There is a thing that happens when a book wins an award. For a short time, the world feels settled. The years of doubt, the imposter syndrome, the loneliness and the career uncertainty all resolve, briefly, into something that looks from the outside like validation. You wrote the right book. Critics acclaimed it. Readers loved it. They still talk about it.
Most writers, at that moment, would do the sensible thing. They would stay in the same lane and write the next book. It would be the safe and smart choice. I chose not to do that.
A Violent Heart won the 2025 Capital Crime Fingerprint Thriller of the Year. It is the darkest book I have written, the sharpest and the one I am proudest of in terms of what it demanded from me. Yet I knew I was not going to write another book like it. I was going to write something funny. Obviously. And I say that with my tongue lodged firmly in my cheek.
People often ask whether it is difficult to write darkness. Scenes of violence and grief. The final hours before a beloved character’s murder. The interior world of someone who has done something unforgivable. My honest answer is yes. To make those moments feel authentic, writers must put everything into them. But darkness also carries its own gravity. The reader understands instinctively that these scenes matter. They know they are being asked to feel something real. That is why they spend their hard-earned cash on books.
Comedy frightened me more than murder. I had written six novels filled with death, violence and darkness. I knew how to build tension. I knew how to unsettle a reader. Then, after receiving the most public confirmation of my career, I chose to write a book designed to make people laugh. A murder scene has shadows to hide in. A joke does not. It lands, or it lies there in full view while the reader quietly closes the book.
This was the risk at the heart of All Killers Aboard. The cruise ship was new. The cast of serial killers was absurd. Neither worried me as much as the promise hidden inside the premise. The book had to be funny. I had spent six novels learning how to frighten readers. Now I had to discover whether I knew how to make them laugh.
Every book is a risk. I have understood this since my first novel was published in 2017. When you begin, you have no idea whether what you are writing will find its readers or become one of those quiet disappearances that haunt every writer’s understanding of the industry. But there is a particular risk in changing direction when your current direction is working. What made me do it was the desire to push myself out of my comfort zone.
There is a version of a writing life in which you follow the path laid before you, book by book. You do it well, and it is enough. I respect that version. It takes discipline and produces good work. But I have never written a book that did not frighten me a little.
All Killers Aboard frightened me in a new way. There was the fear of the joke that failed. The fear of the reader who loved A Violent Heart picking it up and finding something entirely different. The fear of stepping away from the thing I had finally been told I was good at.
But I had to be true to myself and my instincts. So, I wrote it anyway and enjoyed every minute of writing it. I hope that comes across when you read it.
All Killers Aboard by David Fennell (Orion Publishing) out now
A shocking murder. A ship full of suspects. On a luxury cruise from Southampton to New York, the annual gathering of the mysterious Midnight Chorus Society is in full swing. Unbeknownst to the rest of the innocent passengers, the deadly convention is made up entirely of serial killers, wannabes and their fans. Travelling on board is Hollywood royalty Jacqui Dulac, star of the television show Lady Detective, and her latest ghost-writer, Martha Hammond. Yet when Martha witnesses a shocking murder on deck, with a single red button found near the crime scene, the quarrelling duo must put aside their differences to become real-life detectives... But with a cruise liner full of the world's most notorious serial killers, they both know that when there's been one murder, another is sure to follow. And as a storm rocks the ship, can Martha and Jacqui identify the killer before it's too late?
More information about David Fennell and his books can be found on his website. He can also be found on Facebook. He can also be found on Instagram @mrdavidfennell and X @davyfennell
