In medical school I thought that's a good way to murder someone.

Adam Kay on moving away from medicine to write fiction

- BY MATT NIXSON

ADAM Kay has an admission. "I doubt I was the only person who sat in medical school lectures thinking, 'That would be a good way to murder someone'," he grins. "So it was either write about it or take up murdering as a hobby!"

We can all be grateful that the junior doctor turned best-selling author took up the former.

Having walked away from his job in obstetrics and gynaecology 16 years ago in the midst of a crisis of confidence, Adam turned to writing without any great expectations.

Seven years later, This Is Going To Hurt, an honest and darkly funny memoir based on his time working 90-hour weeks in the NHS, sold three million copies and was turned into a Bafta-winning TV drama starring Ben Whishaw.

OUTRAGEOUS

Since then he's juggled stand-up, scriptwriting, more memoirs, campaigning and children's books.

But we're talking today about A Particularly Nasty Case, his debut crime novel which comes out in paperback on Thursday.

It's laugh-out-loud funny, outrageous and gruesome in equal measure - with some passages best read through your fingers - and fans will love it.

Adam's hero Eitan Rose is a bipolar consultant rheumatologist, recently returned to work after a mental health crisis, who copes by ingesting liquid cocaine through an inhaler.

When one of his colleagues dies in slightly mysterious circumstances, Rose is forced to investigate - even though, truth be told, he didn't like the victim all that much.

The problem is, no one else had raised so much as a peep. Adam muses: "But is he onto something or is the pressure of the job getting to him?"

It's not quite cosy crime, but neither is it procedural.