Since
DI Frank Lyle is interviewed quite often, I have done an interview with a
younger member of his team. DS Thomas Fox’s uncle is the Ashbeck District
Coroner, Dr Barry Fox.
DS Fox is also DI Frank Lyle’s son, James’ boyfriend. I am interviewing DS Fox in late November 1992, before the events detailed in Best Served Cold come into play
DS Fox is also DI Frank Lyle’s son, James’ boyfriend. I am interviewing DS Fox in late November 1992, before the events detailed in Best Served Cold come into play
JULIET
B MADISON: DS Fox, I’m glad you could take time out to talk to me.
DS
FOX: (Smiles) It’s a pleasure, Juliet. I’m really impressed
with the succinct yet detailed way you chronicle the cases we investigate.
JULIET
B MADISON: Would you mind telling my
readers a bit about yourself, your background, how you joined the police etc?
DS
FOX: Uncle
Barry and his wife, Sylvia, gave a home to my sister, Rosemary, and I after our
parents died in a house fire when I was six and Rosemary was four. She doesn’t
remember our parents and my memories are fading. Uncle Barry never saw the need
to adopt us since we had the same surname. From the time I was old enough to
understand Uncle Barry’s job I developed a fascination with crime fiction and
TV dramas. My careers advisor at
school didn’t bat an eyelid when I told her i wanted to join the police. I came
out when I was twenty-one and Uncle Barry was really supportive. I met James Lyle
in the summer and we clicked.
(You can read about James & Thomas getting together
in Sanctuary, the final novella in DI
Frank Lyle’s Casebook Vol 2 available from http://bookShow.me/B00J16ZPHC )
JULIET
B MADISON: Can you tell us about your first case with
Ashbeck CID?
DS
FOX: My
beat partner and mentor, PC (Now DC) David Delaney, and I found a body in mid
December nineteen-ninety. We were asked to help find out who the victim was as
he had had no identification, but what we discovered quickly led to blackmail,
paedophilia and more murder. City Councillor Robert Kenyon was one of the most
unpleasant people I have ever met and thankfully he’s in prison right now where
he belongs. After the case Delaney and I were accepted into CID as Detective
Constables. DI Lyle calls it the Heir to
Misfortune case but readers will need to read Juliet’s written account to get the full picture.
JULIET
B MADISON: Which of your cases with
Ashbeck CID have you found to be the toughest so far?
DS
FOX: Well,
the Heir to Misfortune case was
definitely a baptism of fire as Delaney and I were both relatively ignorant of
the way CID works. It was tough emotionally because of the indecency against
minors angle, but the subsequent case, which DI Lyle calls the Unholy Alliance case was also tough
because of the victim’s troubled past and what we found at his home. Juliet did
a really brilliant job on writing up that one. If you don’t believe me you
should read it. http://bookShow.me/B00GVGFNHW
JULIET
B MADISON: (laughs) Thank you for
the compliments and I know it’s not a come on.
DS
FOX: (laughs) You
are so not my type, Juliet.
JULIET
B MADISON: Congratulations on your
recent promotion by the way, by all accounts you definitely earned it.
DS
FOX: Thank
you. The David Marlow murder
investigation wasn’t too difficult; the hard bit was finding out just what an
unpleasant character he was. Everyone in the theatre company had a good motive
to kill him.
JULIET
B MADISON: Do you ever
develop pre-conceptions on your way to a crime scene?
DS
FOX: No,
we usually only know the victim’s gender, sometimes the name but not always. It
always helps to come to each one fresh with the mind like a blank slate so to
speak.
JULIET
B MADISON: How do you get on with
your Ashbeck CID colleagues? Have any of them given you problems on account of
your sexual preferences?
DS
FOX: I
generally get on well with my colleagues. So far I’m not out at work, only DC
Paula Mahon knows and she’s gay herself. DI Lyle has been fantastically
supportive of James and me, but his mum doesn’t want to know, James is very
hurt by this, but the DI and I hope that she’ll get used to the idea
eventually. There was one guy once though, DCI Hammond, who helped us out
during the Unholy Alliance case, but
he would have given me real problems on that score.
JULIET
B MADISON: How do you see your future? Are you
ambitious?
DS FOX: Well,
I want to get on in CID and have entertained fantasies of being the first
openly gay male Superintendent in Ashbeck. But whatever I achieve will mean
nothing unless I have James beside me. I just wish that his mother would
realise just how much I love her son. However I’m not the ruthlessly ambitious
sort that treads on people to get where I want to go in life.
JULIET
B MADISON: Well it’s been good to
talk to you, DS Fox and I sincerely hope that you get everything you want from
this life.
DS FOX: Thank you Juliet, James
& I both wish you the same.
You can buy Best Served Cold
You can catch up with Juliet B Madison
Twitter @JulietBMadison
Facebook There
are a number of DI Lyle related pages on Facebook but here is a small
selection.
Thanks for having me Sooz, sorry I haven't been aroubnd much but been doing a carb counting Diabetes education course ti improve my control.
ReplyDeleteYou are most welcome, Juliet. I understand the need to improve your control over diabetes. I'm an Insulin dependent Diabetic myself, and still have days when the blood count hits the high 20's.
DeleteIf you let things slide it gives the condition control over you. I finish tomorrow and mine and the other people in the group's results have improved a lot this week. I won;t always get it right as mental arithmetic is not my strong point but I have a better idea of how to calculate things now. We will have to have a chat about it all sometime.
ReplyDelete