The wit and wisdom of Colin Bateman

Though I’ve still a lot of catching up to do on his backlist, almost everything I’ve read by Colin Bateman has had me in various stages of uproarious laughter. He’s funny, but in that grim way that Irishmen seem to have mastered, and it’s on full display in this new interview with the Belfast Telegraph:

In the broad spectrum of literature where would you place your novels?

Er, on a stall in Bangor market. People don’t know how to bracket my

work. In Ireland, my books are put in the Irish section. In England

they’re put under ‘general fiction’. Elsewhere they’re put under crime

fiction. I think of them as thrillers that happen to be funny.

You once said that because your mother and father died of cancer, you already knew how you would go. How morbid is that?

Goodness. I’ve no idea when or why I said that but if it’s in the

cuttings file I must have. I suppose if your parents die of cancer you

might well feel you will, too.

But, no, I’m not sitting here clutching Rosary beads, all doom and gloom.

Still, it just goes to show –  whatever you say will always come back to haunt you.

But perhaps the funniest — albeit most embarrassing — bit involves how he almost ruined his wedding day:

You almost wrecked your wedding day to Andrea, didn’t you?

What?! You’re suggesting some fault on my part and that is clearly not an option.

It was Andrea’s fault.

We married in the registry office at Bangor town hall, and

beforehand I had prepared a cassette of very romantic music that would

be playing while Andrea walked up the aisle – or whatever counts for an

aisle in a registry office.

But, of course, women’s prerogative and all that, Andrea just had to

drive around the town one more time waving to everyone before she

arrived at the town hall.

Unfortunately that meant side one of the tape ran out so a guy at

the back simply flipped it over – and as she started to walk towards me

all you could hear was Elvis singing All Shook Up.

She was not pleased … but we are still together.

The new book is MURPHY’S REVENGE, the second book in the series that’s also broadcast on the BBC, but my advice is to start with DIVORCING JACK and meet up with what may be the most dysfunctional married couple in crime fiction, Dan and Patricia Starkey.