Chris Nickson

Chris Nickson is the author of the highly-acclaimed Richard Nottingham series and is also a well-known music journalist. Born and raised in Leeds, he lived in the USA for thirty years and now makes his home in England.

Nickson's eighth Tom Harper mystery, The Molten City, is coming soon to the US.

From Nickson's Q&A with Kate Vane for Crime Fiction Lover:

Tom Harper feels like a very grounded character, and has a strong marriage. It’s quite a refreshing change from the dysfunctional detective. Was that a conscious decision?

When I started writing crime fiction with my Richard Nottingham series set in the 1730s, I made definite decisions. He would be married and have children. The loner detective who drinks too much is a very tired cliché. Most people are married, they have lives outside of work, worries with their partners and kids. That’s how the world is for most people. And by having scenes with the family, it rounds out a character; we see a different side of them. I’ve had one character who was single, Dan Markham in my 1950s books. But those are deliberately noir – and even then he had a regular, and very strong, girlfriend.

At the start of the Tom Harper series, in Gods of Gold, Tom was engaged. His marriage to Annabelle happened at the end of the book. A couple of years later they had a daughter who’s 16 years old in The Molten City and quite headstrong. But Annabelle herself is a strong, working-class woman. I like to have strong women as characters; there are plenty of them in the North, and certainly here in Leeds. And most women I’ve known have been strong. I’d have been hard-pressed to keep Annabelle out really. She insisted on having bigger and bigger roles in the books. She’s the emotional heart of the series. But...[read on]

Visit Chris Nickson's website.

My Book, The Movie: The Constant Lovers.

The Page 69 Test: The Constant Lovers.

The Page 69 Test: The Iron Water.

The Page 69 Test: The Hanging Psalm.

Writers Read: Chris Nickson (January 2019).

--Marshal Zeringue