Interview: Jack Lutz, Author of London in Black

BY MICHELE MATHEWS

On June 6, Pushkin Press will release Jack Lutz’s debut novel, London in Black. I had the opportunity to interview Jack and get some insight into the background of his novel as well as the story itself.

LONDON IN BLACK IS YOUR DEBUT NOVEL. HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT ITS UPCOMING RELEASE?

JL: Thrilled. It’s a bit surreal, to be honest – I’ve been a fan of my publisher, Pushkin, for years, and I have loads of their books on my shelves. So seeing a Pushkin book cover with my name on it really does feel like a dream come true. But more than anything, I can’t wait for readers to meet the book’s hero, DI Lucy Stone!

WHEN YOU FIRST STARTED WRITING LONDON IN BLACK, IT STARTED OUT AS A SCREENPLAY. WHAT MADE YOU DECIDE TO CHANGE IT TO A NOVEL?

JL: I was happily working away on the screenplay when I realised the start date for a writing course I’d signed up for was fast approaching – and I knew I’d be best served by putting the screenplay on hold

to focus on writing a novel as part of the course. But I couldn’t pull myself away from Lucy’s story, so I decided to keep telling it, even if it meant switching from one form of writing to another.

I think the screenplay origin actually comes through a bit in the novel – in pace and structure, and in little nods to film throughout (for instance, Lucy is repeatedly mistaken for an actor). There are echoes in the writing style, too. In the screenplay, I used short, choppy sentences and omitted pronouns to trim page count, and it just felt right to carry on when I switched over to the book. I’d love it if, when readers read London in Black, they feel a bit like they’re watching a film – like they’re on their sofa, watching a gritty, fast-paced thriller…except they also get to hear what the main character is thinking.

YOU SAY YOU’RE FASCINATED BY THE CITY YOU CALL HOME. WHAT ABOUT LONDON FASCINATES YOU AND HOW DID THIS HELP YOU WRITE YOUR NOVEL?

JL: Honestly? Everything. Its people. Its history. Its culture. Even the geography is fascinating – the hidden rivers, the traces of long-vanished buildings and walls.

The way dozens of little villages have been absorbed over time into this massive global metropolis, but if you stand in just the right place, it’s like you’re transported back in time. I love exploring London on foot…there’s always a new place to visit, a new corner to check out.

I hope that my love of the city comes through in the book. I live in the East End, and so I’ve set a fair chunk of the action here, in places I know well, places I find especially interesting – and that I hope readers will, too.

YOU MENTION THAT THE STORY IDEA CAME FROM YOU CHANGING TRAINS. TELL US A BIT ABOUT YOUR WRITING PROCESS.

JL: Yes, that’s right! I was at Canada Water station, switching from the Overground to the Jubilee Line. Switching Tube trains during the morning rush hour can be a bit of a grim experience, so perhaps that’s why the idea for a dystopian thriller popped into my head? But it actually wasn’t the plot or the setting that appeared first – it was Lucy. She just sort of showed up in my mind as I stood there on the Tube platform.

One early part of the writing process for London in Black – and the part that surprised me most – was prepping Lucy’s character background. In the past, I’d used character builder worksheets, where the idea is to answer a long list of questions to help flesh out your character. But since Lucy had arrived in my head pretty much fully formed, I thought perhaps I’d try just sitting down, starting to type, and letting her tell her life story in her own words.

It felt like a dam bursting.

I typed at top speed for hours over the course of two days, just trying to keep up with Lucy’s voice in my head. I even wound up using parts of it, word-forword, in the book. I wasn’t expecting that!

EVEN THOUGH LONDON IN BLACK TAKES PLACE A FEW YEARS INTO THE FUTURE, HOW MUCH OF OUR CURRENT EVENTS WERE IN YOUR THOUGHT PROCESS AS YOU WERE WRITING IT?

JL: I really was primarily focused on a future London as I wrote, but at some level, I suppose the world I was living in couldn’t help but influence me. For instance – in the novel, terrorists use drones to deploy nerve gas over London. I didn’t consciously think about it at the time, but looking back, I’m sure the Gatwick drone disruptions helped inspire that idea. But then again, I’m sure the Blitz was lurking in my mind as well – so it wasn’t just current events, but more remote history as well.

THE MAIN CHARACTER, LUCY STONE, IS A SUPER RECOGNIZER. WHAT DO THEY DO, AND HOW DOES THE LONDON METROPOLITAN POLICE USE THEM?

JL: In the story, Lucy is a ‘Super Recogniser’ – someone with an extraordinary ability to recall faces. If she sees your face, she’ll recognise you instantly when she sees you again – even if she’s only seen you once, briefly, years earlier.

And in the story, the Met employs a team of hundreds of supers. They’re used to trawl through massive quantities of CCTV footage, hunting for the faces of suspects they’ve been shown, faces they’ll recognise instantly if seen again.

Since the book is set in 2029, I wouldn’t blame readers for assuming that I’ve made this all up, in a sci-fi sort of way. But I haven’t! Super recognisers like Lucy are real. Researchers first identified the ability in 2009, and a few years later, the Met began using a squad of supers to search CCTV footage. Supers helped identify the suspects in the Skripal poisonings, and German police recently used them to identify people in CCTV footage of riots.

Lucy avoids talking about her ‘Party Trick’ – it makes others uncomfortable, and she’d rather just be known as a good homicide cop. But it is a part of her, and I hope readers will be interested to know her ability isn’t just something I’ve dreamt up!

YOU’VE WOVEN BITS OF LONDON’S HISTORY INTO THE STORYLINE. TELL US THE IMPORTANCE OF DOING THIS IN LONDON IN BLACK WHEN IT’S A SUSPENSE THRILLER/ DYSTOPIAN CRIME NOVEL.]

JL: Writing a near-future dystopian story meant I had to do a bit of world building, and I thought it would be interesting to look to London’s past in coming up with its fictional future. Plus, that felt like it fit with Lucy herself – she suffers from horrible PTSD flashbacks, all linked to events that happened two years before the book opens. So, since I had a hero who has difficulty keeping her past out of her present, I thought it was only fitting to have her inhabit a 2029 London filled with murky echoes of London past.

One way I did this was to adapt little details from historical sources – tiny things, like having the graffiti that Lucy passes on the street be inspired by graffiti mentioned in a 17th century book. I also set scenes in locations where something

similar to the scene’s action had actually happened long before. None of this was meant to be obvious – I just thought perhaps the hidden history might bleed through somehow, that it might make the story feel that much richer. And I do love London history, so if nothing else, it was fun to do.

WHAT ARE YOUR FUTURE WRITING PLANS? WILL THERE BE A SEQUEL TO LONDON IN BLACK?

JL: I would love to write a sequel – and I’ve spent quite a bit of time on plotting already! �

ABOUT THE BOOK

THE ATTACKS WON’T STOP. NEITHER WILL SHE.

LONDON 2027. Terrorists deploy London Black, a highly sophisticated nerve gas, at Waterloo Station. For the ‘Vulnerables’, exposure means near-certain death. A lucky few survive, aided by Boost injections.

LONDON 2029. Copy-cat attacks plague the city. DI Lucy Stone, a guilt-ridden Vulnerable, is called to investigate a gruesome murder of a scientist, who might have held the key to an antidote. But is the antidote real? And can Lucy solve the case before her Boosts stop working, leaving her defenceless once again? The clock is ticking – and London Black is in the air. .