Paul Brazill is the master of Brit grit and hardboiled. His stories and novels ring like a chime out of a gangster flick, one with heavy overtones of London. He is adept at using contemporary culture to highlight and augment the inherent drama in his fictions, which are peopled with low lifes and hustlers. Paul met me at The Slaughterhouse, where we talked about Brit Grit and his new work.
What are you writing right now?
‘The Days of Danny Spencer’. It’s the story of a disgraced ex-copper trying to put is life back together. It’s a London-set urban western, after a fashion
If you were to write a Carry On what would it be titled, and who among present actors would you cast in the lead roles?
It would be Carry On Expendables …
Sly Stallone could do the Sid James parts, Jean-Claude Van Damme would be a great Kenneth Williams, soppy old Ryan Gosling would be Jim Dale and Arnie could be the new Babs Windsor, for obvious reasons.
Is Brit Grit on the rise and does it lack the sentimental addiction to resolution that classifies much crime writing, particularly that churned out by the industry?
Brit Grit is bedraggled and unkempt and there’s a lot of it about! Martin Stanley, Robert Cowan, Tom Liens, Aidan Thorn and Paul Heatley, for example, all write books that are away from the mainstream and aren’t interested in tidying things up.
What else is on the cards for you this year
Fahrenheit 13 will be rebooting my seaside noir Kill Me Quick! And I have another seaside noir coming out later this year from All Due Respect/ Down and Out Books. It’s called Last Year’s Man. It’s like Takeshi Kitano mixed with Alan Bennett.
Thank you Paul for a classic interview.
Bio: Paul D. Brazill is the author of A Case Of Noir, Guns Of Brixton, Last Year’s Manand Kill Me Quick! He was born in England and lives in Poland. His writing has been translated into Italian, Polish, Finnish, German and Slovene. He has been published in various magazines and anthologies, including The Mammoth Books of Best British Crime. His blog is here.
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