There’s nothing funny about murder – agreed? Nothing funny about serious crime either. So why do I, with four crime novels under my belt, still find myself looking, amid the tales of death and devastation, for opportunities to find that funny side?
Let me give you an example. In writing my latest, The Bones Beneath The Brambles (Diamond Books) I needed my hero, Constable Derek Martin, to be given some specific instruction by his Inspector.
This I could have related in a couple of brief paragraphs, covering about five minutes of plot action. And the story I was projecting would have progressed speedily – a consummation devoutly to be wished, as Hamlet might have put it.
But no. Instead, I included the necessary instruction in a totally spurious event, involving a driving test which resulted in Derek’s overbearing and overweight Sergeant being trapped between steering wheel and a malfunctioning car seat, to his considerable embarrassment.
It’s an amusing scene, involving the comic downfall of the pompous, but let’s be frank, in terms of criminal investigation it’s wholly unnecessary.
So, what do I think I’m doing? What makes me constantly seek out the ludicrous and satirical aspects of my stories? Enough serious stuff is going on in The Bones Beneath The Brambles. Bones are indeed found beneath brambles. Tales of fascist cruelty emerge. A spiked drink leads to a death-defying motorcycle ride. And religious dogma leads to my poor hero Derek being dangled bodily over the parapet of a church tower.
So I ask again – in seeking the funny side, what do I think I’m doing?
Truth is, I have form in this funny business. For some thirty or more years I made a good living by writing comedy for television, providing skits, gags, sit-coms, etc for stars such as Rowan Atkinson, Basil Brush, Tim Brooke-Taylor, the Ronnies and Clive James. When I retired, having apparently grown too old for that game, my mind still automatically searched for comic possibilities in whatever situation I found myself.
Now, when I struggle to create a crime story, every twist and turn of the plot finds me looking for the quick remark or the silly situation or the ludicrous character. Even the laugh-out-loud moment.
All my novels are set in the early 1950s. (I chose that time period because I find modern life far too complex to portray accurately. I write as someone who is still not sure what a podcast is.)
And I set my 1950s action very specifically in what was then the deeply rural area of West Devonshire. The time of my childhood. Life was simple, even humdrum, but it provides a broad canvas upon which I can portray interesting, exotic, and criminal types. Then hopefully I can make them amusing. Before I kill them off.
A last thought. After more than eighty summers I remain convinced that laughter is the best medicine. So was King Solomon. He said so, in his own comedy sit-com, Proverbs 17:22. Look it up. Old Solly might also have said that life without comedy is drab, narrow and tedious. But with comedy, it’s expansive, fruitful and fun.
My hero, P.C. Derek Martin, village police constable for North Tawe, in West Devon, would agree with him.

The Bones Beneath the Brambles by Colin Bostock-Smith is published by Diamond Crime Books