Meet Inspector Zammit and his creator, AJ Aberford

Aberford's latest book and a police lamp against Maltese limestone

Aberford's latest book

What inspired you to write the Inspector George Zammit series?

With all due respect to the many fine crime writers out there, I feel the crime genre is sometimes at risk of becoming a path well-trodden. On moving to Malta, I took inspiration from the local newspaper headlines, which told of a different world from the one the tourists see. Every day, there were stories (mainly in The Times of Malta) of international oil smuggling, money laundering, political corruption in the highest echelons of government and tales of violent Libyan militia and the gangs at the centre of the migrant crisis.

My wife and I arrived in Malta in 2015 and were shocked by the murder of Daphne Caruana Galicia in 2017. We followed subsequent events closely and spent many hours studying Malta’s post-colonial history. I must be one of the few ex-pats who have actually read the Maltese Constitution, cover to cover!

This rich vein of material inspired me to create the master of survival, the hapless Maltese inspector, George Zammit. George is a reluctant hero who consistently finds himself tested in situations not of his own making. He is a well-meaning family man whose moral compass can sometimes struggle to find true north. The series is set in the Southern Mediterranean, which allows me to place George in exotic locations, such as the Libyan deserts, the volcanic environs of Mount Etna, magical Istanbul, the chaotic, ISIS-ridden north-west of Syria, as well as his home, the crowded, historic Island of Malta.

In short, the geopolitics of the southern Mediterranean, the criminality that seems to flow between the cracks of flawed and corrupt governance, and my affection for the island of Malta and its people, all served as my inspiration to write the series.

Bodies in the Water – the first book that started it all

Covid was a strange period for all of us. For me, it was doubly difficult as, having just lost my mother, my ninety-year-old father also became ill. This meant travelling as much as I was able to between Malta and the UK, with lengthy spells of quarantine at either end.

I had often thought of writing an adventure or crime book, and one evening, after another long and tedious day in quarantine, I started writing. Before long, I was delving into the history of medieval crime families, the topography of Libya, the politics and perils of migration, how to launder money through betting companies and a range of other interesting themes. By the end of the Covid period, I had written the first three books in the series and secured a UK publisher.

It is true to say that I wrote for my own pleasure and gave little regard to what the market might want or what the reader might enjoy. As the books became more widely read and I received more feedback, my Maltese friends urged me to develop the characters of George and his family. The later books still have the action and adventure of the first three, but I have enjoyed making the series more character-driven, giving more space to George’s family life, with his overbearing wife, Marianna.

How do you hope readers will connect with George and other characters in your stories?

Inspector George Zammit is an everyman. He is a family man. He has his foibles. He usually has a half-eaten pastizzi in his pocket, in case of emergency hunger pains.  He hates paperwork and takes a nap after lunch. He will always choose the path of least resistance. He is kind and scares easily. However, fate often conspires to place George in harm’s way and, somehow, he manages to survive, only to find himself in an even worse situation in the next book in the series. Although George is an officer in the Maltese Pulizija, the books are not police procedurals and have scant regard for their internal structures and procedures – it’s more fun that way!

In the Inspector George Zammit series, good people do bad things, and vice versa. My favourite characters are those antagonists who are capable of awful deeds, but nevertheless have sufficient redeeming features, or are funny enough, that the reader will find themselves rooting for them, no matter what!

Describe your working style regarding the craft and the process

With the Inspector George Zammit series, I would describe myself as more of a ‘pantser’ (from the phrase “flying by the seat of your pants”), than a planner, or a plotter.

I usually start with two or three unrelated threads, involving different sets of characters, then develop their storylines in such a way that they all collide towards the end of the book. The storylines are often inspired by a headline in The Times of Malta or an article about current events in the Southern Mediterranean.

The imagining and design of the characters comes fairly easily to me and is the aspect of writing I most enjoy. As many writers say, books often get hijacked by strong characters, and it gets to the point where they seem to dictate events, with the poor writer merely there to record them!

The journey to bring all the characters to the point of collision, while maintaining a steady pace within each thread, is trickier.

In terms of the working day, I write in the mornings, usually from 08:30 till 12:30. Life then interferes until about 17:00, when I will edit what I wrote that morning. When doing major revisions or rewrites, I prefer to do them in the mornings, as I get noticeably more lazy in the afternoon! I blame the sun!

The Car Horn Revolution – the sixth and most recent book in the series

This book is set exclusively in Malta and explores a scenario in which a foreign power, in need of a Mediterranean base, exploits weak governance, government corruption, and the country’s non-membership of NATO to capture Malta by stealth.

George finds himself hopelessly compromised when his family become involved in the resistance movement and he is promoted to a position within the new regime. Can he secure the country’s independence and thwart the invader’s malign intentions, while protecting his family? The Maltese people register their disapproval of the takeover with their favourite weapon. Hence the title!

Readers are invited to a meet-the-author event with AJ Aberford on November 12 at Gozo Central Public Library on Wednesday November 12 from 10.30am-11.30am. The free event is organised by Book Club Gozo, and the talk will be in English. Seat reservations are encouraged so book your place – by sending an email to eventsgozo.library@gov.mt

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