Crime audio books - Pauline Rowson talks about what shapes her characters DI Andy Horton and Art Marvik


This article is taken from my interview with Soundings, publishers of my crime audio books.

How did you come up with Andy Horton and Art Marvik, are they based on real people? Who would you have play them on TV?

A DI Andy Horton crime novel





I like heroes. I make no apology for that and being married to a former Royal Air Force veteran and fire fighter I had plenty of material to choose from.  Andy Horton is a combination of many men I have met during my adult life primarily those who I have met through my husband’s career as a fire fighter, fit, fearless, caring and with a strong sense of duty to the public. Andy Horton has all these qualities and along with being tough and resilient he is also deeply empathetic.


His empathy enables him to put himself in a victim’s shoes, to imagine events from their perspective (even the moments up to their death), making leaps of deduction few would be able to. And he’s most often right. But it also makes him vulnerable. He carries a lot of personal baggage as many people do, men especially, who have difficulty in unburdening themselves and sharing their problems. He’s a very self-contained person, who finds it difficult to trust. He is especially tough on bullies, or people who abuse their power or position, as they remind him of the people in the children’s homes in which he’s been raised after his mother abandoned him. When this happens, when his guard slips, he’s like a raw nerve. He fears his emotions will betray him

He feels a duty of care to the victims of the crimes he investigates and often feels like he’s the only person looking out for them; the only one who can bring the guilty to justice so that the dead can rest. No one cared about him when he was a child; he won’t let that happen to anyone else.

And Art Marvik?


With Marvik I wanted a character who was not bound by the official rules of the law, but who was nevertheless on the right side of it and the Marvik novels had to have all the hallmarks of my brand – a troubled hero, the sea, boats, interesting and diverse characters and lots of action.

Marvik, like Horton, is also fit and tough, but he is a former Royal Marine, Special Boat Services officer while Andy Horton is a copper. Whereas Andy Horton is emotionally scarred, Marvik is physically scarred having incurred facial injuries in combat. He’s also desperately trying to adjust to a new life outside the services and this can be very difficult for a number of veterans (and fire fighters) who have seen a lot of action and trauma and experienced many high adrenaline fixes.

Marvik thought he’d be able to adjust and carve out a new career for himself on the sea, but his first job as a private maritime security operative goes very wrong when the luxury motor cruiser he was travelling on and had been detailed to guard, gets attacked by pirates in the Indian Ocean, and Marvik finds himself with a bullet in his shoulder and the boat’s owner dead. He’d failed on his first mission in civilian life, and Silent Running opens with him reeling from it. When he’s invited to work undercover on dangerous assignments for Detective Superintendent Crowder’s National Intelligence Marine Squad, Marvik grabs it with both hands. His job is to go into a mission with the minimum of information, to probe, ask questions, stir up trouble and provoke the truth and a killer into the open.

Who would play Inspector Andy Horton or Art Marvik in a TV series?

As to who would play them on TV that is difficult to answer because every reader sees the characters differently, especially Andy Horton who I have never physically described in any of the novels. When I ask readers this question the actors they come up with are: Tom Hardy, Jason Statham and Paul Bettany. Michael Fassbender I think would make a great Art Marvik. His characteristics as described on IMDB are: "Deep, calm voice combined with emotionally intense gritty performances” Sounds like my man.

Where to buy 

Available on Audible via Amazon and for loan in public libraries.

Pauline Rowson's books at The Book Depository (free worldwide delivery)

Pauline Rowson's books USA

Pauline Rowson's books UK

From your local bookshop


Also available as an ebook and on Amazon Kindle, Kobo and for loan from UK, USA, Irish and Commonwealth libraries


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