Richard Coles on crime novels and the '80s: "I envy Richard Osman enormously"

These days he can work on his podcast (with 68 episodes and counting, The Rabbit Hole Detectives has an impressive 4.8-star listener rating), write his crime novels (his third Canon Clement mystery came out this month), and be more "mouthy".

Read on for all that and more...

So, let's start with the new novel. It’s set in 1989 — how do you recall that time so well?

"When I started writing these books, I watched a lot of TV drama from that period, just for the stuff that’s at the back of the shot. And it reminds you of the texture and feel of the era – that, for instance, the sound of 1989 was car alarms.

"And there are other things you forget. One programme that was especially useful for me was Prime Suspect – one series, everyone in it smokes, and then the next, nobody does. You can almost see the memo going round saying, 'No more smoking.'"

You're signed up for several more Canon Clement books. Are you worried you'll run out of '80s cultural references? Don't you envy Richard Osman for setting his 'cosy crime' novels in the present day?

"I envy Richard Osman enormously – for his huge success and considerable talents – but not for the settings of his books. I don’t have to deal with mobile phones and CCTV in mine, and he does. That makes life much more complicated for him, because it’s a lot harder to murder someone unobserved and undetected these days.

"I would like to go forwards in time for one of the books in the series, though – maybe the last one. I’d like to see what happens to the characters; there are some long story arcs I’m interested in."

There are certainly some big surprises in the new one, Murder at the Monastery, with some characters confused about their sexuality. Does that come from personal experience?

"Yes, I barked long and hard up the wrong tree myself before figuring out that it was the wrong tree. It was a very common experience for gay men of my vintage that we had formative experiences barking up that wrong tree.

"There was somebody I had a passionate thing for at school, for instance, and he wasn’t interested in me in that way. But we became best friends, and we remain so – and it’s a key relationship in my life."

Your protagonist, Canon Clement, is described as "about as sexually active as a fish slice". Is that from life, too?

"I did have a period like that myself, when I was trying to figure out what I was going to do in the Church. And then I… stopped being as sexually active as a fish slice. Was I more of a butter knife then? Well, I certainly moved to a different part of the cutlery drawer.

"But it was very difficult in the Church, because it was kind of acceptable to be in a same-sex partnership but you were expected to have a celibate relationship – which I was unable to do."

You felt forced to lie about your relationship?

"I couldn’t see any other way. I hated having to lie about it, but there are times when you must pick the lesser of two evils, and I think it would have been worse to have denied myself and David [Oldham, his late husband, who died in 2019] the kind of unique, wonderful thing that came with having a relationship.

"I didn’t see anything in that that was inimical to my calling as a parish priest, although others would disagree."

It's hard not to see other parallels between Clement's life and yours…

"If there’s one character in the books that’s really based on someone, it would be Audrey, Clement’s mother. She is a tribute to my mum, who died this year. I’m just writing an Audrey section in the next novel, actually; it gives me great joy and comfort because it feels like I’m with my mum again.

"I’m writing a bit that’s related to my mother’s vehement refusal to give me the recipe for her bread sauce, in fact. I tried for years to get her to reveal the secret, but she took the recipe to her grave."

You spent time at a monastery, like Clement…

"Yes, and there’s a part of me that is always there. I truly loved it, but I was probably not optimised for that life. I’d hear traffic outside, and think, 'Where are you going? What are you doing?' I was too curious about life beyond.

"And then in summer, I’d be deep in my prayers – and the ice cream van would come along past the monastery walls playing The Entertainer. So…"

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