Mark Pryor’s sharply plotted Hugo Marston mysteries combine the gritty reality of underworld crime with gorgeous Paris settings that revel in French life old and new.

Hi there, I’m your host Jenny Wheeler and today Mark talks about reader expectations, the importance of craft, and his recent addition to Hugo’s American embassy network, a transgender security agent.

Six things you’ll learn from this Joys of Binge Reading episode:

Why adding an alligator made for a more interesting story

How Hugo Marston came to be

The secret reason his mysteries are set in gorgeous cities

Why he never worries about 'writer's block.'

The writers he admires most

What he'd do differently second time around

Where to find Mark Pryor: 

Website:  http://www.markpryorbooks.com

 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Mark-Pryor-Author-101633349962415/

 Twitter: @MarkPryorBooks

What follows is a "near as" transcript of our conversation, not word for word but pretty close to it, with links to important mentions.

Jenny:  Hello there Mark, and welcome to the show.  It's great to have you with us.

Mark:  Nice to be on.  Thank you so much for having me.

Mark Pryor - Mystery author

Jenny:  Beginning at the beginning as I always like to do - was there a “Once Upon A Time” moment when you decided you wanted to write fiction, and if so, was there some sort of catalyst for it?

Mark:  Yes actually.  It was when I was in primary school in England.   I remember that my teacher, Mrs Garwood, had two notebooks she had us write in.  One was for things that actually happened to us, news, and the other was for stories, fictional stories, things we just invented.  And at the beginning of one term, after the summer holidays, she asked us to write in the 'News' book about some stuff we had done and so I did.

I wrote about a haystack I'd played on on the family farm with my best friend and about how we'd been attacked by alligators and we'd had to fight them off with sticks, and I wrote all this in my 'News' book, not my fiction book.   And you know what she said?  She said absolutely nothing about it and she gave me a gold star, so I always think of that as a great moment of encouragement for me and I look back at that and I remember.  That would be a kick-off point for me, I think.

Jenny:  Did you realise at that point that you were writing fiction in a news book?  Did you actually know the difference?

Mark:  I think probably what happened was I started to write something true, because we did play on the haystack, but then realised that that was kind of boring and a couple of alligators would make this a lot more interesting.

Jenny:  That's lovely.  I can see that on your website sometime.  A couple of alligators would make this more interesting!  They could turn up in the Seine!

So why did you choose the mystery genre? And why contemporary Paris as your setting?

The magical Seine - but some weird things have turned up in its waters

Mark:  I think mysteries because those are the books that I always read.  I grew up on Agatha Christie and Sherlock Holmes.  Before that the Hardy Boys, the Three Investigators.  I just was always drawn to reading mysteries and so it was a natural thing for me, when I decided to write, to write a mystery novel.  As for why Paris, I do get asked that question and I usually answer it by saying I have a friend who sets his novels in a run-down town in rural New York and another friend who sets her books in East Texas and guess who has the most fun doing research!  I have been to Paris probably knocking on twenty times and I try to go every single year to do research for the fresh book and I love the city, I love everything about it,