Introduction

Author Will Patching is fascinated by psychopaths. He has a website dedicated to just this topic. And the villain in his British noir mystery, Remorseless, is a character study in psychopathology.

Will and I had a lovely long chat about all sorts of disturbing subjects, including psychopaths and the absence of guilt that allows many a murderer to do what they do.

Will has also generously offered It’s a Mystery Podcast listeners a free copy of the audio version of his book, Remorseless! If you would like one please email me, mention the podcast and I’ll connect you with Will.

You can find Will and his books on www.RemorselessThriller.com. Also note that Remorseless is free on Amazon at the moment.

Press play (above) to listen to the show, or read the transcript below. Remember you can also subscribe to the show on iTunes. And listen on Stitcher.

You can also click here to watch the video on YouTube.

 

Transcription of Interview with Will Patching

Alexandra: Hi everyone! I’m Alexandra Amor, and I’m here today with Will Patching. Hi Will!

Will: Hi Alexandra, thank you for having me.

Alexandra: Oh, you’re so welcome. How are things in Thailand this morning?

Will: Pretty warm, as usual. It’s a very nice place to be, beautiful scenery, spectacular place. I live on the island of Phuket. It’s a tourist destination, so I’m very very lucky.

Alexandra: That is nice. Well, that’s lucky. By way of introduction, I’m just going to tell everyone a little bit about you.

Will Patching is the author of “Remorseless”, a British crime thriller featuring forensic psychiatrist Dr. Powers and London Metropolitan Police Officer D.I. Jack Carver. Carver assists Dr. Powers as he tries to unravel the truth about violent psychopath Peter Leech, while battling demons of his own. So first I want to ask you, Peter, you’ve got a website dedicated to psychopaths?

Will: Mm-hm.

Alexandra: And as we were talking about just before the call… We talked about how your book is quite gritty. I think I saw it described somewhere as a British noir thriller, which is fantastic.

I noticed one of your reviewers described it as ‘relentless’. So are those the types of books you like to read as well?

Will: Oh, absolutely. I’ve been reading all sorts of books since I was a bookworm as a child. Mysteries, and thrillers, and crime fiction for me has been the biggest draw. And I think it’s the most popular genre generally anyway with everyone. So for me that was an area where I loved to read, and I always wanted to write.

I thought violent psychopaths were particularly fascinating, and I wanted to create a novel where one of the key individuals, the villain Peter Leech in this case, is actually a genuine psychopath and to put readers into his mind as part of that.