My guest interview this week on the Crime Cafe podcast is with award-winning crime writer Victoria Selman.

And, yes, we do have a brief discussion of Doctor Who! 🙂 And Guy Fawkes!

You can download a copy of the transcript here.

Debbi (00:12): Hi everyone. My guest today is the Sunday Times and Amazon number one bestselling author of five thrillers, including her popular Ziba MacKenzie series. Her novel Truly Darkly Deeply was shortlisted for the Fingerprint Thriller of the Year Award and longlisted for the Theakston’s Crime Novel of the Year Award, and was a Richard and Judy Book Club Pick. It has also been optioned by See Saw Films. In addition, she’s been shortlisted for two CWA Dagger Awards, has written for the Independent, and hosts a popular podcast called On the Sofa with Victoria on Crime Time FM. It’s my great pleasure to have with me today, Victoria Sellman.

(01:50): Hi Victoria. How are you doing?

Victoria (01:51): I’m good. It’s my great pleasure to be here. Thank you so much for having me.

Debbi (01:55): I am very pleased to have you on. I was going to say you’re in London and what’s the vibe like in London these days?

Victoria (02:06): Well, the vibe in London today is very noisy. I dunno if you can hear the children outside my window, but it’s Halloween, so we may be interrupted by some doorbell ringing and some dog barking as the kids come.

Debbi (02:18): Oh, that’s right. It’s tonight where you are.

Victoria (02:18): We’re busy on the streets tonight.

Debbi (02:22): Good heavens. Oh my goodness. Perhaps goblins will come visit us. I don’t know. In any case, have you always wanted to write thrillers?

Victoria (02:33): I’ve always wanted to write, so when I was from a very young age, I’m sure the same with you, I was always an avid reader growing up, and I think when you love to read, at some point you’re going to want to write as well. You want to have a go, and it was a dream. From the age of seven, I wrote my first inverted commas novel on two sides of A4 paper. It was a very great achievement, which my parents went and lost. Otherwise, I’m sure it would’ve been a fabulous bestseller, but it was fun. That was on my bedroom floor one summer I wrote that.

No, I’ve always wanted to write, but as is so often, I think as a writer, it was a long time coming, so life got in the way. I left university, I got a job, I got married, I had children. And it wasn’t until I was in my gosh, I’m trying to think, my late thirties, I guess, that I started properly going for it and I haven’t looked back. I’ve loved every minute, even the downs as well as the ups because of course publishing is a journey of peaks and troughs, and I think the biggest takeout is you just have to keep riding those waves and believing in yourself and keeping going. But it’s a rollercoaster and it’s a fun ride and I’ve loved it.

Debbi (03:54): It truly is. Yeah, it is a great deal of fun when you can get things to work out and get the story to make sense finally.

Victoria (04:03): Well, that’s right. I think that’s part of it. It’s not just that we want to tell a story, but as a writer, the challenge of telling the story of getting it right, of getting the character’s voice spot on and getting the character in with that first thing that they’re going to say on the page, you just have to see who they are, how to create suspense. I love sleight of hands, so my novels, I love to keep people guessing and hopefully guessing wrong if I’m doing my job right, but also to play fair. So I dunno about you, but I think there is nothing worse than reading a novel and it’s all about the big twist at the end and you get to the twist and you’re like, okay, so I didn’t see that coming. But also it doesn’t make any sense whatsoever. I think the twist should absolutely, when you get to it, it should be “Oh!” not “uhh?”, but when it’s done well, everything just falls into place and you feel satisfied. And one’s job, I think as a writer is certainly a writer of thrillers, is to do that.

Debbi (05:02): Oh yes.

Victoria (05:03): And that’s a challenge, and it takes a while, obviously, to get the books right. But as we say, that’s part of the fun. The puzzle isn’t just the puzzle we give to the reader, but the puzzle we give to ourselves about how do we tell the story in the best possible way.

Debbi (05:16): I agree. Yeah, definitely. It’s really funny when you’re writing these things, you almost become like the protagonist in the sense of what do I do next?

Victoria (05:28): Yeah, well, it’s got to feel real and you can’t just have the plot leading the character, the character, it has to make sense for the character to do whatever they’re doing. Again, there’s nothing worse than a character walking into a haunted house that they would obviously never think of going in. It just doesn’t make it. But no, they’ve got to do it. That’s where the author wants ’em to go, so they find the dead body and the skeletons hanging from the ceiling.

