March 31, 2025 • 32 mins
In this episode we talk to broadcaster Jeremy Vine about his crime debut Murder on Line One, relive an intriguing anecdote about Nelson Mandela, and briefly look at Ted Bundy, serial killer.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Murder Junction.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
Everyone.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
Well, this week on the show, we have a man
who needs no introduction. His fame eclipses all radio presenter,
TV presenter, journalist, an all round man of the people.
Jeremy Vine has now fields to crime fiction. As well
as hearing about his upcoming crime debut, Murder Online. One,
Jeremy will be chatting to us about his love of
the genre and a true crime tale that most of
(00:26):
us will be familiar with but that never ceases to
chill us to the bone, or, in my co presenter
Abby's case, warm the cockles of his little Scottish heart.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
Jeremy, welcome to the show.
Speaker 3 (00:36):
Thank you, honestie, what a pleasure to be here. Guys,
thank you so much. The last the last one I
heard was suddenly turned the camera on. The guy was
in his underpants or something.
Speaker 1 (00:44):
I got.
Speaker 3 (00:45):
I gotta dress up.
Speaker 4 (00:46):
For you normally, I mean staying able. Was in his
pants for see, wasn't wearing anything, So that was kind
of a shot.
Speaker 1 (00:55):
Listeners, can't can't see you, but you do have the
most wonderful It almost looks embroidered the shirt. It's not embroidery,
but it's a lovely pattern. It's very Mandelbrot sort of style.
Speaker 3 (01:08):
Yeah, I don't know what I mean. I'm very bad
at recognizing my own shirt, but this I think could
be some sort of Paisley thing or whatever. But someone
he said the other day, you know, you're wearing a
shirt of snakes on and I've been wearing it for
a year without realizing. And I think I've got my
dad's jeans. My dad was like a professor brainstorm figure,
where he would be overly focused on some things and
then not realizing he was wearing odd shoes.
Speaker 4 (01:28):
It's a lovely shirt. It's like a it's a royal
purple color. It's how the other half lived us. This
is a royalty dress.
Speaker 1 (01:35):
And I'm also impressed with the fact that he fits
into his dad's jeans.
Speaker 3 (01:39):
There are the jeans, Okay, so I'm fully clothed for this.
Speaker 4 (01:43):
I were slightly disappointed by that.
Speaker 1 (01:45):
Jeremy, to be honest, let's start at the beginning. Jeremy,
tell us a bit about ground ground yourself for our audience.
Where did you grow up?
Speaker 3 (01:53):
So I brought was brought up in Cheen and sorry,
and that's kind of very very suburb and a bit
a bit flat actually, frankly. I mean there was not
a lot going on when I was there, and then
I went to school and then I went to university,
and I suppose the key nothing happened except that once
(02:14):
there was a bank robbery in Cheine, and that was
significant because my dad had always I always said to
my dad, I would never work in the bank because
there might be a bank robbery, and he said that
that really basically never happened. You need to understand risk
and statistics. And then it bloody happened in Shean, so
these things do happen. And I decided not to work
(02:35):
in a bank and went into journalism instead, and then
I ended up on yeah, BBC kind of. I was
a trainee at the BBC and all that. Yeah, you's
saying nothing, Let's go back a step.
Speaker 4 (02:46):
If it wasn't for a bank robbery, you'd be a
bank manager today and not you know, a superstar.
Speaker 3 (02:54):
I can visualize that bank, and I was never thinking
there's a lot of money in there and at some
where someone's going to go in and steal it. And
then I was just told them, that's very silly to
think that, But yeah, you're right. I would have been
a bank manager. And I always there was a part
of me that and I think I probably still have
this that just desired a job where you sit at
a desk, and then you get to sixty and you
(03:14):
retire and you have a pension as it, And then
there's another part of me which wears this shirt and
has a different approach.
Speaker 1 (03:21):
There's no there's no law that says bank managers can't
wear that kind of that kind of shirt.
Speaker 4 (03:26):
Well, it's an unwritten love.
Speaker 3 (03:28):
Absolutely.
Speaker 1 (03:29):
Now you say that you've you've covered a lot of
territory there and you say that nothing. But that's not
quite true, Jeremy, because my my dedicated research has turned
up the fact that during this period you played in
a band alongside Joe and the band to continue this
artorial start to this episode was called the Flared Generation,
(03:49):
and I believe smash Hits magazine described you as the
most unfashionable punk band country.
Speaker 3 (03:57):
Yeah that's true. Well, what so we and it's a
terrible indictment of the news media. Really, as as kids,
as teenagers, we wanted to be famous. And I guarantee
the two of you win bands as well, because fifty
percent of us were in bands when we were young
and I played the drums. It's very difficult, and we
drove a mini club and then tried to move a
drum kit around Cheam, so there's ever an accident. I
(04:17):
was going to have my head cut off, quite simball.
But the yeah, we said, we tried all the serious bands.
We were modeled obviously on the key bands of the time,
which was mainly Paul Well on the Jam all that stuff.
Speaker 4 (04:29):
Sorry Woking based band. Then right down the road.
Speaker 3 (04:32):
Yeah, the classic line I know I come from Woking
and you think I'm a fraud. That was from his
first album and we never made it. Obviously our songs
are rubbish and we were rich. So we then did
a thing where we flipped it and we said she
has now launched a punk band, but the punk band
is so unfashionable that they have not a chance of
making it. And suddenly we were in the sun, We're
(04:54):
in smash hits, we were on Radio one. It's incredible,
just by doing a whole load of songs about fl trousers.
So the idea was that Shean's punk band is so
unfashionable that they've actually started wearing flairs. They haven't got
a clue, you.
Speaker 4 (05:08):
Know, and that's clever.
Speaker 3 (05:10):
Yeah, well clever, it's but it's such an indictment, isn't it.
Speaker 1 (05:15):
Like Paul Ringo star, not even the most famous drummer
in the not even the best drummer in.
Speaker 2 (05:19):
The big.
Speaker 3 (05:21):
Yeah, we couldn't really play. So we did a few
gigs and at that point we really realized we didn't play.
My brother, though, is the kind of genius because he's
the comedian Ti My and he he wrote all the
songs and he's very musical as well as being funny,
so he sort of drove it. We all had silly names,
and yet we had a moment where we were famous
for the.
Speaker 5 (05:40):
Wrong reasons, which is not How do you go from
that to this incredibly serious career that you had as
a journalist where I believe you were the Africa correspondent
and they basically threw.
Speaker 1 (05:51):
You into every war that was going on on the
on the African continent and you ended up interviewing these
amazing political figures. Well I say amazing, but I mean
some of them work larger than life.
Speaker 3 (06:02):
Well yeah, yeah, I mean significant. I suppose the uh
you know, what what do you is there a difference? Though?
I mean when you're sort of if you like showing off,
you know, all you need is a microphone surely, and
I suppose for me, Yeah, I suddenly realized. Look, my
mum said to me, Look, you want to be a DJ.
(06:23):
You want to do music that's not going to be
a living, right, So you want to do something more serious.
So when I got to university, I put on a
serious face and I did student newspaper, and I did
the studi newspaper called Platina. We all had to type out.
None of us notice, by the way, that the Internet
could be a thing in nineteen eighty three. So there's
got to be a failure of an intelligence test there somewhere,
because we're that was still quite early.
Speaker 4 (06:44):
That's that's still a good seven eight years away, right.
Speaker 3 (06:47):
Yeah, but Bill Gates noticed. If we'd noticed it, I
wouldn't even have to be working now. I could just
be on a beach.
Speaker 2 (06:54):
You wouldn't have to be out, shit, you wouldn't.
Speaker 1 (06:55):
You wouldn't have to be out like us shilling your
book control people.
Speaker 3 (06:59):
Yeah, if we want to be doing anything else, guys, come.
Speaker 4 (07:02):
On, absolutely absolutely.
Speaker 3 (07:04):
That's the that's the key problem with my argument and incident.
Speaker 1 (07:07):
From that period as a as a journalist that sticks
out for you. And I know you interviewed, say Robert
and we don't have to mention that.
