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Julian: On your website, you mention that the urge to write fiction came at an early age. Can you remember a seminal book, author or experience that created this urge? And who now are your major influences in fiction, be it crime writing or otherwise?
Maureen: I think the urge to write stemmed from an absolute addiction to reading. I can’t remember a time when I didn’t have my head in a book. I had a library ticket before I started school, often raced through my loan allowance in a day. And of course, I love words: the images and emotions they evoke, the sound, the look on the page. I’ve always worked with words but, as a journalist, wrote other people’s stories within tight restrictions of time, space and style. As an author, that has both advantages and disadvantages.

I think the first book that made me want to write crime fiction was Ruth Rendell’s A Judgement in Stone. What a stunning first sentence: thirteen words that reveal the killer’s identity and her reason for annihilating an entire family. I read it years ago and couldn’t put it down. It had the same impact recently when I read it again. The power of the writing is awesome.

As to influences now, I hope I’m not overly influenced by any writer’s work. I hope, like every author, I’ve developed my own ‘voice’. Having said that, I admire writing that’s sharp and distinctive. I look out for books by Morag Joss, Jim Kelly, Carol O’Connell, Minette Walters, John Connolly, Laura Lippman, Liz Evans, Sarah Rayne – I’d better stop or this could take up the rest of the interview! What I don’t like is pedestrian prose, long passages that describe a character filling a kettle or something equally boring. I find that lazy and unimaginative.

Julian: You say that ‘it took eight years, four unpublished books and a string of rave rejections’ before you got published. What kept you going, and were you ever tempted to return to TV?
Maureen I wanted it so much, Julian. And I genuinely believed that I was writing novels readers would enjoy. The way I saw it, giving up would be failing. I told myself that wasn’t an option but, believe me, it came close. I can’t tell you how difficult it was to continue for that long. Rightly or wrongly, I felt under enormous pressure. Tell someone you’re a writer and their next question is: where can I get hold of your books? If you’re not published, it doesn’t seem to count.

Early on, a former BBC colleague said it wouldn’t matter if I didn’t get published; surely it was enough to have written a book? Well, sorry. It wasn’t. I wasn’t writing for me. Not then, and not now.

So what kept me going? A journalist’s persistence plus an absolute determination to see one of my novels in print. (though I have to say that neither guarantees publication; it’s never a given). Two other factors were vital. First, the incredible support from a small band of extremely close friends whose belief in me never wavered even when mine was non-existent. Second, a burning ambition to see a book of mine on a shelf in Waterstone’s, Ottakar’s, wherever and watch a complete stranger pick it up and become engrossed. This actually happened last month in Coventry. I waylaid the poor unsuspecting buyer on his way to the cash desk and told him he’d made my day.

Was I ever tempted to return to TV? No. The decision to leave took two years to make, so I was pretty sure I was doing the right thing. Even now though, very occasionally, when a massive news story’s breaking, I itch to get out there and cover it. That’s happened maybe half-a-dozen times in the last few years and when it does I monitor all the output, channel-hopping like a demented frog, watching who’s doing what and working out whether and how I’d do it differently. Is there anything I miss? You bet. The money.

Julian: You describe your heroine DS Bev Morriss as ‘loveable and lippy’ – how much of you is there in Bev?

Maureen: Bev’s half my age and twice as sharp. I wish there was more of her in me! Seriously, she is my kind of woman; she gets right in there and refuses to be cowed by anything or anyone. Her quick mouth and laconic wit are both weapon and protection – they can defuse as well as detonate potentially explosive situations. Like Bev, I use humour a lot in life and I certainly did as a reporter. It’s often described in books as a coping mechanism. And that’s not a cliché. Emergency services personnel, medics, journalists use it all the time.

II discussed this the other day with a newspaper reporter who until recently was a serving police officer (useful research for a new character I’m developing who’s followed exactly that path). He made an interesting point about the similarities he sees in the two professions. Not just the black humour but – among the often routine nature of both jobs – there’s the unpredictability, the entering highly-charged situations, coping with people on the emotional edge and needing instantly to communicate, to connect. I was with him up to the point he told me about an ex-police colleague whose decision under pressure led to several deaths. Not a deadline many journalists face.

Sorry, I digress. How much of me is there in Bev? Probably more than I’m aware.

Julian: Your debut, Working Girls, was described by one reviewer as ‘Bridget Jones meets Cracker’. Fair comment?
Maureen: Have to confess here. I know the reviewer. I was his producer years ago. I’d no idea he was going to write anything until I read the piece, and as I said to him later, tongue buried in cheek, ‘The book bears no relation to Bridget Jones and even less to Cracker.’ Have to say though, as a shoutline it’s pretty memorable.

Julian: Can you tell us a little about the storylines of Working Girls, Dead Old and Bev’s latest escapades in Baby Love, just published in June, and what inspired them? In particular, I’m intrigued that you went from elderly victims in Dead Old to baby-snatching in Baby Love: did you consciously choose to explore the effects of crime on victims at both ends of the age spectrum?
Maureen: Yes. Definitely. I hesitate to say I didn’t want to go over the same old ground but there was an element of that in the choice. I wanted to explore something different, something new to me. If I’m energised, intrigued and entertained, hopefully it’ll be the same for the reader. I was – and am – hugely excited by Baby Love. The novel has parallel story lines: one about the hunt for a missing baby, the other an on-going inquiry into a rapist targeting teenagers. Both are high-profile challenging cases that push Bev to the limit. And then some. Even I feel sorry for her. What happens will definitely change her. I’m wrestling with that in the new book.