Debbi (05:51): Of course. Yeah.

Victoria (05:53): Sorry, I’ve got haunted houses on my brain. Like I said, it’s Halloween tonight.

Debbi (05:56): I can’t imagine why, given the time of year. So, tell us about Ziba MacKenzie and what made you decide to start writing a series?

Victoria (06:07): So Ziba MacKenzie, that was my very first protagonist and I was feeling my way into crime fiction. And back then I was enjoying novels, Patterson and Lee Child and all those really fun, big characters and big stories. And I was also watching a show, which I dunno if you like, I’m sure many of your viewers like, cause it was huge, was of course Criminal Minds.

So Ziba was an ex-special forces criminal profiler, and this was at a time when nobody was, I think now lots of people are writing about profilers, but back then they really weren’t. And I wanted to write somebody a little bit different, but I wanted to tap into my fascination with psychology and what makes us do the things we do and have a character that could understand us perhaps better than we understand ourselves and really solve a mystery through her understanding of humanity, but also facing demons of her own.

So Ziba, she’s super smart and she’s kick ass obviously, but she’s also, she’s lost her husband, she’s a widow, she’s lost her husband in tragic circumstances. And just to complicate things a little bit further, she’s also falling in love with his best friend.

(07:18): We have a tortured protagonist who we admire, but perhaps also on some level relate to. And we have mysteries that are rooted in true crimes. So that’s one of my things I really enjoy is true crime. I read history at university, so the idea of tapping into something a little bit real, I really enjoy doing. And that’s actually been something for all of my novels that I’ve done in one way or another so far. It’s not a retelling, it’s just a launchpad. The series was very successful, so Blood for Blood, which was the first book in the series was shortlisted for the Debut Dagger Award. So over here in England, the Daggers, I think they’re probably a bit equivalent to the Edgars from what I understand, if that makes sense.

Debbi (08:04): It does.

Victoria (08:05): And being shortlisted for that was a brilliant springboard for me. I got a deal from that and the book did great. It was actually number one bestseller on Amazon for about, I think it was about five weeks. So it as a first book that was

Debbi (08:21): That’s fantastic.

Victoria (08:22): It was great. But of course it also sets your expectations at a little bit high as well.

Debbi (08:26): Oh, I know the feeling.

Victoria (08:26): [Cross-talk] downside. And then I went on to write two more books. So it’s a fairly self-contained trilogy.

(08:35): And after the third novel, I wanted to do something new because writing a series is great fun. You get to know your character so well and you get to have a lot of fun with them. But after a certain point, it’s like wearing a comfortable pair of slippers when as a writer you always want to be wearing your dancing shoes, you want to be going out and trying new things and pushing yourself to grow. Otherwise how did we ever do that? Exactly. And so then I moved on to a standalone, which was my next journey.

Debbi (09:06): Cool. So let’s see. What are you working on now then? Specifically.

Victoria (09:13): What am I working on? So what I did after the Ziba MacKenzie series, so I wrote two standalones. The last one was Truly Darkly Deeply, which you mentioned in your introduction. And that was, I mentioned to you that I really loved true crime. So this one was not based on, but inspired by the relationship Ted Bundy had with his girlfriend’s daughter, which I was fascinated by, I dunno about you, but I watched the movie with Zach Efron that has that crazy long title, I’ll not remember properly, something like crazy, awful, terrible, vile, whatever it was. Remember what I mean? And I watched this movie.

(09:46): And it was a brilliant movie, but fascinating. It was all about the girlfriend and a lot of these stories that we see are about the serial killer’s wife, the serial killer’s girlfriend. It’s that aspect. And there was one scene in the movie where this little girl, the daughter was sitting up at the counter and I thought, that’s what was interesting me.

What was it like for her? How would it have been to had somebody you effectively think of as a father because this girl did, and he turns out to be a serial killer? How does it affect you? How does it inform your view of humanity? And because this is fiction in my novel, the story opens with the serial killer who I’ve named Matty, is in prison, so we know he’s been arrested, but he’s always protested his innocence. And so this girl in my story doesn’t really know if he’s guilty or not. You thinks he probably is, but there’s a but. And it opens with her receiving a letter from him from prison saying he’s dying and he wants to meet. Will she finally get the answer she craves? And if she does, will the truth set her free or will it bury her deeper?

