Today it's my pleasure to be shining the spotlight on author Mark Hill and his debut novel The Two O'Clock Boy which is published tomorrow in eBook format, paperback to follow in April.
Mark Hill is a London-based full-time writer of novels and scripts. Formerly he was a journalist and a producer at BBC Radio 2 across a range of major daytime shows and projects. He has won two Sony Gold Awards.
Follow Mark's publication journey via his website http://markhillauthor.com or connect with him via Twitter @markhillwriter or Facebook Mark Hill
Can you give us an elevator pitch for your debut novel The Two O'Clock Boy?
When a family is brutally murdered in North London, Detective Inspector Ray Drake will do whatever it takes to find the killer – and he’ll go even further to cover-up his own dark secret…
You see what I did there? It’s not just a secret, it’s a dark secret. Everybody loves a copper with a dark secret, right?
What inspired you to write about a current day serial murder case that was heavily influenced by events in the past?
There’s that great quote by William Faulkner: ‘The past isn’t dead; it isn’t even past.’ I loved the idea of writing two timelines, one set in modern-day and the one set in a children’s home in the 1980s, then crashing them together like a pair of cymbals to the skull. Also, the truth is, I get bored very easily, and writing scenes set decades apart gave me the opportunity to write a larger array of characters and then seeing how I could interconnect them all. You know, just to make my life easier.
How did the title The Two O'Clock Boy come about?
I’d love to say I thought of it, but it was actually my agent’s idea - as he never fails to remind me. We were throwing a few titles about and nothing seemed to stick and he pointed out that the phrase The Two O’Clock Boy was there, hiding in plain sight in the novel. People seem to like it. I’m hoping ‘boy’ books will ignite a whole new literary phenomenon. I’m thinking: Boy On The Train. Gone Boy. Boy With The Dragon Tattoo.
Describe DI Ray Drake in three words.
Terse, troubled, tragic, trousered. Wait, that’s four. Ignore trousered.
