A Gripping Police Procedural: Read Our Q&A with Matthew Spencer, Author of Black River

Briefly tell us about your book.

Black River is a police procedural –⁠ a mystery and a whodunnit. Two women have been killed in separate houses on the Parramatta River at Gladesville in Sydney. When a third body is found in the deserted grounds of a boys’ boarding school, the first question for detectives is: are the three murders linked?

What inspired the idea behind this book?

The central idea of Black River is that something very bad has happened on the campus of a big boarding school and the journalist who is sent to cover the story was a student there as a child. I grew up on the grounds of a boarding school –⁠ my parents were teachers –⁠ and I worked as a newspaper journalist for twenty years, so it is drawing on elements of my past.

What was the research process like for the book?

This was where my journalism came in: I did a lot of interviews. I spoke with homicide detectives and forensic investigators, pathologists and psychiatrists. Then I just went ahead and made stuff up. I think the trick is making things feel and sound believable. You don’t want to labour stuff or be a slave to accuracy around procedure, you want to be a slave to writing a smooth, entertaining story for your readers. I also read a bit of non-fiction around serial killers, such as I’ll Be Gone in the Dark, about the Golden State Killer in California.

Who are some of your favourite authors? Or favourite books?

Thomas Harris. I think Red Dragon is the best thriller ever written. Peter Temple, for character and place –⁠ The Broken Shore is a police procedural where the plot is almost secondary. I loved November Road by Lou Berney. The North Water by Ian McGuire. I’m currently reading Slow Horses by Mick Herron. Oh boy!

What’s your daily writing routine like and what are you working on at the moment?

I write every day, usually late morning into the afternoon. Saturdays, Sundays, Easter Friday, New Year’s Eve. I’ll do anywhere from three to five hours a day. I don’t think I work hard –⁠ it’s not like I’m doing an eight-hour day. But I work consistently. I think you have to show up and sit down every day. I’m writing a second book. It’s not a sequel to Black River, but it centres on two of the homicide detectives in the book, Rose Riley and Priya Patel.

Buy a copy of Black River here.