Music hath charms to soothe...

[Matnov]

Currently listening to this...

BBC Radio 6 Music - Mary Anne Hobbs, With Ian Rankin, Ian Rankin's 'Rebus Mixtape'

Always been a massive Rebus fan and love this play-list. I know it is a bit of a cliche that requires any fictional Detective to have a musical interest but it helps, at least for me, to bring a character to life.

 

[Paul Whybrow]

I favour stories where music is mentioned, along with the other leisure pursuits of a fictional protagonist, as it helps to round out their character.

I'm currently reading my first Mark Billingham crime novel, Scaredy Cat, which was actually the second story in his series about detective Tom Thorne. Set in the seedy London underworld, Thorne keeps himself sane by listening to the doomy songs of Johnny Cash.

I love the writing of James Lee Burke, especially his Dave Robicheaux series. Burke is a big music fan, and plays guitar himself, so his stories are rich with musical references.

I've been giving my own protagonist, Cornish detective Chief Inspector Neil Kettle, various idiosyncrasies including a meditation technique where he paints watercolours while listening to music that reflects the nature of the crime he's investigating. In the novel that I've just completed, Sin Killers, he achieved a breakthrough when the song Legs by ZZ Top came on his stereo and he realised that the criminal he was hunting had an obsession with legs; she proved to be an amputee, an ex-soldier injured by an IED in Afghanistan.

 

[Katie-Ellen]

Neil Kettle is a highly intuitive thinker