Tom Hindle: Yorkshire author on where his globetrotting whodunnits might lead him next

“It's funny, given the books I write, but I'm not a natural traveller,” says Hindle, 31, a self-confessed homebody who was born and raised in Leeds and now lives in Oxford.

But when penning Death in the Arctic, which is out on Thursday next week (Jan 16), the author didn’t think he could write it properly without seeing the place for himself. Initially it was to be a solo adventure, but he dragged along a friend.

“The idea of, ‘Shall I go by myself to one of the most remote places on earth, in a month?’ A few years ago that would have been totally inconceivable.”

Of course, he had one of the best weeks of his life – getting all his thoughts on to the page at the end of each day – and intends to go back in the future.

For now, his loyal readers can immerse themselves in a story set around the Norwegian archipelago in his latest whodunnit, Hindle’s fourth such novel since his debut in 2022.

Readers are taken to the frozen wilderness of the North Pole aboard a luxury airship – but, naturally, it’s not long before a passenger is found dead in their cabin.

Hindle’s success is the realisation of a dream he has had since school – he even told his class about it when they presented what they wanted to be when they were older.

“I can remember standing up in that classroom at Cardinal Heenan (High School) and saying, ‘One day, I want to write books. I want to write stories that entertain people’. To have done it, it's a wonderful feeling,” he says.

As a youngster it was Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings that he loved – though he later realised these were all essentially whodunnits.

"Game of Thrones opens with a whodunnit,” he says. “Sean Bean's character Ned Stark goes to King's Landing because he's trying to work out who has murdered the Hand of the King, you know.

"I think that's partly why whodunnits are so enduring because there's so much you can explore with them in terms of different genres, different time periods. I think that's partly why we love them so much.”

And there is no shortage of readers, it seems, for mystery novels these days. Hindle, who grew up in Moortown, references the popularity of peers such as Richard Osman and Anthony Horowitz.

So in a somewhat crowded and well-established field, how does he set himself apart?

“When I'm writing, I really need to exist in a little bubble,” he says. “A lot of writers get a lot out of being in touch with other authors and talking about how many words they've written that day, and sharing extracts from the book they're working on. I'm kind of the opposite.

"I need to almost feel that I am the only author in the world, that the book I'm working on is the only book in the world that is being written that day.

"Because otherwise, I think if I start thinking about what other people are doing, I start writing my book with the mindset of, ‘This must not feel too much like a Richard Osman’ or whatever.

"What I’ve found I actually need to be thinking is, ‘How can I just make this book in front of me the best book it can possibly be?’”

Thankfully, he has never lacked for ideas. The broad concept of his first novel, A Fatal Crossing – a whodunnit set on a ship sailing to New York in the 1920s – came to him aged about 16.

“The idea was, I was going to write this up as a little play that me and a few friends could put on at school and I never finished it. I'll be honest, I woefully underestimated how much work writing a play would be, I got about half-way through and then we all finished school and went off to uni. So the play never happened.”

Later, he was pursuing his other dream of musical stardom with Leeds band The Scandal – which are still going, renamed as The Loose Cut – and, after school, studying English at Bangor University, where he met his wife Hayley.

He wanted a job where he could write for a living, so after university went into PR, but the call of the novel never faded, and in his mid-20s he returned to that idea from nearly a decade before. It was a debut that featured a shock twist towards the end, one which proved divisive for readers who loved or hated it.

Hindle says: "That book was published in German a short while ago and I had someone message me on Instagram from Germany saying, ‘I'm genuinely concerned that your book has been translated incorrectly because I don't think it could possibly end in the way that my copy does’, and I just had to reply saying, ‘Look, I don't speak German, so I can't read it myself and confirm 100 per cent but I've had enough people in the UK talk to me about the ending to know that I think your copy is probably fine’.”

Since then he has published The Murder Game and Murder on Lake Garda, and while he is in publicity mode for Death in the Arctic, such is modern publishing’s restless cycle that he is already drafting his fifth.

At least he gets to write at the end of his garden, accompanied by tabby cat Merlin. He’s also busy with fatherhood, having welcomed baby Erica in August last year.

Elsewhere, keeping them on their toes are two tortoises: Houdini (he escapes) and Lumpy (he’s lumpy).

But where will his mysteries take him next? “There's got to be a train at some point,” he says.

There might need to be another inspirational holiday, despite his misgivings. Then, once he’s found the next location, he laughs: “How can I murder someone here in a way that could only happen here?”

Watch out world, Hindle’s coming for you.

Death in the Arctic by Tom Hindle, published by Century, is out on hardback on January 16. Price: £16.99.