Trump 'making it tough to be a novelist'

Speaking at the Old Peculiar Crime Writing Festival in Harrogate, the best-selling author told Sky News: “I think it’s tough being a writer right now.

“You look around and think ‘you couldn’t make this up’ – it’s almost like we’re living in some weird adventure story.

“No writer would have imagined Trump becoming President of America. It’s almost unbelievable.”

Rankin, who says he’s given himself a year off from writing, this year celebrates the 30th anniversary of his greatest creation, John Rebus.

The author, whose books have sold tens of millions of copies around the world, believes a lot about life nowadays can be learned from crime novels.

He said: “It’s great because they talk about big questions – like good and evil, the state of the world, the state of society.

“Yes, they can be “political” in inverted commas. Questioning things, like do we get the kind of crime in society we deserve?”

Despite Rankin’s assertion that writers face new challenges, fellow writer Lee Child says recent political uncertainty is fuelling brilliant fiction.

Child, the writer behind blockbuster series Jack Reacher, told Sky News: “Right now there’s an awful lot of political unhappiness one side or another and I’ve noticed the books this year are great.

“Writers are trying to escape through invention, I think the readers are too. Readers are really burrowing deep into books to get away from real life.”

A Jack Reacher book is said to be sold somewhere in the world every nine seconds.

Child’s infamous anti-hero is known to the world as a straight-talking all-American tough guy, but he says that wouldn’t make Reacher a fan of the new administration and President Trump’s promise to “Make America Great Again”.

The author said: “(He) would not be a Trump supporter because he’s a simple guy and, in his eyes, Trump chickened out of going to Vietnam.

“That’s the end of it for Reacher, he’s a coward and done with it right from the beginning.”