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Cozy Mystery, Historical Mystery, Mystery, Mystery & Suspense

Mystery & Suspense Mystery Historical Mystery Cozy Mystery

Inspector Gamache, John Rebus and Bruno Courrèges are back—and they’re all in top form

Plus, Colleen Cambridge gifts readers with another clever mystery starring Phyllida Bright, housekeeper to none other than Agatha Christie.

Mystery, Mystery & Suspense

Mystery & Suspense Mystery

Murder Town

Shelley Burr’s rural Australia-set mystery Murder Town explores an intriguing angle of true crime fandom: so-called “dark tourism” of serial killer-related sites.

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Mystery, Mystery & Suspense

Mystery & Suspense Mystery

P.D. James

Interview by Cat, Deputy Editor

by Cat, Deputy Editor

What happens when one of contemporary crime fiction's most celebrated authors takes on one of the most beloved classics of all time? Find out in Death Comes to Pemberley, wherein celebrated writer P.D. James lays a mystery at the Darcys' doorstep. We asked the British author a few questions about her latest project—and whether there might be more adventures in Austen in store.

Was it difficult to write about murder while preserving an Austen-esque narrative tone?
After finishing my last detective novel, The Private Patient, I had at the back of my mind the idea of combining my two lifelong enthusiasms, for writing detective fiction and for the novels of Jane Austen, by writing a sequel to Pride and Prejudice which would examine the success of the Darcy’s marriage and also be a credible mystery. I am so steeped in the language of Jane Austen that it was not difficult to reproduce her narrative tone, although in my novel this is less apparent in the second part when I am dealing with violent events, which she, of course, never included in her work.

How did working with another author's already established characters differ from creating your own characters?
For me the creation of character is the chief satisfaction of writing a novel, and I have never previously either used or wanted to use the character of another writer. The main difference with Death Comes to Pemberley is that I was developing my own understanding of Jane Austen’s characters and providing some explanation for events in the original novel which I found perplexing, including the reason why Darcy placed a shy 15-year-old sister, Georgiana, who had lost her mother, in the sole care of a woman like Mrs Younge.

What do you think that crime novels and novels about social mores like Austen’s have in common?
The crime novel should to some extent be a novel about social mores and we often learn more from crime fiction about the age and mores in which it is set then we do from more prestigious literature. For example, if we really want to know what it was like to work in an office in London between the two world wars, we read Murder Must Advertise by Dorothy L. Sayers, which tells us more than many social histories would.

Have you read any of the other sequels to Jane Austen’s novels or watched any of the film adaptations? If so, do you have a favorite?
I have not ready any sequels to Jane Austen’s novels. I have watched film and television adaptations of her books and my favourite is the BBC’s serialization of Pride and Prejudice, which I thought was brilliantly done.

Who do you think would make a better husband: Darcy or Bingley?
Darcy for Elizabeth, Bingley for Jane.

Why do you think Austen’s novels have such resonance with readers today? What do you most admire about her work?
Her style, her wit, her humour, her humanity, her ability to create character and to bring to life a small community of generally civilized people in rural England in the early 19th century.

Would you consider writing other Austen sequels? Might death come to Emma's Highbury or Sense and Sensibility's Barton Cottage?
No. Writing Death Comes to Pemberley gave me great pleasure which, it seems, many readers are sharing, but I have no intention of writing a further sequel, either to another of Austen’s books or to any other novel.

Mystery & Suspense, Suspense

Mystery & Suspense Suspense

Neal Baer & Jonathan Greene

Interview by Michael Burgin

by Michael Burgin

Neal Baer and Jonathan Greene have worked on popular shows like “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit” and “ER,” but Kill Switch marks their long-form fiction debut. The novel centers on forensic psychiatrist Claire Waters and NYPD detective Nick Lawler. Troubled by a traumatic event from deep in her past, Waters finds herself at the epicenter of a serial killer’s rampage. We contacted Baer and Greene for the scoop on their brilliant new heroine and writing as a team.

What do you think readers will like most about Claire Waters?
Her courage and vulnerability. Readers will find that Claire’s quest for the truth evolves into a journey to discover her own truth, a deep look into her soul. In the face of severe adversity, her ability to finally tap into her fears is what eventually leads her to not just solve the crime, but to begin to answer the question we all ask ourselves: “Who am I?” How we can live with a tragedy that shakes and perhaps scars our soul?

You two have worked together for a long time. How does your collaborative process work?
Nine years ago we developed an idea for a feature film, using all the characters in the novel. Years later, our book agent, Lydia Wills, asked us if we had a medical thriller and it so happens we had the movie outline, which ultimately became the outline for the novel. Our process is one of writing and constantly rewriting. We spend hours together talking through the plot points, writing and rewriting the outline and then writing the chapters. Jon wrote the first chapters and Neal rewrote them. In the last third we alternated writing and rewriting each other’s chapters.

What was the biggest challenge you encountered in adapting a movie outline into a book?
The biggest challenge is that an outline for a movie is based on scenes. What the characters think and feel, see and hear, is played out through dialogue and screen direction as interpreted by the director and actors. Writing a novel, however, was liberating. We were free to write what the characters are thinking—which of course you can’t do in a movie script, unless you rely on voiceover. In writing a novel, one has complete control over the characters—there are no actors, directors, cinematographers, art directors. Everything is presented through words. It’s a challenge, and it’s exhilarating to have the freedom to create a story for a medium that does not rely on others to carry out your vision.

It’s exhilarating to have the freedom to create a story for a medium that does not rely on others to carry out your vision.

What kind of research did you do in order to write your book?
Neal: As a pediatrician, I’m interested in medical ethics and the question of how far we should take biological research, especially as it allows us to do things that were once considered unimaginable. For instance, should we concoct viruses that combine the most lethal elements of, say, smallpox and ebola? Should we clone children? Where does research cross an ethical line? In light of these interests, I contacted Dr. Alfred Goldberg, a molecular biologist at Harvard Medical School, which I attended, to help us better understand research in apoptosis or programmed cell death, a real area of burgeoning interest not only to biologists but also to physicians, because it may hold the answers in treating and curing cancer.

Lawler’s character suffers from a relatively rare degenerative vision disorder. Did that come from any particular personal experience?
Neal: Yes, I have a sibling with retinitis pigmentosa, so I’m well aware of the emotional and physical problems it poses, how it affects one’s life and the lives of loved ones.

The principal protagonists of Kill Switch—Dr. Claire Waters and NYPD detective Nick Lawler—get off to a rocky start, yet by book’s end they have not come completely full circle to the more intimate relationship a reader might expect. Is this “taking it slow” for benefit of the series arc, or does it suggest Lawler might not be featured as prominently in future books?
What we’ve found over the years, especially in our work on "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit," is that the best and most entertaining drama doesn’t wrap things up in neat little packages at the end. Based on the emotional trauma Claire suffers through her journey, we thought it would be unrealistic for her to start a romantic relationship with Nick by the end of this book. As for their future together, readers will have wait for the next installment.

