deaths of several close friends, I wanted to see if I could write well and convincingly about grief.

Read the entire interview.

--Marshal Zeringue