People

All good things have to come to an end and it seems the game is nearly up for John Harvey's creation Charlie Resnick.

The detective has been solving crimes since 1989 but the next couple of books will see him preparing for retirement.

Resnick reborn

Author John Harvey spends his time living between London and Nottingham. Although he's currently based back in the capital, he was living in Nottingham not so long ago and that gave him the impetus to look at more novels featuring the famous detective.

"Recently we lived here for a few years and that gave me a taste for writing about him again. I was really intrigued to think what it would be like for him when he was approaching retirement and how he would face that."

New books

The former school teacher began his literary career by writing pulp fiction paperbacks. If you include those stories John Harvey has written nearly 100 books over the years.

Most recently he's written a novella called Trouble in Mind that tests the waters with regard Resnick's retirement.

The story

As in the previous Resnick novels, John Harvey says Charlie will be based in the city.

"He's still in Nottingham preparing for retirement. In the short story he meets up with Jack Kiley, a private investigator and former footballer. It gives me the chance to mention Notts County in the book.

"In Cold in Hand he's really concentrating on retirement. He's living with Lynn Kellogg, who is a Detective Inspector. So part of the story is about Lynn, who's more go ahead, while Charlie's behind the desk a lot of the time, working out what he'll do."

The future

With Charlie Resnick destined to head off to an allotment or daytime television viewing, John Harvey needs a new character to develop.

One option would be Lynn Kellogg although John's not sure about developing a woman as his leading character.

"I might be wary writing a book where the main protagonist is a woman because I'm a fella.

"I'm not sure I could totally pull it off. I like to think the women in my books are convincing but they're never the central protagonist and I'm just not sure how much I could totally inhabit them so they could take on the whole of the book."