Author Paul Thomas goes searching for some sin in the suburbs in his latest crime novel, writes Shane Gilchrist.
When a staunch cop begins whispering in your ear, it pays to listen.
Author Paul Thomas has summoned hard-man Tito Ihaka from a 15-year crime novel hiatus, his new book, Death On Demand, putting the detective at the centre of an increasingly complex puzzle involving murder, blackmail, gang activities and possible police corruption.
Having introduced readers to Ihaka in 1994 via Old School Tie (also known as Dirty Laundry), then Inside Dope (1995, winner of the Ned Kelly Award for Best Crime Novel the following year) and Guerrilla Season (1996), Thomas then turned his back on his protagonist in favour of other styles of writing.
Yet Ihaka's voice remained in the background. Insistent, like the character.
"The thing was, I never made a conscious decision that I was going to move away from that character and style of book," Thomas explains via telephone from a Rotorua hotel room last week (as part of New Zealand Book Month, the author is speaking at various venues around the country, including in Dunedin on Tuesday).
"I certainly didn't think it would be 15 years before I went back to Ihaka. I just got involved in other things, other projects. Life got in the way, I guess.
"I was always quite interested in him. One thing I was quite wary of when I put him aside was getting into that treadmill of just churning out an Ihaka novel every year and a-half in which your character never changes or ages. You get into that formulaic thing where you are almost rewriting the same book."
Thomas acknowledges there is a certain group of readers who want exactly that. A key reason for the success of more than a few crime novels is precisely because the main character changes very little.
Not for him, though. His early clutch of crime novels might have recently been republished as The Ihaka Trilogy, but he didn't want to go back to writing that style of book.
"They were comic crime novels with quite extravagant crimes and a cast of quite grotesque characters. They were fun to do at the time but were just not quite what I wanted to be doing.
"So it was a matter of finding a story and style that accommodated Ihaka, something that would be a satisfying crime novel, but one that would also allow me to write in a way I wanted to. That was really the issue," Thomas says.
In Death On Demand, Ihaka is portrayed as a man more composed, comfortable in his own company, yet far from perfect.
"I think Ihaka has certainly grown up a bit," Thomas says.
"But the essence of him hasn't changed too much. I'd like to think the temptation I put in his path in this book was pretty damned tempting. But he is less ill-disciplined, less of a clown than he used to be. He is more introspective."
The detective is also capable of fast action, as evidenced by a confrontation with his new boss' right-hand man, a move which forces him into exile (albeit briefly) before former long-time boss Detective Inspector Finbar McGrail (now Auckland District commander) summons him to bear witness to the deathbed confession of a businessman suspected of killing his own wife.
In quick succession, the suspect and another potential source of information are murdered, more corpses begin turning up, and so the investigations expand, uncovering a blackmail operation preying on married women and gang activities controlled from inside prison; there is even a whiff of police corruption.
Thomas says he did no specific research into the characters who populate his latest crime novel, preferring instead to draw on his life experiences to flesh out personalities. Key to this is dialogue that is punchy yet seemingly realistic.
"I think in this sort of crime novel, the characters are extreme just by the nature of what they do. They are not like you and I, so their interactions tend to be quite vivid. The way you convey that is through the dialogue. I do think crime fiction requires dialogue to be vivid and snappy."
He also manages to bridge the hyper-realism of his early Ihaka novels with an almost mundane depiction of murder. Think of it as sin in the suburbs.
"The crimes that were in the first three books were quite over the top. What I've tried to do here is have people who maybe, under normal circumstance, wouldn't get into trouble with the law, but because something goes wrong in their relationship ... we have all seen marriages go belly-up and every now and again people do go off the rails."
Born in England, Thomas and his family emigrated to New Zealand when he was 3. He lived near Timaru for several years, then Auckland, where he took up journalism, working for various newspapers in New Zealand and overseas. Now based in Wellington, he pens a weekly column for The New Zealand Herald.
He has published a number of books on sport, including collaborations with former All Blacks coach John Hart, All Blacks John Kirwan and Tana Umaga, and Black Caps and former India cricket coach John Wright. His 2004 book A Whole New Ball Game examined New Zealand rugby in the professional era.
"The process of writing those sports books was a good exercise in delivering a book on time. They were pretty good training [for fiction]," Thomas says.
"I like to be economical as a writer. I get restless when I read a crime novel that has a three-page description of a room, when it could have been one paragraph. I try to keep pretty tight on that sort of stuff."
Asked for his thoughts on crime writing in New Zealand, Thomas looks both outwards and inwards: "Historically, there haven't been a lot of New Zealand crime novels. Ngaio Marsh is often referred to, but to my mind most of her books are set in England; even those that were set here were very much in that English tradition as pioneered by Arthur Conan Doyle and Agatha Christie and whatnot.
"Certainly, when Old School Tie came out in 1994, it had been a while since anyone had written a crime novel set in New Zealand, populated with New Zealand characters and in a deliberate attempt to capture a New Zealand vernacular.
"I suppose if I can claim credit for anything, it is that I might have given New Zealand crime fiction a bit of a kick-start with those three Ihaka books.
There seems to be a thriving wee community of crime writers here now."
Death On Demand (Hodder Moa, $36.99) is out now.
Bibliography: Paul Thomas' novels include Dirty Laundry (aka Old School Tie, 1994), Inside Dope (1995), Guerrilla Season (1996), Final Cut (1999), The Empty Bed (2002) and Sex Crimes (2003).
In addition to his novels, Thomas' short stories have appeared in The Sydney Morning Herald, The Australian Financial Review, Metro, The Eye, Australian Penthouse and The New Zealand Herald.
He has written the screenplay for a number of television movies, including Ihaka: Blunt Instrument. He has also adapted his novel Inside Dope for the screen.
Catch him: Paul Thomas will discuss his latest novel and the art of crime writing at the following venues (admission is free):
Mosgiel Library: Tuesday, March 20, 2pm.
Dunedin City Library: 4th floor, Tuesday, March 20, 5.30pm.
For more information email library@dcc.govt.nz or call 474-3690.
