L C Tyler talks about writing, reading, creating The Herring Seller's Apprentice, Danish bars and wardrobes...

L C Tyler is the author of The Herring Seller's Apprentice, which I talked about here.  It's a cracking read, full of wonderful humour.

L C Tyler kindly agreed to an interview.  My thanks to L C Tyler for his time and to Macmillan New Writing who arranged the contact.

The most obvious point about The Herring Seller's Apprentice is its uniqueness.  Comic crime is a notoriously difficult genre in which to succeed, but Tyler has achieved this with what appears to be remarkable ease.  So how did he arrive at this juncture?

'I've no idea really - I set out to write a novel and somehow it turned out to be comic crime.  I'm not sure that comedy is necessarily harder, but it's certainly more obvious when you fail.  If somebody complains that they have guessed who the murderer is by page three, you can congratulate them on their cleverness.  If somebody says the book's not funny, you've got no comeback at all. That said, I can't see myself writing straight crime fiction, much though I admire those that do.  The temptation to drop in a few one-liners would be too great.'

Is there an avid crime fiction reader in Tyler?'

I'm an avid reader generally, and always have been.  In terms of crime, I have recently read Eliza Graham's Playing with the Moon, Colin Watson's Bump in the Night, Malcolm Pryce's Aberystwyth Mon Amour, Brian McGilloway's Borderlands and Agatha Christie's Murder on the Orient Express - all good and highly recommended.  I have also enjoyed Audrey Niffenegger's brilliant The Time Traveller's Wife and am currently reading Raymond Queneau's Les Fleurs Bleues.  Queneau is fascinating - quirky, unpredictable and very funny.'

Has any specific book or person been an inspiration along the way, when it comes to the writing career of L C Tyler?

'If I had to pick one book it would be Jerome K Jerome's Three Men in a Boat.  I read it when I was nine or ten, and it was the first "grown-up" book I can remember reading.  I think I saw for the first time how humour can be delivered best through under-statement and how the narrator can be made to be reveal rather more than he himself knows.  I'm not sure I necessarily analysed it like that at the time - as a nine year old  just thought it was a very funny book - but looking back I think I probably took on board a number of important lessons.  My favourite author these days is probably Evelyn Waugh.  There is rarely a dull page in any of his books.  Whenever I have to remind myself of the standard that I should be aiming for, I think of Waugh.'

Macmillan New Writing specialises in new authors, but The Herring Seller's Apprentice is such an assured novel it's hard to believe it's a debut.  So how long has L C Tyler been writing?'

As the narrator of the Herring Seller says: I have always been a writer.  I've written short stories, and won one of the Ian St James Awards a few years ago.  I previously wrote a novel set in Africa, for which I had an agent, but failed to sell to anyone.  I spent about six years, on and off, writing the Herring Seller.  Strangely, Macmillan were the first publishers that I showed it to.'

That assurance also comes through in the relationship between Ethelred the author and Elsie, his literary agent.  Was this the subject of careful research or did something else contribute to gaining this knowledge?

'As my family will tell you, complete ignorance of a subject rarely prevents me expressing strong opinions on it.  My research, if you can call it that, was to spend three years in Copenhagen as Cultural Attache.  I met quite a few writers and one or two agents, though nobody remotely like Elsie Thirkettle.   Over dinner and in obscure Danish bars, I must have absorbed something.  But a lot of it is based more on a knowledge of human nature than a knowledge of the publishing industry.  Plenty of people nevertheless tell me that they know exactly who Elsie is based on, and I smile enigmatically in reply.'

The wardrobe with one third space but half the clothes missing is an acute observation, as is the comment on the size range to be found in a woman's wardrobe.  Then we have every woman's dream of hoping to wake up a size 10 one morning.  Here Tyler demystifies a woman's relatonship with clothes and body expressing some terrifyingly detailed knowledge.    What might be his source for that?

'My wife has said she will murder me or worse if I reveal where I did my research, so I can't even drop a clumsy hint.  Let me add, quickly changing the subject, that the equivalant men's problem is ties.  They never really wear out so there is never a good reason to throw them away - they accumulate on the tie rail of the wardrobe - grubby and unfashionable, but still technically wearable.  After all, who knows for example when you might need, and at very short notice, a Liberty silk tie with a baked bean stain just below the knot?  (Though, to be fair, I probably only need one.)'

Finally, what can we expect next from the pen of L C Tyler (after the blue pencil has made its mark)?

'The truthful answer is that (for the day job) I urgently need to draft some committee terms of reference.  I'm also currently working on a novel with the provisional title of Reality Check.  I am a bit superstitious about talking about current projects however - if I say too much I'll never get round to writing it.  I don't like showing what I'm writing to anyone either until I am sure it's pretty much as I want it.  So, I've finished the first draft, but at the moment I've no idea how much more work there is to do and there's nobody to tell me.  I've also sketched out a sequel to Herring Seller and I'm doing some research for a humorous-historical-crime novel.   Hopefully one or other of these projects will actually see the light of day.  If not I've always got the committee terms of reference to fall back on.'

By day L C Tyler is the Chief Executive of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health.  You can find an extract from the first chapter of The Herring Seller's Apprentice on his site.  But do remember this: I found myself reading extracts from the first chapter to friends, down the phone, when I started reading this novel.  That was a first!  If you like humour with a dose of crime, you'll love this novel.

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Apologies for the layout - I couldn't manage to keep the formatting to retain the line spaces. Some pieces of technology are beyond me...