When writing the book, did you ever feel the need to navigate around the specter of Clarice Starling (the main character from 1988’s The Silence of the Lambs) in your portrayal of Claire Waters?
No. Clarice Starling is a very different character from Claire Waters; most notably Clarice comes from a law enforcement family and has been trained as an FBI agent, whereas Claire is the child of a physicist and biology teacher. Claire is thrown into a situation she never dreamed of and finds herself having to engage the help of a cop to stop a serial killer. The only similarity is that the both have first names that start with the letters CLA.

Kill Switch is promoted as the first of a series. How far have you gone in the process of writing future entries?
We are currently outlining the second book in the series.

What’s next for Claire Waters?
Without giving anything away, she’ll be faced with another mystery that will test her abilities as a forensic psychiatrist and put her in grave danger.

Though Kill Switch marks a transition for you both from television to print, how likely are we to see Claire Waters and Nick Lawler on screen—big or small—in the future?
We hope to be able to announce this soon. Stay tuned.

Are there any authors or series that you’d cite as inspirations for Kill Switch?
Jon: I’ve been a voracious reader my whole life, starting with mostly non-fiction (true crime, medical, political, biography) until someone gave me my first Robert Ludlum novel, The Chancellor Manuscript, when I was high school, and from there I was hooked. I quickly devoured The Matarese Circle (what I think is Ludlum’s finest work) and The Bourne Identity. That led me to other authors: James Patterson, Thomas Harris, David Baldacci to name just a few. The last thriller I read (and I consider this a thriller) was Michael Chabon’s The Yiddish Policeman’s Union, which I couldn’t put down.

Neal: I’m a die-hard movie fan so I am drawn to Hitchcock—any Hitchcock film, but particularly Vertigo—and film noir. You’ll find many allusions to these films, such as character names, quotes and even anagrams, in the book.

What are your favorite activities to do when you aren’t writing?
Jon: Anything involving my children, playing the piano and singing (not publicly), reading, tennis, catching up on all the great films I haven’t seen, both new and old.

Neal: Making documentary films; working with social entrepreneurs on projects to improve the world; solving the New York Times crossword puzzle, particularly on Fridays and Saturdays.

Mystery & Suspense, Suspense

Mystery & Suspense Suspense

7 questions with . . . Taylor Stevens

Interview by Cat, Deputy Editor

by Cat, Deputy Editor

Writing 101 typically dictates, “Write what you know.” This was never so true as for Taylor Stevens, whose second Vanessa Michael Munroe novel, The Innocent, is featured in our January 2012 Whodunit column.

In The Innocent, Munroe heads down to Argentina to infiltrate a dangerous religious cult called “The Chosen” to rescue a hostage. It’s an intense read on its own, made all the more interesting by the author’s own experiences. Stevens was raised in a cult very similar to “The Chosen,” known as the Children of God. She gives a frank rundown of her nomadic childhood on her website.

BookPage chatted with Stevens about growing up in the Children of God, becoming a writer and what comes next for her sexy, jet-setting heroine.

Describe your book in one sentence.
Vanessa Michael Munroe is approached by a group of cult survivors—each one harboring an ulterior motive—to infiltrate the environment in which they were raised, and rescue a kidnapped child.

The “Chosen” cult hits very close to home for you. Was this a difficult book to write? Why or why not?
I’ve come to terms and made my peace with my unusual childhood. I wouldn’t say that drawing upon it was easy, but it certainly wasn’t as difficult as it otherwise might have been. More than anything, this story seemed like a perfect opportunity to showcase more of Vanessa Michael Munroe’s skill and badassery while at the same time offering readers access to a firsthand account of cult life that most thriller writers don’t have.

What was your favorite book growing up?
Sadly, I didn’t have much opportunity to read fiction while growing up. The Children of God (the apocalyptic religious cult into which I was born) believed education beyond sixth grade was a waste of time and didn’t allow access to television and books from the outside. I did attend public school sporadically between grades one through six, and it was then that I discovered Trixie Belden, Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys, which I loved. I guess you could say those were my favorite books, but I didn’t have much to compare them against, either.

What is the most important thing you have learned about writing?
That every reader brings a portion of themselves to the story, so the actions and motives of both writer and characters will be interpreted in as many different ways as there are readers. Therefore, the only way to write an honest story is to write for yourself, from your soul, and leave the rest to fate.

If you could spend one day in Munroe’s shoes, what would you do?
If I was answering this question in front of a live audience, I’d deadpan and say, “kill people.” Joke, of course, but since that sort of humor doesn’t carry well in writing, um, if I could spend a day in her shoes I’d probably visit a country like Colombia, which I’m too chicken to visit in real life, but where I would love the opportunity to spend time if given half a chance.

Name one bad habit you have no intention of breaking.
Oh, this is such a difficult question because one man’s virtue is another man’s sin. A “bad habit” I wish I could indulge in more often is that of being very late to bed and very late to rise. Although I do a really good job of putting on a game face, I’ve discovered that I am so not a morning person.

What’s next for Munroe?
In the third Munroe novel, which is currently titled The Doll, Munroe is thrust into a world of human trafficking and sexual slavery, forced to deliver a missing Hollywood starlet to a client in order to keep the ones she loves alive. In succeeding she’ll guarantee the young girl’s demise and so is forced to choose who lives, who dies, or find a way to outthink and outsmart a man who holds all the cards. Otherwise, win or lose, Munroe will pay her dues in the only currency she values: innocent life.

Writing 101 typically dictates, "Write what you know." This was never so true as for Taylor Stevens, whose second Vanessa Michael Munroe novel, The Innocent, is featured in our January 2012 Whodunit column. In The Innocent, Munroe heads down to Argentina to infiltrate a…

Mystery, Mystery & Suspense

Mystery & Suspense Mystery

Josh Bazell: We’re all about to die

Interview by Cat, Deputy Editor

by Cat, Deputy Editor

Josh Bazell’s first novel, Beat the Reaper, introduced readers to Pietro Brnwa, a former mob hitman who’s doing his best to turn his life around in a New York hospital—but finds it difficult with his patients trying to kill him.

Casually violent and consistently hilarious, sequel Wild Thing doesn’t make Brnwa’s life any easier. He has been hired as a bodyguard to paleontologist (and sexual demigoddess) Dr. Violet Hurst, and they’re headed into the Boundary Waters to investigate an urban legend on a killing spree. Tied up in their endlessly entertaining backwoods adventure is the promise that humans are all about to die, whether it be from the oil crisis, global warming or meddling billionaires.

And so, Bazell’s just the guy we wanted to talk to . . .

Beat the Reaper gave shape to Pietro Brnwa by providing plenty of backstory and flashbacks, but Wild Thing tends to use the present to foreshadow our sad future. Do you think this story is more about Pietro or a message?

I’m not personally that emotional about the fact that humans are rapidly making the only planet we’ll ever have unfit for humans. Or even that so many people who should or do know better are contributing to the process for short-term profit. Humans are mortal, so why shouldn’t the human race be? But with Pietro I’m always looking for situations in which the corrupt are leading the naïve to slaughter, and climate-change denial clearly is one.

