Interview with Crime Writer Iain Parke: S. 7, Ep. 11 The Crime Cafe

Debbi Mack interviews crime writer Iain Parke.



This is the Crime Cafe, your podcasting source of great crime, suspense and thriller writing. I’m your host Debbi Mack. Before I bring on my guest, I’ll just remind you that the Crime Cafe has two eBooks for sale: the nine book box set and the short story anthology. You can find the buy inks for both on my website, debbimack.com under the Crime Cafe link. You can also get a free copy of either book if you become a Patreon supporter. You’ll get that and much more if you support the podcast on Patreon, along with our eternal gratitude for doing so.



Check us out on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/crimecafe



Debbi (00:54): But first, let me put in a good word for Blubrry podcasting.



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Here’s a link to a PDF copy of the interview.







Debbi: Hi, everyone. Before I introduce my guest, I’ll just mention that my latest novel, Fatal Connections is out now. It’s the second Erica Jensen mystery. And since Erica is a female marine veteran, Veterans Day seemed like a good day to have it released. So, if you like hard-boiled mystery, please check it out. Yes, it’s at all the usual retailers, so do check it out, including Amazon, of course. But with me today is a guy who writes about motorcycle clubs, or as it’s described on his website, Biker Noir. I like that description. You should totally check out his writing sample on his website. It’s really awesome. And with me today then is Iain Parke. Hi, Iain. How are you doing?



Iain Parke: Hi, very well. Thank you. Greetings from across the pond on a fairly grotty November night.



Debbi: It’s kind of grotty around here. It’s not nice, but it’s been raining. Actually, it was kind of nice. It’s cleared up and well, we kind of went from rain to cleared up. So, it was not so bad, really when it comes down to it. [crosstalk]



Iain: Yeah, you can tell you’re talking to someone from England because we’re on to the weather already. I mean that’s all we talk about.



Debbi: That’s all we talk about in Maryland too, that’s interesting. Very, very interesting. I got to tell you though, I noticed you have an MBA and an interesting background, insolvency and business restructuring. So, the fact that you kind of drew on that experience to write a conspiracy thriller as a novel seem to suggest something dire.



Iain: Yeah. I did an MBA and was interested in running businesses, and set out effectively to have a career in running businesses and doing just things in this sort of distressed business space. And I won’t bore you with the career history, but essentially at one point I ended up, I wanted to get a secondment. I was working for PwC, one of the big firms at the time and I wanted to secondment to Canada and I ended up in Tanzania, which just proves my geography is fairly lousy. So, from going to the west coast of Canada to going to East Africa, I ended up sort of running a match factory with about ...