Good Cop/Bad Cop

I hope that Tom Thorne is both. He is certainly not always a particularly efficient cop, and in several of the books he makes hideous mistakes that cost both himself and others very dear. You’ll forgive me if I don’t tell you which books those are. Thorne is stubborn and, as his name implies, can be prickly and tough to get rid of. But if he doesn’t know when he’s not wanted, his tragedy is that he doesn’t always know when he is. This has led to a certain amount of… domestic upheaval. Readers are always asking when I’m going to cut him a break as far as his love life goes. Without giving anything away, there may be a degree of happiness on that front in a couple of the later books, but being the kind of books they are, I might only be giving it to Thorne so that I can cruelly snatch it away again later. Good writer/bad writer…

Tom Thorne is the most interesting cop in British crime fiction at present.
The Times

I hope that Thorne is no longer the character he was in that first book. I hope he is richer and more complex. He has certainly been inching towards the shadows of late, but again, no credible character can be likeable all the time. As to his future…well, he’s getting a holiday after this next book, while I write a standalone novel (though eagle-eyed readers may be able to spot a familiar figure in one short scene) but then he will be back, and I can promise to reveal a side to him that readers of the series will not have seen before.

Tom Thorne is a character I am immensely fond of and, as you’d probably expect, there is plenty of myself in him. He is probably more honourable than I am, and certainly braver. I will also admit that we share a birthday and a taste in music, but I’ll keep the rest to myself.
I am taller, though…