Thanks to your handy footnotes, Beat the Reaper dove into problems with the healthcare system. And thanks to those footnotes and sources, Wild Thing is much more than a literary thriller—it’s a warning, focusing on the steps we are taking to our own demise. Do you plan to continue to use Pietro to delve into major issues?

Like I say, for me it’s more about a character responding to corrupt situations. In Beat the Reaper, I hit Pietro with the mob and the healthcare industry. Here I hit him with con artists and politicians. He’s a fun character to do that kind of thing to, because he thinks he’s completely cynical but in reality he has enough idealism left to find out again and again that the world is even worse than he thought. At least as long as anyone cares, and probably well past that point, I’ll keep doing it to him.

Pietro has enough idealism left to find out again and again that the world is even worse than he thought.

Wild Thing moves away from the medical thriller genre, as here Pietro is more bodyguard than doctor. Do you have plans for Pietro to be a doctor again?

There’s a lot more medicine in the next one. But it’s still very different from both Wild Thing and Beat the Reaper.

Speaking of those footnotes, have they always been a part of your writing style, or is this something that you developed for Pietro’s stories?

I use footnotes with Pietro because I found them in so many mob memoirs, usually as a disingenuous “reformed” voice occasionally interrupting the gloating nostalgia that mobsters always have for the time when anyone respected them. With Pietro the footnotes aren’t meant to be exactly that, but they are meant to provide a later, more reflective viewpoint from which Pietro can comment on the action.

To avoid spoilers, I won’t name the well-known political figure who makes an appearance in Wild Thing (with a sword). Going into the story, readers will probably have a strong view of this person—either extremely positive or extremely negative. Why did you include a character about which people already have a strongly formed opinion?

If that’s the only thing people have strong opinions about that they feel annoyed at Wild Thing for bringing up, I’ll have failed.

Is your intended audience for Wild Thing the same as for Beat the Reaper?

I’m not quite smart enough to figure out what people want to read and replicate it, so I tend to be stuck figuring out what I want to read and replicating that. I do sometimes explain references that I worry will be too obscure for anyone else to understand. But only sometimes. On the plus side, I almost always like people who like my books.

What is it about Minnesota that seems to incite murder in so many books?

Whom the gods would destroy they first give lots of exportable natural resources. Is my guess.

Your sources are extensive and seem to come from every direction—what is your research process?

These days the challenge seems more to be to stop researching, particularly from low-grade sources on Opinionmart, I mean the Internet. For Wild Thing I tried to mostly use physical books. Not only do they usually involve one person trying to present a complete argument and the evidence for it in one place at whatever length is required, but they’re so damn quaint.

Is there one urban legend that you like to believe in?

That doing what you love leads to success.

Josh Bazell's first novel, Beat the Reaper, introduced readers to Pietro Brnwa, a former mob hitman who's doing his best to turn his life around in a New York hospital—but finds it difficult with his patients trying to kill him. Casually violent…

Mystery, Mystery & Suspense

Mystery & Suspense Mystery

7 questions with . . . William Landay

Interview by Cat, Deputy Editor

by Cat, Deputy Editor

Whodunit columnist Bruce Tierney reads more than his share of creepy books, so when he says a novel is sure to be “one of the most disturbing books of the year,” he means it. Defending Jacob, the third novel from former assistant district attorney William Landay, is our February 2012 Mystery of the Month. This is one book you won’t forget.

BookPage chatted with Landay about writing, his opinion of neckties and much more.

Describe your book in one sentence.
Andy Barber is a contented husband and father, and the top trial lawyer in the DA’s office, until his teenage son Jacob is accused of murder, forcing Andy to decide: How far would I go to defend my child? (That’s a horrible sentence, but then it had to do a lot of work. Forgive me, writing gods!)

What is the best part about being a writer?
There are two. First, the very rare occasions when my kids, who are now 8 and 10, seem to think it’s cool to have a writer for a dad. Second—and this will sound hokey, I know—getting to spend your days creating great books that will long outlive you. (Also, third, no neckties.)

What has been the proudest moment in your career?
The next book, always the next one. I never look back.

Name one book you think everyone should read.?
The Great Gatsby. I know, I know: You read it in high school. But read it again. To me, it’s still the Greatest (so far) American Novel. One of the few novels I read over and over, just for the beauty of the writing.

Of all the characters you’ve ever written, which is your favorite?
Probably Andy Barber. Not because he is a superhero. He isn’t. He is badly flawed, in fact. But because he loves his child unreasonably and is absolutely unshakable in his devotion to him. What child wouldn’t like to think his father would stick by him no matter what?

What is your favorite movie based on a book?
The Godfather, but there is lots of competition.

What are you working on now?
I try never to talk about books in progress. It’s bad luck. But briefly, the new book is the flip side of Defending Jacob: An ordinary family is struck by violence, only this time the story is told from the point of view of the victim’s family. That may sound like a grim premise, but the story is actually very hopeful. It suggests we are all much stronger, much tougher than we know. We are all survivors. We have only to be put to the test—though I hope, of course, that none of us ever will be.

Whodunit columnist Bruce Tierney reads more than his share of creepy books, so when he says a novel is sure to be "one of the most disturbing books of the year," he means it. Defending Jacob, the third novel from former assistant district attorney William…

Fiction, Mystery & Suspense, Suspense

Mystery & Suspense Fiction Suspense

Chris Pavone

Interview by Jay MacDonald

by Jay MacDonald

How well do you know your spouse? Or your best friends? Even if the thought never occurred to you, it will by the time you’re halfway through The Expats, Chris Pavone’s clever debut spy novel that’s suspenseful enough for a man yet introspective enough for a woman.

Here’s the setup: Kate Moore has been working undercover for the CIA for 15 years, the last five as a working mother with two young boys. The problem is, she never quite got around to telling her computer geek husband Dexter about it. All these years, he assumed she was working overtime at a mundane administrative job when she was actually begging off social engagements in order to dispatch drug lords in Central America.

When Dexter lands a lucrative consulting job in data security for an unnamed bank in Luxembourg, Kate jumps at the chance to quit the Agency, leave her double life behind and start anew as a stay-at-home expat mom. The Moores soon hit it off with charismatic expat couple Bill and Julia, whose past strikes Kate as suspiciously homogenized. Now that Dexter is traveling more, Kate begins to sense something different about him as well. Or is it just her? It turns out you can take the girl out of the spy game but you can’t take the spy out of the girl.

The result is that rarity in the genre: a spy novel virtually devoid of espionage (unless you count the domestic variety) and violence (save for flashbacks to Kate’s previous wet work). Instead, the suspense, and an endearing humor that spouses will appreciate, builds almost entirely from Kate’s internal dialogue as she slowly peels back the layers of artifice in her life.

The funny thing is, Pavone didn’t set out to write a spy novel.

