Author reveals how Worcester inspired tales of murder

Sep 6 2010 by Tony Larner, Sunday Mercury

WITH its beautiful cathedral, famous cricket ground, and stunning riverside views, it looks the quintessential English city.

But Worcester has been the setting of a series of grisly murders, torture and bloody violence for the last few years – yet few residents know anything about it.

Author Charlie Williams had used his idyllic home-city as the backdrop for a trilogy of books which tell the story of psychotic bouncer Royston Blake.

Deadfolk, Fags and Lager, and King of the Road are set in the ficticious rural backwater of Mangle, where the unhinged doorman is feared and ridiculed in equal measure.

Yet Charlie, 39, admits Mangle is actually based on Worcester, while the creation of his breakthrough character can be traced back to a family funeral.

‘‘I was living in London and working in IT after studying English at university,’’ recalled the father-of-two.

‘‘My family are all from Worcester, but I did not really return too often to the city. In fact, I had been desperate to get away when I was younger.

‘‘But then there was a death in the family and I returned for the funeral and all these voices began returning to me from my youth.

‘‘I started writing Deadfolk, with Royston Blake as a first person narrator. It only took about six months to finish and I knew what I had created was a step-up in quality from my other writings.’’

Deadfolk is a dark but often comic novel which introduces us to Royson, a killer with a brain befuddled by beatings, booze and possibly a fair bit of inbreeding.

Incredibly, the crazed character does draw some sympathy from the reader – testament to the writing skills of Charlie, who admits drawing on troubled childhood friends for inspiration.

He said: ‘‘As a teenager, I would hear all kinds of things with some of the crowd I would occasionally hang around with.

‘‘It was fascinating but I could see where these people were going to go – some became drug addicts and some are now dead.

‘‘Royston came out of some of the things I remember from back then. Extreme violence goes on all over the place and the people who commit it do not usually have the highest IQs.’’