Psychopaths are not monsters, says crime writer Roger Simpson

By Kerrie O'Brien

Roger Simpson has made a career specialising in crime writing, but the veteran screenwriter and producer rarely depicts violence against women. “I don’t like female victims, it makes me cringe,” he says. “Women are in enough trouble as it is without getting entertainment from their suffering and that’s a longstanding attitude, that goes way, way back. But men I seem to dispose of without much trouble,” he adds with a laugh.

TV writer turned novelist Roger Simpson.Credit:James Brickwood

“I don’t like the easy solution of the gun and I don’t like meaningless violence. We live in violent times; that violence needs to be interrogated and understood. I don’t just do it for shock value. I want to know why the character has come to this point in the story.”

Simpson has created 17 series for television, including the long-running Halifax f.p, and its recent sequel, Halifax: Retribution, which aired in 2020. Starring Rebecca Gibney as forensic detective Jane Halifax, the seven-episode sequel was more successful than the original series, garnering a million viewers each episode; it has since been sold to US network PBS.

After five decades in the business, Simpson has just published his first novel. Despite an award-winning career – he has nine Australian Writers Guild AWGIE Awards to his name, plus several others for writing and producing – his name is not well-known outside the industry.

Anthony LaPaglia and Rebecca Gibney in Halifax: Retribution.

He credits Cassandra Di Bello at Simon & Schuster with making the book happen: she approached him and offered a three-book deal, which was “kind of irresistible, if a bit terrifying”.

Now in his 70s, Simpson has made the transition from screen to page seamlessly. The just-released Halifax Transgression – yes, it has Jane Halifax front and centre – is a nail-biter, with graphic, shocking imagery and a fast pace that’s no doubt a legacy of his work in film and television.

The plan is to write a novel a year and he’s clearly relishing the challenge of a new medium. “You get a chance to write the interior world, which you never have the opportunity to with film and television,” Simpson says. “It’s very hard to get inside her head and explain what she’s thinking and what motivates her and the wider reaction to events which affect her personally … you can’t really do that on television.”

Characters are deftly drawn and fleshed out, nuanced and humane. People warm to Halifax because she is interesting, complex and flawed, he says, struggling with her humanity and trying to make sense of the world around her. “The reality of the central character is what gives a show its longevity; if they exist properly, if they are grounded in reality, and you can sense them quickly, everyone they come in touch with is similarly well-developed. On both sides of the law.”

Madeleine West in 2007’s Satisfaction; Callan Mulvey in Bikie Wars: Brothers in Arms (2012) and Rebecca Gibney in Halifax f.p (2018).

He wanted “a female cop or crime fighter and a central character that didn’t have a gun”. That’s what led to forensic psychiatry. Part of what makes Halifax fascinating is her analysis, as she tries to get inside the mind of the perpetrator. The series is always Jane-driven, he says: how is she going to hang on to her humanity in the midst of these horrendous crimes, and what’s the purpose of these crimes. “I write them to totally give some understanding of human nature, even at its worst, and try to put it in the context that it’s as human as any of the other characters in the story.”

Perpetrators of extreme crimes are sometimes depicted one-dimensionally but that’s not his experience. “I’ve been writing cop shows and legal shows all my life and that’s the impression I get. They are not monsters, they are transgressors; as Jane likes to say, we are all transgressors more or less.”

At the end of the novel, Simpson pays tribute to his four children and his late wife and soulmate of 33 years, Sally Irwin, who died last year. “There’s a lot of her in Jane Halifax,” he says. “She’s one of these strong women I’ve been lucky enough to be around.”

Born in Dunedin, he studied law at Auckland University but found himself more interested in writing the student revues; it was then he decided he wanted to write drama. In New Zealand at the time, there was a total of eight hours of drama created for television a year, which is what prompted him to decamp to Australia.

Thanks to those student revue days, theatre remains a strong interest; he’s written a yet to be staged play (which has already been long listed for the National Playwrights Conference). It’s about the interaction between artists Paul Gauguin and Vincent van Gogh, with a focus on the nine hours they spent together before Van Gogh severed his ear. “My first love in writing was for the theatre, then I got kind of kidnapped by television,” he says. “It’s still my first love, I love the place and the interaction of the actors, the daring of the performers, every performance is never quite the same.”

TAKE 7: THE ANSWERS ACCORDING TO ROGER SIMPSON

Television has been the main game, though, with credits including Good Guys, Bad Guys  (1996–1998); police drama Stingers  starring Peter Phelps (1998-2004); rural serial Something In the Air  (2000–2002); teenage sci-fi Silver Sun  (2004–2005); and Satisfaction  (2007–2010), set in a high-class brothel. He also penned the children’s classic Hunter’s Gold and several others for New Zealand television early in his career.

As half of Simpson Le Mesurier, he produced one film, Squizzy Taylor, and series including Nancy Wake, about the WWII hero, the Vietnam-focused Sword of Honour, and Answered by Fire, about East Timor. Writing was always his preferred focus, while partner Roger Le Mesurier took on the producing responsibilities.

Describing himself as “a bit of a gypsy”, Simpson says Australia is home now, even though he spends a lot of time in New Zealand, at his place by Lake Hawea in the south island. “I guess I’m an Aussie – until it comes to the Bledisloe Cup; it helps that the Wallabies have a New Zealand coach.”

Soon after moving here in the 1970s, he landed a writing gig with the legendary Crawford Productions, who created dramas including Matlock Police, Homicide and Division 4. Back then, it wasn’t unusual for him to jump in a squad car or divvy van with police heading to crime scenes to see how they worked. “I’ve been around cops and courts all my working life,” he says. “I actually like cops, I know their job is almost impossible, I have huge respect for them. I like the milieu.”

Crime is one of television’s enduring genres, which makes absolute sense to Simpson, who sees it as “the perfect form”. Since he started, there have been massive changes in the industry, none more so than in the past decade or so with the streaming-led revolution. “The film industry is the one I worry about. People have some big screens in their homes and access to such a variety of programs. It’s the movies they are not going to see; Australia is a reflection of the industry globally,” he says.

“TV is in good shape and only getting better. The proliferation of streaming services is good for us – we’re not so anxious about foreign countries coming in and stealing our time. That breakthrough has been achieved; it took a long time to get there.”

Halifax Trangression is out now via Simon & Schuster.

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