Jo Spain’s Best Selling Irish Thrillers

Jo Spain’s crime thrillers are Irish best sellers. Her quietly charismatic lead detective Tom Reynolds is called upon to explore dark secrets of Ireland’s past – secrets that still haunt life in the green isle today. Hi there, I’m your host Jenny Wheeler and today Jo talks about why she loves writing crime and which actor she’d pick to play Tom in an upcoming TV series. Six things you’ll learn from this Joys of Binge Reading episode: Why Jo “counts minutes like other women count calories“ The secret to best selling crime The actor she’d like to play Tom Reynolds The challenge of “Why Dunnits” The writers she admires most And the one thing she did that brought success Where to find Jo Spain:  Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/JoSpainAuthor/  Twitter  @SpainJoanne What follows is a “near as” transcript of our conversation, not word for word but pretty close to it, with links to important mentions. Jenny: And now, here’s Jo. Hello there Jo and welcome to the show, its great to have you with us. Jo: Hi Jenny, thanks for inviting me on. Jenny: Beginning at the beginning . . . .Was there a “Once Upon A Time” moment when you realised you had to write fiction or your life would somehow be incomplete? Was there a catalyst? Jo Spain, author. Jo: Yes, there certainly was a catalyst. I’ve read my entire life, so I’ve always enjoyed novels and I never thought that writing one was something that ordinary people did. I was working in a job in the Irish Parliament, and my job involved writing all the time; but writing speeches and legislation, bills, things like that. And there was a moment when I was going back to work after taking maternity leave following the birth of one of my children where I thought to myself “I spend all day every day writing, but it’s not the kind of writing I like to do, in an ideal scenario and a dream job. I’ve loved crime fiction since I was very small, and reading it and watching it on TV. I definitely just thought “I’m going to give this is a go and write something I enjoy writing”. It all kicked off from there. Jenny: Fantastic: You’ve so far published three books with Detective Tom Reynolds in the role of lead investigator, with a fourth in the series due out later this year.  They are all very much bedded in Irish social history and the first, With Our Blessing, tackled the controversial way the Catholic church handled the so-called Magdalene Laundries in the 60s and 70’s  . . .with brutal treatment of young unmarried women who went to them seeking help in pregnancy  . .. Can you tell us a bit about the “set up” for that book?  It had personal connection for you I understand, With Our Blessing, Jo Spain Jo: I always knew I was going to write books that had some kind of social or cultural background, because I’m very interested in current affairs and history, – and giving books a little more depth. At the time in Ireland, the Magdalene Laundries and Mother & Baby  homes were really making the headlines. The Irish Prime Minister, the Taoiseach, had apologised to women who’d been through the system, and there was an awful lot being unveiled. So I thought this would make a very interesting back drop to my first novel. I was in the middle of researching that and it dawned on me – my father who passed away in 1995 had been adopted. He’d never known where he was adopted from or anything, he had a very strong sense of why he’d been adopted- his mother couldn’t manage him and didn’t want him. He really had a chip on his shoulder about it. But I was putting the dates together with the research I was doing, and it occurred to me he’d been born in the 1950s in Ireland. There was no way he hadn’t come through this system. I rang up the health department here and being adopted, one of the notorious secrets is that you have no rights to any information. And that’s worse again, when you’re the grandchild of a woman who’s given away her baby. But I struck it lucky and I found a woman who was willing to help. Because my Dad had passed away, and because it was more or less historical, she gave me some of his mother’s details. He’d been through a Mother & Baby Home. One of the legends of the Mother & Baby Homes is that a woman refused to sign the forms and took her baby out. This was unheard of. And then I discovered my grandmother refused to sign the forms and took her baby out at exactly the same time as was seen in the movie Philomena  – at exactly the same time as Philomena would have been going through a home.. Historic Magdalene Laundry scene The sad twist to the story was four years later, she went back to the home and gave him up for adoption. The speculation is that a single mother on her own in Dublin would have been looked down upon, and quite possibly was impoverished, and perhaps just returned to where she knew he’d be looked after. It was a very tragic story, and he carried it all his life. I realised then that this history was in our own family. I just treated the whole issue very sensitively –  because I knew what it had done to my dad to be adopted, and it became more than just a background. I really felt the emotions while I was writing. Jenny: Yes, and that really does come through in your character Laura, and the way she identifies with the girls.  