Getting to know the Character Interview with
DI Rosalind Kray
alcohol in a week to kill a small horse. Her idea of having a healthy meal is
drinking a bottle of wine and eating chocolate while lying in the bath – having
first had a couple of large ones sat on her sofa for starters. She lives on her
own in Lytham St Annes and is a prickly, uncompromising character with a
healthy disregard for authority.
for which she still bears the physical and emotional scars. It’s a constant
battle for her to keep body and soul together. Some days she succeeds at
that better than others.
modern day policing. Her unconventional style and intuitive methods get
results and her team thinks she walks on water, but despite this, she appears
to be on a permanent collision course with the top-brass. Roz has ambitions
to progress up the ranks, unfortunately her bosses have other ideas.
having to appease an idiot she tells me what she’s thinking before she utters
a word. Her inner dialogues are hilarious, I never know what she is going to
come out with next.
quickly. She cracks cases that others can’t and refuses to play the corporate
game. This makes the top brass uncomfortable.
Where did the original idea of Roz come about?
serial killer in Faceless, and Roz was not on the scene at all. I had written
almost ten-thousand words but had no detective to solve the case. An
interesting dilemma for a crime writer to face.
and the first thing she said was, ‘My name is DI Rosalind Kray, but please
call me Roz.’ Which is what she says to everyone she meets. She hates
being called ma’am.
There are times when I think I know what’s going to happen but she always
surprises me.
great thing to admit on a book club post. The only thing I can say is she
keeps me on my toes. Even though I’m writing the fourth book in the series
I’ve still not worked her out.
– you can’t say that! But she can … and she does.
Her methods may go against the grain for those above her but she gets the
job done. That’s all she cares about.
her leading a tortured existence, trying to predict the killer’s next move while
maintaining her own sanity. A balancing act which she gets wrong all too
often.
husband. And some of her actions are driven by her inability to let go.
they fail to perform.
point of being rude. Which I have a tendency towards, a trait that leads my
wife and daughters to tell me off when I lapse into Roz-speak.
beers and cancelling the meal in favour of a pub crawl. Then later she would
eat chocolate and I’d have a curry.
or TV show?
head of what Roz looks like along with a very clear picture of the actress who
would play her. She is the spitting image of Roz.
had a vague idea of the programs she’s been in. Anyway … it’s the Lorraine
Ashbourne. She has been in loads of crime dramas including Thorne and
Silent Witness.
Retribution – which have all been published by Bloodhound Books.
I am half way through the next one which has the working title of Faking It.
Roz gets on. With her uncompromising nature and tendency to hit the
self-district button, I keep expecting her to be fired from her job or worse.
But to date she has more lives than a cat.
Rob is married to Karen with two grown up daughters. He is originally from South Wales and after moving around with work settled in North Lincolnshire where he’s spent the last twenty-two years.
Like all good welsh valley boys Rob worked for the National Coal Board after leaving school at sixteen and went to University at the tender age of twenty-three when the pit closures began to bite. Since then he’s worked in a variety of manufacturing and consulting roles both in the UK and abroad.
It took Rob twenty-four years to write his first book. He only became serious about writing it when his dad got cancer. It was an aggressive illness and Rob gave up work for three months to look after him and his mum. Writing Those That Remain became his coping mechanism. After he wrote the book his family encouraged him to continue, so not being one for half measures, Rob got himself made redundant, went self-employed so he could devote more time to writing and four years later the Mechanic Trilogy is the result.
When he is not writing, Rob is a frustrated chef with a liking for beer and prosecco, and is known for occasional outbreaks of dancing.
Rob published the Mechanic Trilogy with Bloodhound Books in 2017 and will be releasing three new books during 2018. These are titled: Faceless, This Little Piggy and Suspended Retribution.