Like Kate, he’d jumped at the chance to experience the expat life. After working half his life as a nonfiction book editor and ghostwriter in New York, Pavone welcomed the news when his wife took a job offer in Luxembourg.

“I thought, this is great! I’d never lived anywhere else except New York and I felt a little disappointed in myself; I didn’t even do a junior year abroad,” he recalls. “I was turning 40, our marriage was turning 10, and I thought, this is a great thing to do, let’s do it.”

"I think most people have no idea what their spouses do all day long."

After a lifetime smothered in manuscripts, Pavone was suddenly Mr. Mom to their twin four-year-old boys in a leafy foreign park filled almost exclusively with expat moms. Having never written or edited fiction before, he began distilling this rich new life into a novel. And it was going nowhere.

“As I was writing that book, it bored me,” he says. “I really liked the setup and the characters I was constructing but I just didn’t like the story I found myself telling. There was not enough that I could imagine happening that was going to make it into a satisfying read to me.”

Then one day he was sitting on a park bench beside an expat housewife who made very clear that she had no intention of discussing her past.

“I got to thinking, what if this woman did something horrible?” Pavone recalls. “I moved abroad because my wife got a job and I was bored and that’s the standard reason, but there could be lots of other reasons to move abroad, to change your life entirely. And it amused me to think that maybe this woman used to be a spy. Which led me to, what if my main character actually was this person with this secret that she was keeping, not only from all of her new friends but also her husband?”

As a result of that chance meeting, Pavone revised his work in progress. Changing Kate into an ex-spy both amped up the plot of The Expats and added layers of meaning to her journey. After all, once her past was a well-guarded secret, the same could apply to her friends and husband as well.

“Part of the theme that I hope comes through in the book is that marriage is a continuum of honesty and deception, and the reality of people’s relationships is not something that outsiders can understand,” Pavone says.

“I don’t mean to sound dire or dour about marriage; I enjoy mine immensely. But the truth is, I only know what my wife does all day long because we work in the same business. I think most people have no idea what their spouses do all day long. It’s not a question of adultery I’m talking about, but just the reality that you live this life of 40, 50, 60 hours a week doing something completely divorced from your family and it’s possible that it’s just completely not what the other person thought it would be.”

Once he’d cracked open the plot, did he consider changing Kate’s gender?

“The reason I didn’t want it to be a male was because, if I made the protagonist a male in this book populated by women, then that’s what the book would be about in a lot of readers’ eyes,” he explains. “The whole thing would be about a guy in this women’s world and I didn’t really want that to be what the book is about. It would have appeared overtly political, either a joke or something too earnest, and I didn’t want it to be either of those things. I wanted it to be a much more universal story.”

Pavone says that while Kate will return one day, she won’t be in the follow-up.

For now, he’s satisfied to have produced a genre rarity: The Spy Who Came in From the Park.

“It is a woman’s spy book in a lot of ways. It’s got a woman on the cover and I hope that women will come to it. I hope that men will read it too because men read the bulk of spy books, but I think that this is a book for women as well.”

Mystery, Mystery & Suspense, Suspense

Mystery & Suspense Suspense Mystery

7 questions with . . . Michael Robotham

Interview by Cat, Deputy Editor

by Cat, Deputy Editor

BookPage’s March 2012 Mystery of the Month is Michael Robotham’s newest nail-biter, Bleed for Me. Writes Whodunit columnist Bruce Tierney, “Bleed for Me works on many levels, combining the insights of a trained psychologist; the savvy street smarts and irreverent observations of a retired cop; and intricate plotting from a first-rate author.”

BookPage had the pleasure of chatting with Robotham about books, evil spirits and much more.

Describe your book in one sentence.
A decorated detective lies dead on his daughter’s bedroom floor, but psychologist Joe O’Loughlin refuses to accept that traumatised teenager is guilty of murder and believes the real killer is manipulating her.

Where do you write?
I recently moved house, which has meant a change of writing location. Previously, I had an office in the basement, which my daughters referred to as “Dad’s pit of despair.” My new writing room is on the mezzanine level. They’ve been trying to come up with a new name. The best so far is “Dad’s mezzanine of misery.”

What are your favorite scenes to write?
I loved writing the scenes where Joe O’Loughlin is talking to his own teenage daughter, Charlie, trying to uncover her secrets and understand her motives:

She’s telling me I don’t understand. I’ll never understand. I’m old. I’m stupid. I have no taste in clothes or music or friends. I don’t own the right language to talk to her. I don’t dread the same things or dream the same dreams. I’m losing touch with her, caught in that place between being a father and a friend or an authority figure.

Meanwhile, she’s seeking independence, wanting her own government, laws and budget like a separate nation state. Whenever I try to avoid conflict, choosing diplomacy instead, she keeps massing her troops at the border, accusing me of spying or sabotaging her life.

Would you make a good detective?
My mother always wanted me to be a detective, which is a strange ambition for a mother to have for her son. I think I would have been quite good at piecing together puzzles, but hopeless at the dangerous stuff and frustrated at the deal making. In fiction I can write the ending. In real life we don’t have that sort of freedom or control.

Name one book people might be surprised to know you have read.
Hollywood Wives by Jackie Collins. (As a young journalist, aged 22, I interviewed Jackie when she was promoting Hollywood Wives in Australia. She signed my book, “To Michael, you give great interview!”)

Of all the characters you’ve ever written, which is your favorite?
Joe O’Loughlin is probably the most autobiographical in the sense that we’re both about the same age. We both have daughters. We have similar views politically and socially. He’s a far braver version of me. He’s more just and more patient. I love all my characters but do some terrible things to them. Maybe I’m warding off my own evil spirits.

What are you working on next?
I’m putting the finishing touches to another dark psychological thriller called Say You’re Sorry, which features psychologist Joe O’Loughin and former detective Vincent Ruiz. Two teenage girls disappear from a small town and create a mystery that remains unsolved for three years until one of the girls turns up dead, having perished in a blizzard. She’s been alive all this time, which begs the question: where is her friend?

BookPage's March 2012 Mystery of the Month is Michael Robotham's newest nail-biter, Bleed for Me. Writes Whodunit columnist Bruce Tierney, "Bleed for Me works on many levels, combining the insights of a trained psychologist; the savvy street smarts and irreverent observations of a retired…

Mystery & Suspense, Suspense

Mystery & Suspense Suspense

Alison Gaylin

Interview by Eliza Borné

by Eliza Borné

A series protagonist can almost feel like family to a diehard suspense fan, so it’s exciting when an author introduces a new character. In And She Was, readers meet Brenna Spector, a missing persons investigator with an unusual ability: Brenna has Hyperthymestic Syndrome, a rare, real-life condition that causes a person to have a perfect autobiographical memory. Brenna can precisely remember every detail from her life with all of her senses—a disorder that kicked in when she was a child and her little sister disappeared.