Likewise the second book – Beneath the Surface – is set in the Irish parliament – you’ve already mentioned you worked  there so it was a very familiar setting for you  – but you don’t work there any longer do you? Beneath the Surface, by Jo Spain Jo: No, no, now I write full time. They all say I was an economic adviser and a spy in the basement, going with that second book. Everything in that book, the entire description of the Irish Parliament is all accurate at the time. All those secret tunnels exist, and the statues. There’s a statue at the start of the book, the victim at the prologue is murdered and he falls across it. That’s actually part of a bigger statue of Queen Victoria that used to be in the garden and that was actually exported to Australia, so there’s links all over the world to that building. Whenever I was meeting people for coffee they wanted to come and see it because it is very architectural, very beautiful – though of course I never really noticed that too much because I worked there! I’m very much into political dramas – House of Cards – that kind of thing, so I thought I want my next crime here because I know how to get around it undetected. Jenny:  Yes and then there’s Sleeping Beauties, the third in the series – about a serial killer operating in a very strongly provincial Irish setting. This one too is rooted in a factual social context –  A number of recent Irish crime novels have referred to the Missing Women – and the idea that there was a serial killer at work in Ireland who has never been apprehended..  Do police still believe that was the case?  And has he still not been caught? Sleeping Beauties, Jo Spain Jo: Yeah, there is a theory, and there’s conflicting ideas and you wouldn’t know because everyone’s speculating, a lot of women went missing in a triangle around the more rural regions outside of Dublin. There’s mountains that run on from Dublin to other counties like Wicklow, with a lot of bog runs  and an awful lot of places where if you wanted to bury a body and go undetected, that’s where you could do it. Now a lot of people say that the victims are murdered by somebody they know, and it’s easy to proscribe their deaths to some serial killer who’s stalking the lands, rather than deal with the familial issues or power in villages and communities. The hint of that inspired me to do that, What really inspired me about that was the setting – it’s a very beautiful place,  you know, Glendalough, where he buried them,  It’s like I say in the book, it really does feel as if the thumb of God has pressed it into the world. The whole of Ireland actually is very beautiful and yet really really bad things happen here! So it’s fertile for crime fiction you know. Jenny: Your latest – The Confession  – published in  the last few weeks – is a stand alone psychological thriller  – so not part of the Tom Reynolds series ..which you say has taken things to “a whole new gear?”  What did you mean by that? Jo: Initially I just wanted to take a break from the detective novels because I’ve noticed as a reader and a writer that if you keep doing the same thing you can get a little bit lazy.  I’ve noticed myself a kind of mid series slump in other series I’ve read, and I wanted to avoid that –  to take a bit of time to think about the series a bit and where it was going next.  And I had another idea in my head so I thought I’d write that as a stand alone. But then – I didn’t really realise what I was doing when I started,  I realised I was writing a “Why Dunnit” rather that a “Who Dunnit” because we know right at the start who has done the crime so I have to work really hard for 400 pages to keep it interesting all the way through. The Confession, by Jo Spain And the next thing in “Who Dunnits” –  the detectives are the good guys. People like them.  In the psychological thrillers the key character is  the likeable unlikeable one you know. They have to be generally unlikeable to carry a sinister story but you have to stay with them and carry them to the end – so yes I made myself work really hard, without really intending to do so – I can’t take too much credit. Jenny: And you must have found you enjoyed it because I think there’s a second “why dunnit” – Dirty Little Secrets – due out at the end of the year. . . . What made you decide to do these and do they present different challenges to Tom Reynolds? Jo: It isn’t really a “Why Dunnit” but it is a stand alone.   It is important to show versatility and you can’t write the same thing over and over again.  A lot of these crime thrillers are based around married couples, so I wanted to do something different again.  You know you are bombarded with ads for these books – this one a mix of Big Little Lies, (Liane Moriarty) The Casual Vacancy (J K Rowling) and  Then There Were None (Agatha Christie) – it kind of crosses between the three of them. Jenny:  Yes – do they present different challenges from Tom Reynolds series? Jo: They do – they take far more out of me  It’s not that Tom is easy but I have now established a set of characters and I love them, I know where they are going to in every book. Writing a new book you have to establish a whole new set of characters. It’s like starting a new job or moving to a new neighbourhood – you have to get to know them and then present them to your readers like you’ve known them for years. And then they only have that one book, they stay on that arc – there’s a start middle and an end. You are not going to bring them forward in terms of their later development. But there is far more freedom too, because you not locked into “good guys” and bad guys.”  