(11:02): So the fun twist for me, I guess with this story was what if your father was a serial killer, but what if you couldn’t be quite sure whether or not he was guilty? So that was where I went with that, and that was a lot of fun. And then following that, I wrote another, it’s not similar exactly, but I suppose you could say it’s a similar vein, which was All the Little Liars, which came out in paper last year. And that was also inspired by a true crime case in this case, the Skylar Neese case. I dunno if you’re familiar with this, but this is an extraordinary story where two teenage girls and their best friend go out and only so three of them go out, and only two of them come back. And these two girls in real life, they are arrested in the end for her murder and they confess to her murder. But what’s fascinating to me is when they were questioned about their motive, all they could say, the only reason they could give about why they’d killed her was we didn’t like her, which is a nonsense. You don’t kill somebody because you don’t like them.

(12:11): I always say, my mother-in-law is alive and kicking, clearly this is not a reason for murdering somebody. So what was really the reason? Why would these girls really have done it? And this was a story I grappled with for a long time. How do you tell it? And so it’s a re-imagining. It’s not Skylar Neese, it’s not those particular girls. But again, that was the launchpad.

So the two standalones are using true crime as a launchpad to explore things that I am curious about. You asked about the thing I’m working on now. My agent is reading it at the moment. We’re working on it and it’s a little bit of a departure for me, so it’s different. As I said, I always want to challenge myself as a writer. I don’t want to be doing the same old thing all the time. I would get bored and I think my readers would get bored probably as well. So this story, I think my best way of telling it is imagine it’s the British To Kill a Mockingbird.

Debbi (13:08): Interesting.

Victoria (13:08): It’s a coming-of-age story. It’s a forbidden romance and it’s a mystery and it opens with the discovery by two children of their vicar, pastor on the moors in Yorkshire and story begins to unravel from that obviously. How did you get there? It’s a mystery. But the real story is how the discovery impacts their life and the life of all the people in the village. And it’s a story about outsiderhood and how we deal with things with which we are not familiar. And it flies to the heart of who and how we love, but also who and how we hate. So a little bit different than what I’ve done before.

Debbi (13:53): Well, it’s very interesting. It sounds like you often write basically psychological thrillers in a sense. A lot of those very psychologically oriented.

Victoria (14:03): Yeah, I’m really interested in human motivation, interaction, character, yes. So yes, psychology is something I’m fascinated by.

Debbi (14:12): Great stuff. Let’s see. What kind of writing schedule do you keep?

Victoria (14:21): Well, I love to write and I always say it’s not a matter of how do I make myself sit down at my desk, but how do I make myself get from my desk? You are nodding. So it sounds like that’s the same thing. The writing was a holiday and I never felt that more keenly than during lockdown. You guys went through lockdown as well, right? You had that too. So we were stuck. I mean, we were allowed outside for an hour a day to exercise and that was it.

So I was at home with my family, so I was homeschooling. So actually the point where I was able to sit down at my desk and write was like going on holiday, it was opening a window onto another world. And the freedom of course that comes with that. So you asked about me schedule, I would say I write whenever I can.

I write every day. I have children, I take them to school, I walk the dog and I write and I get up from my desk and my back starts to hurt. And maybe I walk the dog again, but I’m writing until it’s school pickup time and it’s every day. And I love it. It’s a treat and it’s a privilege as well, I think to be able to call this work when actually it’s the greatest pleasure there is.

Debbi (15:36): I think it is. It’s wonderful. It’s therapeutic. It’s everything. It’s kind of like being able to express things you can’t express simply by talking to people.

Victoria (15:49): For sure. It’s wonderful. It’s a way of inhabiting other people and what an extraordinary thing to be able to do. And you can try out ideas and figure things out.

Debbi (16:02): And it sounds like your career path was very much like mine. You were doing something else in, you were your late thirties when you started writing? Seriously? Same here, late thirties. Yeah, I was practicing law of all things.

Victoria (16:14): Oh, you were reading, okay.