Speaker 3 (07:15):
If you don't, yeah, no, I will look I think
in shorthand join the BBC. Suddenly I think, okay, journalism
is the thing. It becomes very seriously. But today program
you do everything you sep racing in Dorset one day
and then you do our wooden shopping boards better than
plastic chopping boards, and then you go and interview somebody
who says that they, you know, they want to have
(07:35):
a baby by donated sperm and they don't know which
friend to choose or whatever. So the whole thing was
completely crazy. And then I ended up at Westminster and
that was an amazing experience because for me, I know,
they say politics is show business for ugly people, but
I found the whole Westminster thing incredible. But then at
the end of it, Blair became Prime Minister and I realized,
no more politics. And then they sent me to Africa
(07:56):
and actually that was probably the most important part of
my whole career stroke life because it was it was
absolutely enlightening. I mean, okay, I'll give you an example,
because while I was in South Africa, Mandela was president.
Now Mandela's obviously a global icon, but in South Africa
it's almost like he's just running the local councils. It's
quite a small political class. So we'd regularly have stories
(08:17):
where Mandela would turn up and do a little interview
and there'd be like four of us and one of them.
I remember. It was actually in Soweto, so it's southwest
of Johannesburg, which what they used obviously call a township,
they used different netwerner. And he'd got he'd promised this
thing that he would deliver running water to within one
(08:38):
hundred meters of everyone's front door, which in South Africa
is very difficult and because a lot is a lot
of quite disorderly living. But the final tap was in place,
and he'd gone to turn it on and it was
just this little tap standing sticking out the ground. And
there's only three of us there, because it's not like
a story that's going to run on the bulletins in
the UK. So I just thought I would go along
out of respect, really, and he made a speech about
(09:00):
this tap and turn it on. It worked, and and
I thought, God, this is what portics is about. And
then he took you know, we took photos and I
had a photo with him and he said, oh, how
are you? And I thought, God, Mantela, the greatest icon
of my lifetime still has to deliver.
Speaker 1 (09:19):
That is the story.
Speaker 3 (09:22):
Do you know what we should put it?
Speaker 1 (09:23):
If he was still alive, we should put him in
charge of Thames Water.
Speaker 3 (09:26):
Oh, they're telling me. I think.
Speaker 4 (09:28):
I think there are some things that are beyond even
the great Nelson Mandela. Personally, I've got to ask you, though, Jeremy,
where does the BBC make the decision? This war is
one that we send Jeremy to rather than Keith A
d who decides on how serious it is.
Speaker 3 (09:45):
Yeah, I mean there was a Kate Ady had a problem.
Well so I remember, I think she turned up in
Northern Ireland and it was the time of the marching season,
so it was it was it was a you know,
real standoff between Republicans and loyalists and the loyalists who
are eric I think it was. Was it drum Cree
or something like that. The loyalists had a massive banner
(10:05):
that said Kate Ady's here, so it must be warm.
Once that happens you have a real problem. But the
answer is yeah, Kate, I mean one an amazing forerunner
of all foreign correspondents. I'm not one of those. I
mean I did go and do dangerous things and all that.
It's I wouldn't say that was my metal.
Speaker 2 (10:23):
Before it had.
Speaker 4 (10:23):
John Simpson liberating bag Dad.
Speaker 3 (10:28):
I was in the BBC's today queuing for coffee and
John try to barge bus me. I mean the guys.
I love John, and I just thought, oh, this is
amazing Simpson in the building. You know, this is a
guy who was on the plane with the Ayatola in
nineteen seventy nine going back to Iran, and he's queuing up.
He didn't but he was trying to get some cake.
Speaker 1 (10:49):
To tell you what thetoller wouldn't advice passed you?
Speaker 3 (10:52):
Well, I like shocking back.
Speaker 4 (10:54):
How did you end up going from that to radio?
Speaker 1 (10:57):
Then?
Speaker 3 (10:58):
So? Well, radio is in my so that when you
asked me to sum up my childhood, I did it
slightly too efficiently because I missed when I was twelve,
Capital Radio had a thing called a young DJ slot,
and I and for teenagers, and because I was a
bit precocious when I was twelve, not thirteen. I wrote
(11:19):
them a letter and I said, can you you know,
would you can you have me on? And I came on.
I played three records and I remember that well they
were they were terrible, so didn't ask me. And Kenny
Everett did the jingle and I saw Kitty in the
building actually for a distance, my hero. And when I
came home, I said to my mom, that's what I
want to do. And so I always had radio kind
of stapled into my heart, and through one thing and
(11:42):
another plasson student newspaper, then a reporter on the Radio
Today program, as I mentioned, then a TV radio that
I ended up. The radio thing was really funny because
Jimmy Young was presenting on Radio two. And this is
a classic BBC thing. He was eighty four and they
thought we can't. Jimmy was of the generation where managers
(12:02):
just did heating and lighting. He never had any concept
that a manager could get rid of him. And one
day they he gave an interview and he said, and
this goes back to about the year two thousand, he said,
I want to die at the microphone, and the BBC
properly went into kind of a panic. That baby he
actually means it and we can't allow it to happen.
So they then very brutally. And as as John Sargent,
(12:24):
he once said to me that people at the top
of the BBC don't have very much power, so when
they act, it tends to be very violent, which is
such a great line. And when they acted against me,
it was very, very messy and unpleasant. And so I
then ended up sort of filling that hole almost because
I was walking past the building and there was a vacancy.
I then end up at ready to and at the
age of thirty seven, I played my first record and
(12:46):
I then become the DJ. You know, I might say
to my mum, Hey, you said, you know, I'm never
going to play records on the radio, and now that's
what I'm doing for a living. So I just yes,
I must say, it was all a bit of a
It's never. The thing about a BBC career is it's
just a series of accidents. It's like pinball. There's no
logic to it at all.
Speaker 4 (13:05):
What was the first record you played?
Speaker 3 (13:07):
The first record was thunder Road by Bruce Wringsteen. I
thought about it for a long time. They actually programmed
a record into me Morrison. The more you ignore me,
the closer I get. I thought, what the hell would
I play that for? It's just plain weird. But thunder
Road had the line you're scared and you're thinking that
maybe we're not that young anymore, and I thought, that's
kind of a reference to Jimmy Young.
Speaker 1 (13:29):
Yeah, I have a whole Springsteen playlist. Absolutely, love Love
the Boss.
Speaker 3 (13:35):
I had a weird thing recently where and it really
brought it home to me. So we just moved offices
and ready to obviously here we are in the year
twenty twenty five, and I started doing the show in
two thousand and three, so Jimmy was doing it to
the end of two thousand and two. And when we
changed offices, all my producers are a lot of them,
average aged twenty four, and somebody suddenly it was like
(13:56):
the scene in Faulty Towers where Faulty suddenly lifts the
garden gnome up from underneath the desk and says, what
the hell is this doing here? And this person did
the same thing with this bronze bust with sort of
head and shoulders and massively and said, and who is this?
And I said, for goodness sake, and I see, obviously
I recognize it. It's Jimmy Young because in those days
(14:16):
they would make a bust of the presenter, and so
I say, well, look at the name, guys, then you'll
see who is who is Jimmy Young? And they're all
gathering around it, all the twenty five year olds. Who
is Jimmy Young? And I thought, oh, I.
Speaker 4 (14:31):
Had to I had to explain to my pr lady
who David Hasselhoff was. She'd never heard of the Hoff.
I said, only the man who brought down the Berlin Wall.
Speaker 3 (14:41):
And I don't know whether because now I feel like
we go straight, Yeah, we go into the kids thing.
We sound like boomers where I'm jen X. By the way,
just to get that clear, I missed being a boomer
by a year, so I want to be very clear
about that. But I feel bad for gen Z because
they're never going to own a house, They're going to
have to pay for the NHS to be sorted out,
the planet's destroyed, and then we're complaining that they eat
(15:02):
too much.
Speaker 4 (15:03):
So I always thought our generation would sort of things,
but we seem to have made things a hell of
a lot worse.
Speaker 3 (15:09):
But I think it probably is still the boomers have
done that because they're all still with us. But much
as I love you know, don't get me wrong, boomers
are vital, but because they've had to rebuild the world.
But I think, no, I think I don't know what.
I don't know whose fault. It is not mine.
Speaker 2 (15:24):
I'm not taking anything your fault.
Speaker 4 (15:28):
It's incompetent. Incompetent as you, And then we'd be in
a better situation.
Speaker 1 (15:34):
You know, what we can do to make the young
younger generation feel better about the world. We can encourage
them our organs by our books. Yes, encourage them to
buy books, which is a segue into you introducing Murder
Online one. Give us a thirty second elevator pitche and
then let's talk about the book.
