Getting down to the nitty gritties

When I started thinking about writing the Roth series I knew I'd have a lot of work to do. You can't take on writing a mystery/thriller series without committing to making it as authentic as possible. Forget the Paris setting, that was the least of it - it was the everything else that took the time. 

Three years later I have to admit I had no idea of the volume and type of research I'd have to do before I could get down to writing the books.

I've researched French chateaux, boar hunting in France, refugees, the differences between French and English tailoring, cacao production in West Africa and malaria research, among other things. It goes on and on.

To kick off there were the nuts and bolts of Interpol and French law enforcement which wasn't so bad.  Then making Victor Roth an expert in forgery and counterfeiting taught me the world is awash with fakes and counterfeit goods. In some countries legitimate factories run twenty four hours a day, producing their usual products during the day and cut price fakes at night. From what I can see it's part self-defence, part if you can't beat them, join them.

By the way, in France if you're found to have a fake or counterfeit article in your possession the police or customs will seize it on the spot, then it goes into a big furnace somewhere. Goodbye Gucci fake.

Counterfeit currency is another huge industry. In the UK the Bank of England estimates that 'only 1%' of the 18 billion pounds of notes in circulation are counterfeit. I read about one business owner who disagreed and said that over the year before counterfeit money 'through their stores had jumped 20 per cent'. 

It's the consumer or business owner who ends up with the counterfeit notes who pays the price - the Bank of England has a policy of not replacing counterfeit money with genuine notes. 

Small business owners are especially hard hit. The UK still prints its currency on paper which is easier for criminals to replicate than the plastic notes issued in Australia.

Then there was philately and obsessive collectors, I got into that as well. My research paid off. Roth is partly based on a true story about an obsessed collector. In 1892 Gaston Leroux was a well-off man living in an apartment in Paris with a valuable collection of stamps. Police were called to his apartment where they found him dead, apparently murdered by an intruder. However, nothing seemed to be missing. 

One of the detectives was a philatelist and when he discovered that the dead man had a sizable collection, he took a closer look. He realized that Leroux had owned a Two Cent Hawaiian Missionary of 1851, a very rare and valuable stamp, and that it was missing. 

Upon investigating Leroux's friends and associates, police came into contact with Hector Giroux who also had a collection, and in whose possession was a 2c Hawaiian Missionary stamp. Giroux broke down during questioning and confessed to murdering Leroux and stealing the stamp – he'd just wanted the stamp 'so badly'. He was charged with the murder, found guilty and hanged. Obviously obsession doesn't pay but it did give me a basis for ROTH.

I've had some fun along the way. Some examples. Very recently I was finishing the latest ROTH, Hubris, and wanted to refer to a bank in Liechtenstein so off I went and started reading about the country I quickly learnt the Spectator calls 'utterly ridiculous'.

The author of the Spectator article quoted a number of facts to support his argument: that although trains run through the country, Liechtenstein has no railway station where you can arrive, you have to get out in Zurich and take a bus; it  has more registered companies than people and is the world's largest manufacturer of false teeth. Ughh.

More fun was researching Paris brothels and male escorts. Purely academically, of course. I read about an 84 year French dominatrix who's very busy. There was another piece in the Guardian about a English boy of 21 (at the time) who was making his living as an escort. He had a Swedish client who was a philatelist and had him tear up philatelic specimens in front of him. Apparently it was a turn on. 

I couldn't have made it up, very nitty gritty.