The other novels in the series come from experiences on the road. Dead Old begins with a single image that’s stayed with me for years. I’d been called to cover the murder of an old woman on her allotment round the corner from where I was then living in Birmingham. The victim had been picking daffodils and the flowers lay scattered around the crime scene. I found out later she was a retired doctor: a woman who’d spent her entire life healing others. For some time, I’d been thinking about the way old people, particularly women, are often overlooked or ignored in our society. I try to explore that within the story and hope I shatter the blue-rinse-and-handbag image.

As for Working Girls, again I was fed up with the way prostitutes are often portrayed in print. The one-dimensional tarts-with-a-heart bore no relation to the street workers I’d interviewed over the years. For research, I talked in-depth to young prostitutes and went on the streets alongside vice squad officers. I was able to gather some extraordinary and moving material.

Julian: You’re a former BBC Newsnight journalist and you’ve covered many crime stories, including murders. You’ve worked with the police and interviewed victims. That experience must have provided you with a lifetime of plot ideas! Which are the most memorable? And are there any recurrent themes you find yourself drawn to?
Maureen: It’s people and images that I remember. The single frame that tells a news story can give me – as with daffodils and Dead Old – a starting point for a narrative. There are several more lurking in my head: a snowball melting in a father’s hand; a middle-aged couple standing bewildered at the roadside looking for a daughter they know they’ll never see again. I’m drawn to people. Some of the least likely individuals can be the most fascinating. It’s easy to dismiss someone because of the way they look or the way they speak but I’m convinced that everyone has an extraordinary story to tell. Or for someone like me to write!

Julian: Your voice has often been heard on radio and TV. So if your publishers Crème de la Crime produce audio versions of your novels, can listeners expect you to be the reader?
Maureen: : I wish, Julian! I’d love to! I always read aloud work-in-progress. Like a lot of writers, I need to hear the rhythm, make sure it flows and eliminate the clunky. I also adored reading to my daughter when she was younger and she insisted on the full vocal works. No problem with William or Winnie the Pooh but have you tried it with the Narnia chronicles? Having said that, my daughter’s twenty-one now and winds me up mercilessly when I attempt accents. According to her, they all sound like Katharine Hepburn after a six-month-stay in South Africa. On the other hand who says Bev has a Birmingham accent?

Julian: With all your connections at the Beeb, is there any chance we’ll see your novels transferred to the small screen (or even the big screen)? If you were the casting director and could pick anyone at all to play Bev, who would you choose and why?
Maureen: Again – I wish! The closest it’s come to reality was when a producer friend of mine wrote a treatment for Working Girls. It was an eye-opener for me. Having worked in TV for so long, I’d always thought I wrote fairly visually. But Nigel came up with a stunning opening that I hadn’t even considered, plus an incredibly effective musical leitmotif that again hadn’t occurred to me. That’s a drama background for you as opposed to news! Either way, there was no finance on the table so Bev has yet to make her screen debut.

As to who’d play her? Until recently I’d never seen anyone who even remotely matched my mental picture. But there’s a wonderful actor called Liz White who plays WPC Annie Cartright in Life on Mars on the BBC. She’s perfect: looks right, sounds right and has that slightly cocky, tough-cookie veneer that masks vulnerability. Playing Bev would give Annie a career boost as well – she’d be promoted to detective sergeant. Only one problem: Liz’s eyes are brown and Bev’s are the bluest I’ve ever ‘seen’.

Julian: Have you had any thoughts yet as to where Bev’s going next?
Maureen: Bev’s en route to a Hard Time. That’s the working title of the new book though to be accurate, it also describes ordeals faced by two new characters. As for Bev, she’s working two challenging cases and has to deal with the emotional fall-out from Baby Love.

Julian: Are you tempted to write a standalone novel and, if so, which plots, characters and themes are you drawn to?
Maureen: Yes, I am. And I’ve had an idea simmering for several years. It’s not new; no theme is. But I think I have an effective way to treat it. It’s a novel that needs a more complex structure and an entirely different milieu and voice than the Bev series. Mind you, I hope I’ll still be writing Bev when she retires – assuming she hasn’t talked herself out of the job by then.

Julian: I have one final question. It seems to be becoming a fixture as the sign-off question for Mystery Women interviews, but that’s probably because it always generates such interesting and diverse answers from interviewees: if you could invite five people (real or fictional, living or dead) to a dinner party, who would you invite and why?
Maureen:Only five! Okay, I’m going exclusively for the feel-good factor. No politics or religion. First is the actor Richard Burton. That voice! It’s the most sensual I’ve ever heard. I really wish I’d seen him on stage, and I’d love to have interviewed him. If Burton stayed behind to read to me I’d even wash the dishes.

I’d invite Linda Smith because she made me laugh so much. She was one of the sharpest cleverest comedians in the country. I still miss her inimitable delivery when I tune into shows like The News Quiz.

Sexist and, given Bev’s fixation a tad predictable, but Johnny Depp could certainly take a place at the table. I’d try not to stare at that exquisitely beautiful face all night. I suspect Depp’s also an intelligent and sensitive man and I’d certainly do my best to find out.

This is becoming a bit of a pattern but I’d choose another actor. I found John Thaw mesmerising, that stillness, that presence, those cool blue eyes. Again, I regret not having seen him on stage. Thaw’s performance as Morse was flawless and I don’t think there’ll ever be a better detective series on TV. (Could he bring Colin Dexter along – or is that cheating?)

And now I’m really torn. I like the idea of having another writer in the mix but it’s almost impossible to choose. I’d happily hire the Albert Hall to fit in everyone I’d be interested to talk to but – as I have to select just one – I’ll go for Janet Evanovich. Her Stephanie Plum series is wickedly hilarious. She’s one of the few writers who can make me laugh out loud. And I did say I wanted a feel-good party!

Thank you, Maureen, for taking the time out to talk with us.

For more information on Maureen visit her website at
http://www.maureencarter.co.uk