Debbi (16:17): Yeah.

Victoria (16:17): But you know what? I think that other life that we had, I think it’s probably makes, I hope it makes us better writers because I think if, I always used to be very jealous of the people who would go straight from university and they would become writers. That’s the dream. But actually, what are they writing about exactly? Every story we tell has a piece of us in it. And if you haven’t lived, how do you write?

Debbi (16:47): Yeah, exactly. How do you really write about, say, a 60-year-old man if you’ve lived only 20 years?

Victoria (16:58): Right. I mean, we have to. And I’m not saying to write about a serial killer’s daughter, I have to have had a serial killer father. Of course not. But you have to know what it means to love and to care about other people. And there are different, they talk about write what you know. And I always think that’s a bit of a strange thing to say because Ziba MacKenzie, for example, Blood for Blood. I’m not ex-special forces. I’m not a criminal profiler. And yet clearly there are aspects of her or her experience that I’m able to tap into because if I couldn’t, she wouldn’t be relatable. She wouldn’t feel real.

Debbi (17:35): Precisely. Yeah, you just have to be an observer I think of people and endlessly kind of curious about them too, I think helps.

Victoria (17:44): Yes, curiosity. I absolutely agree. I think that’s exactly what it’s about.

Debbi (17:48): Yeah, precisely. Let’s see. What authors do you find most inspire you as a writer?

Victoria (17:59): I think different authors at different times in my career. So when I first started out, I mentioned Patterson and what I learned from him was short chapters, the hastiness. You cannot put a Patterson novel down. And I find that extra, I mean, a lot of people are sniffy about him, but I think he’s extraordinary because his plots are riveting and he just keeps you turning the pages. You literally are finished, they can be thick books, but you’ll finish them fast.

And I was also, at the time, I’m still a huge admirer of Thomas Harris, but I was really enjoying Thomas Harris then as well. And he’s the same, I mean character. He’s just extraordinary at getting a character in. But I also love the classics. So To Kill A Mockingbird is an all-time favorite of mine. I adore it and I’ve read it very many times. And there’s always more you can take out of it. And I think that’s a sign of a really special book that it stands up to multiple readings and also that you can enjoy it at different times in your life. So I’ve read books to my children that I’ve loved growing up, and I come back to them and I read them laterally, and I don’t enjoy them so much. So that’s not the books necessarily bad, but I’m just saying a book that can keep you at every stage exactly. Is very special and very rare and to be cherished.

Debbi (19:20): That’s very funny because I used to do that with Catcher in the Rye.

Victoria (19:25): Oh, I love that one.

Debbi (19:26): Every 10 years or so I would read it and I would love it each time. And then the most recent time I read it, I liked it, but I started to get bored with Holden. He kept saying the same things over and over. I was like, this kid’s kind of boring, really.

Victoria (19:45): Yeah. Well, but I think it’s all about relatability, isn’t it? It’s like they’ve got to relate at different times.

Debbi (19:50): Exactly. When I was fourteen, I loved him.

Victoria (19:52): I mean, I wonder if I went back. Yeah. But I wonder if, I mean, growing up I adored, for example, Wuthering Heights. Again, talking about classics. I wonder how much I would love it now. Was it appealing to something to me as a young person? Was there something in it? Or Thomas Hardy, another classic I loved. Would I enjoy that in the same way? I don’t know.

Debbi (20:13): Hard to say,

Victoria (20:14): But I love a puzzle. But then there are other books talking about crime. I mean, Sherlock Holmes, of course, is a favorite.

Debbi (20:19): Oh yeah,

Victoria (20:20): Of course.

Debbi (20:21): That never grows old somehow.

Victoria (20:22): It never grows old. Absolutely. Absolutely. So I think there are some very special books out there.

Debbi (20:29): Yeah, definitely. Let’s see. What advice would you give to anyone who is interested in a writing career?

Victoria (20:37): Read. Read and read and read and read. Because you cannot write in a vacuum. And the more you read, the more you understand how storytelling works. I personally, I mean we’ve all read a few, I mean, On Writing by Stephen King is actually an example of an excellent how-to guide. But I think, I don’t know, most of them feel very abstract, dry. I don’t know. I don’t take much from them. But reading, just reading a brilliantly told story and asking yourself, why is this working? Read like a writer and write like a reader, I think is what I would say.