In And She Was, the first book in a new series, Brenna is called to investigate the disappearance of Carol Wentz, an adult. Carol’s case is connected with the disappearance of a young girl, Iris, that happened years before—and with Brenna’s own painful history. This fast-paced story includes flashbacks that highlight Brenna’s incredible memory, a fascinating characteristic that inspired BookPage to get in touch with author Alison Gaylin. Here, Gaylin talks about her discovery of this unusual medical condition—and whether it’s a blessing or a curse to unavoidably remember everything.

How did you learn about Hyperthymestic Syndrome, and why do you find it fascinating?

I read a magazine article on someone who had Hyperthymestic Syndrome, and I was amazed. I went online and found some medical journal articles about it, and learned that the first case had been diagnosed in 2006 (at most a year before I’d seen the article)—and that there were only a handful of known cases in the world. Having a pretty good memory myself, my first response was, “That must be awful!” I honestly think that the ability to forget—to let the past fade into soft focus and recede in your mind—is one of the great tools of survival. How can you forgive and forget if you can’t forget? How can you move on at all, if the past is just as clear and visceral as the present? How can you truly be with the people around you, if your mind is full of everyone who is no longer in your life?

What was the most surprising thing you learned about this condition?

How can you forgive and forget if you can’t forget?

The woman in the case study I read compared the syndrome to a movie playing constantly in her head. That’s what I found the most surprising about the condition—and also one of the biggest challenges as a writer: the lack of control over memories and the past constantly intruding on the present.

Do you think the ability to remember every moment from your life is something to covet—or fear?

I think it’s both. Remembering painful experiences in perfect detail would be very hard on the emotions. But by the same token, if I were to be able to relive certain days from my daughter’s early childhood, for example—or some of the wonderful times I spent with my dad, who passed away 10 years ago—I’d consider that a real gift. With that type of memory, you could keep special experiences—or people—alive in your mind forever.

Brenna can remember any moment from her past with all of her senses. Which of your senses is the strongest? Is one most valuable to you as a writer?

I’d say my sense of hearing. I can’t sing to save my soul, but I’m a huge fan of all types of music. And like many writers, I’m a really good listener and a huge eavesdropper. I often take things I’ve overheard and build stories around them.

What was your process for plotting And She Was? You must have been very organized to include all the flashbacks!

The thing is, I’m not a naturally organized person—which I should have thought of before deciding to write a series about a character with perfect memory! I do love to plot, though, and plotting this book was a huge challenge. I tried outlining, but that didn’t really work. What worked best for this book was multiple timelines, with dates: I had one for Clea’s disappearance, one for Iris’s disappearance 11 years ago and another for Carol Wentz’s disappearance, which Brenna is investigating now. (And by “now,” I mean 2009. Sigh.) I wrote the book with all the timelines in front of me and tried to find ways to make all of them mesh. And still, I had tons of rearranging to do in my second draft.

There are many iconic series protagonists in crime fiction. Do you have a personal favorite?

Does it sound too cliché to say Sherlock Holmes? I loved those books as a kid and still stand in awe of his powers of deduction.

What’s next for Brenna Spector?

What starts as an investigation of a missing webcam girl becomes Brenna’s most personal—and dangerous—case, as she comes closer to solving the mystery of her sister’s disappearance.

What would you be your dream job if you weren’t writing suspense fiction?

Either travel writer or restaurant critic, for purely selfish reasons.

Mystery, Mystery & Suspense

Mystery & Suspense Mystery

Owen Laukkanen

Interview by Eliza Borné

by Eliza Borné

Owen Laukkanen’s debut novel, The Professionals, has a clever concept and a breakneck pace. Four recent grads, unsatisfied with the job market, have started kidnapping businessmen to pay the bills; their ringleader is Arthur Pender. To avoid getting caught, they do their research and ask for low ransoms from executives who can afford it. When they accidentally kidnap a man connected to the Mafia, though, their plans are shattered and they must run for their lives, pursued by the mob and the law in the form of Minnesota state investigator Kirk Stevens and FBI agent Carla Windermere.

The first in a series starring Stevens and Windermere, The Professionals is a page-turner from an exciting new talent—who, turns out, has an interesting (not illegal) work history of his own. BookPage talked to Laukkanen about bad guys, professional crime and what a college grad can do to get a paycheck . . . besides kidnapping.

You were previously a poker journalist, and now you work as a commercial fisherman—in addition to writing your thriller series. What’s the riskiest career option: playing poker, fishing or writing fiction?
Great question! Fishing, writing and card playing are all tough ways to make a living, but with writing, at least, the money tends to dwindle, rather than flat-out disappear. In poker and fishing, there's always the chance that luck will lay a beating on you, and in those instances it's very easy to lose tremendous sums of money very, very quickly.

Fishing, meanwhile, combines those high financial stakes with the very real possibility that you'll injure yourself, or, well, die. It's riskier than poker, but a heck of a lot more fun than hanging out in a casino, and you can take plenty of time off to write.

Who do you personally consider the “bad guys” in your novel—the mafia, the kidnappers, the rich guys who get kidnapped . . . or the FBI?
I wrote The Professionals with Arthur Pender and his gang as my de facto protagonists, and though I knew they would tangle with law enforcement sooner or later, I wanted someone a bit darker and more malevolent to act as the true antagonist. I think D'Antonio (the mafia hitman) is the bad guy. The rich guys whom Pender kidnaps aren't bad, I don't think, though from where Pender's standing they sure seem like the enemy.

Pender’s attached to the idea of being a professional criminal because the professionals don’t get caught.

What career advice would you give a group of recent college graduates who are frustrated with the job market?
Learn a trade. There's this idea that every smart kid in the world needs to go to college to succeed at life, but I really don't see any shame in becoming a plumber or a pipefitter or anything like that. Where I live, at least, there are still plenty of jobs for skilled tradespeople.

For those of us dead set on our arts degrees, though, I think an open mind and a willingness to relocate are pretty important. There are still a lot of fun jobs out there; they might just be in Alaska or Texas and not down the street.

I would not advise anyone to turn to crime, particularly kidnapping!

What is the most interesting thing you learned in your research for this novel?
That's another great question, and I'm not sure there's any one thing that stands out as particularly mind-blowing. I quite enjoyed the research aspect of the book; my Google searches on any given day could range from offshore banking regulations to Miami Beach hotels to the various model variations of a TEC-9 machine pistol. It was eclectic and all of it pretty fascinating.

I was also reading David Simon's incredible nonfiction book Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets as I wrote The Professionals. It chronicles one year in the life of the Baltimore PD homicide division, and as a primer for anyone interested in police work, it's indispensible. I leaned on it pretty heavily when it came time to capture the mindset of my cops in, say, an interrogation scene.

Who are your favorite suspense authors? Why were you attracted to write in this genre?
I'll admit to approaching this book with a pretty dim understanding of the ins and outs of crime fiction as a genre. I knew that I liked writers like James Ellroy, Cormac McCarthy and Nelson DeMille, and especially Raymond Chandler and Ian Fleming, but I wouldn't have known how to categorize them, and I wouldn't say I write like them, either.

Really, it was as much movies as it was books that attracted me to the genre. I watched a lot of movies growing up, and I wanted to write something action-packed and fast-moving and stylish, like the films I loved as a teenager.

