He’s an author who successfully merged crime fiction with a sense of other-worldliness in The Ice Twins, and SK Tremayne has taken a similar approach with The Drowning Hour, which came out in the summer. Now he is in the chair for a new edition of Dr Jacky Collins’ video interview series The Doctor Will See You Now.
And the pair have plenty to talk about, because Tremayne is a man with many strings to his bow. He is a travel journalist and has also written a number of archeological thrillers under the pen name Tom Knox. But a love of writing came from his father, a poet and author himself: “As a child I would tell myself stories,” he reveals.
The Drowning Hour is set in a hotel on an island in the Blackwater Estuary in Essex, a location inspired by a trip to the area for a travel article, but the book itself was written during lockdown. “In the third lockdown I was depressed and I put that sadness into writing the book, creating the protagonist’s sense of isolation,” he says.
And that fusing of psychological thriller with an otherworldly edge? “I didn’t want to do classic police procedurals or crime in the normal sense,” remarks Tremayne. The interview explores his love of ghost stories and horror films, tarot cards, hotels and even the ubiquitous mobile phone. Settle back for another forthright and fascinating conversation…