60 Seconds with Susan Grossey

By Gillian Hamer

Susan Grossey was brought up in Singapore, graduated from Cambridge University in 1987 with a degree in English, and then taught secondary English for two years before realising that the National Curriculum was not for her. She became a technical author and realised money laundering was a topic that could keep her interest for years – and so it has proved.

 Since 1998, she has been self-employed as an anti-money laundering consultant, providing training and strategic advice and writing policies and procedures for clients in many countries. As part of her job, she has written several non-fiction books with exciting titles like “Money Laundering: A Training Strategy”, “The Money Laundering Officer’s Practical Handbook” and “Anti-Money Laundering: A Guide for the Non-Executive Director”.

However, even this is not enough financial crime for her, and in her spare evenings and weekends writes fiction – but always with financial crime at the heart of it. Susan lives in central Cambridge, with husband Paul, no children (by choice) and a tabby moggy called Maggie (short for Magnificat). When not writing, Susan enjoys reading, knitting, or pedalling madly on the back of a tandem.


Hello, Susan, tell us a little about you and your writing.

It all started with my day job: I am an anti-money laundering consultant, which means that I advise people on how to avoid criminal money. I have become absolutely fascinated by what criminals do with their money, and when I decided to just knuckle down and write that novel, of course financial crime was at the heart of it. I am writing a series of seven novels, set in consecutive years in 1820s London, which have as their narrator a magistrates’ constable called Sam Plank. And – would you believe this coincidence? – he is fascinated by financial crime.

What’s the best thing about being a writer?

For me, it is the chance to escape into the past – I find it all but impossible to stop researching and start writing, as I could read all day long. I also like having control over events, particularly in these rather turbulent times. It’s not always straightforward, but Sam generally gets his man, which is reassuring.

And the worst? 

Sometimes it can be a bit lonely: left to my own devices, I can spend days on end living in the past, which is not always good for current relationships! And – of course – the fear of finding that, despite evidence to the contrary, I can’t write any more…

Why did you choose your genre? 

Well, don’t tell my (engineer) husband, but I have a bit of a thing for policemen! I am particularly keen on the ones who use their brains to untangle tricky cases. And I noticed that although there are plenty of Regency romance novels, and more Victorian detectives than you can shake a truncheon at, no-one else has written about a Regency sort-of detective.

Do you have a special writing place? 

I have two. Most of the time I am in our back bedroom, looking over the little garden and our neighbours’ roofs. And if I am treating myself, I go to the Cambridge University Library and install myself on the fifth floor of the north wing. All the books there are about chemistry, so I’m not tempted to browse, but I love being surrounded by all that knowledge. And if I’m stuck for a character name, I just look at the book spines – chemists are probably over-represented in my books!

Which four writers would you invite to a dinner party? 

All of my favourites, so that I could gush and fawn: Elizabeth Goudge, Robertson Davies, Stan Barstow and Michael Bond. I doubt they’ve met before, and they’re not exactly competitors, so they should have plenty to discuss. And it would distract them from my awful cooking.

If you could choose a different genre to write in for just one book – what would it be? 

I can’t imagine writing a modern book, but I might give a slightly historical epistolary novel a go. I do like to have a framework rather than a blank page, which is the attraction of books requiring lots of research.

What do you know now you wish you’d known at the start of your writing journey? 

That it is remarkably difficult to get reviews – even one-sentence ones on Amazon from friends and family!

What is your proudest writing achievement to date? 

The self-publication of the first Sam Plank novel, “Fatal Forgery”. Once I knew that I could do it, the others were inevitable. But that first step was enormous.

What are your future writing plans? 

I have published four Sam Plank novels: “Fatal Forgery”, “The Man in the Canary Waistcoat”, “Worm in the Blossom” and “Portraits of Pretence”. I am now in the throes of writing “Plank 5” (not the final title!), and books six and seven in the series are plotted. I can’t even bring myself to think about what I will do once Sam retires, as he must in 1829 (when the Metropolitan Police was formed).


Follow Susan on Social Media ..

@ConstablePlank

 www.susangrossey.wordpress.com