About

Meet Graham J Young

Hello

I'm the grandson of Welsh mining stock. After grammar school and university, I travelled widely across the UK in search of a career and a new home, eventually pitching up in Perthshire twenty-five years ago.

When I'm not in my imaginary writing world, I will likely be found in my extensive garden, gravel cycling, playing chess, or Munro bagging.

I'm married to Trish, and we live in the Sidlaw Hills, in our wonderful home, which enjoys panoramic views of The Mounth, the high ground to the south of the Cairngorms.

A short interview with Graham

James Evans is Welsh. Are you?

Well, yes, I am, and no, I’m not. I was born in Caerphilly, or Caerffili, Glamorgan, which makes me just about a Valleys boy like James. Both my grandfathers were miners, like their fathers before them. My paternal grandfather was from Wiltshire, and my maternal opposite number was from Carmarthenshire. Both men of the land, or as my uncle Harry put it, ‘we come from a long line of nobodies,’ which is a little unkind on our forebears. They were economic migrants. Agricultural mechanization in the second half of the nineteenth century meant they could no longer make a living. So, both upped sticks and moved to South Wales looking for work.

Do you speak Welsh?

Na dwi ddim. Efallai ychydig o Gymraeg y Cymoedd neu, fel maen nhw’n dweud, Wenglish.

Okay. I think that’s probably a no. Why base your stories in upstate New Hampshire?

Good question. The short answer would be, why not? It’s simple, really. It’s where I discovered James Evans. We were on holiday in New England, hiking in the White Mountains. It was a long day, and he came to me. Not in a vision as such. But pretty close. A British detective is policing a small town in upstate New England. And some rough ideas about a story. A murder. A body, and where would you dispose of it? And there we have it. A beaver pond. There are plenty of those in the woods. And so, it began.

Did Liz come later?

Liz was there from the start, too, but her character grew through the early drafts. So, the James Evans crime thrillers morphed into the Evans and Hales crime thrillers. But it's taken a while to get to the point of a fully-fledged series, with a few missteps, and I’m a slow writer!

James and Liz seem like an oddball pair of detectives.

I’m not sure Liz would be best pleased to be described as an oddball. But the more I get to know them, or rather the more time I spend in their company, I begin to understand the complexity of their inner challenges, their demons if you like. It’s too easy to describe James as a man running from his past. There is some truth in that. If you’ve read ‘A Long Road,’ you will be familiar with the event that led him and Pippa to leave London and make a new home in America. He still needs the challenge of bringing justice to the families of those lost to the most heinous of crimes – the taking of another life. But he also knows that he needs to find some inner peace. But that is easier said than done.

And as for Liz? I’m not sure where to begin. She could still be walking the catwalks of London, New York, Paris and Milan. Okay, so she always wanted to be a detective. But really? I think there’s a lot more to Liz than she has let on, at least thus far. Maybe I can entice her to open up a little. We’ll see.

Who are your favourite crime thriller writers?

Too difficult to answer! I have quite a few who I admire. And several have unwittingly inspired me to put pen to paper or fingers to keyboard. In alphabetical order: Harry Bingham, Raymond Chandler, Ann Cleeves, Jeffrey Deaver, Susan Hill, Louise Penny, Ian Rankin, and many others. They are all great storytellers. And have memorable protagonists. And there are many other writers I adore in different genres.

There are three books in the series. Will there be more?

I’m not sure. I think it’s up to James and Liz. I’m sure they have more stories to tell. They need to bring me more into their confidence.

What really happened during the storm at Zealand Falls Hut?

The denouement? Hey, come on, read the books! And maybe by the end of the series…