Tony Parsons left school at sixteen and his first job in journalism was at the New Musical Express, or NME.
Parsons father was a decorated war hero. Parsons has said, “I spent a large part of my life figuring out how to follow in my father’s foot steps.”
He has spoken about the great opportunity he had, compared to what young people have today. “I did everything wrong. I left school to work in a gin factory and somehow became a journalist. It’s almost as if my society didn’t me to fail.”
His first journalism after leaving the NME was when he was embedded with the Vice Squad at 27 Savile Row, West End Central. The roots of the DC Max Wolfe series started here.
He said he tries to keep the portrayal of a London detective accurate but compelling, and doesn’t want his character to lack imagination.
The protagonist shares some traits with Parsons: Wolfe is like a dog-lover like Parsons and a single father. Max Wolfe is a devoted father to a young girl. In real life, Parsons was a single father following his divorce from journalist Julie Burchill. His novel multi-million selling book Man and Boy was inspired by this experience
He has described writing the series as ‘gamble’. His literary efforts hadn’t been as successful as Man and Boy and he had lost his column for the Daily Mirror. He cashed in his pension and decided to write a crime novel. The gamble paid off.
The Murder Bag, the first novel in the DC Max Wolfe series, went to number one on first publication in the UK. Its follow-up The Slaughter Man was also a Sunday Times top ten bestseller. The third book in the series The Hanging Club is out now.
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