Debbi (21:12): Exactly. Yes. And keep at it. Don’t give up.

Victoria (21:14): Keep at it and know that there are peaks and troughs. I mean, nobody mean, of course there are some, right? I mean, we talked about Patterson and Lee Child. I can’t imagine they’ve had many troughs, but most of us have our ups and downs, and that’s to be expected. What you have to do is just keep your sailing and keep believing in yourself. But also there’s a, I’m going to misquote it, but there’s an Einstein quote, isn’t there about madness is about doing the same thing and expecting a different result.

So believing in yourself doesn’t mean just keep plugging away and doing the same thing. Believing in yourself means I’ve got what it takes to get it right. I just have to figure out how. And you keep working and you keep chiseling. And if one thing doesn’t work, learn from it. I always think what doesn’t work is as important as what does work. If it works first time, but you’re not sure why, how do you replicate that?

Debbi (22:12): Exactly.

Victoria (22:13): So failure can be a form of success, I think.

Debbi (22:17): Absolutely. You learn from failures.

Victoria (22:20): Yeah, for sure.

Debbi (22:21): What not to do.

Victoria (22:23): Yeah. In fact, it’s funny, I used to work at, we talked about previous jobs. I used to work at Unilever, which I dunno if it’s big over there. It’s a bit like Procter and Gamble over here.

Debbi (22:32): I’ve heard of it. Yeah.

Victoria (22:34): So I remember talking to one of the HR people and she was talking to me about interviews when she interviews people for roles. And she said, it’s always a really big red flag for her. She never takes on, she always asks the question, what’s your biggest failure? And the people that say, I’ve never really failed, she never hires them because if you haven’t failed, you haven’t learned.

Debbi (22:57): That’s it. Absolutely. You weren’t willing to take enough of a chance on something to risk failure. You’ve got to.

Victoria (23:06): You risk taking a chance even in the stories we tell. So that goes to my point about the Ziba MacKenzie series. I could have carried on writing Blood for Blood and all those other books. Would it be nice and easy? I mean, jolly easy. I knew who the characters were. I knew I had not a formula. I got, I can’t stand formulas, but I had a certain way of doing them. I could have churned those out. But where’s the challenge in that? Where’s the growth?

Debbi (23:33): Exactly. That’s where I differ from so many people who feel like they can just bang out five books in a year or something. It’s like hold the phone.

Victoria (23:42): If you’re banging out five books in a year, you’re not digging deep enough. Do you think you’ve got to struggle? You’ve got to really wrestle with that tiger to get the right book.

Debbi (23:52): I agree. I totally agree. I mean, there is work involved in this, but it’s the kind of work that gives you in the end, pleasure, because you’re producing something.

Victoria (24:02): Satisfaction, right?

Debbi (24:02): Yeah. It’s the satisfaction of telling a good story, a story well told.

Victoria (24:06): Absolutely. Absolutely agree.

Debbi (24:09): I notice that you tend to be inspired by true life events, especially true crime.

Victoria (24:16): Yes.

Debbi (24:17): I know. I often see things in the paper that will spark an idea for a story. What is it do you think that draws people towards the subject of true crime? Because it does seem to have taken off in a huge way.

Victoria (24:34): Huge, right? I mean, Netflix is constant. I think what’s so interesting for a lot of people about true crime is this idea that we could all be affected by it. So many of these stories, but for the grace of God, we could have been there. And the other thing that I find really interesting about true crime is this idea of if I were in that situation, how do I know I wouldn’t behave in that way as well. What really drives us? What is the line between us holding ourselves back and us stepping forward and doing the wrong thing?

(25:12): And often that line gets blurred. But I think as well, what I personally is what I said to you, I find really interesting from a storytelling point of view is the grain of truth. There’s a certain, I’m trying to think of the right word. It’s not relatability, but just knowing something happened, it really happened. I’m not completely making this up. There’s a different level of investment, I think, and your mind goes to a slightly different place. And that’s really interesting too.

Debbi (25:47):Yeah. There’s also another aspect. It’s interesting. We happened to catch part of the Charlie Sheen special on Netflix. What a train wreck. I mean.

