Quentin Bates

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Quentin Bates

Quentin Bates dates back to the year of the Cuban Missile Crisis and was brought up in the south of England. In the year that Margaret Thatcher became Britain’s Prime Minister, he was offered the opportunity to spend a gap year working in Iceland and jumped at the chance of escape. The gap year turned into a gap decade, during which he worked as a netmaker, factory hand and trawlerman, started a family and generally went native. 

Seagoing was followed by many years as a journalist for an obscure nautical trade magazine, a dream job for anyone who gets a kick out of visiting industrial estates and obscure harbours miles from anywhere. From there it was a series of sidestep into fiction.

The book that became Frozen Out (Frozen Assets in the US) grew out of a university writing course that enabled him to take an afternoon off work once a week. As well as writing the Gunnhildur series, Quentin also translates Icelandic crime fiction into English.

Interviewed 02 April 2016

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

Newsprint
Erratic
Ísafjörður
Bowline
Fish
Book
Trawler
Keyboard
Shed
Gunnhildur

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

A giant fishhook
A photo of the crew of the Silver Harvester
Quite a lot of books
The vice that came from my great-grandfather’s forge
A cast net
A variety of bottles and cans on the floor, including brown ale and WD-40
The fact that I really need to prune the holly tree outside before it become a triffid
Four printers, of which only one works
The ten feet of path between the house and the shed

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

An omelette, so eggs, onion, a few slices of chorizo, a dash of chilli, plus a quick tomato salad, bread, olives, a glass of red.

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

Rudyard Kipling Jean-Claude Izzo
Bessie Smith
Viv Stanshall
Stella Blómkvist
Robert Nighthawk
Roger Mellie

Six things you can't live without ...

Books (obviously)
Laptop
A cat. Old Pirate died last year and a house without a cat feels wrong.
Íslenska
Children and grandchildren, even when they drive me nuts
Fish

Five favourite words ...

Jæja
Bollocks
Sly
Fruitcake
Helvítis

Four places you'd run away to ...

Saint Guénolé
The Westfjords,
Taghazout
Sète

Three books you've bought recently ...

The Harbour Master by Daniel Pembrey
Greek Connection by Bogdan Hrib
Front Seat Passenger by Pascal Garnier

Two things that make you rant ...

Idiots and bastards

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

Stop farting about and get on with it.