Profiles

To research his debut novel, Richard T Kelly spent a great deal of time walking around the streets of Newcastle and sitting in the city's pubs and libraries with his notebook and tape recorder.

The result is Crusaders, an ambitious story with the weighty themes of politics, religion and crime running through it.

He describes the experience of doing his research on Tyneside as a "great pleasure".

The jacket of Crusaders

"I began to travel back frequently with my pen and tape recorder and walk the streets. It was fascinating," he said.

Culturally rich

Richard was born in County Durham but when he was very young, his loss adjuster father moved the family to Northern Ireland for his work. But he has always had family ties with the North East.

He said: "In the 90s I began to get very interested in things happening in the North East and began to collect newspaper clippings.

"I am sure I feel, like everybody else from the North East, there is something so culturally rich about the place."

He said there were three main stories which inspired him to write the book. The first was reading a newspaper article about church planting, when new churches are established in non-church buildings.

The second was the gangland killing of Viv Graham in Newcastle in 1993 and the third was County Durham MP Tony Blair becoming leader of the Labour party.

Richard said: "The combination of these things got me thinking about a way to build a story about politics, religion and crime."

Geordie dialect

He says the kind of books he loves are 19th century English and Russian novels - big social tales which move back and forward between the past and present.

It is set in Newcastle in 1996 and follows a young Anglican clergyman who returns to his native North East to plant a new church in a deprived area and the interesting characters he meets in the process.

As well as its Newcastle setting, another element which roots the book firmly in Tyneside is the use of Geordie dialect.

Richard said: "The reason I felt assured is that Geordie is very much alive in the culture with things like the writing of Dick Clement and Ian Le Frenais and Viz."

He added: "There's a currency in the culture even if you just listen to Ant and Dec."

Film festival

Richard's background is in non-fiction books, particularly film. Some of his titles are Sean Penn: His Life and Times and Ten Bad Dates with De Niro: A Book of Alternative Film Lists.

But having enjoyed writing Crusaders and winning some impressive reviews for it, his next book will also be a novel. Although it will mark a change of gear being a supernatural story set in Edinburgh.

As well as being from the North East originally, Richard is a regular visitor.

He has taken part in the Northern Lights Film Festival since it started, as a delegate and speaking about the films which are being shown.

Over the coming months he will make a number of visits to Tyneside.

On Tuesday 4 March he will be going along to The Living Room Book Group to talk about his novel and answer questions.

In the afternoon on 4 March, he will watch rehearsals of scenes from Crusaders at Live Theatre.

On Wednesday 5 March, the book will be officially launched at Live Theatre with actors playing out extracts from the book followed by a discussion and questions.

Richard said he is looking forward to finding out what people think about the book although he said he is not naive about the pros and cons of meeting those who have read it and the feedback he will get.

He said: "I am interested in what people will think of the book.

"For me it's certainly a revealing experience to come up and engage and listen to people's reactions."

Crusaders is published by Faber.