Episode 271 - Olly Smith on Death by Noir

Oh, thanks so much for having me, David.

It's a, it's a great thrill to be here.

How is the book tour going, by the way?

Do you know, it's going great fun.

Uh, I started off last night in Edinburgh.

Uh, it was a full house, uh, lots of copies, uh, flying out the door, which is lovely to see.

But the enthusiasm people have, both for wine and crime, makes me feel like this genre I've created of wine crime may actually have legs.

It, it was such a lovely event.

We had a couple of wines very kindly provided by Majestic, and I gave a talk about the book and my kind of process and how it all works and why I've written it and all those sorts of things.

Then a nice little Q&A, and tonight I'm off to St. Andrews.

Oh, lovely.

Well, uh, what fun, and it's...

I'm not surprised it's getting a, a great reception.

It's had some fantastic reviews.

What made you want to try your hand at crime fiction?

This is a great question.

I think the honest answer is that I wanted to bring a bit of joy into the world because we're living in, uh, an extraordinary time.

Um, and I felt that, you know, I'd started out life working in wine shops when I was a teenager delivering boxes.

I then took a bit of a detour, actually beginning to write fiction.

It was my first job.

I was a screenwriter for film and television, specializing in kids animation, and notably Wallace and Gromit, uh, Curse of the Were-Rabbit for a beautiful single day.

Uh, but there was also Charlie and Lola.

I wrote, um, many episodes of that.

Uh, Meg and Mog, Pingu and, uh, and so forth.

So to come back to it and actually draw together all the things I really feel deeply enthusiastic about, words, wine, communication, uh, bringing people together in, in one shared space, it seemed to me that writing a, a novel, uh, was just too irresistible.

Oh, thanks so much for having me, David.

It's a, it's a great thrill to be here.

How is the book tour going, by the way?

Do you know, it's going great fun.

Uh, I started off last night in Edinburgh.

Uh, it was a full house, uh, lots of copies, uh, flying out the door, which is lovely to see.

But the enthusiasm people have, both for wine and crime, makes me feel like this genre I've created of wine crime may actually have legs.

It, it was such a lovely event.

We had a couple of wines very kindly provided by Majestic, and I gave a talk about the book and my kind of process and how it all works and why I've written it and all those sorts of things.

Then a nice little Q&A, and tonight I'm off to St. Andrews.

Oh, lovely.

Well, uh, what fun, and it's...

I'm not surprised it's getting a, a great reception.

It's had some fantastic reviews.

What made you want to try your hand at crime fiction?

This is a great question.

I think the honest answer is that I wanted to bring a bit of joy into the world because we're living in, uh, an extraordinary time.

Um, and I felt that, you know, I'd started out life working in wine shops when I was a teenager delivering boxes.

I then took a bit of a detour, actually beginning to write fiction.

It was my first job.

I was a screenwriter for film and television, specializing in kids animation, and notably Wallace and Gromit, uh, Curse of the Were-Rabbit for a beautiful single day.

Uh, but there was also Charlie and Lola.

I wrote, um, many episodes of that.

Uh, Meg and Mog, Pingu and, uh, and so forth.

So to come back to it and actually draw together all the things I really feel deeply enthusiastic about, words, wine, communication, uh, bringing people together in, in one shared space, it seemed to me that writing a, a novel, uh, was just too irresistible.