Karen Herbert on writing crime fiction when your protagonist manages a chronic illness
In Karen Herbert’s broody new crime novel, The Ghost Walk, protagonist and amateur sleuth Ruby Rose Gillespie lives with cystic fibrosis. As she sets out to solve the murder of her secret lover, she starts to wonder whether she really knew him at all. In this interview, Karen tells us more about writing a disabled character in crime fiction.
Where did the characters of Ruby Rose Gillespie and Dr Gabriel Beaufort come from?
I was inspired to write The Ghost Walk after my novel The River Mouth was published. I was having a celebratory coffee with my friend Jo Giles and we were talking about characters with disabilities in crime novels. We wondered how a disability would help or hinder the search for a killer. So, I decided to give it a go and Ruby Rose Gillespie was born. Of course, I gave her Jo’s wit and intelligence. She also has Jo’s deep love of humans and humanity. But Ruby is not Jo. She grew into her own self, with her own unique quirks and weaknesses. I hope everyone loves her as much as I do.
Gabriel Beaufort is every grunge-goth who walked a university campus in the 1990s. He’s smart, handsome, wears black and Dr Martens, and smokes performatively. He’s rakish, but doesn’t quite manage to be disreputable or sordid. He can’t quite bring himself to the necessary depths to achieve true infamy. I think that’s because he’s too driven to succeed. He wants to be admired for being a top surgeon, for his contribution to medical research, for being a virtuoso in smoky jazz clubs. He can’t do that if he’s a true bad boy, so he acts the part instead. The question is, does he take the acting too far?
How did the limitations on your sleuth character help you as a writer in deciding what the reader finds out, and when?
Ruby needs plenty of sleep, she has to be careful about what she eats, and she has to take her meds. She’s used to spending time on her own and knows how to patiently dig down rabbit holes. She exercises, so she’s fit, but she can’t go around busting through doors and shouting ‘on the floor!’. I couldn’t push her too far. Following Ruby around as she returns to daily life after her hospitalisation made for an ideal slow reveal that worked with her life and her unique talents.
What kind of research did you need to do to write this novel, and what kind of consultation?
I did some digging about medical research, its different stages, how it gets funded, and how it gets managed on an international scale. I also spoke with medical professionals about what it means to be a surgeon, what their day-to-day life looks like, and the relationships they have with their patients.
I already knew a bit about cystic fibrosis and what it means to live with a disability or chronic illness, but I also self-checked that knowledge with other people. One of the interesting things that I already knew from living with Ménière’s disease is that members of the Ménière’s community are all so different in our experience of the disease. Some of us work, some of us can’t, some of us struggle with the activities of daily life, and some of us have climbed (actual) mountains. I was worried about getting CF ‘right’ in this book, but it turns out that everyone who has CF is also different, and Ruby’s experience was never going to be exactly the same as everyone else. That really shouldn’t have been a surprise to me, but there you go, I learned something.
What advice do you have for crime writers who are just starting out?
Read lots and write lots. Understand the contract between the crime reader and the crime writer and look for the differences in sub-genres. Watch crime series and see how the screenwriters structure each episode and the longer arc of the story. Have fun! Let the characters tell you who they are and don’t be afraid to bang a few drums about the world we live in.
The Ghost Walk is available now from all good bookstores and online.
