SHELF LIFE
TREVOR WOOD
Photo by Paul Reich
The former scriptwriter turned acclaimed author picks five books that led him into a life of crime (writing) My new book, The Silent Killer, is published on 18 July. It’s the first in a new police procedural series, featuring Jack Parker, a senior policeman who discovers that he is in the first stages of Early Onset Dementia.
The initial inspiration for most of my books is an urge explore something that’s bothering me. In my first book, The Man on the Street, and its sequels it was the treatment of the homeless and in my last book, You Can Run, it was abuse of power. For The Silent Killer it was my growing awareness of the number of people being affected by dementia, either as sufferers or as carers. As I’m now in my mid-sixties it’s obviously also a concern for me personally. Every time I can no longer recall that actor’s name that’s on the tip of my tongue or when I get an acquaintance’s name wrong I wonder if this is a sign of worse to come? In The Silent Killer I wanted to explore what someone would do if they got an early warning that dementia was on its way and, in particular, how that would affect someone whose very livelihood depended upon being able to remember details.