Do you know what a snowflake tastes like?

What is the inspiration for Snowflake, my first novel?

“If you start with a bang, you won’t end with a whimper.” T.S. Eliot

Some years ago I was travelling to Latvia. In those days you flew from London to Copenhagen or Stockholm and changed for the flight to Riga. And one day, on the side of a plane I saw the words “Do you know what a snowflake tastes like?” Those words stayed with me and became the start of my story of revenge, fear and crime.

I have worked for many years running and developing global technology companies. This experience often brought me into contact with trading floors and dealing rooms and I am still fascinated by the development of algorithms to determine financial performance of investments or debt and how such knowledge could be used to make money.

I’ve also been fascinated by why people may embark on criminal activity and what leads them to behave differently from most other people. Inherently it does not seem right that anyone should profit from crime, especially financial crime, though money is a motivator for many people. That money brings power and control over other people and it is this which is the backdrop to my story. More often than not the person with the power and control is never challenged, as is the case with Harry Callum in Snowflake.

I’ve always loved boxing too. It’s the ultimate challenge where two people put everything on the line and where it is acceptable to inflict pain on another human being. It brings the protagonists of my story together in a brutal finale.

These three themes – financial gain, crime and boxing – all came together in my head because I didn’t know what a snowflake tastes like.