Source: Radio New Zealand
For his latest novel, Softly Calls the Devil , Chris Blake has stepped out from behind the pseudonym he used for his debut.
He published The Sound of Her Voice – a double finalist in the 2018 Ngaio Marsh Awards – as Nathan Blackwell, a name he adopted to keep his writing separate from his role managing behavioural analysts and psychologists for the New Zealand Police.
The decision was driven by self-doubt and fear, Blake tells Nine to Noon .
The Sound of Her Voice by Nathan Blackwell.
Supplied / Orion
. I didn’t want people to know who I was – if that was the case.”
When his publisher suggested he use his real name for his second book, Blake agreed.
“I actually went ‘yeah, I’d actually like that this time around, it would make things so much easier’.”
Despite two decades in the police, Blake found the job was “incredibly unhelpful” when it came to writing fiction.
Police work, he says, is procedural and methodical – faithful to reality but dull on the page.
While his plots aren’t drawn from real cases, the emotional weight of the cases plus interactions with people from all walks of life have helped flesh out his characters and dialogue, he says.
“Whoever you are and wherever you are in New Zealand, you remember one of these cases or you remember the news when this was happening … they stick with us wherever we are so the book very much touches on some of those New Zealand themes, tragic as they are.”
Award-winning cop-turned-author on West Coast crime thriller Nine To Noon
He admits to feeling uneasy fictionalising crime stories, opting instead for a ‘cosy mystery’ — using crime as a catalyst rather than the focus.
“So it has been quite hard to juggle, because part of head just constantly says ‘ah, what’re you doing? Like you shouldn’t be writing about this kind of thing’. It’s almost like a betrayal.”
Seeing a colleague complete a novel is what prompted Blake to do some writing of his own, initially jotting down fragments before stitching them together — “probably the worst way to write a story ever”, he says.
“I don’t have a writing background or anything, but I just got to enjoy it.”
Softly Calls the Devil follows detective Matt Buchanan, last seen in Blake’s debut, now living quietly as a sole-charge officer on the West Coast. That peace is shattered when his predecessor is found dead, drawing Buchanan into two cold cases: a missing family and the death of a French backpacker.
The West Coast setting came to Blake on a drive through Arthur’s Pass. Inspired by the brooding landscapes, like True Detective, he and his wife spent a week exploring the lesser-known spots, shaping the novel from there.
A third book will also be set in Haast, but Blake says that will inevitably have to change soon.
“After that it becomes a bit Midsomer Murder -ish, I mean how many murders can Haast have with a population of only a few hundred?”
Award-winning cop-turned-author on West Coast crime thriller Nine To Noon
– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand
