Peter Corris

And again, as I said before, things he likes and things he dislikes, new things he approves of and old things he regrets the passing.

So that makes for texture.

It gives you something to play with as you're writing.

No.

The story has always just developed from the client's inquiry and the client's problem.

And where that comes from is just out of the ether, out of the imagination as far as I'm concerned.

For this book, Gun Control, it was written a better part of 18 months ago, I suppose.

and before some of the current stuff about guns and bikies and the rest of it was in the news.

And it just came to me as something to play with.

I mean, I don't take it all tremendously seriously.

I take it seriously professionally to try and do the best job I can, but I don't think it's world-shattering writing or literature.

And so things come to me and I go with them.

Well, it starts off with a very simple inquiry that a person wants to find out how his son managed to commit suicide.

Again, suicide's very much in the news now, but wasn't particularly back then, although I had been working with Philip Nitsky, so I suppose I had suicide in my ledger somewhere.

And as with all these things, it just spreads out when Hardy attempts to inquire into what weapon was used.

That raises questions about people and places and the way things interlock with each other.

And so the story gets up and running.

So there's no particular theme.

There are corrupt cops and honest cops.

I think honest cops is something I haven't done very much with apart from the standard character, Frank Parker, who occurs in many of the books.