Any resemblance is entirely coincidental…

“This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental”

We’ve all read them – those disclaimers in the front of novels telling the reader that what follows isn’t ‘true’. The novel, we are led to believe, is made up. The characters and the events are the creations of the writer – products of the writer’s imagination rather than representations of real people and the real world.

But the  trouble is that despite these warnings – or maybe because of them – readers don’t always believe this and are quick to look for real-life parallels. And this is particularly the case when the readers happen to know the writer and know a little bit about their life.

They say things like –

“That  lawyer in your book, it’s Sarah, isn’t it?”   or

“You know that journalist in your novel, you’ve based it on Phil, haven’t you?”  or

“That murder victim in your novel. It’s a thinly disguised Tom, isn’t it?”

And sometimes they come up with what is probably the worst question of all –

“ That character in your book. Is it supposed to be me?”

For most readers a polite question is enough, and whether or not they’re convinced by the writer’s answer they leave it there. But some go further. Some take legal action and some go to more  extreme lengths – Fitzhugh Coyle Goldsborough, for example. When Goldsborough read The Fashionable Adventures of Joshua Craig in 1909 he was convinced the writer had based one of the characters in the book on his sister in an attempt to defame her. What was his response? Well, he didn’t bother questioning the writer. He didn’t bother taking him to court. Instead, he shot him six times.

More recent examples of readers taking offence include Amanda Craig’s novel, A Vicious Circle , the publication of which was initially cancelled in 1996 after an ex-boyfriend, literary critic David Sexton, objected to what he took to be its unflattering depiction of him. And earlier this year British poet James Massiah accused novelist Coco Mellors of causing him distress by using him as the model for one of the characters in her novel Blue Sisters.

It was thinking about incidents like this and about novels’ disclaimers that gave me  the idea for Every Trick in the Book.

This, the third novel to feature DI Garibaldi, is a crime novel about a crime novel, a metafictional murder mystery in which the detective and his team swivel their gaze between the pages of a book and the real world.

 Its starting point is the murder of Liam Allerton, a retired teacher who has taken up crime writing and who has recently published his first novel. The novel’s called Schooled in Murder and here’s its blurb –

When the body of Alex Ballantyne is found in Barnes Pond police are baffled. Who would kill the newly retired teacher? Investigations reveal that Ballantyne had been blackmailing several of his colleagues. Sex. Money. Drugs. It seems that Ballantyne knew all about his victims’ secrets, and they were prepared to pay to buy his silence.’

What’s alarming about the murder of Liam Allerton is that he has been killed in exactly the same place, and in exactly the same way, as the victim in his book. This eerie similarity between the death of the writer and the death of his character directs DI Garibaldi and his team to the pages of the crime novel, where they  discover more connections with real life.  Liam Allerton taught at a school which seems to be very similar to the one he describes in his novel. Could the characters he describes be similar to the teachers who work there? Could Liam Allerton, like the novel’s murder victim, have been blackmailing them? And, most importantly, could the key to the writer’s murder be hidden within the pages of his own novel?

The novel has at its heart the murder of a retired teacher who has taken up crime writing. As it happens, I too am a retired teacher who has taken up crime writing, but it would be wrong to assume that the victim is a version of me.

And the same can be said of my fictional detective. Whenever I’m asked how much DI Garibaldi is based on me I always given an  honest answer.  Garibaldi lives in Barnes. So do I. Garibaldi can’t drive. Neither can I. Garibaldi is of Irish-Italian ancestry. So am I. Garibaldi likes country music. So do I. Garibaldi is a QPR season ticket-holder. And so, alas, am I.

So my honest answer is always the same – any resemblance, as the disclaimers put it, is entirely coincidental.

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