L C Tyler

View Reviews of books by L.C. Tyler

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L.C. Tyler

LC Tyler grew up in Southend, where he dreamed of writing a novel one day. His time at Jesus College, Oxford gave him a degree in geography and an unbelievable punting technique.

On leaving university he worked briefly for the Department of the Environment before joining the British Council. Over the next few years he lived and worked in the Far East, Africa and Europe. He learned morris dancing in Hong Kong, rowed on crocodile infested waters in Brunei, ran through the Malaysian jungle with the Hash House Harriers and had tea with the King of Romania in Khartoum. Once back in England, he became chief executive of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health for about 12 years.

But he had not given up on his earlier ambitions. He had won an Ian St James Award for one of his short stories in 1996 (Kate Atkinson was another winner that year). His first novel, The Herring Seller’s Apprentice, did not appear, however, until 2007. This was followed by six others in the Herring series. He also now writes a historical series featuring John Grey, a 17th century lawyer.

He has twice won the Goldsboro Last Laugh award and was also the winner of the 2017 CWA Short Story Dagger.

Interviewed 12 February 2018

Ten words to sum up your working life to date ...

Systems analyst, cultural attaché, chief executive, tribunal member, crime writer.

Nine things you can see from where you're sitting ...

From the window, a Victorian Gothic square, lots of parked cars, youthful drug-dealers, rain. Inside, a print of two Sudanese ladies done in henna (reminder of our time in Sudan), a small Royal Copenhagen vase with pansies on it (reminder of our time in Denmark), a pepper grinder (given to me in Sweden), a dog-shaped salt shaker (oddly enough a souvenir of Bangkok). From the other window, the lawn I’ve just spiked and top-dressed and a lovely maple that we dug up each time we moved house, but which is now about 15 feet tall and going nowhere.

Eight minutes to prepare a meal. What's it going to be ?

Cheese on toast with apple, done to my own special recipe.

Seven people you'd like to go for a drink with ...

Charles II, the wicked Earl of Rochester, Lady Castlemaine, PG Wodehouse, Ernest Hemingway, Oscar Wilde, and somebody to pay the bill.

Six things you can't live without ...

Writing, travel, laughter, Christmas, love, my family.

Five favourite words ...

Plantagenet, cavalier, doublet, trollop, subinfeudation.

Four places you'd run away to ...

Venice, Hoi An, Antigua, West Wittering

Three books you've bought recently ...

The Floating Admiral by Agatha Christie and other members of the Detection Club; Peepo by Janet and Allan Ahlberg (for our granddaughter); The Visitors’ Book by Jon Lys Turner

Two things that make you rant ...

Grammar. The erosion of freedom of speech. (And lots more, but you’ve wisely only allowed me two.)

One thing you'd tell your teenage self ...

It will all be fine.