Most of your books have been historical crime novels. Your latest, Cover Story, is a contemporary spy story. Why the change?

I never meant to become a historical crime writer. I just had an idea for a novel that happened to be in that genre. That idea was to write a one-off book featuring Porfiry Petrovich, the investigating magistrate from Dostoevsky’s masterpiece Crime And Punishment. My agent at the time advised me to have a few other story lines up my sleeve because publishers like a series. Four books later, I was a fully-fledged historical crime novelist. But I’ve never wanted to restrict myself to one genre. I think writers are hostages to their ideas. If you have an idea for a book, it doesn’t let you go until you’ve devoted however many months or years of your life it takes to write it. It was the same with all my books. It just so happens that this time the idea that called to me was set in the modern day.

Could you give us a quick tour of your back catalogue?

My first published novel, Taking Comfort, was a contemporary urban thriller that explores post-911 anxiety. Then came the Porfiry books, which were set in 19^th century St Petersburg. I then moved closer to home with a series of police procedurals set in London at the outbreak of the First World War. The protagonist Silas Quinn was described by one critic as “an Edwardian Dirty Harry”. Then I wrote a dystopian novel set in the near future called Psychotopia. After that I wrote Fortune’s Hand, which is a literary historical novel about Walter Raleigh. It’s not a crime novel at all, so if you’re expecting Walter Raleigh to go around solving crimes you may be disappointed. After that I returned to Russia for my Empire of Shadows series, which is really a spin-off from the Porfiry books. Porfiry even makes a few cameo appearances.

What is it that attracts you to the crime genre?

Nothing propels a story forward like the discovery a body. The reader immediately wants to know who the murdered person is and why they were killed. And, of course, who did it. You can vary the formula. You don’t have to start with the discovery of the body, you can have the events leading up to the murder, for example. In that case, it’s the reader’s expectation that something bad is going to happen that pulls them along. Typically, in an Agatha Christie novel say, the fun is wondering which of these characters is going to get bumped off. Alternatively, you jump right into the middle of the action with the crime itself. Then the drama and excitement are what gets you turning the page. But you’re also wondering, who are these people? Why is this happening? Generally, a crime novel usually starts by posing a set of questions which it proceeds to answer over the course of its story.

There’s a tremendous range of voice within crime fiction. From gritty realism to slick, quick-talking tecs. From unflinching violence to cozy mystery. There’s room for humour, surrealism, politics, puzzle stories, character studies and even ghosts and time travel. All of life – and death – can be accommodated.

What made you want to be a writer?

I’ve always wanted to be a writer for as long as I can remember. As a child, I loved reading stories – and having them read to me. It seemed a natural extension of that to start making up my own. As a kid, I read Enid Blyton, Jennings, Biggles, Professor Branestawm, but my favourites were the Paddington books. When I was a little older, I got into Alan Garner in a big way, through the Weirdstone of Brisingamen trilogy. Another writer I remember having a big hold on my young imagination was Leon Garfield, author of Devil-in-the-Fog.

At school, we’re all encouraged to write stories. I was just one of those people who didn’t stop when I left school. I remember one particularly formative incident at secondary school. Our regular English teacher was sick so one of the other teachers was standing in. I suppose to make it easy for himself he decided to have us read out the stories we’d written for homework. He asked the class who should start and they all called out my name. I was stunned. But then I thought, oh, that’s interesting, maybe I’m good at this.

What was your first success as a writer?

My earliest published fiction were short stories that I managed to place with the younger end of the women’s magazine market. I was still a student. I had the Writers’ and Artists’ Yearbook, so I went through looking for publications that would pay for fiction. It seemed to be exclusively women’s magazines. I didn’t have any luck with titles such as Woman’s Own or Woman’s Realm, the ones my mum read. But Look Now and 19 took a few of my stories. And paid me for them!

That encouraged me to think I could actually do this and maybe I could make a living from it. What can I say? I was very young and very naïve. But I knew enough to take another job while I waited to make it as a writer. I became an advertising copywriter, because I thought I would at least still be writing. I carried on working on my own fiction, and grew a mountain of unpublished novels under my bed. Then suddenly I got a break thanks to Macmillan New Writing, who published my first novel Taking Comfort. At more or less the same time, Faber and Faber bought A Gentle Axe. So right from the beginning, you can see I was writing both contemporary and historical fiction.

Does true crime ever influence your crime fiction?

As well as writing fiction, I have also worked as a scriptwriter on a number of true crime podcasts, such as Death Bed Confessions, Scotland Yard Confidential and Detectives Don’t Sleep. By the time I started doing that work I was already fairly established as a writer of crime fiction and in fact that was the reason I was hired. So if anything, I’d say it was the other way round. Not that I fictionalised the cases we covered. More that I harnessed the storytelling instincts that I had honed writing fiction to structure the scripts and create compelling narratives. Everything boils down to storytelling for me.

As I was researching some of the cases, I remember mentally storing details for use in future novels. I haven’t managed to deploy them yet… but watch this space.

Can you describe your writing space? Do you have a writing routine?

I have a desk in the spare room looking out over the garden. I like to keep an eye on the neighbours. At the moment, my desk is fairly tidy, though that isn’t always the case. I let the clutter build up to the point that I have to do something about it – then I have a tidy up. My day usually starts with a coffee. I’ve actually reduced my coffee intake recently. I used to make a big cafetiere and work my way through 2-3 cups over the morning. Now I stick to one cup. At some point in the morning, the cat, Moomin, will jump on my desk to help. She’s particularly good at deleting random scenes or inserting gibberish. When I’m working on a novel I aim to write at least a thousand words a day, though my secret target is 2,000. I’m more productive in the mornings than afternoons and I can usually tell by lunchtime whether I’m going to hit my target. I take an hour or so out most mornings to go for a cycle ride. I think it’s good to force myself to get outside and do some exercise. It may seem like I’m taking a break, but I use the time to think through plot issues. Or it’s an opportunity for my subconscious to do the heavy lifting.

What are you reading at the moment?

I’m re-reading Journey Into Fear by Eric Ambler. The novels of Eric Ambler were an influence on me when writing Cover Story and I wanted to refresh my memory. It’s that idea of an innocent Everyman being caught up in something he doesn’t understand. Although he’s in over his head at the beginning, the naïve but resourceful protagonist somehow manages to turn the tables on the professional baddies who are after him. It’s a familiar formula, I know. One that was used to great effect by Alfred Hitchcock.  Interesting fact: Ambler married the screenwriter and producer Joan Harrison, who worked closely with Hitchcock. Ambler also worked in Hollywood as a screenwriter and wrote an episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents.

Are there any other genres besides crime fiction that you would like to write in?

I’m drawn to the darker genres, so I’m unlikely to try my hand at a romcom. I recently wrote a short story which I would describe as horror. I enjoyed the experience and was pleased with the product, so maybe something longer in that vein. There’s a natural crossover between the more surreal end of crime fiction and horror, I think – a territory that some of my Silas Quinn novels occupy. As I mentioned above, I have already written a science fiction dystopian novel (Psychotopia) which imagines a world where the number of psychopaths in the population is beginning to overtake the number of non-psychopaths. I wrote it a few years ago and I think we may actually have reached that point now.

So what next for R.N. Morris?

I honestly don’t know. I’ve developed outlines for five ideas, each of which is potentially the next thing I could work on. I’m currently weighing up the pros and cons of each one. The chances are, I’ll start working on a sixth idea I haven’t even had yet.