If Tom Reynolds suddenly became horrible I would hear about it from readers . . Jenny: But it would be completely against character as he is written . . . . Jo: Yes – your investigating case can be bad but you have to stay with the characters as they are written.  People fall in love with them and they want them to do certain somethings in every book. Jenny: You’ve had an approach for the series to be made for TV and you’ve said you think actor Barry Ward would be perfect for the role . . .  Do you imagine actors faces for your characters roles? And if you do who would be right to play Ray and Laura? Irish actor Barry Ward – a perfect Tom Reynolds  Jo: I’m so glad you like Barry for Tom because I had this conversation with someone last week who said “That’s not Tom!” and I thought “What am I doing, I’m not even conveying what the man looks like!”  I have very clear images of what they look like – Ray is just a very good looking guy – so he could be played by any number of good looking guys – I just want to be on the audition couch when they are going to do him. There’s a lot of really handsome Irish actors  who could play the role.  Laura is different she isn’t conventionally beautiful but she is pretty – with  long red hair, and freckles and I have looked around a bit but I haven’t found anyone I think suitable to play Laura. In more general terms (moving away from specific book focus) Jenny:  I was amused to see you described in an interview as “counting minutes the way other women count calories.” You’ve packed the most amazing amount in – working full time as a political adviser and raising four children as well as writing . .  how do you do it? Jo: Well it is weird, because it is something that people zone in on…  I think its the old thing if you want something done ask a busy woman…  I realised early on – before I had four children – that everything really comes down to managing a schedule. I slipped into the habit of scheduling – and you don’t get “off” time with children really . . . .  You’re “on” all the time. You might be busy during the week at work, but when the weekend comes you have to be busy doing other things… I’d always worked full time and my husband lost his job so he was here with the children and we had this reverse schedule where I did dinner and bed and then I settled down to some writing.  So when I stopped working outside of the home and was writing full time at home, I felt like I had so much more time in the day. “Counting minutes the way other women count calories” But when I was working fulltime and I had the children and I was writing at night, I can’t lie, that was hard. Probably the hardest two years of my life. I was hoping it would take off, so I could set myself up to write full time. I did it like I was setting up a business and I said to the children “Mummy is busy, but I am doing this so one day I can be writing from home full time and we’ll have a lot more time to do things together.” Jenny:  How old are they now? Jo: I’ve got 12, 9, 6 and just gone three.  So it’s a handful. Jenny: Toddlers to teenagers! Jo: My husband is at home too, so he does all the school runs and so forth – we are just blessed. Jenny:  Is there one thing you’ve done in your writing career more than any other that’s been the secret to your success? Jo:  It’s the secret of staying sane. You know to succeed in the book world requires longevity and hard work and that’s the shock for a lot of people.  You hear about these six figure deals some people get, but most authors don’t get those, they get much smaller deals, and they are still working fulltime jobs. I always had the next project I was working on, so even when I had a book coming out, even when we were working on publicity for one book, I was working on the next one. Which meant slowly but surely the success started accumulating without me getting too lonely or too paranoid or too discouraged…   Which are all things that can happen –  that and moving the goal posts on yourself. Not giving yourself time to enjoy and celebrate your achievements. I got Number One in Ireland last week and I was already thinking about the next thing. Jenny:  Congratulations on Number One – that’s fabulous. What’s the secret to a good thriller?  And why do you think the thriller genre is right up there with romance in terms of popularity right now? Jo:  sometimes when the world is in great strife people turn to crime fiction because there is generally a resolution at the end of the book. the good guys win and the bad guys get packed off to jail. You know in our world there is a lot of uncertainty – I can see why both on the page and the screen I am a big fan on short chapters and a hook at the end.  I want to be sure I am giving a little part of the puzzle  I write that way so its not one big reveal at the end.  