Reintroducing… Natural Causes by James Oswald
Reintroducing is our blog series which shines a light on #TeamMushens books from years past! After the recent announcement that Wildfire will publish three more of James Oswald’s Inspector McLean adventures, we thought that it was the perfect time to look back to where it all began: Natural Causes…
A young girl’s mutilated body is discovered in a sealed room. Her remains are carefully arranged, in what seems to have been a cruel and macabre ritual, which appears to have taken place over 60 years ago.
For newly appointed Edinburgh Detective Inspector Tony McLean this baffling cold case ought to be a low priority – but he is haunted by the young victim and her grisly death.
Meanwhile, the city is horrified by a series of bloody killings. Deaths for which there appears to be neither rhyme nor reason, and which leave Edinburgh’s police at a loss.
McLean is convinced that these deaths are somehow connected to the terrible ceremonial killing of the girl, all those years ago. It is an irrational, almost supernatural theory.
And one which will lead McLean closer to the heart of a terrifying and ancient evil . . .
James Oswald’s Edinburgh-based Inspector McLean series launched with Natural Causes in 2012. Originally a self-published eBook hit, Natural Causes sold 50,000 digital copies within a month, soaring to the top of the Kindle bestsellers list.
The book’s whirlwind success saw James sign a three-book deal with Penguin, who went on to publish eight books in the series. Wildfire took over publication from the ninth, Cold As The Grave, and announced last month that they will be publishing another three, bringing the number of Inspector McLean adventures so far to an incredible 15.
Since the publication of Natural Causes, James has been shortlisted for several Crime Writer’s Association Awards, including the prestigious CWA Debut Dagger, and he is now a Sunday Times Bestselling author. Natural Causes was picked for the Richard & Judy Book Club in 2013.
The first of the as-yet-untitled Inspector McLean novels will be published in spring 2024, following directly on from the 12th instalment in the series, All That Lives, which published in February this year.
What did the Inspector McLean series mean for your writing career, especially at the beginning?
I had been writing for so long – at least twenty-five years without much in the way of notable success – that it came as a bit of a shock when Natural Causes hit the big time. I’d actually written the novel about six years earlier, and it had gained me some notice when it was shortlisted for the CWA Debut Dagger in 2007, but publishers had shied away from its otherworldly overtones. You can’t have the supernatural in a police novel, I was so often told. So when it took off, first as a self-published eBook in 2012, and then as a bestseller from Penguin in 2013, I was equal parts astonished and smug that I’d proved them wrong! The success of that first book was very much the making of my career as a writer. The mad decade since, that has recently seen the publication of my twentieth novel, could never have happened without Tony McLean.
Are there any highlights you can remember from across the publication process?
So much happened, so quickly, it’s hard to remember it all. Natural Causes was a Richard and Judy Book Club pick in the summer of 2013, and I was interviewed on camera by them both in a posh London hotel. I went on Loose Ends on Radio 4, and ended up discussing Highland cattle with Clive Anderson in the pub afterwards. I even appeared on the Late Late Show With Craig Ferguson in the US, which was quite an eye-opener. Oddly enough, he wanted advice about Highland cows too.
Perhaps the best thing to happen though was on my journey back from London after the Richard and Judy interview. I’d been sitting on the train for a while, working away at book three in the series, when I noticed that a lady across the aisle was reading a copy of Natural Causes. Everyone always says ‘it must be great, seeing your novel in the bookshops’, and it really is. But nothing is better than seeing a total stranger reading a copy. I dithered about introducing myself for half of the journey to Edinburgh, then finally took the plunge when she finished the book and handed it to her husband to read. Cunning fellow that I am, I first asked her if she’d enjoyed it. That way if she’d said no, I could have pretended I’d been recommended it but maybe wouldn’t bother. As it was, she said she’d really liked it, so I introduced myself, signed the book, and had a great chat for the rest of the journey.
How does it feel to have 12 books now published in the series, with three more on the way?
Three more on the way is a bit daunting! I’m sure I’ll think of some new trauma for Tony to suffer, but at the moment I’m having a short break from the series and working on some other projects by way of a rest. Twelve books is a lot, and given that the first one only came out nine years ago, I’m a little bit knackered. Then there’s the three Con Fairchild books, and the five Sir Benfros…
Mostly though, when I stop for long enough to consider it, I feel an enormous sense of gratitude to the readers who, despite what the publishers feared, have kept on coming back for more. True, it can be a little annoying when an email drops on publication day impatiently asking when the next one’s out, but really that’s the highest form of praise I can imagine.
You can find James on Twitter and his website. The latest book in the Inspector Tony McLean series, All That Lives, is available to purchase here.