Speaker 3 (15:51):
All right. Based in Devon, a county I love. Based
on a radio station, a profession I love with a
talk show host who's actually had a tragedy strike and
he's unable to work. He can't even broadcast because his
heart is broken. And when he's off the station, he
discovers his listeners are dying and someone's doing it and
he has to find out who.
Speaker 1 (16:11):
Yeah, I like that, well, I love this book. I
mean as you as you, as you know Jeremy, And
what I liked about it is one you'd you know,
you've taken some time and care over the pro so
it's really beautifully well written. But also it is a
love letter to the industry that as you say, you
you you adore and have been in and around for
so so very long. And as an outsider to the industry,
(16:34):
it was really nice to pick up on some of
the internal dynamics of how radio stations work and how well,
in the case of your protagonist Edward, how he is
gradually sidled the right word, he's sidled out the door.
Speaker 2 (16:47):
He's not quite booted. He managed to.
Speaker 4 (16:51):
It's man handled it well. No, he's managed managed.
Speaker 3 (16:54):
Is the world managed well? I mean this is but
part of obviously all radio presenters worry that they just
done their last year, you know. And and without realizing,
since since I started writing it, I've become I think,
the oldest person at radio too. So now it's like,
oh god, I'm describing myself. In fact, the other day
I had I thought, oh, maybe maybe Joe Wiley's older
(17:15):
than me, and I look up, she's born I thought,
bloody hell, she's born a month after me. That's bad luck,
that's how that's so obviously I am playing my own
character now. But no, he's he's got he's got tragedy
on his mind because his son has died. And he's
not a spoiler to say this, because you discover in
chapter one because he starts shouting for his son at
a football game and his son's not in the team
because his son died a year earlier. And because of that,
(17:36):
I think I've always been fascinated by the idea that
people who broadcast, like me, we partly broadcast because we
it's a way you put all your problems aside. Because
once the I mean, this morning, we had a chaotic
start to my Channel five show and then the floor
manager goes five four three, clube one, You're on, and
that's it, and the lights on, the music starts, and
there's there's nothing else going on in my world at
(17:57):
that moment. It's a beautiful moment of acuity. And there
have been a couple of times in my life where
I have, you know, I've been through some sort of
crisis something for the first those only those times I
couldn't sort of broadcast without having my mind on something else.
And I wondered if someone went through a major major bereavement,
stroke crisis, stroke shock, would they be able to broadcast
(18:20):
at all? Would they be actually just and he's just
fallen off the air. So that's the first. There's two
tragedies at the start. Really he can't he hasn't got
the heart to broadcast anymore. And yeah, he's managed out
in your phrase, that's a classic, isn't it.
Speaker 4 (18:35):
I'm fascinated by what you say about being this almost
this in the zone when you're broadcasting. How do you
get into that? Does it just when when you hear
that when the camera rules? Do you just go into
it when you see that on air sign?
Speaker 3 (18:49):
Well, to some extent you're in it now. I think
I think you know, there's a when there's a red
light on you, it's it does remind you you know,
you're in the cockpit. I mean, it's like I guess, uh,
you know, spitfire pilots didn't have the option of sitting
around listening to the radio. You know, they had to
actually put their mind on the cockpit. So this is
just the obvious thing, isn't it. I mean, and I
think it's particularly that I suppose adrenalized living. I have
(19:14):
thought about this. I don't know if it's very good
for you. I think they're having a profession that's a
lot of fun may not be good for you because
you can never get too much of it. So the
generation before me, I don't know if they ever used
to go around at the BBC saying, oh, I never
saw my kids craft as if there's some badge of honor.
So yeah, doing too much of what you enjoy can
be bad for the soul, I think. And this guy
(19:35):
has been through all this my throw in a way,
but he's realized that as he's gotten to one particular
thing that he can do with this incredible sadness, which
is that he can solve murders. He can get in
a kind of acuity and concentration and insight which no
one else has because he's suffered more than anybody.
Speaker 1 (19:57):
And you've done that lovely thing of creating a a
really lovely support cast for him to work around, a
former flame and grandmother, well not his grandmother, but you know,
an older person. That's the script. And you know you
bring them all very nicely together. So where what's the
genesis of this particular story. I mean, you didn't just
(20:18):
wake up one day I say it, I want to
put it. I mean, because I know you like the
genre and you read around a lot. Why did you
in the end decide, other than the fact that you
work in radio, that this had to be the story?
Speaker 2 (20:29):
Well?
Speaker 3 (20:30):
Do you know? I think that God Osmond did help
a bit because he sort of unlocked the who Done It? Again?
And I think, and i'd always you and I have
talked for seim about our love of the great Agatha,
and I spent my whole teenage years reading out with Christie.
And then as far as I knew, the whole genre
had gone out of fashion, you know that it seemed
to me it was still knocking around on TV with
(20:51):
Midsummer Murders, but people making jokes about that. And it's
only really recently that when I was talking to somebody
in publishing, I said, what sort of what does the
market want? She said, it just who Done It? And
I said, oh my god, that's the that's I love. Who?
Does you know? I read sixty see to Agatha. Christie
is between the age of eleven and eighteen, and I
became totally Agatha obsessed and I now look back and
(21:13):
I think the problem for all of us is that
Agatha was the Beatles, that the greatest who done it
writer was the first, the greatest pop band, was the
first pop band, and it spoiled us a bit, you know,
and we've only now just picked ourselves back up and thought, okay,
we can at least give it a try.
Speaker 4 (21:28):
So I think that makes that's that's that makes you
a new ringo.
Speaker 3 (21:31):
I think, oh god, a billionaire, is he not?
Speaker 2 (21:37):
I mean, I'll take sure.
Speaker 3 (21:39):
I was talking to someone in publishing about this and
they and I said, how what would you do with
your me? And she said, well, you just choose a
place you love sith, I said, devon a profession you
you know, or an environment you know, the radio, and
you just have a murder thought brilliant. So it's funny enough.
The woman I should make I should give a shout
out to. She's called Martha Ashby and at Harper Collins.
(22:00):
She's brilliant, and we had lives together and she said
this to me, and then the conversation moved on, and
then I thought, okay, I'm going to dawn, well do it.
And I sat and I wrote this book and I
really love writing it. It was just I just loved it.
And when I when it, how long we were I
say eighteen months, And then I sent it to her.
(22:21):
Of course I sent it in sort of pay per form,
like the big watch of paper, and it landed on
her desk. I think in the fortnight she came back
from maternity league because she'd been Yeah, so it all
just it's like it was in the stars slightly. So
she thinks, oh that that guy Vine obviously took my
advice to heart. So she read it and that's and
then we were away. So I really felt so I
(22:42):
must credit her because she sort of gave me exactly
the cue to do it and the confidence to do it.
Speaker 1 (22:48):
Well, that's really nice. And and one thing you'll discover,
and I'm sure you're going to be everywhere in the
summer this year at all the major festival. It's just
how generous this this community of crime and mystery and
filler writers is to each other and to the people
who enable us to be able to do this thing.
As you say that that you know it's just a
joy and fun. I did say to you before this
(23:08):
interview that another thing that we like to ask our
guests these days.
Speaker 2 (23:11):
Is about the true crime fascinated them?
Speaker 4 (23:15):
You're not just talking about Vassin's writing.
Speaker 3 (23:21):
You you are. You are knocking at an open door
here because I was at a dinner party across the
road from where I am now my neighbors, about a
dozen people there the other day, and the conversation lulled briefly,
and I thought, okay, I'll just go the true crime route,
and I said, anyone else here'll love true crime because
I watch everything and like one of the chances, not
a single other person, and they just went, you sick
(23:43):
animal thought, oh god, I've got the wrong crowd here,
because that's that's unusual. I'm sick.
Speaker 2 (23:50):
You are because you've particted.
Speaker 1 (23:51):
You've picked a particularly sick villain to talk about, have
you not?
Speaker 3 (23:55):
Oh what well? You asked me true crime, which I mean,
obviously the best true crime is conversations with a killer
Ted Bundy. And Bundy is in a way the godfather
of all true crime. He operated in a period before
forensics really happened. And I feel bad for saying. You know,
if you say to me how many victims, and I
say thirty six that we know about who was the
woman he attacked and got away, Linda de Ranch. You know,
(24:18):
I can go through it all, but I'm afraid I
am one of those. I mean, I really find it fascinating. So,
for example, to take a real life criminal, Levi Bellfield
is in prison, which is an absolutely sort of sickening
series of crimes. You say to me, who did he kill?
