Neil White
Best-selling author Neil White is a criminal lawyer as well as a crime writer.
He was born above a shoe shop in Mexborough, a small northern mining town, and grew up on an estate on the edge of Wakefield. His father worked in the shoe trade but seemed happiest when he was reading a book, and he filled the house with them: sci-fi, horror and history books. And if it wasn’t books, it was Johnny Cash who took over.
Neil’s books were initially set in America but after rewriting them to change their settings to England he had more success. After swapping Chicago for London and Indiana for a small town in Lancashire he caught the interest of a publisher.
He veered away from crime briefly and wrote the book he had always wanted to write, Lost In Nashville. He had always wanted to visit the places Johnny Cash sang about, so he did, but crafted a book from it. It is a tale of a father and son who travel Johnny Cash’s life and songs and try to reconnect along the way. It is his favourite of all his books, purely because it has so much emotional resonance for him.
Eventually Neil gave up full-time lawyering and turned mainly to writing, although he still practices as a freelance lawyer.
Neil has kindly answered a few questions for us about books that have entertained and inspired him and his work as an author.
Read the interview here.
Read more about Neil, his love of Johnny Cash, his books and his career on his website.
