Chris Chibnall calls new novel "Broadchurch-adjacent" after "full-on" Doctor Who writing experience

"I wanted to write a book precisely because I knew it would be really hard work,” he explains. “I’d been wanting to do one for a decade or two, and after the first season of Broadchurch, a few publishers got in touch. But then I was doing seasons two and three, then the Doctor Who offer came along [Chibnall was showrunner 2018–21]. I came out of all that and thought, ‘What’s on the bucket list?’ A novel was number one on that list, and it was such a joy to go from the most full-on television show you can do, and switch to just me and a laptop and some words."

Oh, so it was a relief not to have to worry about furiously proprietorial fans or meddling BBC producers any more?

"No, I didn’t think that on Doctor Who! You don’t worry about that stuff when you’re writing a story, you’re just looking for something fresh and original. And I love the collaboration of TV, and being part of a group endeavour. It’s just that I wanted to take away all the stabilisers and mitigations and see if I could make something on my own when there’s nowhere to hide."

He certainly has. Death at the White Hart is a gripping thriller, which sings off the page thanks to brilliantly drawn characters and fizzing dialogue. Although the strange, unsettling murder at its centre occurs in a pretty west Dorset village with thatched cottages and two pubs, it’s anything but "cosy crime": the setting is absolutely recognisable as real, 2025 Britain – complete with overworked Amazon drivers and villagers having to turn their homes into Airbnb rentals to make ends meet. Then, of course, there’s the newly merged (and already overstretched) Three Counties police force in charge of the investigating.

"This is a Broadchurch adjacent novel," Chibnall confirms. "It feels like it takes place ten miles down the road from Broadchurch. I think any great crime novel has a dramatic dissonance at its heart, and here the murder is shocking because that sort of thing is so rare in a bucolic west Dorset community. It shakes people up, and puts all the characters under pressure, in a way that’s more visible than with a murder in an urban landscape. Also a lot of people live in our small towns and villages, and it feels important to write about how life is changing around us at this incredibly disruptive rate."

Going around murdering his west Dorset neighbours (on paper) wasn’t an act of revenge for Chibnall, then, who moved to the area a few years ago? "Oh no! I love it here. The Americans are really good at making parts of their landscape iconic, but I think this place deserves that, too. It’s the same with Liverpool [where Chibnall was raised]: I always want it to be in things I’ve written because it’s the greatest city in the world. Can you mythologise the A35 in the same way the Americans do with Route 66? Probably not, but you can give it a go."

His biggest literary influence, he says, was the quintessentially English Agatha Christie: "I’m a big, big fan. I read all her books in my teens – taking each one out from Formby Library – and I took them apart to see how they work, like a Swiss watch, every little cog. At the same time as writing the novel, I was working on an adaptation of her Seven Dials Mystery for Netflix, which was incredibly useful."

There are “conversations” going on about a potential screen version of Death at the White Hart, says Chibnall – but he’s “always having conversations about everything” (he was once even tapped up about doing Broadchurch: the Musical, he claims).

Meanwhile, there will be another book next year, and he remains – that steely glint returns to his eye – “super-serious about being a novelist”. And if a crazed criminal type put a gun to his head and made him choose between books and TV? “I’d be grabbing their gun, throwing them to the ground and standing with my boot to their throat.” This time, I’m not even sure he’s joking.

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