Interview: Ken McClure, author

Published on Monday 30 May 2011 16:09

'WITH this in mind, Dr Steven Dunbar bought some children's books for Jenny and his sister-in-law's children at the airport before boarding the flight.

He was flicking through the pages of Mother Goose when the man sitting beside him said, 'I see you're a Booker Prize man.'

Steven laughed. 'Beats celebrity memoirs.'

'Tell me about it,' said the man. 'I've just been interviewing a couple.'

He answered Steven's enquiring glance with, 'Liam Rudden, entertainments editor with the Edinburgh Evening News.'

The two men shook hands. 'Steven Dunbar. The book's for my daughter, honest.'

'Don't be embarrassed,' joked Rudden. 'Mother Goose is a favourite of mine too. In fact I'm directing it at the Brunton Theatre this Christmas.'

'You're kidding?'

'No, I do a panto every year - the perfect antidote to interviewing too many celebrities. Panto's more realistic than some of them are. What line are you in yourself?'

'Civil servant,' said Steven.

Rudden gave Steven his card. 'Give me a call nearer the time. I'll sort out some good tickets for you and your daughter.'

'I may take you up on that'."AS a writer, you get used to seeing your name in print. In the press, it appears as a byline at the start of an article. As a playwright, it sits beneath the title of the production.

Each brings a little thrill that never fades. However, as I have just discovered, nothing quite matches the 'hit' of seeing your name in a novel. Not on the cover mind, but as a character, interacting with the hero of the book.

My little cameo, related above, is published this week in international best-selling author Ken McClure's latest medical thriller, Lost Causes.

The ninth title in the East Lothian author's Dr Steven Dunbar series, the action finds the ex-Special Forces medic investigating a number of sudden and suspicious deaths, including that of a former health minister who had introduced a new health care scheme 20 years previously.

Dunbar's investigations are side-tracked, however, when the UK comes under bio-terrorist attack, with a nightmare disease let loose in Edinburgh and other major cities.

When the police arrest the young Islamic fundamentalists responsible for the attacks, ensuring no new outbreaks, normality resumes... but something is not quite right and Dunbar begins to fear there might be a very real sting in the tail.

Lost Causes is a follow-up to McClure's 1993 novel, Requiem. Written almost two decades ago, its controversial ending has haunted the writer ever since.

"I've had so much correspondence about what my wife calls 'the lousy ending' of that book," McClure laughs. "In Requiem, the bad guys got away and the good guys all got killed.

"People couldn't believe I left it like that. They kept asking if there would be a sequel. I never intended that there would be. But even 20 years on they were still asking, so I thought, 'Why not?' "

The time was right, considers McClure, as he recalls the plot of Requiem.

"Jim Kincaid was a journalist who investigated the Health Service. When a new health scheme was introduced by a right wing faction of the then Tory government, he began to suspect all was not as it seemed."

With the prescribing of medication computerised, Kincaid discovered that people with long-term conditions - a big financial drain on the health service - were being culled instead of treated.

Lost Causes revisits that health scheme.

"The time was right for this book," says McClure. "Shortly after the time of Requiem there a big change in government. The Tories went out of power, as did the right wing faction. New Labour came in for God knows how long and now the Tories are back and I thought, 'Well, that right wing faction might find it a more amenable atmosphere to try something again'."

It's the first time McClure has met the challenge of a 'sequel'. Candidly he confesses, "I will never do it again. I had to keep referring to the past and considering what might have happened in the interim to make everything as accurate as possible. My big worry was that I would rewrite the same book, but of course, Steven's investigation is rudely interrupted by a terrorist attack and that's a whole new story."

As with all his novels, science lies at the heart of Lost Causes, and McClure admits, "I have a very minor, hidden second agenda in all my books.

"I would like people to know a little more about science at the end of a Ken McClure book that they did at the beginning, although my main intention is to write a thrilling story."

It's this desire to make science 'sexy' again that is also behind a new series of TV thrillers that will see six of McClure's earlier titles adapted for the small screen

He reveals, "Magma Films in Ireland, in conjunction with a German television company and the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), are doing a series of thrillers. Six of them are based on my stories."

The provisional title for the series is DeBurgo And Co and the McClure novels being adapted are Requiem, Pestilence, Crisis, Chameleon, Trauma and Resurrection.

"The stories will be the same, but the characters will change as the hero is John DeBurgo, who heads a team of eco-crime investigators who are based in Berlin," elaborates McClure.

"It's being supported by the EBU because European governments are unhappy at how unpopular science is among young people. Soon there will be a problem finding good scientists.

"The idea is, if we can make science seem really attractive and sexy through a thriller, it might help. I will be the scientific advisor on the project." It's a role that fits McClure like a glove, considering his past as an award-winning research scientist with the UK's Medical Research Council in Edinburgh.

Today, that must seem like a lifetime ago, but then to say the 65-year-old is on a bit a roll at the moment, is an understatement.

His 23 novels have now been translated into no fewer than 25 languages, the latest being Russian, Finnish and Macedonian.

"All the Steven Dunbar books have just been optioned by the Russian publisher Veche and the Finnish publisher Moreeni, but what is really exciting for me, is that the oldest established publisher in Macedonia has contracted to publish Crisis," he says.

A whole new readership awaits the softly-spoken author who, appropriately, has also been introduced to another new fan base through the wonders of science - his entire back catalogue is also now available on Kindle.

"A year ago, like many authors, I hoped that e-books would just go away and leave us with our beloved books but I now have a Kindle and it is absolutely wonderful. Instead of carrying a book around, you carry the entire bookshop," he smiles.

"As an author, when you put your books on Kindle, they are available in the biggest bookshop in the world, night and day, 365 days a year."

Another reason why the appellation lost cause is one that can hardly be applied to Ken McClure.

Lost Causes by Ken McClure, is published in hardback by Polygon, 16.99

Dust To Dust by Ken McClure is published in paperback by Polygon 7.99