“Child of Necessity was the one that stuck. Once I started it, I knew I was going to finish.” Bath Novel Award winning crime writer Tracy Rickett tells us about her writing journey and creating characters who make good choices for bad reasons.
Congratulations again on winning the Bath Novel Award 2026. What’s the reaction been like from friends and family?
Very proud, which has been lovely and slightly humbling.
Tell us about the moment you found out...
My family and I were having dinner. As the day of the announcement approached, it had increasingly been on my mind, and in the final few minutes I may have refreshed my inbox a time or ten. When I saw my name, I sat staring at the screen for a few seconds before I could quite take it in.
What does winning the award mean to you?
When you’re querying and hearing very little back, it’s easy to lose confidence in your own judgement. You don’t know whether the book is working, or what you should change to make it better. Having people who don’t know me read it and respond to it so strongly means a great deal.
Award judge Amanda Harris described Child of Necessity as “an impressive thriller” with “a clear route to market, and a readied, and hungry, readership.” What was it like to read her comments?
Amanda’s comments were hugely reassuring. I wrote the story I wanted to tell without really thinking about whether it was marketable, and it was only when I started querying that I began to worry I’d written something that sat awkwardly between genres. To have someone with Amanda’s experience see both the story and a clear readership for it was incredibly encouraging.
What’s your writing journey been so far?
I’ve been writing since I was a child. The first story I can remember was about a hillwalker who fell down a disused mine, and later there was a man stranded at sea in a lifeboat with only a fly for company. Looking back, I realise I’ve probably always been drawn to fairly bleak stories where the characters have to find reserves they didn’t know they had. A couple of attempts at novels never quite got there, but Child of Necessity was the one that stuck. Once I started it, I knew I was going to finish.
Describe Child of Necessity…
It’s a dark crime novel about FBI agent Rose Flack and Metropolitan Police detective Elisabeth Bailey, brought together when a child abduction in Washington appears to be linked to a series of murders in London.
For me, the story is just as much about what happens to the people caught inside that investigation. The connection that develops between Rose and Elisabeth, the way pressure changes relationships, and what people reveal about themselves when they’re forced into situations where there are no easy answers.
Why did you decide to write a transatlantic plot?
I liked the scale that came with moving the investigation between Washington and London, but I was also interested in what happened when both women were taken outside their usual environment. Elisabeth arrives in Washington carrying the weight of five failed investigations and has to operate without any real authority, while Rose is far more destabilised by the time she reaches London. She’s grieving, exhausted and increasingly reliant on Elisabeth in a place where she has very little control. Changing the setting allowed me to shift the balance between them in ways that would have been harder if either had stayed entirely on home ground.
Readers were particularly moved by your compelling storytelling about the the cost of living with difficult decisions. Can you say a little about why this is important to you?
I’m interested in what people do when every available choice carries a cost. In Child of Necessity, several of the characters make decisions they can justify in the moment because they believe there’s no better option, and then have to live with what follows. That grey area interests me far more than clear-cut right and wrong. People can act out of love, duty or desperation and still cause harm, and I think that’s probably true of life more generally. Most of us are making imperfect decisions with incomplete information and hoping we’ve got them right.
If there’s one thing you hope readers take from the book, what would that be?
I think I’d hope readers come away with some understanding of how someone can do the wrong thing for reasons that make complete sense to them at the time. You can understand why a person acted as they did without believing they were right, and I think that distinction matters.
You’ve said that you wanted your novel to bring together the things that draw you most as a reader, including procedural detail, a tangible sense of place, and complicated characters whose relationships are tested by difficult choices. What are your favourite crime novels?
Razorblade Tears by S.A. Cosby and All the Colours of the Dark by Chris Whitaker are two of my favourites because they feel so completely believable. Both have that perfect mix of grit, vivid scene-setting, the momentum of a crime novel and a strong emotional story. And having grown up in the north-east of Scotland, I’d be remiss not to mention Stuart MacBride and his Logan McRae series, which has the same sense of a world that feels properly lived in, along with fantastic dark humour.
Amanda said Child of Necessity reminded her of All the Colours of the Dark. What was it like to hear that?
Pretty mind-blowing, to be honest. Chris Whitaker is an extraordinary writer, and I’m actually looking at All the Colours of the Dark on my shelf as I answer this. To be compared with it in any way feels like a huge honour.
Like Chris, you show grief and trauma in a very moving and relatable way. Do you think about the reader’s emotional response as you write?
I try to assume the reader is intelligent and can read between the lines. One of the things I’ve worked on most in redrafting is being more spare, particularly around emotion. I try to leave quite a lot unsaid and hope the reader can pick up what a character is feeling from their behaviour, or from the things they avoid saying. I think that often feels more natural than explaining everything outright.
Readers particularly fell in love with Rose who is, to quote Amanda one last time, “vividly flawed and well drawn”. How would you describe her?
Rose is someone who has been profoundly changed by what’s happened to her. Because much of her history is revealed through flashbacks, we get to see the person she was as well as the person she’s become. She’s very driven by duty and by the instinct to be useful to other people, both in her work and in her personal life, but by the time we meet her she’s beginning to come apart. She has lost people she loves, and with Ash she’s also lost trust in one of the relationships that mattered most to her. Even so, I think Rose is very strong. She can be visibly falling apart and still keep moving forward, and she never really allows herself the luxury of self-pity.
Your manuscript shone out for its polish and complexity. How many drafts did you write and how did you construct the plot?
I wrote the first draft over about eight months, without a plan beyond a sense of who the characters were and a few key beats I wanted to reach. I knew I wanted to weave what had happened to Rose and her family through a present-day investigation in which she was gradually falling apart. I’ve heard people advise against editing heavily as you go, but I do… although given that the first draft still came in at around 140,000 words you might question how effective that was. I then did two further drafts: one to tighten the plot and cut a great deal of overwriting, and another to catch errors and weed out the words and phrases I’d realised I was leaning on far too often.
Where and when do you write?
I’m quite a visual person, and the story tends to play out in my head almost like a film when I’m walking the dog, driving or wandering round the supermarket. By the time I sit down to write in my office, I usually have a fairly clear sense of what needs to go on the page. I don’t think of myself as a night owl, but I’ve definitely realised the words come more easily late at night.
Why did you enter?
I’d been aware of the Bath Novel Award, but had completely lost track of the dates. I suddenly realised there was only about a week left before entries closed and decided I should give it a go. In the end, I submitted on the final night.
Any plans for the £5,000 prize money?
No grand plans yet, although given how many scenes were worked out while walking the dog, it seemed only fair that Sid benefited first. He’s already been treated to a steak.
Lastly, any advice for anyone thinking of entering the Bath Novel Award 2027?
Do it, just don’t leave it until the last hours!
TRACY RICKETT works in technology and lives in Lincolnshire with her family. Child of Necessity is her first novel, sparked by single line of dialogue which lodged in her head while dog walking in the wide open landscapes around Lincoln.
