Hi and welcome to my stop on David Hewson’s The Savage Shore blog tour! I’m honoured to be one of the lucky bloggers to be kicking things off 🙂

Many thanks to David Hewson and to Kelly @ Love Books Group Tours

Interview with David Hewson…..

For those who don’t know already, could you tell us about yourself and your book(s) please?

Over the last 25 years I’ve published 30 or so books (you stop counting after a while) including the Nic Costa series set in Italy, the Pieter Vos books set in Amsterdam, and adaptations of The Killing TV series set in Copenhagen. I live in Kent, England, but travel to Europe a fair bit, especially Italy.

Where did/do you get your ideas from?

Mostly from travel. The Savage Shore is based upon some research I carried out in Calabria which is the toe of Italy, a wild region pretty much unknown to foreigners.

Are any of your characters based (however loosely) on anyone you know?

Never. I’d find that very strange.

How do you pick your characters’ names?

Reading local newspapers. Visiting graveyards. Trying to find a name that fits with the kind of person they are and isn’t too difficult to pronounce.

Can you share your writing process with us, in a nutshell?

I imagine the world of the story. I imagine the characters. I create a starting problem for them to tackle. I then set them loose and see what they achieve.

Who are your top 5 favourite authors?

I only ever list dead ones for that question because the live ones get mad if you leave them out. Robert Graves, Ed McBain, Mary Renault, Jorge Luis Borges and Giorgio Bassani.

If you could meet any author, who would it be and what would you ask them?

I’d love to meet the ghost of Bassani and find out the stories behind his wonderful story of pre-war Italy, The Garden of the Finzi-Continis

Were you a big reader as a child?

Absolutely. I lived in libraries.

When did you start to write?

I left school when I was 17 and joined a local paper so in a sense I’ve been writing all my life. But I didn’t manage to get my fiction to work until I was in my early forties. You need a bit of life behind you to give you something to write about.

If you could re-write the ending to any book what would it be and what would you change?

I wouldn’t change any of them.

Is there a book you wish you had written?

No. I don’t think that way.

If you wrote an autobiography, what would your title be?

Probably something along the lines of ‘Like I give a…’

If you could invite any fictional character for coffee who would it be and where would you take them?

The emperor Claudius from Graves’ I Claudius. I’d take him to a favourite restaurant by the ruins of the Roman forum and ask him what he made of things now.

What are you working on right now?

Something I can’t talk about. I never discuss work in progress until it’s announced. But it’s a new project, and set in Italy though not a series book.

Tell us about your last release?

The Savage Shore is the tenth book in the Nic Costa series. It’s set in Calabria where Costa, a Roman detective, has gone to try to engineer the surrender of a gang lord who wants to turn state witness. But in order to get the guy out Costa has to go inside the gang and pretend to be a hoodlum himself.

Do you have a new release due?

I have a couple of projects coming out in 2019 but not ones I can talk about right now. One is audio only which is a medium I work in a lot these days. I won an Audie for best original work earlier this year for an adaptation of Romeo and Juliet performed by that wonderful actor Richard Armitage.

What do you generally do to celebrate on publication day?

I might find my way to the pub in the evening.

How can readers keep in touch with you?

Twitter and the website – the usual.

Thank you for taking the time to answer my questions, David 🙂

Blurb

Detective Nic Costa finds himself a stranger in a strange land when he’s sent to infiltrate the mob in a remote part of southern Italy.

Roman police detective Nic Costa has been sent undercover to Italy’s beautiful, remote Calabrian coast to bring in the head of the feared mob, the ‘Ndrangheta, who has offered to turn state witness for reasons of his own.

Hoping to reel in the biggest prize the state police have seen in years, the infamous Butcher of Palermo, Costa and his team are aware the stakes are high. But the constant deception is taking its toll. Out of their depth in a lawless part of Italy where they are the outcasts, not the men in the hills, with their shotguns and rough justice, the detectives find themselves pitched as much against one another as the mob. As the tension rises, it’s clear the operation is not going to plan. Is Nic Costa getting too close to the enemy for comfort – and is there a traitor among them …?