Chris Niles Interview
Dec 10, 2001

1) For people who haven’t read your books yet, how would you describe your series with Sam Ridley?

The Sam Ridley books are a complete blast to write because I just relax and have fun and play it for laughs. Sam Ridley is a reporter for a London radio station and he’s coasting on his charm. He drinks too much and there’s nobody significant in his life, so he tends to get into a lot of trouble. I worked in radio for a lot of years and Sam is my tribute to those guys and girls who slog their guts out for little pay and no thanks and yet manage to maintain their sense of humor.

2) You also wrote a book out of the series, Hell’s Kitchen. It’s a pretty wild book.. Where did the idea for it come from?

I had moved to New York and intended to write something else, but all I could think about was how difficult it was finding somewhere to live. And I’d been wondering for ages why fictional serial killers have become folk heroes. I wanted to explore what would happen with a serial killer who isn’t a sophisticated bon vivant, but a big loser. So I mixed those two wildly disparate ideas together and voila!

3) So, you are originally from New Zealand, then you went to London, and now you’re in New York. Which is your favorite?

Despite the terrible things we have been through lately, I can’t imagine living anywhere other than New York, but that doesn’t mean I don’t regularly entertain fantasies of a wee place in New Zealand. The old homeland is astonishingly beautiful and I miss the landscape terribly. But I love being a ten-minute subway ride away from Chinatown, too. London was my home for ten years. I was back there recently and it was as comforting as stepping into a warm bath.

4) What other things have you done besides write novels?

I’ve worked in broadcasting since the last Ice Age. I started out in New Zealand and moved to Australia and from there went to London and Budapest. I tooled around Eastern Europe for a while, covering revolutions and whatnot. The nadir of that experience was three weeks in a Hungarian military hospital with my neck in traction. I was involved in a bad car accident that broke my neck. The doctors got me walking again and I returned to London. For some reason, CNN saw fit to hire me in there and again in New York.

5) How important do you think humor is to your writing?

I would love to write a gruesome, serious psychological thriller and get paid millions, but I think I’d bore myself to death, and I hear that it’s a really painful
way to die.

6) Do you do much research for your books?

Err, does drinking with cops in bars count?

7) With your books being printed in the US as well as the UK, do you find any changes in them as they cross the pond? And, how many countries are your books available in?

The language does get toned down. English vernacular has a lot more insults than American. Thus, words like slapper, tosser and pillock tend to get lost, which is a shame.

My books sell all over the English-speaking world. They’re translated into Dutch, German and Portuguese.

8) What authors do you like to read?

Shall I be posh or not? I love Dickens and Thomas Mann and the Bronte sisters and Aldous Huxley. The New Zealand authors, Janet Frame and Barbara Anderson are two of my favorites. As far as crime writers, I’m very sad that Michael Dibden can’t write his books as fast as I can read them. Sarah Caudwell is one of the funniest, I’ve read all her books twice and I laugh louder each time. I also love Patricia Highsmith and Patrick Hamilton and Arturo Perez-Reverte. I just started on the Lord of the Rings and am kind of embarrassed to admit that I’ve never read it because I found The Hobbit rather boring as a kid.

9) With all the possibilities for a protagonist, why did you decide on a radio station for him to work at?

Sheer laziness. I’d already done the research working as a reporter for Radio New Zealand.

10) I’ve heard parallels between Sam and Matt Scudder for different reasons. Part of it is the drinking, which is already causing him some problems. Is his drinking going to be a ongoing trait for Sam?

I don’t think he’ll ever stop, but he’ll have to tone it down unless he wants his liver to explode. Besides, I’d like him to get laid a little more often, perhaps even get a regular girlfriend and you can’t date successfully if you’re lying face down in your dinner.

11) The way you write characters so realistically is incredible. I would imagine that you are one of those people who are very observant when you are out and about. Do you like to people watch?

My absolute favorite hobby is eavesdropping on people’s conversations in cafes and on buses. I always have a book open as part of my disguise, but my ears are flapping. People do say the most amazing things. I once overheard a conversation between a married couple where the guy was talking about moving into his father-in-law’s beach-front house, taking over his stuff etc, and then the woman said, slightly surprised, ‘But he’s not dead.’ It did make me wonder what that guy had in mind.

12) Do real life experiences work there way into your books?

Sure. Everything in Hell’s Kitchen is absolutely true. Oh, alright, that was a slight exaggeration. But my husband and I did meet a Cyrus-like character when we were apartment-hunting. It was late at night and we were looking at this place that was too expensive, so he says, ‘I’ve got another cheaper one, just round the corner, would you like to see it?’ Did we think danger? We did not. We trotted along like little lambs, although I did start to get a little nervous
because he was kind of creepy and absolutely nobody knew where wewere. My husband was checking out the closet space while I was wondering what I’d do if the guy whipped out a bowie knife.

13) Any television or movie interest in your work yet?

A very hip German company is buying the rights to Hell’s Kitchen. I’m excited about it because I’ve seen their other stuff and it’s really kinky and sick, so I think we’ll get along famously

14) What do you like to do with your free time?

Lie on the sofa thinking of excuses not to exercise.

15) Do you think computers and the internet make writing easier?

I’ve always written my novels on computer and can’t imagine any other way of doing it, although when I first started in journalism I used a manual typewriter. It’s incredible to me that the Victorian writers wrote those huge door-stoppers without even a ball point pen. Imagine trying to scratch out Middlemarch with ink dripping all over the place.

The Internet has made research a complete doddle. I hardly even need to leave the house any more. They’ll find my body when the neighbors start to complain about the smell. It’s also made promoting one’s work much easier. I’ll just slip in a shameless plug here for http://www.tartcity.com

16) You have a short story coming out in the Tart Noire anthology. Any thing you can tell us about it?

It’s called Revenge is the Best Revenge and it’s about a television anchor who decides to kill the person who sacked her. But because she’s been an anchor for so long she is incapable of doing anything for herself, so her producer gets drafted in to help.

17) What kind of movies do you like to watch?

Noir, of course; I love a smart thriller. I’ll go to see almost any science fiction film because I always hope they’ll be as visually inventive as Blade Runner. It hasn’t happened yet. Also, I’m a real sucker for smart romantic comedies.

18) Can you tell us anything about the next book?

It’s about a woman who lies about being a private detective and then gets hired to find the person who is her worst enemy.

19) What brought about the first book? Why did you decide to sit down and write it?

I was sick at home and reading lots and lots of mystery books. I think I read everything Simon Brett has ever written, which is a considerable achievement because he’s so damn prolific. I enjoyed them all enormously and after a while I started to think maybe I should have a shot at it.

I’d always wanted to be a writer, but I’d never thought of crime before that. It was difficult to start because there’s always that voice saying ‘who do you think you are?’ But I finally got to the stage where I knew I’d never be happy with myself unless I at least tried. So Spike It was born.

20) What’s the one thing always in your refrigerator?

My husband loves to cook exotic food, so there are always millions of little jars of chili paste from all over the world.

(You thought I was going to say wine, didn’t you?)