Best-selling Wigan crime-writer's career takes an historic change of direction

Paul Finch has made a big name for himself with crime novels, largely featuring two recurring police characters Mark Heckenburg and Lucy Clayburn.

And while there’s every chance of their returning, he recently switched genres and is in the process of penning four books of a very different kind.

The first of these – Usurper – comes out later this month and is set in the 11th century.

This Wolfbury Chronicles duology will be completed with a follow-up tale called Battlelord before he embarks on another pair of novels based around the Crusades.

While former journalist and police officer Paul is by no means turning his back on crime-writing, he is finding this new literary departure a refreshing change.

He said: "I read a lot of historical fiction and there are a lot of big authors out there – my bookshelves are filled with their work. And I’ve always thought that at some point, I must have a go at doing this.

"So I was delighted when publishers Canelo commissioned what at first were three books, now four.

"The first one is called Usurper and is set during the Norman conquest of England.

"As it’s set around real events, even though I’m using fictional characters as well as real ones, you also have to get it as close to accuracy as you can.

"During the 11th century, a time when not everything was written down, there are different accounts of different historical events and not all dates are certain. Not everyone is sure of who was at such-and-such a battle and a lot of history was word of mouth back then, there are lots of variations.

"There are gaps within a year where no-one really knows what was happening, so have much greater scope for fiction.

“Research-wise it’s much easier these days because you can use the internet, whereas you used to have to go to a library. Now, there are thousands of sources online that you can check.

“But either way it’s escapism. It just seems so far from normal people’s lives.

"I think why authors pick these events is because it’s a simple age – kings were in charge, peasants did the work and in between, you had the fighting class, that’s basically it.

“What you can expect is a lot of battles, because that was the time and there’s a lot of scrapping and a romantic sub-plot, but it’s a key one.

“Usurper is about a 17-year-old son of a Saxon earl who loses everything: his family, his home, his friends. They’re all killed during the course of the conquest and he’s made a prisoner.

"He faces a very bleak future and suffers appalling mistreatment, but very lucky to be a prisoner and kept alive.

"It’s really about his fight back from the absolute utter gutters of human experience. There’s also some very evil and despicable villains."

Usurper goes on sale in all good books shops and online in paperback form, plus e-books and audible books on April 27.