So action movies and, in all seriousness, gangster rap, led me to write crime.

Nowadays, I read a lot more suspense fiction. I really admire Lee Child's facility with language, and I think Alafair Burke is almost criminally underrated. I also really, really like John McFetridge's stuff; he's a Toronto writer whose books don't really qualify as suspense fiction, but they're great crime sagas nonetheless.

Which of your four main characters—Pender, Sawyer, Mouse or Marie—do you most identify with?
I can see a lot of myself in Pender's character, especially the neurotic side that keeps him up late worrying about what it means to be a professional. Pender's also a dreamer, and he's willing to take risks to turn those dreams into reality. I'm not about to kidnap anybody, but I'm not averse to taking chances to seek out the kind of life I want to lead.

What does it mean to be a “professional” criminal, and why is Pender so attached to this idea?
I think Pender's attached to the idea of being a professional criminal because the professionals don't get caught. In Pender's mind, a professional is patient and fastidious; greed and carelessness end careers in his line of work.

Professional criminals, in Pender's mind, are also able to follow the logical course at all times—emotions and circumstance be damned. He's a human being, though, and it's the struggle between logic and emotion that really starts to test him as the book progresses.

What’s next for Stevens and Windermere?
Plenty, I hope! As I write this, I've just sent my editor a round of revisions for the second Stevens and Windermere novel, which takes place a year after the Pender case, and finds our two heroes having fallen largely out of contact. A bank robbery with an unlikely villain brings them together again, while threatening to plunge the Twin Cities into terror and mayhem. We spend a lot more time with Windermere and kind of peel back her veneer of invincibility; I had a lot of fun revisiting her character and expanding her personality beyond the enigmatic young hotshot we see in The Professionals.

And with book two nearing completion, I'm drafting a third Stevens and Windermere novel that will see them back on the road chasing still more bad guys. With any luck I'll be writing about my two Minnesota cops for years to come.

Mystery, Mystery & Suspense

Mystery & Suspense Mystery

7 questions with . . . Jens Lapidus

Interview by Cat, Deputy Editor

by Cat, Deputy Editor

If you thought Scandinavian thrillers couldn’t get any better, think again. Swedish criminal defense lawyer Jens Lapidus makes his English-language debut with Easy Money, the first in the Stockholm Noir trilogy and our April 2012 Mystery of the Month. Whodunit columnist Bruce Tierney calls it “hands-down the best gangster thriller in years.”

Lapidus talked to us about writing, great books and the criminal mind.

Describe your book in one sentence.
Three men pursue money, status and power in a dark and brutal account of the Stockholm underworld, with nary a comforting Swedish cop in sight.

What’s the best writing advice you’ve ever received?
Dennis Lehane told me once that you should write what you yourself would love to read. It is perhaps a cliche in the writers handbook, but the reason it’s a cliche is because it’s true, as Lloyd Cole puts it.

Name one book you think everyone should read.
I don’t think there are such books. However, I could mention Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky. When the main character, Raskolnikov, puts his philosophical theory to the ultimate test of murder, one of the most tragic tales of suffering and redemption I ever read is unfolding.

What is the best part about being a writer?
I still work full time as a criminal defense lawyer, which is a pretty rigid job, full of laws and rules to follow. For me, writing is the opposite. I set the rules and can be my own judge. This is a good balance, a bit of Yin and Yang, so to speak.

If you were a character in a crime novel, would you rather play the role of criminal or detective?
You won’t find many detectives in my books, because I am much more fascinated with the criminal mind than the inside of a policeman’s head. Therefore, the answer would probably be that I play the role of the criminal, but a criminal with a heart.

What was the proudest moment of your career so far?
When Easy Money was first published it felt unreal and super cool. Then it was translated into English and James Ellroy, my big source of inspiration, could read it. He loved it, which really made me proud.

What are you working on next?
I usually don’t discuss work in progress. But I can say as much as this: It is a new breed of Scandinavian crime fiction.

If you thought Scandinavian thrillers couldn't get any better, think again. Swedish criminal defense lawyer Jens Lapidus makes his English-language debut with Easy Money, the first in the Stockholm Noir trilogy and our April 2012 Mystery of the Month. Whodunit columnist Bruce Tierney calls…

Mystery & Suspense, Suspense

Mystery & Suspense Suspense

7 questions with . . . David Downing

Interview by Cat, Deputy Editor

by Cat, Deputy Editor

It’s so hard to be a good guy when Russians ask you to spy for them in postwar Berlin, especially when you owe those Russians big time—but David Downing’s character John Russell does his best in Lehrter Station. Whodunit columnist Bruce Tierney promises Downing’s “deft weaving of fiction and real-life WWII history is second to none.”

BookPage chatted with Downing about his newest thriller.

Describe your book in one sentence.
Lehrter Station is the fifth instalment of John Russell’s (and Effi Koenen’s) struggle to survive the slings and arrows of the mid-20th century as reasonably decent human beings.

If you could travel back in time to any decade, where would you go and what would you do while you were there?
Back in early 1966, when I was at university, Bob Dylan played the Royal Albert Hall with the backing group that became The Band, and for some strange reason I didn’t bother to go. I’d like to remedy that omission.

What is your favorite thing about being a writer?
Walking the hills near my home and thinking through plots.

Would you make a good spy?
No. I don’t dissemble that well.

Where do you write?
In my office at home, surrounded by other people’s books.

What is the best writing advice you’ve ever received?
When your characters start surprising you, you’re doing something right.

What are you working on next?
I’ve just finished what I hope will be the first of a new series, set before, during and after the First World War, and now I’m working on what will probably be the last of the Russell series, Masaryk Station. Still no idea how to end it.

It's so hard to be a good guy when Russians ask you to spy for them in postwar Berlin, especially when you owe those Russians big time—but David Downing's character John Russell does his best in Lehrter Station. Whodunit columnist Bruce Tierney promises Downing's…

Mystery, Mystery & Suspense

Mystery & Suspense Mystery

Jon Steele

Interview by Eliza Borné

by Eliza Borné

Set in Lausanne, Switzerland, Jon Steele's debut novel is a haunting and suspenseful thriller about an American call girl, a British private eye and Marc Rochat, the bell ringer at the city's cathedral. The characters' lives intersect after a series of murders in Lausanne . . . and it turns out the villain may not be of this earth. The novel is the first in a trilogy.

Steele, who is also the author of War Junkie, a memoir about working as a cameraman in combat zones, answered questions about his journalism background and the fun of writing minor characters.

Your autobiography, War Junkie, is about your experiences as a cameraman in war zones. What is more challenging for you: Writing fiction or memoir? What is more rewarding?
Someone asked me, why did you write War Junkie? I said, “It was either that or jump off a bridge.” I wasn’t kidding. WJ was about redemption. Watching people suffer and die in a lens and not doing a damn thing to help is a terrible sin. It was also my job. There was a price. I am not normal. I live with ghosts. I’m just this side of sane and alive.