Everyone knows, Milli Della, but also Amelie de la Grange,
Marsha McDonnell. So I do find myself looking and I
(24:40):
think it's this is what worries me. We've got crime fiction,
which we're talking about here with my book. We've got
then true crime, which is what we see on Netflix
and so on, and then we've got real crime, which
is what just in the last month, there's been some
shocking murders which I won't even name check because it
takes us into just profoundly serious stuff. But you know,
(25:01):
you know what I'm talking about, And I worry that
they're all shading into each other now and we're losing
our seriousness. But I just, I mean, I just watch
all of it. I think it's a.
Speaker 4 (25:14):
Very important point there about the erosion of seriousness and
what is real and what is and I think that's
happened in so many areas of our lives, politics or whatever.
And you know, this seems to be I mean, I've
not thought of it in relation to crime, but it's
a very valid point.
Speaker 3 (25:30):
Right. Well, I'll mention a crime happened because it came
up on my show the other day, which is The
Hunt Murders, where this guy, Carl Clifford killed a woman
called Carol. He killed his ex girlfriend Louise, and then
he killed her sister, and he's in prison for a
thousand years. Right So I and it's the foot and
I sort of feel like that it's not really part
of this conversation because it's so bloody serious. But it's
(25:53):
the first time that I have a story in the
news has stopped me sleeping. And I think it's because
I'm a father of two daughters and so so suddenly
when I think about true crime on TV, that's not
what we're talking about. I mean, the Hunt Murders is
a real thing that's happened. It's on. But I think
to myself, am I are we taking this seriously enough?
Or is it all just becoming content? So the going
(26:17):
back to TV and true crime you're asking about Bundy.
If there's a whole school of sort of Bundy experts
out there. I mean, the thing were every single thing.
Speaker 4 (26:29):
An industry, right, it's an industry bundologists.
Speaker 3 (26:32):
Yeah. Have you have you heard? Have you read The
Stranger Beside Me by? Is it? Ann Rule? Which is
the greatest true crime brook book ever. She she worked
on a helpline in Washington and had a nice friend
there whose name was Ted by the way, and they
used to do sort of counseling out the Samaritans. And
then she said, God, they're looking for a guy with
a card is like yours. You know. He said, Oh
(26:52):
my god, relate that she'd got, you know, so she
got to know Ted Bundy as a person and a friend.
And then here's the amazing thing. And Rule starts writing
about this series of murders of young women without realizing
it's a friend is doing it. So that is the
true crime book to end them all. Sorry, that's a.
Speaker 2 (27:10):
Brilliant short story.
Speaker 1 (27:11):
I mean, I you know, I've watched a lot of
stuff about There's two brilliant films which I will thoroughly
recommend to people, and one is called No Man of God,
where you've got. It's just focus is purely on after
his arrest, when he's interviewed by this forensic psychologist and
they get into this long winded series of interactions where
he gradually teases out the various murders and why he
(27:34):
thinks he did them. I mean, the odd thing is
the casting is a bit weird that the Ted Bundy
is played by somebody I don't really know.
Speaker 2 (27:41):
It's not that famous Luke Kirby.
Speaker 1 (27:42):
But the forensic psychologist is played by Frodo Frodo Baggins
played by Elijah would which you wouldn't think he would
be good in this, but he is really really good
in this.
Speaker 2 (27:51):
And the other one.
Speaker 1 (27:54):
Rodo Baggins interviews to Bundy, I mean, the other one
is extremely wicked, shockingly.
Speaker 3 (28:01):
Quite I couldn't handle that one because I thought it
made light of him. It's very difficult, you know, So Bundy,
if you see his interviews, you just think the guy's
got no soul, there's nothing there. The same with that
clown killer was it John Wayne Gacy? My god, were
boring twas. And then there's also Darmer that interviews were Darma.
(28:21):
The guy has got nothing behind the eyes. You know.
So in the end they're all once you reach deeply
into them, they become curiously repellent.
Speaker 1 (28:31):
And the odd thing about Bundy is that he was
his IQ was tested and it was not quite genius level,
but it was really really high, like in the one
twenties or something. I have no idea where where mine
and Abby is, but probably not in the one twenties.
Speaker 4 (28:43):
Twenties, twice is in the twenties.
Speaker 3 (28:46):
Now I know. That's that's why, yeah, I mean, that's
why Bundy is so fascinating. As somebody put it, he
was a hunter of human beings and he and that's
what he did. He hunted people to kill them. They
would just disappear. No one ever believed he could have
done it. He moved from state to state. He then
showed up and do that horrific things Florida and that
sorority house, and it's just it defeated them all. And
(29:10):
now it wouldn't happen now, you know. The forensics now
are so good that we had the Ipswich killer was
a guy called Stephen Right and he had to move victually,
had a police convoy behind him when he was on
his fifth victim because he was one day away from
being caught. The whole time, he was only doing it
for a week or two, whereas Bundy was operating for
(29:31):
like fifteen years. I mean, it's unbelievable.
Speaker 1 (29:33):
A whole bunch of things were missed, very much like
our Yorkshire ripper, where he could have been caught if
the right things had been done at the right time.
But he not only was missed on several occasions, but
he escaped I believe twice after he was actually caught,
which is bonkers that have allowed him to.
Speaker 3 (29:52):
Stumped out of a jumped out of an upstairs window,
but by saying that he needed to use the law
library and had trained and has somehow jumped out of
his bunk bed all the time to strengthen his shins
or I mean, I don't know. This is this case fascinating.
But the other one that I've looked at recently is
called Aurons, which is worth looking at if you which
is Eurons stood for East Area Rapist Original night stalk Cup.
(30:15):
So it's a guy who had almost a sort of
career that switched around, but he had about fifty victims
and it's it's a lot on He was caught recently
through DNA. So it's a story.
Speaker 1 (30:27):
Yeah, I had a bunk bed when I was young
with my brother.
Speaker 3 (30:30):
I can't remember.
Speaker 1 (30:30):
Don't looking to improve my shin string that mind you.
I made sleep up top so I didn't have to
climb on it.
Speaker 3 (30:38):
Yeah, there we are. So I don't know whether my
wife is like, she's like, you're not watching that stuff again,
Devil in the Family. I just watched. I don't know
what it is. Maybe maybe we just embraced our nightmares
to stop them happening. Maybe that's that's interesting.
Speaker 4 (30:52):
That is interesting.
Speaker 1 (30:54):
Okay, and we know that you're stretched for time, so
let's work around to what you are working on next.
Speaker 2 (31:00):
That's our last question.
Speaker 3 (31:02):
Oh, thank you. Well, So I'm writing a second novel
because I did a deal for with HarperCollins for two
and the same characters of the same Edward Temis is
on off love Life. The house he lives. There's a
house that's kind of important in this, which is he's
bought his house on the edge of a cliff to
try and save money with the with the particulament that
it might fall into the sea. And it's partly because
(31:23):
I really want to own one of those houses. I've
got this real session, I think, be brilliant. It's never
going to fall in the sea while you're in it,
is it so? And then maybe the young Scottish woman
who's troubled and and yeah it'll be it's actually to
do with a what appears to be a terrorist attack
on a pizza parlor in Sigemas. Again, but it may
or may not be that. So I'm just working on.
(31:44):
I'm actually one ninetys and much two thousand. I'm really
I'm loving there, then loving well, Jeremy.
Speaker 1 (31:52):
It's been absolutely lovely, lovely having you on, and I
can see that you're going to be a huge hit
when you go out to events because you've got all
the stories, all the chat, and you've got the shirt.
You've a shirt alone, Yes on the shirts.
Speaker 3 (32:05):
Thank you, thank you so much and I love your podcast.
Thanks so much for having me.
Speaker 2 (32:08):
Thank you. Can you just lead us out there? Me?
Speaker 4 (32:11):
Oh, why don't I do that?
Speaker 3 (32:12):
Yes?
Speaker 4 (32:12):
And that brings us to the close of another episode.
Speaker 3 (32:15):
Once again.
Speaker 4 (32:15):
If you'd like the show, can we ask you to
please leave reviews, sign up for regular episodes using your
favorite podcast appen. Please do spread the word Sofa Seem
if we were to launch our band, what do you
think we should be called?
Speaker 2 (32:32):
Not even the best drummers in the band.
