Let me make it quite clear right from the off. There is nothing even remotely auto-biographical about my latest novel, Vole. This one came right out of left field and if reading it makes you feel uneasy then just imagine what it did to me writing the damn thing.

You see, the central character and main protagonist, Vole himself, is obsessed with ladies bottoms and bicycle seats. I’ll explain why in a minute. The point is that I’m the total opposite. I really don’t like bottoms.

Don’t get me wrong, all of us men like to admire a nice callipygous female (Google it) when we see one but it stops there for me. The thought of actually touching one, apart from my lovely wife’s, fills me with utter dread. The mere sight of poo makes me want to cry, I loathe other peoples farts to the point of wanting to retch and I don’t even like sitting in recently vacated chairs that are still warm. Gives me the creeps it does.

I don’t know what the word is for a phobia of bottoms but whatever it is, I’ve got it.

So why then did I write a whole 84,000 word novel about a man who is in absolute raptures at the mere thought of sniffing ladies bicycle seats?

Well believe me, it wasn’t easy.

So to set the record straight, I’d like to explain where this peculiar little book originated.

Some years ago, I forget exactly when, I was in a waiting room, I forget exactly where and I was starting to get bored. The room was hot and stuffy and my phone battery was on its last legs. So in an act of desperation I picked up a copy of a newspaper that was on the small occasional table next to me.

It was one of those dreadful red-top tabloids. I mean the truly dreadful ones, The Star or The Sunday Sport. Awful, tawdry things that have no place in decent society but like I say, I was desperate by that point.

Thumbing through this diabolical rag I happened on an article that made me both sick to my stomach but also curious about the person it was written about.

I don’t recall the man’s name but I do recall what he looked like and what he’d been up to; which was basically this.

Kate Middleton’s sister, Pippa, had done a charity bicycle ride in Africa and had raised an awful lot of money doing so. As a further altruistic gesture, Pippa decided to auction her bike on eBay and raise even more cash for the worthy cause she was supporting.

Enter the man in question.

This “individual” had managed to raise ten thousand pounds himself in order to be able to bid for the bicycle so that he could…

…sniff the seat whenever he liked.

Yes, you heard that correctly. This man was a serial seat-sniffer. And proud of it too.

As I read through the article it became aware to me that this curious chap had absolutely no qualms about being in the newspaper and having his seedy little tale splashed about for the whole world to see. It really was apparent that he was even boastful about what he did. And as a writer, Something began to stir within me.

That happens a lot to us writers, things stir within us all the time.

The man’s appearance was most unusual as well. He looked as if some raving mad scientist had managed to cross a human being with a rat and he was the end result. I’ve never seen a person look so much like a rodent in my entire life. At first I suspected it may have been Photoshopped but I know Photoshopping when I see it and this was most definitely for real.

I began to conjure up a scenario in my mind of this man being a character in one of my books. The more I stared at his physiognomy on the page the more I thought about the idea of the ultimate anti-hero; a pervert.

Nobody likes perverts do they? And yet, I began to think, what would we all think of a pervert, like this fellow, who actually did a good thing for once in his life? How would people react? Would he go from pariah to hero? Or would his misdemeanours forever condemn him to a life of shame?

At that moment I was called in to my appointment and I let the paper flop back onto the table where it probably stayed until it wound up in the recycling bin. But, for the rest of the day, I couldn’t get the idea out of my mind. I mean, I found this creepy little man repellent yet also strangely fascinating and I squirrelled away my idea for him as a character into one of the dusty recesses of my brain for future reference.

When I started to write the Ingleby series of novels, beginning with The Ghost of Lenton Wattingham, I really got into the idea of misfits being the central characters. So when it came to the time that I needed a character for the third in the series I looked no further than the memory of my rodent-featured friend in the tabloid and hey presto! Vole was born and the rest, as they say, is history (although I’ve never quite worked out who ‘they’ are).

Having that, aforementioned, aversion to all things bottom, it wasn’t an easy book to write. Quite possibly the hardest one yet. But in hindsight (no pun intended) it is also perhaps the best written of all my books.

It was written during a time of great personal upheaval and poor health and at times I came close to scrapping it and starting all over again with something completely different. I’m glad now that I didn’t. I think Vole is a corking little book. It’s funny, rude, sad and poignant all at the same time and I’m really rather chuffed with it.

Will the character of Vole ever make a comeback? Never say never is my motto, but it won’t be for a while as I’ve got many other Ingleby ideas simmering away and also a raft of Joe Wilkie/Blessham books on my To Write list.

If you want to check out what Vole is all about then you can do so here: Vole on Amazon

It really is worth the asking price and your valuable time to have a read, especially after all the shuddering and soul-searching I went through to produce the bloody thing.