“Tough to categorize’’ is an expression I hear a lot. I take it as a compliment. I love thinking a reader can open The Watchers and set out on a journey of imagination without a roadmap.

I don’t think about what’s more challenging. I won’t do memoirs again. I confessed once.

But the search for redemption, the thing that drove me to write WJ, drives me still. The Watchers is about ghosts, good angels, bad angels, the innocent and the dead. It’s about me looking at the world, with my “once a Catholic, always a Catholic” eyes.

The only reward is me inventing a world that helps me keep the ghosts in the closet. Evil is real, and it stalks the world in the forms of men.

How have your experiences observing combat informed your fiction?
You know, you’re the first person to ask me this question, so I never thought about it. And these days I try not to think about things I’ve seen from the backend of a camera. Once in awhile I get asked to talk about it. The last time was for a documentary called Under Fire: Journalist in Combat. I was a wreck for almost a year after. The film was shortlisted for the 2011 Academy Awards. I still haven’t seen it.

But here’s the deal. I did my job and risked my life, time and again, because I believed in the nobility of journalism. I had a camera, I was one of the good guys. How that informs my fiction is as plain as the title. In the Hebrew Bible, angels—the creatures from another place sent to protect the creation—are called Watchers.

Cameraman . . . Watchers. Bingo.

It was easy to take the mind-bending conflict of a cameraman watching innocent people die, for the greater good of getting the truth onscreen and into the world, and injecting it into angels . . . letting innocent people die for the greater good of saving all that’s left of paradise.

Me and the angels were the same. We both wanted to save the world.

The distinction is that I did it because I chose to believe it was the right thing to do. Angels, as extensions of another’s will, do it because they have no choice. Blurring that distinction is the spiritual core of The Watchers.

Your novel is tough to categorize. There are elements of fantasy, thriller, noir. Did you set out to write in any particular genre? What do you personally like to read?
“Tough to categorize’’ is an expression I hear a lot. I take it as a compliment. I love thinking a reader can open The Watchers and set out on a journey of imagination without a roadmap.

Did I start out with a genre in mind? Not really. I knew I’d play to the obvious connection between a man who calls the hour in Lausanne (for real, in the 21^st century) and Victor Hugo’s Hunchback of Notre Dame (once upon a time, in a far away land)—meaning I wanted to mine Hugo’s classic for all it was worth. That meant incorporating similar elements of adventure, violence, romance religion, mysticism . . . come to think of it, Hunchback of Notre Dame is hard to categorize. So it’s all Hugo’s fault.

What do I read? I assume that means books I go back to over and over again. Raymond Chandler, Grahame Greene, Jack London, George Orwell, Shakespeare, William Faulkner, Mark Twain, Ernest Hemingway, Hans Fallada, Mario Vargas Llosa, Tolstoy, Dickens, P.G. Wodehouse, Jane Austin. I read poetry a lot, old stuff. As you can see, I live in a different time.

Which of your three main characters (Marc Rochat, the bell ringer; Katherine Taylor, the call girl; or Jay Harper, the private eye) was the most fun to write?
Impossible to answer. I don’t know how to answer it without spilling the beans about the story. The three main characters are reflections of my own personality, as much as they are their own beings. I defined limits within which the characters could “live.” They were free to do and say as they wished. There was only one rule: They could not escape their fate. Sometimes, one of three would try to pull the wool over my eyes, and I’d have to herd them back into the plot.

I remember my wife reading the manuscript. She came to the end and threw it at me, all 547 pages of it. She cried and yelled, “No! You can’t do this! Change it, please!” I knew I had it right, because in truth, my wife knew what was coming . . . but when it happened, it was still a shock.

To be honest, I had the most fun with the minor characters. The oddballs, junkies and ghosts who appeared now and then to guide the three main characters along their journey. There’s one in particular. He’s called Saxophoneman. Marc Rochat crosses his path in the halls of the Lausanne train station. Saxophoneman delivers one of my favorite lines in The Watchers: “Ain’t nothing sadder than an angel in nowtimes, little dude.” I liked him so much I’ve brought him back in the next book of the trilogy.

Your novel is described as “Hunchback of Notre Dame meets The Silence of the Lambs, as told by Justin Cronin.” That’s quite a promise! What kind of reader do you think will enjoy your book?
Like I said, anyone who wants to take a journey without a roadmap.

The Watchers is the first book in a trilogy. What comes next?
Angel City is next, then The Way of Sorrows. It’s taking longer than I thought it would, but that’s what happens when you set out without a roadmap. I already know the last line of the third book. It’s just a matter of getting there. And that’s all I’m going to say about it.

Fiction, Mystery & Suspense, Suspense

Mystery & Suspense Fiction Suspense

Elizabeth Haynes

Interview by Stephenie Harrison

by Stephenie Harrison

British author Elizabeth Haynes started a novel one November, little suspecting that her story of a young woman who falls in love with the wrong man would eventually become a big bestseller—and Amazon U.K.'s reader-selected Best Book of 2011. With a movie adaptation and the book's U.S. publication date on the horizon, Haynes took some time out to answer our questions about this chilling first novel.

Into the Darkest Corner began as a National Novel Writing Month project. What was it about NaNoWriMo that worked so well for you?
I wouldn’t have completed a novel (and so never have been published) without NaNoWriMo. It’s very difficult to find time to write while working, being a mum and a wife and a daughter, and so having one month a year when I could prioritise writing was a complete gift. More than anything, in November writing is such great fun that it’s surprisingly easy to get carried away with the story. I still find it very difficult to write at other times of the year, so the first draft of all my books is written in November and I will carry on doing this.

Your book deals with heavy topics such as domestic abuse and mental illness, particularly PTSD and OCD. How much research did you do into these topics, and to what extent do you think writing fiction requires thorough background research?
I think research is pretty essential. There’s nothing that ruins a story more than some glaring inaccuracy or improbability, and besides that I think if you are going to write about something that, for real people all over the world, is a condition they have to live with day to day, the least you can do as an author is paint a reasonable picture of what it is they go through. Whatever I read, I like to learn something, and my expectation as a reader even from fiction is that what’s presented is reliable. For Into the Darkest Corner, after I’d finished the first draft I spoke at some length to a close friend who is a Consultant Clinical Psychologist—she was able to explain what would happen when Cathy sought help with her condition, and she recommended some great books which really helped to get a feel for how people live with OCD. More importantly, she recognised that the way I’d written Cathy’s symptoms showed that it was likely she had elements of PTSD as well, which led to further research.

There are some graphic scenes of sexual violence in Into the Darkest Corner that are truly terrifying. Were you ever surprised or scared that you were able to take your characters to such dark places?
It was scary writing some of those scenes so I hope that feeling comes across for the readers, too. The more time I spent with the traumatised Catherine, the more I realised that I was building up to writing the scene detailing what actually happened to her, and that it was going to have to be bad. By the time I got there it had become very difficult to write, not only because having got to know these characters so well it’s hard to put them in that dark, terrible place, but also because I was aware in writing it that this sort of thing does happen to real people, every day. So yes, it was difficult but it had to be done, and I think if I’d turned away from that scene or glossed over it, I would have done a disservice to the people who have survived assaults like that, and worse.