Speaker 4 (32:35):
With the Ringo Stars. We'll call ourselves that the Ringo Stars,
and on that musical bombshell, Ladies and gentlemen, we have
been your friends. The Red Hot Chili writers on Murder
Junction
Welcome to Murder Junction.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
Everyone.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
Well, this week on the show, we have a man
who needs no introduction. His fame eclipses all radio presenter,
TV presenter, journalist, an all round man of the people.
Jeremy Vine has now fields to crime fiction. As well
as hearing about his upcoming crime debut, Murder Online. One,
Jeremy will be chatting to us about his love of
the genre and a true crime tale that most of
(00:26):
us will be familiar with but that never ceases to
chill us to the bone, or, in my co presenter
Abby's case, warm the cockles of his little Scottish heart.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
Jeremy, welcome to the show.
Speaker 3 (00:36):
Thank you, honestie, what a pleasure to be here. Guys,
thank you so much. The last the last one I
heard was suddenly turned the camera on. The guy was
in his underpants or something.
Speaker 1 (00:44):
I got.
Speaker 3 (00:45):
I gotta dress up.
Speaker 4 (00:46):
For you normally, I mean staying able. Was in his
pants for see, wasn't wearing anything, So that was kind
of a shot.
Speaker 1 (00:55):
Listeners, can't can't see you, but you do have the
most wonderful It almost looks embroidered the shirt. It's not embroidery,
but it's a lovely pattern. It's very Mandelbrot sort of style.
Speaker 3 (01:08):
Yeah, I don't know what I mean. I'm very bad
at recognizing my own shirt, but this I think could
be some sort of Paisley thing or whatever. But someone
he said the other day, you know, you're wearing a
shirt of snakes on and I've been wearing it for
a year without realizing. And I think I've got my
dad's jeans. My dad was like a professor brainstorm figure,
where he would be overly focused on some things and
then not realizing he was wearing odd shoes.
Speaker 4 (01:28):
It's a lovely shirt. It's like a it's a royal
purple color. It's how the other half lived us. This
is a royalty dress.
Speaker 1 (01:35):
And I'm also impressed with the fact that he fits
into his dad's jeans.
Speaker 3 (01:39):
There are the jeans, Okay, so I'm fully clothed for this.
Speaker 4 (01:43):
I were slightly disappointed by that.
Speaker 1 (01:45):
Jeremy, to be honest, let's start at the beginning. Jeremy,
tell us a bit about ground ground yourself for our audience.
Where did you grow up?
Speaker 3 (01:53):
So I brought was brought up in Cheen and sorry,
and that's kind of very very suburb and a bit
a bit flat actually, frankly. I mean there was not
a lot going on when I was there, and then
I went to school and then I went to university,
and I suppose the key nothing happened except that once
(02:14):
there was a bank robbery in Cheine, and that was
significant because my dad had always I always said to
my dad, I would never work in the bank because
there might be a bank robbery, and he said that
that really basically never happened. You need to understand risk
and statistics. And then it bloody happened in Shean, so
these things do happen. And I decided not to work
(02:35):
in a bank and went into journalism instead, and then
I ended up on yeah, BBC kind of. I was
a trainee at the BBC and all that. Yeah, you's
saying nothing, Let's go back a step.
Speaker 4 (02:46):
If it wasn't for a bank robbery, you'd be a
bank manager today and not you know, a superstar.
Speaker 3 (02:54):
I can visualize that bank, and I was never thinking
there's a lot of money in there and at some
where someone's going to go in and steal it. And
then I was just told them, that's very silly to
think that, But yeah, you're right. I would have been
a bank manager. And I always there was a part
of me that and I think I probably still have
this that just desired a job where you sit at
a desk, and then you get to sixty and you
(03:14):
retire and you have a pension as it, And then
there's another part of me which wears this shirt and
has a different approach.
Speaker 1 (03:21):
There's no there's no law that says bank managers can't
wear that kind of that kind of shirt.
Speaker 4 (03:26):
Well, it's an unwritten love.
Speaker 3 (03:28):
Absolutely.
Speaker 1 (03:29):
Now you say that you've you've covered a lot of
territory there and you say that nothing. But that's not
quite true, Jeremy, because my my dedicated research has turned
up the fact that during this period you played in
a band alongside Joe and the band to continue this
artorial start to this episode was called the Flared Generation,
(03:49):
and I believe smash Hits magazine described you as the
most unfashionable punk band country.
Speaker 3 (03:57):
Yeah that's true. Well, what so we and it's a
terrible indictment of the news media. Really, as as kids,
as teenagers, we wanted to be famous. And I guarantee
the two of you win bands as well, because fifty
percent of us were in bands when we were young
and I played the drums. It's very difficult, and we
drove a mini club and then tried to move a
drum kit around Cheam, so there's ever an accident. I
(04:17):
was going to have my head cut off, quite simball.
But the yeah, we said, we tried all the serious bands.
We were modeled obviously on the key bands of the time,
which was mainly Paul Well on the Jam all that stuff.
Speaker 4 (04:29):
Sorry Woking based band. Then right down the road.
Speaker 3 (04:32):
Yeah, the classic line I know I come from Woking
and you think I'm a fraud. That was from his
first album and we never made it. Obviously our songs
are rubbish and we were rich. So we then did
a thing where we flipped it and we said she
has now launched a punk band, but the punk band
is so unfashionable that they have not a chance of
making it. And suddenly we were in the sun, We're
(04:54):
in smash hits, we were on Radio one. It's incredible,
just by doing a whole load of songs about fl trousers.
So the idea was that Shean's punk band is so
unfashionable that they've actually started wearing flairs. They haven't got
a clue, you.
Speaker 4 (05:08):
Know, and that's clever.
Speaker 3 (05:10):
Yeah, well clever, it's but it's such an indictment, isn't it.
Speaker 1 (05:15):
Like Paul Ringo star, not even the most famous drummer
in the not even the best drummer in.
Speaker 2 (05:19):
The big.
Speaker 3 (05:21):
Yeah, we couldn't really play. So we did a few
gigs and at that point we really realized we didn't play.
My brother, though, is the kind of genius because he's
the comedian Ti My and he he wrote all the
songs and he's very musical as well as being funny,
so he sort of drove it. We all had silly names,
and yet we had a moment where we were famous
for the.
Speaker 5 (05:40):
Wrong reasons, which is not How do you go from
that to this incredibly serious career that you had as
a journalist where I believe you were the Africa correspondent
and they basically threw.
Speaker 1 (05:51):
You into every war that was going on on the
on the African continent and you ended up interviewing these
amazing political figures. Well I say amazing, but I mean
some of them work larger than life.
Speaker 3 (06:02):
Well yeah, yeah, I mean significant. I suppose the uh
you know, what what do you is there a difference? Though?
I mean when you're sort of if you like showing off,
you know, all you need is a microphone surely, and
I suppose for me, Yeah, I suddenly realized. Look, my
mum said to me, Look, you want to be a DJ.
(06:23):
You want to do music that's not going to be
a living, right, So you want to do something more serious.
So when I got to university, I put on a
serious face and I did student newspaper, and I did
the studi newspaper called Platina. We all had to type out.
None of us notice, by the way, that the Internet
could be a thing in nineteen eighty three. So there's
got to be a failure of an intelligence test there somewhere,
because we're that was still quite early.
Speaker 4 (06:44):
That's that's still a good seven eight years away, right.
Speaker 3 (06:47):
Yeah, but Bill Gates noticed. If we'd noticed it, I
wouldn't even have to be working now. I could just
be on a beach.
Speaker 2 (06:54):
You wouldn't have to be out, shit, you wouldn't.
Speaker 1 (06:55):
You wouldn't have to be out like us shilling your
book control people.
Speaker 3 (06:59):
Yeah, if we want to be doing anything else, guys, come.
Speaker 4 (07:02):
On, absolutely absolutely.
Speaker 3 (07:04):
That's the that's the key problem with my argument and incident.
Speaker 1 (07:07):
From that period as a as a journalist that sticks
out for you. And I know you interviewed, say Robert
and we don't have to mention that.
Speaker 3 (07:15):
If you don't, yeah, no, I will look I think
in shorthand join the BBC. Suddenly I think, okay, journalism
is the thing. It becomes very seriously. But today program
you do everything you sep racing in Dorset one day
and then you do our wooden shopping boards better than
plastic chopping boards, and then you go and interview somebody
who says that they, you know, they want to have
(07:35):
a baby by donated sperm and they don't know which
friend to choose or whatever. So the whole thing was
completely crazy. And then I ended up at Westminster and
that was an amazing experience because for me, I know,
they say politics is show business for ugly people, but
I found the whole Westminster thing incredible. But then at
the end of it, Blair became Prime Minister and I realized,
no more politics. And then they sent me to Africa
(07:56):
and actually that was probably the most important part of
my whole career stroke life because it was it was
absolutely enlightening. I mean, okay, I'll give you an example,
because while I was in South Africa, Mandela was president.
