David Hewson takes write approach to The Killing
LIKE David Hewson – the writer asked to turn hit Danish TV series The Killing into a book – let’s get THAT jumper out of the way first.
When The Killing – with heroine Detective Inspector Sarah Lund – first hit British TV screens last March, the murder hunt captured viewers’ minds.
But it was Sarah (Sofie Gråbøl) and her favourite thick black and white Faroese jumper that captured their hearts.
So when David Hewson, best-selling writer of 22 books, was given the job of writing the book of the series, he wanted to tackle the jumper issue early.
He laughed: "Someone suggested I wear the jumper while I wrote the book. You can buy one in Copenhagen – but I didn’t think it was my style!
"It seems to have taken on a life of its own. Maybe because Sarah is such an unusual character – and the jumper is not what your expect a senior police officer to wear. But it’s part of her."
David was busy on another book when a bidding war for the rights to turn the TV series into a book began to warm up.
David visited Inverness to help him soak up the atmosphere before starting work on his crime novel version of Macbeth with North Carolina professor A.J. Hartley.
Out as an audio book in the US, its read by Scots actor Alan Cumming.
"The first thing we did was come to Inverness and the Great Glen," said David.
He’s full of praise for Cumming’s reading of the story.
And admires Macbeth, saying: "Shakespeare did a number on one of the best kings you ever had!"
Now, David has just one wish.
"It would be great to find a Scottish publisher interested in bringing it out here!"
"I was in Italy working on the book I’m finally finishing now, when I got a phone call from my editor at Pan Macmillan asking if I’d seen The Killing.
"He told me there was a huge auction of the rights to the book going on.
"Then he said ‘We want it and if we get it, would you be interested in writing it?’."
"My first question was ‘Can I change it?’," said David who has made a point of making the book’s ending different from the TV series.
Among the many books, both fiction and non-fiction, that David has written, is his Costa crime series which is set in Rome.
"I’ve written 10 or 11 books in Italy, so I’m used to writing about foreign places.
"There was a huge auction and secret bidding war for the book with emails and phone calls going on for three weeks with my agent in Copenhagen and my publisher won it.
"I had no idea how long it would take me, so I just wrote seven days a week.
"I started writing it in May and the deadline was the following February. It was an obsessive kind of story and I had it done by the December.
"Then I went straight into starting to write TheKilling 2."
David isn’t sure yet whether he will be writing the book for The Killing 3 – the TV version is still being made.
"Series three is out on Danish TV in September, and Soren did say he would only do three series.
"But it’s such a huge exercise – I’ve written both those books in less time than it’s taken them to make series three and it’s still shooting now."
David Hewson appears at Inverness Book Festival tonight (Thursday) at 6.30pm.