Fear makes everything in life unnecessarily harder to deal with.

It’s fairly safe to say that Cathy, your heroine, has experienced one of the worst boyfriends and breakups that one could ever imagine. Care to share your own worst breakup story?
I’ve never experienced physical violence or aggression in a relationship, but I have had relationships that have been controlling. For a while in my late 20s I behaved pretty much as Catherine did before she met Lee. When I was writing Into the Darkest Corner I was very aware that the relationship she falls into is something that could have happened to me and I was very lucky to have come out of what I recognise now as a crazy and reckless time unscathed. I learned a lot from it; perhaps most of all that it’s important to make your intentions clear, and to consider the other person’s point of view. I had a relationship with a guy that I believed was a casual one, since I often didn’t see him for weeks or months at a time, and was based around whether I happened to see him when I was out with friends—so when I went into a serious relationship I didn’t really consider that he might not be happy with our association coming to an end. He called me out of the blue hoping to meet up and I told him I wasn’t free; the next few nights I kept getting calls from strangers and it turned out that my name and phone number had been posted on a singles website. I assume it was his revenge.

One of the scariest things about this book is that it paints a very convincing picture of just how easy it can be to get trapped in an abusive relationship; initially, Lee really does seem like the perfect boyfriend. In the work you’ve done as an intelligence analyst for the police, you’ve come across hundreds of cases involving domestic abuse, so are there any particular warning signs you think women should be on the look out for when embarking on a new relationship?
Controlling behaviour is easy to spot in someone else’s relationship, but very difficult to see in your own, because emotions get in the way. This is why I think close friends and family have such a responsibility to look out for you, and also why trying to isolate you from the people who care about you, controlling who you can see and when, is a big warning sign for a potentially abusive relationship. It’s portrayed by the abuser as a sign of their love for you, that they need you, that your friends don’t care about you in the same way—and once you are focused on that, you end up isolating yourself still further.

As hard as it is, I think one of the best defences against a relationship like this is the ability to remain objective about it—if this was happening to a friend, what advice would you give: put up with it, or get out? Being honest with yourself is so important—but so difficult to do when emotions are involved.

Quite understandably, Cathy has a slew of fears that plague her on a daily basis. One thing she winds up finding quite helpful is ranking them in order of most to least threatening. If you had to name your biggest fear, what would it be?
My biggest fear is probably the same one that most people have—something happening to my loved ones. Most of the time, though, I make a conscious effort not to be afraid. Fear makes everything in life unnecessarily harder to deal with. When I was pregnant with my son, I read a lot about how fear reduces your pain threshold and so I really tried not to be afraid of labour and childbirth. Admittedly I was lucky and everything went well, but I still went through nearly 24 hours of labour with no pain relief stronger than two Advil. He was 9lbs 3oz.

One of my favourite books is Susan Jeffers’ Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway which I first read in my early 20s. It taught me a lot about how any fear at all is at its most basic level a fear of loss of control, or of not being able to handle a situation. Once you recognise that and consider what, realistically, will happen, everything becomes much easier.

Prior to writing your own thriller, were you a big fan of the genre? Are there any authors that your particularly admire?
I’ve been a fan of the thriller genre since I first read Agatha Christie as a teenager. I love police procedurals although having worked in the police environment some of them are now difficult to read because they are quite unrealistic. An exception to this, however, is John Harvey—his books, as well as being brilliant, have a great note of authenticity. I am a big fan of Ruth Rendell, Nicci French and Mo Hayder, each for different reasons: Rendell is a genius at unpicking the most disturbing threads of the human psyche; French explores narrative structure in each book, making for an intriguing and fresh read every time; and Hayder is not afraid to tackle violence as it often is, dirty, grim, painful—even when this makes for an uncomfortable read.

How did you celebrate when you found out that Into the Darkest Corner had been named Amazon UK’s Best Book of 2011?
I found out almost by accident! I knew the results of the Rising Star of the Year were going to be announced and I was checking the page regularly. As this is based on the number of positive reviews, I was aware that Into the Darkest Corner was marginally in the lead, so it was wonderful but not a massive surprise when I saw the announcement that it had won. Then I noticed the phrase “click here to see why this is our book of the year” and I clicked the link to the Amazon Best Book of 2011 chart, showing Into the Darkest Corner as the number one. This was so completely unexpected that I genuinely thought it was a mistake. The next day at work I got someone to check the list on their smartphone to see if I’d misunderstood it somehow. Even when I knew it was real, I still had no idea what a big deal it was and how much it would change things for me and for the books—if I had, I think I would have celebrated a whole lot more than I did!

Each step of the publication process has been amazing for me—if you look on my Facebook page there are some pictures of me watching the first print run being bound into books at the printers, and it’s quite clear that I’m practically delirious with excitement. I don’t take anything for granted, because I still can’t quite believe all the things I’ve dreamed of my whole life are coming true.

There are plans to turn Into the Darkest Corner into a film. How involved are you going to be in bringing your novel to the screen? If you had your way, who would you love to see playing Cathy, Lee and Stuart?
I’ve been immensely lucky here, too: the director of the film version of Into the Darkest Corner is Tinge Krishnan, and she is also writing the script. We’ve had plenty of in-depth discussions about the plot and the characters and she has even met up with some of my police colleagues to get a proper “feel” for Lee and his environment. I believe the way Tinge has allowed me to be involved like this is quite unusual but it’s worked well for us—she completely understands what I was trying to bring across with the book. I recently got the chance to read an early draft of the script, and it just blew my mind. Tinge is such a genius. It felt to me like she had taken the characters I’d described in black and white, and coloured them in.

As to the cast . . . well, I had some clear ideas when I was writing the story, but these have changed completely since reading the script—and will no doubt change again when the casting gets underway!

Now that you’ve published one novel to such great acclaim are you writing full time or have you still kept your “day job” working for the police?
I’ve just started a two year career break, so although I’m still in touch with the organisation but I have a fantastic opportunity to write and see where it takes me.

It was a hard decision to make because it was a fantastic job, and I worked with a really great team of people. I’m still in touch with a lot of them and they’ve been very supportive of my writing, for which I am eternally grateful. I miss them all—but who knows? Maybe I will be back in a couple of years if there is still room for me!

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Julie Mayhew

By Carole V. Bell

With her Greek-island set thriller, Little Nothings, Julie Mayhew hits the same seductive sweet spot as writers like Lucy Foley and Liane Moriarty.

Fiction Thriller

Paul Tremblay

There’s no going back in this apocalyptic home-invasion thriller

By G. Robert Frazier

Praised by horrormeister Stephen King, Paul Tremblay’s shocking new novel, The Cabin at the End of the World, is an often graphic account of one family’s ordeal when their vacation is shattered in a cult-like home invasion. We asked Tremblay about the book’s origins, its dark path and his inner fears that helped forge the novel.