Victoria (26:00): I haven’t seen that.

Debbi (26:01): It’s been a long time since I’ve even thought about some of the stuff they were talking about. And it’s like, oh my God, I had to turn it off eventually because it was just so, so bad. It was just so bad.

Victoria (26:14): Actually, that’s a very interesting point because I think there’s a fine line with true crime and storytelling. So I think when it crosses into the gratuitous and when it doesn’t take into account the victims and sensationalizes, and particularly when it sensationalizes killers, which we’ve seen a lot, I find that offensive and pornographic, I’m not sure if it’s the right word, but that’s what it feels like to me. I find it disgusting.

I think if you’re going to take true crime as a launchpad or even very really going into it, you have to deal with a certain sensitivity regardless of whether victims are still alive or not. But it’s not about reveling in grotesqueness. I really do dislike that intensely. And there are a number of novels I can think of that really do do that. And think, you mentioned Netflix says, I’m going to get the guy’s name wrong now, but maybe the one, I mean, there’s a terrible serial killer who it’s on now. What was his name? I can’t remember. But apparently I was going to watch it and I read a review and it was talking about how they took it to such a gory level. It felt just like reveling in the grossness of it. I thought, I’m not interested in seeing that. I don’t want to, that’s not what’s really, really, and I do dislike that and I do think it’s offensive. So I think there is a line you’ve got to be very careful about.

Debbi (27:48): Yeah, yeah. You could easily desensitize people to this stuff if you show too much of it.

Victoria (27:55): Yes.

Debbi (27:55): Seems to me.

Victoria (27:56): For sure you can. Of course.

Debbi (27:58): Yeah. Yeah. I think it pays to have some guardrails of some sort, unofficial ones. We don’t need censorship or anything, but we need to decide for ourselves as writers, where are we going to draw the line on how bad?

Victoria (28:16): But also I guess that comes from why are we doing it? What are we trying to get out of it?

(28:21): For me, with Truly Darkly Deeply and All the Little Liars, I was exploring motivation or impact of a crime on, I mean, often what I’m really interested in is the ripple effects of a crime on the people left behind. So Truly Darkly Deeply, and All the Little Liars really lean into that. That’s about the victims. It’s not the killer’s story. And in fact, in Truly Darkly Deeply, you never see the killings there. It’s, it’s all off-camera, but it’s also only referred to slightly obliquely, because that’s not what my interest is. I’m not interested in what’s the most disgusting way you can kill somebody.

Debbi (29:01): Exactly.

Victoria (29:01): But some people are, but I’m really not. I’m interested in the people, the humanity.

Debbi (29:09): Yeah. Yeah, for sure. Me too. Totally. What do you do when you’re not writing?

Victoria (29:19): Well, I eat a lot of chocolate. I’ve got my dog. So we walk around a lot. I have my children, they keep me on my toes, so I’m cooking a lot for them. I love to walk. I love the outside. I love nature. I mean, we are in fall at the moment, autumn, we call it over here. And it’s just glorious. We have the trees that are ablaze with color and as you walk, and the crunch underfoot. And I love that. I love being out in the world. I also, I love to meet my friends. I love nothing more than go out to breakfast. That’s my very favorite thing.

Debbi (29:55): Oh, I love that.

Victoria (29:57): I love it. I love to have a good old gossip. I love being with people as well. And I also love, I’m a homebody too, so I also love to just snuggle up. I mean, it’s winter here, winter, we’re coming into winter, but the night’s drawing in. It’s dark by about five o’clock here. And I used to hate that actually, Debbi, I used to really dread autumn and winter rolling in because I love the summer. And I’ve learned recently, actually, you know what? Embrace it because it goes on for a long time. And if you spend that whole time just feeling miserable about it, that’s a rather shame. So now I light candles and I make stews.

Debbi (30:35): Exactly.

Victoria (30:36): I cozy out with my husband and watch movies or whatever else it is. And actually that’s rather nice too.

Debbi (30:41): It is rather nice. Yeah. There’s a kind of a comfort in being indoors in your little warm house or whatever.

Victoria (30:48): In our cocoons.

Debbi (30:50): But going outside, if you want to take a brisk walk in the autumn, that’s cool too.

Victoria (30:55): It’s gorgeous. Yeah. We’re very lucky.

