R.V. Raman has written four corporate thrillers but has recently turned his pen to creating a more traditional whodunnit inspired the Golden Age Mysteries and set in modern India.
A Will to Kill is the first book in his Harith Athreya series (click here to read my review), with a sequel, A Dire Isle, coming soon. I really enjoyed A Will to Kill so was excited to learn more about the author.
Tell us a little about yourself.
After over three decades of working in the corporate sector, I’ve finally retired. Now is the time for me to sit back and do the things I have missed doing. Make no mistake, those were very fulfilling years, during which I accumulated a wealth of experiences as I travelled to different countries. But now, tired of extensive physical travel, I prefer less punishing mental excursions into fictional worlds of my own creation.
Be it mysteries, thrillers, fantasy or science fiction, creating fictional worlds and populating them is what I enjoy the most. Conjuring something from nothing is an unmatched pleasure. I hope to continue doing it in the coming years. As of now, all my crime fiction is set in India. I expect that to remain the case for the foreseeable future, as there is so much scope for mysteries in this country. But my science fiction and fantasy will traverse both space and time.
I live in Chennai, India, where I like to do things at my own pace. More about my books at www.rvraman.com
List three fun facts about yourself that we wouldn’t read in your ‘official’ bio.
Ah! This is a tough one! I’ll have to dig deep here.
Here is the first one. I lived for a few years in Jamaica. This small country is full of natural beauty. It has almost everything in its 4000-odd square miles – spectacular beaches, misty mountains, gushing waterfalls, plantations, jungle, you name it! Everything except snow. Negril is probably the best beach I have seen. And Sabina Park was a sort of Mecca for the cricket enthusiast in me.
The second one is a bit funny as I think back to it – I was once mistaken for an ex-President of India! We share the same name, but the gentleman at the airport should have known ex-Presidents by sight. Perhaps, I should have said that I was the ex-President and seen what special treatment awaited me!
I don’t know if the third it’s a ‘fun’ thing, but I’ve had some interesting experiences in Nigeria. I once got hijacked late at night, while returning from work to the hotel. The hijacker was a massive 6’ 6” policeman who stopped our car and accused us of everything from thievery to treason. After harassing us for over two hours and making us drive all over Lagos, he let us off and asked for money to buy a bottle of beer!
When did you first realise you wanted to be a writer?
For most of my life (almost fifty years of it), I was pretty sure that I couldn’t pull together a dozen pages to tell a cogent story. Let alone a full-length novel, I was sure that even short stories were beyond me. As a result, I never gave a thought to writing.
But about twelve years ago, my kids (they were in school then) and I dreamt up our own fantasy world that was full of sword and sorcery, and laced with mental abilities. When this fictional world grew in complexity, and things began happening to the characters in it, I realised that I had to put it down on paper. I did so and found it a thoroughly enjoyable exercise. That’s when I discovered that writing was not as difficult as I had feared! My first creation was a four-book fantasy series, written under the pseudonym ‘Kevan Dinn’ and self-published on Kindle.
A Will to Kill has a very traditional mystery feel to it – who, or what, influenced your writing style?
I’ve loved mysteries all my life. Some of my favorite memories are watching TV shows with my mom and Traditional mysteries have been a staple in our family. My parents and sisters used to enjoy them, and there were always a few Golden Age mysteries lying around at home. So, the influences on me were many, as I have enjoyed reading whodunnits from a young age. If I were to pick out two or three authors who influenced me the most, they would be Arthur Conan Doyle, Agatha Christie and Edgar Wallace.
If you were marooned on a deserted island, what are the 3 books you would want with you?
Limiting it to three is a bit harsh, isn’t it? So, let me push the envelope and pick up three tomes that I have read time and again, and won’t get bored reading yet again. In the interest of variety, I’d pick books of three different genres. So, here we go! These are the three:
- The Complete Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle
- The Lord of the Rings by JRR Tolkien
- The Blandings Omnibus by PG Wodehouse
If I am allowed a fourth, it would be Isaac Asimov’s Foundation saga.
Make sure you visit R.V. Raman’s website and social media:
WEBSITE | FACEBOOK | TWITTER | GOODREADS
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