Now Mandela's obviously a global icon, but in South Africa
it's almost like he's just running the local councils. It's
quite a small political class. So we'd regularly have stories
(08:17):
where Mandela would turn up and do a little interview
and there'd be like four of us and one of them.
I remember. It was actually in Soweto, so it's southwest
of Johannesburg, which what they used obviously call a township,
they used different netwerner. And he'd got he'd promised this
thing that he would deliver running water to within one
(08:38):
hundred meters of everyone's front door, which in South Africa
is very difficult and because a lot is a lot
of quite disorderly living. But the final tap was in place,
and he'd gone to turn it on and it was
just this little tap standing sticking out the ground. And
there's only three of us there, because it's not like
a story that's going to run on the bulletins in
the UK. So I just thought I would go along
out of respect, really, and he made a speech about
(09:00):
this tap and turn it on. It worked, and and
I thought, God, this is what portics is about. And
then he took you know, we took photos and I
had a photo with him and he said, oh, how
are you? And I thought, God, Mantela, the greatest icon
of my lifetime still has to deliver.
Speaker 1 (09:19):
That is the story.
Speaker 3 (09:22):
Do you know what we should put it?
Speaker 1 (09:23):
If he was still alive, we should put him in
charge of Thames Water.
Speaker 3 (09:26):
Oh, they're telling me. I think.
Speaker 4 (09:28):
I think there are some things that are beyond even
the great Nelson Mandela. Personally, I've got to ask you, though, Jeremy,
where does the BBC make the decision? This war is
one that we send Jeremy to rather than Keith A
d who decides on how serious it is.
Speaker 3 (09:45):
Yeah, I mean there was a Kate Ady had a problem.
Well so I remember, I think she turned up in
Northern Ireland and it was the time of the marching season,
so it was it was it was a you know,
real standoff between Republicans and loyalists and the loyalists who
are eric I think it was. Was it drum Cree
or something like that. The loyalists had a massive banner
(10:05):
that said Kate Ady's here, so it must be warm.
Once that happens you have a real problem. But the
answer is yeah, Kate, I mean one an amazing forerunner
of all foreign correspondents. I'm not one of those. I
mean I did go and do dangerous things and all that.
It's I wouldn't say that was my metal.
Speaker 2 (10:23):
Before it had.
Speaker 4 (10:23):
John Simpson liberating bag Dad.
Speaker 3 (10:28):
I was in the BBC's today queuing for coffee and
John try to barge bus me. I mean the guys.
I love John, and I just thought, oh, this is
amazing Simpson in the building. You know, this is a
guy who was on the plane with the Ayatola in
nineteen seventy nine going back to Iran, and he's queuing up.
He didn't but he was trying to get some cake.
Speaker 1 (10:49):
To tell you what thetoller wouldn't advice passed you?
Speaker 3 (10:52):
Well, I like shocking back.
Speaker 4 (10:54):
How did you end up going from that to radio?
Speaker 1 (10:57):
Then?
Speaker 3 (10:58):
So? Well, radio is in my so that when you
asked me to sum up my childhood, I did it
slightly too efficiently because I missed when I was twelve,
Capital Radio had a thing called a young DJ slot,
and I and for teenagers, and because I was a
bit precocious when I was twelve, not thirteen. I wrote
(11:19):
them a letter and I said, can you you know,
would you can you have me on? And I came on.
I played three records and I remember that well they
were they were terrible, so didn't ask me. And Kenny
Everett did the jingle and I saw Kitty in the
building actually for a distance, my hero. And when I
came home, I said to my mom, that's what I
want to do. And so I always had radio kind
of stapled into my heart, and through one thing and
(11:42):
another plasson student newspaper, then a reporter on the Radio
Today program, as I mentioned, then a TV radio that
I ended up. The radio thing was really funny because
Jimmy Young was presenting on Radio two. And this is
a classic BBC thing. He was eighty four and they
thought we can't. Jimmy was of the generation where managers
(12:02):
just did heating and lighting. He never had any concept
that a manager could get rid of him. And one
day they he gave an interview and he said, and
this goes back to about the year two thousand, he said,
I want to die at the microphone, and the BBC
properly went into kind of a panic. That baby he
actually means it and we can't allow it to happen.
So they then very brutally. And as as John Sargent,
(12:24):
he once said to me that people at the top
of the BBC don't have very much power, so when
they act, it tends to be very violent, which is
such a great line. And when they acted against me,
it was very, very messy and unpleasant. And so I
then ended up sort of filling that hole almost because
I was walking past the building and there was a vacancy.
I then end up at ready to and at the
age of thirty seven, I played my first record and
(12:46):
I then become the DJ. You know, I might say
to my mum, Hey, you said, you know, I'm never
going to play records on the radio, and now that's
what I'm doing for a living. So I just yes,
I must say, it was all a bit of a
It's never. The thing about a BBC career is it's
just a series of accidents. It's like pinball. There's no
logic to it at all.
Speaker 4 (13:05):
What was the first record you played?
Speaker 3 (13:07):
The first record was thunder Road by Bruce Wringsteen. I
thought about it for a long time. They actually programmed
a record into me Morrison. The more you ignore me,
the closer I get. I thought, what the hell would
I play that for? It's just plain weird. But thunder
Road had the line you're scared and you're thinking that
maybe we're not that young anymore, and I thought, that's
kind of a reference to Jimmy Young.
Speaker 1 (13:29):
Yeah, I have a whole Springsteen playlist. Absolutely, love Love
the Boss.
Speaker 3 (13:35):
I had a weird thing recently where and it really
brought it home to me. So we just moved offices
and ready to obviously here we are in the year
twenty twenty five, and I started doing the show in
two thousand and three, so Jimmy was doing it to
the end of two thousand and two. And when we
changed offices, all my producers are a lot of them,
average aged twenty four, and somebody suddenly it was like
(13:56):
the scene in Faulty Towers where Faulty suddenly lifts the
garden gnome up from underneath the desk and says, what
the hell is this doing here? And this person did
the same thing with this bronze bust with sort of
head and shoulders and massively and said, and who is this?
And I said, for goodness sake, and I see, obviously
I recognize it. It's Jimmy Young because in those days
(14:16):
they would make a bust of the presenter, and so
I say, well, look at the name, guys, then you'll
see who is who is Jimmy Young? And they're all
gathering around it, all the twenty five year olds. Who
is Jimmy Young? And I thought, oh, I.
Speaker 4 (14:31):
Had to I had to explain to my pr lady
who David Hasselhoff was. She'd never heard of the Hoff.
I said, only the man who brought down the Berlin Wall.
Speaker 3 (14:41):
And I don't know whether because now I feel like
we go straight, Yeah, we go into the kids thing.
We sound like boomers where I'm jen X. By the way,
just to get that clear, I missed being a boomer
by a year, so I want to be very clear
about that. But I feel bad for gen Z because
they're never going to own a house, They're going to
have to pay for the NHS to be sorted out,
the planet's destroyed, and then we're complaining that they eat
(15:02):
too much.
Speaker 4 (15:03):
So I always thought our generation would sort of things,
but we seem to have made things a hell of
a lot worse.
Speaker 3 (15:09):
But I think it probably is still the boomers have
done that because they're all still with us. But much
as I love you know, don't get me wrong, boomers
are vital, but because they've had to rebuild the world.
But I think, no, I think I don't know what.
I don't know whose fault. It is not mine.
Speaker 2 (15:24):
I'm not taking anything your fault.
Speaker 4 (15:28):
It's incompetent. Incompetent as you, And then we'd be in
a better situation.
Speaker 1 (15:34):
You know, what we can do to make the young
younger generation feel better about the world. We can encourage
them our organs by our books. Yes, encourage them to
buy books, which is a segue into you introducing Murder
Online one. Give us a thirty second elevator pitche and
then let's talk about the book.
Speaker 3 (15:51):
All right. Based in Devon, a county I love. Based
on a radio station, a profession I love with a
talk show host who's actually had a tragedy strike and
he's unable to work. He can't even broadcast because his
heart is broken. And when he's off the station, he
discovers his listeners are dying and someone's doing it and
he has to find out who.
