‘The Role of the Modern Crime Novel in a Crime-Free Society,’ I announced, hearing my voice amplified, but perhaps not by enough. I moved closer to the microphone. I took a pause, apparently to gather my thoughts, but in fact because I wanted to gain some idea of the size of the audience. This was not vanity. It is a mistake, I have learned, to think of an audience as a single entity. They are individuals spread out across the auditorium, an unmeasured space if the speaker has not been there before, and usually one undefined by limits if the place is not full. A speaker addresses them as a whole, sometimes in the plural, but they listen as single people. You need to know how best to address them. Some are further away than others.

The house lights were dimmed, but I could still see that the auditorium was large and banked, with an upper layer. No one was up there. The audience was spread all over the ground floor stalls, with at a guess about a quarter of the seats taken. A few more people were coming in, finding somewhere to sit. It struck me as a good-sized audience, compared at least with some of the ones I had travelled to in the past.

I pressed the remote, then turned my head to make sure the first image was up on the screen. It was, and in focus too. So far so good.

I launched into my lecture.

What did I say in my speech? If I were to claim that the whole thing was unique, inspired by the challenge of the occasion, it would be untrue. Every year I am invited to give about three speeches, talks or lectures. They are given in response to suggestions or requests from the group or organization inviting me, and most of them are informal in approach. Sometimes I am asked to speak generally about the crime-writing genre, and what I think about it. At other times people want me to talk about my most recent book, or about earlier ones. The talks vary in length and intensity, depending on what I expect, or hope, the kind of audience it will be. The main point is that because I am usually working on a new book I do not have the time or energy to think up something original every time. I recycle past efforts.

I therefore have a sort of template which I use as a basis for any talk. This makes certain points about thrillers and mysteries that I always wish to state, because I believe in them. I see them as a rationale not only for the books I have written but also as a way of evaluating the work of other writers in the genre.