Debbi (30:57): I do love nature, I have to say. We should hang together. If you ever come over here, make sure.

Victoria (31:04): Yes. Come to London!

Debbi (31:05): I have to go back to London. I need to revisit London.

Victoria (31:09): Yeah, for sure.

Debbi (31:11): We can look for a Tardis together, because last time I was there, I couldn’t find a Tardis anywhere. I was like, where’s the Tardises?

Victoria (31:20): What you don’t know is Debbi that we were going to record yesterday, and I messed all that up with the times, but you were wearing your Doctor Who T-shirt especially, and I messed that up, so I’m so sorry.

Debbi (31:29): It’s okay. I should have probably just put it on again today. I have two Doctor Who T-shirts.

Victoria (31:34): Oh, do you? A bit of a fan.

Debbi (31:35): Isn’t that amazing? Yeah. Are you a Doctor Who fan? I have to ask.

Victoria (31:43): Actually not. You know what, I’ve never watched Doctor Who.

Debbi (31:45): Really? Oh my gosh, that’s so funny because it’s so quintessentially British. I keep hearing about how quintessentially British it is, and all this stuff.

Victoria (31:54): Yeah, maybe that’s why I’m not so into it.

Debbi (31:57): And then I run into somebody who’s in England who’s just like, no, I’m not into it.

Victoria (32:03): Well, a lot of people love it. So you’re not alone. For sure.

Debbi (32:05): It’s fun. It’s a fun show. I always liked Tom Baker especially.

Victoria (32:10): Right.

Debbi (32:11): Huge fan of Tom Baker. Is there anything else you’d like to add before we finish up?

Victoria (32:18): No, I can’t think of anything obvious apart from to wish you and all your listeners and viewers are happy Halloween, although it’ll come out obviously after that. I hope you have fun. And if you read the books, I’d love to hear what you think of them. I’m on all the social media channels, so let me know.

Debbi (32:37): This is funny because based on my schedule, the way I normally do things, this video will come out on Guy Fawkes Day.

Victoria (32:46): Okay. So Happy Bonfire and Fireworks Day everybody. Happy Guy Fawkes. Absolutely. Do you guys celebrate Guy Fawkes over there?

Debbi (32:54): We don’t actually celebrate it. I remember it because there’s a guy in England who has a blog who I’m constantly visiting and doing his quiz. He was a quizmaster in a previous life. He was a quizmaster. So now he does quizzes on his blog, and we sort of connected over James Bond and Doctor Who.

Victoria (33:18): Well, James Bond. There you go. That’s quintessentially British as well. For sure.

Debbi (33:21): Yeah, for sure. Yeah, definitely. Well, I just want to thank you so much for being here. Thanks for everything you said is just so perfectly said.

Victoria (33:34): Oh, well that’s very kind. Well, thank you for having me. It’s been so lovely chatting to you.

Debbi (33:38): Well, same here. I had a really good time. Thank you. And so hopefully you’ll get over to our side of the pond sometime and we can get together at Bouchercon or someplace.

Victoria (33:50): I would love that. Actually. I’ve never been to Bouchercon, but I would actually love to go.

Debbi (33:54): They’re fun, they’re fun conferences. They’re big, a lot going on. So on that note, I just want to say thank you again, Victoria, for being here. And thanks to all my listeners with a special thanks to my Patreon supporters. Thank you so much for your support. It’s definitely appreciated. Please, if you’re listening to the podcast or watching “like” us or leave a review, give us a review if you enjoyed the episode, and as I said, this will be out on November 5th, remember the 5th of November.

Victoria (34:35): Yes. There you go.

Debbi (34:38): If I knew the poem, I would recite it. Anyway, by the time this drops, I’ll probably have a couple of chapters from The Maltese Falcon posted on the Patreon page for you to enjoy. So I hope you enjoy that. And this seems like a perfect time to talk about the perks of Patreon, which include bonus episodes, ad-free episodes, and more. So on our next episode, I will have a guest named James Pokinghorn. He will be our next guest. And until then, I will just say, take care and happy reading. Be seeing you.

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Don’t forget to check us out on Patreon! Where I’ve shared a few photos of my Doctor Who shirts and maybe a Tardis with patrons. 🙂