Charlie Resnick: A Mysterious Profile

By John Harvey

The bestselling author shares how he developed his celebrated sleuth, a Nottingham detective akin to Jim Rockford but dressed like Columbo.

In 1989, Lonely Hearts, a police procedural by John Harvey, introduced Det. Insp. Charlie Resnick to the world. The book was followed by a series and went on to be named one of the 100 Best Crime Novels of the Last Century by the Times. But how did the sandwich-loving policeman and jazz aficionado come to be?

In this quick read, acclaimed author John Harvey details how he first became a crime novelist and how his work in the heyday of 1970s British publishing would lay the groundwork for Resnick’s character. He breaks down almost every aspect of Charlie, from his name and ancestry to his personality and style. He even discusses the depiction of Nottingham as Charlie’s home and the home of the successful series in the many years to come.

Praise for the Charlie Resnick Mysteries

“[A] rich tapestry that lifts the police procedural into the realm of the mainstream novel.” —Sue Grafton, New York Times–bestselling author of the Kinsey Millhone Alphabet series

“Harvey reminds me of Graham Greene, a stylist who tells you everything you need to know while keeping the prose clean and simple. It’s a very realistic style that draws you into the story without the writer getting in the way.” —Elmore Leonard, New York Times–bestselling author of Get Shorty and Rum Punch

“Like Thelonious Monk and other jazz greats who make the mood music in his books, John Harvey likes to play with form. In Wasted Years . . . [Harvey] switches time frames like song keys to tell a story about the cold hopes and lost chances that breed crime in the red-brick provinces.” —The New York Times Book Review

“Harvey’s police procedurals are in a class by themselves—near Dickensian in their portrayal of human frailty, cinematic in their quick changes of scene and character, totally convincing in their plotting and motivation.” —Kirkus Reviews

• Language: English
• Publisher: MysteriousPress.com Open Road
• Release date: May 10, 2022
• ISBN: 9781504074438

John Harvey

John Harvey has been writing crime fiction for more than forty years. His first novel, Lonely Hearts, was selected by The Times as one of the '100 Best Crime Novels of the Century' and he has been the recipient of both the silver and diamond dagger awards.

Book preview

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Charlie Resnick

A Mysterious Profile

John Harvey

To the memory of two fine professionals, Laurence James and Dulan Barber, without whom it is doubtful Charlie Resnick would ever have existed—and for Marian Wood, who, as my US editor at Henry Holt, was responsible for keeping Charlie, and myself, more or less in line for a good—a very good—ten years. Thanks, Marian.

Charlie Resnick

That I became a writer at all—and that Charlie Resnick, therefore, was brought into existence—was largely due to a series of convenient accidents. You see, I had never harbored any ambitions to be a writer, at least, not a fiction writer, and until the time that my first book was published [Avenging Angel, New English Library, 1975, under the pen name of Thom Ryder] I had made no attempts in that direction: no early masterpieces stored beneath the bed or in an adoring parent’s drawer, no prize-winning contributions to some children’s short story competition. I had, it’s true, both at secondary school and then again at college, edited a couple of student newspapers, gracing them with the occasional review or what I saw as a scathing muckraking expose, but this was journalism, nothing more, nor less, and although, looking back,