Jenny:  If you were sending your readers on a magical mystery literary tour where would you Tripadvise them to go?  Jo: I think one of my favourite books to write was The Confession because I took them all over Europe to places I had already been to – so I sent Julie to Capri and Mont San Michel  –  I should be writing international espionage, then I could take my characters to all these glorious places….  so yes,  they should drink some champagne at Mont St Michel and then pop to Capri and stay in a villa and drink some nice white wine. Mont St Michel – Normandy tourism Jenny:  So with four children did you actually get to go to these places to research the book Jo: Ouch no, I drew on places I’d been to in the past. although we did get to Mont St Michel one year  . . . Julie went there and got married and it was very nice.  I went there with a one year old with no buggy carting him up and down steps – not as glamorous as being on the end of the writing pen. Turning to Jo as reader Jenny: The series is called “The Joys of Binge Reading” because I see it as providing inspiration for people who like to read series . . . .So – turning to your taste in fiction who do you “binge read” ? And do you have a current series or author – or more than one – you’d like to recommend to listeners. Jo:  I do binge read and I very much fall into either series or an author  Ever since I discovered Agatha Christie as a young reader I’ve been looking for writers who give me that same feeling. . . . I am obsessed at the moment with Liane Moriarty I know I will enjoy all of her books and read everything she writes… Liane Moriarty – an “obsessive” favourite I read Louise Penny,- she’s Canadian,  Fred Vargas – she’s French – Ann Cleeves  does the Shetland detective.  If I discover someone I like I read everything they’ve written which is what I hope people will do for me. . . Jenny: Do you have a current author at the moment? Jo: I read obsessively and these days I get an awful lot of books to give quotes for the cover. I’ve been reading Sarah Vaughan’s Anatomy of a Scandal, Force of Nature by Jane Harper, and Come and Find Me,  Sarah Hilary’s latest.   I have a book on the go all the time. Circling back to the end  Jenny: At this stage in your career, if you were doing it all again, what would you change – if anything? Jo: I am happy now.  I think when you get that first book deal it’s a shock to discover you are not going to be that “Girl on a Train sensation” – that deluded sense of everything on the line… I think back now to how excited you should be to be published and if you knew that if you keeping working on this success will come…  you’d enjoy it more. You have to write them to discover that, to learn on the job. You have to go through that writing process  I’ve gained so much along the way, everything I’ve done I’ve learned from, right or wrong,  I wouldn’t change that. You do learn with every single book, most people cannot do it perfect the first time. . . Jenny:  So what is next for Jo the writer ? Projects under development? Jo: I’ve got another Tom Reynolds coming out in September, and another stand alone in December, I have to write another Tom this year for next year, and I will do another stand alone as well…    I’m doing some TV writing which I can’t disclose anything about, and the Tom series is going to be adapted as well. so I’m consulting on them – telling them which Hollywood actress to hire. Jenny:  Do you work to a word count. Jo: I don’t. I am a really fast writer –  on a good day I can write 10,000 words in a day – it comes from working in Parliament – you had to write two speeches in a day, 5000 words each – I’ve been conditioned to write that much, it’s no big stretch. Jenny: Where can readers find you on line? Jo:  I’m very active on Twitter and Facebook. You can find me: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/JoSpainAuthor/  Twitter  @SpainJoanne I don’t have a website yet, but I’m very active on social media. Jenny: Been great talking Jo. And definitely- yes stick with Barry Ward. Actually speaking of that again – I gather Tom is based on your own husband isn’t he? Jo: Yes he really is. He doesn’t look anything like Barry Ward  – he is far more attractive! Martin is smart and loyal and very funny.  He is my best friend.  I knew I was going to spend a lifetime with this detective so I wanted to feel warm about him and yes they share a lot of characteristics . . . . Thanks To Our Technical Support: The Joys of Binge Reading podcast is put together with wonderful technical help from Dan Cotton at DC Audio Services. Dan is an experienced sound and video engineer who’s ready and available to help you with your next project… Seek him out at [email protected] or Phone + 64 – 21979539. He’s fast, takes pride in getting it right, and lovely to work with. Our voice overs are done by Abe Raffills, and Abe’s another gem. He got 20 years of experience on both sides of the camera/microphone as a cameraman/director and also voice artist and television presenter. Abe’s vocal delivery is both light hearted and warm and he is super easy to work with no matter the job. You’ll find him at [email protected]