About C.P. Richards
A novelist and short-story writer based in Somerset.
The author
My name is Chris Richards. I write novels and short stories as C.P. Richards, and I live in Yeovil, Somerset.
My love of stories began with reading. As a child, I found freedom, adventure and escape in Enid Blyton stories, Swallows and Amazons, the Hardy Boys, Sherlock Holmes and, later, The Lord of the Rings. Books took me into worlds far beyond my own, and before long I wanted to invent adventures of my own.
The first time anyone took my writing seriously, I was about fourteen or fifteen. I had written a comedy sketch built around an interview with Sherlock Holmes for a Scout Gang Show. The producer loved it, gave it the title Dragnet and put it on stage. I was thrilled. Something that had existed only in my imagination was being performed in front of an audience.
I went on to write several plays that reached the stage, writing under my own name. Much later, retirement from a career in railway management gave me the opportunity to return to writing and turn my attention to fiction.
A question that became a novel
The idea for The Unseen began with a question from my daughter: ‘If you could have a superpower, what would it be?’
My first thought was flying. Then I began to think about invisibility. What could you do if you could disappear whenever you chose? And, perhaps more interestingly, what might you be tempted to do?
That thought became Warren Hale, a man accustomed to being overlooked who discovers that he can become invisible. His working life owes a great deal to my own experience of factory work: the poor wages, the mundane routine and the feeling of being stuck in a rut. Giving him an extraordinary ability opened up all sorts of possibilities, particularly when it came to his choices about right and wrong.
Warren’s story continues in Justice in the Dark, but my imagination doesn’t always take me towards crime. My shorter fiction includes the psychological suspense of The Funeral Photograph, the fairy magic and enduring love of The Circle Never Appears Twice, and the grief, hope and family bonds of The Christmas He Came Home.
People worth caring about
Whatever kind of story I’m writing, the characters matter to me. I want readers to feel something for them: affection, frustration, concern, perhaps even anger at what happens to them.
Some of the most rewarding responses have come from readers telling me how much a character has meant to them. Bora, in particular, has struck a chord. Hearing about those connections means a great deal to me. It tells me that someone who began life in my imagination has become real enough for another person to care about.
Away from writing, I share my life with my wife and a demanding cocker spaniel. I enjoy a good cask ale and play table tennis badly. Some things, apparently, don’t improve with practice.