Andrew Woodward tells Matt Fleming about his debut detective novel, set in Hong Kong

How do you set a convincing detective novel in a city which has low crime rates? Simple. You choose Hong Kong, you bring in a hard-knock British detective and you create a murderer with a sinister background. That’s what Andrew Woodward has done in his debut novel, The Water Dragon. The 40-year-old, originally from London, moved to Hong Kong in 2008 and was keen to portray the city as ‘one of the stars of the book’.

What inspired you to be an author?
I had always wanted to write a novel but for a long time I’d been put off by my perception of the magnitude of the undertaking. Looking back, I think it was because the creative novel I aspired to write would pale into insignificance alongside the offerings of greats like Hemingway and Garcia Marquez. It was only when I stumbled into reading crime fiction that I realised it was possible to entertain and engage the reader without the need to create Pulitzer Prize-winning copy in every sentence.

What’s the plot?
I don’t want to give too much away, but suffice to say it follows Detective Inspector John Chambers from London’s Met Police who’s sent to Hong Kong on the trail of a suspect in a double murder in the UK and becomes involved in the hunt for a serial killer. But I also wanted to examine how Hong Kong presents itself to the outsider – both the positive and negative sides of the city, plus the unique cultural fusion of East and West. I also deliberately set scenes in less well-known locations as an excuse to highlight the diverse geography and little-publicised rural component of the region. All the scenarios in the book are real. The only things that’s obviously not true are the murders – readers might be under the impression that Hong Kong has a high murder rate, which couldn’t be further from the truth. I think as a murder mystery/thriller it will keep readers guessing until the very end.

How long did it take you to research and write?
I’d had the idea knocking around for several years. It was just a rough outline and originally it wasn’t a detective novel. The main problem was that I couldn’t find a setting that worked. It was only when I moved to Hong Kong and became aware of all the fascinating cultural and natural elements that were here that all the pieces began to fall into place.

You don’t see many detective novels these days. Is there a resurgence on the way?
I’m not sure about detective novels set in Hong Kong, but I think the obsession with TV franchises such as CSI and Law & Order have revived the interest in the whole detective genre. Also the popular success of (Steig) Larsson’s Millennium trilogy and that fact they’re remaking the Swedish version in Hollywood starring Daniel Craig goes to show the levels of interest. I think readers/viewers love piecing the puzzle together for themselves. When it’s done well it’s engaging and challenging, and gets people thinking rather than being passive observers.

Any new projects on the horizon?
Yes. I’m working on a sequel to The Water Dragon that I’m hoping to publish by the end of this year. It follows DI Chambers on his return to the UK. I’m about half way through the novel which is set predominantly in Scotland – and, like The Water Dragon, the plot involves a lot of the country’s historical and cultural aspects – but don’t worry, Chambers will be back in Hong Kong in the third novel in the trilogy. Sadly, my mum, who did a huge amount of research for me on the second novel, passed away recently and it’s deeply upsetting that I won’t be able to share the finished novel with her.

The Water Dragon is published by Handheld Culture (www.handheldculture.com), priced $60. The Kindle eBook version, also $60, can be found on www.amazon.co.uk.