Speaker 1 (16:11):
Yeah, I like that, well, I love this book. I
mean as you as you, as you know Jeremy, And
what I liked about it is one you'd you know,
you've taken some time and care over the pro so
it's really beautifully well written. But also it is a
love letter to the industry that as you say, you
you you adore and have been in and around for
so so very long. And as an outsider to the industry,
(16:34):
it was really nice to pick up on some of
the internal dynamics of how radio stations work and how well,
in the case of your protagonist Edward, how he is
gradually sidled the right word, he's sidled out the door.
Speaker 2 (16:47):
He's not quite booted. He managed to.
Speaker 4 (16:51):
It's man handled it well. No, he's managed managed.
Speaker 3 (16:54):
Is the world managed well? I mean this is but
part of obviously all radio presenters worry that they just
done their last year, you know. And and without realizing,
since since I started writing it, I've become I think,
the oldest person at radio too. So now it's like,
oh god, I'm describing myself. In fact, the other day
I had I thought, oh, maybe maybe Joe Wiley's older
(17:15):
than me, and I look up, she's born I thought,
bloody hell, she's born a month after me. That's bad luck,
that's how that's so obviously I am playing my own
character now. But no, he's he's got he's got tragedy
on his mind because his son has died. And he's
not a spoiler to say this, because you discover in
chapter one because he starts shouting for his son at
a football game and his son's not in the team
because his son died a year earlier. And because of that,
(17:36):
I think I've always been fascinated by the idea that
people who broadcast, like me, we partly broadcast because we
it's a way you put all your problems aside. Because
once the I mean, this morning, we had a chaotic
start to my Channel five show and then the floor
manager goes five four three, clube one, You're on, and
that's it, and the lights on, the music starts, and
there's there's nothing else going on in my world at
(17:57):
that moment. It's a beautiful moment of acuity. And there
have been a couple of times in my life where
I have, you know, I've been through some sort of
crisis something for the first those only those times I
couldn't sort of broadcast without having my mind on something else.
And I wondered if someone went through a major major bereavement,
stroke crisis, stroke shock, would they be able to broadcast
(18:20):
at all? Would they be actually just and he's just
fallen off the air. So that's the first. There's two
tragedies at the start. Really he can't he hasn't got
the heart to broadcast anymore. And yeah, he's managed out
in your phrase, that's a classic, isn't it.
Speaker 4 (18:35):
I'm fascinated by what you say about being this almost
this in the zone when you're broadcasting. How do you
get into that? Does it just when when you hear
that when the camera rules? Do you just go into
it when you see that on air sign?
Speaker 3 (18:49):
Well, to some extent you're in it now. I think
I think you know, there's a when there's a red
light on you, it's it does remind you you know,
you're in the cockpit. I mean, it's like I guess, uh,
you know, spitfire pilots didn't have the option of sitting
around listening to the radio. You know, they had to
actually put their mind on the cockpit. So this is
just the obvious thing, isn't it. I mean, and I
think it's particularly that I suppose adrenalized living. I have
(19:14):
thought about this. I don't know if it's very good
for you. I think they're having a profession that's a
lot of fun may not be good for you because
you can never get too much of it. So the
generation before me, I don't know if they ever used
to go around at the BBC saying, oh, I never
saw my kids craft as if there's some badge of honor.
So yeah, doing too much of what you enjoy can
be bad for the soul, I think. And this guy
(19:35):
has been through all this my throw in a way,
but he's realized that as he's gotten to one particular
thing that he can do with this incredible sadness, which
is that he can solve murders. He can get in
a kind of acuity and concentration and insight which no
one else has because he's suffered more than anybody.
Speaker 1 (19:57):
And you've done that lovely thing of creating a a
really lovely support cast for him to work around, a
former flame and grandmother, well not his grandmother, but you know,
an older person. That's the script. And you know you
bring them all very nicely together. So where what's the
genesis of this particular story. I mean, you didn't just
(20:18):
wake up one day I say it, I want to
put it. I mean, because I know you like the
genre and you read around a lot. Why did you
in the end decide, other than the fact that you
work in radio, that this had to be the story?
Speaker 2 (20:29):
Well?
Speaker 3 (20:30):
Do you know? I think that God Osmond did help
a bit because he sort of unlocked the who Done It? Again?
And I think, and i'd always you and I have
talked for seim about our love of the great Agatha,
and I spent my whole teenage years reading out with Christie.
And then as far as I knew, the whole genre
had gone out of fashion, you know that it seemed
to me it was still knocking around on TV with
(20:51):
Midsummer Murders, but people making jokes about that. And it's
only really recently that when I was talking to somebody
in publishing, I said, what sort of what does the
market want? She said, it just who Done It? And
I said, oh my god, that's the that's I love. Who?
Does you know? I read sixty see to Agatha. Christie
is between the age of eleven and eighteen, and I
became totally Agatha obsessed and I now look back and
(21:13):
I think the problem for all of us is that
Agatha was the Beatles, that the greatest who done it
writer was the first, the greatest pop band, was the
first pop band, and it spoiled us a bit, you know,
and we've only now just picked ourselves back up and thought, okay,
we can at least give it a try.
Speaker 4 (21:28):
So I think that makes that's that's that makes you
a new ringo.
Speaker 3 (21:31):
I think, oh god, a billionaire, is he not?
Speaker 2 (21:37):
I mean, I'll take sure.
Speaker 3 (21:39):
I was talking to someone in publishing about this and
they and I said, how what would you do with
your me? And she said, well, you just choose a
place you love sith, I said, devon a profession you
you know, or an environment you know, the radio, and
you just have a murder thought brilliant. So it's funny enough.
The woman I should make I should give a shout
out to. She's called Martha Ashby and at Harper Collins.
(22:00):
She's brilliant, and we had lives together and she said
this to me, and then the conversation moved on, and
then I thought, okay, I'm going to dawn, well do it.
And I sat and I wrote this book and I
really love writing it. It was just I just loved it.
And when I when it, how long we were I
say eighteen months, And then I sent it to her.
(22:21):
Of course I sent it in sort of pay per form,
like the big watch of paper, and it landed on
her desk. I think in the fortnight she came back
from maternity league because she'd been Yeah, so it all
just it's like it was in the stars slightly. So
she thinks, oh that that guy Vine obviously took my
advice to heart. So she read it and that's and
then we were away. So I really felt so I
(22:42):
must credit her because she sort of gave me exactly
the cue to do it and the confidence to do it.
Speaker 1 (22:48):
Well, that's really nice. And and one thing you'll discover,
and I'm sure you're going to be everywhere in the
summer this year at all the major festival. It's just
how generous this this community of crime and mystery and
filler writers is to each other and to the people
who enable us to be able to do this thing.
As you say that that you know it's just a
joy and fun. I did say to you before this
(23:08):
interview that another thing that we like to ask our
guests these days.
Speaker 2 (23:11):
Is about the true crime fascinated them?
Speaker 4 (23:15):
You're not just talking about Vassin's writing.
Speaker 3 (23:21):
You you are. You are knocking at an open door
here because I was at a dinner party across the
road from where I am now my neighbors, about a
dozen people there the other day, and the conversation lulled briefly,
and I thought, okay, I'll just go the true crime route,
and I said, anyone else here'll love true crime because
I watch everything and like one of the chances, not
a single other person, and they just went, you sick
(23:43):
animal thought, oh god, I've got the wrong crowd here,
because that's that's unusual. I'm sick.
Speaker 2 (23:50):
You are because you've particted.
Speaker 1 (23:51):
You've picked a particularly sick villain to talk about, have
you not?
Speaker 3 (23:55):
Oh what well? You asked me true crime, which I mean,
obviously the best true crime is conversations with a killer
Ted Bundy. And Bundy is in a way the godfather
of all true crime. He operated in a period before
forensics really happened. And I feel bad for saying. You know,
if you say to me how many victims, and I
say thirty six that we know about who was the
woman he attacked and got away, Linda de Ranch. You know,
(24:18):
I can go through it all, but I'm afraid I
am one of those. I mean, I really find it fascinating. So,
for example, to take a real life criminal, Levi Bellfield
is in prison, which is an absolutely sort of sickening
series of crimes. You say to me, who did he kill?
