Osman draws crowds to Mareel
Ryan Taylor
It may not have been quite the advertised event, but Richard Osman fulfilled his obligation to Shetland Noir – from a very great distance.
Osman’s BA flight from Heathrow to Glasgow had been cancelled, which quickly scuppered his chances of touching down at Sumburgh in time for his on-stage interview at Mareel.
But the wonders of Zoom meant the creator of The Thursday Murder Club series of crime novels could appear at the crime-writing festival after all – albeit, virtually.
Osman shared all with Martin Edwards on TTMC, and what the future may hold for the former co-presenter of TV’s Pointless.
Osman admitted being a life-long fan of crime fiction. Life-long was no exaggeration, either. Asked to name the first crime writer that led him to the genre, Osman settled on Enid Blyton – creator of The Famous Five.
“Two men, two women and one dog – that’s essentially what I ended up writing,” he said.
Osman is drawn to the format of a gang fighting crime together. As well as Enid Blyton, mention was made of The A-Team which, Osman says, falls into the same category with its “gang” format.
“We love a gang,” he says. “Especially in England, because we’re so class-obsessed.”
Part of what makes that work is the “unusual bedfellows” – where “if there is a problem, at least one of the gang will get them out of that problem”.
In no doubt of what drew him to the genre, he likened crime fiction to a puzzle that relies on the reader’s knowledge of the human condition.
“If you do a Sudoku, eventually you can fill in all the squares with all the numbers. But with a crime book you have to try to solve the puzzle with your own knowledge of human nature,” he said – adding readers had to rely on empathy to try and solve a puzzle.
Osman is seen as someone with a varied CV – although he argues television production and presentation (he has done both) are essentially the same.
Writing, he says, is just a bit “harder, and more difficult, and more depressing”.
In writing, he says, “you’re allowed five minutes a day where you think ‘this isn’t bad.’
He began writing TTMC without having any idea of whether it would succeed or not, and he was concerned any success he did gain would purely be through his association with television.
Only when a deal in Germany – where Osman is not known as a TV personality – did he begin to settle.
Osman talks of the fourth book in the series – The Last Devil to Die – which focuses on the death of an old friend in the antiques business.
There is a package involved, and anyone in its path seems to end up dead.
Osman says readers will be “shocked to learn that sometimes the antiques trade is not above reproach.”
Future plans include a detective novel featuring a private detective and his daughter in law, who ends up making him a reluctant globe-trotter.
There was time for questions from the audience. Osman was applauded for representing an older generation, and questioned as to whether Shetland Wool Week might be a setting for a murder.
In response, Osman saw fit to dwell on the complaint to BA that would subsequently be made by his TMC characters – Elizabeth, Joyce, Ibrahim and Ron. Now, who wouldn’t want to read that?
