The Devil and the Dark Water: An Interview with Stuart Turton

The Devil and the Dark Water

British author Stuart Turton writes mysteries that are wildly inventive with an old-school historical twist.

His debut, The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle, is a worldwide bestseller. Now he’s back with a new tale sure to thrill and chill fans and new readers alike. The Devil and the Dark Water, a spine-tingling story set on a ship, is full of intrigue, surprising twists and turns and demonic forces at hand. In this interview, Turton tells Mary Martin bookseller Lindsay about the influence of classic crime on his work, how horror inevitably seeps into his stories and why his short stint as a bookseller in Darwin was the ‘best job.’

Your books evoke classic crime writing in the vein of Agatha Christie and Arthur Conan Doyle in the most fabulous way. What are your favourite crime reads?

That’s really kind, thanks! My favourite crime reads… Ooooh, that’s tough. Right now, sitting here, I’d say The Lady in the Lake by Raymond Chandler, because I adore Philip Marlowe and I think that might be the best plotted mystery he’s involved in. It’s got all of the elements Chandler disdained in the books by Agatha Christie, including clues and elaborate solutions. But he does them brilliantly. It must have been so annoying for him to realise that. 

I’m also a huge Christie fan, and the first one I ever read was A Murder is Announced. For people who don’t know, that’s the one where a murderer puts an ad in the local paper announcing the time and place a murder will be committed.  A bunch of people turn up to watch, and, of course, the mystery spirals off from there. It’s so clever, and I always loved the idea of Christie getting that idea, then being terrified because she actually had to write it and live up to the concept. We just see her as the Queen of Crime, but it must have been a nightmare maintaining that reputation. Every book would have had so much pressure on it. 

I see shades of horror in both your novels. Are you a horror fan?

Only distantly. When I was a kid I read obsessively in individual genres, and by individual authors. I started with Roald Dahl, and then Agatha Christie, Conan Doyle and Stephen King when I was a teenager.

I think I bring horror into my books because murder should be horrific. It should be damaging and scary, and something we should never want to happen again. I find that a lot of mysteries use murder as a jumping off point without ever reckoning with its impact. It’s meaningless to the story and that sits oddly with me. I want to make murder terrifying. 

You have said that the Batavia shipwreck was one of the inspirations of The Devil and the Dark Water. What kind of historical research did you do in writing this book? 

Oh my lord, the historical research was intense. I travelled to Jakarta to explore the site where Batavia once sat, and got a sense of the heat and smells. They’ve actually rebuilt the Batavia ship in Lelystadt in Amsterdam, so I spent two days wandering around that, asking questions about how it would work. That’s what gave me the sense of claustrophobia the book has.

I sat in the British Library for a week, staring at passenger manifests of ships travelling during this time and reading accounts of these voyagers. And, then, of course, I read everything I could about the Batavia wreck, including the journals of those aboard. The tricky part wasn’t really the research, it was knowing how much of it to use, without turning the book into a history lesson. I wanted this book to be an adventure/mystery. It’s not Master and Commander and that’s quite a delicate balance to strike. 

The crew in your book, like many sailors, are very superstitious. Do you carry any superstitions of your own, in writing or in life? 

I don’t, sadly. I’m an annoyingly rational person, as my loved ones will attest. I think that’s what made me so fascinated by the superstitions in the book, and the occult. I wanted to understand how people could believe this stuff and what psychological purpose it served. 

‘I think I bring horror into my books because murder should be horrific. It should be damaging and scary, and something we should never want to happen again.’

Stuart Turton

What advice would you give aspiring crime writers?

My advice to aspiring crime writers is the same as my advice to all writers: finish a draft. The draft contains all the bricks you’ll build your house from. It doesn’t matter how crap they are, you need them to do anything else. I’m stunned by the amount of people I meet who want to be writers, but haven’t actually finished anything. There is no magic key. There’s no trick, or shortcut (unless you’re a celebrity, in which case you can do whatever you like and get published). 

I read that you once worked at a bookshop in Darwin. Can you tell us a bit about your time in Australia?

I spent a year backpacking around Australia when I was 23 and I had every job conceivable. I picked every kind of fruit. I went pearl diving. I worked on a goat farm in the outback. I cleaned the toilets in a private airport. I built houses.

I manned the desk in a second-hand bookshop in Darwin. I worked there for a week or so, and nobody ever came in. It was the best job. I just read books until I’d made enough money to buy my bus ticket to the next place. What a time! I loved being in Australia. Thankfully, I married an Australian woman, so I get to go back every year — though sadly not this year, with everything that’s going on. 

What have been your go-to comfort books for 2020?

I read Terry Pratchett when I’m not in the mood to read anything else. The breadth of his work means that there’s always something to pick me up if I’ve had a bad day (week, month, year). I’ve recently been reading all the Sam Vimes novels again and they remain as funny and wise as they ever were. I’m so sad Pratchett’s dead. It’s terrible to think we’ll never got any more of his novels. 

Any hints on what you are working at the moment?

Ha, my publisher would kill me if I spilled any details. It’s bonkers is all I’ll say. Every time I start a new book I want to feel that I’m pushing myself creatively and putting the mystery book somewhere it doesn’t comfortably want to go. In doing that, I usually end up feeling terrified. I can confirm I’m currently quite terrified, which is a good sign that I’m on the right track. 

Read our reviews of The Devil and the Dark Water and The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle on our Books We Love page.

$29.99