Death In Paradise writer Robert Thorogood inspired by Agatha Christie

For most of Robert Thorogood’s life, the hours he squandered skipping geography classes and reading Agatha Christie while bored at his great aunt’s farm felt like a misspent youth.

But it paid off, when at the age of 37, a TV series he had written first aired on primetime BBC One.

Thorogood’s writing credits had been almost non-existent until the night that Death in Paradise hit the small screen.

The Colchester-born novelist spoke to BBC Upload presenter Rob Jelly ahead of his new spin-off series Return to Paradise.

“I can trace my love and obsession for murder mysteries back to skiving off my Geography lessons and bored at my great aunt’s,” said Thorogood, who is now 52 years old.

“It was Agatha Christie in book form that I first fell in love with and there was an ambition I had that I would write a murder mystery and it would be a novel.

“I thought [at the time] I was just enjoying myself, but it turns out that – that obsessive love – I would be able to monetise later on.”

Roald Dahl and Enid Blyton were also favourites of his and he recalled how he was caught reading Fantastic Mr Fox in geography by his “furious” teacher.

“Mr Fox blew my tiny mind.”

Thorogood studied at the University of Cambridge, but his 20s mostly consisted of dreading the question “how is writing going?”.

He worked at theatre companies and secretarial jobs, but was always writing.

“My 20s were mostly a complete waste of time as my father-in-law will tell you.”

He continued: “But that’s when I grew up because who wants to hear from a white 18-year-old man.

“I had nothing to offer the world. I had no point of view that was of any interest.

“It was only until my 30s that I kind of started to have anything to say.”

Thorogood, now a Sunday Times bestseller, is married to radio broadcaster Katie Breathwick. The pair have two children together.

The father-of-two described his life going from “0 to 100 without any of the intermediate steps” when Death in Paradise premiered.

The “fish-out-of-water” comedy drama has run for 13 series, and has featured decorated TV actors, including Ben Miller as Det Insp Richard Poole, Kris Marshall as Det Humphrey Goodman and Ralph Little as Det Insp Neville Parker.

It is set in the French Caribbean island of Guadeloupe, which is reinvented as the fictional British overseas territory of Saint Marie.

A spin-off show followed – Beyond paradise – co-written by Thorogood and Tony Jordan.

Return to Paradise hits TV screens on 22 November – which is a collaboration between the BBC, Red Planet Pictures and BBC Studios Australia Productions.

Thorogood is continuing to write a book set in his adopted hometown in Buckinghamshire – the fifth instalment of The Marlow Murder Club series.

His earlier books in the series have already been dramatised on TV.

He still romanticises about his days before the writing fame, despite being “very very poor”.

“[It is] the freedom of not being paid or having signed a contract and just being able to express yourself and take risks and to be brave, because you don’t know enough to be fearful,” he said.

“You don’t have to be published, you don’t have to have anything on the TV or the radio.

“You do it and you are it.”