The Makoto Murders is the product of my MA in crime fiction at the UEA, where your thesis is a full manuscript. It’s a great course that’s produced lots of successful crime writers, and three of my dozen classmates already have publishing deals. I’ve always read a lot of crime fiction and often found it frustrating. Sometimes the plot only moves forward when the intelligent protagonist does something stunningly stupid. Or the ending requires a sequence of implausible coincidences. I wanted to see if I could produce something more rounded, more coherent, so I signed up with the UEA.
I’d spent a career working as an economist, where you need to write in a punchy, engaging fashion, but (despite what people sometimes say) it’s all based around facts and theory. Writing fiction, obviously, you’re making it all up, and I found that makes you feel much more vulnerable when others are critiquing your work. There’s a need for openness and trust, which the UEA managed really well.
On top of that, I won the Crime Writers’ Association’s Debut Dagger in 2024, which no doubt helped me to find an agent (Lisa Moylett at CMM) and a publisher (Titan Books). I’ve had to adjust to the pace that things move, but here we are, two years later, with a book. Strangely enough, my fortunes have tracked the career of Sir Keir Starmer – I won the Dagger on election night and publication date is the day after he stops being prime minister.
I lived in Japan for the best part of two decades and, being such a safe place, it provides an intriguing setting for a crime novel. Theft is limited to umbrellas and the occasional bicycle. Last year, far more people were killed by bears than were shot to death, which suggests it’s one of the few countries that needs more guns. Transgressions create more of an impact than in the West. The evening news consists of a dose of incomprehensible politics, then lots of sports and weather. A decent murder grabs the headlines. Originally, I’d planned to write something based around the 2011 tsunami, thinking that such an abrupt shock could reveal all sorts of hidden crimes, but in the end that is only a small part of the book.
The Makoto Murders is a dark, satirical crime thriller, softened by humour. The sort of thing I like to read. Cosy, it ain’t. It’s a deadly romp around Tokyo, but also asks uncomfortable questions of the role society plays in violence through its voyeurism, as well as how far we will go for ambition, and how much people will accommodate wrongdoing for their own personal gain. I saw some of this (not the murders) during my career in finance, although ‘any resemblance etc …’ My protagonist is an amoral first-person narrator, who sees the world differently from the rest of us, and is oblivious to the effect he has on people. But, as they say, everyone is the hero of their own story. You have to dislike him, but also want to know what terrible things he will do next, and whether he will get away with it. Highsmith’s Ripley novels, Nightcrawler, Dexter, American Psycho – if you liked any of those, you should enjoy The Makoto Murders.
The Makoto Murders is published by Titan