Everyone knows, Milli Della, but also Amelie de la Grange,
Marsha McDonnell. So I do find myself looking and I
(24:40):
think it's this is what worries me. We've got crime fiction,
which we're talking about here with my book. We've got
then true crime, which is what we see on Netflix
and so on, and then we've got real crime, which
is what just in the last month, there's been some
shocking murders which I won't even name check because it
takes us into just profoundly serious stuff. But you know,
(25:01):
you know what I'm talking about, And I worry that
they're all shading into each other now and we're losing
our seriousness. But I just, I mean, I just watch
all of it. I think it's a.
Speaker 4 (25:14):
Very important point there about the erosion of seriousness and
what is real and what is and I think that's
happened in so many areas of our lives, politics or whatever.
And you know, this seems to be I mean, I've
not thought of it in relation to crime, but it's
a very valid point.
Speaker 3 (25:30):
Right. Well, I'll mention a crime happened because it came
up on my show the other day, which is The
Hunt Murders, where this guy, Carl Clifford killed a woman
called Carol. He killed his ex girlfriend Louise, and then
he killed her sister, and he's in prison for a
thousand years. Right So I and it's the foot and
I sort of feel like that it's not really part
of this conversation because it's so bloody serious. But it's
(25:53):
the first time that I have a story in the
news has stopped me sleeping. And I think it's because
I'm a father of two daughters and so so suddenly
when I think about true crime on TV, that's not
what we're talking about. I mean, the Hunt Murders is
a real thing that's happened. It's on. But I think
to myself, am I are we taking this seriously enough?
Or is it all just becoming content? So the going
(26:17):
back to TV and true crime you're asking about Bundy.
If there's a whole school of sort of Bundy experts
out there. I mean, the thing were every single thing.
Speaker 4 (26:29):
An industry, right, it's an industry bundologists.
Speaker 3 (26:32):
Yeah. Have you have you heard? Have you read The
Stranger Beside Me by? Is it? Ann Rule? Which is
the greatest true crime brook book ever. She she worked
on a helpline in Washington and had a nice friend
there whose name was Ted by the way, and they
used to do sort of counseling out the Samaritans. And
then she said, God, they're looking for a guy with
a card is like yours. You know. He said, Oh
(26:52):
my god, relate that she'd got, you know, so she
got to know Ted Bundy as a person and a friend.
And then here's the amazing thing. And Rule starts writing
about this series of murders of young women without realizing
it's a friend is doing it. So that is the
true crime book to end them all. Sorry, that's a.
Speaker 2 (27:10):
Brilliant short story.
Speaker 1 (27:11):
I mean, I you know, I've watched a lot of
stuff about There's two brilliant films which I will thoroughly
recommend to people, and one is called No Man of God,
where you've got. It's just focus is purely on after
his arrest, when he's interviewed by this forensic psychologist and
they get into this long winded series of interactions where
he gradually teases out the various murders and why he
(27:34):
thinks he did them. I mean, the odd thing is
the casting is a bit weird that the Ted Bundy
is played by somebody I don't really know.
Speaker 2 (27:41):
It's not that famous Luke Kirby.
Speaker 1 (27:42):
But the forensic psychologist is played by Frodo Frodo Baggins
played by Elijah would which you wouldn't think he would
be good in this, but he is really really good
in this.
Speaker 2 (27:51):
And the other one.
Speaker 1 (27:54):
Rodo Baggins interviews to Bundy, I mean, the other one
is extremely wicked, shockingly.
Speaker 3 (28:01):
Quite I couldn't handle that one because I thought it
made light of him. It's very difficult, you know, So Bundy,
if you see his interviews, you just think the guy's
got no soul, there's nothing there. The same with that
clown killer was it John Wayne Gacy? My god, were
boring twas. And then there's also Darmer that interviews were Darma.
(28:21):
The guy has got nothing behind the eyes. You know.
So in the end they're all once you reach deeply
into them, they become curiously repellent.
Speaker 1 (28:31):
And the odd thing about Bundy is that he was
his IQ was tested and it was not quite genius level,
but it was really really high, like in the one
twenties or something. I have no idea where where mine
and Abby is, but probably not in the one twenties.
Speaker 4 (28:43):
Twenties, twice is in the twenties.
Speaker 3 (28:46):
Now I know. That's that's why, yeah, I mean, that's
why Bundy is so fascinating. As somebody put it, he
was a hunter of human beings and he and that's
what he did. He hunted people to kill them. They
would just disappear. No one ever believed he could have
done it. He moved from state to state. He then
showed up and do that horrific things Florida and that
sorority house, and it's just it defeated them all. And
(29:10):
now it wouldn't happen now, you know. The forensics now
are so good that we had the Ipswich killer was
a guy called Stephen Right and he had to move victually,
had a police convoy behind him when he was on
his fifth victim because he was one day away from
being caught. The whole time, he was only doing it
for a week or two, whereas Bundy was operating for
(29:31):
like fifteen years. I mean, it's unbelievable.
Speaker 1 (29:33):
A whole bunch of things were missed, very much like
our Yorkshire ripper, where he could have been caught if
the right things had been done at the right time.
But he not only was missed on several occasions, but
he escaped I believe twice after he was actually caught,
which is bonkers that have allowed him to.
Speaker 3 (29:52):
Stumped out of a jumped out of an upstairs window,
but by saying that he needed to use the law
library and had trained and has somehow jumped out of
his bunk bed all the time to strengthen his shins
or I mean, I don't know. This is this case fascinating.
But the other one that I've looked at recently is
called Aurons, which is worth looking at if you which
is Eurons stood for East Area Rapist Original night stalk Cup.
(30:15):
So it's a guy who had almost a sort of
career that switched around, but he had about fifty victims
and it's it's a lot on He was caught recently
through DNA. So it's a story.
Speaker 1 (30:27):
Yeah, I had a bunk bed when I was young
with my brother.
Speaker 3 (30:30):
I can't remember.
Speaker 1 (30:30):
Don't looking to improve my shin string that mind you.
I made sleep up top so I didn't have to
climb on it.
Speaker 3 (30:38):
Yeah, there we are. So I don't know whether my
wife is like, she's like, you're not watching that stuff again,
Devil in the Family. I just watched. I don't know
what it is. Maybe maybe we just embraced our nightmares
to stop them happening. Maybe that's that's interesting.
Speaker 4 (30:52):
That is interesting.
Speaker 1 (30:54):
Okay, and we know that you're stretched for time, so
let's work around to what you are working on next.
Speaker 2 (31:00):
That's our last question.
Speaker 3 (31:02):
Oh, thank you. Well, So I'm writing a second novel
because I did a deal for with HarperCollins for two
and the same characters of the same Edward Temis is
on off love Life. The house he lives. There's a
house that's kind of important in this, which is he's
bought his house on the edge of a cliff to
try and save money with the with the particulament that
it might fall into the sea. And it's partly because
(31:23):
I really want to own one of those houses. I've
got this real session, I think, be brilliant. It's never
going to fall in the sea while you're in it,
is it so? And then maybe the young Scottish woman
who's troubled and and yeah it'll be it's actually to
do with a what appears to be a terrorist attack
on a pizza parlor in Sigemas. Again, but it may
or may not be that. So I'm just working on.
(31:44):
I'm actually one ninetys and much two thousand. I'm really
I'm loving there, then loving well, Jeremy.
Speaker 1 (31:52):
It's been absolutely lovely, lovely having you on, and I
can see that you're going to be a huge hit
when you go out to events because you've got all
the stories, all the chat, and you've got the shirt.
You've a shirt alone, Yes on the shirts.
Speaker 3 (32:05):
Thank you, thank you so much and I love your podcast.
Thanks so much for having me.
Speaker 2 (32:08):
Thank you. Can you just lead us out there? Me?
Speaker 4 (32:11):
Oh, why don't I do that?
Speaker 3 (32:12):
Yes?
Speaker 4 (32:12):
And that brings us to the close of another episode.
Speaker 3 (32:15):
Once again.
Speaker 4 (32:15):
If you'd like the show, can we ask you to
please leave reviews, sign up for regular episodes using your
favorite podcast appen. Please do spread the word Sofa Seem
if we were to launch our band, what do you
think we should be called?
Speaker 2 (32:32):
Not even the best drummers in the band.
Speaker 4 (32:35):
With the Ringo Stars. We'll call ourselves that the Ringo Stars,
and on that musical bombshell, Ladies and gentlemen, we have
been your friends. The Red Hot Chili writers on Murder
Junction
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