We chat with author Dave Hutchinson about his latest release, Cold Water, which is a dazzling, visionary and original thriller of future espionage, broken borders, and impossible secrets!
Hi, Dave! Can you tell our readers a bit about yourself?
Hi! I’m Dave Hutchinson, I’m rapidly approaching pensionable age and I was born in Sheffield. I went to university in Nottingham, then spent a long time on Fleet Street before being made redundant, and I live in North London – the real North London, not Islington, which is actually Central London. This is one of a number of minor hills I’m prepared to die on. Other hills include the use of the word ‘artisanal’ to describe bread. There should be some kind of law against that.
When did you first discover your love for writing?
I’ll have to disappoint you here, I’m afraid, because I can’t remember. It’s just something I’ve always seemed to be doing, in some form or other. I usually date what is satirically-referred to as my ‘career’ back to my mother buying me a typewriter for my sixteenth birthday, but I was already filling notebooks with novels and short stories before then.
Quick lightning round! Tell us the first book you ever remember reading, the one that made you want to become an author, and one that you can’t stop thinking about!
First book I remember reading is either War Of The Worlds or The Time Machine, I can’t remember which came first. I guess they all made me want to have a go at being a writer. And the one I can’t stop thinking about usually changes from book to book, mostly because I’m trying to work out how other writers manage to be so good.
Your latest novel, Cold Water, is out now! If you could only describe it in five words, what would they be?
Chunky. Pretty. Complicated. Funny (I hope) Artisanal.
What can readers expect?
If they’re already familiar with the other Fractured Europe books, it’s more of the same kind of stuff. Pocket universes, insanely-complicated intelligence ops, hotel breakfasts, huge conspiracies, Texel sheep, trains. That sort of thing.
Where did the inspiration for Cold Water come from?
There wasn’t really an inspiration, as such. I was supposed to be writing a post-catastrophe novel but I sat down to work on it just as the first pandemic lockdown began and it seemed a bit too on-the-nose to be writing something like that as the world faced what seemed at the time to be an earth-shaking event, so I bolted for Fractured Europe, which seems to have become my safe space without me quite realising it and sort of put the story together bit by bit until it was a novel.
Can you tell us a bit about the challenges you faced while writing and how you were able to overcome them?
The biggest challenge, as always, was the writing itself. I’ve always found writing very difficult, and it doesn’t get any easier with age. Maybe I’m getting more critical of my writing as I get older, and I was already fairly critical to start with. Really the only way to overcome that is to put your head down and plod along and hope everything will turn out all right.
Were there any favourite moments or characters you really enjoyed writing or exploring?
Carey, the central character, was a minor character in Europe In Winter, and I always thought she deserved more than a cameo role. I’d already put her in a novella, but it was fun giving her a backstory and a family history and stuff like that. It was also fun to play around with a couple of loose ends from the earlier books.
What’s next for you?
Sanctuary, the aforementioned post-catastrophe novel, which is due out sometime next year. It’s been an absolute sod to write, but it’s almost finished now. After that, I don’t know. Something will turn up.
Lastly, what have been some of your favourite 2022 reads? Any 2023 releases our readers should look out for?
I thought Tade Thompson’s Far From The Light of Heaven was a remarkable book and it maybe didn’t get the attention it deserves. I’m very taken with Adrian Tchaikovsky’s Final Architecture books and I’m very much looking forward to the final volume of the trilogy next year. Also eagerly anticipating Nick Harkaway’s new novel, Titanium Noir and Mick Herron’s next Slow Horses book whenever that comes out. Hopefully RJ Barker (or his evil alter ego RJ Dark) will have a book out soon, too. Write like the wind, RJ!
