THE publishing bosses at Penguin are pitching Kevin Brooks's latest novel, Black Rabbit Summer, as a "crossover" book. In other words, it's one that will appeal to young adults and grown-ups alike. It's not a term Brooks himself has much time for.

"I don't write to a target audience and I don't write for younger readers, rather than older ones," he says, although there are some benefits in falling between two stools.

"It's a double-edged sword, because you do get categorised alongside young adult stuff which means your book ends up next to
a picture book on dinosaurs, but it also means you can reach a wider audience."

Black Rabbit Summer is a dark tale set on the kind of sink estate you would go out of your way to avoid, and is littered with places "where kids go to that adults don't know about". Add suicide, blackmail, drugs and murder, to the mix and you have a pretty bleak-sounding cocktail.

But ever since bursting on to the literary scene six years ago with his debut, Martyn Pig, Brooks has quietly established himself as a key figure among writers of teenage fiction.

The storyline of his new novel revolves around the sudden disappearance of two 16 year-olds, one an attractive teenage celebrity, the other an insular, tormented boy. Both characters are known to the story's narrator, Pete Boland, who finds himself embroiled in the ensuing police investigations.

As well as exploring the way crimes are portrayed in the media, Brooks is interested in how our relationships change as we get older.

"When you're 11 or 12 you hang around with a group of friends and you often look back at this as some kind of golden age, and I wanted to look at it from a different perspective, I wanted to bring the same people back together and show how the relationships had changed."

The 48 year-old author, who lives in Richmond, North Yorkshire, was a relatively late starter as a novelist, even though he'd been writing since he was a teenager. "I was always interested in writing, but I also wanted to be a musician and an artist and a lot of my time and energy went in that."

Although he aspired to be a rock star, he continued writing poems and short stories and when his musical career failed to materialise, he switched his attention to becoming a novelist.

"I think being a musician has definitely helped me because writing songs and lyrics helps you create a rhythm which you need if you're writing."

But if his journey to becoming an author was a gradual one, his CV during the intervening years certainly makes for intriguing reading. For as well as being a Post Office clerk, he's sold railway tickets, owned a food and drink stall at London Zoo and worked as a crematorium assistant, which involved everything from mending broken walls, to burning coffins.

All of which might sound rather bizarre, but Brooks reckons it's helped, rather than hindered, his writing career.

"I knew I wanted to write novels, but it took me a long time to reach the stage where I had acquired the discipline required to be a writer, but the experience I gained from working in different jobs has probably helped me."

Black Rabbit Summer is his seventh novel in just five years, which definitely puts him in the "prolific" category, suggesting he isn't the kind of writer who can't function without their muse.

"I never seem to have a shortage of ideas, and if they keep coming back, then it usually means they're quite good, in which case they go in what I call my 'ideas bucket'," he says.

"I'm not sure writer's block really exists, you don't get journalist's block, or plumber's block. All you've got to do is sit down at a
desk and tap away at a keyboard – it's not rocket science."

Black Rabbit Summer, published by Penguin, is out now, priced £10.99.