Listen to Robert discuss the importance of the city of London in The Running Grave.
Transcript
This was an interesting book to write because it’s really a split location book. So while Strike is largely London based and conducting the investigation from the office as usual, Robin is in Norfolk for a huge part of the book. And it was interesting because firstly by separating them I think they become closer. Because they are writing letters to each other, it’s their only means of communication. Robin has to smuggle these letters out and Strike is smuggling them in. And that was an interesting part of the book for me because their relationship really does deepen through physical separation which is odd but can happen.
And then the other important part of the book – and I visited Norfolk and I wanted to get it right – is the Norfolk landscape. Now, I hope people from Norfolk will forgive me from saying that I find that very flat landscape a little bit sinister. I don’t think I’m alone in that. It has its beauty, no question. That’s why I put the commune that Strike lived at as a child in Norfolk in the first place, because I do find something slightly sinister about the flatness of that landscape and the sort of marshy parts of Norfolk. That said – she said not wanting people from Norfolk to hate me – I can remember a very happy childhood holiday at Cromer, which also features in the book.
So, yes, it’s not all bad. But, yeah, I found it very satisfying actually to put a good chunk of the book outside London. It just changed the tone and feeling of the book a lot.
