In Cold Daylight

About Pauline Rowson

Pauline Rowson lives on Hayling Island, Hampshire.  She wrote the thriller In Cold Daylight after hearing that several fire-fighters from one watch contracted cancer. Officially it was a co-incidence but is In Cold Daylight a metaphor for the callous way such fire-fighters are treated?  Or is it simply a piece of fictional entertainment?  Unravelling Rowson’s cryptic clues in this fast-paced, atmospheric thriller, is like playing a nail-biting game of ‘pass the parcel’.  After unexpected twists, you peel off the literary layers to eventually uncover the mystery.

Below is a Q&A with this author.

Author of the marine mystery series of crime novels featuring DI Andy Horton and of fast paced thrillers

Every known murder scene has a detective combing for clues.  Every detective has a prime enemy - and it's not the criminal.  For the detective, the first enemy is often the crime scene itself.  It is here that the battle begins to uncover the grim truth about the murder.  And a detective's nightmare crime scene has got to be a place where all the best clues could be swept away by the tide.  There couldn't be a better place to set a crime story.

Pauline Rowson is well aware of the pull of murky watery places for the twisted criminal mind.  She has created a whole new crime subgenre - the marine mystery featuring her flawed and rugged detective, Inspector Andy Horton.

Footsteps on the Shore published in January 2011 is the sixth and the latest in the marine mystery series and like all Rowson’s crime and thriller novels, it is set in the Solent area on the south coast of England.

So who is this detective, Inspector Andy Horton?
“DI Andy Horton is fit, flawed and rugged.  He has been left psychology scarred after his mother walked out on him when he was ten leaving him to be raised in children’s homes and with foster parents. He has a desperate desire to belong and yet is always on the outside.  Just when he thinks he's found happiness, Catherine, his wife, chooses to believe an allegation of rape while Horton was working undercover. In Tide of Death, the first in the series, Horton is back on his own again and in each novel in the series along with a new crime to solve, Horton goes in search of the truth about his mother’s disappearance.”

Why is the sea so important in your crime and thriller novels?
“The sea creates a very atmospheric setting for the crime novels. It gives them a sense of place. In my novels it has almost become a character in itself.  It's alive, it's beautiful, it's calming but it's also dangerous, misleading and evil.  No matter how much you think or wish you can control it, you can't.  Sometimes you need to go with the flow and other times swim against the tide and the trick is knowing when to do which.  Andy Horton hasn't quite got it sussed, or when he thinks he has something happens to throw him completely off course."

Does this mean that a good night out for you is sitting in marine pubs listening to yarns of crimes?
"I'm like a vacuum cleaner hoovering up bits of information and snippets of conversations from people everywhere and not just in pubs! I often think, hey, that would make a good story, or that person would be ideal to drop in as a character.   And I can't pass a boatyard, bay, beach or a marina without thinking there must be a dead body or a skeleton here somewhere."

How do you research your villains?
"There are always shady characters especially if you're a crime writer - everyone you see can become suspicious.  I've studied and lectured on personality profiles in the past and I am always curious about people's behaviour and motivations.  I love talking to strangers, because you learn so many fascinating things from them and get some wonderful character descriptions.  I think I'm the only person in the world who doesn't mind the nutter sitting next to me on the bus!”

So the next time you get into a conversation with a stranger, make sure she's not a polite, petite brunette, or you might just recognise yourself as a cold hearted murderer in Rowson's next bestseller!

Written by Alison Rogers in conjunction with DotPR.
February 2011