13.05.16
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INTERVIEW GRAHAM BARTLETT/PETER JAMES
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Bartlett
James ‘‘
A lot of my fans had asked me to write a non-fiction book based on my research, so I suggested we collaborate. That was
the starting point BESTSELLING CRIME AUTHOR PETER JAMES
forthoming exhibition, which both authors plan on attending; Teed is living in York, and though he declined an invitation to do any interviews for the book, the duo have visited him. “We wanted to show people that he’d moved on,“ says Bartlett, but actually the former policeman reached a different conclusion. “I don’t see him ever being a free man. He will be chained to his conscience forever,” Bartlett writes in the book. Teed, they reveal, told them he was a “bad man”. It’s a fascinating vignette into how the dualism
between cops and robbers can play out and stretch to breaking point. “I’ve met hundreds of criminals in my career, but always across the table. Meeting Teed, and later Henty, was different. Less adversarial. They could be much more honest about themselves,” says Bartlett. “It’s also a book about human nature as much as it is a book about criminals,” adds James “We all commit crimes,” he says with a twinkle in his eye, “but what makes some take it to the next stage?” Bartlett is also keen to show the real people behind the police,
including
their vulnerability. “I try to portray both sides, as Peter does in his books. To glorify criminals is wrong, but to glorify the police is also wrong. There is good and bad on both sides.” James adds: “The public forget that police officers are not super-human: if they see a terrible accident, or a dead child, for example, people forget about the impact this has on them as individuals.” Bartlett and James have also worked together to try and rid Brighton of
its reputation as the “Drug Death Capital of the UK”. Bartlett pioneered Operation Reduction, which seeks to arrest the suppliers of illegal drugs but not the users, who instead must enter a rehabiliation programme. He was briefly vilified in the press, and appeared in Russell Brand’s 2013 documentary “End the Drugs War”. Bartlett says drugs changed the city and the criminals: “I think it is worse now. In the past the criminals were minor celebrities—the families that ran Brighton were almost gentlemen thieves. What switched it was drugs—the profits and the rivalries have made the crimes so much more pernicious and violent.” In part thanks to Bartlett’s efforts, Brighton eventually lost its damning tag. There is a sense that Bartlett has more
METADATA
to say about all this, and that perhaps publishing will provide safe passage for views that might be difficult to convey in other media. Police officers are able to retire on a full pension after 30 years of service, meaning that Bartlett, like many ex-cops, is young enough to forge a second career, perhaps even in fiction. Bartlett says: “I feel like an ‘X Factor’
Imprint Pan Books Publication 04.07.16 Formats EB/PB ISBN 9781509810482 Rights Pan (UK) Editor Ingrid Connell Agent Carole Blake, Blake Friedmann
winner, I’ve got a bit of talent, but then I’ve got my Simon Cowell here in the shape of Peter. I want to go on and write fiction: I’ve started a novel, and I want to get back into it.” James has a 30-year, 28-novel career as an author, with sales tracked through Nielsen BookScan’s TCM of £17.2m since 1998. His latest title, Love You Dead, is published in hardback next week by Pan Macmillan. Not a bad partner for a rookie writer to have.
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